Public Sector Unions

[Michael Hardner]

Wow Argus!!!!

I never would have thought you would have said something like that...

I'm pleasantly shocked...

Hear hear...

It's well stated, but I am not shocked...

[Jack Weber]

They should not just be free to lock out employees. They should be free to hire alternate labour if they can agree on terms.

Yes I know...

They should have the freedom to bust unions.Then,once that horrific impediment to freedom is gone,the only perfect thing in the world,the free market,will be free to increase our standard of living.

Edited June 18, 2010 by Jack Weber

[Pliny]

Now to the libertarian mind that sort of law is not necessary. Builders who construct buildings which fall down will be sued (at the victim's expense, of course) and put out of business or otherwise punished. But this is very much a hit and miss approach. A blanket code stating how buildings must be constructed to preserve safety is simply a lot better for a society as a whole. It tends to help prevent collapses rather than the libertarian solution of punishing people afterwards.

I think this is a bit of a short-sighted conclusion.

If from the beginning the builders that built houses that fell down had been sued and/or driven out of business there would only be good builders around and good builders would probably develop and ensure some level of ethics and standards among themselves. However, there is a caution that the formation of cartels and price fixing develops which means that the market must not be barred and must remain open to new builders. No one can deny there will be the odd huckster come along but should the onus of oversight fall upon government or upon the purchaser?

The approach of a blanket code has not prevented buildings from falling down or quality being sacrificed. I cite the recent "leaky condo" fiasco in Vancouver or sick building syndrome that are the direct result of the application of a "blanket code".

Of course, builders were blamed.

If the buyer of a building lacks the expertise to assess what he is buying he should have access to the expertise necessary to advise him.

A blanket code devised and enforced by government serves to allay concerns of buyers but if you note, recently there is lack of trust in that alone to assess what one is buying and the home inspection industry is a growing one. I think we could have skipped the "we will leave it in the hands of government and trust them alone" period of time.

This seems to be the course of government involvement. They assume responsibility for an area, eventually drive up the costs of their service so that they can't justify further taxes to fund it and resort to solutions such as user fees, lineups, limiting/streamlining the service and enterprise develops reverting the service back to private hands to handle the overload. It may as well have been left in the hands of private enterprise in the first place.

[Michael Hardner]

Those rules will generally go far beyond coexistance. I can see your argument for rules where the behaviour of one affects the freedoms and rights for another, however when you go beyond that, where exactly does it stop?

We've had this discussion, really, in discussions about libertarianism and so on.

"Where exactly does it stop ?" Well, we have had several centuries of following a constitutional model (US and Canada) and it hasn't stopped yet.

Pure freedom and unrestrained rights make for perfectly symmetrical laws, but they don't result in the best circumstances for living in an imperfect world.

People are good, true, and intelligent but also bad, dishonest and stupid sometimes - so our systems have to allow for the full range of human behavior.

[Jack Weber]

Employer unions?

CLAC= Yellow Dog

[Michael Hardner]

It is interesting that you would reject the it's-complicate line of defense yet readily admit to not being able to "see" how you would go about getting more statistics or accessing more information. Surely in your business experience you enounter the saying that 'the devil is in the details?' If not, you may want to look that idiom up.

Sure, but I don't see the connection. Not publishing reports is always a matter of reports not being a priority for stakeholders. If it were, then we would see them published more frequently.

"It's complicated" is another way of saying that perhaps there is actually more to the plan than that contained in the executive summary. Besides, what companies do you know that handle Indian Land Claims, issues Canadian passports or collects taxes?

Individual departments do those things and the model for doing them should include a description of costs and and explanations.

Yes. Let's run the federal and provincial bureaucracies like McDonalds. The fast-food answer to the fast-food generation. Although I would tend to treat municipal bureaucracies more like Harveys. A Beautiful Thing.

Efficient like GM, Rogers, Bell? How about as efficient as British Petroleum? Or Union Carbide? The federal bureaucracies are not Home Depot or Walmart. Or McDonalds.

Say what you like about those companies, they are at least accountable to their stakeholders and are required to provide service to their clients. The model for government doesn't provide that now, and people know it.

[Pliny]

But we know - we KNOW - that this approach would invitably lead to myriad cases of horrible abuse of every kind, to massive safety issues, sexual harrassment (not the phony kind but the genuine old fashioned, bend-lover-or-you're-fired kind) and abuse, threatening conduct towards people who are not phsychologically or economically set up to resist it. And so society puts in places myriad rules and laws to check the power of employers, including safety and human rights rules, and yes, laws favoring unions.

Do we "KNOW"?

Is that where we were headed? To a society of myriad cases of horrible abuse of every kind? I'm sorry but to me that indicates a primary failure of government to provide justice and of society being appeased by government.

Now if people are working ten hours a day six days a week and that is the norm it isn't perceived as abuse or unjust. Later on when laws are made and people are working 37 hours a week, then working ten hours a day six days a week looks like abuse. Really, workers have just won benefits and entitlements they were not suffering from abuse.

If we were still working 10 hours a day six days a week we would be a pretty productive society. But our concerns are not about being productive today they are about our collective standard of living and our individual comfort.

The nursing industry the way it is set up with the hours nurses work could be considered abuse by other industry standards but I guess nurses are willing to sacrifice the personal inconveniences for the compensation and continue to gripe and demand increased compensation which the government will invariably give them because their is no way to judge cost or value, there is only the consideration of individual comfort.

Edited June 18, 2010 by Pliny

[Shwa]

Sure, but I don't see the connection. Not publishing reports is always a matter of reports not being a priority for stakeholders. If it were, then we would see them published more frequently.

Supply and demand. No demand, then no supply. I am sure there are literally tons of reports available internally. If you want access, that is what the Access to Information Act is for.

Individual departments do those things and the model for doing them should include a description of costs and and explanations.

Most likely they do. And you can access most of that information on-line and, if not on-line, then through the Access to Information Act.

Say what you like about those companies, they are at least accountable to their stakeholders and are required to provide service to their clients.

Really? Show me how I can access their service level reports of Bell and Rogers since I am a stakeholder. Or did you mean shareholder? You got me wondering about those "stakeholders" in Bhopal again.

The model for government doesn't provide that now, and people know it.

The model for government doesn't provide...what?

[Michael Hardner]

Supply and demand. No demand, then no supply. I am sure there are literally tons of reports available internally. If you want access, that is what the Access to Information Act is for.

My comment was in referral to your previous comment.

Most likely they do. And you can access most of that information on-line and, if not on-line, then through the Access to Information Act.

As discussed, not good enough.

Really? Show me how I can access their service level reports of Bell and Rogers since I am a stakeholder. Or did you mean shareholder? You got me wondering about those "stakeholders" in Bhopal again.

Shareholders are stakeholders.

The model for government doesn't provide...what?

Doesn't provide adequate levels of service.

[Shwa]

Doesn't provide adequate levels of service.

Which are... what?

[Michael Hardner]

Which are... what?

How about within 1 standard deviation of comparable service ?

That seems reasonable, surely. We don't have that now, even if we are able to peer between the cracks of secrecy that erected.

Of course, as I have said, to achieve that the entire civil service needs to be replaced by a new service. I would have government providers encourage large professional service organizations to submit bids to provide competing services, with their own management and workforce. I would even create a separate board of directors for this new entity.

[Topaz]

So what if the company wants to move out of the country? If the conditions are not to the union's liking, let them move out of the country and let the union members find other employment which offer conditions they are willing to accept. The fact that unions are willing to give up compensation is not because they have some kind of irrational love for the company, it is because they prefer the offered conditions to unemployment

Exactly the same things can be said for Unions.

This union gave up concessions to help the company and the company got taxpayers government money and that loan is not paid back until 2013. Plus the company promised within the contract to keep workers working, instead they went to Mexico. The company today is alot better off making into the Billions! The main problem with the present company is the old guys have retired and new generation management, is self-centered and don`t care about the workers, that made the company what it is today. This company has workers in both, US and Canada, and ALL say its the worse company to work for today. So you probably why work for them? Because the majority of these guys are 45-to retirement age and that age group is finding it hard to find work.

[Renegade]

Naturally. But any group or organization is like that, any club, fraternity, or for that matter, employer.

With most organizations, whether it be churches, club, fraternity, or whatever, membership is voluntary. Joining the organization is deemed to accept the rules of the orgainization, including how rules are set. With "society" there is not choice. Your mere existance force you into a club which then requires you to follow its rules. If you want a society which respect human rights, it must be one which also respects human freedoms and right to choose. So no, a society is not like any other organization.

There are a number of rules and laws which you can fairly easily see as justifiable in that ones right to, for example, murder ones neighbour would be a violation of the neighbours rights. However, not all law is about preserving rights. Building codes would be an example of the second kind of law/rule. Whose rights does it preserve? Well, no ones. What it does is to reassure people that when they enter or buy a dwelling or building that the person who constructed it had to do so with a certain measure of safety in mind.

Now to the libertarian mind that sort of law is not necessary. Builders who construct buildings which fall down will be sued (at the victim's expense, of course) and put out of business or otherwise punished. But this is very much a hit and miss approach. A blanket code stating how buildings must be constructed to preserve safety is simply a lot better for a society as a whole. It tends to help prevent collapses rather than the libertarian solution of punishing people afterwards.

No. In the example you have given, a rule can also be justified when it prevents behaviour that has the potential to impact another's right and that impact cannot be redressed or remediated after the violation. Building codes would fall into that category. It protects the unknowing building occupant from having his rights violated by having the building collapse on him and causing him harm. The potential harm is so great that it cannot be remediated by punishing the causer of the harm (ie the builder). IMV while it is justified to have a rule in place which create safe buildings which others occupy, a person should be free to create whatever structure he wants to if it can be assured that only he will occupy it. A whole host of rules fall into this category, such as laws to possess firearms.

Most laws of this nature are about smoothing out the rougher edges of what society would otherwise be. And so too are unions and laws which support them. They're about smoothing out what would otherwise be a very one-sided relationship between an employer and his employees. Although I've had my problems with unions in the past, overall, this works to the benefit of the employees.

And yes, this certainly can work to the detriment of the employer. To some extent one could say that was unfair, that an employer ought to be able to hire and fire and promote however the employer chooses, ought to be able to offer up whatever working conditions and treatment and pay they desire on a take-it-or-leave-it approach. I perfectly understand that belief and it's reasonable, on the surface.

But we know - we KNOW - that this approach would inevitably lead to myriad cases of horrible abuse of every kind, to massive safety issues, sexual harassment (not the phony kind but the genuine old fashioned, bend-over-or-you're-fired kind) and abuse, threatening conduct towards people who are not psychologically or economically set up to resist it. And so society puts in places myriad rules and laws to check the power of employers, including safety and human rights rules, and yes, laws favoring unions.

Rules which favour unions are nothing like the building code example you previously gave. "smoothing out the rougher edges" of society is simply a vauge euphemism for saying that a majority can it deems will create a "better" society based upon its own subjective assessment of what constitutes "better".

As long as people have power to choose whether to join an employer, or accept a job or not, the employee has power to offset the power employers have. Where employees lack power to choose, it is generally due to circumstances of the employees own creation. For example they may lack the skills or knowledge to take on another job, or may fear the uncertainty of changing jobs. It is the employees resposibilty to make their labour a valuable commodity which exacts an offer of high compensation and a good work environment. If they fail to do so, they should not be protected with rules which artificially raises their compensation at a cost to the freedom of the employer and the consumer.

This set of union-favoured rules, far from "leveling the playing field" as many would allege, creats a labour monopoly, leading to many equally abusive labour practices. Picket-line violence is common. So is the lack of motivation to advance through hard work and skill. In many union shops it is close to impossible to get fired. "Society" can try to box in an employer by limiting his choices, but once an employer has a choice "society" shouldn't be surprised when an employer takes the alternative. Thus you witness the massive offshoring and outsourcing which has occured and continues to occur. These set of rules which soceity has set in place to favour unions, have backfired, as companies which can leave, have left, leading to a mass de-unionization of the private sector. The only bastion of unionization left is the public sector. If the wern't held sway to political pressure, they too should be offshoring leading to a more efficient organization.

Overall, workers in area where unions are strong are better off than areas where they are weak. Overall. That isn't to say there aren't some really crummy unions out there, but I've already stated how that could be changed.

Sure they probably are, but at a cost. It is not just the workers interest which are at stake. It is also others in society which are stakeholders in the production process. What is given to the worker is taken from the shareholder and consumer and frequently the taxpayer.

Edited June 19, 2010 by Renegade

[Renegade]

There is a logistic need - but it conveniently happens to concentrate the influence of all of the shareholders, which makes for a much more powerful bargaining position. You cannot pretend it does not give companies an economic advantage over employees (at least those who are not unionized). As well, why do you not think it is logistically significant if a company with 10,000 employees negotiates all of their contracts seperately?

I don't see the point you are disputing we me over. I have repeatededly stated that I support the right of employees to unionize. If as you say an employer can form a collective bargining unit, certainly employees can too. The real difference is that for most companies it has not choice, it is forced to negotiate as a collective. (If you disagree, please tell me how it would work in a company the size of GM or Walmart). An employee does and should have a choice, he can negotiate individually or he can appoint a representative on his behalf.

Your explanation doesnt' explain why there are so many non-unionized employees earning very high-salary an benefits who have indiviudally negotiated their salary. Surely, by your explaination, an employer can bully them to work for minimium wage.

Freedoms are only as good as the opportunities attached to them. Employers enjoy more effective freedoms than employees when the company is monolithic and the employees are not. For a company with many employees, the cost of losing one or two employees so that they can belligerently negotiate contracts is trivial. The cost to an employee of losing their job is not. The only way to balance this situation, where employers ordinarily face no risk, and employees face great risk, is to allow employee unions to wield some similar powers to the company themselves.

No that is not the only way to balance that situation. The way to balance that situaiton is for employees to make themeselves a valuable commodity. An employee who labour is valuable, has no fear of not being able to contract with one specfic employer as he is confident that he can enter into a contract with another. The rules with favour unions, simply protect labour which are commodities.

The one thing I agree with you on is that unions should have similar powers as the company itself. It already does and more. What I argue for is that the company should have equal powers to the union itself. At least Argus is astute enough to acknowledte that unions have been given additional powers over employeers, something you haven't realized or refuse to acknowledge.

[Renegade]

Yes I know...

They should have the freedom to bust unions.Then,once that horrific impediment to freedom is gone,the only perfect thing in the world,the free market,will be free to increase our standard of living.

No, the free market won't increase "our" standard of living. It will increase the standard of living of the ones who have productive and valuable labour. It will decrease the standard of living of those who are unproductive and provide commodity labour and who's wage rates are simply protected by the bias towards unions.

I can see clearly, why you would want a union protected using the force of the state.

Edited June 19, 2010 by Renegade

[Renegade]

We've had this discussion, really, in discussions about libertarianism and so on.

Yes, we have had similar discussions. The end result is usually a philosophical difference in the importance of individual rights and freedoms relative to wants from the collective.

"Where exactly does it stop ?" Well, we have had several centuries of following a constitutional model (US and Canada) and it hasn't stopped yet.

This is something failed to address. If you can ad hoc override human rights and freedoms, in the name of the best interest of the collective, what really stops the rationalization of completely trampling over those rights. While documents like the Charter try and codeify and protect certain rights, there are others which they are silent on. Moreover even the charter can be overriddeen via the notwithstandign clause.

I argue that freedoms should be enshrined and protected and should not be able to be overridden by the subjective wishes of the collective.

Pure freedom and unrestrained rights make for perfectly symmetrical laws, but they don't result in the best circumstances for living in an imperfect world.

I suppose it depends upon for whom. It is better for some and worse for others.

People are good, true, and intelligent but also bad, dishonest and stupid sometimes - so our systems have to allow for the full range of human behavior.

It depends upon what you mean by "allow for". When you protect people from making stupid choices, you are also protecting stupid people. The best way to remediate stupid choices is to allow people to make those choices and suffer the consequences.

[Renegade]

This union gave up concessions to help the company and the company got taxpayers government money and that loan is not paid back until 2013. Plus the company promised within the contract to keep workers working, instead they went to Mexico. The company today is alot better off making into the Billions! The main problem with the present company is the old guys have retired and new generation management, is self-centered and don`t care about the workers, that made the company what it is today. This company has workers in both, US and Canada, and ALL say its the worse company to work for today. So you probably why work for them? Because the majority of these guys are 45-to retirement age and that age group is finding it hard to find work.

You have not identified which company you are referring to, however the union freely gave consessions to the company. If they expected something in return they should have got it in writing and sued if that was not honoured. Taxpayer money should never have been given to bail out such a company. Even if it had, the government should have got any promises in writing and held the company to those promises. If neither the union nor the government had a binding contract with the company, can you blame the company for acting in its best interest.

The company has one role. To act in the best interest of its shareholders. It should care for the workers because it serves its interest to have a well-motivated workforce. If the company is making billions despite not have a satisified workforce, then they are still fulfilling their primary duty to their shareholders. It is not the company's responsibility to ensure the employability of the 45-to-retirement employees. That is their responsibilty and theirs alone.

Edited June 19, 2010 by Renegade

[fellowtraveller]

The company has one role. To act in the best interest of its shareholders

and the union has exactly the same role for its shareholders.

[Renegade]

and the union has exactly the same role for its shareholders.

Agreed. No-one is disputing that. Given that they have the same role, and similar responsibilities, the government shouldn't intervene to favour one over the other.

[dre]

Your explanation doesnt' explain why there are so many non-unionized employees earning very high-salary an benefits who have indiviudally negotiated their salary. Surely, by your explaination, an employer can bully them to work for minimium wage.

Because for decades workers have fought tooth and nail for better wages, better conditions and better treatment. Those non-unionized workers youre talking about would make way less were it not for the advent of organized labor.

Unions result in better treatment for ALL workers not just some. They drive up standards in an industry, and they keep all employers honest whether they have unionized work forces or not, because treating workers good becomes a strategy to make sure they dont unionize.

[Renegade]

Because for decades workers have fought tooth and nail for better wages, better conditions and better treatment. Those non-unionized workers youre talking about would make way less were it not for the advent of organized labor.

BS. There have always been highy paid workers simply because they had skills which were sought after. I can tell you that for most of the most highly-paid jobs, the reason those jobs are highly paid, is not because the employer fears unionization, it is because the employee's skills are hard to replace or the employer fears losing that employee to a competitor.

In other threads you have asked for back-up when claims were made. Do you have an proof of your statement?

Unions result in better treatment for ALL workers not just some. They drive up standards in an industry, and they keep all employers honest whether they have unionized work forces or not, because treating workers good becomes a strategy to make sure they dont unionize.

Unions only represent their workers, and not more than that. If they drive up standards it is a side-effect of their primary purpose to act in the best interest of those they represent. They don't do so out of a sense of altruisism. In any case, it is not simply the workers interest which are at stake. It is both shareholders, and consumers. Do unions act in the shareholder's interest? Do they act in the consumer's interest by keeping costs down?

dre, I am not disputing that unions drive better conditions for their workers. They do so in the same way as cartels derive better conditions for the supplier. (ie by price collusion and by restricting supply). What I am contentding is that they do it at a cost to other parties, namely the employer and the consumer, who also have rights.

Edited June 20, 2010 by Renegade

[Michael Hardner]

This is something failed to address. If you can ad hoc override human rights and freedoms, in the name of the best interest of the collective, what really stops the rationalization of completely trampling over those rights. While documents like the Charter try and codeify and protect certain rights, there are others which they are silent on. Moreover even the charter can be overriddeen via the notwithstandign clause.

In the end it comes down to "what plays in Oshawa". Gay marriage could perhaps have been mandated by the courts in 1982, if it had been pushed constitutionally.

I argue that freedoms should be enshrined and protected and should not be able to be overridden by the subjective wishes of the collective.

I think that they are, aren't they ? Even enshrined freedoms are subject to interpretation by human judges.

I suppose it depends upon for whom. It is better for some and worse for others.

And monarchy is better for some (the king) than others (pretty much everyone else)

It depends upon what you mean by "allow for". When you protect people from making stupid choices, you are also protecting stupid people. The best way to remediate stupid choices is to allow people to make those choices and suffer the consequences.

That sounds like a social program - remediating stupid people. Oh, sorry, you said choices. Well, they - stupid choices - continue to be made and I see the value in preventing people from making at least some of those choices.

[Pliny]

People here need to read history like what happened in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Arthurdale, West Virginia and it's counterparts in Magaden in the USSR and Hitler's Ramersdorf in Germany. All Great experiments in social engineering. Unfortunately, they didn't thrive.

Here's a good article. Arthurdale

[Michael Hardner]

People here need to read history like what happened in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Arthurdale, West Virginia and it's counterparts in Magaden in the USSR and Hitler's Ramersdorf in Germany. All Great experiments in social engineering. Unfortunately, they didn't thrive.

Here's a good article. Arthurdale

Arthurdale seems like a poorly run project, but given the novelty of the situation, it's pretty much on track with, say, spending $1B on eHealth with no clear and appreciable result.

Incredibly, we actually have got better at delivering these things.

Miners were making minimum wage, right through the 1950s in Virginia until the workers got together to form a combine (i.e. union) just as their bosses did.

[Pliny]

Because for decades workers have fought tooth and nail for better wages, better conditions and better treatment. Those non-unionized workers youre talking about would make way less were it not for the advent of organized labor.

Unions result in better treatment for ALL workers not just some. They drive up standards in an industry, and they keep all employers honest whether they have unionized work forces or not, because treating workers good becomes a strategy to make sure they dont unionize.

Henry Ford was a socialist and a capitalist. He paid a very good wage for people to work on his assembly line.

The problem with most union jobs is they are tedious and repetitive. You have to pay people enough to endure the sheer boredom of most union jobs. But - also Unions protect the workers of tedious and repetitive jobs from others that would love to replace them and receive the wages, benefits and entitlements that big labour unions have won. How do you get a job at GM? You get on a waiting list and wait several years with your fingers crossed and no guarantee for the golden opportunity. It's almost like a politician hoping to get elected and last for the period necessary for them to get that pension after 6 years.

Workers should unite for injustice and exploitation. I don't have a problem with that. They should not, in my opinion, unite as opposition to the company that provides them their livelihood. They need to not fight for benefits and entitlements but fair treatment. If their production falls below what will sustain the company they must be willing to make concessions to keep their jobs and respond to economic conditions that may arise out of competition or government favour for the competition or whatever conditions prevail. It doesn't help them to demand the entitlements of their contract if the company no longer exists.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Pliny