Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!alias!kpicott%alias@csri.utoronto.ca
From: kpicott%alias@csri.utoronto.ca (Socrates)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: Community College Teachers on strike
Message-ID: <617@alias.UUCP>
Date: 13 Nov 89 13:55:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: alias.617
References: <606@alias.UUCP> <1989Nov11.143948.15365@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <18113@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: kpicott@alias.UUCP
Reply-To: kpicott%alias@csri.utoronto.ca (Socrates)
Distribution: ont
Organization: Alias Research Inc.
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In article <18113@watdragon.waterloo.edu> mdhutton@violet.waterloo.edu (Mike Hutton) writes:
>In article <1989Nov11.143948.15365@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>>
>>Why do people always blame the union for protracted strikes? Certainly it must
>>at least sometimes be the management's fault!  Of course the union could end
>>the strike at any time by giving in on all issues, but so could the management
>>
Always?  Maybe it's just that the well-publicized cases involve unions who
are just crying out for attention, instead of the well-justified cases where
workers are exposed to unhealthy conditions.  (My mother went on strike once
due to absence of ear protection on a factory floor.)  Union workers wanting
more money is the most unjustifiable excuse for striking that I can think of.
This seems more like organized blackmail than an attempt to get their just
deserts.

>I see too many people who would be eager and willing to take a job, and work
>hard at it, to have sympathy for people earning far beyond what their 
>ambitions (read effort) warrant.
>
Exactly.  I could never in my life imagine a job where 100 different people
are all worth exactly the same amount for the work they do.  Isn't
capitalism supposed to be the opposite of communism.  (ie, *to* each
according to his ability)

>My personal feeling is that a union allows groups of related employees to 
>bargain together, thereby promoting efficiency in the bargaining process and
>providing some degree of 'security' for workers which may have little or
>no bargaining power individually.
>
This is the ideal.  However, I might change 'allows' to 'forces' and
'efficiency' to 'added power' to come closer to what really happens.  I have
never heard of a union that will allow non-union labour in the same shop.
(After all, it threatens the security of the workers who don't want to keep
up with their competition.)

IMHO unions are mostly out of date (like income tax, but that's another
story :-) ).  They have long since reached the point where they are doing
more harm than good.  It is no longer the case that a single company has no
competition and can treat its workers poorly without losing business in the
long run.  The idea of an organization to protect workers rights is good,
but the ridiculous extreme to which it is carried by modern unions ruins
most of the benefit.