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From: ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Unions, onions, and other things to cry about
Message-ID: <712@ihuxx.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Apr-84 18:36:36 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxx.712
Posted: Fri Apr  6 18:36:36 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 05:01:41 EST
References: <2679@rabbit.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 96

Oh, boy,oh boy, oh boy.  Have you ever hit MY flame button!!!

Reactor subcritical.  Withdraw rods...watch the pressure...Z
approaching 1...CRITICALITY ACHIEVED!!!

Ok, guys.  Let's talk union.  I live in Chicago, a town renowned for
the strength of its unions.  And I've become sufficiently interested
to read of the early years, and what caused the unions to become
necessary.  They were, then, primarily concerned with social change
and responsibility--it was neither fair, nor socially proper, for
scalpers to sell $500 certificates to allow lumberjacks to travel to
the logging camps, just so they had the right to BID their services to
the hiring companies.  (That's right, bid.  Those willing to accept
the lowest pay, got the job.)  It wasn't fair or right to have workers
use radioactive radium, or get black lung and not have any benefits,
or choke their lives out in the lint of the cotton mills.  And the
only way to force the businesses to listen was the union.  The
labelling of 'management' and 'labor' was necessary, if for nothing
more than to point out who was responsible; and so the mgmt./labor
split.

But times change, and so do situations.  Workers today, by and large,
are doing some job which requires some sort of specialized skill.
You cannot, no matter how cheaply, replace a skilled electrician with
an immigrant off the boat.  (Unless he or she was an electrician
wherever he/she came from...and is conversant with the rules in this
country...and so on.  This person has a reasonable bargaining position
with 'management'; and the situation is far more exaggerated in the
high-tech industries.  (Any card-carrying computer scientists out
there?)  BUT...what, then, does a union do to justify its
existence?

Well, keeping in mind that change is inevitable--look at buggy whips
at the turn of the century--they could drive through reasonable labor
reform programs, targeted at retraining employees whose jobs fall prey
to the tide of progress.  And for those who cannot/will not retrain,
how about a placement service?  And helping management PLAN upgrades
and modernization plans to allow those who are left to fade away
through retirement or attrition??  How about union-sponsored training
sessions for new technologies? And so on.  BUT NO...people are lazy.
If I made frannistans by hand for 10 years, I ain't gonna let no damn
machine come in and take MY job.  (My counter?  Learn how to take care
of the frannistan machine.)  And NO--this could lead to reasonable
management--rank&file discussions.

Or, you can hold the company against the wall for ever-increasing
salaries and benefits.  And unreasonable fees.  And stifling
supression of non-union work.  (Sounds like the guilds of the middle
ages, and for a reason.)  In Chicago, a busdriver could make better
than $22,000/year.  FOR DRIVING A BUS??  In a Chicago hotel, a
convention--small and underfunded, being a Science Fiction
volunteer-run affair--wants to put out a plate of bread and coffee.
Cost?  The Hotel & Restaurant Workers Union insists you must have a
member in attendance, so it came out to about $2 per slice of bread,
and something on the order of $30 for a gallon of coffee.  You have to
be Equity to be in this show...and now you can't act in a non-Equity
show.  And so on...

Everywhere  you see it--because of organizations without the guts
and courage to temporarily refrain from demanding bread and circuses
long enough to plan for the future, outrageous and ridiculous rules
and charges are passed on to the paying public.  Something that could
be done, safely and easily, by one person in 10 minutes has to wait two
days to a week for a TEAM of union workers to get around to it.
I can't move a 50 pound desk down the hall to my new office.  Why?
The PORTERS union (I'm not sure--teamsters?) says so.  What special
skill does that take?  I'm so damned sick of unions that it would take
hell and high water for me to even TALK civilly to a union steward.

Yes, there may be some industries that still need unions because of
exceptionally low pay, or hazardous conditions; but by and large, the
union organizations are bloated creatures that provide sinecures for
'senior' people with no skills while screwing someone who is skilled
and trained, but happens to be new on the job...that artificially
inflates rewards (pay and bennies) for trivial jobs, like bus and
(subway) train drivers, to levels that far exceed the worth of the
service being performed...that retards modernization and resists
elimination of true 'deadwood'.  Unions are like a powerful
drug...valuable when used properly, they've become a scourge on
American society.

ARRGH!! I *hate* those bloodsuckers!!!!

Insert rods...Z dropping...subcritical...shut down ECCS.

You know what?  That didn't even feel good.  I'm so PO'd that I'm
still frying...I'm gonna go make a pot of coffee, if the Hotel and
Restaurant Worker's union rep doesn't catch me doing it in the
office...

		Whatever happened to social change and solidarity,
			instead of benefits and security?


			Dave Ihnat
			ihuxx!ignatz