(October 9, 2012 at 2:16 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Any contractual obligation of labor [here] which the laborer cannot terminate at any time is unlawful. I think that's a good way to handle labor. I suppose we could mince words over the specifics of either side of the rest of your post but it "all flows from here" in this instance, for me.I think that's a rather silly way to handle labor. It costs the company time and money to find people for various jobs. The whole point of having notice periods in contracts is so that someone can't come into work one day and say "I quit", leaving the company with a vacant (and possibly mission-critical) position that they need to quickly fill. With a notice period, a person can pass all their work to someone gradually (e.g. teach other employees how to use systems), or the company can use that time to find a replacement who can immediately take over when the worker finally leaves. Again, that should be in the contract from the beginning. If the company leaves it out, it is their own fault.
(October 9, 2012 at 3:03 pm)popeyespappy Wrote: That is not the way it usually works on this side of the pond. Take for example the recent teacher's strike in Chicago. They were striking between contracts. Their old contract had run its term and expired, and they had been unable to agree to terms on a new contract with the city. The result was there was no contract in place when the school year began. The teachers elected not to come to work (a decision that resulted in them not being paid by the city) until the two sides agreed to terms. Once an informal agreement had been reached between the two sides the teachers returned to work before the formal contract had been signed.Like I said before; I wouldn't consider that a strike, since the contracts had expired. You can't strike from work that you aren't currently employed to do. I fully support the teachers in this case, but I wouldn't call it striking. It's a failure of contractual obligation on the part of the school(s). If teachers want to work before a contract has been signed, that is of course entirely up to them.
Quote:In this case the main point of contention wasn't even compensation. It was a change the city wanted tying the teacher's performance evaluation to student performance. Something that I can't really blame the teachers for not wanting as you can't teach a child that doesn't want to learn no matter how good you are.I'm not saying that all strikes over here are for malicious reasons, but certainly a lot of them are. Take for example the British Airways cabin crew strikes of 2010 and 2011. The BA cabin crew are the highest paid of all cabin crews in England, with the most benefits. Striking over pay seems more like greed than anything to me in that situation.
There are also multiple occasions when a strike is arranged by a union, despite less than 10% of union members voting for it.
