Subject:
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Re: Latter Day Saints (was:Re: God and the Devil and forgiveness (was Re: POV-RAY orange color))
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 9 Sep 1999 12:01:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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1610 times
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Larry Pieniazek <lar@voyager.net> wrote
> Moz (Chris Moseley) wrote:
> > My understanding is that from Larrys perspective anything at all the requires
> > he give anything to anyone is theft. If a gift is not completely voluntary it
> > is theft. End of story.
> But while we're on the subject, consider this one: We have laws in
> certain states that can require you to be a member of a union in order
> to carry out certain occupations. To the extent that is a restraint of
> free trade, are the union dues you have to pay to be in that union theft
> or not?
It depends on what the union provides. Professional associations are one type of
union where compulsory membership can be justified. And I tend to favour unions
where there are substantial economies to be made by only having one of something.
Wage negotiations can be one example if you allow collective bargaining. But in
almost all cases, yep, that's theft.
The reason for allowing that theft, however, is that disbanding unions has so
far only been done successfully by using massive denial of civil rights, fraud
and theft on a scale that makes union dues seem trivial. The dockworkers in
Oz lost something like 500 years union dues each when the govt crushed their
union. Basically the govt got together with the stevodoring companies, they
formed a phoenix company that took ownership of the workers contracts and the
accumulated liabilities to those workers, then declared itself bankrupt. Oh
dear, how sad, no more stevodoring company. The workers were told to sign up
for new, worse contracts because their old jobs had gone. Oh dear, how sad.
And only a major denial of natural justice made legal by the collusion of
the government.
Which is better - negotiation of wages between a company and a more-or-less
equally powerful union, or between the company and individual workers? It
seems that in most cases the workers "hang together, or we shall all hang
separately". So in that case we're back to community values - a small
group of scabs can get a better deal for themselves by costing every other
worker money. Is that theft or entrepreneurship? The exception is where
the worker is the good in short supply, a situation enjoyed by people
like me and Larry right now. An oddity, and in direct contravention of
the policies of both our governments.
Moz
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