Não estou devidamente informado sobre a greve dos enfermeiros, pelo que não vou opinar sobre a legitimidade das posições da Ordem dos Enfermeiros e do Governo. Quero apenas deixar registado que tenho lido por aí um argumento interessantíssimo. Dizem os seus proponentes que a bastonária da Ordem dos Enfermeiros só se tem mostrado tão aguerrida por ser militante do PSD e o Governo actual ser do PS e acusam-na ainda de não ter afinado pelo mesmo diapasão aquando da anterior governação PSD-CDS. Ora, este argumento, invertidas as posições político-partidárias, serve para todos os sindicatos afectos à esquerda, que passam as governações de direita a rasgar as vestes e a fomentar a crispação social generalizada, mas que até parecem agentes civilizados quando é o PS a liderar o Governo e a implementar políticas tão ou mais gravosas que as do PSD e CDS. E isto sem falar no mais recente período governativo, o da geringonça, em que até há bem pouco tempo se remeteram ao silêncio. Tal como escrevi ontem, ao menos esforcem-se para apresentar argumentos minimamente válidos. Já dizia Sir Humphrey Applebby que “where one stands depends upon where one sits”, mas parem lá de tentar mandar areia para os nossos olhos, não vão os mais distraídos ficar a pensar que a coerência e a honestidade intelectual são virtudes dos sindicatos e da política em Portugal.
Etiqueta: sindicalismo
Hoje é um bom dia para relembrar um post que publiquei aquando da última Greve Geral, a propósito da existência de piquetes de greve, que aqui republico na íntegra:
(A minha cara se algum piquete de greve se atravessar no meu caminho em qualquer transporte público que eu consiga apanhar amanhã/hoje)
Dia de greve pretensamente geral é sempre um bom dia para relembrar os efeitos nefastos do sindicalismo salientados por Oakeshott e Hayek, e é também um dia de greve tão bom como qualquer outro para os portugueses libertarem a tensão acumulada com a crise e aviarem uns quantos piquetes de greve, que são apenas mais um repulsivo anacronismo sem lugar numa sociedade verdadeiramente democrática. Lembro que o o Art.º 57.º da Constituição da República Portuguesa apenas consagra o direito à greve, não fazendo qualquer menção a piquetes. Já o Art.º 21.º consagra o direito de resistência: “Todos têm o direito de resistir a qualquer ordem que ofenda os seus direitos, liberdades e garantias e de repelir pela força qualquer agressão, quando não seja possível recorrer à autoridade pública.”
Ou seja, o direito à greve não pressupõe piquetes de greve, e dado que a nossa liberdade acaba onde começa a dos outros, os que o desejem podem fazer greve à vontade, mas a partir do momento em que tentam impedir violentamente os que não querem fazer greve de trabalhar, legitimam moralmente que estes recorram também à violência para reparar a injustiça que lhes tentam impor. Ou não seja o trabalho de cada um uma componente primeira da sua propriedade privada e esfera de liberdade individual, as quais devem ser protegidas pelo estado da interferência de terceiros. Se este não o faz, resta aos próprios fazê-lo.
E aqui ficam duas passagens de Hayek, numa tradução livre minha:
«Os presente poderes coercivos dos sindicatos fundamentam-se principalmente no uso de métodos que não seriam tolerados para qualquer outra finalidade e que se opõem à protecção da esfera privada do indivíduo. Em primeiro lugar, os sindicatos dependem – numa extensão muito maior do que é comummente reconhecido – do uso de piquetes como um instrumento de intimidação. Que mesmo os chamados piquetes “pacíficos” são severamente coercivos e a apologia que destes é feita constitui um privilégio concedido por causa do seu suposto objectivo legítimo é demonstrado pelo facto de que estes podem ser e são usados por pessoas que não são trabalhadores para forçar os outros a formar uma união que eles irão controlar, e que também pode ser utilizada para fins puramente políticos ou para dar expressão à animosidade contra uma pessoa impopular. A aura de legitimidade que lhes é conferida porque os objectivos são muitas vezes aprovados não pode alterar o facto de representarem uma espécie de pressão organizada sobre os indivíduos que numa sociedade livre não deve ser permitida a qualquer agência privada.»
(…)
«O requisito essencial é que a verdadeira liberdade de associação seja assegurada e que a coerção seja tratada como igualmente ilegítima quer seja empregue a favor ou contra a organização, pelo empregador ou pelos funcionários. O princípio de que o fim não justifica os meios e que os objectivos dos sindicatos não justificam a sua isenção das regras gerais do direito deve ser rigorosamente aplicado. Hoje isto significa, em primeiro lugar, que todos os piquetes devem ser proibidos, uma vez que são não só a causa principal e habitual de violência, mas mesmo nas suas formas mais pacíficas são um meio de coerção.»
(A minha cara se algum piquete de greve se atravessar no meu caminho em qualquer transporte público que eu consiga apanhar amanhã/hoje)
Dia de greve pretensamente geral é sempre um bom dia para relembrar os efeitos nefastos do sindicalismo salientados por Oakeshott e Hayek, e é também um dia de greve tão bom como qualquer outro para os portugueses libertarem a tensão acumulada com a crise e aviarem uns quantos piquetes de greve, que são apenas mais um repulsivo anacronismo sem lugar numa sociedade verdadeiramente democrática. Lembro que o o Art.º 57.º da Constituição da República Portuguesa apenas consagra o direito à greve, não fazendo qualquer menção a piquetes. Já o Art.º 21.º consagra o direito de resistência: “Todos têm o direito de resistir a qualquer ordem que ofenda os seus direitos, liberdades e garantias e de repelir pela força qualquer agressão, quando não seja possível recorrer à autoridade pública.”
Ou seja, o direito à greve não pressupõe piquetes de greve, e dado que a nossa liberdade acaba onde começa a dos outros, os que o desejem podem fazer greve à vontade, mas a partir do momento em que tentam impedir violentamente os que não querem fazer greve de trabalhar, legitimam moralmente que estes recorram também à violência para reparar a injustiça que lhes tentam impor. Ou não seja o trabalho de cada um uma componente primeira da sua propriedade privada e esfera de liberdade individual, as quais devem ser protegidas pelo estado da interferência de terceiros. Se este não o faz, resta aos próprios fazê-lo.
E aqui ficam duas passagens de Hayek, numa tradução livre minha:
«Os presente poderes coercivos dos sindicatos fundamentam-se principalmente no uso de métodos que não seriam tolerados para qualquer outra finalidade e que se opõem à protecção da esfera privada do indivíduo. Em primeiro lugar, os sindicatos dependem – numa extensão muito maior do que é comummente reconhecido – do uso de piquetes como um instrumento de intimidação. Que mesmo os chamados piquetes “pacíficos” são severamente coercivos e a apologia que destes é feita constitui um privilégio concedido por causa do seu suposto objectivo legítimo é demonstrado pelo facto de que estes podem ser e são usados por pessoas que não são trabalhadores para forçar os outros a formar uma união que eles irão controlar, e que também pode ser utilizada para fins puramente políticos ou para dar expressão à animosidade contra uma pessoa impopular. A aura de legitimidade que lhes é conferida porque os objectivos são muitas vezes aprovados não pode alterar o facto de representarem uma espécie de pressão organizada sobre os indivíduos que numa sociedade livre não deve ser permitida a qualquer agência privada.»
(…)
«O requisito essencial é que a verdadeira liberdade de associação seja assegurada e que a coerção seja tratada como igualmente ilegítima quer seja empregue a favor ou contra a organização, pelo empregador ou pelos funcionários. O princípio de que o fim não justifica os meios e que os objectivos dos sindicatos não justificam a sua isenção das regras gerais do direito deve ser rigorosamente aplicado. Hoje isto significa, em primeiro lugar, que todos os piquetes devem ser proibidos, uma vez que são não só a causa principal e habitual de violência, mas mesmo nas suas formas mais pacíficas são um meio de coerção.»
The Constitution of Liberty, cap. 18, “Labor Unions and Employment”:
«Public policy concerning labor unions has, in little more than a century, moved from one extreme to the other. From a state in which little the unions could do was legal if they were not prohibited altogether, we have now reached a state where they have become uniquely privileged institutions to which the general rules of law do not apply. They have become the only important instance in which governments signally fail in their prime – function the prevention of coercion and violence.
(…)
Everywhere the legalization of unions was interpreted as a legalization of their main purpose and as recognition of their right to do whatever seemed necessary to achieve this purpose -namely, monopoly. More and more they came to be treated not as a group which was pursuing a legitimate selfish aim and which, like every other interest, must be kept in check by, competing interests possessed of equal rights, but as a group whose aim – the exhaustive and comprehensive organization of all labor – must be supported for the good of the public.
Although flagrant abuses of their powers by the unions have often shocked public opinion in recent times and uncritical pro-union sentiment is on the wane, the public has certainly not yet become aware that the existing legal position is fundamentally wrong and that the whole basis of our free society is gravely threatened by the powers arrogated by the unions.
(…)
It cannot be stressed enough that the coercion which unions have been permitted to exercise contrary to all principles of freedom under the law is primarily the coercion of fellow workers.
Whatever true coercive power unions may be able to wield over employers is a consequence of this primary power of coercing other workers; the coercion of employers would lose most of its objectionable character if unions were deprived of this power to exact unwilling support. Neither the right of voluntary agreement between workers nor even their right to withhold their services in concert is in question. I t should be said, however, that the latter – the right to strike – though a normal right, can hardly be regarded as an inalienable right. There are good reasons why in certain employments it should be part of the terms of employment that the worker should renounce this right; i.e., such employments should involve long-term obligations on the part of the workers, and any concerted attempts to break such contracts should be illegal.
(…)
The unions cannot achieve their principal aims unless they obtain complete control of the supply of the type of labor with which they are concerned; and, since it is not in the interest of all workers to submit to such control, some of them must be induced to act against their own interest. This may be done to some extent through merely psychological and moral pressure, encouraging the erroneous belief that the unions benefit all workers. Where they succeed in creating a general feeling that every worker ought, in the interest of his class, to support union action, coercion comes to be accepted as a legitimate means of making a recalcitrant worker do his duty. Here the unions have relied on a most effective tool, namely, the myth that it is due to their efforts that the standard of living of the working class has risen as fast as it has done and that only through their continued efforts will wages continue to increase as fast as possible – a myth in the assiduous cultivation of which the unions have usually been actively assisted by their opponents. A departure from such a condition can come only from a truer insight into the facts, and whether this will be achieved depends on how effectively economists do their job of enlightening public opinion.
(…)
Because the power of truly voluntary unions will be restricted to what are common interests of all workers, they have come to direct their chief efforts to the forcing of dissenters to obey their will.
(…)
In particular, because striking has been accepted as a legitimate weapon of unions, it has come to be believed that they must be allowed to do whatever seems necessary to make a strike successful. In general, the legalization of unions has come to mean that whatever methods they regard as indispensable for their purposes are also to be treated as legal.
The present coercive powers of unions thus rest chiefly on the use of methods which would not be tolerated for any other purpose and which are opposed to the protection of the individual’s private sphere. In the first place, the unions rely-to a much greater extent than is commonly recognized – on the use of the picket line as an instrument of intimidation. That even so-called “peaceful” picketing in numbers is severely coercive and the condoning of it constitutes a privilege conceded because of its presumed legitimate aim is shown by the fact that it can be and is used by persons who themselves are not workers to force others to form a union which they will control, and that it can also be used for purely political purposes or to give vent to animosity against an unpopular person. The aura of legitimacy conferred upon it because the aims are often approved cannot alter the fact that it represents a kind of organized pressure upon individuals which in a free society no private agency should be permitted to exercise.
(…)
It can hardly be denied that raising wages by the use of coercion is today the main aim of unions. Even if this were their sole aim, legal prohibition of unions would however, not be justifiable. In a free society much that is undesirable has to be tolerated if it cannot be prevented without discriminatory legislation. But the control of wages is even now not the only function of the unions; and they are undoubtedly capable of rendering services which are not only unobjectionable but definitely useful. If their only purpose were to force up wages by coercive action, they would probably disappear if deprived of coercive power. But unions have other useful functions to perform, and, though it would be contrary to all our principles even to consider the possibility of prohibiting them altogether) it is desirable to show explicitly why there is no economic ground for such action and why, as truly voluntary and non-coercive organizations, they may have important services to render. It is in fact more than probable that unions will fully develop their potential usefulness only after they have been diverted from their present antisocial aims by an effective prevention-of the use of coercion.
(…)
Though it may be impossible to protect the individual against all union coercion so long as general opinion regards it as legitimate, most students of the subject agree that comparatively few and, as they may seem at first, minor changes in law and jurisdiction would suffice to produce far-reaching and probably decisive changes in the existing situation. The mere withdrawal of the special privileges either explicitly granted to the unions or arrogated by them with the toleration of the courts would seem enough to deprive them of the more serious coercive powers which they now exercise and to channel their legitimate selfish interests so that they would be socially beneficial.
The essential requirement is that true freedom of association be assured and that coercion be treated as equally illegitimate whether employed for or against organization, by the employer or by the employees. The principle that the end does not justify the means and that the aims of the unions do not justify their exemption from the general rules of law should be strictly applied. Today this means, in the first place, that all picketing in numbers should be prohibited, since it is not only the chief and regular cause of violence but even in its most peaceful forms is a means of coercion. Next, the unions should not be permitted to keep non-members out of any employment. This means that closed- and union-shop contracts (including such varieties as the “maintenance of membership” and “preferential hiring” clauses) must be treated as contracts in restraint of trade and denied the protection of the law. They differ in no respect from the “yellow-dog contract” which prohibits the individual worker from joining a union and which is commonly prohibited by the law.
(…)
Though all the changes needed to restrain the harmful powers of the unions involve no more than that they be made to submit, to the same general principles of law that apply to everybody else) there can be no doubt that the existing unions will resist them with all their power. They know that the achievement of what they at present desire depends on that very coercive power which will have to be restrained if a free society is to be preserved. Yet the situation is not hopeless. There are developments under way which sooner or later will prove to the unions that the existing state cannot last. They will find that, of the alternative courses of further development open to them, submitting to the general principle that prevents all coercion will be greatly preferable in the long run to continuing their present policy (…)»
Do artigo “The political economy of freedom”, de Michael Oakeshott (Rationalism in Politics and other essays, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1991, p. 401):
«Collectivism is indifferent to all elements of our freedom and the enemy of some. But the real antithesis of a free manner of living, as we know it, is syndicalism. Indeed, syndicalism is not only destructive of freedom; it is destructive, also, of any kind of orderly existence. It rejects both the concentration of overwhelming power in the government (by means of which a collectivist society if always being rescued from the chaos it encourages), and it rejects the wide dispersion of power which is the basis of freedom. Syndicalism is a contrivance by means of which society is disposed for a perpetual civil war in which the parties are the organized self-interest of functional minorities and a weak central government, and for which the community as a whole pays the bill in monopoly prices and disorder. The great concentrations of power in a syndicalist society are the sellers of labour organized in functional monopoly associations. All monopolies are prejudicial to freedom, but there is good reason for supposing that labour monopolies are more dangerous than any others, and that a society in the grip of such monopolies would enjoy less freedom than any other sort of society. In the first place, labour monopolies have shown themselves more capable than enterprise monopolies of attaining really great power, economic, political and even military. Their appetite for power is insatiable and, producing nothing, they encounter none of the productional diseconomies of undue size. Once grown large, they are exceedingly difficult to dissipate and impossible to control. Appearing to spring from the lawful exercise of the right of voluntary association (though as monopolistic associations they are really a denial of that right), they win legal immunities and they enjoy popular support however scandalous their activity. Enterprise monopolies, on the other hand (not less to be deplored by the libertarian), are less dangerous because they are less powerful. They are precariously held together, they are unpopular and they are highly sensitive to legal control. Taken separately, there is no question which of the two kinds of monopoly is the more subversive of freedom. But in addition to its great power, the labour monopoly is dangerous because it demands enterprise monopoly as its complement. There is a disastrous identity of interest between the two kinds of monopoly; each tends to foster and to strengthen the other, fighting together to maximize join extractions from the public while also fighting each other over the division of the spoils. Indeed, the conflict of capital and labour (the struggle over the division of earnings) is merely a sham fight (often costing the public more than the participants) concealing the substantial conflict between the producer (enterprise and labour, both organized monopolistically) and the consumer.»
Do artigo “The political economy of freedom”, de Michael Oakeshott (Rationalism in Politics and other essays, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1991, p. 401):
“Collectivism is indifferent to all elements of our freedom and the enemy of some. But the real antithesis of a free manner of living, as we know it, is syndicalism. Indeed, syndicalism is not only destructive of freedom; it is destructive, also, of any kind of orderly existence. It rejects both the concentration of overwhelming power in the government (by means of which a collectivist society if always being rescued from the chaos it encourages), and it rejects the wide dispersion of power which is the basis of freedom. Syndicalism is a contrivance by means of which society is disposed for a perpetual civil war in which the parties are the organized self-interest of functional minorities and a weak central government, and for which the community as a whole pays the bill in monopoly prices and disorder. The great concentrations of power in a syndicalist society are the sellers of labour organized in functional monopoly associations. All monopolies are prejudicial to freedom, but there is good reason for supposing that labour monopolies are more dangerous than any others, and that a society in the grip of such monopolies would enjoy less freedom than any other sort of society. In the first place, labour monopolies have shown themselves more capable than enterprise monopolies of attaining really great power, economic, political and even military. Their appetite for power is insatiable and, producing nothing, they encounter none of the productional diseconomies of undue size. Once grown large, they are exceedingly difficult to dissipate and impossible to control. Appearing to spring from the lawful exercise of the right of voluntary association (though as monopolistic associations they are really a denial of that right), they win legal immunities and they enjoy popular support however scandalous their activity. Enterprise monopolies, on the other hand (not less to be deplored by the libertarian), are less dangerous because they are less powerful. They are precariously held together, they are unpopular and they are highly sensitive to legal control. Taken separately, there is no question which of the two kinds of monopoly is the more subversive of freedom. But in addition to its great power, the labour monopoly is dangerous because it demands enterprise monopoly as its complement. There is a disastrous identity of interest between the two kinds of monopoly; each tends to foster and to strengthen the other, fighting together to maximize join extractions from the public while also fighting each other over the division of the spoils. Indeed, the conflict of capital and labour (the struggle over the division of earnings) is merely a sham fight (often costing the public more than the participants) concealing the substantial conflict between the producer (enterprise and labour, both organized monopolistically) and the consumer.”
(também publicado no blog da Causa Liberal)