>It is difficult to say where you might find long term employment, if such a thing still exists. As programmers we have our issues and an industry that is a bit similar is the Visual Effects Industry (VFX). People in that industry typically do not belong to a union and work long hours. Working in VFX takes a lot of training and experience.
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>Rhythm and Hues is a company that is well known for its VFX work, most recently for Life of Pi. About a month ago the owner said that paychecks would be late. On February 8th, the owner called everyone into a meeting and said that employees would be paid on February 15th. As usual, the employees worked long hours on Saturday and Sunday February 9th and 10th.
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>At 9 PM that Sunday, hundreds of employees were telephoned and informed they were no longer employed. The next morning the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Some employees have been retained to work on committed movies, and as of this time no one has been paid.
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>My daughter was watching the Academy Awards last night and noted that the scenes shown were the ones she helped to create. She was one of those discharged by Rhythm and Hues. Now she is looking for a new career. Her first career after receiving her degree in English from UCLA, was in teaching. That is not a stable career nor does it pay a decent salary. So she went into her second love – VFX. Now she is searching for her next career.
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>I told my son and daughter to always be prepared for a new career. I had to go from being an electronics engineer to a programmer. So always be ready for new things in your life.
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>http://www.deadline.com/2013/02/vfx-oscar-protest-workers-pound-the-pavement-to-plead-their-case/

I learned the hard way a while back about how to handle the infamous "late paycheck" story. It is very simple. No paycheck = No Victor. No exceptions. I let these a-holes http://www.autoworld.com/ string me along for months until I finally said I wasn't doing anything else until I was paid ...like even paid 20%...just SOMETHING. They got all mad and bent out of shape when I said that even though they were in the red with me for close to $30,000. Sadly they still owe me (and everyone else that they've done business with). On occasion I go to their website out of sheer morbid curiosity ..99% of the time it's infected with something, hacked real bad, or just dead. Based on their track-record my guess is they screwed over a few web developers too...ha