(no subject)
Apr. 12th, 2005 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaI joined the union today. I was going to anyway, but the importance of doing so was driven home by something the union rep said -- that without a union in place, an employee has ultimately no input at all into decisions made regarding her work conditions, tasks, expectations, and so forth.
And while an employer might set out with the intention of taking the good of its employees into account, it happens (as we've seen) that greed disguised as "need for competitiveness" will eventually erode that intent and we'll see a race to the bottom with regards to employees' conditions. This is in fact what has happened in the United States, with stagnating real wages, fewer benefits being offered, more jobs being offered only as contract or temporary positions.
I'm going to look into possibly supporting organizations that are working to promote union organization in developing parts of the world. One of the great failures of "free trade" has been its effect in lowering, rather than raising, the standard of living for people worldwide. Labor exploitation is a major cause of that.
And while an employer might set out with the intention of taking the good of its employees into account, it happens (as we've seen) that greed disguised as "need for competitiveness" will eventually erode that intent and we'll see a race to the bottom with regards to employees' conditions. This is in fact what has happened in the United States, with stagnating real wages, fewer benefits being offered, more jobs being offered only as contract or temporary positions.
I'm going to look into possibly supporting organizations that are working to promote union organization in developing parts of the world. One of the great failures of "free trade" has been its effect in lowering, rather than raising, the standard of living for people worldwide. Labor exploitation is a major cause of that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-13 12:10 am (UTC)Your second point is good, also. I need to work on trying to remember that empires happen because there is complicity at many levels, and not just imposition of evil from the top.
I also need to work on a thought I had while commuting home, about how "social edifices" are really the problem. I mean, a solution is presented to a problem where a social edifice of some kind is causing trouble. Then that solution becomes an institution itself, and goes slowly over time from being solution to being problem. I think the "Critical" school did some work on this problem.