Would it be discourteous to point out that you still, after many robust and argumentative posts, have been unable to support your claims about the beauties of unionism, FrankGol?

Simply quoting a claim made by someone else - who, by the way, has a declared bias on the topic - does not constitute evidence.

If you subtract all the unsupported claims that you make for unionism, you are left with emotion. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you try to use it as a substitute for facts.

The union movement has had a positive impact on issues of imbalance between employers and employees in the past. My only angle on all this is to point out that they may be irrelevant - in their present format - to today's business world.

Your inability to accept this is shared by most rusted-on unionists because it is their livelihood - it's all they know, after all - but that still doesn't confer on them any particular value.

Have a great day.

Pericles

You say: "Simply quoting a claim made by someone else - who, by the way, has a declared bias on the topic - does not constitute evidence." Leaving aside 'declared bias' (declared by whom?) - I actually agree with you.

I made no secret of the multiple sources of my information. I put the ACTU source at the top of my list pointing out that the mainstream media rarely publish anything complimentary about unions. However, I did also quote the World Bank, Stephen Mayne and the National Research Centre for OH&S Regulation (the last-named being a national body representaive of both ALP and Coalition Governments). I also gave links to the ABS and four academics Pittard. Have you read any of these?

However in logic, the fact that a source is biased doesn't necessarily render the information it provides false. The facts can be examined on merit. And I suggested readers do that.

Should I never, ever believe anything I find on the Liberal Party website because the Party is likely to be biased? Should I never believe anything about nuclear energy because the nuclear industry provided the information? Should I never believe anything the Americans say about Iraq because they have a special interest? Why can't I examine the claims and decide if they have merit?

Moreover, quoting a claim by someone else is the usual way most of us operate in the world unless we are professional researchers. I've looked through your last dozen posts, Pericles, and I couldn't find any first-hand evidence for any of the claims you make in any of your posts. Although there was your October 30 post where you cite George Orwell and George Brown.

Let's examine your claim on 29 October: "The days when a corporation could hold its workers to ransom over pay and conditions are well and truly over, and it should follow that the unions are in the same position".

You provide neither evidence nor argument to back it up. So I presume this would be what you call an 'unsupported claim' based only on emotion?

We are straining at gnats here.

I offered an opinion:

"The days when a corporation could hold its workers to ransom over pay and conditions are well and truly over, and it should follow that the unions are in the same position"

You offered - not an opinion, but a "fact"

"You may be interested to know that In Australia today, Union members... earn on average $118 a week more than non-union employees in similar jobs"

If it was on the other hand only your opinion, shouldn't you have declared it as such? Or framed the statement in a way that we could charitably interpret it as merely an opinion?

As it happens, I opened every one of the links you provided, and none of them offered any further clue as to where the supporting evidence - a survey, presumably - came from.

And if anyone was biased towards trade unionism, I suspect that it would be the ACTU, wouldn't you? So I don't believe that they would feel the need to declare it, as such.

>>However in logic, the fact that a source is biased doesn't necessarily render the information it provides false. The facts can be examined on merit. And I suggested readers do that.<<

If there were any facts available, that is exactly what readers would do.

Sadly, all we are faced with is pious hope, masquerading as fact.

Or - more likely - a massive exaggeration from a totally unrepresentative sample. Unfortunately, it appears that we will never know, will we?

Pericles

I'm accused of offering a fact whereas you offered an opinion - as if opinion has higher status than fact. I plead guilty.

I also plead guilty to openly giving the source of that fact. Are you objecting not to the fact, but merely to the source of the fact? I gave many other facts and cited seven sources. The only fact you object to comes from just one of my sources, the one you obviously dislike. You didn't object to my citation from the World Bank, nor Stephen Mayne, nor the National Research Centre for OH&S Regulation.

You say, by contrast, you offered an opinion: "The days when a corporation could hold its workers to ransom over pay and conditions are well and truly over...".

Where do you signify that it's just your opinion? Where do we see 'I Pericles think the days... are over? What's the meaning of the word 'ARE' in your sentence? A bit disingenuous?

You claim you couldn't find evidence to support the fact. In my earlier post I suggested that the ACTU would be open to an approach for further information. Are you content to assume that because it's from the ACTU, and not the Honest John Liberal website, the claim is false?

One more example from your writing on Sunday. You said: "Management's primary role is to understand and cater for the interests and aspirations of the employees in their care." Is that fact or opinion?

I might contest your claim - and assert: "Management's primary role is to ensure that the business makes a profit pleasing to shareholders." Now is that fact or opinion? If we're both stating fact, at least one of us is wrong.

If they are both opinions then we need another filtering system to assess the quality of opinions. I have at least tried to ground my statements by reference to evidence. What about you? When I described my son's management practices, you told me that he and I were wrong. Fact or opinion? It's hard to deal with an evidence vacuum.

If you will insist on quoting a statistic of $118 a week without a proper citation of the source of that study, you are less than credible in your statement.

You should put up or shut up.

61

Where have you been? Counting sheep? "If you will insist on quoting a statistic of $118 a week without a proper citation of the source of that study, you are less than credible in your statement. You should put up or shut up."

You may have been asleep since Sunday 3 November when I gave the source as the ACTU:
(http://www.actu.asn.au/joinaunion/UnionMembership/default.aspx)

Ever since then I've been fighting off the infidels who can't accept anything the ACTU says and prefer to stick to opinion rather than fact. But the source itself has been debated ad nauseum.

Now, I'm a big boy and don't mind people attacking my sources. But really, 61, it's a bit rich to be asked after umpteen posts and counter posts to name my sources.

You can go back to sleep now.