Adam Churvis wrote: > Judah, > > The issue is more granular than "union/no union." It must take into account > the actions taken by unions over the years, the habits they gotten > themselves into, and how those habit affect industries in today's world > economy.
I agree completely. My first post was taking on the notion that unions are obviously to blame. That is patently ridiculous. The situation is obviously much more complex than the existence of a union or not, however. I'm in favor of unions as an institution but I agree that they need to evolve over time to meet changing conditions, just like all other institutions. I'm not particularly happy with a lot of the AFL/CIO and as recent defections would indicate, a number of unions aren't either. <snips a bunch of good stuff /> > So unions need to try to make industry work better, not just grab more for > employees. Recently in Georgia the electricians union went on TV almost > apologizing for screwing things up so badly that no one wanted to work with > them, and telling everyone that they had corrected their mistakes, and "come > look at us now." > > Just some food for thought. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these and > other points of your own. I haven't gotten to be a union member much because I've mostly worked in the tech field. I did look into organizing a union at a previous job, however. I think that things are pretty good in the tech sector but there are a number of areas that could stand a strong voice for workers rights. H1-B Visas stand out for me as a good example. They essentially allow an employer to treat a person as an indentured slave. Don't like the work conditions? You get sent right back where you came from, can't just quit and get a different job. At the same time though, there are labor groups that use H1-B Visa discussions to take a very protectionist stance that comes pretty close to racism in my opinion. So how do you form strong pro-labor groups that act to humanize corporations but don't devolve into protectionist, anti-competitive, insular groups? That is a fascinating question. I don't have all the answers, certainly. > I like how you brought government subsidized healthcare into the discussion. > That's a *big* disadvantage we have to compete with, even before each car is > built. The hidden costs of our governments social policies (or lack there of) are difficult to gauge but really important. I think we've been sold a load of bull by the folks that think that government programs are always more expensive, always less efficient than their private counterparts. There seems to me to be ample evidence that some areas like health care, retirement, transportation infrastructure and energy concerns can be managed in such a way that it brings down the overall cost to our country and allows our economy to be more efficient and more productive. The large corporate donors making billions in profits obviously don't have a vested interest in the overall efficiency and productivity of our country however :) Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Download the latest ColdFusion 8 utilities including Report Builder, plug-ins for Eclipse and Dreamweaver updates. http;//www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs%5adobecf8%5Fbeta Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:243210 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
