Blanche Lincoln and EFCA
It seems that Senator Blance Lincoln (D-AR) thinks the Employee Free Choice Act is unnecessary. After all, non-union Arkansas is a bastion of prosperity! Well, actually, no, it’s poverty-stricken and features ultra low wages. But guess who likes low wages? Wal-Mart. And guess who loves Wal-Mart? Arkansas politicians like Blanche Lincoln. After all, Wal-Mart cares:
“I was raised in a family that believed we have a responsibility to help our fellow man in need, and I’m proud to see Wal-Mart – a corporate constituent – embrace that same belief,” said Senator Blanche Lincoln, co-founder of the bipartisan U.S. Senate Hunger Caucus. “Millions of Americans are hungry every day. Wal-Mart’s generous donation of nutritious food to those most in need will encourage others to join us in our fight to eliminate hunger.”
Personally, I was raised in a family that believed that in a just society people who work hard at full-time jobs wouldn’t live in poverty and wouldn’t need to rely on charitable handouts to feed their families. That means high wages and unions.
56 Responses to “Blanche Lincoln and EFCA”
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December 17th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Personally, I was raised in a family that believed that in a just society people who work hard at full-time jobs wouldn’t live in poverty and wouldn’t need to rely on charitable handouts to feed their families. That means high wages and unions.
So unions are absolutely necessary in order for people to not live in poverty and be able to feed their families?
December 17th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Let’s not forget that Wal-Mart is objectively pro-Adolph Hitler.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
So unions are absolutely necessary in order for people to not live in poverty and be able to feed their families?
Of course not. In fact, the problem is imaginary. Employers are motivated to pay their workers a living wage because all employers everywhere are always community-minded and good and generous and filled with a spirit of Christian charity. My own experience has shown this to invariably be the case.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
And even pro-Adolf Hitler!
December 17th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Personally, I was raised in a family that believed that in a just society people who work hard at full-time jobs wouldn’t live in poverty and wouldn’t need to rely on charitable handouts to feed their families. That means high wages and unions
This is a really good line from Yglesias. Noah’s comback however, is not even troll-worthy. It’s middle school bullshit.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
So unions are absolutely necessary in order for people to not live in poverty and be able to feed their families?
I’m sure there are people who look at the state of things in the United States and conclude, “Yup, things are working as expected”. That’s understandable, if despicable. But to not realize that the current arrangement results in some full time workers living in poverty… that I don’t understand.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
This is a really good line from Yglesias. Noah’s comback however, is not even troll-worthy. It’s middle school bullshit.
Oh come now.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
And weak.
# Noah Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
This is a really good line from Yglesias. Noah’s comback however, is not even troll-worthy. It’s middle school bullshit.
Oh come now.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Okay fine. Most liberals and conservatives share your intentions, so why can’t we have a reasonable debate about the merits of unionism? Just because a few people oppose unionism for malicious reasons doesn’t make unionism a better policy.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
And weak.
Man!
OK, OK. Here’s what I think. One would think that the collapse of the Big 3 would at least give Yglesias other liberals pause about the idea that unions are Teh Awesome. But it seemingly hasn’t. Instead, most of my favorite bloggers have become far more vociferously pro-union than before, with what I see as very little substantive argument to back it up. To me, that’s a little like the neocons claiming that we failed in Iraq because we didn’t invade Iran. Instead of too much, they claim it just wasn’t enough.
Which is not to say I am anti-union. I think unions can do a lot to help workers if used right, and a lot to harm workers if used wrong. The economics of unions are tricky and not well-understood. Whether unions are good or bad probably depends on the industry, the legal framework in place, the culture of labor-management relations, and the nature of global competition. I think it’s a subtle issue with lots of shades of gray, even if that’s kind of unsatisfying position to take.
But this post seemed to say “unions –> higher wages –> good for working people,” and the analysis pretty much stopped there. I think that attitude will come back to bite liberals, because I guarantee that the bulk of America does not look at the collapse of the Big 3 and conclude that we need to re-unionize America. If unions are going to come back, it’s going to take an honest re-appraisal of why they work in some situations and don’t work in others, and how our laws and culture can be tweaked to make them work more often. If liberals don’t make that re-appraisal, who will?
So there, I hope that’s not “middle-school bullshit” or “weak.” Can I at least make it up to “troll-worthy”?
December 17th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Gordon, you and I have gone round and round on this before. I have no idea what your animosity towards unions is all about (although your name is Gordon Gekko, so….) anyway – Isn’t EFCA all about letting workers debate the merits of unionism? I’m going to guess your not really in a position to belong to a trade union, which is fine and doesn’t invalidate your opinion, but shouldn’t this sort of decision be left to them?
December 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
(I’l stop clogging the comments in a moment. Apologies.)
Noah – A good effort there. My rejoinder would be – how to you go from acknowledging the complicated gray area that is economics to drawing a straight line, straight out of the right-wing playbook, to “The Damn Unions Ruined The Big Three.” Take a look out there at some of the more serious analysis. The wage difference between the unionized Michigan workers and the non-unionized South ain’t big enough to make a difference. Look at instead the subsidies given by other countries to their industries and, yes, the fact that Detroit has been makeing sub-par products. But that isn’t the fault of the line worker. And “what most Americans” think isn’t terribly releveant here when the national zeitgeist is dominated by Sean Hannity and his lies. Either strong union policies are good for American workers or they’re not.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
The shock! An Arkansas senator would do Walmart’s bidding. Sometimes Matt you come off as so naive. You do live in Washington DC? Don’t you?
I can only assume you do this on purpose. For what gain I have no idea.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Francisco – Thanks! It’s always good when The Man recognizes my effort.
I definitely don’t draw the “Unions Suck” line straight out of the right-wing playbook. I think that labor-management relations hurt the Big 3 a lot. I think the UAW focused to much on forcing short-term retirement and health concessions out of Big 3 management, and not enough on preserving long-term employment levels. And I think Big 3 management focused on short-term cost-cutting instead of long-term growth, basically asset-stripping their own companies. Who started the cycle? I honestly don’t know. But I think it was hard for either side to unilaterally break the destructive relationship.
I think that when the Japanese companies came on the scene in the 80s, it was time for belt-tightening and aggressive investment in technological improvement the part of the Big 3. That didn’t happen. If we had a constructive, win-win labor-management relationship like they have in Germany and Japan, I think things would have happened a lot differently.
Either strong union policies are good for American workers or they’re not.
I’m just not sure that’s true. I think it depends a lot on the type of policies, and also on the culture.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
“I was raised in a family that believed that in a just society people who work hard at full-time jobs wouldn’t live in poverty and wouldn’t need to rely on charitable handouts to feed their families. That means high wages and unions.”
And in Matt’s world it also means turning a blind eye to massive illegal immigration, which strains gov’t safety net resources, reduces wages through increased labor supply, and reduces the average educational level of the U.S. workforce.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
One would think that the collapse of the Big 3 would at least give Yglesias other liberals pause about the idea that unions are Teh Awesome.
One would think that if unions were Teh Evil, then GM and Ford’s union plants abroad would be in the same deep shit as the US ones.
Now, if unions give you the dry heaves, then there’s always strong employee protection legislation. Supporting legislative corporatism wrapped in tissue-thin charity is not an acceptable alternative, but we already knew that Blanche Lincoln is one of the Blue Dogturds.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
The important vote will be, as always, cloture. She supported that before. As long as she helps it get past 60 (I realize that there’s been a lot of blog chatter this week about abolishing the filibuster. It ain’t happening.), I don’t care how she votes on passage.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I think unionism sounds a lot better than confederacyism.
It is also much easier to pronounce.
…oh, LABOR unions? Never mind.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I think the UAW focused to much on forcing short-term retirement and health concessions out of Big 3 management, and not enough on preserving long-term employment levels.
Short-term? The playlet from John Cole’s comments sets out the point that deferring wages in exchange for benefits was hardly short-termism. Should there have been an interjection to say “if we have a large pool of retirees and a smaller workforce, regardless of productivity gains we might well end up fucked”? Possibly. But if the UAW had demanded the bennies to go in wage packets, that would have been a short term position.
I’ll give you the nod on the different dynamics in places like Germany. But last time I checked, there wasn’t much political appetite during the 1980s for anything other than union-busting.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Union’s are not good or bad. They are sort of like mountains. They’re good if you want to operate a ski resort. They’re bad if you want to haul 50 tons of steel.
The fact that unions and Wal-Mart are an issue is because Wal-Mart is such a crappy employer. When the employees do finally get a union, Wal-Mart will be more worse off than the employees will be better off. The union structure will suck off a piece of the pie that could have been shared between the company and the employees. So from an overall perspective the union adds friction to the relationship and reduces overall happiness.
Some employers actually do care about their workers and provide decent wages and working conditions while still making a profit. In this case a union is not appropriate and probably would be opposed by both labor and management.
Companies like Walmart, get what they deserve. Labor strife followed by a union. The employees who stick around, those with the fewest options, get a union and improved working conditions. What I never understood is why workers stay with such a crappy company long enough to form a union.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Francisco the Man,
First collective bargaining rights are not simply a matter for union members. It is a legal issue that affects the whole of society and is just as relevant to outsiders as insiders. Secondly I oppose unionism for much of the same reasons I oppose minimum wage laws and price controls. They are simply, from an economic point of view, not the most effective policies available (although they may be the most pragmatic). They appeal to voters because they cost nothing directly and concentrate the benefits amongst a vocal few.
In many ways the unionism debate is much like the debate over trade. It is definitely not as simple as liberal and even conservative bloggers make it out to be.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Lots of people piss and moan about WalMart. I have a personal pledge to never walk through their doors and I religiously adhere to it. All it takes is millions of people to make the same decision and they’d fold. Breaking WalMart is no more difficult than breaking a drinking, gambling or nicotine habit: just don’t go there.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
All it takes is millions of people to make the same decision and they’d fold. Breaking WalMart is no more difficult than breaking a drinking, gambling or nicotine habit: just don’t go there.
Too bad, pal. People have already voted with their feet on this one.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
By my guess, there’s 43 definite votes for cloture on EFCA (all Democrats), and 18 senators that we don’t know how they’ll vote:
1. Arlen Specter: the only Republican to vote for cloture when it last came up, but this time it has actually will have a real chance to pass and he’ll be facing a conservative primary opponent.
2-4. The unnamed junior senators from Illinos, New York, and Colorado.
5. Norm Coleman/Al Franken: Coleman’s a No, Franken’s probably a Yes.
6. George Voinovich: Voted against it before, but from an increasingly blue state with a labor presence. Up for re-election in 2010.
7-10. Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Warner, Kay Hagen, and Jeff Merkley: new senators that I just don’t know a hell of a lot about. My gut says that Merkley and Shaheen are more likely to be Yes than No. Any more insight on these four would be appreciated.
11-18. Evan Bayh, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Max Baucus, Jon Tester: Probably going to be the Bayh Dogs.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I think that when the Japanese companies came on the scene in the 80s, it was time for belt-tightening and aggressive investment in technological improvement the part of the Big 3. That didn’t happen.
I’d be interested in the evidence that management would have undertaken “aggressive investment in technological improvement” in the ’80’s even if the UAW had accepted the first company contract offer out of the box. Management didn’t seem very inclined in that direction. David Halberstam’s “The Reckoning” has some great background on the roots of the corporate culture that has led the Big Three downhill over the last several decades. Unions weren’t a huge factor
December 17th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
But guess who likes low wages? Wal-Mart. And guess who loves Wal-Mart?
People who shop there?
Clearly, though, those couldn’t be the same people Matt claims so obnoxiously to be looking out for — after all he’s trying to make everything they buy more expensive!
December 17th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Of course, unions are a charitable handout. Please explain the difference, if there is one, between exempting unions from antitrust law (and in many states providing for them explicitly) and sending in the government man to seize the money of the employer to cut a check to the employed.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Clearly, though, those couldn’t be the same people Matt claims so obnoxiously to be looking out for — after all he’s trying to make everything they buy more expensive!
It’s always difficult to know with America’s right-wing whether they really are as deeply moronic as they present themselves to be.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Could there possibly be anything more obnoxiously paternalistic than to think that American workers must always be poor, so all we can do to help them is make stuff cheaper?
The little dears, it’s just their natural lot in life to be poor.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
EFCA is going to be DOA next year.
All of the bullshit right now aimed by the Republicans at the Car Bailout is just transitioning the Narrative away from “Saving Millions Of US Jobs During Dark Economic Times” to “Those Damn Unions”! And they’ve been relatively good in at least having that bubble up enough to the surface.
The groundwork is there, they’ll peel off enough Senators like Lincoln to counter any Republican “moderates” that Obama & Co. peel off. Reid won’t make them fillabuster, and everyone will agree that “there are more important things to work on than EFCA such as the Economy and Healthcare”.
Score one for GOP Opposition.
They’ll fight everything. They won’t be made to look like obstructionists for doing it. And they’ll pick enough fights that they can win that kill off key progressive items.
We’re going to hear the “there are more important things to work on than EFCA such as the Economy and Healthcare” meme from Harry, Nancy and Obama until our heads explode.
John
December 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
24 – I don’t see why Specter would flip flop. He owes his election last time to the AFL-CIO, and he knows it, and he won’t win next time without their support, either.
Beyond that, let me just say that I can’t imagine but that any Democrat appointed from Illinois or New York would support EFCA.
So that gets us up to 46. Of the others you name, well, every single Democrat voted for cloture last time around – I don’t see any reason why there would be a great deal of change on that front, or why newly elected Democrats would be so different from their already elected counterparts. 58 Democrats + Specter gets you to 59, so only one more vote would be necessary, which could be provided by Franken, or alternately Voinovich.
December 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
God, Tosh, pessimistic much?
December 17th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
@gekko
This is true:
“In many ways the unionism debate is much like the debate over trade. It is definitely not as simple as liberal and even conservative bloggers make it out to be.”
This is not:
“They appeal to voters because they cost nothing directly and concentrate the benefits amongst a vocal few.”
Minimum wage laws benefit the few? Um, yeah. OKAY.
@Tom #20
You don’t have to be in a union to benefit from them. Part of the point of unions is that they can raise wages & working conditions for some workers because of management fears of unionization.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Arlen Specter is going to be 80 years old at his next election in 2010. Not sure he wants to sign up for more Washington.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Personally, I was raised in a family that believed that in a just society people who work hard at full-time jobs wouldn’t live in poverty
You weren’t raised in Arkansas. I’m about the same age as Lincoln, and I was raised there. LOTS of people worked hard at full-time jobs and still lived in poverty. The question of the justness of it was never reached; it’s just how things were, and had been for as long as anybody could remember. The psychological adaptation was to suck it up, tough it out, take pride in working hard even if the pay left you poor, and live with as much dignity as you could manage.
Nobody was building high-wage factories in Arkansas. Nobody much was bringing factory jobs of any kind to Arkansas. Jobs were scarce, never mind high-wage ones. All the good ones were in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc., and they just kept getting more of them. “Unions” were the people in those places who kept striking for higher wages, even though they already made 3-5 times what factory workers in Arkansas got. “Unions” were those people who kept walking off of jobs that Arkansans would’ve killed for, but kept going somewhere else. Nobody in Arkansas wanted to do anything that might drive away any of the few factory jobs the state had.
States like Arkansas and Mississippi continue to lag behind in the American economic sweepstakes. The Northeast has had money for as long as the country has existed. The Rust Belt has had money since the Industrial Revolution. The West Coast has had money since the Gold Rush. Texas and Oklahoma have had money since the discovery of oil.
Nothing yet has brought the kind of permanent money and economic base to places like Arkansas to get them over the hump and into a broadly shared, self-sustaining middle class. So low income, low education, and low expectations continue to dominate them. Perhaps people living in those conditions can be forgiven for not having your [upper middle-class, Northeastern, Harvard educated] values and perspective on how great unionization would be for them. Maybe they can be forgiven for not being raised in highly literate, well educated families that taught them “that in a just society people who work hard at full-time jobs wouldn’t live in poverty.” What look like unjust, crap jobs to you still look like the brass ring to many of them. America’s educated class likes to talk about “the global south,” but these folks still live in the original one.
To those folks, Wal-Mart is decidedly a good thing. It sells the stuff they need at prices they can afford. It may abuse its workers, but that’s not unusual enough to bear notice, in their experience. Wal-Mart is the first real money Arkansas has seen. You may not like them. I may not like them. But nobody else was building an Arkansas economic base the way Michigan and Pennsylvania and New York had their own economic bases. Is it so surprising that people in Arkansas react with a big “fuck you!” when they hear you criticizing Wal-Mart?
I’d love to see Arkansas’s congressional delegation do more to move the state’s economy in a progressive direction, but their constituents still like Wal-Mart, still take pride in Wal-Mart, and still don’t want to do anything — can’t really afford to do anything — that might drive away jobs today in the interest of higher paying jobs 20 years from now. They can’t afford — or can’t see far enough ahead to imagine how they can afford — your vision of a just society.
I agree with you on the basic principles. But to sit back and make snide remarks from your (or my) lofty socio-economic perch — that’s just shitty. And deeply ignorant.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
mark f -
Merkley is a big supporter of EFCA and passed a similar bill two years ago as speaker of the state House allowing state employees to organize through the card check process.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
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