I have what is no doubt a stupid question:

Would there be a way to legally FORCE companies to effectively deal with unions by the following process:

1) Unions are BAD. (taken as a given, bear with me)
2) Corporations are GOOD. (see above)
3) Labor is a service (by definition) which is obtained in the current system via having employees. However, employees in practice are treated as a resource, whose cost must continually be diminished in order to meet rising profit requirements. This results in poorly paid employees with no social services. This also results in government having to step in with Minimum Wage, mandatory workmen’s compensation (real cause behind much illegal workforce usage), and government health care. THESE ARE ALL BAD THINGS. (see above)

4) Some service providers (like say doctors) form professional associations to MARKET their SERVICES to other corporations. The PC is set up to give the doctors plenty of say in its decisions, but also allows the business front end leeway to negotiate contracts and other B2B issues. The PC provides salaries, health care, catastrophic care insurance, unemployment insurance, and even pension services to its members.

5) So….have the law require that any labor service used must be PURCHASED from a PC. PC’s split off by sector of service and geographic area, or whatever. treat them like banks for fiduciary services responsibilities. See? All good corporations, no bad unions. PC’s have government mandated minimums for salaries based on COLA for areas and so forth. PC’s board members must have a majority from ranks of the workers, rotating memberships. this prevents “dog in the manger” stuff.

Okay, what am I missing? has this already been proposed and found wanting, or what?

Excellent set of questions, and one which I’ve been addressing from a more pointed perspective: could nurses form independent professional practice groups, bypass traditional union membership but hire union negotiators and related experts to provide contract negotiation and professional organization administration for the PPG. This would return power over professional practice to nurses. It would also give unions new markets for their services and areas of expertise. I blog about this under the tags of professional practice groups, self-governance and nursing self governance organizations. As far as I know, I’m the only one waving my hands in the air for a PPG model.

Many Union members are in the guns, God, and gays contingent.

guns, god, minors, draft dodgers, raping children, forcing parents to watch their kids get sodomized contingent

ardee @ 62

If the rank and file are falling victim to Republican xenophobia then they have no one to blame but themselves when they see their jobs outsourced. If they don’t know who supports their best interests one can’t help but speculate about their intelligence.

outsourcing is a failure of government policiy not the union or the laborer

when a country allows corporations to tell the laborers what they get payed without any collective bargaining you get a robber baron economy

we are SUPPOSED to tarriff countries that don’t allow collective bargainng, we are SUPPOSED to tarriff countries that allow slave labor and child labor

those tarriffs are rescinded and THAT is why we “outsource”, THAT is why we “globalize”

and THAT is what has to stop

Re; Unions

As a member of one of the largest unions in the nation, IBEW, I would note that unions began to lose their effectiveness,imo, when the union Presidents moved into the same neighborhoods as the CEO’s.

My union is a powerful one that has won excellent wages, benefits and working conditions for all its members, but this is in the past. Currently we are seeing a rather slow but steady erosion of our gains as contracts come up for renegotiation. We also see union reps refusing to fight and throwing up their hands more frequently. Just an observation from a life long union guy.

One more thing worth mentioning. While Unions remain staunch supporters of the Democratic Party increasingly the rank and file is less blue and becoming more and more red. Appeals to patriotism seem to work wonders among blue collar but red hearted guys and gals and waving the flag is easier than thinking through complex issues. The vacillating and pusillanimous Democrats certainly do not help.

If the rank and file are falling victim to Republican xenophobia then they have no one to blame but themselves when they see their jobs outsourced. If they don’t know who supports their best interests one can’t help but speculate about their intelligence.

As a member of one of the largest unions in the nation, IBEW, I would note that unions began to lose their effectiveness,imo, when the union Presidents moved into the same neighborhoods as the CEO’s.

My union is a powerful one that has won excellent wages, benefits and working conditions for all its members, but this is in the past. Currently we are seeing a rather slow but steady erosion of our gains as contracts come up for renegotiation. We also see union reps refusing to fight and throwing up their hands more frequently. Just an observation from a life long union guy.

One more thing worth mentioning. While Unions remain staunch supporters of the Democratic Party increasingly the rank and file is less blue and becoming more and more red. Appeals to patriotism seem to work wonders among blue collar but red hearted guys and gals and waving the flag is easier than thinking through complex issues. The vacillating and pusillanimous Democrats certainly do not help.

OFF TOPIC DISCLAIMER!

McNulty’s testimony is being rerun on CSPAN3 right now.

And the guy speaking for the Republicans started out by whining about the site the House Judiciary has set up for whistleblowers to contact Congress!

Got that waaaahmbulance standing by?

we need to change that word “whistleblower” to “watchdog”

much more effective