Dec 18th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Solis on EFCA
Here’s new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis talking about the Employee Free Choice Act:
Good stuff. Unions likes her a lot as I understand it, and as a Latina she very much reflects the new face of the labor movement and especially its growing sectors.
31 Responses to “Solis on EFCA”
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December 18th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
This is a very good sign. (looking at you left critics like Greenwald) Happy holidays America.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
As a left critic, I think it’s a fairly good choice. Now that I am impressed with one decision, I must eat crow and stop advocacy for better policy.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Here’s a hint to her family: don’t have 7 kids. It leads to a whole host of problems and is bad for the parents, the children, and society as a whole.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
this is a slap in the face
December 18th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Trust me – everybody who programs in any language is a monkey. Have you actually used any software lately? It all sucks rocks – even most of the OSS stuff. but you see for home http://www.liginmaclari.blogcu.com
December 18th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
While this is AWESOME, I’d love to see her making more “macro” arguments in favor of unionization.
That is, it’s not coincidence that we’re having the biggest financial meltdown since 1929 at the same time that the gulf between the super-rich and everyone else reached the highest point we’d seen since 1929!
A lot of our current economic collapse has happened because wages have been stagnant. Almost all the fruits of our productivity and other growth went into the hands of Wall Street. So we became an economy that was increasingly expert in creating bubbles from more and more risky (and sometimes downright crazy) investments. And the whole thing was financed by cheap credit for consumers instead of wages for consumers.
The Madoff situation shows that our economy was so broken by this glut of capital that he could pull off this scam for damn near 10 years. You can’t get away with that kind of crap in a healthy economy, because people aren’t so desperate to invest their capital, because there isn’t so much of it. Also, more solid investments have better returns because there isn’t so much capital competing over good investments. The cost of money CAN be too low–and it’s a problem made worse when cheap money is financed at the expense of wage gains.
We need to stop pretending that an economy where all growth goes to wall street to be invested while the consumers and government deficit spend is in any way sustainable. Obviously not suggesting a neo-hooverite move now, but I am suggesting that right now we absolutely MUST strengthen unions in order to increase wages, and once we’re out of this hole, we should impose some very high tax rates on the top brackets AND on the activities of Wall Street to fill in our deficit hole.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
As a left critic, I think it’s a fairly good choice. Now that I am impressed with one decision, I must eat crow and stop advocacy for better policy.
Boohoo. No, know we will know your default position, that you’re a one note band and that we should take your predictions with a grain of salt. I’ve been saying that all along, and now here’s a data point that proves me right. On the Internets that’s pretty much game, set, match.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Boom goes the dynamite! My internet street cred is gone. Fuck.
At least you’ve been saying that all along, pretend internet acquaintance.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Actually, this isn’t a good argument for EFCA at all, Matt. Or to be more precise, it’s an OK argument for the union movement in general,but she didn’t say anything about why card check is necessary to protect the right to organize.
That reason, of course, is because the National Labor Relations Act is a joke at this point which can be violated by employers with impunity. And that is the argument that will need to be made to pass EFCA, since Republican rhetoric about the sanctity of the secret ballot will have a lot of appeal to people who don’t know anything about the issue.
Just sayin’.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
But Rick Warren will be speaking at the inauguration for two minutes!
December 18th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Oh no! Obama has chosen a secret agent of the Mexican government. This is the first step in the nefarious reconquest plot. Cancel you July 4th celebrations and get ready to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Boom goes the dynamite! My internet street cred is gone. Fuck.
At least you admit she’s a good pick, instead of glossing over it, so you still have Internet cred.
If she ends up not accomplishing anything, then my cred, valuable as it is, will be up in smoke.
I just remember Glenn Greenwald giving Nancy Soderberg an impossibly hard time over warrantless wiretapping on the radio during the general election so my post was more directed at him and professional writers. To me, his cred should go down a notch and all commenters and analysts have is their cred, except Robert Samuelson who has zero cred now.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Altogether now, one more time: employers don’t pay the wages, customers do. And customers (who are also workers – surprise!) will purchase from the low cost producers. Unions can’t change this.
Unions were strong during the New Deal Era (1932 – 1968) and were able to win many benefits because the U.S. had a monopoly on the world’s manufacturing. It doesn’t have that now. The Big 3 are unionized, and during the last decade the UAW has had to give back much of what it won during earlier times. Sad, but unions can’t turn the clock back and neither can anyone else.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
as a Latina she very much reflects the new face of the labor movement and especially its growing sectors.
Now, for those who prefer the truth, here’s my translation of MattY’s “thoughts”.
Even NancyPelosi wasn’t high on appearing with foreign elected officials to support changing our laws in their favor, but not Solis. She’s a true Democrat, right down to strong support for illegal activity.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Unions were strong during the New Deal Era (1932 – 1968) and were able to win many benefits because the U.S. had a monopoly on the world’s manufacturing.
kafka: if your thesis is valid, all it means is that it’s harder for manufacturers to keep prices high than it was then. It certainly says nothing about whether or not unions are helpful in enabling workers to get the highest wages possible. Downward wage pressure from globalization increases — not decreases — the desirability of labor unions.
December 18th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
TapirBoy1, (or any other informed pro-card check commenter), can you point me in the direction of a comprehensive writeup of why secret ballots aren’t working?
I’m not particularly skeptical, but I often here progressives say that the deck is unfairly stacked against unions without any real explanation as to how or why the current system is unfair.
December 18th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
December 18th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
The secret ballot doesn’t work because it comes months and sometimes years after the card check is done to authorize the election. The employers in most situations use that opportunity to mount a campaign of information, disinformation, sweet talk and intimidation in varying measures. It often starts with “if the union forms, we’re shipping these jobs to Jakarta.” It also incudes firing as many of the hardest core union activists as they can find. It includes recruiting workers to act as spies on the organizing drive. It includes trying to identify those union activists who can be flipped and using selective incentives to turn them into managment messengers. It includes mandating that workers – on condition of continued employment – attend meetings with consultants from union busting law firms that will show videos about every instance of union malfeasance ever. It includes shift changes and transfers designed to dislocate solidarity. It includes a much more visible and active management presence on the shop floor to prevent workers from actually talking to themselves (think Norma Rae with the sign over her head). It also includes one time efforts to settle grievances and increase pay offerred as something that will happen if we just make those union organizers go away.
Mind you, a lot of what I just wrote is illegal and much of the rest is dishonest and immoral. But its still standard operating procedure. You could increase the penalties, but most people in the union movement are pretty sure that doing so will just lead to management either paying that price or finding new ways to subvert the process. Majority authorization isn’t necessarily an effort to get rid of the secret ballot. In fact, the workers can specifically, as part of the process, opt to have it lead to a secret ballot if I understand correctly. Instead its an effort to take away management’s unilateral right to impose the second process as a way of creating an opportunity to directly violate and undermine the spirit of the national labor relations act.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
@pronk #16:
Let me put it to you this way: I’m not totally sympathetic to all of organized labor’s political goals, yet I support card check. The reason, as I mentioned, is because the National Labor Relations Act is a dead-letter. The right to organize doesn’t really exist in the United States. Employers can simply stall to prevent organizing drives, complaints take years to work their way through the system, and even when they do, the employer can simply refuse to recognize the union until any ardor for organization subsides.
Here’s a brief post that highlights why it’s needed: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2008/07/21/big-lie-being-spread-about-efca.html
I’m a law student; having taken Labor Law, I can say that card-check is a drastic measure needed to balance the drastic unfairness of American labor law. Businesses like to conjure images of union goons forcing people to join unions, but the fact is the employer has all the resources and tricks (captive speeches, propagandization of employees, etc.) on their side. The debate may be academic in the 111th Congress; there won’t be the votes to break a filibuster, methinks. Arlen Specter wants a “Compromise” of some sort, although i don’t know what that would entail.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Aww yeah! Hilda is my Congresswoman. Good for her!
December 19th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Re: Here’s a hint to her family: don’t have 7 kids. It leads to a whole host of problems and is bad for the parents, the children, and society as a whole.
No, what’s really bad for children is being raised by ignorant jerkoffs like JimboSlice. So if you choose to have few or no children, I would applaud that choice.
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