The message
from Andy Hall contains these words:

Sorry, but the boot should be on the other foot. The employee
should be positioning himself such that he is sufficiently attractive
to the employer in terms of what he offers and can negotiate for
himself.

Spoken like a true capitalist. The better each employee gets the more
profit the capitalist can get for the same outlay in wages.

I make no apology for being a capitalist - it's the one sustainable
approach to economics.

However, at no point did I say anything about equal wages. The point
is that an effective employee should also be able to command a higher
price. If you consider virtually any other transaction of
services, that which is better usually costs more.

The effective employee can only command a higher wage if he has
something unique to offer. If all the employees are equally effective it
doesn't matter how good they are, the employer can always afford to
dispose of the one who who wants the most. There will be plenty more
willing to work for less when they see what happened to the one that
asked for more.


In the short
term at least the employer is exactly where he wants to be - in a
monopolist position.

I didn't say that there wouldn't be competition between employers.

In the short term that doesn't matter. As far as the employer/employee
relationship is concerned the employer is in a monopolist position. A
position more over which he is quite capable of abusing. What chance
does a worker sacked with malice stand of getting a good reference and
without a good reference what chance has the sacked worker of getting
another job.

With maybe hundreds of employees doing exactly the
same job it is of absolutely no consequence to terminate the employment
of the occasional one who gets uppity. The more devious employer would
sack the occasional employee for no better reason than to worry the rest
of the workforce.

This is exactly my point. Employees should not be putting themselves
in a position where they have no differentiation. It is asking for
exactly the scenario that you have described to happen.

For employees with no special talents there is no choice. The do a job
that literally millions of others could do equally well. The doctrine
that senior managers should be motivated by money and workers by fear of
the sack is a pernicious one but one that is widely followed by those
who are very well rewarded whether they are a success or failure. Senior
managers in the major British companies may no longer own much of the
equity but they still control the levers of power and will reward
themselves handsomely whatever the outcome.

If he is sitting back and relying on others to do it for him, then
there will inevitably be a disappointing outcome.

Belonging to a union makes the conflict between employer and workforce
much more equal - One to one.

Sigh.... There should not *be* a conflict. The employee wants to
sell a service that the employer should want to buy. It doesn't
need to involve a third party.

There is a clear conflict of interest and as long as the employer can
dispense with employees one at a time the dice is unfairly loaded in his
favour. Only if the workforce can speak with one voice can negotiations
take place on equal terms.

The problems with unions arise where the
welfare of the workers is only of secondary consideration to those in
control of the union. For instance Scagill saw his members as a private
army at his beck and call in his fight with capitalism. Ordering his
members out to further his political ambitions without giving the
members a chance to vote on the matter split the NUM and hastened the
demise of the coal industry.

Of course. You have described one aspect of it, the other is that the
industry had become untenable.

In the long term the industry was always going to fail. Scagill managed
to expedite its demise.

The only ways that that could have been avoided would have been people
being willing to pay more for coal or to erect trade barriers.
Unfortunately the first didn't happen and the second has a habit of
backfiring.

There was a third way. The government could have prevented the dash of
gas. That would have slowed the decline of the industry. It was
shortsighted in the extreme to let that resource be wasted in the way it
has been leaving the country at the mercy of foreign suppliers who may
well hold us to ransom in the future.

--
Roger Chapman