>However, far too much of my personal, direct experience of unions is
>negative.
I would say the same, just from my own personal experience. Anyone been
a public school student, or ridden on a commercial airliner, recently?
Both of these experiences are, in my view, made distinctly unpleasant by
the directly customer-hostile organization of the staff.
For example, take a look at the recent move by flight attendants to limit
carry-on bags. It is only because they don't like to deal with crowding
in the overhead racks that this was proosed - as far as I can tell,
flight attendants (as an organization, perhaps not individually) give
nary a hoot about the impact on passengers' schedules.
In my opinion, TWU is actually not so bad as they go at the moment,
perhaps because they are suffering as much as anyone from the f*d-up
Civil Service rules that make it impossible even to hire the people
you've already budgeted. However, their opposition to tighter safety
rules remains troubling, as is their opposition to merit pay.
One of the big, big problems with unionism, and something that we can't
fix here in SF, is the rule by which unions are required to fight tooth
and nail to save the job of any member who wants to challenge a firing.
Take a look at the Cruz interview, in which he described a FIVE-stage
firing process for someone who should never have been behind the wheel in
the first place - or the Latrell Sprewell brouhaha, in which the NBA
Players' Association has to support his grievance even though he clearly
needs much more serious help.
That rule alone would make me very hesitant to sign a union card if
asked. If I work with a "bad apple" or two (the typical mayor's excuse)
I would like to see them fired!
Andrew