Let's Get Something Straight - Collective Bargaining is NOT a Right!!!

[KrisKrinkle]

"You're tying yourself into knots. Your reason for tying yourself into knots is not apparent to me."

I'm working with what there is and the subject matter is more "knotty" than seems to be apparent to you.

"A person has the right to assemble with other people."

That's an oversimplification. People have the right to assemble. A person has the right to assemble with other people primarily if the other people want to exercise their right to assemble with that person or sometimes if they are obligated to do so.

"The right emanates from a single person."

You wrote before about God-given rights. I'm not sure I'd agree that a right emanates from a single person, although a person may have a right by virtue of being a person.

"That the individual right is exercised in concert with others doesn't all of a sudden transform the individual right into a collective right because a collective right emanates from a group of people that, were it not a group of people, would not have that right."

The right in question, the right to assemble, can not be exercised except in concert with others. The right to assemble can only be exercised by people collecting into an assembly. How can it be an individual right to do something that can not be done individually?

---

Veering off a little:

I wrote above that the subject matter is more "knotty" than seems to be apparent to you. So far we have been dealing with something undefined. People throw the term "rights" around like it's a magic word that will ward off evil and all opposition. But I believe there are different divisions or distinctions of rights (see below) and that when people discuss rights without clarification they frequently are discussing different things, the same as if they were discussing the qualities of fruit juice without clarifying whether the fruit under discussion is apple, grape, orange or bannana.

As to definition, I dislike the least the following, excerpted from Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary (emphasis added):

RIGHT, n.

10. Just claim; immunity; privilege. All men have a right to the secure enjoyment of life, personal safety, liberty and property. We deem the right of trial by jury invaluable, particularly in the case of crimes. Rights are natural, civil, political, religious, personal, and public.:

One thing I dislike about that is that it doesn't clarify the existence of legal or Constitutional rights and contract rights, although it may intend to include them under civil, political or public.

And there could be a legal or contract collective right that is not a natural right.

So in regard to the title of this thread, Collective bargaining may not be an unalienable or natural or God-given right, but it may be some other kind of right.

[KrisKrinkle]

"Do you think that people have the RIGHT TO WORK???????????"

I'm not clear on why you're asking based on post 34, but:

I certainly do think so. To be more precise, people have a natural right to work on their own behalf if only to continue living.

In a state of nature they have a right to work at hunting, herding, gathering, cultivating, etc. to get food for themselves. In a more organized society they may have something other than a natural right to work at other tasks for the same purpose. All of this is self-employment and does not mean in and of itself that people have any kind of right to work for another or that another is obligated to provide them with employment or work. Depending on the organization of the society in which they live, there may be some kind of right like that, but it would be a legal right or contract right or some other kind of right.

Do you think that you don't have a right to be self-employed, to work for yourself?

[TruthConquers]

I was interjecting a different take on the topic of the article, which is, Collective Bargaining is NOT a right!

One thing the unions do is FORCE others to join, or they don’t have a job. THAT kind of right to work and NOT join a union if the don’t want to. Unions tend to think that collective bargaining and forcing others to be union members is great. I see it as slavery. Extortion.

I thought that the thread had lost its purpose.

And seeing that Collective Bargaining is not in the Constitution, it is NOT a right, as defined by this country’s founding documents. It is actually a form of socialism, like a public school is socialism. The founding fathers had NO intention of creating a tyranny of an elite with unequal power over others.

[KrisKrinkle]

“And seeing that Collective Bargaining is not in the Constitution, it is NOT a right, as defined by this country’s founding documents.”

I was with you up till the first sentence of the last paragraph, quoted above. And actually I don’t want to argue with that statement.

But that Collective Bargaining is not in the Constitution would only mean it is not a Constitutional right. (You can argue with someone else as to whether it is included in the Constitution via the Ninth Amendment. I’m not interested.) I assume you’re writing about the US Constitution. There are 50 other Constitutions for the 50 States. I doubt that Collective Bargaining is a right within any of those Constitutions, but I don’t know it for a fact.

However, that Collective Bargaining is not a Constitutional right does not mean it is not some other kind of right, like a contract right or a legal right.