Dagny Taggart's labour problems

One day I will get off an airplane, walk to the luggage carousel and my bag(s) will be the first one to come down the conveyor belt.

I have begun to survey my co-travelers and ask them if their bags have ever been the first bags off the carousel. I have yet to meet a single person whose bag has ever come off the plane first, and I am almost convinced that the airline industry has “extra” bags that they put into play to make us think our bags are coming as they desperately try to locate and or reassemble them.

I can’t remember the last time I took a plane anywhere and there wasn’t some form of hiccup- whether my bag was sent to a more interesting place then I or that my luggage caused a delay because it was ticking. I place part of the blame on the Peter Keatings of the world. I just need one architect to say “…checking your bag in another building is a bad idea, and I don’t think people really care if there is a Starbucks between check-in and the departure gate.” Of course, that isn’t poor Peter’s fault- he is just building that which was described to him by his greedy clients who survive on multiple sales.

Poor design is only part of the problem. Pardon the pun, but I think that the people who work in the airline industry are not very well grounded. I will exclude pilots, for as best as I can tell, I have yet to be delivered to the wrong place. The bottom line is that the people who work in the airline industry don’t have a lot in common with Rhodes scholarship aspirants. Its not that the union members are dumb and lazy, it is that they are dumb or lazy. Put these same workers in the labyrinth of modern day airports, and I am surprised any bags get onto planes at all. Of course, the call number for Ottawa is YOW. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

Seriously, there are lots of people in the industry who work really hard, and I am sure it is often grueling work. These are highly sought after jobs for non-professionals because of the excellent job security, high wages, and benefits would make most civil servants think about giving up their lottery-like windfall. These features exist as a direct result of the unions? Or do the unions exist to protect these features? I think that is probably where the problems start. I am of the honest belief that a collective bargaining unit that has any say on the admission of its new members goes out of its way to exclude excellence, out of fear that the mediocrity of the vast majority of its members will be exposed when standing next to it. Only the best worked on the Galt line.

Generally, does our society really need unions anymore? I am not possibly smart enough to make that determination, because I am sure that they play a valuable role to their members that I haven’t grasped yet. Specific to this industry, however, I have to wonder if stewardesses, baggage handlers and ticket agents really need to be in a union. Assuming for a second that there aren’t laws and regulations that protect against every imaginable infraction and social injustice to the daily labourer, can’t a citizen, informed or otherwise, elect to disenfranchise themselves? I don’t believe that the legal environment that existed at the advent of the union mindset is still in place today, and if it is, it is in Alberta where unions don’t need to exist because everything else seems to be paved with gold.

Given the name of this blog, maybe a reconsideration of the ironically titled Rand formula could provide the answer. While acknowledging the value of group-speak for members and the benefits that can accrue from it, the formula specifically considered individual wishing to extricate themselves from the collective, to stand alone as an individual, or to stand with another collective bargaining unit that he/she feels better represents his/her interests. I would go so far as to suggest that the forced association is in violation of the spirit, if not the judicially interpreted letter, of the constitutional guarantee to free assembly. I need to find a very wealthy airline coffee-jockey to test the theory judicially, however.

Would this get my bag to Orlando any faster or in the same number of pieces? Theoretically, without a union lording over the workplace, some of the less desirable and problem members will be fired, retrained or inspired to be less ineffective rather than promoted out of harms way. A crappy worker makes a wicked shop steward. Ultimately, mistakes will still happen, but at least in the abstract world between the ticket agent and the baggage carousel, there is the chance that things will run more efficiently.

Unions are everywhere. To the point where I wonder if their social usefulness is imperiled by their dominance over all professions. I know that there are some places where unions are still useful, starting with Police Officers and Nurses whose rights are at the whims of provincial legislatures because of their (the workers and the legislature’s) desire to work in the public interest. But, do you really care when the staff at a golf course go on strike because they aren’t getting $14.00 to serve drinks?

I believe that an opt-in/out policy would actually foster competition. There are people who are willing to do a job for less money than you are, and if the laws protect them from egregious labour practices, why shouldn’t they be able to out bid you? Right now, unions already bid against each other for the same jobs, but they have completely arbitrary and self-imposed glass floors that prevent them from undercutting each other.

Of course, it could be that I am cheap. First class bags don’t get lost. Workers of the world unite to serve your capitalist masters.