RB> If you lived in a community, where money was no objection,
RB> you didn't spend  your life slaving away at an oppressive
RB> workplace, wouldn't you chip in and  help out here and
RB> there? What if there was a Volunteer Sewer Cleaner group,
RB> you could volunteer four-five days a month to do some work
RB> on the sewer? Much  better than slaving away there all day
RB> ever day, under an jerk manager. And a  Volunteer
RB> Grass-cutting Group for the Elderly? Maybe everyday you mow
RB> two or  three lawns for elderly people, and that was all you
RB> did. Maybe you do more. I  know I certainly couldn't sit
RB> around doing nothing all day. Or maybe you do  less. 
If you go back about 30 years you will see that this
was tried and it failed, they were called communes.  I
think there is one commune left and it is not a pure
commune.
The problem is, was and always will be human nature.
IOW, every body wanted to eat but no one wanted to do
the work.  I've been active in a lot of organizations
and the one thing they all had in common was there was
a core group that did 80-90% of the work.
RB> Again, this is all speculation - but it does wonders when
RB> you start to rethink  how a workplace is, and why it is like
RB> that. Already, most places of work are  "run" by the workers
RB> there, who make all the everyday decisions on how things 
RB> should work. They don't do it by strict rules, but by
RB> working it out with each  other. It is thrown off, though,
Where is this?  Every company that is 'employee owned',
that I know of, has almost the same rules as one owned
by a big, nasty, profit driven corporation.  If you
don't work you don't get paid; if you don't work enough
times you get fired; there is a power pyramid where the
line workers are under supervisors who are under
supervisors who are given orders by the group at the
top.
Now some decisions are made by an employee vote but
when it comes down to deciding where to buy the toilet
paper for the restrooms or which supplier to buy the
widget that the company needs to make the whatsit there
is a small group.  Now this small group is elected by
the employees JUST AS the board of directors is elected
by the STOCKHOLDERS of a corporation.
RB> by the impractical and strangely unfamiliar  presence of a
RB> boss, a hierarchy, rules, and the fact that you need to be
RB> there  in order to survive.
No it isn't because the same hierarchy exist.  The
problem comes, IMO, from the unions (today).  I've
worked in union and non-union shops and in EVERY NON-
UNION shop the worker-boss relationship was many times
over better then in ANY of the union shops I worked.
That is, again IMO, because the union has to make the
company into the bogeyman or there is no reason for a
union. 
I have been to a lot of union meetings where the
leaders (most of who were making at least twice what
the workers were) were spouting pure crap.  They would
say things like 'the company made X dollars last year
but they don't want to give you a Y/hr raise'.  Well if
you checked you would find out that the company did
make X but if you checked a little harder you find out
that was GROSS not net.  You had to take out cost for
new machinery ('bout time they replaced that dinosaur),
cost for building maintenance (hey, they finally put
new toilets and stalls in the mens room), and the like.
Sorry, about the rant but I grew up in a union house
were neither parent had more than an eight grade
education and I saw how the union leaders would lie to
them so they would follow the union.
                      Remember:  Freedom isn't Free!
--- timEd-B11
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