----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 3:04 AM
Subject: Re: down with the down with poetry crowd
> Jim:
>
>> Do you know why they make you pay the Union dues
>> even if you're not a member? Because everyone in the shop
>> benefited from the ones who got up off their asses to fight
>> the good fight.
>> Finnegan
>
> This is the argument for the Closed Shop, and in some ways it's a good
> one.
>
> ... but ...
>
> There are two arguments against it.
>
> One is purely practical, in that Closed Shops give the Right a lovely
> stick
> to beat the unions with.
>
> The other is equally practical in a different sense.
>
> For most of my working life, in the phones or in various areas of
> education,
> the union membership, though neither were technically closed shop, ran to
> something like 95%.
>
> If you need to *legislate* for union membership, you have a failed union.
>
> So 5% got the benefits without paying any dues, and at the worst would
> cross
> picket-lines, but hey, we could live with this -- if it ain't broke, don't
> fix it.
>
> A third reason, and I suspect this was a factor in the high union
> membership
> in both the phones and education, was that if you were a member of the
> Union, you had someone to cover your back if management tried to get you.
>
> All it needs for a strong Union is a level field, and this was the case in
> the UK before the Hag of Grantham decided to rip the heart out of the
> unions.
>
> ... at the end of the seventies, about the only unions to survive
> relatively
> intact were the academic unions.
>
> I'm not sure what this suggests, other than that academics have a strong
> sense of self-preservation.
>
> Another factor -- and I think this was most marked in the higher education
> unions -- was that everyone from an adjunct teacher to a Professor was in
> the same union. You had to leave if you were appointed as a
> Vice-Chancellor, but hey, there weren't many of *them*.
>
> Whatever, it worked -- the Hag managed to smash the miners, but she never
> even dented the AUT.
>
> It simply made sense to stick to the Union.
>
> Robin
>
The AUT didnt get me an extra penny when I was made redundant. They were a
waste of time.
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