Distribution of wealth and work conditions are certainly political when the talk is about work or economic policies. When it is part of the debate employee-eployer at company, branch, or field level, it's union stuff.
An artificial distinction, if you ask me. When Parliament enacts a law stipulating that a labourer may not lift more than so-and-so many kg pr. day (on account of protecting his back from injury), it is usually the unions that end up enforcing it. When the unions negotiate terms for overtime pay, it is often the police that enforces it (or rather, the tax collection agency, because they're the ones who settle debts that the debtor refuses to pay).
And I also doubt that you'd apply the same distinction to - say - green politicians and pro-environment NGOs. Why shouldn't Greenpeace agitate for a cap on CO_2 emissions? Should they leave that to the political parties who are supposed to formulate nationwide policy?
That would be a curious kind of democracy.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Some industries are declining. Workers get made redundant. Let's say that the green agenda in many ways is good for a country as well as being good for a planet. Let's say a country commits to a significant investment in developing an infrastructure for renewable and green energy. This creates new jobs, redundant workers can be retrained and learn new skills and be kitted out to take on these new jobs.
There is a role for unions to play here, in supporting these workers but also in encouraging government and persuading them that this is a good course of action to take. Renewable energy helps to meet energy challenges, new jobs keeps people from needing benefits and from possibly not finding jobs again etc...
Now, if we kept all these things entirely separate and didn't let unions form and promote policy on green issues then it could take much longer for governments to come around to a more innovative way of thinking, they wouldn't have the forethought to retrain workers being made redundant from certain sectors and the links between apparently separate policy areas (environment, energy, employment, welfare) would be missed. Ad astra per aspera
I'd like to hear his answer to this.
I'm repeating myself. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
It seems to me that what you're complaining about is that some NGOs have members who hold influential positions within society and that those NGOs can mobilise those members to exert their influence, and that this gives them an influence that is not in proportion to their membership.
If that is your concern, then I suggest you take aim at the chemicals lobby, the finance lobby and the aeronautics lobby before laying blame on unions. Very few unions actually wield disproportionate power. And those who do do so only because various right-wing governments have been too miserly to create a cadre of tenured, well-paid civil servants with good pensions and high job security to handle critical infrastructure.
