I didn’t state a position here. And your “logically equivalent” conclusion is so illogical I would need to start a whole new thread to try and dissect it. Not only isn’t it a logical conclusion to what you perceive to be my position, it isn’t even a rational conclusion.
I’ve seen some of the rules instituted by existing unions and none of them seem to be geared towards getting the best people the best compensation. I’ll stick with Mr. Market as a way of ensuring that my relationship with my employer is mutually beneficent.
Yeah, that’s always worked so well in the past.
There are a lot of programmers in India, you know. There’s always somebody cheaper than you. Keep trusting that market.
Its irrationallity was precisely my point. The question is whether “being a pussy who is afraid to stand up for what he thinks is right” is somehow different when it means not publicly signing up for a union, as compared to when you publicly sign up for the army. I’m thinking, no.
And, you didn’t state a position? Pardon me for thinking that your spectacularly suggistive questions had any meaning at all.
As somebody who was a union member for 34 years and an official union steward at my workplace for 21, I find it interesting to compare the perception that many anti-union people have about unions with the reality.
Many anti-union people quiver and quake at the prospect of the big bad union muscling its way into management affairs and ordering them what to do down to what paper clips to buy. They foster this public image that the unions ran everything and the management are limp fish.
In reality, I found the union officials to be conservative and often reluctant to stick their own necks out for their members. The president of my union was a man who could tell you all the management excuses and reasons why he should not take action far better than the management could.
Make no mistake - I would not work without a union - even a less than completely effective one. A thin condom is better than none at all. But I think its funny to listen to the public perception of unions as Big Vito who will make management sleep with the fishes if the workers don’t get two hour lunches and an additional hour for a morning and afternoon break.
Funny, isn’t it? Back in the day, the Big Labor Boss was a staple of political cartoons. Swarthy, fat, cigar-chomping Labor Boss.
You read about the Labor Movement in America in your high school history books, and it has been sanitized for your protection. Well, yes, there were some pretty loud disagreements, here and there, but all in all just a civil debate about how best to protect the rights of the worker from the Communists, and shelter their well-being in Mr. Market.
And the 8 hour day, and pensions, stuff like that, all flowed from the generous hands of management and capital, as always eager to trim their profits if it would help the little guy.
What a lovely story. How pretty to think so.
Are you sure you’re not strawmanning a bit here? There’s a difference between imagining that all unions are populated by Big Bitos, and recognizing that human nature being what it is, a secret vote is more likely to produce an accurate report of the opinions of the workers than a card check at an inherent level, and that if you incentivize the card check, as you do by saying, “If you get 30%, you can hold an election, but if you can squeeze just 20%+1 votes more, you succeed without one!”, then that might actually cause increased pressure and animosity between those who have signed and those who have not, to an increasing degree as you get closer and closer to the halfway mark.
This is not to say there aren’t significant problems with companies trying to corrupt and interfere with the secret ballot avenue, but it seems to me (and perhaps others) that the way to fix that would be to address the problem directly rather than trying to do an end-run around it. It’s like, if your car’s engine stutters and runs poorly, you don’t try to fix it by disengaging the brakes.
Union organizing isn’t a hostile take-over. Organizers go where they are invited, where they have a good to fair prospect of winning, they go where they expect to have a majority in sympathy with their goals. Well, of course!
What do you guys think? A cigar-chomping union boss looks at HappyCo Industries, where the workers are fairly paid, benefited and pensioned, a place where the majority of the workers don’t want to hear anything about a union, and he says “Well, here’s the place to spend our money and time, lets go organize this place that doesn’t want us, with workers who won’t support us!”
Does that make sense to anybody?
I think that not all promising-looking companies always contain a majority that want a union. Do you dispute this?
But you can keep making strawmen if you like.
Well, then, what would make a company “promising” if not a workforce sympathetic to unionization? A colorful corporate logo? Conversely, what would be attractive about a company where the workforce is hostile to unions? The opportunity to squander money, time, and effort fruitlessly?
You do realize you’re not making any sense here, don’t you?
Let’s think about this, with the thinking part of our bodies. A company will look promising if it appears that the workforce is sympathetic to unionization, but the only way to really tell if the majority of the workforce actually wants a union is to count them somehow. Which is why we bother with things like card checks and secret votes at all - because the initial estimate might actually be wrong. Unless you’re now claiming that union organizers are omnitient and that such counts are just a formality?
Why, yes, you’re right! I’d be much better of making wild extreme examples and mischaracterizing my opponents’ positions.
from begbert2
Or you sometimes buy a new car which is even better than the old one. 
I’ve glanced through the document. If the results of the study can be independently verified then I would likely drop my opposition to the card check. However, I note that on page 162 the study mentions that it got it’s data on card checks directly from the unions on condition of anonymity. I’m dubious about this (among other things) and I’d like to hear a rebuttal of the study from someone more knowledgeable than me before I was to take it at face value.
Here’s where we fundamentally disagree. I have no hatred for unions; I have multiple members of my family who are members of unions (police and electrical) nor do I belong to management or aspire to do so. That said I believe it absolutely unfair and counter-productive to completely exclude a company from the union process.
Likewise I’d counter that the pro-union folks in this thread are fairly unanimous at painting management as a run amok gorilla threatening everybody with a gun. Richard Parker is so afraid of management that he wants to exclude them from the process altogether. I’m seeing very little of what I believe to be objective thinking.
Why would the company need to be involved in the process of determining whether the workers want to unionize at all, though?
Objectively, I think it’s unlikely the company will make any kind of positive contribution to the process of deciding whether or not to unionize. It’s not like they have any incentive to do so, after all, and they have a nonsignificant incentive to try to stop the process altogether.
Well, gosh, Begbert, that’s a toughy! Maybe if one guy called me up from HappyCo and demanded a union vote, I’d throw all of my resources into it and…
No, maybe not. Maybe I’d start out small, you know, test the waters a little. Maybe readings at the local library, Proudhon and Marx, that sort of thing. Maybe meetings in workers homes. Move up to larger meetings, softball games, bar-b-ques… and if there are 700 workers at HappyCo, and only five show up to sing Woody Guthrie songs and suck suds, well, maybe I’d figure my resources are better spent elsewhere.
Now, if there are 700 workers at HappyCo, and 650 show up for my meetings, well, I’m likely to get the impression that I’ve got some pretty fertile grounds here.
How about that? Sound about right to you?
650 out of 700 showing up? Why, yes, that does sound like a wild extreme example to me. I think you hit it dead on!
Are you asserting that this is the norm for union organization? If so, why do the unions care if it’s a vote or a card check? They’d win regardless!
Unless, of course, a lot of the people were mostly only showing up because of peer pressure, which is a real argument for a card check, mm-hmm! :rolleyes:
Well, yes, 650 out of 700 was an extreme example, that was quite the point. So was 5 out of 700, which seems to have escaped your notice. The point being is that there are ways to measure probable response and the likelihood of success before a serious investment of resources goes forward.
Ah, no. See explanation above, re-read as necessary.
Well, cost, obviously. A one-step process is less costly and less divisive, and quicker. Duh.
If hardly anyone wants a union, how can peer pressure be applied without peers to apply it? Huh? If the idea of a union is unpopular with the vast majority of the workers, what peer pressure do you imagine exists? “Imagine” being the operative word here…
Well, you set up the argument and knocked it over. What do they call that again, a scarecrow? No, that’s not it…a straw mat? Close, but not quite…
Because they pay the workers. Perhaps they’re willing to make compromises first. Maybe they’ll go out of business if they have to meet certain local union demands. If the workers can unionize without the company knowing and the company accepts it, then great. However, I do not want a law that requires the company to accept it without their input, just like I don’t want a law that forbids unions.
The fact that a company may attempt to prevent a union is no excuse for laws the excludes them. They should be allowed to pursue their interests, just as pro-union workers should be allowed to pursue their own.
Nothing escaped my notice, I just didn’t feel the need to point out that everything you said was a ridiculous extreme. I figured I’d leave that to the reader to figure out.
Your explanation is a splendid example of an excluded middle, as is everything else you’re posting. You’re desperately avoiding discussing the possibility that the vote might be close, because that’s the case where peer pressure comes into play and blows the argument for card checks over secret ballots completely to hell.
Your explanation is a splendid example of an excluded middle. Re-read as necessary.
You are a funny, funny man.
You and your excluded middle. Well, try looking here; With a slightly stretched hypothetical, you can get a two thirds majority against with peer pressure that’s four to one in favor.
Well, I was dealing with retardedly extreme hypotheticals and trying to stretch them into something reasonable. Your position is, of course, that all votes are 13 to 1 in favor of one side or another, so of course, peer pressure is either nonexistent or irrelevent, right?
Supposing that there existed mechanisms to poll the workers secretly so that validated numbers without worker names attached could be submitted to the company, at which point the company could try to negotiate concially terms. I don’t see why the company needs to know more than the fact that there is sufficient support for a union before it decides how to act.
They should be excluded enough that the vote is able to be taken unimpeded, though. They shouldn’t be allowed to pursue their interests by shipping in scab voters, for example.