Should Bloggers Unionize?

Some Yearly Kos attendees think so:
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11826

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NOT SO LONG AGO, progressive bloggers relished their outsider role as "citizen journalists" driven by passion not cash. Yesterday I attended a workshop entitled, "A Union for Bloggers: It's Time to Organize!" during which a moderator posited, "I think all bloggers, in one way or another, view themselves as professionals" and a woman bemoaned the travesty of her and husband's inability to quit their jobs and become full-time bloggers because the "social safety net is in tatters." In other words, Why won't society foot the bill for her hobby? Better organize!

It sounds like a spectacularly unserious endeavor, but Big Labor and its enablers apparently disagree. Representatives of the AFL-CIO, armed with "Kicking Ass for the Working Class" stickers, were on hand, as was a DNC employee, a D.C. District Court administrator, a Working America official and the man who got the National Writers Union up and going. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters not only posted Blogger Wanted: Inquire Within signs everywhere, but also handed out free T-shirts festooned with the slogan Working Class Blogger.

During the meeting there were surreal arguments over whether the union would be strictly for political bloggers. "There are knitting bloggers and nature bloggers and all kinds of bloggers and we have to include them as well, do we not?" one clearly miffed young woman asked. The man from the Teamsters counseled inclusiveness. Perhaps sore-knuckled knitters can find a place in an international brotherhood after all. The sky is the collectively bargained limit, even for conservatives.

"I would want to include conservative blogs because if they have to adhere to the journalistic standards the union sets..." the moderator began.

"...they'll go out of business!" a woman finished.

Cue predictably spontaneous applause.

The real question should've been "how would we extract wages from people surfing the internet?" Unless they're looking to make blogging a closed shop, which is frightening in many ways.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If you blog and don't make money off of it, it's a hobby. If you blog and do make money off of it, it's a business. One that the blogger owns and has full creative control over.

A blogger's union would be like Rockefeller and Carnegie forming an Industrialist's Union.

How ya doing, buddy?

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What's to be gained from unionization?

It seems like they think that it'll give them journalistic integrity, and anybody who wouldn't be a member of the Blogger's Union wouldn't be trusted. Little do they understand how much work actually has to go into journalistic integrity...

Worst case scenario, they turn blogging into a closed shop, where they'll use police power to deny anybody who isn't a union member the ability to blog. Essentially regulating the internet. These guys are the True Believers who think that any problem can be solved by organized labor. (even in this case where there isn't a problem)

If you think it can't happen, keep in mind that the entire Democratic lineup showed up at the leadership forum to pander to these people.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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A bloggers union would be like the employees of a startup -- all 5 of them -- forming a union.

Except they're not even startups, they aren't in business with each other. Every blog that makes a profit is essentially its own proprietorship.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?