Re: The Perfect Gift

[Don Smith <dasmith@rotse2.physics.lsa.umich.edu>]

Kelvin wrote:
> besides... unions suck

Gotta disagree with you there, Kelvin old boy.  Unions are the only way workers
get any kind of protection from abuse and mistreatment.  Especially when the
government works for the employers.  Without unions, we wouldn't have the eight
hour work day or the forty hour work week.  Non-unionized workplaces like
WalMart can (and do.  It's illegal, but they do it anyway.) tell workers to go
check out, but come back and do a few more things before they leave.  If they
don't like working for free, well, they can just not come back the next
morning.  And if they talk to union organizers, they can not bother coming
back, either.  Without unions, the government sure as heck wouldn't be paying
attention to workplace safety (people like Eugene Scalia have been working for
decades to eviscerate OSHA and defeat ergonomics regulation, and GWB put him in
the position of "Acting Solicitor of Labor".  Great idea!  Give the job of
protecting workers' rights to someone who's spent his career fighting workers'
rights.).  Recently the University of Michigan changed their health insurance
policy for graduate students mid-term, which their prior contract said they
would not do.  There's a grad student union here, and they got together and
said "no, you can't do that", and the University backed down.  Without a union,
the grad students (who already earn sustinence wages and some have families to
support) would be paying more for medicinal co-pays, and getting smaller
perscriptions so they would have to go back to the pharmacy more often.  The
same service would have cost four times as much.  Unions are the only way
to level the playing field, because capitalists have something the workers
want (money) and the workers have something the capitalists want (labor), and
without either a union or effective government regulation, the workers have
no way to negotiate a fair exchange of value.  Of course, the Adam Smith
free market approach says that an employer who does not make a fair offer
won't be able to find any employees, but that ignores things like human
dignity, desparation, cost of living, and other little things like that.

It's all well and good to say "find another job", but (a) there's been a net
loss of two million jobs over the last three years, so jobs are not easy to
come by, and (b) looking for a job is a full-time job.  I'm applying for
faculty jobs right now, and it takes up a good fraction of my time.  I'm very
lucky that I have a job where I can spend hours a day writing application
essays and researching the places that have open positions.  If I were working
a labor-type job where I spent eight to ten hours a day in manual labor, I can
well imagine that to then go home and start job hunting would be nigh
impossible.  And what if I had a family to support?  A lot harder to just up
and quit.  And what if I weren't well-qualified?  Quitting a miserable job
might not yield a good reference for the next job.  It could lead to a downward
spiral.  Perhaps a bird in the hand is better than those birds in the bush?
I'm really really glad that quitting was an empowering experience for you, but
many people have an extremely hard time embracing that uncertainty.  

By the way, the OtR Ark show was really fun.  The energy was a little low, but
the skill of the performers covered for it.  I enjoyed the drums, especially on
I Let it Go.  Very sultry and mellow.  The cello was a really amazing addition
to "Give Me Strength".  They brought their own sound technician, which I was
frankly quite glad about -- it would have been a very complex show to mix
myself.  I got to run to the lights, though, which was very fun.  On "All I Get
for Christmas is Blue", I flooded the stage with blue light.  It sounds a
little corny, but it gave the piece an even more etherial flavor than usual.
They had only planned to do two encores, but the crowd was so enthusiastic,
they came back out and played "Lifelong Fling".  That is a much more powerful
song than I had given it credit for.  It was a very smooth and entrancing show.
Plus I got to hang out with Jay and Lindsey!  What a treat!  Was anyone else
there from the list?

On another note: has anyone heard from Liesel?  I've sent her a couple emails
over the last couple months and not heard anything back.

Yours,
-- 
Don Smith                           Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas@umich.edu                                http://www.rotse.net/dasmith/

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