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From: andy@polya.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Home work vs unions
Message-ID: <11168@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 20 Jun 88 23:43:37 GMT
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Unions almost always oppose home work; some businesses do as well
because home workers may have fewer expenses.  (A biz that contracts
with home workers doesn't have to buy factory space.)

I suspect that union opposition to home work isn't disguised sexism as
much as a power struggle.  It is harder to organize and discipline
home workers.  (It is harder to "discourage" home-working scabs.)
There may also be safety issues (it's hard to see how this is relevant
in hand kniting; I've forgetten how the recent Vermont Home Knitters
case came out) and something to do with break-time, vacations, and the
like.  Home work is almost always piece-work which is almost always
contrary to union philosophy.  There was/is a recent court case
involving insurance home computing; I don't remember how that came out
(either), let alone what the issues were.

Home work in certain kinds of computing may also have failed because
home work is harder to coordinate; some of those meetings are actually
useful and being able to talk with people can definitely help sometimes.

I suspect that huge mainframe-style computing in the days before cheap
modems also discouraged home work computing.  I see more stories
involving home work computing in the media every year though.  It used
to be that most of them would be about home work computing but they're
disappearing and home work computing is just another thing mentioned.
(Some of the people in an article in last Sunday's SF Chronicle about
people who work more hours do home work computing and then go into the
office.)

One of these days I'll send a coherent posting instead of just
spouting opinions.

-andy


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