On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:05:31 GMT, Roger
wrote:

The message
from Andy Hall contains these words:

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.

That simply isn't true.

Oh but it is.

It isn't an issue of weight of numbers. All that that achieves is to
temporarily provide some marginally improved situation for the
workforce. Beyond a certain point that becomes untenable because the
employer can no longer make money, either because margins are squeezed
too far or because he will price himself out of the market.

You are looking at the situation from the old fashioned capitalist
perspective where all the profits of the enterprise belong exclusively
to the owner and the wage slaves are granted the smallest possible
pittance the employer can get away with.

I haven't said that at all and it is seldom the case.

I gave a very typical illustration based on figures from a company
mentioned in another recent thread.

In that one, the wages were approx a third of gross profit, the taxman
took another third and out of the remaining third, after other
operating costs were taken out, most of the remainder was reinvested
in the business and about 3% of the total went to shareholder
dividends.

If there is a piece that could be usefully reduced, it is the piece
which goes to and is wasted by the government.



What is really at issue is the balance between the reward for the
employer and the reward for the employee.

Of course, and as I illustrated, it is very much in the direction of
the employee in most cases, certainly in anything that involves
manufacturing.

Non specialist employees have
no leverage whatsoever. Supply is almost always greater than demand. One
employer negotiating with one union merely levels up the playing field.

The problem with all of that is ultimately with the employees (or
rather the individual employee). All that the union can ever hope to
do is to bolster up what is ultimately an unsustainable situation. If
the employee allows himself to be a commodity, then he is going to be
subject to the market pressures for that commodity. If the employer
can buy more cheaply elsewhere, with all costs considered, then he
will and does.

The focus for the employee should be on differentiating himself in the
employment market. This is not to say that anybody is ultimately
indispensible, but he can certainly make a bigger difference to his
situation than a union ever can because he can focus purely on his own
requirements.


The union movement is responsible for a trail of destruction as a
result of closed shops, restrictive practices, secondary action and
working days lost to strike action. It's a legacy of a bygone era
that really has no place in the modern world.

I doubt whether anyone apart from Dribble would argue that unions are
perfect but the worst excesses of union behaviour are hopefully a thing
of the past and some of them are now illegal.

I agree with you that the worst excesses are broadly a thing of the
past. However, fortunately I don't see a long term future for them
either. The've had their day....




--

..andy