Trade unions - take a stand !

I have previously written about trade unions. Or the lack of commitment from the trade unions (blog post here: http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2007/05/where-is-trade-unions.html ).

Lately I have seen two Danish trade unions take a stand: They will provide their members with Microsoft certified courses. First it was HK/Samdata http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3857 that are dumping the marketplace with almost free Microsoft certification. This week I could read that another trade union is about to take up competition. The union is Prosa http://www.prosa.dk/News/index.php3?story_id=2989 who is also 'selling' Microsoft courses. This latest initiative is quite surprising, because Prosa has been very active in the work for open standards from a competitive point of view.

Why offer a Microsoft course to the members ?

Why not offer courses in game development ?
Why not offer courses in Java ?
Why not offer courses in XML ?
Why not offer courses in ITIL and Prince2 ?

By offering courses in vendor specific products like Vista and .Net, the trade unions becomes a part of the problem: We all think that a Microsoft certificate is needed to get a job and because of that we actually need it. Not because it's relevant, but because everybody agrees that this is a must-have certificate. As a result, all decision makers is schooled by Microsoft and partners.

I don't mind that the trade unions are offering IT courses to the members. I think it's a good idea. But the education should not be a part of the Microsoft strategy: Take over the education. We have seen that in public school and universities. This strategy makes Microsoft products de-facto needs in business.

Will B 103 end up with the opposite result ?

The Danish Parliament agreed on a pragmatic solution when the implementation plan was arranged just before the summer holidays this year. The only way to close the case at that time, was by choosing a solution with dual standards. Probably because the MP's couldn't reach consensus on a more categoric solution.

Even after the rejection of OOXML from ISO, the Danish Government still wants Microsoft at the table. Even after we have seen ridiculous attempts of couping National Boards in Sweden, Norway, Malaysia and even Denmark. Still, the Danish government wants to kiss with Microsoft.

Now it shows, that the reaction from the local IT-managers might be in contradiction with the 'soul' of the resolution. According to this article https://www.sam-data.dk/artikler/artikel.asp?id=82 (in Danish, sorry) from one of the largest and most respected trade unions HK, the result is, that IT managers is beginning to hoard solutions based on OOXML.

The reason is, that the Parliament agreed on a one year trial period, where Microsoft should prove the openness of OOXML. But now that ISO has rejected OOXML as an international standard for office documents, people are beginning to get scarred. Will OOXML eventually be accepted ? Projects that might not even be mature, is started, just to get a Microsoft solution.

Dear Folketing (that the Danish Parliament):
Stop this now. Close the case and send Microsoft home until they can come up with a good explanation. ...And a useful and reasonable document format for our files.

Where is the trade unions ?

The debate on standards in Denmark has been dominated by IT-companies, organizations and private persons. Where is the trade unions ? The only trade union with an oppinion seems to be PROSA (Association of Computer Professionals) http://www.prosa.dk, but again this is IT people.

Normally we see the trade unions as oppinion makers, but in this case we have seen almost nothing from that side. Why ?

Openness should obviously be in the interest of the unions. And it's their members, who will be workong with the standards in the future.