More innovation?

I will talk a little more about innovation. Moving with the times is a normal thing. Work methods are continuously improving. More mechanized, less people needed, more modern etc. In the ancient days there was the Church that frowned upon certain modernization. Somehow, they instilled into their faithful that changing the old ways were against God. And people believed it.

Today the unisons play a similar role. They are against any change that would cause their members to lose their jobs. I do know the construction industry, at least building construction. Their work methods did not change probably in the last 40 to 50 years. I worked on construction in the early 1960s then in the 1980s. In that 20 year span I did not see any improvement at all. Now, I am just a sidewalk superintendent but what I see things are still the same.

It is fine that unions look out for the employment of their members but at the same time they should not stand in the way of progress. When the steam locomotives were phased out the railroad unions forced the railroads to place the now defunct firemen on each train and called them brakemen. This the price of modernization. When New York City was trying to use driverless subways, the union argued that what about the now unemployed engineer? Now, we don't have driverless subway trains.