This New York Times story is filed from Canton, Ohio -- my husband's
birthplace -- about an hour south of where we currently reside in Cleveland.

Yes, manufacturing in Ohio is in deep trouble -- in fact, manufacturing is
in trouble throughout the American Midwest's former powerhouse industrial
region...now commonly referred to, derisively, as "the Rust Belt."

But please, folks, put away your Kleenex: there's nothing wrong with
American manufacturing that GETTING GOVERNMENT OUT OF ITS WAY wouldn't go a
long way toward solving!

My own current employer is now one piece of one division of a multinational
chemical manufacturer. But up until last summer, we were the entire North
American operation of one division of an AMERICAN manufacturer...compelled
to sell because even though the variety and quality of our product was
second to none, it simply cost too much to produce in a union environment,
and was sloppily serviced by a homegrown marketing and distribution
organization that simply couldn't get out of its own way (in terms of either
cost or sheer EGO) sufficiently to remember that THE CUSTOMER COMES FIRST.

Now, under our one-year-new multinational management (which is SUPERB),
administrative costs are down, and service is vastly improved. This has, as
well it should, led to a HUGE upsurge in customer demand for our
products...90% of which are still manufactured right here in America, at
plants in Cleveland, OH and Nashville, TN.

Perversely, this puts us in worse shape than ever. Our manufacturing
facilities "can't" keep up with the demand...so more and more of even those
long-term, high-volume accounts who stuck with us through the _sturm und
drang_ of the acquisition are now seeking other supplier-partners.

So what's wrong at the plants?, you may well ask.
The one-word answer: UNIONS.

We NEED to run three shifts 'round the clock for the next fiscal quarter or
two to rebuild our usable inventory...but the unions will have no part of
it, even though this would provide it provides a virtually unlimited source
of overtime for whoever among their members is ready and willing to work it.
(The workers themselves, naturally, never get to say whether or not THEY
think they're ready and willing to work those overtime hours; the union just
ASSUMES, on their behalf, that they're not now and never will be.) Fine,
says management, then let us bring in crews of industrial temps to work that
thrid shift -- but the union will have no part of THAT solution, either.
Evidently it's more desirable to these stalwart champions of the well-being
of the American factory worker to put an entire company out of business (and
their own members out of steady jobs) than to face the competitive facts and
HUSTLE, even in the ever-so-immediate term.

What truly turns this farce into a tragedy -- even if you don't care about
the fate of one formerly-American manufacturing firm -- is that given the
rates of blue-collar unemplyment in both Cleveland AND Nashville, there'd
without a doubt be qualified, motivated workers (most of them with families
to feed) lined up around the freakin' BLOCK to do those short-term
third-shift jobs (even at minimum wage!) if the union would only permit it!

So please, I say again: put away your Kleenex, folks, and don't waste those
tears on American manufacturing.. If American heavy industry does indeed go
belly-up in the near future, it will be nobody's fault but our own, for
failing to realize that unions have long outlived their brief historical
legitimacy. As, equally, has the sort of pasternalistic, intrusive Big
Government the legislation of which permits such parasitic unions to retain
their stranglehold on manufacturing wages and employment policies, ensuring
their own demise right along with that of their hapless hosts by wilfully
refusing to acknowledge the realities of survival in an increasingly
cost-competetive global marketplace.

Toward ORION...and not a moment too soon! -- spike

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 13, 2003
As Factory Jobs Disappear, Workers Have Few Options
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Copyright 2003 The New York Times

CANTON, Ohio, Sept. 12 For nearly 30 years, Jim Greathouse was part of the
blue-collar elite, a tool-and-die man who sometimes earned more than $50,000
a year because his job, making the precision metal molds that factories use
to shape parts, required such exacting skills.

But in June, Mr. Greathouse, 55, lost his job at the Hoover vacuum cleaner
factory here, and with so many other factories laying off people, he is at a
loss about what to do.

"What does it do when you take away all these jobs from people who support
families, who raise families?" he asked. "Manufacturing has been the
strength of this country. If we can't make anything here anymore, what does
that do? The fabric of this society is falling apart."

Mr. Greathouse has a lot of company. In three years, Ohio has lost more than
160,000 factory jobs, representing one-sixth of its total. That is but a
small fraction of the 2.7 million manufacturing jobs lost nationwide in
those three years, many of them because of imports. Some economists say that
even with a boom all those jobs are not likely to return.

Factory unemployment has snowballed into a huge social and political issue
across the Midwest, after manufacturing in the region boomed in the 1990's.
President Bush gave a speech about manufacturing losses on Labor Day in
Ohio, and the Democratic presidential candidates are pressing the issue.

A wide range of figures suggests that the economy is likely to surge, but
economists predict unemployment will remain almost unchanged at nearly 6
percent through the 2004 presidential election.

With its century-old stone buildings and handsome brick factories, Canton
was long a booming industrial center, but the area has been hit by so many
factory closings, bankruptcies and layoffs that many workers are losing
hope. Many of the unemployed are reluctantly turning to less steady or
lower-paying jobs like hospital aide. Some are studying computer technology.

"I've applied for many jobs, and they politely tell me I'm too old, that
they're hoping to find someone they can train and keep for a long time,"
said Patty Reich, who lost her job as a metallurgical technician at the
Republic Steel mill. "For someone like me who is unemployed at age 54, we
don't have too much light at the end of the tunnel."

Ask laid-off workers what is to blame for the woes, and they point to
imports, low wages in China, the strong dollar, production moving overseas,
President Bill Clinton for embracing the North American Free Trade Agreement
and President Bush for focusing only recently on the crisis.

Robert White, a laid-off steelworker who voted for Mr. Bush three years ago,
said: "He's slowly getting his eyes awakened to what's going on. The air has
been going out of the balloon for a long time, and he's trying to stop it.
But the air is almost out of the balloon."

In the last three years, Stark County, which includes Canton, has lost 3,500
factory jobs, more than 10 percent of the total. Two years ago in Massillon,
just west of Canton, the lone rubber glove factory in the nation shut,
moving production to Malaysia and India and throwing 200 people out of work.
Last year, Hess Management of Austin, Tex., shut the Danner Press printing
plant, costing 325 workers their jobs, and 700 steelworkers at Republic
Technologies on the east end of town lost their jobs when Republic filed for
bankruptcy.

This year, an automobile parts company laid off 150 workers, and Hoover, a
division of Maytag, 200. Last week, the largest employer in the region,
Timken, warned 1,300 workers at three ball-bearing plants here that their
jobs were in danger unless costs were reduced.

"If you draw a line across the top third of this state, the manufacturing
part of the state, you see a lot of pain, anger and frustration," said John
Russo, director of labor studies at Youngstown State University.

Mr. Greathouse, a wiry, muscular man who went into factory work after
dropping out of Kent State University, asked: "When you have C.E.O.'s who
think of moving jobs offshore, what are you doing but terrorizing the people
who lose their jobs? This is a form of terrorism, also. The country is
getting weaker and weaker."

Having just bought a three-bedroom house for $99,000, he said, he might have
to consider personal bankruptcy, because he was having problems paying his
mortgage and support for his former wife. He has applied to numerous
tool-and-die shops with no luck, so he is thinking of returning to college,
but says he first needs to speak with a vocational counselor for career
advice.

Alice Hall, who worked for 15 years as a janitor in a steel mill, saw her
house undergo foreclosure and has told her 16-year-old daughter that they
can no longer afford the girl's dance lessons. Ms. Hall, a small,
soft-spoken woman, is taking remedial mathematics and English classes to
help prepare for work as a hospital aide.

"They told me go into medical," she said. "That's a field where you can
always get a job."

But entry-level medical jobs may pay just half the salary of her old job. On
a recent afternoon, Ms. Hall sat in the steelworkers' union hall across from
the rusting Republic mill with 12 other laid-off workers seething with anger
at their former employer, at greedy chief executives and at the lack of
health insurance.

"It used to be that manufacturing provided people with a decent middle-class
living, but now these jobs are falling by the wayside," said Dan Yarnell,
who worked at Republic for 26 years. "A lot of people are going to work at
Wal-Mart. But how do you live on the $7.50 an hour Wal-Mart pays?"

Many workers embraced protectionism, with some suggesting a law to bar the
United States from importing more goods than it exports.

Thomas Briatico, president of Hoover Floorcare, based in North Canton, said
all of Hoover's major competitors but one were buying their vacuum cleaners
from Asia and Mexico. That foreign competition, Mr. Briatico said, has
forced the average retail price of cleaners to drop 10 percent in two years.

"It's put us at a little bit of a competitive disadvantage," he said. "In
China, they pay their workers 55 cents an hour, and the easiest decision for
me would be to go outsource in China. The tough decision is to stay here.
I'm personally concerned about jobs leaving this country."

Some Ohioans predict that the state could swing to the Democrats in the
election next year.

"This is a fairly conservative state," Professor Russo said, "and last time,
it went 3 percent for Bush. But I think there will be an electoral response
to all these jobs losses, and Bush gets beat here."

W. R. Timken Jr., chairman of Timken, with 5,000 workers here, is often
praised for doing his utmost to keep jobs in Ohio. But he said fierce
foreign competition was forcing the company to weigh the future of the three
ball-bearing plants.

"The truth is unless we can do something with these plants, they won't be
globally competitive," said Mr. Timken, who recently stepped down as
chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Mr. Timken said his company had been hurt by the strong dollar, China's
undervalued currency and the harm that imports were causing his customers.
Foreign competition was so intense, he said, that the price of manufacturing
goods in the United States has fallen 4 percent in the last 10 years as the
price of other goods has increased 18 percent. That, he said, has forced
Timken and other manufacturers to increase productivity and reduce jobs.

"Manufacturing has been the key to innovation in the United States and has
given the United States leadership in innovation," said Mr. Timken, whose
great-grandfather founded the company in 1899 "If you eliminate
manufacturing, which accounts for 65 percent of private sector R & D, then
innovation will decline, and you will see a nation in decline."

It will take many steps to turn around manufacturing, Mr. Timken said,
adding that although tax cuts have help, he wished more of them had gone to
spur investment.

"A lot of people say why doesn't President Bush shoot the silver bullet to
help manufacturing," Mr. Timken said. "There is no simple answer. We tell
people if you want to look at part of the problem, look in the mirror. You
buy cars from Japan, shirts from Hong Kong and many imported products in
Wal-Mart. American manufacturers are caught in the middle."

=============================~~~~~~~~ The ORION Initiative ~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~ launching an off-Earth future ~~~~~
~~~~~~ for the gifted & talented ~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~ since 1996 ~~~~~~~~~~~
Please visit our Web Site In Progress
at http://pages.ivillage.com/orionaut
=============================

On Sunday, September 14, 2003, at 08:33 AM, spike angle wrote:

>
> So what's wrong at the plants?, you may well ask.
> The one-word answer: UNIONS.
>

Unions, like insurance, are a necessary evil. Industries where the
bosses haven't rapaciously exploited the workers are, generally, not
unionized. However, when management literally kills workers for
profit, works must (and have) organized to protect themselves. I once
saw a bumper sticker: "Do you like weekends -- thank the unions". 12
hour days, 6 days a week were once standard -- even for 10 yr old
children. These conditions -- and worse -- are still common in some
parts of the world, but in Europe and the US unions changed that.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:

> Unions, like insurance, are a necessary evil. Industries where
the
> bosses haven't rapaciously exploited the workers are, generally,
not
> unionized. However, when management literally kills workers for
> profit, works must (and have) organized to protect themselves. I
once
> saw a bumper sticker: "Do you like weekends -- thank the unions".
12
> hour days, 6 days a week were once standard -- even for 10 yr old
> children. These conditions -- and worse -- are still common in
some
> parts of the world, but in Europe and the US unions changed that.

I argue only with your tense.

Unions did indeed once serve a legitimate purpose, but that time has
long passed...at least here in the First World. Today, they do
nothing but arbitrarily confiscate money from folks who receive NO
useful benefit therefrom (starting to sound like our old friend, the
State, neh?). And, not at all incidentally, eviscerate American
manufacturing's ability to compete in a larger world far less
complacent than America's has been -- everso shortsightedly! -- for
the last 40 years or so.

spike

On Monday, September 15, 2003, at 11:31 AM, orionaut wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>
>> Unions, like insurance, are a necessary evil. Industries where
> the
>> bosses haven't rapaciously exploited the workers are, generally,
> not
>> unionized. However, when management literally kills workers for
>> profit, works must (and have) organized to protect themselves. I
> once
>> saw a bumper sticker: "Do you like weekends -- thank the unions".
> 12
>> hour days, 6 days a week were once standard -- even for 10 yr old
>> children. These conditions -- and worse -- are still common in
> some
>> parts of the world, but in Europe and the US unions changed that.
>
> I argue only with your tense.
>
> Unions did indeed once serve a legitimate purpose, but that time has
> long passed...at least here in the First World. Today,

About a year ago several workers in a chicken fire were burned to death
in a southern state (I can't remember which one) when a fire broke out
in a chick processing factory. It turned out that management had
LOCKED several of the fire exits and some workers had died trying to
break the lock. Furthermore, the same company had done the same thing,
with the same results, a few years earlier. It was not a union shop.

> they do
> nothing but arbitrarily confiscate money from folks who receive NO
> useful benefit therefrom (starting to sound like our old friend, the
> State, neh?). And, not at all incidentally, eviscerate American
> manufacturing's ability to compete in a larger world far less
> complacent than America's has been -- everso shortsightedly! -- for
> the last 40 years or so.
>
> spike
>

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect
and deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
> About a year ago several workers in a chicken fire were burned to
death
> in a southern state (I can't remember which one) when a fire broke
out
> in a chick processing factory. It turned out that management had
> LOCKED several of the fire exits and some workers had died trying
to
> break the lock. Furthermore, the same company had done the same
thing,
> with the same results, a few years earlier. It was not a union
shop.

I've both seen, and heard of from close friends who ARE bullied into
belonging to mandatory unions, similar things happening in union
shops. Frequently. They're just a lot more expensive to get past --
so EVERYONE can get beyond the tragic negative outcomes of this sort
of human error -- when they happen in a union environment.

Do you really believe that evil managers sat about in smoky back
rooms, cackling and twirling their waxed hadlebar mustaches, as they
planned how to burn to death one of their most valuable factors of
production, as injuriously as possible to their firm's PR ...?

Welcome to the 21st century, chum -- spike

On Monday, September 15, 2003, at 12:58 PM, orionaut wrote:

> Do you really believe that evil managers sat about in smoky back
> rooms, cackling and twirling their waxed hadlebar mustaches, as they
> planned how to burn to death one of their most valuable factors of
> production, as injuriously as possible to their firm's PR ...?
>

No. But they locked the doors from the outside to prevent the staff
from leaving the factory floor -- for whatever reason. When the fire
started, that became a problem. There are lots of ways to make money
by risking other people's lives or damaging their health. There needs
to be some incentive for profit-seeking entities to avoid that
behavior. Liability law and unions are two approaches that have worked.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

Sometimes I am just so confused on the message you are
trying to convey (and why it is even brought up here
on this list, as it is way off topic). At one point
you saying the government should get out of the way.
The next you seem to be complaining that the USA is
loosing jobs because it is not protecting its workers
from international competition.

Oh and some great reasons of the need for unions is:
http://www.hazards.org/toiletbreaks/casehistories.htm

Now I am actually against the need for unions for
white collar work (scientists, engineers, management
and the like). But I grew up in a state in the
midwest where unions were not encouraged. As a
result, i had friends who worked in paint factories
where when they heard osha was coming (yes, osha must
give a prior notice weeks in advance before they
visit), they would rush out and buy all the safety
equiptment required by law. When osha left, they
turned around and sold it all. There were even
companies out there that make bucks renting out the
equipment needed to pass an osha inspection for the
duration of the osha visit!

Ryan

--- spike angle wrote:

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
> No. But they locked the doors from the outside to prevent the
staff
> from leaving the factory floor -- for whatever reason. When the
fire
> started, that became a problem. There are lots of ways to make
money
> by risking other people's lives or damaging their health. There
needs
> to be some incentive for profit-seeking entities to avoid that
> behavior. Liability law and unions are two approaches that have
worked.

Liability law is indeed a viable solution. It holds specific
companies responsible for specific safety violations on a case-by-
case basis.

Unions, OTOH, penalize EVERYBODY -- workers and their families who
are forced to join & pay dues but are no better (and often worse) off
for it, workers who can't get jobs AT ALL because the high cost of
union labor compels manufacturers to utilize less labor-intensive
production methods, and of course the manufacturers themselves whao
cannot price their products competetively due to labor costs out of
all proportion to actual worker productivity.

Applying Occam's Razor here, there's nothing unions do for workers
that consistently enforced libability law (one of the VERY few
legitimate functions of even the most minimalist "night watchman
State") can't. The alternative mechanism, unions, cause more problems
than they solve. Which makes more sense to YOU?

spike

On Tuesday, September 16, 2003, at 08:11 AM, orionaut wrote:

> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:
>> No. But they locked the doors from the outside to prevent the
> staff
>> from leaving the factory floor -- for whatever reason. When the
> fire
>> started, that became a problem. There are lots of ways to make
> money
>> by risking other people's lives or damaging their health. There
> needs
>> to be some incentive for profit-seeking entities to avoid that
>> behavior. Liability law and unions are two approaches that have
> worked.
>
> Liability law is indeed a viable solution. It holds specific
> companies responsible for specific safety violations on a case-by-
> case basis.
>
> Unions, OTOH, penalize EVERYBODY -- workers and their families who
> are forced to join & pay dues but are no better (and often worse) off
> for it,

Then why do union workers consistently receive higher wages than
non-union workers?

> workers who can't get jobs AT ALL because the high cost of
> union labor compels manufacturers to utilize less labor-intensive
> production methods,

Which doesn't explain why strong-union areas of the world (Europe and,
to a lesser extent, the US) have very low (by world standards)
unemployment rates. Yes, this or that company or industry may well
suffer, but the economies of strong union areas seem to do quite well.
Perhaps because there are consumers with money in their pockets and a
disincentive to go smash things up (take a look at Africa).

> and of course the manufacturers themselves whao
> cannot price their products competetively due to labor costs out of
> all proportion to actual worker productivity.
>
> Applying Occam's Razor here, there's nothing unions do for workers
> that consistently enforced libability law (one of the VERY few
> legitimate functions of even the most minimalist "night watchman
> State") can't. The alternative mechanism, unions, cause more problems
> than they solve. Which makes more sense to YOU?

Occam's Razor is great for science. For large human systems you want
significant redundancy because any one mechanism may or may not work.
In practice, while liability law has helped, it has not prevented
massive abuses of workers in the past or present. It seems unlikely to
work, by itself, in the future.

>
> spike
>

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect
and deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

orionaut wrote:

> Liability law is indeed a viable solution. It holds specific
> companies responsible for specific safety violations on a case-by-
> case basis.

You can't rely on the law long-term, rich people can buy the laws. It's
much harder to buy a union.

> Unions, OTOH, penalize EVERYBODY -- workers and their families who
> are forced to join & pay dues but are no better (and often worse) off
> for it,

What's worse, a few people being a little bit worse off or a lot of
people, much, much worse off?

You might like to consider that managers also penalise everybody too- if
it wasn't for management the price of the products would go down...
(only half joking here). Both Unions and Management are, to a partial
extent, parasites on companies; we saw that most clearly during the
recent internet boom where CEOs did decidely dodgy things to feather
their own nests.

> workers who can't get jobs AT ALL because the high cost of
> union labor compels manufacturers to utilize less labor-intensive
> production methods,

This is self regulating- I don't agree with mandatory unionisation,
that's wrong I think- but I don't agree with mandatory non unionisation
either really (although my last job had that, but it didn't seem to be
an issue, since the employers were fairly OK),

> and of course the manufacturers themselves whao
> cannot price their products competetively due to labor costs out of
> all proportion to actual worker productivity.

Then the management are addressing the wrong market, that's their
mistake. America is a relatively high skilled country, (I assume you are
American) so should be making appropriate products.

> Applying Occam's Razor here, there's nothing unions do for workers
> that consistently enforced libability law (one of the VERY few
> legitimate functions of even the most minimalist "night watchman
> State") can't.

Yup, and in a relatively law abiding country you don't need police much
either. Take them away, and what happens?

> The alternative mechanism, unions, cause more problems
> than they solve.

Unions appeared because employers were, quite frankly, abusing their
employees; maiming and killing them. What makes you think that wouldn't
happen again?

> Which makes more sense to YOU?

Really, it's a horses for courses thing.

Unions are traditionally strong where management are weak; a weakness
that is about mismanagement of the employees.

Where Unions really are detrimental to a business, the business dies;
and then the Union tends to as well. But if the company is that weak
anyway, then the management has messed up somewhere.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ian Woollard
wrote:
> This is self regulating- I don't agree with mandatory unionisation,
> that's wrong I think- but I don't agree with mandatory non
unionisation
> either really (although my last job had that, but it didn't seem to
be
> an issue, since the employers were fairly OK),

On this we are in complete agreement. ABSOLUTELY unions should not be
restricted by law, either pro or con. Without the State artifically
incentivizing either one or the other, unions will spring up where
they ARE genuinely needed...and be scorned out of existence where
they're only in everybody's way.

> Where Unions really are detrimental to a business, the business
dies;
> and then the Union tends to as well. But if the company is that
weak
> anyway, then the management has messed up somewhere.

Precisely :)

Thanks for your support -- spike

On Monday 15 September 2003 13:12, Al Globus wrote:
(...)
> Unions, like insurance, are a necessary evil. Industries where the
> bosses haven't rapaciously exploited the workers are, generally, not
> unionized. However, when management literally kills workers for
> profit, works must (and have) organized to protect themselves. I once
> saw a bumper sticker: "Do you like weekends -- thank the unions". 12
> hour days, 6 days a week were once standard -- even for 10 yr old
> children. These conditions -- and worse -- are still common in some
> parts of the world, but in Europe and the US unions changed that.
(...)

I was immersed in an exceptional 70-work-hours-week with no spare time for
emailing (perhaps a union could solve that? :-) and so just now I'll apply
what I call "soft moderation": what exactly is the relation between
unions+decaying industry and space colonization?

But perhaps this thread is calling for a TangoMan-type question: would unions
naturally develop in a space faring economy? Would they directly mimic
Earthling unions or would space bring the need for new models? (Hmmm, I think
that TangoMan is better when raising this kind of questioning... Mine are a
rather poor pastiche...)

Lucio Coelho

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:

would unions
> naturally develop in a space faring economy? Would they directly
mimic
> Earthling unions or would space bring the need for new models?
(Hmmm, I think
> that TangoMan is better when raising this kind of questioning...
Mine are a
> rather poor pastiche...)
>
> Lucio Coelho

Not at all. I think that unions would have a bargaining stranglehold
on the employer in orbit, because the capacity to call in
replacement workers is severly diminished. Thus some power shifts to
the workers.

Will unions be dominant? I think not because the work will probably
be of a professional nature, a highly skilled workforce. But lurking
in the background to all negotiations, be they individual or
collective, will be the difficulty and expense of replacing a worker.

OTOH, if automation continues it's relentless pace, the call to
automate some orbital jobs will be stronger in orbit than on Earth,
for the cost savings would be greater. So I hope that the worker is
multi-talented. The employer may want to divert them to some other
task rather than launching up another specialized worker and bring
the redundant worker back to Earth.

Some interesting dynamics in store.

TangoMan