Third online debate - vote !

The motion debated this week was "This House would ban strikes in essential services."

Those in favour of the motion say 'aye', the others say 'nay'.

Opposition team - Closing

Dear readers,

How can you possibly read the arguments of the proposition team without reacting at all?!
They are saying that the need for strikes has disappeared. Oh really? Ask some Northe Korean workers about it. In communist countries, strikes are banned, since they injure the fatherland by stopping production. But in these countries workers haven't any rights.

The right to join a trade union and the right to strike are as fundamental as freedom of speech. If you don't have them, you are not an employee but a serf, and a society that outlaws strikes isn't free. Then if you agree on the fact that we must protect the freedom of speech and the right to express your disagreement with the people making decisions for you, then you will agree that we cannot ban strikes at all.

Let's now recap the proposing team's arguments from the beginning. They believe that "strikes without guarateeing a minimum service should be banned". Well i have to thank you because that's proving our point. Damages caused by strikes could be decreased by creating a minimum service. We need to use this idea so that we will ensure the right of going on strike and people can arrive at work on time.

Then they said that striking is an extreme way of protesting. But when injustices made are extreme, when decisions such a delocalization are taken, don't you think that extreme measures are necessary? "To protect the sheep you gotta catch the wolf. And you gotta be a wolf to catch a wolf." (Training day)

Now let's see our arguments. We, in the opposition team, think that striking is only the ultimate means of expression when nothing else has worked out. Once talks with the executives failed, once union's negotiations aborted, once seething masses feel abandoned and doomed, striking is the last resort. If you do not offer the possibility to workers to be heard and understood, we all might encounter greater damage than being late at work! If you are beeing bullied by the government or your boss, you need to have th ability to fight back. And strikes are that power. The only mighty one that they have and can use in extreme cases.

I would like to conclude by saying that we believe that there always is a way to prevent strikes. That is to bargain a settlement. A legislative ban on strikes in all essential services or all public services simply doesn't work. It is unnecessary and inefective. It can only create more frustration and disillusion. Bargaining on the contrary is the only way that ever works.

And I'm being realistic here!

Thank you everyone for your attention. Now you can use your freedom of opinion by voting to defend another freedom : the strike freedom.

So VOTE FOR US!

Jean-Baptiste D.

Proposition Team - Closing

We have faced in this debate two points of view about strikes: ours, showing the selfishness and the practical problems linked with strikes; and from our fellows of the opposition team, where strikes are the way of the oppressed class to get their wishes fulfilled. They brought us examples from ancient times, and they insist to make you believe that the conditions today are the same as those of that long past time.

Today workers have their right well established in the constitutions; they have in their favor a group of laws that well define times of work, conditions of work, ways of getting in or out a company, conditions of retirement. In the past, perhaps a long past, these basic rights were not assured, so strikes were necessary. Today, we even see countries were the protection to workers can be considered even exaggerated, so the need for strikes has just gone away.

Also, it’s just not right to say that someone has done “everything” possible to get his cause. It’s not possible to generalize the number of ways of negotiating with the other parts.  One can always find another proposition, of find an intermediary to help the discussion, the possibilities are non exhaustive. So no one should state that he’s tried all ways, and now he should try striking.

Indeed, strikes are part of democratic societies, just like corruption and violence also do. Like the formers, we say they should not be anymore. Essential services are an extreme delicate point of the good state of society, thus they are evidently the main target of strikes. It’s inacceptable that some people affect others’ lives to make pressure to their cause. Societies are based in mutual respect, and considering that strikes would be successful ONLY because of the potential damage they could bring to people, they should be banned.  Don’t analyze the situation from a romantic, heroic and extreme point of view like our friends from the opposition team. Be realistic, think about practical life, and realize that the entire world would be more organized, fairer and less stressful if strikes were banned. When you vote, just think about the impacts of others’ strikes in your life, about what they brought to you, and you’ll soon notice how selfish this action is. Thanks for your attention, and VOTE FOR US!

Opposing team - Rebuttal

Very honorable members of the opposition, dear readers, afflicted fellow team members, thank you. Obviously, the proposing team has made clear that strikes are, if not solely uncomfortable, sometimes critical to a country's economy and political stability. Striking is a blind regression over the "political contract" - enforced by the taxes we pay, they say - and is not a way to express oneself. Or is it ?

Let's take some time and remind us of the very nature of striking, its history and influence. Let's consider dwelling a few seconds on wiping our opposers' prejudices and dangerous ideas. They clearly exhibited the embarrassed feeling of the train passenger, waiting at the station, shouting his discomfort and mourning while secretly wishing that those lazy train operators were just doing the job they're paid for. Today, striking is legal (and even a constitutional right in France) - a century-and-a-half ago (before May 1864, in France), it was not. However, strikes can be traced back to Ancient Egypt - it wasn't legal either, workers even risked their lives. Even today, strikers risk their pay, if not their job or - in some countries - their lives.

Two points : strikers wouldn't wait for authorization, and they don't do this for fun. Let's not consider further the first argument, which would doom our opposers' stance as completely useless, as we agree on Law stating what should be, not what is. Focus on the second one : the proposing team already explained the many ways workers can try to make their voices heard - and believe us, they do. When you choose to engage in such an activity, you have good reasons, one of them being you don't trust - or can't afford - any other means. Our litterate opposers have certainly read Germinal, or newspapers, and their culture of History makes them aware that many breakthroughs have been fulfilled following massive popular refusal to work - among which paid vacations. Contestation stems not in the destructive and uneducated will to express oneself, rather in the despair-stricken masses whose voice is dimmed in the name of the value of their work.

On what grounds would the proposing team allow "non-essential" workers to speak, and mute the "essential" ones ? It shines clearly that strikes are part of Democracy, as deeply rooted in our rights as is Public service. Strikes should not leave us angry on the slothful, loud-speaking, not-doing-their-job people ; it should raise sympathy, reveal the painful condition of strikers and think about what's not right, at every level.

In the name of Democracy, wouldn't we rather die to let them speak, than see them gagged ? In the name of Democracy, shouldn't we be concerned about every citizen's well-being ? Shouldn't altruism take over comfort ?

Well, we think it does. Vote for us.

Proposing team - Rebuttal

Let us round the confused „argument” of our fellow opposers with pills and muscles. They say that not striking is like taking pills, ergo negotiation and progression without agression is like taking pills. Which means clearly that unions and diplomats are dopers, oh my god! We know that you, wise reader, cannot be misled by such an absurdity so let’s take a look at our arguments.

Why should a „few instants of pain” generate a strike? Why should a „few instants of pain” of a thousand workers should cause the discomfort and misery of millions? Democratic society is a well formed unity and it has its own institutions and ways to find solution to conflicts between employer and employees. These are the unions, debates, negotiations, etc. which are destinated to solve such problems.

In extreme cases it can be strikes, yes, they are nowadays part of the society, but their goal is basically definitely not to paralyse and ruin it. Which is actually the case of the strikes in essential services.

Therefore in this sector we should base on the pacific ways of solving conflicts (the above ways) and in case of an inevitable strike we should ensure a minimum service; so that students could go to school and sicks could go to the hospital to be healed in any moment.

After all that’s the reason why we are paying taxes and that’s why you should vote for us!

Daniel

Opposing Team - Opening Speech

Striking is one of our primary rights but the general public is not aware of it. Indeed opponents try deliberately to deceive you by turning it into what it is not.

Let us think about it. What s the purpose of striking ? Our dear fellow of the opposing team might tell you it sums up to some sort of blackmailing : if you do not give me better working conditions, i will tear the society apart by blocking public transportation, medical facilities or anything that could satisfy my weariless thirst of disaster. The intension of the strikes these days due to the financial-turmoil-turned-into-a-globalized-crisis and the growing deafness of our statesmen (we will come to that later) might misleadingly arouse you that sort of ideas.

Here is the truth. Striking is only the ultimate means of expression. Once talks with the executive failed, once unions negociations aborted, once seething masses feel abandonned and doomed, striking is the last resort, the only remaining means of expressing our craving for change. If you do not offer the possibility to workers to be heard and understood, we all might encounter greater catastrophe.

On a less gloomy and ominous tone, it is like exercising overmuch. The next day one of your prostrate muscle might hurt for a few hours. Thus you become aware of the burden it bore and the next time you will pay more attention to it. This works the same with the strikers. Few instants of pain to point out greater suffering to come. Should we take pills never to feel that pain, like Tour de France contenders do - and die of afterwards ?

Do not swallow that pill our dear fellow proposers smirkingly proffer. The right to strike is the right to be heard when the society turn a deaf ear to your beseeching. Repulse the gag that shadows your mouth. Make some noise. Vote for us.

Proposing Team - Opening Speech

We all remeber the days when there is no RER and you are stuck in Chatenay, also we can recall the pictures of the recent strike of teachers and students when education was shut down. This week we will treat the question of strikes in essential services. Our team strongly believes that strikes without guaranteeing a minimum service should be banned.

First, as the word strike we mean a strike which paralyses the function of an essential service in the society, for instance when there are no trains or there is no education. We are considering this selfish and destructive way of striking which is highly dangerous to the society.
It is destructive and dangerous because – like their name shows – these services are essential for the fonction of a society. We need hospitals to heal and to save people, schools to ensure the education of our children and airports to be able to travel far and fast and we need them all the time!

By paying taxes we have accepted to be part of a society and in change we are expecting from the State to protect us, to operate hospitals and schools, etc. In the very beginning man and State had made a deal and by shutting down these insitutions workers are hurting the virtual contract on which societies are built on. 

Now let’s take a look in the more philosophical and intrinsic aspects of strikes.

We can say there are different kinds of strikes, but the only one which is relevant to this context is the strike made to protest against something. If we accept making strikes for any other reason, we risk of arriving in the catastrophic situation described below, where it would be a habit.

It’s true that many situations in the public service (and actually in all areas of work…) are not as good as they were supposed to be. There are people who work in bad conditions, who do not have an appropriate salary, and even who merit other benefices which don’t come because of the slowness of the public machine. We don’t deny these terrible situations, but think about what would happen if everyone who wants to make a changement took an extreme act like a strike…

We would literally put in the garbage hundreds of years of evolution in the way of treating problems, we would come back to the time of the “Law of the Stronger” (as the chance of stopping essential services makes those workers really powerful), and the world would become chaotic. Someone will certainly say that we should allow extreme protests (here included strikes) for extreme situations, but who is capable of judging what is extreme or not? The worst situation in many countries wouldn’t be even close to what we would find in African countries, so, what is really extreme?

Strike is an extreme way of protesting, it poses a lots of practical problems for people who have nothing to do with the subject. Strikers actually use this damage they will cause to everyone to bargain the government (who is expected to care about all people) to achieve their goals. The correct way to protest is with negotiations, and in case they don’t bring progress, they should make a mobilization to change the laws or to change the government in the next elections. Also, if workers start making strikes for a “good and important” reason today, who will convince them to not make the same thing at the next time, when the causes will not be as important as now? Who is going to prevent them of turning strikes a usual way of protesting? Maybe you, who are reading this now, have never been faced to a situation like this, but when strike becomes the usual way to protest, it’s really difficult to change people’s minds…

So, we think we have showed enough arguments to prove that strikes in essential services are not only problematic for society, but also an inconvenient way of trying to get what we want. So on, strikes in public services should be banned. Thanks for your attention, and VOTE FOR US!

HKFN and DS