Factory Jobs Disappear; Workers Lack Options [NYTimes]

--- 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