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Fri, 01 Dec 2006

I'm joining a union

I'm joining a union. This may surprise long-time readers of this blog. However, it's not the old kind of union, which seeks to form a monopoly over labor, usually through extra-legal violence in the form of beating up scab laborers or through the proxy violence of the government in the form of laws favoring unions.

This union, the Freelancers Union, serves union members by providing a health insurance plan; by advertising gigs for freelancers; and by advocating for fair treatment of freelancers. For example, a home business such as mine is technically illegal since my house isn't zoned for business use. Since I rarely have customers come to my office, nobody is harmed by this, but it's still technically illegal.

This union is more in the spirit of the mutual aid societies that used to be everywhere in England. That's my kind of union.

posted at: 05:34 | path: /economics | permanent link to this entry

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