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The Transitive Property and Our Government: A Conundrum

Mid-Atlantic States Labor reports that nationwide union membership rose last year from 12.0% of the American work force to (STOP THE PRESSES) 12.1%!!!!

OK, seriously, the 311,000-worker gain is the largest gain since 1983, when unionized workers represented over 20% of American labor.

Here's the part I found particularly interesting:

A total of 7.5 percent of private-sector workers were in unions, and 35.9 percent of public-sector workers.


What this seems to mean is that public-sector unions now form the bulk of the labor movement, which would include government unions, police, firefighters, and teachers.

Now, for a second, let's bop over to Delaware Watch, where Dana has an article on Christine O'Donnell dropping her suit against her employer:

Or does the sensible intuition lurk in the recesses of O’Donnell’s pretty head that since, for most people, our society is structured to require employment for survival and to thrive that no employer should have the right to threaten one’s survival or capacity to thrive without a compelling reason to do so?

Hopefully, O’Donnell will develop her intuition further and realize that when working individuals can’t afford the expense of justice through lawsuits, they naturally join forces and form unions. It’s the only way in our society that most of the “little people” in the workplace can make themselves significant.


What occurs to me is this: Remember the transitive property from math?

If A=B and B=C, then A=C.

Therefore....

If (A) avaricious employers don't value workers or pay attention to the rights of the little people, who must be protected from their depredations....

And (B) the best protection from such violations is to unionize....

And (C) the largest segment of our economy that has unionized is the public sector (which is a synonym for government)....

Does it then not follow that the government (C) is an avaricious employer that doesn't value or pay attention to the rights of the little people?

I know this is a smartass way to raise an important question, but think about this: if--as our Progressive friends tell us--government is to be the primary protector of our rights and liberties (therefore being essentially beneficent), then why do the people who work for the government find the need to organize to protect themselves from it?

Comments

Delaware Watch said…
It's an interesting argument Steve. It has no problems w/ validity, but then again neither does this one:

1. All rocks are mortal
2. Abe Lincoln is a rock
3. Therefore, Abe Lincoln is mortal

Validity is a facile accomplishment, but truth value, especially across the ENTIRE spectrum of relevant facts and details, is a different matter.

You left out some important details. It is in virtue of the somewhat democratic and public amenable nature of government that government workers are able to seek out and procure union representation. But the private business sector is a plethora of tyrannies that are overwhelmingly undemocratic and able to influence government to mitigate its regulatory power from disrupting their near absolute sway over their employees. What protections that do exist are mostly token:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121407O.shtml
Dana,
The validity argument is neat, but notice that in order to make it you had to include a demonstrably false statement (Abe is a rock), which is not the same case I made.

"But the private business sector is a plethora of tyrannies that are overwhelmingly undemocratic and able to influence government to mitigate its regulatory power from disrupting their near absolute sway over their employees."

I'll spot you this one for the sake of argument (even though I had to read it three times to make sure I got it--that genius level writing, I guess), but even so will contend it is immaterial to my own point.

My point--again--is that the nature and kind of abuses we see in the private sector also exist in the public sector, and that such abuses in the public sector are just as systemic (as opposed to episodic) as those in the private sector. Moreover, many (if not most) public sector unionized employees are forbidden either to strike or to sue (sovereign immuity).

Thus my conclusion is two-fold:

1) The nature of the abuses committed by management in either the private or public sectors is not dependent on the capitalist profit motive, but is more likely attributable to either an unvarying reality of bureaucratic organization or just plain human nature.

2) There is a significant level of dissonance (if not hypocrisy) involved in the analysis of many people (please note I have not included you in this number) who persistently rage against private sector abuse while ignoring or rationalizing away public sector abuse and not insisting that the government (which they claim to be the "owners" of) set a far better example by treating its own workers appropriately.

Notice that the two points are somewhat independent. You can conceivably invalidate number one without affecting number two.

And finally, if Abe Lincoln was a rock, he was an eloquent hunk of granite, was he not?

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