From: nick@sunpix.East.Sun.COM (Nick England - Sun NC Development Center)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: SigGraph, Chicago, and Unions
Date: 14 Aug 92 17:09:19 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Research Triangle Park, NC
NNTP-Posting-Host: trancjne.east.sun.com

In article <1992Aug14.015500.25529@cmcl2.nyu.edu> galanter@nyu.edu (Philip Galanter) writes:
>
>Both at SigGraph and now here I have heard/read a number of anti-union  
>slams.  Yes, Chicago is a union town...it is also a town where working  
>class people have a chance to earn a decent living and maybe, if they are  
>careful and frugal, buy a home for their family someday.  
>
>Its time to stop laying the blame for a poor US economy at the feet of the  
>people who have the least power to influence the direction their given  
>industry takes, and are the first to suffer when things go bad.  After 12  
>years of Reagan/Bush/"right-to-work" union busting the economy is in worse  
>shape than ever, save for the few at the very top who enjoy the largest  
>gap between the executive and working class in the West.
>
>Yes, unions are _sometimes_ corrupt, wasteful, and/or counter-productive.
>So are the government, banks, Fortune 500 companies, and computer industry  
>standards committees.  Please allow working class people the only leverage  
>over their economic future that they have.  At the end of the day they are  
>just like you, tired and a little bit older...

The contrast between the spirit of co-operation and creativity that
characterizes SIGGRAPH and the spirit of extortion that characterizes
the unions is hard to ignore.

The Chicago unions are great examples of the very worst sort of union
aroogance and abuse that make honest people sick. I have seen and been
the victim of the "to hell with you and to hell with common sense" work
rules that make co-operation a dirty word. Paying some rigger $50 (one
hour minimum) to wheel a crate 40 ft, a carpenter $50 to open the crate,
a decorator $50 to hang the sign that was in the crate, and an
electrician $50 to plug in the sign is hardly distinguishable from any
other form of extortion. If you are lucky, you can just pay them the
money and they'll let you plug together your computer system yourself.

Unions once played a real role in creating safer workplaces and fairer
treatment for employees. Their activities since then have been by and
large incredibly destructive and immoral. Railroads, Autos, Steel.

That doesn't mean there hasn't been equally incredible stupidity and
chicanery in executive offices as well. S&Ls, Takeovers, Stockbrokers.

Neither the union extortionist nor the executive manipulator should be
held up as a model for human behavior. There are productive people and
productive groups of people in the world - and I have no sympathy for
those who fatten themselves by surpressing creativity and productivity.

definitely my own opinions
Nick England

No it doesn't have anything to do with graphics other than my intro to
Chicago unions came at SIGGRAPH 89 as a very small exhibitor whose
entire future was in the hands of these assholes. I'll be quiet now.
Xref: sparky comp.graphics:8986 talk.politics.misc:40612