# Collective bargaining is national policy of our country - accept it or Bite me. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 10, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122 "2003-08-10T01:30:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/81 "2003-08-11T18:42:27Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Jonathan Chance \* \*\*That’s just…well…stupid, EC.\\ That’s a hard word coming from someone who is not as smart as most of the stuff dinosaurs crapped back in the Jurassic. \You have the right to leave…the firm has the right to let you go. Is there some reason it should be otherwise? Should the employee be locked into staying at a firm, perhaps?\ No, a person should be able to eat, sleep and live in comfort without working for Da Man. \What you’re arguing against is the entire concept of working for a living.\ No, I’m arguing against human slavery and wastage in all its forms. We’re less wasteful than slaveowners were, but we still have a long way to go. \Until we get to that crazy mad Star Trek world where food comes cheaply out of replicators and energy is fusion and cheap we all need to keep the economic wheels turning by earning our daily bread.\ Well, actually, Dinosaur Crap Boy, the number of workers who are needed to keep us all fed has dropped drastically in the last century or so. Why are you so certain that the same will never happen in other sectors of the economy? I mean, what the fuck do you think is going to happen to factory work when we finally get a hand that’s as flexible and senstive as the human hand, and software capable of using it as nimbly or more nimbly than people? And how far down the road do you think that is? Give ya a clue, Dinosaur Boy, it ain’t no 500 years. Try 1/10 of that. \Or are you arguing for the Jeffersonian ideal of independant yeoman farmers supplying for themselves? \*\* No. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/82 "2003-08-11T18:49:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Read\_Neck \* > \*\*Start your own business and then you’ll know what slavery is all about. Including the whippings if the IRS gets on your ass. \*\* I already seem to have done so. But thanks for the advice. I understand, you probably seem to have assumed that, like you, my positions on social issues are based on whatever I perceive to be to my immediate advantage. No, I go for what is fair, just and intelligent. Not necessarily in that order. I guess that makes me “stupid” to some here, but I think it makes me a gentleman, in the sense that George Bernard Shaw used the word – a man who is concerned for the comfort of all in the society he inhabits, not just himself and his buddies. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/83 "2003-08-11T19:10:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > No, a person should be able to eat, sleep and live in comfort without working for Da Man. How is this remotely realistic? Someone has to work to create the food, bedding, energy for the hot water for the showers. I agree that _I_ should be able to eat, sleep, and live in comfort while doing nothing, of course… except watching the rest of you lowly peons scurry about to service my needs. But until those Jetson’s-type robots are a reality, human effort is required to create the things that humans need to eat, sleep, and live comfortably. And since no one but me seems to agree that I should be the one that gets to live in comfort while doing nothing, then I, in turn, am going to veto it when YOUR name is proposed. We all have to work, because if none of us work, then nothing is created. What part of this don’t you understand? ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/84 "2003-08-11T19:42:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > Well, actually, Dinosaur Crap Boy, the number of workers who are needed to keep us all fed has dropped drastically in the last century or so. Why are you so certain that the same will never happen in other sectors of the economy? I mean, what the fuck do you think is going to happen to factory work when we finally get a hand that’s as flexible and senstive as the human hand, and software capable of using it as nimbly or more nimbly than people? And how far down the road do you think that is? Give ya a clue, Dinosaur Boy, it ain’t no 500 years. Try 1/10 of that. I’ll tell you what will happen - the same thing that has happened with every other technological advance for hundreds of years. The people who did what that hand now does will do something else - they are just as valuable as before. You seem to regard a robotic hand as some mythical event horizon that will magically zap away jobs leaving some poor souls destitute. You are ignoring the fact that technological advance has been proceeding at an astounding rate since the industrial revolution. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there aren’t hordes of disenfranchised spinning jenny operators squatting listlessly in bus stops; there are no roaming nomadic groups of computer punch-card manufacturers trying to convince passers-by that “the informational content of our holes really is unsurpassed, y’know.” Technology advances, and people _adapt_. They always have, and always will. For someone ostensibly so concerned with the exploitation of the “little guy”, you sure don’t give them much credit. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/85 "2003-08-11T20:07:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\* > No, a person should be able to eat, sleep and live in comfort without working for Da Man. > \*\* Ah, I remember those bygone days when whatever food I wanted was brought to me for free, I could sleep in a comfortable house for nothing and I had all the clothes and toys and books I wanted, all without working for the Man. Then, of course, I grew up, and had to do something to feed myself. I’m lucky enough to work for the Dude. He’s kinda like the Man, but he lets us listen to the techno music and wear tie-dye and periodically buys us breakfast. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/86 "2003-08-11T20:13:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monstre \* > \*\*Jelly fish, **Guin**? 🙂 \*\* Yep, I heard the phrase on an episode of _MST3K_. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/87 "2003-08-11T20:49:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lezlers \* > **If making money to live isn’t the primary motivation for working, than what is? Why would people work if they didn’t have to?** These are good questions, however rudely put. Do YOU work only for money? Would YOU work if you didn’t have to, to earn money? If you could keep yourself fed, clothed and sheltered at a minimal level without any effort, what would you do, if anything? Watch TV a lot? Carve sticks into bird whistles? Take up a card game as your major activity in life? **If everyone that works for money is working under duress** What part of that don’t you get? Are you such a fucking fat cat that you have no idea what poverty is all about? What happens if you don’t work at all and you don’t have some sugar daddy or rich relative to keep you up? Hint: alcoholics and the mentally ill don’t work at all. Where do they live? How do they eat? Would YOU like to live like that? If your choice is living like that and working for a living, is it a free choice? Really? **why do so many professionals spend years in school in order to work in a profession such as medicine or law?** Because doing so gives them the hope that if not they, then their children may escape from the duress of poverty. \*\*That statement is so beyond stupid it boggles the mind. \*\* Look, you pea-brained harpy, just because **Jonathan Evil** called me stupid it doesn’t give you the option to. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/88 "2003-08-11T20:52:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fionn \* > **Then, of course, I grew up …** You only think you’ve grown up. You’ve got a ways to go yet. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/89 "2003-08-11T20:55:25Z")
Damn **evil captor** , I thought you were merely eccentric before, but now I see you’re a total whack job who obviously has no idea what it’s like to live in the Real World. How old are you anyway? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/90 "2003-08-11T21:27:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > **These are good questions, however rudely put. Do YOU work only for money? Would YOU work if you didn’t have to, to earn money? If you could keep yourself fed, clothed and sheltered at a minimal level without any effort, what would you do, if anything? Watch TV a lot? Carve sticks into bird whistles? Take up a card game as your major activity in life?** I don’t get what you’re asking. Most people work because they would like to live at a standard of living slightly above wearing rags and living in a shack with dirt floors. And _you_ calling someone rude is quite ironic. [quote] [If everyone that works for money is working under duress] **What part of that don’t you get? Are you such a fucking fat cat that you have no idea what poverty is all about? What happens if you don’t work at all and you don’t have some sugar daddy or rich relative to keep you up? Hint: alcoholics and the mentally ill don’t work at all. Where do they live? How do they eat? Would YOU like to live like that? If your choice is living like that and working for a living, is it a free choice? Really?** What world are you living in? Yes, people work for money. _That’s the whole point of working for most people_. Why is that wrong? Do you think people _shouldn’t_ work for money? How else do you propose people _make_ money? Are you proposing that we all start growing money trees? I’m honestly flabbergasted at your argument. I don’t think you’re using the term “duress” as it’s intended. > [@](#): > > [why do so many professionals spend years in school in order to work in a profession such as medicine or law?] > > **Because doing so gives them the hope that if not they, then their children may escape from the duress of poverty.** Or maybe, just _maybe_ they _want_ to be doctors or lawyers? Did that thought even enter your little delusional head? Maybe they want to save lives and help people? > [@](#): > > \*\*Look, you pea-brained harpy, just because **Jonathan Evil** called me stupid it doesn’t give you the option to. \*\* Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there were only certain people allowed to call you on your utter stupidity. I stand by my previous statement that you’re a total whack job. ---
**Author:** ![GaWd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/91 "2003-08-11T22:12:51Z")
[quot]Would YOU work if you didn’t have to, to earn money? If you could keep yourself fed, clothed and sheltered at a minimal level without any effort, what would you do, if anything? Watch TV a lot? Carve sticks into bird whistles? Take up a card game as your major activity in life? [/quote] Holy shit, you sound like a fucking infomercial. Seriously, lay off the socialistic propaganda, and get back to fucking work, so you can pay the man and enjoy your little piece of Serfdom. Sam P.S.- Guin, “You’ve already been dealt with”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/92 "2003-08-11T22:30:59Z")
So now I’m evil? And actually, I called your argument stupid. You I left alone. Something I note you didn’t do in return. I often note the insecure turn to personal attacks. Honestly, does anyone else think that EC needs to: A) Lay off the caffeine B) Take some basic econ courses? Question, EC: 1. How, if no one had to work, would services get performed? 2. How, if no one had to work, would basic needs be met? 3. What accounting system would society use if not some sort of valuation called money? Seriously, you’re not even laying out a thesis for us to respond to. Calm down and lay out what changes you would make that would lead to your ideal world. Hell, even tell us what your ideal world would be. Then we can discuss. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/93 "2003-08-11T22:56:06Z")
Weren’t you paying attention, **Jonathan**? Robots with human hands would do it all. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/94 "2003-08-11T22:57:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*Yep, I heard the phrase on an episode of _MST3K_. \*\* Oh, great – now I’m going to have to go search all my MST3Ks and find it… Look what you’ve done! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/95 "2003-08-12T00:20:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > **If everyone that works for money is working under duress** > > What part of that don’t you get? Speaking personally, I don’t get it because it is the antecedent of a conditional clause on its own, and is hence completely meaningless. If we charitably assume that your initial “if” was unintended, then it’s merely dumb. You seem to be asserting that no-one enjoys their jobs; that we must be forced to do them. This is patently untrue. As someone has already pointed out, doctors train for years and endure some shocking levels of overwork to become qualified. Some, no doubt, do it because at the end they can charge very large sums of money to paralyse ugly people’s eyebrows. Many (many more, in my experience) do it because they like making people well. We reward these people who make us well, because if we didn’t, they would die and so would we. If you can explain to me what part of this equation is exploitative, or involves an invisible “man”, I will happily throw off my shackles and join you in freedom. I have nothing to lose but my walkman. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/96 "2003-08-12T01:10:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Neurotik \* > \*\*Weren’t you paying attention, **Jonathan**? Robots with human hands would do it all. \*\* Would that be a giant _invisible_ hand? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/97 "2003-08-12T01:33:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\*You only think you’ve grown up. You’ve got a ways to go yet. \*\* Was this an attempt at snarkiness, or do your whacked-out economic concepts include everyone as children as well as slaves? Will I be a grown-up if I agree with you, or will I be a grown-up when I throw off the shackles of the Man and cease to work under duress? In the latter case, it could probably happen in about ten years. In the former, there’s not a chance in hell. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/98 "2003-08-12T02:27:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monstre \* > \*\*Oh, great – now I’m going to have to go search all my MST3Ks and find it… Look what you’ve done! 😛 \*\* I’ll make it easy on you-it’s during the credits of Episode 820: _Space Mutiny_. Tom and Crow are saying that a half-retarded jellyfish and a severely impaired box turtle with a busy schedule could make a better movie. I have the wav file, even. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/99 "2003-08-12T05:10:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fionn \* > \*\*Then, of course, I grew up, and had to do something to feed myself. I’m lucky enough to work for the Dude. He’s kinda like the Man, but he lets us listen to the techno music and wear tie-dye and periodically buys us breakfast. \*\* Nice one! 🙂 This is one of those surreal threads worth marking. Let’s see if I got it right…working is akin to slavery (a pretty serious assertion which is insulting to anyone who has ever been a victim of or who is a descendent of slaves), managers are universally tightasses, generalizations are always right, and soon we’ll all be sitting around being served pina coladas by our Orgasmatron 3000 sex-bots while the happy robots work in the factories for us…yeah. They only SEEM happy - in reality, they detest working for “da Man”, and are plotting to overthrow the tightass human slavemasters…and soon will come the robot rebels, and blood and motor oil will mingle in the gutters… :rolleyes: _So we’ll march night and day By the big cooling tower They have the plant But we have the power…_ ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2003, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122/100 "2003-08-12T07:48:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\*Actually, you’re wrong. It IS like slavery. Being able to work for different employers is slightly better than being owned. But it can be a subtle distinction. To put it in modern terms, you can hoe cotton in Marse Delta’s field, or Marse IBMs’ field, or Marse Northrop’s fields, but you still be hoeing cotton for de Man, ennyway you slice it. An if de Man doan like you he can jes toss you out and den you starvin’ and happy to hoe cotton in ennybody’s field. \*\* I’m getting the feeling that the only work you wouldn’t consider slavery would be opening the generous monthly govenment subsistence check. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/collective-bargaining-is-national-policy-of-our-country-accept-it-or-bite-me/194122.md?page=6)