Pigweed and Crowhill review Georgia Avenue Sour, a tart peach ale from Dennizen’s Brewery, then discuss labor, Labor Day and unions.
Labor day started with a one-day strike in New York in 1882, and became an official day to celebrate workers under Grover Cleveland. P&C evaluate the development and idea of labor unions.
Unions often take credit for weekends and the 5-day work week, but that might have come from Henry Ford and the competition for scarce labor.
P&C are generally on the politically conservative side of things, but still like the idea of labor unions, which fit well with P&Cs standard political principles — especially the idea that when one party has power, somebody else has to have a countervailing power. P&C like unions for several reasons: (1) as a counter-balance to management, (2) to set standards for the profession, (3) to train the next generation of skilled workers.
Great show. Collective bargaining is a vital union activity, but another one is representation of individual workers who are subject to discipline by management and otherwise have no protection from arbitrary treatment. Unions make sure that every employee at least gets a hearing and representation across the table from the manager. Contrary to critics, it does not mean that bad workers are automatically protected from discharge. It simply gives them a voice to state the case in an otherwise lopsided power situation.
Glad you liked it.
I have long felt that conservatives have gone too far in their rejection of unions. There’s been a lot of abuse and corruption, but the concept of a union is sound, and, as Pigweed and I argue, consistent with conservative political principles.
As long as I’m allowed not to join the union to work at a firm and not forced to pay dues to join a union I’m not interested in, whether others do is their own business. Unfortunately unions don’t like giving people such choices, and don’t even care much for secret ballots, which convinces me that in the privacy of their own minds they know exactly what their game is.. and why they need to rig it.
Of your example reasons, (1) is reasonable, (2) is unnecessary — standards organizations and certifications are separate from mandatory guilds — and (3) seems almost silly. I’ll have to listen to the podcast, though, it’s not fair to judge your case from a brief summary. 🙂