collective bargaining

 

Paul. 

I am nailing your message to my front door even as we speak.  too bad nobody ever comes to my front door. 

But seriously, I hope folks read your thoughts carefully and we can get into a healthy discussion on where we, the American Council of the Blind(ACB) direct our efforts. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Subject: Re: [acb-l] collective bargaining

Some on this thread have recognized that what happens to unions is relevant to what happens to the ACB. At the heart of the matter, we are not discussing wages or working conditions.  We are discussing whether our governments should have the right to restrain any group from exercising their legal rights.  Essentially, the governor of Wisconsin has said publicly that workers who strike can and should be fired.  People who want less government often want government to take steps to govern the behavior of those who would oppose the government.

 

We live in a time when the power of trade unions is declining.  The Auto Workers, Air Line Unions and others have agreed to contracts that took benefits and wages away from members.  If we oppose restraint of trade, why do we not equally oppose artificial restraints of the negotiating process by government use of arbitrary executive power.

 

I worry about our future. I am a manager; I have been a union steward; I have and continue to decry union failure to work affirmatively to help people with disabilities get work; employers are not doing much better.  I guess the point I really want to make here is that our history is full of people fighting for the right to do better.  ACB is all about that.  We do not need to go back to a time when government used its power arbitrarily or politically to attempt to "break" unions. Employment at will, industry upon industry with no unions any more, and the highest unemployment rate in generations. Blind people are not finding jobs because we have managed to alienate both sides.  Neither labor nor management love us.  At some point, we must determine what we as the ACB are going to do about this.  Burying our heads in the sand does not seem to me to be a good solution.

 

Paul