Socialism and Collective Bargaining by Victor Thorn

From http://www.wingtv.net/thorn2006/collectivebargaining.html

Socialism and Collective Bargaining by Victor Thorn


To understand socialism, we must first become familiar with the concept of collective bargaining. To introduce this term, let me hearken back to the days when I used to work in a factory. Every few years in this place union representatives had to renegotiate the employee’s contract, so they’d sit down with the corporate brass and engage in “collective bargaining.”In a nutshell, what this means is that hundreds of different workers in a specific department – or an equivalent union pay grade – would receive the exact same amount of money as everyone else. Thus, it doesn’t matter how efficient, innovative, or conscientious a specific laborer was – everyone received the exact same pay.So, regardless if somebody worked their a__ off as hard as they could; or if they were hungover, lazy, and completely disinterested --- at the end of each week they received the same amount on their paychecks. Worse, it’s extremely difficult to fire the worthless employees because unions have erected a huge protection racked around them.On the other hand, a factory across town did things quite a bit differently. Instead of utilizing a socialist form of collective bargaining, the owners paid their laborers via a merit-based system called “piece work.” In simplest terms, here’s how it was set-up: rather than receiving a standard wage just like everyone else in your department, compensation was determined by how many parts you cranked out per shift.

In other words, the more productive you were, the more you made.Now ask yourself, which system do you like better? Personally, I’d choose piece work over collective bargaining any day of the week because when I work my ass off, why should a slacker receive the same pay? It all boils down to free enterprise capitalism versus socialism (bordering on communism). Plus, with collective bargaining, the entire system is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. On the contrary, with piece work, it’s survival of the fittest, and those who can’t (or refuse to) carry their weight are discarded for someone more productive.Why do you think the old Soviet bloc fell apart? Because Marx’s vision was based on faulty logic and the workers had no incentive to better themselves. A theoretical utopia is fine within the pages of a book, but it doesn’t hold up in the real world.Tomorrow: Why collectivism fails