PoAC: A chicken-or-the-egg argument

[velvetpage]

"The unionized (company) had lower worker morale, always had confrontation between management and workers and used more people to do the same amount of work."

Here's the question: which came first, the adversarial management/employee relations and low worker morale, or the unionization?

What do you guys think? Is there a way to get the best of both worlds, and if so, can you give an example of it?

Comments

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

I just read that exchange on canpolitik. I think you and I are more or less on the same page on this issue.

I think if a company tried its best to maintain a good relationship with its employees, it is often only because they fear a union being installed. In a way, that fear can be its own bargaining chip. Personally, I would rather just install a union anyway, but perhaps it amounts to the same thing in the end.

Still, Dofasco is able to favourably compete with Stelco because of the lower costs due to not having a union. I don't see why they both can't be unionized. Hell, I can't see why both can't be run by the workers themselves, but I guess I take this socialism thing a little further than most.

By the way, I'm getting a little wary of canpolitik these days. Ever since about, oh, late January or so, the place has been a little too right-wing for my tastes. The fact that the right-wing asshat above can openly advocate murdering innocent people (http://community.livejournal.com/canpolitik/426207.html?thread=12983263#t12983263) and nobody but me calls him on it is a sad testament to how far that community has fallen.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I often don't read through the threads anymore, because I know I'll see something like that and not even be able to find a place to start disagreeing. Some of the more left-leaning people haven't been around much lately, so it's getting rather lonely over there.

The other right-wing not-quite-nutjob I was in that thread with, kept complaining that "Oh noes, Americanization!!!" was taking the place of good ideas in health care. So I showed him why the American ideas were bad, what a good option would be to fix the same problem, and he acknowledged the good ideas while still claiming that my anti-American bias was getting in the way. I suppose it's the same loop of logic that allows him to believe that capitalism is inherently of benefit to everyone in an economy.

Rather than unionizing companies that treat their people well, I'd like to see more co-operatively owned ventures. They'd eliminate the manegerial relationship almost entirely, while still remaining productive, innovative and competitive. But as long as we've got capitalism, we need unions or the threat of them.