Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!watmsg!sccowan
From: sccowan@watmsg.waterloo.edu (S. Crispin Cowan)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: Community College Teachers on strike
Message-ID: <31443@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 14 Nov 89 14:21:54 GMT
References: <606@alias.UUCP> <1989Nov11.143948.15365@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <18113@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <617@alias.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@watmath.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: sccowan@watmsg.waterloo.edu (S. Crispin Cowan)
Distribution: ont
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 35

In article <617@alias.UUCP> kpicott%alias@csri.utoronto.ca (Socrates) writes:
>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
>>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.)

There are several states in the US where this practice has been
legislated, they are colourfully known as "free states", i.e. it is
against the law to write a contract that prohibits non-union workers
to work for the company.  IMHO this is EXACTLY the right way to limit
the powers of current unions without totally destroying them.  After
all, unions do serve some purpose, even though they make it very
difficult to remember that some times.

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