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From (me): http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/16/can-unions-and-strikes-still-make-a-difference/index.html
--- ... In general, this is part of the ongoing downward spiral for labor that is just getting started. As automation increases, like through better robots or 3D printers, and as improved designs come along that take less effort to put together or last longer, there will be even less need for paid labor. So, the people who still have jobs will be afraid to strike or in other ways rock the boat. So, they will let themselves be exploited more and more just to keep food on the table. ...

So, it would seem that strikes will be less and less likely in the future as a general trend, although it is possible that one big national or global strike might happen at some point when people realize that major positive social change is going to be now or never.

Any strike will be pointless in the long term unless it is about structural reform in our economy and society. Just striking to get slightly higher pay (or just to keep what one has) or to get slightly better benefits, which has been useful to many groups in the past, is not going to be very effective in the long term if these other trends continue towards decreasing the value of labor relative to automation and improved design.

What good is it to get more money and more benefits for fewer and fewer remaining workers while they wait for their own jobs to be lost to automation and improved design? Yet, this has been the strategy of most unions for many years. The failure of the US American automakers in Detroit shows how, in the long run, unions creating private welfare states within individual corporations does not work well anymore for union members or anyone else in society these days. The companies become less competitive relative to other companies that pay less and embrace automation and better design, and so they fail, taking all the union jobs with them.

We are possibly past the point where union actions related to single companies make much sense. If unions are to have any major role in the future, it may likely be as part of larger efforts to rethink the underlying basis of our economy and society, like by somehow being part of a national effort for a basic income, or comprehensive single-payer health care reform, or reforming education, or things like that.

http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
"A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It is a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various European countries in three important ways:
        * it is being paid to individuals rather than households;
        * it is paid irrespective of any income from other sources;
        * it is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.
Liberty and equality, efficiency and community, common ownership of the Earth and equal sharing in the benefits of technical progress, the flexibility of the labour market and the dignity of the poor, the fight against inhumane working conditions, against the desertification of the countryside and against interregional inequalities, the viability of cooperatives and the promotion of adult education, autonomy from bosses, husbands and bureaucrats, have all been invoked in its favour.
But it is the inability to tackle unemployment with conventional means that has led in the last decade or so to the idea being taken seriously throughout Europe by a growing number of scholars and organizations. Social policy and economic policy can no longer be conceived separately, and basic income is increasingly viewed as the only viable way of reconciling two of their respective central objectives: poverty relief and full employment.
There is a wide variety of proposals around. They differ according to the amounts involved, the source of funding, the nature and size of the reductions in other transfers, and along many other dimensions. As far as short-term proposals are concerned, however, the current discussion is focusing increasingly on so-called partial basic income schemes which would not be full substitutes for present guaranteed income schemes but would provide a low - and slowly increasing - basis to which other incomes, including the remaining social security benefits and means-tested guaranteed income supplements, could be added.
Many prominent European social scientists have now come out in favour of basic income - among them two Nobel laureates in economics. In a few countries some major politicians, including from parties in government, are also beginning to stick their necks out in support of it. At the same time, the relevant literature - on the economic, ethical, political and legal aspects - is gradually expanding and those promoting the idea, or just interested in it, in various European countries and across the world have started organizing into an active network. "

See also:
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/16/can-unions-and-strikes-still-make-a-difference/index.html
"What good is it to get more money and more benefits for fewer and fewer remaining workers while they wait for their own jobs to be lost to automation and improved design? Yet, this has been the strategy of most unions for many years. The failure of the US American automakers in Detroit shows how, in the long run, unions creating private welfare states within individual corporations does not work well anymore for union members or anyone else in society these days. The companies become less competitive relative to other companies that pay less and embrace automation and better design, and so they fail, taking all the union jobs with them.
    We are possibly past the point where union actions related to single companies make much sense. If unions are to have any major role in the future, it may likely be as part of larger efforts to rethink the underlying basis of our economy and society, like by somehow being part of a national effort for a basic income, or comprehensive single-payer health care reform, or reforming education, or things like that."

http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/16/can-unions-and-strikes-still-make-a-difference/index.html
====
Here is an article about how workers and strikes in a recession:
"Europe's Strikers More Scarce in the Recession"
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1914328,00.html

"In the U.K., the Office for National Statistics says there were just 756,000 working days lost to strikes last year, way down from the million or so days lost in 2007. As of May, the figure stood at just 32,000 days for 2009. Even assuming an upsurge in the summer, that's a long way from the kind of industrial mayhem Britain saw in 1979, when almost 30 million days were lost to strike action. It's a simple case of reasoning, experts say. "When workers feel confident in their job security is when they are more likely to strike," says Gregor Gall, a professor of industrial relations at the University of Hertfordshire."

In general, this is part of the ongoing downward spiral for labor that is just getting started. As automation increases, like through better robots or 3D printers, and as improved designs come along that take less effort to put together or last longer, there will be even less need for paid labor. So, the people who still have jobs will be afraid to strike or in other ways rock the boat. So, they will let themselves be exploited more and more just to keep food on the table. Because worker usually get fringe benefits, and because it takes money to hire and train workers, even as unemployment rises, it makes economic sense for companies (up to a point near collapse) to work the workers they have even harder, for less money, than it does to hire more workers, even at low wages. Increased worker suffering (including by worker's families and communities) becomes just one more negative externality that business owners can pass on to society, socializing the costs of their business while privatizing the profits.

Possible counters to this trend include:
* government regulation of working conditions including hours (like in France);
* a basic income so that workers have a choice not to work (forcing employers to make jobs better to attract workers); and
* companies realizing that overworked workers produce products with lower quality or less innovation, and so voluntarily limiting hours and improving working conditions.

So, it would seem that strikes will be less and less likely in the future as a general trend, although it is possible that one big national or global strike might happen at some point when people realize that major positive social change is going to be now or never.

Any strike will be pointless in the long term unless it is about structural reform in our economy and society. Just striking to get slightly higher pay (or just to keep what one has) or to get slightly better benefits, which has been useful to many groups in the past, is not going to be very effective in the long term if these other trends continue towards decreasing the value of labor relative to automation and improved design.

What good is it to get more money and more benefits for fewer and fewer remaining workers while they wait for their own jobs to be lost to automation and improved design? Yet, this has been the strategy of most unions for many years. The failure of the US American automakers in Detroit shows how, in the long run, unions creating private welfare states within individual corporations does not work well anymore for union members or anyone else in society these days. The companies become less competitive relative to other companies that pay less and embrace automation and better design, and so they fail, taking all the union jobs with them.

We are possibly past the point where union actions related to single companies make much sense. If unions are to have any major role i

I like listening to music. Here is what some people have to say about forcing other people to listen to music:
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-06-02/news/31989906_1_music-groups-torture-prisoners-guantanamo-bay
"A new documentary released by Al Jazeera exposes the use of childrens songs and heavy metal music to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. "

I also like math... By analogy, what is forcing people to do math against their will?

You wrote: "I hated highschool..."

Then you wrote: "I have to ..."

Why do you have to perpetuate the system you hate?

I know there are answers -- the right to consume in our society is linked to participating in our current economic order. See: "The Triple Revolution Memorandum".
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/17/why-the-triple-revolution-memorandum-was-ahead-of-its-time/index.html

So, maybe you have to stay a school teacher for that reason. I certainly face the same economic issue myself regarding other paying work. And maybe you students are indeed better off with your approach in the context you describe, all other things being equal. So, then the issue is, how can one change the context so all other things are not equal and there is a rebalancing?

Still, either a universal basic income or the proposal I outlined would give families plenty of money to hire math tutors like yourself if their kids wanted to learn math. Or a basic income for everyone would mean you could do different things with your own time.

What you say from your experience is truth. But, you can still think more deeply and creatively about the meaning of it, like John Taylor Gatto, Jeff Schmidt, or John Holt did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holt_(educator)

If all the kids you were teaching had freely chose to be in your class, would you have to think so much about authority? What would your day be like if the only kids you were interacting with explicitly wanted to be learning math or anything else you wanted to teach (like they wanted to be engineers or whatever)? The fact that there are children who are compelled to be in your classroom when they don't want to be there is a big part of the problem. Sadly, Jaime Escalante's efforts were essentially shut down by the school bureaucracy that could not accept them, so I'm not saying creating or sustaining alternatives in public schools is easy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante#National_attention

Khan Academy is one example of part of a different way forward. Free schools are another:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_school
http://www.sudval.org/

Or:
http://www.augusttojune.com/
"Come inside a public school happily and purposefully going against current trends and join 26 8-10 year olds, their teacher, and their parents for a year bursting with opportunities for curiosity, creativity and compassion. "

The last link, is a documentary about an alternative public school, so things are possible.

More alternatives:
http://www.educationrevolution.org/

More on this theme

IMHO it's too late for unions to recreate private niche welfare states within big companies or big government agencies moving to full automation and outsourcing/offshoring, even as unions could still make a global difference, as I discuss here:
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/16/can-unions-and-strikes-still-make-a-difference/

It's probably now or never for the unions to make on last big push before they are just washed away by all these changes related to AI, robotics, better design, voluntary social networks, the accumulation of infrastructure, and so on...

IMHO, as long as we have a highly capitalistic system, everyone should get social security of US $2K a month (plus health care) from birth as a basic income, which would take the GDP growth from the mid 1990s, and the rest of the GDP was enough to motivate some people to work for more back then.

But there are five interwoven economies and we need to shift the balance between them as to the subsistence economy, the gift economy, the planned economy, the exchange economy, and the theft/corruption economy.

See also:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

"But obviously that hasn't happened, "
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/17/why-the-triple-revolution-memorandum-was-ahead-of-its-time/

That argument assumes there is unlimited demand for everything, and than more jobs will be created and there will be not welfare costs from lost jobs. But, the best things in life are free or cheap. It probably assumes some other things too.

See:
"Why limited demand means joblessness (and what to do about it)"
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/

On regulators being captured by special interests, see: http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/ or this related presentation: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7382297202053077236

For other ideas, see:
"Why limited demand means joblessness (and what to do about it)"
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
"""
When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just "dime-store economics" - intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don't really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don't. It all gets down to two simple words.

"Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell - which gives you a short and pithy "catch phrase" that describes them perfectly. You've heard of "big-government liberals". Well they're "cheap-labor conservatives".

Once you understand the general concept, you will frequently find yourself in debate over specific issues, like healthcare, social security privatization, public school vouchers, the "war on drugs" and of course the war in Iraq. What better way to put your conservative opponent on the defensive than by exposing the true motivation for his position - "cheap labor". Can you really find the "cheap labor" angle in every conservative policy initiative, and every conservative position on any particular issue?

Yes, you can. Here is a catalogue of some of the major issues on the national agenda. In every single one of them, the conservative position advances the cause of "cheap labor". I defy any conservative reading this to show me one single conservative position, belief, principle or policy that has any tendency to boost the earning power of labor.
"""

Some ideas on what to do about it, because automation only makes this worse:
    http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/
   

This is really insightful. As California goes, into a depression and insolvency from an ideological inability to tax and regulate and invest in the public good, so goes the nation? Some alternative ideas:
  "Why limited demand means joblessness (and what to do about it)"
    http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/

These are some ways to deal with increasing joblessness, even if our economy recovers for those who still have jobs or money, which will be explored in more depth over time:

• temporary measures like unemployment insurance and retraining funds, and when those fail, letting people live with relatives who still have jobs or be homeless (the USA now has one million homeless schoolchildren, an amount that has doubled in the last two years);
• government public works like in the 1930s (infrastructure, arts, research, medicine, etc.);
• a basic income for everyone, essentially Social Security and Medicaid for all with no means testing;
• improved local subsistence like with 3D printing and organic gardening;
• a p2p gift economy (like Wikipedia and Debian GNU/Linux);
• a shorter work week (like tried in France);
• rethinking work to be more fun so it is done as play;
• alternative currencies or other forms of exchange like barter or more formal rationing;
• increasing advertising to entice people into more debt (one cause of the current economic crisis as the debt bubble burst);
• intentionally producing shoddy merchandise or things with planned obsolescence, perhaps encouraged by promoting faddism in the culture;
• more prisons (employs guards and keeps people out of the labor pool);
• more schooling (employs guards/teachers and keeps people out of the labor pool) while suppressing true education; and
• more war (employs guards/soldiers, blows up and wastes abundance, and kills or disables workers to keep them out of the labor pool).

Likely we will see a mix of all those in the future, and in fact, a mix of all those is what we have now (not that the last five options of advertising, faddism, schooling, prison, and war are recommended, even as our society currently relies on them heavily to destroy abundance and create guarding jobs). This web site will go into the details of all this over time. That list is defining the landscape of a jobless recovery, showing connections between things that dont usually seem connected. Like for example, why President Obama just suggested the school year should be longer while our best educators say compulsory school as we know it should disappear entirely.

The important thing to remember is that joblessness is not necessarily a bad thing. It means people have more time for family, friends, hobbies, and volunteerism. What is bad about formal un

Yet, even as the White House becomes more efficient and the website costs less to build and operate, this is one more step towards a post-scarcity future that the White House is not otherwise directly engaging, like by promoting a "basic income" for all regardless of whether someone "works":
"Why limited demand means joblessness"
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/
"Summary: Mainstream economics assumes demand for almost anything is infinite. Thus, the theory goes, when human workers get replaced by robots, or better design means less human labor is needed, then there will soon be new jobs making new things; the only issue might be retraining. But, if demand is limited (because the best things in life are free or cheap, and everything you own also owns you), then when people get laid off, the jobs are gone for good, because there is nothing more that anybody wants then is already produced. And people having more time outside of compulsory work would be a good thing, if we more evenly shared the wealth from automation and better design, but we don't -- yet."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income