[Eisophca]

Quote: Individual Working Freedoms

A resolution to develop industry around the world.

Category: Advancement of Industry
Area of Effect: Labor Deregulation
Proposed by: Gruenberg

Description: The United Nations,

Strongly reaffirming its commitment to individual liberty,

Believing that individuals should be as free as possible from undue government interference in making decisions governing their personal lives,

Convinced that the issues of when, how often, and for how long an individual works should remain an issue for private negotiation between employer and employee,

Recalling the repeal of Resolution #59, "The 40 Hour Workweek", and the reasons therein given for the weaknesses of the prior document,

Dissenting from the view that one standard working week can be determined as a universal diktat, given the diversity of national economies, the particulars of industries working on cyclical, seasonal or other irregular working patterns, and the varying conditions, demographic, environmental, developmental, and otherwise, of member nations,

Considering any attempt to impose a "one size fits all" manacle of working time constriction as a grossly unfair abrogation of individual freedoms,

Desirous of reaching a fair compromise on the issue:

1. Requires member nations to grant their people the greatest possible degree of freedom in determining their terms of employment, with specific regard to working time;

2. Calls upon member nations to respect the rights of individuals to be free to make choices about their terms of employment, and equally of individuals to seek representation or counsel during such negotiations;

3. Mandates the removal of working time regulations that serve only to reduce individual liberty, and that unfairly remove decision-making power from the individual level;

4. Reserves the right of nations to choose whether to set specific regulations on workweeks and working time in the general public interest, so long as such regulations do not unduly abridge the freedom of individuals in deciding their terms of employment;

5. Endorses policies aimed at delegating decisions concerning working time regulations to the most local level possible;

6. Promotes a healthy harmony of national and individual rights in economic decision-making.[/quote]

[Enn]

IC, no. The Remnants are edgy about letting people know they've got freedom.

OOC edging towards yes. But my voting is done IC where possible.

[Grosseschnauzer]

At first reading, the problem I see with this proposal is the assumption that setting maximum workweeks is not an appropriate area of governmental regulation.

Simply because a 40-hour workweek is not appropriate everywhere and in all circumstances does not mean that government should not regulate in the field at all.

I am undecided.

[Gnejs]

Im not against, but im not for either. First off, Im with GS in his criticism. I see a lot of fancy words but what I read is at some times a corporate manifesto (yes, i SO wanted to check the "I hate corporations-box ) that easily could decrease working conditions and security, and therefore defeat its own (supposed) purpose.

Like this one: "Convinced that the issues of when, how often, and for how long an individual works should remain an issue for private negotiation between employer and employee". Is this not just a fancy way of saying that the employee is at the mercy of the employer. A "private negotiation"? Every working woman or man should, in my opnion, have back up while negotiating working conditions (no, I don't see every employer as the spawn of satan, but it's fun with different angels on a matter!). But there is of course this one: "Calls upon member nations to respect the rights of individuals to be free to make choices about their terms of employment, and equally of individuals to seek representation or counsel during such negotiations;". Thats actually a pretty good one, but I still like the idea of an established amount of hours a week thats allowed for employers to demand of their workers. And it that matter there is of course this one: "Reserves the right of nations to choose whether to set specific regulations on workweeks and working time in the general public interest, so long as such regulations do not unduly abridge the freedom of individuals in deciding their terms of employment;".
I don't know, im tired... :yawn:

[Federation of Disjunction]

I say no because to me it gives the impression of worker freedom but in reality gives too much power to the corporations. How can a worker in all situations be expected to negotiate for the terms of their employment? They don't hold much power unless they are high up or unless the company is small. This is a recipe for tyrany.

I do agree that for some companies and some workers a 40-hour work week is impossible. However, this resolution doesn't really accomplish an alternative without being potentially unfair to individual employees.

[Antrium]

I'm going to kind of echo everyone else and lean towards no for now. I'm not going to vote in the poll yet though.

And I agree with everything Disjunction said.

[Eisophca]

I'm going to throw my support behind this one, IC and OOC. I believe the government should work to empower workers to make better choices for themselves, rather than playing parent to workers and protecting them from the EEK!SCARRYCORPORATIONS!! This should be done in ways that keep fair competition among businesses and let workers form unions and such to increase their pay and worktime, along with other reforms, not restricting the freedom of workers in the interest of improving their lives.

[Gnejs]

The Green People's Republic have decided to vote AGAINST the current resolution. The reason would be the weaknesses we brought up in our previous post. Our stand is also strengthened by the posts made by The Federation of Disjunction.

[Mikitivity]

My government is undecided as well, and leaning towards voting no. While we do respect the final two clauses, which stipulate that regulations are best implemented at the local level, we aren't sure if these clauses are not somewhat in contradiction with some of the earlier clauses. In fact, we feel the 6th clause could have been omitted, and that the first clause is unclear if it impacts everybody or just employees ... it would seem to me that deregulation should pay some attention to mentioning that employment contracts are agreed upon by employees and employers *and* that governments has a vested interest in promoting both. The question is if regulation is appropriate or not.

At this time, we applaud the 5th clause, agree to the basic idea of the last clause, but have some concerns on the first.

Furthermore clause three seems to take away not only government's ability to regulate contracts, but also might be viewed as impacting unions.

Certainly the resolution, particularly its preamble, is very well done. But my government just is not completely comfortable with voting in favour. At present we are undecided between an abstention and a vote no.

Howie T. Katzman

[Mikitivity]

Federation of DisjunctionSep 6 2006, 02:03 PM I say no because to me it gives the impression of worker freedom but in reality gives too much power to the corporations. [/quote]
I do see your point to a degree, but my government's hestiation to vote yes is actually due in part to our opinion that employers aren't given enough recognization ... which is the opposite interpetation (but ironically same position) as the people from Disjunction have taken.

What is the current UN vote and when do we need to have our final opinion registered?

OOC: I actually appreciate that this resolution has forced me to really think about this issue and has no clear cut "right" answer.

[Gnejs]

At this time the voting stands like this. Voting ends on saturday.

Votes For: 5,320

Votes Against: 4,083

[Mikitivity]

Ah, a close election means every vote is critical.
:coffee:
I'm going to have to carefully review everything.

[Grosseschnauzer]

We, too, are still undecided.

The actual language used in the proposal is internally self-contradictory, and we're still unsure whether to just abstain or vote against.

[Federation of Disjunction]

Again I see what the resolution is trying to accomplish. However, saying that you are granting freedom to a general populace means that many will give up that freedom in exchange for a paycheck. Most individual employees would rather make money under the terms of employment given to them rather than try to dictate those terms.

Ceo, I also see your point and in a utopian world empowering employees would be a great accomplishment. (For the sake of arguement let's forget that this world is however we can imagine it since I operate my country under many of the basic truisms that have developed over the past 5,000 years or so in RL) Many large corporations are, in fact, VERY scary. I've seen this first hand. Also unions do not have the power they once did so placing importance on the ability or possibility of individuals to band together is tenuous.

I suppose I should simplify this by saying that the only goal of a for profit business is to make money. Every other goal is secondary or worse, non-existant. The trend in erroding ethics and enforcing unfair business practices on employees (and vendor companies) is alarming. This resolution, while maybe not intending to do so, does leave a fairly wide and opbvious opneing for companies to do what they will do when given the chance; make as much money as they can in every way they can.

Editorially I should say that I'm not against making a profit or companies pursuing additional profit. I just think it has gotten to a destructive point and a resolution like this would perpetuate giving that choice to companies. In other words, a scorpion has a right to exist, to reproduce, to kill in its pursuit of food. It is not evil in it's nature. But who among you would walk around with one on your shoulder and not expect it to eventually sting you?!

[Saidercray]

Saidercray says NO.

In all states, there are a lot of unemployed people searching for a job. Their number exceeds the number of advertised employments. Consequently, more than one person applies for one advertised employment.
This enables the employer to chose the candidate who fits best to what is needed - to chose the candidates who is best able to help the employer achieve the employer's aim. The success of an applicant can therefore depend on many different things and qualities: knowledge of foreign languages, the course of life, the ability to work in a team etc. pp.

But are qualities such as these everything that can decide who gets a job and who not? If the proposal passes, the answer can only be no. The employer will be enabled to make working conditions a criterion when he decides whom he will employ. Amongst several candidates with similar qualities, he will be able to, and he will, chose the candidate who accepts the worst working conditions: the one who will work longer than the others, the one who will work for less money than the others.
The "greatest possible degree of freedom" is only the greatest possible degree of the employer's freedom to exploit the employees.
The proposal, if it passes, will sap the rights of the employees. Whoever wants to get a job will have to face the situation that he can either work under bad conditions or that another candidate who agrees to work under bad conditions will get the job.

Bad conditions or no work, shall this become the alternative for the employees? Saidercray thinks no, Saidercray says no. NO ON THIS PROPOSAL.

[Gnejs]

The voting at this time.

Votes For: 5,978

Votes Against: 5,101

As you can see its really close. This is a really good resolution in the way that it really forces people to think closely on the pros and cons. Gnejs urges all IDU UN-members to cast their vote so that Malabra can cast a truly representative IDU-vote in this difficult matter.

Glenn-Kennteh Goth, UN-Representative The Green People's Republic of Gnejs

[Lionfante]

Having heard the government and having carefully listened to the Honourable Colleagues' positions, the Democratic Republic of Lionfante votes AGAINST this proposal because we find its text to be overly ambiguous.

Silvia Trani, UN-Representative of the Democratic Republic of Lionfante


OOC: don't assume every country is like US Here in Italy, for instance, the situation is quite the opposite and unions have FAR more power than in US, while corporations have FAR less power (I don't want to talk about our situation being right or wrong right now).

[Mikitivity]

At this point, Mikitivity will be abstaining. We directed some of our questions to the sponsoring nation, Gruenberg, whom quickly replied. Specifically they feel that this resolution does not protect employers, but really is designed to give employees the right to neogitate contracts free of government regulations. They (and other nations such as Ausserland) correctly pointed out that previous resolutions have moved nations to have open shop (union) businesses, thus this resolution does not take away a significant amount of union bargining power. However, it still seems to my government that some degree of union bargining power is turned over to employees directly.

What is unclear is how this resolution impacts professional guilds and classifications, which do charge fees, often are government regulated, but are not involved with "work-time" issues. That coupled with the position one government had that this resolution will most certainly force governments to do away with general caps on the maximum number of hours employees can work in a regular work week, seem to justify our neutral position.

My government does appreciate and will endeavour to follow this resolution should it pass, though like many of our neighbors here, feel that there is a degree of uncertainity that we are unwilling to vote yes.

Howie T. Katzman

[Malabra]

Since the voting is very close, we're going to hold out on casting the region's vote until 8:00 PM my time (GMT-6+DST), which is in a little under 4 hrs. Please cast your vote before that time if you want your voice to be heard. Thanks.

[Malabra]

The region's vote will be cast AGAINST this resolution.

[Eisophca]

Commies.

[Gnejs]

This resolution has passed.