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Bill: Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform
Details
Submitted by[?]: Aldegar Freedom Party
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: January 2416
Description[?]:
| Family First believes that it is appalling that workers whose service is crucial to the basic operations of our society are allowed to go on strike, essentially rendering their services useless for that period of time. We cannot accept that individuals with such crucial roles as policemen, doctors, fire fighters, surgeons, etc, be able to drop their job's obligation to society over such blatantly selfish motives as to pursue their own personal agendas. People like surgeons currently have the right to strike, perhaps even when they have a man in the waiting list or in the emergency ward who might die without immediate attention. This is abhorrent. In Family First's view, there is no call for strikes of any description in the first place, but for workers that are actually crucial in saving lives or helping society to be allowed to strike is far, far worse. This is an extraordinary evil and it must be stopped. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change The workers' right to strike.
Old value:: All workers have the right to strike.
Current: All workers have the right to strike.
Proposed: All workers, except certain categories of workers regarded as critical to society, have the right to strike.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 13:46:41, June 08, 2007 CET | From | S.C.A.F.R. | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | we can't support this bill. |
| Date | 21:19:13, June 08, 2007 CET | From | Party of Moderates | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | We agree. Society shouldn't suffer calamities simply because some workers aren't satisfied with their pay. This bill is necesary for practicality. |
| Date | 09:56:57, June 09, 2007 CET | From | Progressive Democrats | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | Whilst the Progressive Democrats see the pragmatic arguements for such legislation, we cannot defer from our ideological support for the expression of free-will by the individual. Strikes do not only occur as a result of pay dissatisfaction, they may also occur due to safety, environmental and legitmate political concerns and we therefore oppose this bill. |
| Date | 10:23:09, June 09, 2007 CET | From | Aldegar | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | We can't support this with the same reason av the PD. |
| Date | 04:40:40, June 10, 2007 CET | From | Aldegar Freedom Party | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | In response to the Progressive Democrats, we would like to suggest that, even if strikes were based on safety hazards and poor environments, the crucial worker has a fundamental obligation to society that cannot be forfeit. Their obligation to society is clearly far more intrinsic than any personal concerns they may have, and furthermore, if they do have any complaints they should define said complaints to the managerial body concerned. |
| Date | 14:43:06, June 10, 2007 CET | From | Party of Moderates | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | Does it ever occur to the opponents of this bill that strikes would not be done in the manner they should be when crucial workers strike? Normally, a strike is simply a struggle, a holdout, between a corporate leader and the workers. The free market normally then determines the winner. If it turns out the workers' concerns were valid, then that will be reflected in the difficulty the business owner has in replacing the workers. If the workers' concerns weren't valid, then that will be reflected in how the business owner is easily able to replace the workers. That is how a strike works. However, when a worker crucial to society strikes, all the normal rules are thrown out the window. The battle becomes workers vs. society, and society suffers greatly because of the workers. As the workers take society hostage, they can demand whatever they want, even the economically invalid. This is a major issue with crucial workers striking. As for the concerns about crucial workers' environment and various other things being poor, the state can regulate that if truly necesary, and the free market will likely be able to regulate because if the conditions really are horrible, then that will be reflected in how the owners of establishments hiring these workers are not able to hire workers for all the positions they need filled. |
| Date | 03:31:49, June 11, 2007 CET | From | Aldegar Freedom Party | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | Family First certainly echo the sentiments of the PM, and we would like to make further elaborations on their point about the free market: the natural free market is such that any business whose employer or managerial body is not providing sound conditions and pay for their workers will inevitably lose their employees, and they will struggle to maintain a strong employee base to keep their business in operation. Meanwhile, employees that have forfeit employment with that particular business will have sought employment with the rival businesses of the initial one, therefore strengthening the competition and weakening the inadequate business and employer. In the extreme circumstance, the initial business which all of these employees left will either be forced to a) increase the standards of their employment conditions, lest they be completely engulfed by competition, or b) go bankrupt over time as competitive rival businesses, who DO offer their employees generous pay and generous conditions, has completely dominated them and driven them out of the market. This is the natural market - it does not need to be interfered with, it does not need to be regulated, because it will regulate itself. Trade unions and strikers are essentially interfering in the natural market process. If workers are continuously dissatisfied with the conditions of their employment, the most natural and beneficial course of action, should their employer pay no heed to their plight, would be to simply quit the job and seek employment with rival businesses. Through virtue of the market, any and every single factor, including working conditions and wage rates, will play a factor in the success or failure of the business involved, if people just follow the natural order of the market. On a slightly different tack, we would like to second another of the PM's arguements - if society is essentially impartial to the workers going on strike, it won't matter at all. As the PM said, this would simply be a battle between the workers and the employer. But when it is between crucial workers, who form the very gears that keep society's mechanisms turning, and the employer, there is a myriad of other complicated factors tied into the equation. Society depends on these individuals - their skills are are not just something that might be nice to have around, they are crucial to the operations of society. Striking for these individuals would be utterly gutless and selfish, and if they choose to go on strike even when society depends on them so greatly, it perhaps shows that they are not fit to serve society, and that they should go and work as a brick layer. |
| Date | 04:19:25, June 11, 2007 CET | From | Party of Moderates | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | The PM congratulates the FF on its valid points. Although, we do disagree on their positon on trade unions. We see them as part of the free market as well. While it's true that the free market does accomplish the goals of the trade unions eventually, trade unions can expedite the process. We believe, that, in general, trade unions act as a good addition to the free market and share some of the characteristics of it. One of those in is self-regulation which is shown in how the membership of unions corresponds with how satisfied the workers are. So, we believe, that with exception of union monopolies and union coercion, as a part of the free market, unions should not be interfered with. That is the party's official position which we would like to clarify. However, the legality of trade unions in general is not in the issue here. The issue here is union coercion. Crucial workers are able to hold to society hostage and under control to gain whatever they so wish. No reasonable government would allow this to occur. As a government of a free people, it is our duty to ensure both economic and personal freedom to our citizens by battling coercion for selfish gain imposed in any form or any entity, whether it be of corporations, of unions, or of the government itself. This is the issue here. This is the reason why this bill must be passed. |
| Date | 09:26:36, June 11, 2007 CET | From | Aldegar Freedom Party | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | Without any further ado, we will move this bill to a vote. |
| Date | 05:45:06, June 12, 2007 CET | From | Aldegar Freedom Party | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | Has this nation's normally considerate, intelligent electorate gone completely insane?... |
| Date | 13:12:36, June 12, 2007 CET | From | Party of Moderates | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | I don't think anybody reads the comments anymore. Debate has been a foreign thing to the electorate since the end of the Social Democrats. |
| Date | 03:24:49, June 13, 2007 CET | From | Aldegar Freedom Party | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | OOC: I think you're right, but debate is the keystone of this entire game, in my personal opinion. Without debate, this game is virtually just voting or proposing legislation. What fun is that? Debate is the very heart of politics. In a way, I do miss the Social Democrats for this reason - they may have had detestable policies on alot of issues, but they sure made for some fantastic and heated debate. I think what the center-right coalition needs most now is a party that can oppose almost everything we do or say; that would really liven things up, debate wise. |
| Date | 04:29:35, June 13, 2007 CET | From | Party of Moderates | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | OOC: Well, we already have two parties that oppose everything that we do, but only say "no" and never talk again for that bill debate process. Then we have some parties in our coalition that sometimes disagree with us, but they rarely say anything, too. So, we pretty much just have ourselves talking to the metaphorical wall. It's gotten so bad that I actually joined another nation. Now, I hope to trade blows with a minanarchist and possibly some other ideologies. |
| Date | 15:41:03, June 16, 2007 CET | From | Aldegar Reform Party | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | What is being started here is a slippery slope. Soon the line may blur between which workers are "critical to society." We fear this if this is passed no workers may be able to strike in the very near future. |
| Date | 14:59:22, June 18, 2007 CET | From | Party of Moderates | To | Debating the Crucial Worker's Right to Strike Reform |
| Message | Slippery slope? There is no slippery slope. None of the parties here have any desire to stop strikes altogether. The idea of a slippery slop is nothing more than a petty excuse. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 159 | ||||||
| no |
Total Seats: 491 | ||||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
| Random fact: Periodically, it is a good idea to go through your nation's Treaties and arrange to withdraw from any that are unwanted. |
| Random quote: "In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a cheque. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." - Martin Luther King Jr. |