re: #137 Big Steve

Institutions do serve their purpose and either get discarded openly or fall into disuse. While we have been joking about it…a good example is guilds. They started as a way to protect technology and then were no longer needed. While everyone is entitled to an opinion, I actually was the site manager for a large chemical plant that was unionized and participated in multiple contract negotiations. As the so called “plutocrat” in those situations I can tell you that safety culture is so ingrained corporately that unions are no longer necessary to enforce it. That is not to say that they didn’t have a role historically that wasn’t significant in that realm but with OSHA laws and such, unions no longer are the driver. The other way to tell if time has passed them is that nearly all Unions have negotiated into their contracts that the companies will automatically deduct union dues. This is totally to save their asses because if paying your union dues was voluntary, we would probably really see what their support was among the rank and file.

Trust me, as a site manager you were not the ‘Plutocrat’. The correct labor term, IIRC, is ‘stooge’.