Category: Business

State of the Unions

~ jasonsmith1963 ~ Leave a comment

Trade unions are more powerful than ever before – just not the ones you’re thinking of

To visit a trade union headquarters is to bask in the familiar nostalgia of a time when men ruled the world, smoking was permitted on tube trains and national strikes were an accepted part of everyday life. They are often run down offices in unfashionable parts of London, with slogans and urgings hanging from every wall. The inhabitants look like chippy council workers, eager to refuse your request to overturn a parking fine.

A visit to the headquarters of the doctor’s union – the British Medical Association – is a somewhat different experience. Situated in Bloomsbury, the glass walls and smartly turned out receptionists remind one of a corporate HQ. The place oozes money – which is unsurprising given its £150M annual revenues

Doctors are part of an elite group of professionals whose unions enjoy special privileges that other, lowlier, unions do not. Solicitors (via the Law Society), Surveyors (via RICS) and many other professions combine a membership, lobbying AND regulatory function allowing them to operate as a closed shop. When the government attempts to institute changes that would be detrimental to them or their members (but almost certainly better for the public), they are resisted or defanged. When the regulatory function for solicitors was removed from the Law Society (to the SRA), the obligation for lawyers to remain members of the Society was not. The Royal Medical colleges with their colossal property portfolios and vast wealth continue to regulate their members as well as provide succour and lobbying to preserve their privileges.

Wealthy, well-educated and powerful, it is unsurprising that these unions remain a closed shop regulating themselves and resistant to change; adamant that their members deserve a job for life, free from the prying eyes of independent regulators. Their ability to divert public and private money to their members’ pockets remains unsurpassed. The NHS may have been the creation of a Labour government, but it was designed and implemented by doctors for the benefit of doctors. Just witness the howls of anguish from the BMA when even minor changes to doctors working conditions are proposed. And try and constrain legal aid to avoid the most egregious abuses and before you know it the woke left are on the streets demanding justice for all. No one thinks to suggest that a barrister might possibly take a pay cut.

The answer to removing the power from these most powerful unions and their members is unlikely to come from politicians or an outraged public. It will most likely come from technology and particularly AI which will encroach on their knowledge and surpass their wisdom. Why would one trust the opinion of a doctor who has seen hundreds of cases, when a computer can tell you the insights from millions and instantly remember the efficacy of different treatments? Why spend years learning every nuance of case law when a bot will do it for you?

Of course, as the technology threatens privilege, the privileged will restrict the technology. Only they will be able to access it and provide the masses with its insights. But eventually, as it disseminates, these professions and their wealthy privileged unions will disappear.

The Answer is not the Solution

Featured ~ jasonsmith1963 ~ Leave a comment

When I first started out, the majority of those who worked in the IT industry were clever people. By clever, I mean people of a scientific background, who were not afraid of mathematics. It was the generation where the image of the geek was born. As the industry has grown and has penetrated all areas of society, so the number of workers has increased and the proportion of scientists has diminished. And that is a good thing

You can argue until you are blue in the face about what cleverness means. But for me it has to mean that you can deal with maths, the fundamental underpinning of all understanding about everything. And if you are good at maths, it is more than likely that you will have a keen appreciation of the arts. This is something that is intensely annoying to many people who work in the arts. It seems grossly unfair that someone can have a hobby which makes their appreciation of Mahler greater than someone who has made a career from studying it and trying to play it. But surely this has to be the correct definition of cleverness – someone who is able to understand all types of stuff.

The dismissal of people who enjoy science and maths as boring and socially inept is pretty widespread. A great book from a few years ago “Innumeracy,” was an angry response to the near-delight people had in their mathematical ignorance. (The author mused on the reaction there would be if one declared at a dinner party a profound ignorance of reading and no desire to learn anything about it.) My Facebook feed is filled with posts about funding the NHS or immigration from people who appear to have not the remotest ability to apply the most basic logic or mathematics to a problem.

I am OK at maths (or I used to be) and I am reasonably clever. I apply fact based logic to problems and come up with sets of clear actionable steps to get to the correct answer. Unfortunately, they frequently don’t work and the conclusion is often the wrong one.

And this is why the dilution of scientists in IT is a good thing. Because the correct solution to a problem is often not the answer to a problem. I worked at an insurer some years ago that reduced inefficiencies in their claims handling department. The result was much shorter claims processing times and much happier customers. But the company nearly went out of business. Unfortunately, payouts on claims more than doubled and massive losses ensued. The problem they were trying to solve was more complex than inefficient claim handling. Although the previous process frustrated customers, it also minimised payouts through slow, repeated checks of claims.

With the insurer above, the problem was not understood. Customers complained, people handling claims complained, managers complained; the answer to stop those complaints was clear and it worked. It just wasn’t the correct solution. The consultants who defined and implemented the efficiencies were some of the most clear sighted and confident that I had encountered. They were certain that their proposals would work and the results would speak for themselves. Which they did, causing a 30% drop in the share price

And ultimately, this is why too much cleverness can be a bad thing. It leads to confidence and hubris and above all else it leads to certainty. And when someone is certain that they are right, it is almost always the case that they are not. In the end, we have to find ways to let the correct solution emerge gradually by letting the problem emerge in the same way. Because you can never get the right solution, if you are correctly answering the wrong question.