Together We Fall

I have been pondering the role of unions in the modern world and my gut reaction is that they are an idea that has past its use by date.

But first the disclaimer, I am employed in a position that puts me in the “bosses” side of the “workers” vs the “bosses” interface between management and unions. Worse than being in that camp it is part of my duties to negotiate with the unions on behalf of my employer. So you can decide for yourself how biased that makes any further comments.

I have tried to persuade some people recently that the union (any union as it wasn’t in fact the one that I deal with that I was discussing) is bad for their employment health. My argument was that when negotiating with a union, the worker that the boss has in their head is inevitably the worst case scenario worker, who while performing their job will always operate to the lowest allowable standard. The union of course thinks all of the people they represent are brilliant workers which in most cases any number of them are but never all. And that is the problem with collective negotiation at best it tends to the middle and it never allows for the performance of individuals within that collective. Net result lower average wages for the group.

If people are rational and it is a bad idea why does it still exist. Well one reason is that for employers it is quite handy to treat workers as a lump. As already mentioned it potentially allows you to keep total wages lower than they might otherwise be and saves you a heap of admin time by having to deal with just one negotiation, rather than many individuals. So maybe the bosses like it and promote it although the evidence for this idea seems scarce given what most would say about unions.

So the individual is smarter than that right, I mean after all it costs them money (union dues) and for most it lowers their wages (the better ones presumably the poor workers may be better off) so they must be doing it for some reason. Presumably it is therefore the protection from “bad” employers that it offers, you know those firms you hear about that fire people at will and offer poor working conditions.

But unions don’t do that. These days it is the law that offers those protections and at best the union offers a sort of enforcement system to make sure the law is adhered to. But it is a very expensive option for the workers given that there are government paid for organisations that will do this stuff for free.

And any way the bigger an employer the more likely they are to have Union involvement but also the more likely they are to behave properly in terms of employment law. It tends to be the small employer who doesn’t know or potentially doesn’t care that abuses worker rights and you seldom have any union involvement.

One of the unions my organisation deals with holds itself out as representing hospitality workers, bar and waiting staff and the like who regularly have their employment rights trampled in bars and cafes around the country but never a peep out of the union because as the union guy told me “it is too much trouble”. So unions represent workers who by and large don’t need it and ignore the little guy cause it is too hard for them which maybe very rational from a union point of view but doesn't seem to add much value to the process.

While historically there was a need for unions who fought for the employment law and workers rights that we, including me, enjoy now (as the union tends to forget I am a worker too just in a different job) the fight is over. The maintenance of those laws (something the union is quick to worry about) is a political fight now not the struggle of the workers at an employee / employer level.

So why workers feel the need to hand over unions dues for no perceptible gain remains a mystery to me, unless like a lot of people and a lot of things in life they have never stopped to think about it and it is “just what we do”.

Just Give Me The Facts

So I have been having an email debate with a colleague over some different ways you can manage an economy. In his latest email he listed a number of “facts” that were clearly wrong. So after burying these ideas with some independently verifiable sources I pronounced myself the winner of that portion of the debate. But no he responded with “well that may all be so but I believe it would be better if...”

This sort of thing drives me nuts, let’s ignore the facts in favour of “beliefs” and people do it all the time. I was particularly reminded about the vaccination “debate” (debate in quotes because I believe there is no valid counter position). Now I am happy for people to have beliefs but this does not make them a valid criteria for decision making.

This got me thinking about “facts” that are subject to challenge or if you will the nature of “facts”. On the face of it what is a fact should be straight forward so I tried to think of things that all of us would agree on. It struck me as harder than I first thought. For example presumably we agree on basic human needs, eg people need to eat, sleep, and drink. (well if they want to stay being people). But perhaps we couldn’t even agree on this as there are examples of people who don’t sleep and eating comes in many forms so potentially even drinking is optional (you might be able to get all your fluid needs from food). So maybe facts are harder to find than I thought.

Then there is the “fact” that there is global climate change, according to a lot of people this is so but I don’t “believe” this fact. There are those words again and I think I have “facts” to back up my belief but not everyone agrees with my facts as I don’t agree with theirs.

Perhaps on second thoughts beliefs are more solid than facts, for example I believe that human life has value. Something that a lot of people would agree with, especially if it is phrased regarding their own life. Do I have “facts” to support my belief. Err well no not really and my belief would be open to challenge in certain situations. (eg sacrificing some lives for the greater good). In fact if we look at the whole concept of human rights this seems more founded on belief than on facts. For example sexual orientation is considered a human right (something I don’t have an issue with before any one sends me hate mail) but I think I could construct an argument that sex without children is potentially a negative idea as that is basically the point right, otherwise the species would die out which is counter to our basic drive.

So where does all this get me, well it makes it more understandable that we debate things that in my mind don’t need debate because the answer is clear. Potentially the answer is clear because of the “facts” I am basing my arguments on, if people won’t accept your facts then you are doomed in your arguments.

Now I don’t think we should throw away scientific enquiry which has at its heart understanding the facts, quite the opposite to agree on the facts or to have aligned beliefs is to agree on the way forward more likely as not. So lets keep our minds open to the search for the truth the whole truth and nothing but, however I guess we need to leave some room for beliefs assuming of course that they don’t conflict with the facts.

Small Gods

Plato developed the idea of Forms and as I understand it, it is the nature of things which is separate from the thing itself. For example Happy or Happiness is a real thing. No one would deny that it exists but not in material form, you can’t bring me a jar of happy. That doesn’t mean there is no such thing as happy and making someone sad, or indeed everyone sad wouldn’t make happy go away. Happy would still be a real thing we just wouldn’t be able to see it in a world where everyone was sad. So happy is a Form, a thing that while not real is fundamental and everlasting and which can be a part of a real thing. Eg some people are made happy by chocolate, so happy is part of the chocolate for them but it isn’t “the chocolate”, when the chocolate is gone happy continues. As a practical example you may stay happy for sometime after the chocolate is gone.


So I think gods work the same way in that they are brought into being by an acceptance of their existence and they never die but their influence declines. For example Ra the sun god was worshiped by the ancient Egyptians and was no doubt quite powerful at that time, no one would probably have denied the existence of Ra. He was especially problematic among bulls who used to be sacrificed to Ra I am sure that they would have agreed he was a real force at that time. Well not so many people worship Ra and invoking his aid in a crisis probably won’t help much as his (or hers I am not sure) power has been eroded by a lack of followers. On the other hand he hasn’t died entirely as I (for one) still know who he was. Therefore I think Ra has gone from Large god to small god, less people care about Ra and his power has waned.

In NZ we used to have a large and powerful god who is shrinking before our very eyes, our god was called Rugby and high priests were the NZRFU. Now while you can go and see a game of Rugby just like happy you rugby exists as a form it is imbued in the way some people behave and to some degree the way they think.

There is an old joke about turning props around at half time so that they knew which way to run (I used to be a prop so I can say that), the trouble is I have a suspicion that the NZRFU is mostly staffed by ex props or at least folk that think like props. For many years the fans have been shouting at them that it is time to turn around, stop going in this direction but they aren’t listening and so the large powerful god of Rugby is shrinking and getting smaller all the time.

Take the upcoming test in Dunedin with the mighty All Blacks playing the likely to be highly entertaining Fijians. This should be a fun match to go to with a pretty much guaranteed win to the AB’s mixed with a bit of open running rugby from the Fijians. So with 5 days out from the game only 10,000 of appox 30,000 seats have been sold. Imagine a test match (no matter who against) not being sold out (or mostly) at this point. What has happened?

Well I think the NZRFU ignored the golden rule “the customer is always right” and so their god is shrinking and while rugby will never disappear it may end up like the cult of Ra. On the upside the bulls are safer these days.

Middle Age is Depressing

And no I am not referring to the traditional mid life crisis suffered mostly by men according to popular culture where they run off with the trophy bride and start driving a sports car.


I am referring to real life where it is a stage in your life where your parents are often reaching the end of their lives with some of the end of life dramas we all suffer of declining health an increasing need for support and possibly the associated death of some of the potentially closest relationships you will ever have.

Mean while back at home your kids have stopped being loveable little toddler types and have potentially turned into diabolical teenagers whose sole purpose in life seems to be making your life harder. Even if they haven’t reached this stage yet it will be looming and the calls on your time to run them to and fro to sports and other activities are high.

Career wise you are likely to have approached your peak, old enough to have some experience and young enough to be considered useful, on the other hand assuming you are not running a multi national conglomerate fulfilling your every career dream it is much more likely that work has become routine and you have become the victim of the Peter principal (people are promoted to one level above their competence) which generally makes life either boring or very stressful and because this is your lot the dream of the corner office is over.

And sounding like a good economist, on the other hand again it is this group that is called upon to be the back bone of society, donating their time in many volunteer roles to keep any number of clubs, charities community groups and the like functioning and in today’s society with minimal if any thanks and the potential for a large amount of criticism.

And if it is not bad enough that your parents health is falling apart, mid life is when doctors state talking about digital exams without a computer insight etc and your own health is not what it used to be. Lucky the dog is now as unfit as you are so you can just go for a walk around the block and pretend that “snack” exercise is sufficient to keep you looking and feeling 20.

Finally, the more traditional mid life crisis of realising that the attractive girls that you see on the street think you are a potentially creepy old man and you think they should dress properly and talk without using the word like at the beginning and end of every sentence. Damn you have turned into your father.

So it is no wonder that I have noticed an increasing number of my middle aged acquaintances who are feeling down or who are genuinely clinically depressed. The good news is that society is maturing enough after the work of John Kirwin and the like so that these folks feel secure enough to talk about it.

I suspect the bad news is there are more people out there soldiering on, well look around it is tough in the middle of your life, at a minimum share with your mates and if it is really bad get help. People as a general rule love to help. Look out for someone middle aged that’s what they do.

Get with the program

Lately there seems to have been a raft of media stories on the pro’s and cons of Vaccination.


Last night there was an Australian 60 minutes article focusing on two young babies (under 6 months and therefore not able to be immunised) that had died as a result of contracting Whooping Cough.

Before that it was some parental outrage from a group of mothers whose children had been sent home from school as they were not immunised against measles and there had been an outbreak in the community.

They were outraged because they had to take time off work to look after their kids and couldn’t seem to understand why the school didn’t start running separate classes etc for their children. It was after all their right not to immunise their kids.

And sadly it is their right, but should it be? First let’s dispose of the outliers in this argument, there are some limited cases where immunisation is not a good idea, for example children already suffering from cancer or have a problem with their immunity for whatever reason. We clearly shouldn’t immunise these children and have no need to do it as there is room in the system for a few unimmunised individuals.

In the 60 minutes doco though they were looking at a community where 1 in 4 kids were not immunised. And we are not talking about some down and out community that didn’t understand the issues this was a solid middleclass community of educated people.

Generally I think people should be left to get on with their lives and compulsory anything needs to be treated with caution, however your rights can’t be allowed to harm others as a general rule and in this instance those unimmunised people who therefore allowed Whooping Cough into their community effectively killed those babies. In the normal course of events if that was one person we would prosecute of murder but because a mob of ignorant people did it they get away with it.

And yes I said ignorant any one that does not immunise their child (without medical advice not to) is simple ignorant and too stupid to be left in charge of a child. There is simple no credible evidence that this is a bad idea. Tens of millions of people have been immunised with probably thousands of studies undertaken on the matter and no one of any standing in the community would be prepared to be against this. If it was systematically bad for people don’t you think we would have noticed by now? Millions and millions of people have had this remember, in every country in the world to a greater and lesser degree.

What we do know for an absolute fact is that many, many diseases have been effectively wiped out in developed nations, generally babies do not die from whooping cough, kids are not crippled by polio etc.

And the people deciding to not vaccinate are not the people who suffer the consequences, it is most likely to be their children or even worse someone else’s child. How do we continue to allow this, it is time we sorted this out once and for all and made it compulsory, to hell with the parents rights, what about the child’s rights. I have seen whooping cough in action and it is very unpleasant at the very least and clearly deadly at the worst.

Welfare

In common with a lot of other countries NZ spends a significant chunk of government money on direct hand outs to some of its citizens. I refer of course to Welfare payments in the broadest sense from Unemployment benefits to Superannuation Payments. Most Superannuation recipients don’t see this as welfare as if you ask them most will tell you they “earned it” through paying their taxes while they were working, but for the purpose of this I will ignore those issues for now and the wisdom of other benefits that people worry about, for example “dole bludgers” and “professional DPB recipients”.

What I do know for an undisputable fact is it costs a lot, specifically $22.9 bn or 31% of total government expenditure with the next two biggest being health at $14.4 bn and education at $12.3 bn making it not too far off the size of those two combined.

What do we get for this huge spend, well by and large we get people trapped in poverty and dependency because despite the large sums spent as a general rule living on a benefit is hardly the life of luxury.

And it is a lot of people specifically this many

Benefit Numbers
Unemployment 60,000
Sickness 60,000
Invalids 85,000
Domestic Purposes Benefit 113,000

Then there are approx 500,000 people over the age of 65 who are entitled to and therefore the majority of whom will be drawing superannuation. It is much harder to generalise about their economic circumstances as for quite a number the superannuation they receive is a top up for other savings etc that they may have. The value of paying people who don’t need it is a much debated topic and refers us back to the “earned it” argument again.

So what’s your point I hear you ask, well for one thing 22.9bn divided by 600,000 people is about $40,000 a person and that is a long way from what they actually get which I would suggest is much closer to about $15,000 but that’s not my point either. My point is being on a benefit is generally a bad idea and has all sorts of negative outcomes. I don’t propose to back that statement up I am just going to ask you to believe me on this one but a small amount of research on your own will undoubtedly confirm this fact.

So here is what I think is the most elegant solution a single universal benefit for every working age person in the country. Yup everyone, working, not working, rich or poor, sick or healthy, with or without children.

So first off we eliminate the majority of benefit fraud as other than pretending you are two people there are no other wrinkles in the system.

No more admin costs, well very minor ones to add people to the list at age 18 and delete them when dead but a relatively small task compared to the current system.

But the key idea is it provides a strong incentive to get work as nothing gets taken off you, every dollar you earn is yours to keep, whereas at the moment you end up with a benefit reduction when you work, giving you a low effective earning rate. This will provide the right signals and incentives to get people out of that benefit trap.

How do you pay for this I hear you ask. Well assume that we pay everyone $15k per annum then at about 3 million people to pay it will cost $45 bn. First of all we can use the money we are all ready paying the $22.9 bn which is half and then we need to increase taxes, yep sorry that is the only place money comes from, but hey if you are working then you will be happy to pay $15k more in tax as effectively nothing will change for you anything less than that would be a bonus and I think the cost would be lower but don’t have the data to work it out.

Get out and promote this idea with you local politician etc, it is contained within the working parties ideas and is the best of their proposals in my opinion.

The lowest common denominator

Not my usual posting style but how could you put this any better.

What's with all the silly news.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38776