Re: Tech Writer Lawsuit?

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

FUD wouldn't be much use in this situation; it's not as
if this is an election.  This sounds to me exactly like
something a corporate lawyer who knows nothing
about the nuts and bolts of creating product documents
might recommend to a big company.

The more likely result of a judgement against Sun on the
grounds that technical writers in the "computer software
field" are nonexempt hourly employees and cannot be
exempt salaried will be the creation of a new job category
for "computer software technical writers," who will be paid
by the hour and whose base pay for a 40-hour work week
with no OT hours worked will be 10-30% lower (depending
on the average amount of OT hours being worked now by
exempt writers).  Companies whose products are not
largely or totally software will either outsource the software
part of their technical writing to local contractors and
assign their direct writers to document only the hardware,
or will create separate hourly job categories for "software
technical writers," paying them rates that are "competitive"
with what is being offered by software companies (that is,
less).

Gene Kim-Eng



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Geoff Hart" <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: "techwr-l List" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>; "John Posada" 
<jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 5:13 AM
Subject: Tech Writer Lawsuit?


> John Posada excerpted a telling commentary from the article: "...if
> the plaintiffs were to win this case, and any subsequent appeal, he
> would advise his high-tech clients to move their technical writers
> out of the state..." John added: <<or out of the country?>>
>
> Possibly, but more likely this is just the standard lawyer ploy of
> sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It's sufficiently popular they
> even have an acronym for it: FUD.

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