Supe, sorry to say, but you sound like a socialist.

Corporations exist to make money. To the extent that treating their workers well increases their chance of retaining excellent talent it is in their best interests to treat workers well.

Unions exist to protect workers. They need to protect their workers to their best ability, however they also need to be mindful that the corporation is the means by which their members have gainful employment.

It is a symbiotic relationship, unfortunately you want to tip the scales in favor of the worker. That might make us feel good in the short term, until the corporation collapses under the weight and the workers are now unemployed. Of course then they can just go on welfare...

Ask yourself this question:

What has ANY executive actually added to the "bottom line" of any corporation?

Interesting......

Quite a lot from the executives that I've seen and met in my 20+ years in the electronics industry. Are there losers and incompetents? Sure, just like there are among the direct labor pool. But there are also incredibly sharp and original thinkers who have the ability to influence and organize groups of people at a level that I find hard to comprehend. Folks like that rarely stay in the direct labor pool for long, because they are worth far more to everyone involved "at the helm".

Rick, I have to agree with you. Except for a nuance, I suppose. I don't so much want to tip the scales in favor of the worker...I want to tip them so they are level. A huge part of the labor movement (more correctly termed "collective bargaining") is the recognition that if workers are not permitted to pool their clout, then it is a "divide and conquer" game for management. Management has centralized clout. Lots more than any individual worker. Where workers can pool their clout, it becomes a fair fight.

Yes, the relationship is symbiotic. More than that. It can be synergistic! The unfortunate stories of greed and mishandling by either Labor or Management sadden me. Mercifully, in the Labor community I work with, the companies are very much respected. In fact, a big part of what the labor representatives do is accommodating management needs. In construction, management sometimes needs extraordinary performance from workers. Long shifts. 'Round the clock work. Special skills. Union representatives work toward these goals on behalf of management. That's the way it ought to be.

Right now, I have a funny situation. It is not a contract I handle, so I am watching from the outside. The contractor is in a jam. Contractor is ignoring the union reps. That's flatly illegal and can get the contractor in a LOT of trouble. Meanwhile, this contractor, which as been a PITA to work for anyway, asks for 12-hour shifts. Three twelves. New crews come in for the second half of the week, and they work three twelves also. Shifts contain only one lunch. This contractor might get stung financially, if the unions get fed up enough. In the meantime, the contractor will get some of the area's poorest workers. Working very inefficient 12-hour shifts. If the contractor would turn and engage with Labor, they could get MORE work done (they're in a time crunch) by bringing in super-crew guys for six-ten work weeks. Six ten-hour days. They could get the best of the best (the guys who will ONLY work these kinds of shifts), get caught up on schedule, and pay less money in wages to do so. Then they would go back to regular shifts (5x8 or 4x10). The super-guys would go on to another project. Instead, management has taken the shove-this-down-their-throat approach.

Sad.

Well Supe, then I would say the union has the power to strike or leave the job. They then take the risk of having non-union workers take their place.

Back to the original post, medical personnel in general are not allowed to unionize. That includes your's truly. The reasoning is that medical personnel are not allowed to strike since that would mean citizens would die. That's likely the reason behind the denial of nurses being unionized.

Not in this case, Rick. The subject of this Board decision was Charge Nurses. The decision they reached was that their supervisory duties made them "management." The implications of this decision are enormous. Potentially a quarter of the working population of this country could be denied their right to unionize. This will be a large group of people who lack both the protection of law, and the perogatives of true management.

\And my point is that if the Bushists have their way, yours included it seems, then guess what? The majority of people find themselves screwed. And that makes management happy......until the new legislation is passed. Dubya is stupid enough to think that the minority can ride roughshod over the majority in America.

And I have news for Mr. Bush.

In short, you advocate corporate dominance of government so long as it's forced to fund social programs. That, my billowy friend is fascism pure and simple. You'll get to like the current government a lot I fear.

When will Bush learn? there are far too many lazy workers who will support the unions to get more money for less work, until they get all the money for doing absolutely nothing. There is nothing he can do about it either because all they have to do is to blackmail a company, hold it hostage, and strike until they get their way just like a bunch of spoiled little kids.
Maybe he should just take out the hickory switch and teach the spoiled kids that if they want more, they have to work more or work harder. Hey, it worked for Reagan and the air traffic controllers. Best thing a president has done in many, many years.

You are truly kooky, Pat. WAY out there. Read my posts again. One more time: I think one of the biggest mistakes we have made in this country is to allow the "coorporate" form of business. And the biggest problem in our public policy-making system is that we allow corporations to participate AT ALL.

Now......where did you get this notion that I favor corporate dominance of government?

Really kooky.........

You favor "corporatism" in government by favoring government restrictions that favor the largest corporations over the smallest of them. For example, only the large automobile manufacturers can comply with federal restrictions on safety and emissions. No startup company that might want to make cars that get 100 miles per gallon, but only make 100 cars a year, could possibly comply with the regulations. Regulations formulated with the permission of the giant corporations expressly to prohibit competition from startups.

Conversely, IBM, arguably the largest computer corporation on the planet when microcomputers began; didn't have any real method to regulate the startups out of existence. Apple flourished, and others, because it took IBM a long time to get a handle on this issue. by the time they did, attempting to get legislation on pollution caused by computer manufacturing, it was years too late, and the manufacturing had largely moved offshore negating their leverage.

Just two examples among thousands.

Want to get into corporate welfare as a factor in the government welfare state?

Fastpat, I don't generally follow all of the references that you alude to, but in this case it really resonated with me since I've so far spent my 20 year professional career in the electronics industry. Your statement is such a gross simplification as to be complete useless as an example. But somehow I'm not surprised.

1) You are correct, IBM was the indisputedly the largest computer company in the world in the 60's and 70's. It was entirely built on the room filling main-frame computer type product.

2) Apple -- in spite of the attractive innovation and marketing of their product have never been able to do anything about it. They did develop the "PC" product, but IBM and friends (read Microsoft and Intel) were able to collectively push themselves down the learning curve faster then Apple, not just in the product technology, but also and more importantly in the manufacturing process technology that many laymen don't appreciate.

3) There used to be a very large segment of the industry for mid-sized computers (DEC, DG), work stations (HP, Sun, Prime, Compugraphic) and Word Processors (Wang). These markets disappeared as the increasing functionality and decreasing cost of the PC (see my comments about IBM and friends above) made these mid-sized solutions unattractive for customers compared to desk-top PCs. As a result, with one exception all of these companies are now gone or moved out of the hardware market.

4) Compac developed the original portable (luggable?) PC. But because of their superior process technologies, IBM and friends were able to jump into that market after the fact and develop a model that was as good or better then Compac's, but with better manufacturing efficiences. Compac is now gone too and the world has moved to lap top PC's. In many respect's IBM's original market (mainframes) is largely gone -- replaced by products which are essentially or physically networks of desktop computers.

5) Ultimate, what did in IBM's PC business was a start-up company with better process technology. That company was Dell, started by a college drop-out in his dormatory (as well as a resurgent Compac for a while). His process technology? Outsource most of the manufacturing process to his suppliers and focus on the order management and full-fillment process. Once again, IBM was the dinosaur with it's billions of dollars of investments in factories. In order to compete, they did the only thing that they could and sold their PC manufacturing business since it was no longer a competitive advantage.

6) Curiously (or maybe not), Apple is still with us and doing OK by leveraging their traditional strengths -- Innovative products and strong marketing. While they still make PCs, the future of the company appears to be based on other unexpected and innovative products such as the Ipod.

So your analogy was just flat wrong on at least a couple of counts:
1) " Apple flourished, and others, because it took IBM a long time to get a handle on this issue." -- Not true. Where are they now? Except for Apple, and consolidated HP/Compac/Dec, they're all gone.

2) "by the time they did, attempting to get legislation on pollution caused by computer manufacturing," -- Wrong again. IBM has as much or more to lose by this regulation. Generally these regulations are driven by European countries and more recently the EU. In fact, in addition to the enviromental benefits which always play well in Europe, I suspect that they were also partially concieved as barriers to IBM to protect the European PC market which included companies like Siemens, Ericsson and Nixdorf. Needless to say, that particular part of the strategy didn't work.

The predominant factor that has influenced this market was largely unfettered competition. Even when market barriers were put in place, the creative capabilities of entrepaneurs, engineers and managers in the marketplace quickly embraced (in the case of green inititives) or side-stepped the changes. As a side note, Unions have played little if any part in the micro-electronics and PC market environment.

Putting the IBM example next to the automotive example and I'm completely baffled what point you were trying to make. The two industries are on completely different portions of their lifecycles and have very different levels of government involvement.

Gubmit is not to blame for everything, unless you've got horse blinds on. Some industries have natural barriers, and one of the most formidable entry barriers is capital. The difficulty of starting an automobile manufacturing business has almost nothing to do with gubmit regulations. Even if it were a good idea to just let companies pollute at will, as your fantasies can so easily envision, it would take bazillions of dollars to create an automobile manufacturing company with all its design, construction, distribution, servicing and other considerations.

But......you go ahead and continue to blame everything on the presence of governments. And when you've got an example of any civilization that has existed without a government, give us a shout. In the meantime, explain to us how gubmits cause hurricanes. We are bored, that would be amusing and I suspect you've got an explanation.

Here's what I don't understand. Why is it the government's job to assist the unions?

Seems to me the unions have the power to strike and the corporations have the power to fire the union workers (well sorta).

Why do you insist the government has to get involved in this relationship?

Charge nurses are management. If management is not eleigible for union protection, this makes sense to me.

The charge nurse is the manager for that floor during their shift. IF they are only charge periodically, the waters are a little muddier.

That's exactly my point said perhaps a little more succinctly. There is an inherent power balance here and you keep fukcing with it.....stop.

If the actions of either side are demonstrably illegal then the court will say so....you don't need more regulations and laws.

That's the problem Rick. The gubmit IS getting involved. The Board, with its Dubya appointees, have suddenly decided that people with scheduling duties are somehow now "management" and not entitled to the legal protections they had last week. So, these are supposedly "management" people, with out legal protections, who have very little authority. For example, charge nurses rarely, if ever, have hiring or firing authority. They are schedulers, for cryin' out loud.

And again, one more time, the point is much broader than this. Suddenly, a substantial portion of the folks at Sears are not entitled to legal protections because they write up the schedule each week.

One more time, Dubya and his cronies are going to be regarded in the future as the folks who totally screwed things up for business by taking things too far. The National Labor Relations Act will perhaps be amended to clarify that everyone except those with financial capital in the business AND salaries of more than $200K are entitled to bargain collectively. In that case, business will be SCREWED and the balance of power will fall decidedly on the left. Your champion is selling next season away.

The government had no place telling the company how to classify its employees in the first place...that was the problem. If the Union feels they are being unfair in these classifications they should use their many tools of leverage to lobby for change...the gubmint has no place.

We agree. All's fair. Mutual respect happens when mutual clout is recognized. And again, my hope is that the parties come to the table to give as well as receive. Union reps want fairness, money, benefits, etc. Management reps want cooperation, diligence, reliability, loyalty, hard work, etc. Both sides should get their wishes. Both sides are dependent on the other.

Loyalty to a specific employer went out the window over 20 years ago, Supe.....It is a thing of the past. That happened when management changed to a philosophy of "To hell with the worker; it's all for us..."

Despite the fact there are "bad actors" both in management and unions, there was once in large companies (and small) a feeling of interdependence. Management realized that they depended on labor for profits and labor understood their dependence on management for continuing employment. Despite strikes, negotiations, etc, each party "gave in" to some extent, both grumbled about not geting everything they wanted and all walked around the table secretly pleased with the results. It was a game and everyone understood that.

That is mostly gone now. No management loyalty = no labor loyalty.

That describes my world, Bob. Dependence and interdependence, strikes, negotiations, giving in, grumbling....but feeling we've still got a good solid relationship. It's like families and couples. There's difficult discussions, and that's a big part of the glue that binds.