The Writers Strike and Jay Leno's Monologue
The Writers Guild apparently says it's OK for Jay Leno to do his monologue, but if writes his monologue then he has crossed the picket line. As I explain in this PRI blog post, such a position quickly leads to absurdity. The union advocates would have you believe that they are merely withholding their own labor to show how important their contribution is, but everyone knows that their tactics go beyond that.
Comments (12)
接近开关
光电开关
Published: January 11, 2008 7:35 PM
Let's not beat around the bush. Unions are evil. Those who engage in union tactics can dress up their actions in flowery rhetoric, but the reality cannot be denied: they use force or the threat of force to prop up their wages and benefits at the expense of employers and consumers.
Of course, none of this is achievable without their partner in crime, the state. If the state merely enforced contracts instead of intervening, it would be doing its job. Instead, it divides and conquers. It subsidizes many employers at taxpayer expense while simultaneously siding with unions in return for campaign kickbacks. The general public gets the shaft every time.
The shaftees might understand this in larger numbers if they had only been properly educated rather than fed buckets full of propaganda during their days in the government school monopoly. And who fed them this slop in the classroom, you ask? None other than the teachers' unions.
Like I said, unions are evil.
Published: January 11, 2008 10:23 PM
I hope they get this thing over soon. The Tonight Show is starting to get pathetic at this point. They had to stoop to having a Priest, Rabbi and Minister on the show last night. :)
Published: January 11, 2008 10:27 PM
The problem is not unions. Unions are reacting to the equally unfair rules of incorporation. Corporations are deemed 'people' and also have the right to state protection of their claims to limited liability. The state has no right upholding the claims of unions or the limited liability claims of corporations. One form of interventionsim leads to another, and to even it out the government allows a form of limited liability to be used by both corporations and labor. Both are equally bad. Labor should not be given special rights by the state, but neither should corporations and limited liability companies.
Published: January 12, 2008 1:50 AM
"The problem is not unions. Unions are reacting to the equally unfair rules of incorporation."
Just like unions are not evil in the sense that they are purely voluntary associations, limited liability is not bad either in a voluntary environment.
The problem with your argument is that unions do have (and take advantage of) coercive powers given to them by the state, while banks and other investors are not yet forced to loan money to limited liability businesses.
Published: January 12, 2008 9:33 AM
Why doesn't Jay Leno outsource the writing of his monologue to some writers in the UK or even India?
Published: January 12, 2008 11:24 AM
Oh boy. The same old tired, illibertarian anti-union rantings. If Leno didn't want to be bound by his union contract, he shouldn't have joined the union. If Leno didn't want his writers striking, his show could have hired non-union writers. In fact, under the NLRA, Leno's employers could simply hire replacement writers for the striking workers and then make them permanent (there is no general employer obligation to replace non-union replacement workers with striking workers once the strike has ended). That the network chooses NOT to do so speaks to the bargaining power of the union -- not it's ability marshal the coercive force of government behind it, for the employer is under no obligation under the NLRA to offer or accept any particular substantive terms of agreement.
There's a certain, flagrantly anti-union, segment of the libertarian community that habitually engages in gross exaggerations about the "coercive" power given to unions under the anemic NLRA (even after the neutering of Taft-Hartley, and the gross, illibertarian restrictions on union contracts that T-H brought into the picture). Shame shame!
Published: January 12, 2008 12:34 PM
I actually haven't seen that much anti-union ranting in the libertarian movement, except by a handful of individuals.
However, on libertarian grounds, the LAWS which govern unions in this country need to be repealed in their entirety.
1. An employer should be free to recognize or NOT to recognize a union, regardless of how many of his employees might support the union.
2. An employer should be free to bargain with or NOT to bargain with the union.
3. Each employee should have the absolute right to either join an existing union and benefit from collective bargaining or to REFRAIN from joining the union and bargain directly with the employer.
It is NOT unions that are illiberal, nor is anybody here trying to make that point. The point is that current labor law is manifestly unlibertarian and grants unions quasi government authority and priviledge.
Published: January 12, 2008 9:45 PM
Mark B:
I agree with all 3 of your points entirely - I want the government out of the "union business" altogether. That includes, of course, restrictions on union contract making in Taft-Hartley which prohibits "closed shop" arrangements, and allows the States to pass so-called "Right to Work" laws which prohibit the "union shop" and other "union security" measures -- all three of which a union SHOULD be freely able to bargain for if it has the bargaining strength to do so.
I think you are pretty clearly wrong, however, when you suggest that the article above was taking issue only with labor laws, and not unions themselves. The article above (and the article it links to) is actually making a substantive criticism of the union's interpretation of the agreement between Leno and itself (and concluding that the union's position is "absurd). When was the last time you saw a libertarian taking issue with the contract interpretation of a run of the mill commercial dispute? Never.
Published: January 14, 2008 12:52 PM
People still watch Jay Leno and the Tonight show??
Published: January 14, 2008 2:56 PM
So, "unions are evil" qualifies as an intelligent and civil comment? Then I guess "only a dumbfuck would think unions were evil" qualifies as well.
Published: January 16, 2008 11:08 PM
curious
Published: January 17, 2008 2:27 AM