June 10, 2005

Creative vs. Creative, or how a culture of privilege hurts the creative class
by Liza Sabater

Wired News: Coders Want Fatter Paychecks, Too

This article made Whil Wheaton, who happens to be a successful software programmer AND actor to sound a bit ... assholeish. He sounded a bit like he was saying too bad programmers don't have a labor union. I hope that was an editorial distortion and not a direct quote.

But let me leave you with this thought : The new manufacturing jobs are software programming jobs. It's manual labor, just with silicone chips and algorithms. And we are not all becoming millionaires by coding. Go no further than Dilbert. It's not just a comic strip, it is a documentary comic strip.

Wired News: Coders Want Fatter Paychecks, Too

The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists recently contacted members who have worked as game voice-over actors to request authorization of a labor stoppage against about 70 game publishers. The unions argue that actors who voice game characters should be entitled to a share of the industry's skyrocketing profits.

But the actors' demands have sparked renewed protest in tech circles that game workers deserve better treatment, too. If actors deserve residuals, the argument goes, then so do the people who write the code, build the characters and make things blow up.

Unlike the Hollywood practice of providing a cut of profits to actors whose onscreen work makes movies come alive, there is no standard of profit sharing in the gaming industry.

Posted by Liza Sabater in Creative Class, Labor, Sidelinks, Unions
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