begin quoting Todd Walton as of Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 07:52:14PM -0700: > On 7/13/05, Stewart Stremler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I think a good first step would be to disallow unions from being > > employers, as that's an obvious conflict of interest. > > I'm willing to bet that by "disallow" you mean "make a law > disallowing". In which case I'd disagree.
Not necessarily. It would be best if union membership simply did not allow their unions to employ people; if a shop had to change unions to find one that behaved sensible, that would work as well. Laws are for when people are unable to solve a problem themselves. > A good first step, and final step, would be to completely do away with > union-specific laws. How would that help? You would want "no consideration of unions" as a legal condition of employment? > The government doesn't have the right to > regulate the employee-employer relationship above and beyond the rules > governing any two-party transaction. Sure it does. There are laws that say so. :) > I fully support the existence of > unions, and I know that they've accomplished good things in the past, > but I think that all (or most) of the problems associated with them > today has as its cause the fact that they have legal protection. ...because without legal protection, people got hurt. > It is to most companies' benefit to have a stable and happy workforce. > A lot of people would agree with this, but not all of them would make > the next logical step and say that therefore a company is going to > work to create and maintain that stable and happy workforce. And for The other way to create a "stable and happy workforce" is to simple fire anyone who isn't. Call it the "Anthony Fremont option". But I don't think that's a very good idea. > those companies that don't need satisfied workers, why should they be > forced to give those workers what they want? Why should unsatisfied workers be forced to give the employer what they want, instead of, oh, burning the employer's looms? > What right does any > worker have to force an employer to do as he (the worker) pleases? ...within bounds. It's not entirely arbitrary. > The employer doesn't have the right to force the employee to do as > they please. Um, the employer *does* have the right to force the employee to do as they please... within bounds. > If I'm willing to work for an employer without benefit of union wages, > union muscle, or union oversight, and if the employer is willing to > hire me on those terms, what right do union-oriented employers have to > deny me that job? It's a matter of my rights and the rights of the > employer. Presumably, you're speaking about a union shop? Just look at what happens... the employer hires employees w/o the union (at union-level wages or near enough), so that employee is benefiting from the work the union has done, and continues to hire enough employees who aren't members of the union until there are enough to do the job w/o the union employees. Then the employer does what he wants, and blows off the union. The union strikes... and the employer doesn't care. Those who are now not members of the union can be fired if they join the strike (for breach of contract), so the union has been effectively removed. So by you not joining the union, you are letting the employer use you to remove the union, therefore removing the mechanism for protection used by those members who *are* still members of the union. > If employees are being treated unfairly, they have more power than > ever to jump ship and go somewhere else. As Andrew says, that presumes that the economy is good. > Jumping ship is the norm in > the 21st century, even when conditions are favorable. Surely, if it were that easy, you could just go find another job in a non-union shop. You're _told_ before you agree to employment whether or not it's a union shop.... and if finding another job is that easy, it ought to be trivial to find a non-union shop. And if not, then perhaps that says something about how most employers treat their employees when there is no union in place. > The bullying > that unions do is increasingly anachronistic, and we shouldn't keep > them around simply as a show of gratitude for the great things they've > done in the past. It's not a show of gratitude. It's lessons learned from history. > To the extent that their bullying is legally > protected, we should *never* have had it around. In a country with universal health care and a welfare system that lets people life comfortably for arbitrary (unbounded!) periods of time, there is no need for a union, and I would agree that in that situation, unions would be anachronistic and outdated. However, we don't have that. -Stewart "An employer has far more power than an employee." Stremler
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