> agree with his solution. Those who own businesses have the right to run > them as they see fit. They are the ones that will lose, the workers can > always find another place to work. They also took the risk, where as the > workers took none. So I guess that's why I sometimes have a problem with > unions. It's too easy for the workers to make claim that the company is > their. You're assuming that a) the worker is in an industry where there are a plethora of jobs per worker (such is the case in general in the computer industry) - and that b) the worker is in a geographical region that supports the industry that person is in (ie., IT jobs are few and far between in Northwest Arkansas, the corporate headquarters (and IT centers) for WalMart and Tyson Foods - end result is that pay for someone in IT is roughly about half of what is made here in the Twin Cities for a lesser job...a friend of mine just discovered this when he moved up here) -- face it, if jobs were so easy to come by in all areas, and corporations didn't essentially eat up all available labor in small towns (ie., the best place for a decent living wage in Muncie, IN, were one of three factories simply because they were unionized - factory workers had great pay (you could expect to earn up to about 14/hour for a secretarial job in a factory with awesome benefits as compared to the 8/hour (8 was the going rate for office manager type personnel) max anywhere else outside the unionized factories - oh yeah, and benefits weren't all that great either - try living on that with two kids in tow? In IT in out of the way places, you DON'T dare just leave to find another job 'cuz you could conceivably be blackballed (saw that happen too - in IT) in the region... I'm not saying unionization is perfect for all industries and all areas - but it does have it's place in defending the worker who in a lot of places is still given the shaft. Remember, unionization also had it's place in our history and is the reason for a lot of the things we take for granted today: child labor laws, minimum wage, etc...ie., Marxist theory put to practice in American history hasn't moved us away from Capitalism, but helped buffer the way for those people trying to take care of their families in the fact of (let's face it) corporate greed and politics - especially in a society where your share holders are MUCH more important than the people who do the actual work. Sorry - didn't mean to get on a soap box here...I've just gotten a ton of these kind of messages today from a number of different sources.... Take care, Liz > > Who was Karl Marx by the way? He invented the idea of Communism. > > -----Original Message----- > From: tclug-list-admin at mn-linux.org > [mailto:tclug-list-admin at mn-linux.org]On Behalf Of Benjamin Exley > Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 10:35 AM > To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org > Subject: RE: [TCLUG] OT: union job > > > > Unions have no place in the IT/IS field. > I would have to disagree. Unfortunatly, I've been in a position where > I've felt it nessecary to use collective bargaining to get what we > wanted. What was it? We wanted to be treated fairly, and not have > to leave our jobs. This isn't to say that we couldn't get better paying > jobs elsewhere, it's just that we like the place we work so much > that we didn't WANT to leave. We felt the only way we could get > people to listen to our concerns was to threaten to leave as a > whole. It is amazing how quickly people start listening when the > entire IS department threatens to walk off the job. They wouldn't > have listened if only a few people made that descision. Maybe we > didn't technically have a union, but we were a union in spirit. > > For another example of a white colar union, take a look at Boeing. > In the mid-90s, many of the engineers there felt that the company > was headed in the wrong direction, and felt that their concerns > were not being addressed. They loved working there so much that > they couldn't stand to see the company suffer due to the acts of a > few people in upper management. They decided to unionize, and > did in fact go on strike. That brought on changes very quickly, and > the people I've talked to about it generally regard it as a positive > experience. > > Unionizing is sometimes the only way to be effectively heard and > respected. Sad but true. > > > ok i'm done. > > > Ben > ----- > Benjamin Exley > Information Systems Manager > The Minnesota Daily > bexley at mndaily.com > (612) 627-4070 Ext. 3190 > _______________________________________________ > tclug-list mailing list > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > _______________________________________________ > tclug-list mailing list > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > -- Imagination is intelligence having fun... e-mail: kethry at winternet.com URL: http://WWW.winternet.com/~kethry/index.html