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From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Unions, CRDs...
Message-ID: <140@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jan-86 14:18:19 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.140
Posted: Fri Jan 10 14:18:19 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jan-86 15:29:51 EST
References: <137@ubc-cs.UUCP> <756@watmath.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Distribution: can
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 27
Summary: 

In article <756@watmath.UUCP> bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>              ...  I see the union taking the same role as the "agent"
>does in literary or entertainment fields....
>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.
     95% of writers and entertainers can't make a living in their chosen
professions, because of the vagaries of the economy and the unpredictable whims
of the people they ultimately depend upon for their success, in their case the
general public.  Is that what we want for industrial workers?

Later he writes, re cooperative companies:
>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.
     This extremization is only slightly more bizarre than the invitation to
live in the Soviet Union which Brad extended to us earlier in the article (and
which I have tastefully edited out).  I'm sure that all I had in mind was a
government agency to support the formation of cooperative companies, tax breaks
for companies who were recognized to have some standard cooperative structure,
and things like that.

--Jamie
...!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"And eyes assured of certain certainties"