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- From: nick@sunpix.East.Sun.COM (Nick England - Sun NC Development Center)
- Newsgroups: comp.graphics
- Subject: Re: SigGraph, Chicago, and Unions
- Message-ID: <16gpbvINN375@sixgun.East.Sun.COM>
- Date: 14 Aug 92 17:09:19 GMT
- References: <1992Aug14.015500.25529@cmcl2.nyu.edu>
- Distribution: usa
- Organization: Sun Microsystems, Research Triangle Park, NC
- Lines: 52
- NNTP-Posting-Host: trancjne.east.sun.com
-
- In article <1992Aug14.015500.25529@cmcl2.nyu.edu> galanter@nyu.edu (Philip Galanter) writes:
- >
- >Both at SigGraph and now here I have heard/read a number of anti-union
- >slams. Yes, Chicago is a union town...it is also a town where working
- >class people have a chance to earn a decent living and maybe, if they are
- >careful and frugal, buy a home for their family someday.
- >
- >Its time to stop laying the blame for a poor US economy at the feet of the
- >people who have the least power to influence the direction their given
- >industry takes, and are the first to suffer when things go bad. After 12
- >years of Reagan/Bush/"right-to-work" union busting the economy is in worse
- >shape than ever, save for the few at the very top who enjoy the largest
- >gap between the executive and working class in the West.
- >
- >Yes, unions are _sometimes_ corrupt, wasteful, and/or counter-productive.
- >So are the government, banks, Fortune 500 companies, and computer industry
- >standards committees. Please allow working class people the only leverage
- >over their economic future that they have. At the end of the day they are
- >just like you, tired and a little bit older...
-
- The contrast between the spirit of co-operation and creativity that
- characterizes SIGGRAPH and the spirit of extortion that characterizes
- the unions is hard to ignore.
-
- The Chicago unions are great examples of the very worst sort of union
- aroogance and abuse that make honest people sick. I have seen and been
- the victim of the "to hell with you and to hell with common sense" work
- rules that make co-operation a dirty word. Paying some rigger $50 (one
- hour minimum) to wheel a crate 40 ft, a carpenter $50 to open the crate,
- a decorator $50 to hang the sign that was in the crate, and an
- electrician $50 to plug in the sign is hardly distinguishable from any
- other form of extortion. If you are lucky, you can just pay them the
- money and they'll let you plug together your computer system yourself.
-
- Unions once played a real role in creating safer workplaces and fairer
- treatment for employees. Their activities since then have been by and
- large incredibly destructive and immoral. Railroads, Autos, Steel.
-
- That doesn't mean there hasn't been equally incredible stupidity and
- chicanery in executive offices as well. S&Ls, Takeovers, Stockbrokers.
-
- Neither the union extortionist nor the executive manipulator should be
- held up as a model for human behavior. There are productive people and
- productive groups of people in the world - and I have no sympathy for
- those who fatten themselves by surpressing creativity and productivity.
-
- definitely my own opinions
- Nick England
-
- No it doesn't have anything to do with graphics other than my intro to
- Chicago unions came at SIGGRAPH 89 as a very small exhibitor whose
- entire future was in the hands of these assholes. I'll be quiet now.
-