Ed,
Of course, unions aren't "evil". They've been natural claimants for
the prosperity that the industrial revolution produced. In my time in
industry in a large factory (at Massey-Ferguson where we produced
more tractors than anywhere else in the world at that time -- about
1,500 per day if I remember rightly) I noticed that the workers
nearest to the end of the assembly track (that is, nearest to the
customer) struck more often and were paid more than those elsewhere
in the factory (and roughly three times as much as average wages
outside the automotive industry!). In these days of increasing
automation, and when the mass of jobs are being dumbed down
(increasingly able to be done by any 14-year old), then unions will
continue to lose the power they had.
Actually -- to refer to the other thread -- exactly the same will
apply to the overpaid FIRE sector. In the way it could manufacture
credit (building on government methods ever since the 1920s) it, too,
was pretty near the customer and could thus exercise power. Its
personnel, too, will be increasingly slimmed down by automation. In
the last ten years the new high-speed algorithm methods driven by
super-computers now carries out well over 80% of stock market
transactions automatically. This is bound to spread into the bonds
and futures markets in the coming years as the credit crunch gets
sorted out. (One big advantage of this in due course is that
"instant" world-wide balance sheets will be possible. At the present
time no-one knows just how much real debt lies in governments, banks
and off-balance-sheet 'vehicles'.)
Keith
At 21:41 21/09/2011, you wrote:
Are they still of any consequence? Maybe not. I watched the TV
yesterday evening. On the CBC's "Lang and O'leary exchange",
arch-capitalist Kevin O'Leary referred to unions as "evil" and said
they should be abolished. On "Connect with Mark Kelly", a guy held
an "On Strike" sign up and asked passers-by to tell him what they
thought. A lot of them said that they didn't care for unions at
all. Then came the CBC news. It seemed that Air Canada's flight
attendants and the airline had reached an agreement -- no
strike. Had they not agreed, our government had back to work
legislation ready to go. One has to wonder if unions still have any
real significance and whether there still is a collective bargaining process.
Ed
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2012/08/
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