Originally Posted by
Mike Henderson
Don - I don't disagree with you and I'm certainly not a union advocate. But remember why we have unions. There was a time when labor was treated pretty badly and it's only because of unions that we have decent employee treatment today. Even companies without unions treat their employees decently because they don't want unions.
The problem unions have is finding a way to allow performance based promotion - their fear is that the employer will promote anti-union people and hold back pro-union people, which would eventually lead to the destruction of the union. And the union doesn't want to get in the business of ranking the employees. How would they do it? The only ranking that counts is the value to the employer.
I absolutely agree that union work rules often hinder productivity, and having to lay off by seniority instead of performance when bad times occur doesn't help the company recover. But it's hard to see an alternative for the union that doesn't destroy it.
Mike
Like most major social revolutions, unions were an overblown response to a situation that was improving on its own. After all, working in a factory in a city was preferable to toiling on a farm, hence the great influx of people to the large metropolitan areas. Let's face it, by today's standards, life everywhere back then sucked! However, life was improving faster in the city than it was in the country. Ironically it was those improvements in life that allowed people the luxury of becoming dissatisfied with their lives. As a result, many embraced policies that slowed the rate of improvement...
As a response to the response (...round and round we go...) some busineses overreacted to what they (rightly) saw as a threat. I think it is no coincidence that the focus is always on the "brutality" of certain businesses rather than the thuggery and socialist and anarchist roots of the unions. Both sides were engaged in sneaky, underhanded, and sometimes brutal behavior.
We could probably have a long discussion on the history of unions, but whatever the historical rationale or function were, the net result of unions TODAY is overwhelmingly negative.
You are right, promotion or rewards based on merit would destroy unions. So unions don't so much have a problem figuring out how to allow it, their problem is how to avoid it completely. The two concepts are fundamentally incompatible. The premises upon which those two paths are built are diametrically opposed, and there is no way to reconcile them.
Like all forms of collectivisim, unions cannot afford any sort of meritocracy, all must be treated the same (some being more equal of course...) and we'll call it "fairness". "Fairness" being equality of outcomes, without regard to individual ability or effort. In my book that isn't fairness, it's oppression.
I can't sell my stuff for what Frank Klaus, or Sam Maloof, or James Krenov, or you for that matter can/did. Since that's "unfair" I need to form a union, force them to join, or quit. Of course, "fairness" would dictate that my comparitvely inferior and ugly creations bring the same compensation as theirs. There would soon be no Maloofs, and even my current level of ability would probably soon be seen as a waste of time.
And yes, I do believe that the choices are that stark. It's just that most folks I talk to don't realize the kind of assumptions and foundational principles are implicit in their "feel good" emotionalism.
"History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it." -Walter Bagehot