<div dir="ltr">Hi LA,<div><br></div><div>I've recently considered joining APESMA (now Professionals Australia[1]); having been in a difficult situations myself in prior job, and having seen treatment of others that I would describe as abuse, it seems like the Union movement is more relevant than tech workers (in Australia at least) tend to think.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I'd like to know whether anyone in LA has been involved with this organisation as a rank and file member; specifically, whether their IT division has any real representation or understanding of people who work in the OSS ecosystem. I'm concerned that the union might only represent the experience of IT workers hidden in an vendor-owned enterprise burrow somewhere.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Since the org is careful to describe itself as a "professional organisation" rather than a Union, I'm also curious whether anyone has experience in its approach to workers who don't have formal qualifications - obviously something relevant to our community, where so many people are self-taught, and where those of us who have formal qualifications often hold them in an unrelated field of study.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Hopefully this is relevant to someone / not just more noise in the LA list.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks,</div><div><br></div><div>Daniel</div><div><br></div><div>[1] <a href="https://www.professionalsaustralia.org.au" target="_blank">https://www.professionalsaustralia.org.au</a></div>
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