Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Collective Bargaining for Screeners?

by Smitty (h/t Hot Air)

Senator Jim DeMint connects the nomination of Eroll Southers to head the TSA, and the likelihood of screeners coming under collective bargaining.

I understand the historical context in which unions were born. As someone who's served in the Navy, however, the modern union seems a mutiny awaiting its moment. In the absence of acute, legitimate issues of worker exploitation, unions offer chronic problems in all directions. They are the Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy written across the base of the organization chart.

Unions: frequently a cure worse than the disease.

4 comments:

  1. I was having a nice chat with an airline pilot last night. I sold him some chicken feed. (I made it myself) He raises chickens in his spare time. Kind of interesting hobby for an airline pilot. Anyway he said, "TSA screeners are idiots."
    He said quite a lot more. That was the condensed version. It was kind of a depressing conversation.
    As a farmer I sometimes do things like make chicken feed.
    Sometimes I talk to airline pilots as well.

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  2. I read your link to Pournelle's Law, and it makes absolute sense. Teacher's unions, autoworker's unions, they all follow the law to a T. Why would anyone think a TSA union would be any different?
    Thank you.

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  3. What I don't understand is why civil servants of any kind are allowed to form unions. Civil service rules were originally put in place to avoid the kind of arbitrary hiring and firing that allegedly characterized the patronage system, so allowing state & federal employees to join unions and strike just hands money and power to the union bosses for nothing. Which is almost certainly the point of it, but we should be pushing Congress to get rid of it since it screws the taxpayers. TSA should have been military from the beginning in any case, in my opinion; this business of firing all the civilian security firms and rehiring their people as Federal employees was pure stupidity.

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  4. Nanny Government Solution To Terrorism?

    Poll Question: Should we pay for skin grafts for panty bomber?

    http://bellalu0.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/should-we-provide-panty-bomber-with-skin-grafts/

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