Brian Beattie wrote:
>On Sun, 2002-10-06 at 23:08, Crispin Cowan wrote:
>
>
>>Unions are an evil, parasitic cancer on American industry.
>>
>>To be fair, that cancer results from the toxic policies of bad
>>management that thinks oppressing workers is a good way to enhance
>>productivity.
>>
>>
>Hmmm, then maybe a better analogy might be to Chemotherapy, in which
>extremely toxic drugs are used to try to kill the cancer cells without
>killing the patient, many patients die from the Chemotherapy. I support
>Unions but agree that much of what unions do is to some extent harmful,
>the issue is one of balance. You seem to be requiring that unions be
>perfect in there effect and yet allowing management's policies to
>employees to be imperfect.
>
As I've said here before, reasoning by analogy is dangerous, because the
properties of the analogy don't always apply to the properties of the
issue at hand. Analogies are like goldfish: sometimes they're irrelevant :)
What I'm saying is that unions are bad for industry, but in cases where
unionization happens, management largely brought it on themselves
through bad policy.
What I would prefer (as if I ever got to be in charge of labor reform :) is:
* Outlaw "closed shops"
<http://www.boondocksnet.com/editions/marot/marot08.html>, where
only union members may work. You should have a right to work
without being forced to join a 3rd party association. This both
preserves the free market price of workers, and also is consisten
with freedom of association derived from the First Amendment
<http://w3.trib.com/FACT/1st.association.html>.
* Explicitly allow employers subject to strikes to hire "scabs"
(non-union replacement workers).
* Explicitly allow employers to fire striking workers and
permanently replace them.
* Explicitly protect striking workers' right to picket, but also
explicitly protect the safety of workers seeking to cross picket
lines.
All of this is intended to allow Adam Smith's Invisible Hand
<http://plus.maths.org/issue14/features/smith/> to find the fair market
value of wages for workers in a particular industry. If the union is
being greedy, then the employer will find it economical to fire and
replace them. Conversely, if management is being greedy, they will find
it impossible to replace their workforce with competent workers at a
competative price, and will be forced to negotiate with the union.
All of which is vastly preferable to the current labor law mess, in
which the union and management take turns holding the production
facility hostage (I can't tell whether it is the union or the
dockworkers who are holding the ports hostage) hurting everyone else in
the process.
The ports should be allowed to hire anyone they want as dockworkers. If
the dockworkers are worth their wage, then there won't be enough
replacement dockworkers. If the dockworkers are not worth their wage,
then they will be summarily replaced by other people who wish they had
such cushy jobs & wages, and the union can suck on it.
NOTE: Longshorement
<http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2002/07/01/daily10.html>
make $80K to over $100K per year. Crane operators make over $300K/year.
I have highly trained technical staff who went to college for a decade
who make much less than that. I have no sympathy for these guys. If they
can be replaced by (say) unemployed loggers for a mere $60-$100K, then
so be it.
Crispin
--
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX http://wirex.com/~crispin/
Security Hardened Linux Distribution: http://immunix.org
Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html
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