Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 20:11:56 EDT
From: John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics
Subject: Re: Bill 40 (Labour law)
 <1992Sep26.160351.43895@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk>
 <1992Sep26.230010.27177@csi.uottawa.ca>
 <1992Sep27.004936.16528@bmerh85.bnr.ca>
 <BvGIA3.9yt@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu>

In article <BvGIA3.9yt@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu>,
svanegmo@napier.uwaterloo.ca (Stephen Van Egmond) says:
>
>I realize that the objective is to have both sides get along better.  I don't
>see how that objective can be realized through government action;  it is up to
>the individual parties to decide to put away their guns and get down to work.
>It has worked in many places, and often sans union.

The objective is NOT to have both sides "get along better". The objective
is to have a productive arrangement that provides an appropriate sharing
of power between the three groups in a modern enterprise; the owners, who
are often the workers themselves, management, who are fiduciaries for
the owners, and the workers.

Between eight and twelve years ago (history lesson) governments came to
power based on the idea that if government facilitated the transfer of
power to owners and management, the workers would become owners, the
management would achieve new heights of inspiration, and so much wealth
would result that enough would (in the phrase of the ideologues who were
fashionable at the time) "trickle down" for everyone.

Well, over that period the economy bombed. Jobs existed, yes (many
created through "military Keynesianim" by US government), but the US
(and North America as a whole) did not produce enough of anything the
world wanted to pay for imported goods; hence, the US "trade deficit".
We began to see why in the late eighties; the use of money and power
had not unleashed creativity but greed. And for the greedy, the sad
truth remains: it is always easier to steal a thing than to make it.
Thus the S&L debacle, military contract scandals, and thus a huge
trade deficit.

Now, with the new decade, we are returning to a political and social
environment that encourages a sharing of power, rather than a
greed-fest. And with this new wisdom (inspired, remember, by experience;
if Reaganism had been genuinely successful, we would all be Reaganites
by now) we can see that strong unions make for a highly productive
economy in three ways:

1) Workers who are paid enough can engage in capital formation,
   either by investing in the company, or by striking out to start
   their own.

2) Workers can buy the products they produce (the consumption frenzy
   of the 80s, on the other hand, was financed by taking capital out
   of circulation; something we are paying for now).

3) Workers who are treated respectfully (a CEO paying himself $7M/year
   is NOT treating the workers respectfully) are much better motivated.

In fact, the ideas of Paul Hawken et al. are gaining in currency;
in the workplace our children inherit, the workers won't need to
bargain through strikes, since they will control the board of directors,
and they will have no need to resent their bosses, since the 7%
formula (the lowest salary must be at or over 7% of the highest).
Unions will function as workers' professional associations, setting
standards and arranging training (they do this to some extent now).
But in the mean time, this legislation is a useful first step.

disclaimer: Queen's University supplies me with computer services, not
            my opinions.

John G. Spragge
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada