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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watcgl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!jchapman
From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: paying plumbers
Message-ID: <2314@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 08:59:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2314
Posted: Wed Aug  7 08:59:58 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 23:43:34 EDT
References: <533@ttidcc.UUCP> <302@looking.UUCP> <2210@watcgl.UUCP> <2242@watcgl.UUCP> <238@fear.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 72

> In article <2242@watcgl.UUCP>, jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
> >  To those who say (listen up Brad) it would be degrading to people
> >  in general to have their wages decided by some independant (and
> >  probably necessarily at least quasi-governmental).  How can it
> >  possibly be more degrading to have someone(s) making the decision
> >  who has nothing to gain or lose by the decision when you compare
> >  it to having the decision made by someone whose primary objective
> >  is to make as much money as possible which necessitates paying
> >  you as little as possible?
> > 	John Chapman
> > 	...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman
> 
> Yeah, I know. I've read Marx, too.  The problem is that I have
> trouble making myself feel like a peasant when I've been able to find
> employers who were more desperate to hire me than I was to work for
> them. Nor is this particularly rare.

 I think that if you talked to a significant number of people you would
 find it rare - it certainly would be for the approx. 15% of the work
 for that is unemployed in Canada right now.  In my experience the  
 majority of people just don't have the choice of jobs/conditions/wages
 that your statement implies.

> 
> The idea of taking away the power of setting salary from people I see
> every day and giving it to the government is absurd.  Maybe things

 How absurd it appears probably depends a lot on where you sit in the
 prevailing hierarchy.

> are different in Canada (though I doubt it), but it's very difficult
> to distract Congresspeople from their business of buggering page boys
> and accepting bribes to get any decent legislation passed.
> 
> Anyway, the whole point of centralizing power, as I see it, is to
 This type of power need not necessarily be centralized.

> make policy inescapable.  If my employer does something I don't like,
> I only have to find another employer.  If the goverment does
> something I don't like, I have to find another *COUNTRY*.
 Or be forced to find ways of making the government more responsive.
> 
> Imposing all of this statist garbage for the sole purpose of wage
> equality for women seems extreme, especially given the continuing
> improvements, the number of non-sexist employers and employers who
> are women, and all.  Besides, a change in political climate could
> cause the controls to be abused.
  So we should never do anything because one day the mechanisms that
  are necessary to implement some policy may be abused?
> 
> Why are you so eager to put the power of law behind your opinions?
> Are you so wise, so benevolent, that it's a good idea to sweep away
> all the diversity in the world and replace it with *YOUR* dictates?

 Right, lets have no laws because any law will replace all that 
 wonderful diversity by *someone's* dictates; I can certainly see
 where the preservation of institutionalized social injustice is
something we would want to preserve. :->
> 
> -- 
> 
> 						"Quid me anxius sum?"
> 						    -- E. Alfredus Numanus
> 		Robert Plamondon
> 		{turtlevax, resonex, cae780}!weitek!robert
-- 

	John Chapman
	...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman

	Disclaimer : These are not the opinions of anyone but me
		     and they may not even be mine.