🚀 go-pugleaf

>>Don't you think that workers have human rights?  Including the right
>>not to be under involuntary servitude? ...
> 
>Yes, they do.  That's why any worker can make an individual decision
>to quit any job, almost always without being called upon legally for
>justification, while an employer must be prepared to supply a reason
>for a firing.  A strike is not about exercising the employees' right
>to cease working at a job; it's about trying to prevent the employer
>from doing business by preventing _anyone_ from working at that job.

Exactly.  In fact the very way in which modern strikes unfold prove that the
workers are grossly overpaid.  Take the recent strike by the staff here at
UBC.  The strikers, in the first days of the strike, did a number of things
to disrupt the entire campus.  Everyone here experienced the road blockages
and so forth, but the strikers did less obvious things as well.  I live in
Family Housing, and on the morning of the first day of the strike the hot
water in my building was shut off (really great if you have a one year old).
Now I certainly support the right of a worker to withdraw his service.  Then,
if this withdrawl creates a sufficient and unavoidable burden on the
employer, that employer will attempt to placate the worker with a reasonable
settlement.  But turning off hot water, and the like, is not withdrawl of
service - it is sabatoge.  It is true that the hot water would *eventually*
have shut off by itself, but the expensive regulation system on the heating
unit was certainly hastened in its wandering from set-point.

Their acts of sabatoge, blockage, and extortion show that the workers do not
feel that the withdrawl of their efforts is enough to prove their "value".
But the extortion of unions goes much further than that.  The value of any
worker (from McDonald's to professionals) is a function of how easily they
can be replaced.  That is, how many people, with sufficient skills, would
leap all over a position if it was offered at the going salary.  Supply and
demand.  Certainly the government would have mile long line-ups if it
publicly announced openings at the Post Office at the current salaries.  This
indicates how grossly overpaid these people are.  And therein lies the reason
that unions are feverishly opposed to strike breakers.  Not only do workers
have to extort to "prove their value", they must also prevent their employer,
at all costs, from bringing in replacements.  Such replacements, available by
the busload, are an even clearer indication of the true value of the workers -
they can readily be replaced by overjoyed strike breakers.  Will these
striker breakers do as good a job?  Well, that's strictly the employer's
concern isn't it?

Modern unions operate almost entirely on extortion.  Consider how far a
professional would get if they engaged in the behavior of union workers.
Of course there is also extensive abuse within the unions themselves.  
Forced affiliation, forced due payment, "seniority", rampant nepotism...  
But that's another argument.

Ken Buckland
kenb@ee.ubc.ca