Monday, March 10, 2003 :::
I'd love to hear from someone more pro-labour than I on the Broadway musicians' strike. Minima of the kind being discussed — "pay us whether our services are of any use to you or not" — are exactly what give me hives about organized labour. It's not about being paid less than they're worth, as it might have been once; now it's about not being paid enough more than they're worth. When the primary goal of organized labour seems to be to hinder sensible allocation of resources, it's hard for me to imagine where they expect to generate much sympathy.
Someone who knows more than I do about the situation and its history might be able to help me with something else, pro-labour or not. I don't understand why the musicians are on strike against all Broadway plays, and are negotiating with the producers of all Broadway plays as a single entity. Is there a trust of Broadway producers? Is that legal? A year or two ago we almost had a janitors' strike in Chicago that was similar; it was going to affect basically every downtown building. It's hard to imagine that every building is owned by the same entity, or that they're all managed by the same management company; who is it that negotiates with the union, and why are they allowed to negotiate as a single entity?
::: posted by dWj at 1:18 PM
