Don't Support Union

The staff has again responded to a union dispute with undue sympathy. The purpose of the editorial is to secure increased worker bargaining power, which is itself not in the student interest. Whence the dollars taken home by unionized workers? From students' pockets or from the services we utilize.

The overall reason that the staff supports unions is that it identifies their self-interest with its own. This is a mistaken and hypocritical calculation, for if the unions are, by the staff's minds, allowed to demand increased wages or better conditions at the expense of students, why should not students favor lower or stagnant wages at the expense of unions?

It might be thought that workers' wages are too low. That issue is, however, apart from the question of union support. At some theoretical point, workers' wages will be deemed adequate, and at some further point thought excessive. What then of the student interest? Will it then still be allied with the unions?

In any case, the staff should not be offering counsel to a group or groups who have interests counter to their own. The union can only be appreciated on its own terms. If it can be supported, it must be done in solidarity rather than the evident paternalism. Under this more realistic conception brotherhood, I do not believe we can support either Local 254 or the new guard-monitor-attendant entity.