"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:09:19 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
. ..
On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:17:12 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:
Really? Well, you need to associate with a better class of union
members.
Yeah; they may be thugs, but you want to associate with better thugs.
Which of my relatives do you think is the thug?
While your relatives may not be thugs, many union members are.
We could say the same about a number of corporate CEOs and hedge-fund
managers. The difference is that they tend to use hired hands.
Which of your relatives do you think are thugs?
None of them. They're among the most decent people I know, including the
ones who are or were members of unions.
For example, I was a member of the Retail Clerks when I was in college
and
worked in a supermarket. My wife is in the NJEA, a teacher's union. My
uncle, who was one of the best machinists you would ever see, was also
in
NJEA. And another uncle was in the Ironworkers.
Isn't it the teacher's unions who have helped get us into the mess
we're in with teaching kids, Ed? Maybe the NJEA is lily white, but I
doubt it: http://www.google.com/search?q=teach...+union+scandal
Google only shows the more important 241,000 listings. chortle
Maybe all of us have our veils.
So, what is it you're saying about my wife and uncle, Larry?
BTW, if you want to look at the history of unions, do you know why we have
tenure for teachers in public schools? Do you know how that came about?
I did a quick google and didn't find anything of merit. Go ahead.
From memory, it came about to keep teachers from being fired over
highly political issues. Like unions, it has a few redeeming
characteristics nowadays, but it, too, is often being abused.
You have to dig deep into the history to find it, unless you know people who
lived it. In my case, I have relatives who lived it on both sides -- the
petty local politicians, and the teachers who joined unions, as far back as
1929.
"Tenure" is an idea that comes from German higher education, where even the
research was highly politicized, and the idea spread to universities around
the world. The idea was to keep science and other research independent of
politics, including academic politics.
In the US public schools, the situation obviously had nothing to do with
research or "creating" knowledge in a scientifically neutral environment. It
was just a convenient term, with some prestige, that was adopted to describe
what amounted to civil service reform.
Through the 1930s, public school jobs, including teaching, were patronage
jobs. When a new politician came in a lot of teachers were swept out, and
the ranks of teachers were re-populated with the nieces, nephews, maiden
aunts and other relatives and friends of the politicians. My uncle faced
this in 1929 and again in the early '30s, when he was let go because he had
the wrong political affiliations. Fortunately for him his wife's relatives
started winning elections and he never had to face that again.
Anyway, the situation was common in cities and even many rural areas
throughout the US, and it led to very unprofessional teaching. Anyone who
thinks teaching in the US has declined just doesn't know how bad it was. I
started elementary school in the mid-50s and some of those patronage drones
were still around.
So the balance tipped the other way, and it created a new basis for drones.
A second wave of reforms in most states make it easier to fire them now and
teachers tend to be a lot better, but the reforms haven't gone far enough,
for one simple reason: People don't want to get involved in the real
business of politics. So the unions, and particularly their lobbyists, run
roughshod. But there is no one to blame for it, except for the people who
think getting involved in their local politics is too messy, or too time
consuming, to step in and apply counter pressure.
That's the pattern for most of the excesses that have resulted from reforms
that originally had a good purpose. The same is true of a lot of labor laws.
What unions were designed to accomplish eons ago and what they are
doing to us today are two totally different things, separated on one
side by morality, fairness, and honesty, and on the other side by
criminality and greed.
Separated by a couple of generations of people who didn't give enough of a
damn to get involved. Unions had to organize and lobby to get what they
wanted. Then people ignored the lobbies, or just grumbled to themselves, and
the lobbies went wild.
Again, that doesn't apply to all unions, just
most, judging by what I've seen, experienced, and heard in my
half-vast 54 years. YMMV?
Most unions hardly know what to do with themselves today, because they got
most of what they wanted long ago, but there are important exceptions. For
example, the companies that make cast iron pipe are some of the most
murderous *******s left in industry, and they keep unions out by
intimidation. Those people need unions.
The broader point should be recognized by this particular group, who tend to
care about traditions and who have some knowledge of industrial history.
Union people like Ron appear to me to be focusing on the past and won't
quite let go of it. OTOH, there's little doubt in my mind that, given global
competition, there are some companies that would revert back to their vile
labor practices from the past if they could get away with it. Then
competition would force other companies into the same practices -- the exact
pattern that occurred over 100 years ago. Vigilence is the price of liberty,
etc. It's easy to despise unions (my father despised them his entire life)
but it's a good idea, IMO, not to demonize them. Labor still needs a
supportive counterforce, even if it stays in the background.
--
Ed Huntress