Aetheric Research, Ltd.

The labor union is a problematic entity in today’s world. While at its inception it was the only means for any chance of equity for workers who had previously been at the mercy of robber-baron management, in today’s world with effective labor laws and industrial safety standards, some people argue that the Union has worked itself out of a job—indeed, it has become counterproductive, in that some unionized employers have been forced into untenable agreements with powerful unions. Indeed, amongst conservative and libertarian politicians, unions are seen as almost a parasite, drawing sustenance from the efforts of legitimate businesses without providing any tangible benefit to the employer and offering no significant protections (so the argument goes) to the workers.

To some extent, there is some support for this line of reasoning. Many unions today seem to exist for the sole reason of paying the salaries of a few well-connected union managers and to make the firing of long-tenured employees impossible, no matter the relative merit of the employee’s work. There is often corruption and graft amongst union bosses, and employers are sometimes held to ransom over demands for higher pay and more benefits whether they can realistically afford to pay them or not. An example currently in the news is the UAW, the union that is blamed by some for assisting with, if not causing, the difficulties currently facing the American automotive industry.

The argument against unions further states that under normal circumstances, if an employer acts inequitably, workers are (in at-will employment states, at least) free to leave at any time and to seek employment elsewhere. The logic goes that simple free-market supply and demand will bring quality employees to good employers, leaving inequitable employers unable to staff their ranks properly. What use, then, are unions?

Union advocates generally respond to these arguments with the position that it is inequitable for employees to be forced to leave in the first place, and that relocating to find a new job is an onerous requirement for many workers. They further point to the tendency of employers to take as much advantage of workers as possible (which is countered, of course, by the anti-union advocates stating that workers do the same thing, given half a chance) and to the presence of unions acting as an effective measure to prevent such inequities coming to pass.

As is usual in most arguments with two violently opposed polar positions, both sides have merits to their positions, but neither side is entirely optimal nor borne out by the facts of the matter. No matter how much they wish for it, libertarians and conservatives will never succeed in making unions irrelevant—nor will progressives see the rights of the workers triumph entirely over the wishes of employers. And, clearly, neither situation is entirely desirable for a well-functioning company—companies without unions are far more likely to violate labor laws and safety conditions, purposely or not, simply through lack of effective oversight; companies with too much union presence tend to stagnate and become unable to adjust to changing market forces, which can lead to vastly reduced profits or, in severe cases, insolvency. There is comparatively little regulation of union activities, either, meaning that in some cases union leaders are almost the equivalent of a competing management within the same company, a dysfunction which leads to little but trouble. In some cases, the agreements (if such a word can be used at that point) between unions and the employers that they relate with give little choice to the employees as to whether they wish to be involved with the union: whether they join or not, they will have their interests represented and the union dues deducted from their pay; the only real choice is whether the worker wishes to vote on union matters or not.

Unions formed originally from bare necessity, and as the necessities that spurred their formation—that is, a lack of wage controls, unsafe working conditions, and excessive demands placed by employers on their workers made possible by the advent of the industrial revolution—are no longer relevant (due to the passage of minimum wage laws, health and safety requirements, and other regulations for employers) then it is entirely true that unions, as originally implemented, are not a good fit for a modern era. The strike, along with other work stoppages and slowings, is the only tool available for negotiation available to the union; this is a blunt instrument of intimidation not suited to encouraging civilized negotiations. Strikes are desirable for neither the workers nor the employers, as neither can profit from them, and the company becomes less able to compete in the market.

However, it is also true that workers will always require communal representation in negotiations with employers, in order to ensure fair and equitable treatment of all workers by employers. Negotiations by individual workers are ignorable, as an individual is nearly always replaceable; it is only through collective bargaining that effective negotiations can be carried out: solidarity is regarded, correctly, as strength. A careful watch must be kept so that it can be assured that bargains will be kept, and that working conditions can be kept safe. Employees must be assured that they will be represented if they should run into legal problems with their employer; they must be able to be sure that their rights will be protected.

The solution, then, becomes an evolution: the worker-union-management-employer paradigm must be revised to take into account the changes in the working world, and to change the role of a union from that of a blunt instrument used to force change into that of a scalpel, an instrument to watch and diagnose workplace problems, and to treat them before they become problematic to workers and employers alike.

As a start, the charters of the unions should be reworked from the ground up, and be registered in the same manner as corporation charters, with careful protections implemented to insure against corruption by the leaders of the union. Further, unions and employers may wish to negotiate contracts between the union as an entity and the company as an entity, separate from the contracts between the employer and the employees, providing for remedies other than strikes and firings for use in negotiations—remedies such as fines levied by one entity against the other for damages, measures for formal mediation procedures, and circumstances under which one entity can bring suit against the other.

Further, the employees would receive a contract with the union at the time they join, where the relationship between what the union would provide to the employee and what the employee would provide to the union (in terms of dues, material support, attendance at meetings, et al.) would be clearly spelled out. The union would become, in a sense, an employee of the workers, with all the benefits for the workers that that would entail. The officers, too, would contract to the union, with their contracts specifying the types of duties that each would be expected to carry out as well as provisions for terminating their representation of the union should their behavior depart from that which promulgates the union’s best interests—it is in these contracts that an ideal location could be found for the insertion of anti-corruption measures.

While this proposal does somewhat complicate the situation, there is only as much complexity as is needed to provide stability and resilience to the organization. By contracting each entity to the others, the relationship between them is formalized, and a spectrum of responses is enabled—the options are no longer limited to strict, blunt, catastrophic responses, but can be moderated via mediation and other measures into a continuous dialogue.

Thus, the union ceases to become an enforcer of last resort, and becomes more relevant to modern situations as an advocate of the workers, a watchdog for the workers, and a liaison between the workers and the management of the company. The all-or-nothing attitude that permeates any negotiations between the workers and the companies dies away, to be replaced by a civilized dialog with a continuum of responses available for any given situation. Relations between unions and corporations cease to be in terms of parasite and host, and instead enter a sort of symbiosis where each finds it in their best interest to work for the benefit of both.

One of the peculiarities of the American commercial system is that of Black Friday.  Specifically, the day after Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November, in the United States) has come to be known in recent decades as a day of rampant commercial interest, where the merchants on every high street and in every shopping mall seek to outdo each other in attracting customers to spend their hard-earned money.

Black Friday was originally called “Black” due to the inherent stress of the day–though later generations have popularly supposed that, due to the volume of commerce, it is the day that retailers ought to expect to begin to make their yearly profits, changing from the red ink of a deficit to the black ink of a credit.  One might perhaps be forgiven for supposing that a business that requires continuous operation for eleven months of the year before a profit can be shown (and that the profit for the business depends solely on shopping for Christmas presents) might perhaps be a business that ought to revise its plan of operations.

Due to its ties with American Thanksgiving, Black Friday has remained almost entirely an American phenomenon; this ‘official start to the holiday shopping season’ seems to carry no real sway outside of the United States.  The practice seems to have started with the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade–perhaps we can blame Macy’s for initiating season of rampant commercialism?–but is by no means limited to Macy’s or to New York.  It is a nationwide occurance, one which is greatly anticipated every year by bargain-seekers and by retailers alike, though the anticipation by shoppers is more manufactured than genuine, given the profusion of advertisements targetted towards enticing people into the stores on that Friday.

Black Friday has become especially important this year, or so says the media, due to the recessional economy.  Some retail companies–for instance, Mervyns–have closed their doors already.  Others, such as Sears, are hanging on by their teeth in order to stay in business.

It is not just retailers who feel concerns, however; even children have begun to notice the state of affairs.

Other retailers suffered from rather more business than they could safely handle:  at a Wal-Mart store in Long Island, one worker was trampled to death and several customers were injured when a stampede of bargain-seeking shoppers broke open the doors upon the store’s opening.  Even so, the vast crowd of shoppers may not be able to meet the needs of the accountants, as the stock exchange decided the price for stock in the company was to drop to-day.

So Black Friday will not be the antidote for a year of slack sales, that much is fairly sure.  Fewer people than usual have been travelling to see relatives this Thanksgiving (and the fault cannot lie entirely with the relatives, after all, as people will still travel to see unwanted relatives through a sense of obligation) and people have been buying fewer costly items.  The automobile market has suffered, due in part to high fuel costs in recent years; the economy will likely see less demand for the parts and services that new automobiles require as a result of production slowing.  All of these things add up to a season of much less cheer than usual for retail outlets, and will, perhaps, add up to further bankruptcies and fewer jobs available post-holiday.

Perhaps, though, there is a chance for something a bit more cheerful than endless lines in shopping malls.  Every year, many faith-based groups decry the commercialization of the Christmas holidays and voice a desire for families to use Christmas as an opportunity to come together rather than to one-up each other in gift-giving.  It could be that this depression provides just the opportunity that they seek for such a happy event.  Certainly, it’s unlikely that many families will be able to afford anything else.

On what may nearly be a weekly basis, we hear news of yet another Patent being granted for what, at least on first glance, appears to be a trivial and somewhat useless idea, one which has been quite obvious for years but only just, apparently, come to the attention of the Patent Office.

For an example of this evidence of the ludditism and ignorance of developments of the modern world, let us witness Patent 7,457,767, granted to IBM, for a system of splitting the restaurant bill amongst several patrons of the establishment. While you or I might have conceivably engaged in this practice at some time or other, apparently the idea is novel enough to the Patent Office that they felt it worthy of a Patent. However, it could be that none of those working at the Patent Office have found themselves at a restaurant in the accompaniment of friends; whether this indicates a lack of funds or a lack of friends is beyond this writer’s means to speculate.

The fact remains, though, that, especially in recent years, the Patent Office has made a habit of granting patents for the most absurdly simple and self-evident of “inventions” and “processes,” such as, for instance, the process of making a sandwich.

Indeed, a number of individuals and firms have attempted to make a livelihood from the process of filing patents on seemingly self-evident processes or procedures (or by obtaining patents from companies that find themselves unable to continue to do business), and then filing a lawsuit for infringement of said patent upon its grant against the various and sundry persons and corporations who, unwittingly, have been using this protected invention or procedure for their normal course of business for, at times, years. Styled “patent trolls,” these persons contribute nothing useful to society; instead, they attempt to make a profit from other people’s labor–not an unusual occupation, but certainly a parasitic one.

Interestingly, as the body develops knowledge to fight off the particles of a disease, the business world has developed a sort of immunization against these patent trolls. “RPX” promises to be an interesting and somewhat novel development in this story; it is described as a “defensive patent aggregator” whose purpose is to obtain the patents that would otherwise end up in the hands of the so-called patent trolls and to keep them locked safely away until their expiration. RPX intends to obtain operating funds via the doubtless-patented means of charging various large companies a membership fee, presumably to guarantee that they will keep an eye peeled for patents of interest to the company that is funding the process, and enable the company to pay fewer lawyers to defend itself against the parasites eager to file suit for infringement.

Whether this company will have any real effect remains to be seen, but it seems to be naught but a patch in a leaky hull. The business world would perhaps be better served by ladling funds into various congresscritters until they turned their sluggish gaze to a reform of the Patent Office–perhaps by hiring sufficient persons to read through the patents who have enough of a brain to recognize when something has been invented before, and enough friends that they know how to split a restaurant bill without needing to inquire of IBM about how to do so.

A Verdict has been reached in a case of somewhat sensationalized proportions. One Lori Drew, of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, was convicted of certain misdemeanors relating to her persecution of a neighbor’s daughter via the well-known “MySpace” aethernet locale.

The prosecution attempted to make a case for several felony counts: one of conspiracy, and three of unauthorized access in her creation of a false face used to manipulate the emotions of one Megan Meier, who was driven to suicide as a result. The jury was given the option, which they took, of finding Mrs. Drew guilty of misdemeanor fraud rather than of a felony; each count of fraud may invoke a fine of $100,000 and prison for a year.

This particular case is said to be a landmark, as it is the first time in which an aetheric “poison pen” communication of any sort has been prosecuted criminally. The jury’s verdict will be appealed, of course; the defense counsel has said as much in his interviews with several publications (amongst them Wired and MSNBC).

The appeals shall likely be watched closely as well, as there are likely to be many similar suits in the days and weeks to come hoping to take advantage of a precedent in order to assuage their fragile feelings with the soothing embrace of a lawsuit. The real lesson which ought to have been learned–that is to say, that parents ought pay some mind to what their children are doing–will doubtless be lost in the flurry of litigation, as is usual with this manner of thing.

It is perhaps worth noting that Mrs. Drew did not show remorse during her trial, which her counsel explained as being the result of “defenses” against “assault on the internet and in real life.”

Perhaps now that it has been shown that one can manage a conviction against those who comport themselves unpleasantly upon the aether, Mrs. Drew will find solace in prosecuting her persecutors in the same manner in which she has been prosecuted.

But then, truth is usually a fairly effective defense for libel.

The University of Zurich has developed a new and improved fabric for waterproofs, stating that their invention has the potential to remain dry even after two months’ submersion in water.

It seems that the use of very small fibres of silicone actively repel water from settling on the fabric, and that this effect is strong enough to cause water to roll off of the fabric more quickly even than it would the back of a duck.

Stefan Seeger explained the means by which this novel fabric acts by comparing it to the mysterious art of the fakir and his bed of nails. The New Scientist has provided a photograph of the effect in action.

Another application of this novel fabric currently being discussed is for reduced-friction bathing costumes; the repelling of the water is hypothesized to be amenable to less friction while submersed, which may lead to faster times for those athletes wearing the costume.

An application more useful to most readers would be a self-cleaning fabric suitable for suits and coats; should a suit be manufactured that shrugged off dust as easily as this fabric shrugs off water, doubtless it would be warmly accepted by many busy business-people.

It has come to the attention of this publication that Certain Persons (one Philip J. Berg by name) attempted to halt the recent Presidential Elections by insisting that one of the candidates, and the ultimate victor in the contest, was not born in balmy Hawaii but instead in Darkest Kenya.

While certainly Mr. Barack Obama’s name is somewhat exotic for the tastes of a white-bread easterner such as Mr. Berg, one need only look to the profusion of exotic names in the telephone directory of any of our cities to see examples of even more unlikely names of people who are, nonetheless, just as American as anyone else born on this soil.

Mr. Berg’s shrill insistences have gone so far as to antagonize the justices of the Supreme Court, where he attempted to petition for the court to hear his case and to delay, if not cancel, the recent elections. Needless to say, his petition was denied and the election has gone forward unimpeded.

This petition is merely the latest in a long line of misinformed pronouncements by persons of various degrees of lucidity to contest Mr. Obama’s birthplace. Rumors of ineligibility for the office of the Presidency have circulated since Mr. Obama’s candidacy was first announced; one might be excused for assuming that said rumors were the action of persons with racist leanings, given the sheer number and variety of the approaches taken towards more-or-less one angle.

The august persons at Snopes have taken the time to catalog a number of these rumors and show the proof of the falsity of the same. Indeed, even the state of Hawaii has flatly stated that Mr. Obama’s birth is uncontested and that the allegations are so much tommyrot.

It would appear, however, that Mr. Berg has chosen to carry on with his rather ludicrous crusade, given that his writings have been recently updated.

While perseverance in the face of adversity is usually to be admired, it is the opinion of this writer that the stubbornness shown by Mr. Berg has gone beyond the bounds of reason and is, perhaps, exemplary of mental delusion. His past activities adhere to the pattern as well; it appears that Mr. Berg is a conspiracy theorist of the first water. Thus, while it is fairly obvious that the complaints given are without merit, it is unlikely that we have heard the last of Mr. Berg on this particular issue.