ORGANIZED IN WORK - OR NOT

[♔Chello]

ORGANIZED IN WORK - OR NOT

I was born and raised in one of Norway's most organized communities - Odda, which has 3 large industrial workplaces.

Many of the country's workers' rights have their origins there.

I grew up with the lesson that together, workers have all the rights, while company management must adapt to the workers' demands or go bankrupt.

I was early served a story about a main union representative who was so good at winning the workers' demands that the company owners did everything they could to get rid of him, without success.

Or..?

As a union representative, you have to attend social events with the management, and they used these events to get him over to their side.


What happened next shook the entire society:

The same union representative started as a human resources manager at the largest company, and ordinary employees lost their hard-earned rights faster than anyone thought possible..!

The trend spread to the other largest companies and the rest of the working world at record speed, because the largest companies were the ones setting the tone regarding workers' rights.

Odda was never the same after this.


For many years I have seen this as the worst form of high treason, but today I have a completely different opinion:

As the chief shop steward, I would probably have done the same, because my experience indicates that most workers will do as little as possible for the company, and only think about themselves.

Put another way:

The organization protects the weak, and limits the strong workers.
The more skillful you are, the more you will lose by organizing.

As is known, a company does not always benefit from having organized workers, because they strike effectively if their demands are not met, which are often higher than the company can live with.

Many bankruptcies can probably be attributed to such circumstances.

Many years ago, I was offered a permanent high position in Norway's largest union, but I declined because I was already beginning to realize that even this organization was staffed by people who were on a perpetual ego trip, and to a large extent used their position to gain power, free travel and free hotel stays.
There was also a colossal alcohol consumption among them and sexual excesses; all were married, but used prostitution services like few others.

I have been involved in high-level organizational work for over 20 years, and have seen the rottenness from the inside.

Perhaps Norway would have benefited from people like Elon Musk taking over large parts of the industry, because his basic idea is based on each individual receiving a salary according to actual effort, and common automatic rights do not exist.