> Marvin:
>> Amazing. So how do unions survive if less than one in ten workers are
>> dues-paying members and they are responsible for negotiating and
>> administering agreements in 90% of all enterprises? Especially the poor
> CGT,
>> now bereft of Moscow gold? :)
>
> WS:
> I think we need to look beyond cost-benefit analysis to explain
> membership.
> It is the culture of social solidarity which most English speakers are
> simply genetically incapable of understanding. People belong to- or
> support
> certain types of institutions because they feel connected to it, it is a
> part of their collective consciousness, without asking 'what is in it to
> me"
> as many English-speakers tend to do. The thing that comes closest to it
> in
> the English speaking world, especially on this side of the pond, is Church
> membership - it defines group identity even though it may not produce
> tangible payoffs to specific individuals.
>
------------------------------
Why, thank you for your little homily, Wojtek. Part of your charm is that
you are not at all reluctant to express the strongest opinions on anything
and everything that passes across your field of vision. However, I think it
is unfair to ascribe to me and other English speakers a genetic defect - no
less! - which renders us "simply incapable of understanding" the concept of
"social solidarity." I don't think so.
In any event, I appreciate the sentiment underlying your wish that unions "look beyond" the cost of service and rely more on the voluntary participation and goodwill of those they represent. For someone who prides himself on being hard-headed, you sound quaintly utopian. Unions, like other organizations, operate on earth rather than in heaven, which is why an historic demand of the international movement has always been the closed shop where everyone HAS to belong and pay dues to the organization to ensure its longer-term survival.
This policy is not in contradiction to the full involvement of the membership; it encourages it. Allowing free riders, except in the rarest of cases, has the opposite effect, which is why the unions have strenuously fought the open shop. I am not very familiar with the French labour movement, but I have not seen anything indicating that the French trade unions would not welcome this kind of union security, while at the same time continuing to encourage the mass mobilizations of the workers and their allies for which they are justly known.