It's May, and as reliably as the spring and the public holidays, there's a dumb strike going on. At times like this I feel out of touch with my own society. I don't, usually, not even at times of political mass stupidity. But when employees decide to shut down the company they work for to get higher wages, and what everyone talks about is how fair or unfair, how realistic or unrealistic their demands are, I don't relate at all. I'm just struck by the basic immorality of it all.

I was taught the same version of Norwegian history as everyone else. I heard stories of brave workers standing up to their oppressive employers. I learned that unions are a vital part of the modern Norwegian welfare state. How did I go from that to the belief that shutting down and closing off a company you don't own is wrong? It sure wasn't through any free market theory. It goes deeper than what works/doesn't work anyway. This is a moral issue. I don't remember how it happened, exactly - but I blame reading Robert Heinlein at a critical age. Those books are short on political theory, but full of morality. I might find Heinlein's tone preacy if I read him for the first time today, but as it happened I read him very early, and I was imprinted with a few Heinleinian values: Don't whine. Respect privacy. Respect property. Take care of yourself, and don't demand favors from others. Don't follow the herd. Subversive and libertarian/anarchistic values, related to but different, more personal, than their ideological counterparts, (which I only partly subscribe to).

Values that are stomped and spat on by the act of ganging up with other employees to shut down a company you happen to work for until it gives you higher wages. That's wrong. That's blackmail. I object when libertarians call taxation theft and governments inherently oppressive. But in this case a strong word is appropriate: Blackmail.

Consider the rights a Norwegian union has, or rather the rights a Norwegian company doesn't have during a wage conflict. It can't fire people for not showing up at work. It can't hire new people to do their work for them. It must sit and watch as unions physically prevent non-union members from doing any work during the strike. You own a piece of property. You give people money to do things with your property. But once every couple of years, any group of those people calling themselves a union are allowed to confiscate your property until you give them more money. Blackmail. And deeply wrong.

So what is this year's big dumb strike all about? It's not about securing a safe working environment. We got that long ago. It's not about the 8 hour working day, or the five day working week. Been here for a while. It's not about decent vacations. It's not even about higher wages! It's about getting higher wages than non-unionized employees. It's true: Members of the Norwegian transport workers union have boycotted grocery chains all over the country for weeks now, for the right to make more money than colleagues who aren't members of their union. That's all. It's as dumb as it sounds. The employers have already agreed to raise their wages. The union members just don't want non-union members to get a raise too.

The logic is that as people who aren't member of unions ordinarily get the same wage increases as union members, and the unions supposedly do all the work blackmailing and harassing the companies to actually raise those wages, non-union members are freeriders. So to compensate for the union membership fee, union members want higher wages than the rest.

The basic immorality of blackmail apart, this is irrational. Union members have a number of benefits including good insurance terms, free legal advice in case of a job conflict, and help to reeducate yourself if you lose your job. Those are good benefits, necessary in lines of work that are unstable or where you're habitually treated like shit. I'm not in one of those businesses, but if I were I would certainly consider overriding my morality circuits and join a union. Those services are what union members pay for. They also pay for the creation of strike funds, but this can only be a fraction of the fee, and it's not fair to demand compensation for the rest of it.

But of course it's not fair to blackmail anyone ever. What makes launching a strike at this time and place, Norway 2004, so laughable and tragic, is that the blackmailers aren't even poor. None of them are. They're filthy rich, every single one of them, by any sensible standard. (A filthy rich person, by my definition, is a rich person who whines about it.) Can you imagine resurrecting one of those old 19th century workers heroes whose torches today's unions claim to carry, and show them how whiny their mindboggingly wealthy 21st century followers have become? Ridiculous. "Solidarity". Phah. That word used to mean something. Sympathize or not with that original sense, but even I have enough respect for early union leaders to be offended on their behalf by the cynical way today's unions have redefined their ideals.

Striking for the right to make more money than non-union employees, in effect creating a disincentive for independent workers. To the charge of blackmail, can we add racketeering?

Don't worry about me, btw. I've barely noticed the strike. Some products have disappeared completely, (no eggs or frozen pizza at the local Rimi today), but there's still enough food to go around, including the things I usually eat. Toilet paper has run out, but I've got enough. Life in the rich world is great, even without frozen pizza. And that's just the point. It's okay to stop whining now. Please?

I agree on the morality, but I think there's also the issue of humanitarian law here.

Norway has signed various declarations of human rights that give workers the right to organize, as well as the right *not* to organize. Just like it would be illegal to penalize union workers for being organized, it must be illegal to penalize non-union workers for their choice.

So although I'm not an attorney, my "advice" to management is this:

Let the strikers know that their strike is illegal according to prevailing labor laws but also according to humanitarian law. Tell them they'll get the benefit of the doubt for another 48 hours, but those who don't show up for work by Tuesday at 8 am, are fucking fired for cause.

It's not so bad .Here in france ,one of the minority union at EDF (monopolistic state owned electricity production company )is threatening to cut the power to protest against privatisation and dereglementation... All this with our money.In my town, one bus company is on strike, the CAF another state gadget is also on strike, and finally the best: employees on one plant are on strike because the activity is moving to Morroco (what about devellopment and solidarity??).Their colleagues at the other plant are getting on strike, not because they re threatened but just because they are worried.Post packages are stolen or lost.I wonder what Henlein would think about this!!

"Toilet paper has run out"

Boy! That's harsh.

Not to worry, Bjorn! I hear that Robert Fisk may have a few loo rolls to spare.

On the other hand, why should scabs get the benefits of being a union member (higher wages) when they aren't willing to pay dues that the union members are paying? I'm a dues-paying member of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), but because Florida is a right-to-work state, our union has to provide the same representation to non-members that it does to people who pay their dues. I don't mind paying dues, because I think it is the right thing to do, since I get a good pay/benefit package because of the union's contract negotiations with management. Without the union to fight for my rights, I'd probably be making minimum wage if I had to depend on my employer to "do the right thing" voluntarily. I don't much care for scabs, because I think free-riding is a dishonorable thing to do.

This is NOT to say, however, that I agree with my union's politics, since most of them are somewhere just this side of Lenin and Marx. They're going to tell me I should vote for Kerry this fall. I pay them to represent me vs. management, though, not to tell me how to vote.

Sorry, I don't see where striking workers are "confiscating" anything but their own labor.

On the contrary, the problem (to my vaguely libertarianish sensibilities) are labor laws that tie the hands of employers faced with a strike. Given a level playing field, why should workers be obligated to work against their wishes?

jsinger: The problem (in Norway) is that the employer cannot hire new hands to do the job that the strikers did. That is called "streikebryteri" and isn't allowed.

And it sucks.

Rune: "the employer cannot hire new hands to do the job that the strikers did" This also applies to non-organized employees. "Strike guards" literally close off entire companies, and prevent _anyone else_ from doing the job they're refusing to do themselves. So yeah, confiscate is the right word, and the level playing field jsinger talks about is exactly what we don't have.

Ummm - what specific law in Norway makes it illegal for an employer to hire temp workers (ie "scabs") to carry on with the work while the regular workers are on strike ? I know of no such law.

There are laws that forbid the employer from *firing* people who are enganged in a legal strike - ie when the previous agreement no longer is valid, and a new employer-employee agreement is being negotiated.

So the employer can get back at people who go on strike by firing them. But the people who go on strike will have to live on their savings (and / or their unions savings) during the period they are on strike.

So a strike hurts both parties - the employer loses business and the striking employees loses income during the strike. It is not a free ride for the employees, as you seem to imply.

One error in my last post. Obviously I meant "So the employer *cannot* get back at people who goes on strike by firing them".

Stein: "Ummm - what specific law in Norway makes it illegal for an employer to hire temp workers (ie "scabs") to carry on with the work while the regular workers are on strike ? I know of no such law."

I don't know the laws that regulate wage conflicts in Norway, but if there is a law that makes it illegal for strike guards to close off a company they work for and prevent people from doing their jobs, it's not being enforced.

"It is not a free ride for the employees, as you seem to imply."

I expect that the Transport Workers Union has a decent strike fund, and they are in any case supported by LO, who can step in if their money runs out. The primary victims here are everyone who's jobs are threatened because the transport workers won't do their jobs - and the transport workers aren't among them.

If the employers are free to hire somebody and in
fact *anybody* else to do the job - indefinitely,
and on any terms - and the original employee can
be prevented from going to work, and (obviously)
doesn't get paid, then how can it make sense to
say that he remains employed?

I don't get it.

##Don't whine. Respect privacy. Respect property. Take care of yourself, and don't demand favors from others. Don't follow the herd.##

Actually, this is a kind of authoritarianism. "Take what others offer you and shut up". And this values does actually imply that you should follow the herd, the herd in this instance being the "market".

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