Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!bstempleton
From: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Unions, CRDs...
Message-ID: <756@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jan-86 02:21:29 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.756
Posted: Fri Jan 10 02:21:29 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jan-86 07:27:31 EST
References: <137@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: can
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 53
Summary: 

In article <137@ubc-cs.UUCP> morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) writes:
>>should be possible to have multiple unions within the same firm, with
>>competition...
>
>Each with separate contracts?
>What does a strike mean in this context? Are other unions still obliged
>to honour picket lines? Given the certain acrimony that would exist
>between such competing unions, I doubt it.

Separate contracts in the sense that the contract is between the employer
and the employee.  I see the union taking the same role as the "agent"
does in literary or entertainment fields.  It's really the same problem.
Agents of this sort work to promote the business interests of those who are
good at certain arts but prefer to leave the business up to somebody else.
With blue collar workers, it's the same, but since these workers aren't in
the same demand as good writers, they have to band together both for power
and economies of scale in representation.
>
>This is the first step on the road to no unions at all.
>
A union that exists only through force is a sham.  A union that couldn't
keep its members on its own merits doesn't deserve to be a union at all.
It's like a nation that only keeps its population by restricting emmigration.
You can all live in the Soviet Union if you want to...
>>We get some of this today, if you look at the fact that many non-union
>>companies rank among the best to work for.
>
>Not all management is as altruistic as your stepfather.
>That is why we have unions.
Altruism has nothing to do with it.  Companies like Garrett and Dofasco
have no unions because it makes the company run better.  If you treat your
people as indpendent self-respecting individuals, you get good results.
If you consider them sheep, and remove their power of individual choice,
you get disgruntlment and bad productivity.  It's true on the nation level
and true on the company level.  Free countries and free companys usually win.
>
>
>As far as stability of life and livelihood is concerned, Jamie Andrew's
>suggestion of labour/management cooperatives seems a better
>approach to accomplishing the same thing - namely, getting both
>parties working toward the same end: mutual wealth.
Indeed, this might work nicely in some areas, and there is some of this in
Japan, but at what cost?  What if management people don't want to do it?
March them into prison at gunpoint if they refuse to comply?  If somebody
is richer than you, that's not an excuse to rob them to make the world better
fit your version of goodness and rightness.
>
>	Rick Morrison
>
>PS    to all the CRDs who seem to think that joining a union is no
	What is a CRD?
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont. (519) 884-7473