wow. hyperbole much?

[netmouse]

Just got an email from the democratic party about the primary election. At the bottom they have this to say:

BEWARE OF "RIGHT TO WORK" PETITION
At your polling site you may be asked to sign a petition to put Right to Work legislation on the november ballot.
Right to Work means Right to Work for Less. This legislation would:
Reduce wages and benefits
Weaken labor unions
Destroy the middle class
Please do not sign these petitions. This is an attempt by Corporations and out-of-state millionaires to further weaken Michigan's economy.

(emphasis mine)

this article reports that, "According to the U.S. government, poverty rates are 16 percent higher in right-to-work states. Due to poverty rates, these states have the worst infant mortality rates in the nation. Personal bankruptcies are also higher in right-to-work states."

That's not destroying the middle class, that's hurting the lower classes. at best the lower middle class...

Anyway, I'm not supporting or opposing the "Right to work" movement (here's another article against it) but I'm tired of people trying to play with my fear. I'm not afraid, people. Not more than is reasonable anyway.

Comments

[nicegeek.livejournal.com]

I do assume that people can learn a new profession, if given the right resources. Defining "the right resources" is a really long debate, of course.

This is really the classic 'buggy-whip manufacturer' problem: When technological or societal changes make it so that some jobs are just no longer necessary, what do you do with the people who had those jobs?

You can try to block the change and force the old jobs to stick around, but then you're causing two kinds of harm. First, you've got a person spending their life doing work that doesn't really need to be done anymore. At least for most people, I think that would be profoundly demoralizing and disempowering. Second, the money spent paying for busy work is effectively wasted when it could have been used for more productive purposes.

Instead of blocking change and wasting the rest of a life's worth of labor in the process, I think it's better to focus resources on helping the person change along with the world. Doing something genuinely useful is not only better for their employer, but is far better for their own self-worth too.

I think that adaptability is a fundamental human trait, and that most (though not all) cases of people who "can't" learn new skills have their roots in either stubbornness or the fear of change, which could be overcome with sufficient effort and some combination of carrots and sticks. In the rare cases where someone absolutely can't learn an employable skill even given every chance to do so, you'd probably have to handle them just as you would someone who was unemployable due to a severe disability.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

And who is to pay for this training?

I have found many of the retraining programs to be of the quick and dirty type they fulfill the minimum requirements but do not help the trainee esp. in the long run.

[nicegeek.livejournal.com]

That's the really long debate I mentioned, which probably isn't worth getting into here. The point I was making was that for everyone involved, retraining is generally better than keeping obsolete jobs around.

[nicegeek.livejournal.com]

Better for everyone except the unions, I should have said.