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SLOBS VS SNOBS! by Zseni 09/05/2004, 6:27pm PDT
Fussbett wrote:

Zseni wrote:

My take on unions is that most unionized workers do jobs that are difficult or physically disagreeable - they are cops and grocery store clerks (in some states) and package car drivers and metal fabricators and steel plant workers - and every last god damned one of them does more work during a strike than the Security Compliance group at the major health insurance provider where my brother works. They do more work in a day than I have ever seen or heard of in any of the glossy cubicle farms to which both my parents have committed themselves. I see white collar America as at least 80% welfare state and maybe 14% productive, the other 6% being comped meals.

The noble savage, blue collar workers. Working class heros, them.

Can you get away with murder at non-union jobs? Of course. But the employer is able to fire you at those jobs if they are competent enough. If the employer doesn't have it's act together enough to identify problems, why should I care? If you tell me a story of stereotypical middle manager inefficiency, this doesn't make me sympathize with unions more, it makes me want to watch Office Space.

Why am I supposed to sympathize with your Union Hell At The Post Office nonsense then? It makes me think of Bukowski's Post Office and suggests that I should have stopped with calling you a hack aping your betters. But more on this later!

Unions make mediocre job performance safe, but Dilbert lionizes it.

So both are acceptable? No, neither are acceptable. But again, the first is a product of strong arming and the second is a product of other people in Dilbert's company fucking up. Which I'm fine with, because of my beloved free market economics which means that if their company still turns a profit despite being massive morons, then more power to them. More likely their bloated infrastructure will make them less and less competitive and they'll eventually slip into problemsy. Companies without unions die off all the time.

That's fascinating. Unions are the source of working inefficiency in blue collar jobs, but white collar inefficiency comes from the employees themselves? And the free market works to eradicate white collar inefficiency and unions work to eradicate free market efficiency! (More likely??!!??)

It's like you're the head of MetLife!

Strong arming is evil! Free markets are good! What if the free markets do some strong arming, buster? What then? The second one is particularly interesting as a disposed precedent that you can make people work as long as they are willing to make themselves work and the state itself has no ability to say otherwise. Compare to the former precedent, which states that the state does have such an ability and power. Sometimes, Fussbett, the strong protective arms of the free market get their fingers into the legislative pie. And the judicial pie. And - are you a big Bush fan? - they sometimes get into the executive pie too.

The free market has a way of making itself extra free. I shouldn't have to tell you that. Sometimes that kind of freedom isn't good for anyone except the guys at the wayyyyy top of the free market pig pile. You know, it's tough to find time to vote when you're working 14-hour days. That doesn't mean the free market is arbitrarily evil. It does mean that various non-economic pressures of all kinds inhibit the actual freedom of the free market. Things like the biological limitations of the human body, or political power or national boundaries, or workers who do not work in a state of enlightened self-interest.

The more I think about this, the more astonishing I find what is apparently your blind faith in the invisible hand.

It's hard for me to think of unions as bad when my job is safe, my health care is paid for, and I can cover all my bills. I don't mind so much being asked to head in to work at 2 or 3 in the morning and bust my ass and possibly, yes, sprain my ankle or run the risk of carpal tunnel or any of the other common (and not infrequent) injuries at the facility, because I'm being paid enough to take that risk.

Unions are great for people in the unions. This is not part of the discussion. The discussion is about your union making your labour job cost the employer much more than market would've bore, and how this makes me feel sad.

What bullshit that line of reasoning is: let's exclude from the discussion about the plusses and minuses of unions a discussion of how union workers benefit from unions! Wait, maybe I should just assume that the discussion is strictly about the minuses, from a strict, Smithian, "free" market perspective like you told me it was. Last I checked, this discussion started with your Evil Union anecdote, and now that I've replied with a Good Union anecdote, you want to turn this into a socio-economic sprawl. Hey, I'm always up for an expansion of powers act.

When people aren't working 14 hours a day, I want to add, sometimes they do have time to vote, and various non-economic factors have a chance to work in his favor too. Aren't you in favor of a level playing field?

I guess that all boils down to "necessary evil", which is, by the way, exactly what the union steward said about it when I asked him why we have unions.

Yes! So the embedded union expert and I agree to the point of using the exact same cliché? I think that gives me permission to stop thinking about this topic. I'm done.

Did you ever start thinking about this topic? Or did it all end with your near-fatal tussle with getting paid $17 an hour (how ridiculous!)

But the union steward said "necessary evil" and became a union steward, and you said "necessary evil" and then limited the efficacy of unions strictly to the impregnated immigrant population (while your tax dollars suffer.) Maybe you should move to the US. We could switch pads! I could go live in Canada and you could come live here. You can vote for Bush and I'll scope some socialized medicine! You can even have my slick union job, Fussbett.

When I got served a termination of employment letter, the union stepped in automatically to protect my job, but it was the manager who deliberately made a mistake with the firing procedure who gave the union a leg to stand on and let me stay on.

Yeah, it's hard to ban you.

^_^

When he's driving one of the cars that my group is responsible for, we do an extra good job. Union hugs!

I'm not sure when you perceived that I was against all blue collar workers, but I'm not.

No, you're against unions, except with a vague hedge to save you from sounding too out-there and compassionless. I got that. Maybe I should write you a little executive summary for all this stuff so you don't have to rely on your own reading comprehension skills.

I don't even mind black people, despite my jokes. That you projected and wrote a big defense of hauling packages for a living versus meetings with vendors makes me wonder about the nature of your shoulder chip. Misgivings about continuing your education? Guilt about enjoying a job which some part of your educated brain thinks is beneath you? Or am I seeing ammunition you've used or are stockpiling to fight with your glossy cube parents?

No, I'm proud of being union and I'm proud to do the work I do, and I took it kind of personal that you were calling out unions as being harbingers of ludicrousness. Those are my people you're pissing on with your tiny free market cock, fag. Did your parents make their fortune under free market auspices? Do you feel like you owe the employers of the world a big faithful blowjob for making civilization possible? I don't dare probe the defenses of a man who has written off millions of union members as red-tape-gobbling slackers, because that dude must have balls of titanium alloy.

I recognize this in myself when talking with someone who has a masters or whatever, and I try to work their student loans into the conversation. Or the time I delighted to find a junior designer at a recent job have more education than I. I made sure to ask him if he had a car. What a jerk, insecure me.

I'm not your fucking shrink, and if you want to make a confession I'm sure there's at least one Catholic church in Toronto.

The union is my team and there's money in the bank and an AirCast on my ankle to tell me how important that team is.

I did just realize that my government takes care of the worker's compensation and the AirCast/Taiwanese doctor bill, again decreasing one of the roles of a Canadian union. So there's another root of our different opinions.

Well I'll readily agree that you live in a stupid country that makes stupid decisions, but unions have only tangentially to do with your complaints at this point.
PREVIOUS NEXT REPLY QUOTE
 
Well I snapped my ankle at my blue collar job (damage report, country music) by Zseni 09/02/2004, 7:26pm PDT NEW
    I worked a union job once. by Fussbett 09/02/2004, 8:46pm PDT NEW
        Re: I worked a union job once. by Zseni 09/02/2004, 10:32pm PDT NEW
            I don't know what to think about unions, really. by Fussbett 09/04/2004, 1:51pm PDT NEW
                Unions! (long!) by Zseni 09/05/2004, 10:32am PDT NEW
                    Re: Unions! (long!) by Ray of Light 09/05/2004, 12:44pm PDT NEW
                    ANECDOTAL WAR by Fussbett 09/05/2004, 2:00pm PDT NEW
                        A+ for the mouse-overs NT by William H. Hayt, Jr. 09/05/2004, 3:22pm PDT NEW
                        SLOBS VS SNOBS! by Zseni 09/05/2004, 6:27pm PDT NEW
                            Re: SLOBS VS SNOBS! by E. L. Koba 09/06/2004, 11:38am PDT NEW
                                Re: SLOBS VS SNOBS! by Zseni 09/06/2004, 12:34pm PDT NEW
                                    I got a 'load of whites' for ya NT by Construction Site Guy 09/06/2004, 1:05pm PDT NEW
                                        AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY by Andrew Dice Clay 09/06/2004, 7:44pm PDT NEW
                            I'm replying now. by Fussbett 09/08/2004, 10:20pm PDT NEW
            Re: I worked a union job once. by Creexul :( 09/04/2004, 5:59pm PDT NEW
                Re: I worked a union job once. by Kahimi Kerry 09/04/2004, 6:35pm PDT NEW
                    =( NT by Creexul :( 09/04/2004, 6:49pm PDT NEW
                        Wow this guy was so upset he added my own reply for me? by Creexul :( 09/06/2004, 6:40pm PDT NEW
                            That was the last straw! by Kahimi Kerry 09/06/2004, 8:14pm PDT NEW
                                Shut the fuck up, worm. NT by Kahimi Kerry 09/06/2004, 10:51pm PDT NEW
                                    This is a fake, please ban them. NT by Kahimi Kerry 09/06/2004, 11:32pm PDT NEW
                                        Because that's something that happens here. NT by Kahimi Kerry 09/07/2004, 12:26am PDT NEW
                                            Don't blame me, I'm not the fag. NT by Kahimi Kerry 09/07/2004, 9:36am PDT NEW
                                                OR THE VAG! NT by Creexul :( 09/07/2004, 10:12am PDT NEW
                                Horrible! Stop writing immediately. NT by I need clarification 09/07/2004, 12:02pm PDT NEW
                                    Follow up. by Creexul :( 09/07/2004, 7:16pm PDT NEW
                                        Solipsist ---------> NT by Creexul :( 09/07/2004, 11:30pm PDT NEW
                                            I don't even know what that means. What? Oh yeah. And I don't care. NT by Creexul :( 09/07/2004, 11:59pm PDT NEW
                                                Creexul, master of internet, unable to locate by Dictionary.com 09/08/2004, 7:50am PDT NEW
                                                    Dictionary.com just called you stupid, Creex. NT by I need clarification 09/08/2004, 11:49am PDT NEW
                                                        Oh, If only Caltrops cred was money. NT by Equifax 09/08/2004, 12:20pm PDT NEW
                                                            Yes, we're all here to make money. I suggest you stop a few posts ago. NT by I need clarification 09/08/2004, 2:45pm PDT NEW
                                                                No, some of us seem to be here to suck each other off. NT by Equifax 09/08/2004, 3:32pm PDT NEW
                                            Dude, you just got totally smoked by Clippy here. NT by Fullofkittens 09/08/2004, 8:35am PDT NEW
                                Vampire ---------> NT by Kahimi Kerry 09/07/2004, 3:17pm PDT NEW
    Awesome news about Vag! by Tito 09/02/2004, 9:27pm PDT NEW
    zenisie's secret identity: fred durst. NT by Creexul :( 09/06/2004, 10:03pm PDT NEW
 
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