doomed industries, unions, pandoras box

chewy

hi there,
was watching a docummentary a good while back on the miners strikes in england

and overall impression that i got was why did they try so hard to protect a doomed industry, i only recently become aware of how unions work and im not a big fan, but i really like to know why they protect these type of things when they were obviously doomed like the coal industry, a union is better then none and im sure they do good day to day work but .... but that i don't get


ive been wondering about that question for ages but it was brought to my mind re the shannon and are rianta etc...., now i know im gonna get killed for this but i don't see why they want to keep on "false jobs"


these jobs were created artificially by the shannon stop over and i know as a dubliner i can't imagine the lving in the west of ireland but surely they could have worked a bit harder to find productive real jobs,.... afaik the shannon region has benefitted from shannon airpport becoming a cargo and industry hub for europe .... but at the same forcing planes to stop just to create jobs just seems non-sensical
surely they could find josb for people in eco-tourism or something .....


why defend doomed industry so hard?

DadaKopf

Many times, they're not 'doomed', they're killed off.

Allegedly killed off by the 'market' but actually killed off by people who want to fix the rules to make more money, regardless of the social costs.

pork99

Dadakopf, I could be wrong but I don't think you have ever been involved in running a business.

I'll rehash what I posted on Business/Economy/Finance earlier.

Last year I was told I was being made redundant because of a change in market conditions. This was a bit of a euphemism - basically the company was losing money by the van-load (just like An Post) and had to lay off most of its staff.

Like the majority of people in this situation I just had to pack up and leave. No recourse to industrial action, no means to blackmail the rest of society to keep paying me for a now useless job. Just had to take it on the chin. Nobody owes you a living.

Why should some people's jobs be protected at the expense of others?

It seems to me that with the postal workers, CIE, Air Rianta etc there is a group of privileged workers with uparalelled job security for example who will do whatever to protect those privileges.

Since I was made redundant I just have to work freelance for whatever the market pays me and it is considerably less than I was used to. My last payday was in January. I've had to drop out of the pension scheme I was in. I could go on. We all have our hard luck stories. I'm sure the postal workers give a sh|t about my problems. :rolleyes:

I recently read "The Blank Slate" by Stephen Pinker. He has an interesting section on psychology and economics (pp233-240 in the Penguin paperback edition).

He says that there are 4 basic patterns for economic transactions:

1 Communal Sharing

2 Authority Ranking

3 Equality Matching

4 Market Pricing

Any advanced economy is based on Market Pricing, cannot function without it. However our intuitive concept of our economic value is based on Equality Matching. THe idea that any commodity - in this case our labour - has an intrinsic value, i.e. I am worth E60,000 a year no matter what. Actually not the case - you are worth whatever the market prices you at. Market pricing is opaque, counter-intuitive & impersonal.

Sparks

Originally posted by chewy
why defend doomed industry so hard?

To keep your job so you can put food on the table.

alleepally

It's easy to quote theory and be ever so academic about this subject. You're not in the shoes of a postal worker and therefore cannot say that you would not do the same thing if you were in their position. The reality and practicality of any situation depends on whether you are viewing it from the inside or the outside.

Xterminator

Originally posted by alleepally
It's easy to quote theory and be ever so academic about this subject. You're not in the shoes of a postal worker and therefore cannot say that you would not do the same thing if you were in their position. The reality and practicality of any situation depends on whether you are viewing it from the inside or the outside.

While thats true, it does not address the question what right does the postal worker, or the air rianta worker have to hold the public to ransom, in order to negotiate a better settlement for themselves ?

The fact is they work in a business thats losing money alarmingly. IE non sustainable.
Yet they fight the introduction of new work practices that may help to make the industry sustainable, ie break even. One of the main postal issues is that they lose the overtime payments they have come to rely on. there are patenly unsustainable.

And their main tactic is to go on strike, and abuse their monopoly situation, cost other workers their jobs, etc. I call their actions selfish, and short sighted.
Any fool can see that things can not go on as they are.

If the monopolies were removed, then let them strike, and the public can choose an alternative service! But of course the unions go on strike to protect their monopoly status too!

X

The Corinthian

Originally posted by chewy
why defend doomed industry so hard?

Because it is their jobs and livelihood, often the economic central piece to their community (where their families and mortgages are based) because they don’t know the industry is doomed and ultimately because a union is there to represent the welfare of its members not the industry.

Unions are not a bad thing. They’re necessary in modern society as a counterbalance to Capitalism’s tendency to distil people down to the base level of resources or consumers. Were it not for this counterbalance, Marx’s erroneous economic prediction of the inevitable exploitation of the worker may well have come about, and working class contentment in the West may not have been as reliable as it ultimately was.

Of course, the problem arises in part as a result of the fact that a union is only concerned with its members, not its industry or Society as a whole. Another problem that one finds in unions is ideological militancy that will actually have nothing to do with the interests of its members and in some cases is even detrimental towards those interests. An example of this is union support for minimum wage legislation, which will rarely have any impact on the union’s membership (as they will already tend to be earning well above that threshold). Quite a few industries have also failed because of union intrangadence; where unwilling to compromise and save the jobs of some or most of their members, they’ll throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were.

So there’s both good and bad.

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Many times, they're not 'doomed', they're killed off.

Bit of a sweeping statement, TBH. You should really back it up.

Sparks

Originally posted by Xterminator
While thats true, it does not address the question what right does the postal worker, or the air rianta worker have to hold the public to ransom, in order to negotiate a better settlement for themselves ?

About the same right that the public has to insist that An Post workers not defend their interests.

But given your post, I think perhaps you don't know the full story - I would suggest reading the other thread in this forum on this topic.

mike65

Its the unions job (allegedly) to protect the interests of its membership. So jobs first, last and allways.

However this is too ignore realities of a free market world. Jobs come and go. Ireland has seen the decimation of its textiles and footware industries but has also seen a vast expansion in high-tech jobs such as IT and pharmas.

The best thing unions can do when its clear the writing is on the wall is to get the best deal posible and to see that government (national and local) bodies are used to smooth the path towards finding new viable employment. This has happened a number of times here
with local task-forces.

It should be noted the miners strike was about much more than jobs - it was the last stand of the hard left in Britain. Just as well, cos if they'd won the jobs would still have been lost but the UK ecomony would have been killed by marxist/leninist economics.

Mike.

chewy

in reply to spark
To keep your job so you can put food on the table.

theres was a lot of talk re the miners an similar situation about tradition and culture and peoples way of life.. but things move on those miners will just have to find other jobs, work as hard finding other employment as hard as the fought to uphold these false jobs...

similarily with the fishing industry they always looking for compo and complaining about their industry dying but hey move on find a new industry or job that would reinginite there particular harbour area, there are constantly complaing about not being able to fish cod when its known (afiak) they are fishing them out of existence, these people are very short sighted sure yes families food on table but how long will extreme measures to hold up a falling industry last better to focus on finding a new way to get food on the table



"because they don’t know the industry is doomed"

well in the case of the mines i think everyone knew that was doomed even with my little knowledge on the subject i think i can suggest that ....

there are some necesary public services like public transport, the bus people are right to go on strike but it should be to protect the public service not their jobs , when the buses are privatised and all the unprofitable or dangerous routes are dropped that what i worry about ....

the postal dispute im not sure about what they are trying to prevent apart from there jobs, i heard the the central iussue was the because of computersation some people would loose there jobs, but i don't keeping on just for the ake of them having jobs makes sense atall , computerisation is a good thing..
again those people should be help find jobs elsewhere

nobody should expect jobs for life in private or public sector ......

maybe its a shame but that just how things are


"The best thing unions can do when its clear the writing is on the wall is to get the best deal posible and to see that government (national and local) bodies are used to smooth the path towards finding new viable employment. This has happened a number of times here
with local task-forces."

this is what im talking about ta nike

Sparks

Originally posted by chewy
theres was a lot of talk re the miners an similar situation about tradition and culture and peoples way of life.. but things move on those miners will just have to find other jobs, work as hard finding other employment as hard as the fought to uphold these false jobs...

Really? Well, I'm sure that if you'd just explain it to them that simply and clearly, that you could clear up this entire mess and we could all get on with it. After all, it's not like they actually need money for things like food or clothing or morgages or rent or electricity or gas or heating or petrol or education or any of that claptrap, right?

bonkey

Originally posted by Sparks
After all, it's not like they actually need money for things like food or clothing or morgages or rent or electricity or gas or heating or petrol or education or any of that claptrap, right?

Thats not the point being made. If their jobs are redundant (and I'm not convinced they are - how can your job be redundant when you are working so much overtime), then what you are saying here is utterly irrelevant.

Semi-State bodies are required, by law, not to run a loss. Now, the way around this (because most of them do run a loss) is that the government can effectively subsidise them to cover losses that they may naturall have to incur whilst providing a social service. Its a bit of sleight of hand, I agree, but its still a fairly accurate representation of what happens.

If the company is running a loss above what the government is willing to subsidise, and there are redundant jobs, then retaining employment is not the concern of the semi-state unless they have a direct mandate from the government requiring them to do so in that area.

Just as you argued the "not the mandate of the unions" point to disregard any issue which doesn't fall under their mandate, it should be realised that providing employment for employment's sake is not hte mandate of any semi-state organisation.

So lets assign blame correctly here. If those jobs are redundant, then An Post is not only correct in getting rid of them, but it would be negligent not to do so. How many times do we complain about the inefficiencies and wastages of money in our various State and Semi-state bodies. If you feel that the jobs should be kept, rather than thrown away, then blame the government for not mandating such, not An Post.

As I said...I'm not convinced the case we're discussing here is a case of "dead jobs", but if it is so, then the jobs should go, unless the government intervenes.

And at the end of the day, one has to ask why redundant jobs should be kept. Why do some people get to be unemployed, and other people get more money from the state paying for their unnecessary job? The genuinely unemployed need the money too - why don't we just create bogus jobs for all of them, and give them all more money????

jc

Sparks

My point JC, was not that the company has a duty to provide them with work, but that to expect them to meekly accept being made redundant on the basis of a simple decision is to be highly unrealistic regarding human behaviour.

spanner

Originally posted by chewy
hi there,
was watching a docummentary a good while back on the miners strikes in england

and overall impression that i got was why did they try so hard to protect a doomed industry, i only recently become aware of how unions work and im not a big fan, but i really like to know why they protect these type of things when they were obviously doomed like the coal industry, a union is better then none and im sure they do good day to day work but .... but that i don't get

i was talking to some of the welsh lads who were over hear for the match, the subject of the strike came up. They said that everyone knew that you couldnt sustain the coal industry in its current form, you were able to by it cheaper from countries like poland and there was many other reasons.
it was obivious that the jobs had to go. the labour government knew this but couldnt just pull the industry all together because that would of meant destroying mining communties in wales and north england which in a way costs just as much in the long run. However people like arthur skarhill really didnt care and just faced the government head on with a strike which in the end failed. If the unions could of worked with the government maybe to attract new industries into the area and progressively decrease the coal industry maybe the situation might of been different.

chewy

thanks for that last reply that clears things up from "the second-hand horses mouth...."


so sparky what your reply to that, and come up with something better
then the bleeding heart method of think of the children


i specifically heard that this particulr arguemnt was over the intorduction of computerised sorting making the peoples job redundant....

now the people should be helped in finding other jobs in the company or jobs elsewhere but the post things isn't as clear cut as the mines to me at all
but jobs loses because of modernisation well one should't use a jcb think you could employ 10 men to dig the hole instead and we'd have no unemployment...