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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (53602)	7/30/2002 11:51:21 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

:-) You say corrupting, and I say instructing...

To: cosmicforce who wrote (53602)	7/31/2002 8:14:54 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 82486

Hi there, Cosmic. Always nice to see you. Why don't you come by every now and again just to visit lil ole us? Isn't that what representative democracy is? Handing over your rights and the execution thereof to someone else? What could be more democratic? Yes, there is a parallel. I made that point earlier, although only in passing. If we go back to our founding fathers, they were cautious about giving the government too much power. They set us up with a list of rights and specified that states retain all powers that were not specifically given to the federal government. They gave us plenty of mechanisms to keep our government in line. My point to X is that we should be equally wary of our unions. One of the rights our government gives us is the right to petition it for the redress of grievances. We do not, as citizens, cede that right to our elected representatives but rather retain it as individuals. I would not cede that right to my Congressman without some overwhelming compensation, if at all. And I certainly wouldn't willingly cede it to my shop steward. But that's exactly what we do when we are employed in a job in a bargaining unit. I do not claim to be any expert on labor law and I certainly don't know anything about teachers unions or California unions. The environment in which I have personally struggled has been Federal employee unions, an extreme situation given that the unions cannot bargain for pay or benefits and cannot strike. This oddity leads the unions to flex its muscles in strange ways, ways that might not engage those unions who have real things to bargain over. What this odd environment does is illustrate some inherent risks to the employee in labor law and practices, rather like the canary in the mine. People who work in environments where their unions restrict their activities to bargaining for pay typically don't have a clue about the power of unions to meddle and, even worse, to be self-serving and act against the interests of their membership. But that potential is there and I was merely trying to call attention to the message of the canary. I have personally seen over and over again the shock and outrage of employees when they find that their union has stopped meetings they arranged between them and their managers about local workplace issues like lunch schedules or seating arrangements. The unions threaten and file claims of unfair labor practices, which has a chilling effect on an otherwise reasonable, even pliable, management. People simply can't understand why they can't work out these things with their management when management is willing, why they have no right to petition for redress of grievances. Maybe X's union would never intrude into teaching methods and stop her use of a particular tool. But they probably could if they wanted to, just as federal unions do. I wanted her to know that there is a potential dark side to unions. When X works as a teacher in the public school system, she is in the bargaining unit whether she wants to be or not. Her only choice is whether to actively participate in the union or not. Regardless of that choice, she is subject to the union's sense of its purview, which may or may not be more expansive than she would like and may or may not be contrary to her interests in a way that is important to her. As I said, I have seen the shock of employees when they discover that they have no right to petition their management for redress of grievances--they gave it up to their union. As was mentioned very early in this discussion about unions, some people tend to romanticize them. IMO, that is dangerous. That's the point I was trying to make to her. Just as we citizens must keep a watchful eye on where the bozos in Washington are taking us, so must union members beware of scope inflation (and ego inflation) on the part of unions because unions can easily become self-serving and work against us. The bargaining unit is no place to go around with stars in one's eyes.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (53602)	7/31/2002 10:58:34 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"I've handed my right to grow my own food and build my own car to specialists." Wow. Should I be hiding my garden from the authorities?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (53602)	7/31/2002 2:59:09 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Isn't that what representative democracy is? No. In fact, there are rights you specifically (in theory at least, these days) retain. I've handed my right to grow my own food and build my own car to specialists. No you haven't. You've handed over nothing but money to compensate them for the work of doing these things for you. You STILL retain the right to buy land and equipment and grow your own food. And you could still buy the necessary parts and build your own car. Might as well do the same with my medical and employment rights. You may choose to do so. I don't. And giving away one right (which you did not do- -see above) hardly justifies giving away more. Are you willing to give them also your right to free speech? How about trial by jury? Habeas corpus? And closed shops, which force people to give up their employment rights, are outrageous.