On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 09:50:15 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
I don't agree that being a non union shop makes for these conditions to
occur.

I didn't ask you to agree that. Your English and Logic let you down.

No they don't.

I said that I don't agree that being a non union shop makes for these
conditions to occur. That was my own comment - i.e. the notion of a
causal relationship.

I said
they go together. I made no claim for one causing the other.

Obviously not. That would be hard even for you.

Yet again you
have decided what you will believe and you are arguing that I am wrong even if
you have to misstate my claims in order to do so.

I haven't misstated anything. Since you are saying that you weren't
claiming that one causes the other and I am saying that I don't agree
that notion, the whole thing becomes a non issue.

If you say that you think that they go together, then I also disagree.
Obviously there can be correlation, but all other combinations are
possible as well.

Clearly one can have work environments that are good without union
involvement and one can have bad ones where there is. Equally, one
can have good environments with union involvement and bad ones
without.

Consider the implications of that.

70-75% of the workforce is not in a union, and the proportion has
increased dramatically over the last generation. Health and Safety
and working conditions have improved as well. If a significant
proportion of those people felt that a union would contribute to their
wellbeing they would join. They are not - the trend is the other way.

A proportion of that number (we don't know the true figures, but it is
not a large proportion of the economy) work in sweatshop environments.
These are unlikely to be accessible to unions anyway because
employment is probably not legitimate for one reason or another. It
is believable that the accident rate in these is higher than with
"legitimate" employers as well, so to that extent, one could make your
point that the absence of a union goes together with bad work
conditions. However, it is an academic point, since a union is
unlikely to happen there anyway. A more likely scenario is something
bad happening and the owner of the business being prosecuted.





--

..andy