The Chamber Mobilizes
I’m probably not breaking any news if I tell you that American business really hates unions and, thus, really hates the Employee Free Choice Act. Thus, even though John Boehner is trying to destroy the American economy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is squarely focusing its fire on pro-EFCA Democrats. Your typical business executive would rather let the world burn, or see his children fed to a pack of wild boars, then see a union form at his firm. And it makes a certain amount of sense—businessmen appreciate the value of class solidarity. If you run your company into the ground, you get a nice severance package and another job at another company. But if you let your company be unionized, you’d be dead to your brethren. An attack on one is an attack on all, and they all stand together on this point.
Alex MacGillis’ report from the “Workforce Freedom Airlift” (organized by managers and their representatives, of course, not actual workers with actual concern about freedom) brings some eye-opening color to the visceral degree on which this hatred is felt. And people should listen to the Chamber’s words here—they’re not interested in compromise or optics or funny-business. They’re interested in making it as difficult as possible to form a union in the United States of America. That means no concessions on any of the bill’s points, and they’re confident that they can get at least a few Democrats to stand with them on this point. This threat of a capital strike was interesting, too:
“You’ve got to go up and tell them what will happen [if the bill passes], that no one is going to add a single job in the United States,” Chamber president Thomas Donahue told the assembled. “Will I put a job here where it’ll get unionized in an illegal way? No, I’ll put it somewhere else.”
I wonder if we’ll start seeing more of these kind of threats issued against other aspects of Obama’s agenda that the chamber doesn’t like.
92 Responses to “The Chamber Mobilizes”
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March 10th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Warren Buffett’s not a fan of card check either.
The reality is that Obama’s policies are starting to worry not just the “wingnuts” but people like Buffett who voted for Obama and centrist-types like Stewart Taylor.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Aren’t our aristocrats great? Rather than go Galt himself, Donahue is going to make other people do it for him.
If the parasite class hates card check, it must be a good idea. They’ve been wrong about everything else.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
As someone who isn’t sold yet on checkcard elections but also thinks the current system is unfair and makes it extraordinarily difficult to form a union, are there any proposals out there to reform the union election process short of EFCA?
Of course the Chamber would scream that those would kill business as well, but I was just curious as to whether the labor boosters are in an all or nothing stance on this.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
How about a compromise? Let business owners form legally binding cartel agreements and then workers can do the same. Although, I have no idea what dead weight loss is this is probably the most pragmatic solution.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
“I was just curious as to whether the labor boosters are in an all or nothing stance on this.”
Yes—we have an all or nothing stance that workers, not management, should be able to choose whether to make decisions by card or by secret ballot.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
From the WaPo article:
Is anyone surprised that business owners are going to fight to the death on this? It doesn’t make you anti-union to be against a proposal to let the federal government write your contract. If I were the union I wouldn’t want it either. How’d you like to have Bush appointees writing your terms?
March 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
How about a compromise? Let business owners form legally binding cartel agreements and then workers can do the same. Although, I have no idea what dead weight loss is this is probably the most pragmatic solution.
As Obama said during the campaign, productivity has been going up over the years, but the benefits of the extra producitvity haven’t been shared fairly. Unions are one way to help correct this.
So “letting” business owners have any more perogatives won’t solve this issue, which people like gordon and the Chamber don’t even acknowledge.
I know the Chamber believes in the blessing of heaven and divine right of owners and managers and that productivity shouldn’t be shared fairly, but I’d have a little more respect for them if they argued it straight up.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Patrick, EFCA actually has three provisions, with card check being only the third. It’d be pretty easy to have come out of this an EFCA with a heavily modified third provision. Which in the back of my mind seems almost the most likely outcome at this point–the first two provisions together probably would help the cause of unionization more than card check itself would, so it’d still be a game.
It’d be funny if this turned out to be a rope a dope–start with an EFCA with an easy-to-attack card check provision, let wingers get into a tizzy demanding workplace democracy and get so caught up in attacking that one element of the bill, and then out comes Obama with The Grand Compromise, which streamlines organization by simply requiring NLRB elections once 10% of workers support having one. It’d put all the people who oh-so-conveniently have discovered the virtue of workplace democracy in an awkward place.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Matt,
Have you blogged about this yet, “Obama’s economic saviour savaged as Keating lets rip”?
March 10th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
*game-changer, not game, naturally
March 10th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Communists, fascists, Republicans and CEOs have at least one thing in common: they hate unions.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I applaud those who are fighting hard for freedom from union harassment.
Keep the work up guys. Give ‘em hell!
March 10th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Why oh why Says:
March 10th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Communists, fascists, Republicans and CEOs have at least one thing in common: they hate unions.
==========================================================
Oh, and moderate Democrats, too
Ben Nelson will once again be playing a key role in Senate negotiations over a major legislative drive. The centrist Nebraska Democrat told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he does not currently support the Employee Free Choice Act — also known as card check — a bill that would allow workers to choose to unionize either through a secret ballot or by signing cards of support.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/10/breaking-ben-nelson-oppos_n_173548.htm
March 10th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Shorter gecko: if the slaveholders can form a cartel, then we’ll let the slaves form their own churches.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Miley Fink-Nottle applauds management blackmail and intimidation. Pip, pip, ra-ther!
March 10th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Rahm needs to go tune up Ben Nelson with a tire iron.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Campesino, you got me there. I would really like to, but I can’t defend Ben Nelson on that one. So I guess, feel free to bash him!
March 10th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
A good book on the violent early history of unions and the labor movement is Dynamite, by Louis Adamic. Not an argument against them, certainly – just an interesting read.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Peter,
My problem is people on the left see this as simply a redistribution of power from employer to employee. And to some extent it is otherwise unions wouldn’t be for it and employers against it.
But it has consequences for consumers, prospective employees and even union members. The whole idea of unions in already competitive industry is by itself antithetical to capitalism. If workers are becoming more productive than the employer should reward them equal to their added value. Otherwise someone else will. The likely reason for why median wages haven’t grown with productivity is because (1) rising health care costs eroded wage growth (2) much of the productivity growth has made those at the top more productive while those at the bottom have become more redundant (i.e. skill based technological change).
If Obama really wants to tackle wage stagnation he needs to tackle health care costs and the growing irrelevance of lower and middle class workers.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
You think adding Ben Nelson to the list is some kind of gotcha? Ben Nelson sucks.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
What would that entail? A sales cartel would not make sense; they work against the consumer, notthe worker. So I assume you mean a hiring/wage-negotiation cartel.
Unions work because workers are not trying to drive other workers out of business. Hiring cartels don’t work because cartel members want the others to fail. The exception would be sports leagues, where each company requires the existance of the others in order to sell its product. The Yankees gotta play somebody. And, as a result, sports leagues negotiate as a cartel. You don’t get the NY local of the players union negotiating with the Yankees. The players union negotiates with Major League Baseball.
If Ford, GM and Chrysler were negotiating as a cartel with the UAW right now, Ford would refuse any contract offer. Eventually, GM and Chrysler would go out of business, and Ford would expand its market share. They would also dramatically increase the reserve labor pool, giving them huge leverage in future negotiations.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Fine, let’s hold the GOP’s feet to the fire here. If you guys are so oppposed to unions of any kind, which of your leaders will be the first one to propose a Constitutional Amendment simply making them completely illegal. It’s the only true way to prevent people from forming them. Hell, be up front about it guys. If you think that union-busting is admirable and guaranteed to get votes, then go all the way. Isn’t that what..ahem..principled people would do?
March 10th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Njorl, the sports league analogy isn’t the best one, considering baseball famously has an anti-trust exemption that allows it to operate the way it does. Remember when Congress actually threatened to revoke that in order to force baseball to put a team back in DC?
March 10th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
You know, I actually like gordon gekko’s suggestion. The companies that employ workers already have effective market power over them. If you just formalize employers into one cartel and workers into one cartel, at least you end up with a two-entity negotiation, which would be better than what we have now.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Miley Fink-Nottle applauds management blackmail and intimidation
I say, if you want America to be crawling with mini-UAW’s, go right ahead & support this monster. But meanwhile, it would be a catchy TV slogan, I wager: “Do you support the bloated, greedy UAW, or do you support American Business?”
I really would rather enjoy having the entire management of the UAW lined up before a firing squad. Or a noose for that matter. They rather deserve it for ruining American automotive industry.
Oh, and, if UAW dare pop its head anytime above water to support this lousy piece of junk, it would do the movement PR far more harm than good; how’s that for sweet irony? Who would want to be seen together with the UAW those days?
March 10th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
By American Business I meant General Electric et al.
As I say, give ‘em hell boys!
March 10th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
“The whole idea of unions in already competitive industry is by itself antithetical to capitalism. If workers are becoming more productive than the employer should reward them equal to their added value. Otherwise someone else will.”
Let me get this straight. Even NOW there are still people who don’t grasp the self-evident truth that capitalism in practice bears little to no resemblence to capitalism in theory? Really?
Mike
March 10th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
So, Myles, it was the UAW’s fault that the Big 3 focused literally their entire output on SUV’s without even bothering to consider the idea of gas prices spiking? It was the line worker’s fault that the Big 3 didn’t build smaller cars or waited nearly a decade to start developing hybrids, allowing Toyota and Honda to damn near corner the market?
Of course, the Japanese auto companies are partially subsidized by their own government, and their workers have universal health care, making it easier to provide the American workers with some HMO coverage.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
“I really would rather enjoy having the entire management of the UAW lined up before a firing squad. Or a noose for that matter. They rather deserve it for ruining American automotive industry.”
What the hell have auto execs been doing to earn those massive paychecks if they’ve been nothing more than handmaids to the almighty UAW?
Mike
March 10th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Let me see if I get this right. If a person says that a CEO is paid too much, they’re called a communist. If a person says that a WORKER is paid too much, they’re called a Republican.
I thought the idea of doing everything you can to make as much as you can was something you Randian lunatics. I guess that doesn’t apply to a guy on an assembly line, huh.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
What the hell have auto execs been doing to earn those massive paychecks
Let me say this loud and clear: the executives of General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford do not deserve a single penny. I repeat: they do not deserve a single penny as they have been spineless lapdogs to the UAW the entire time.
I would be the first to demand that they give back every single penny that has ever been paid to them. Heck, they should rather in jail, seeing how little they did to fight the UAW and instead let the monster run their businesses.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Why not look at some profitable companies where the employees are happy and see what those companies have in common? My guess would be high levels of employee ownership. If that’s the case, then that’s something the government could encourage more of, perhaps through additional tax incentives for ESOPs.
A problem with card check unionism (aside from opening the door to organized crime and intimidation) is that this is one of a series of liberal policy proposals that would pile more dead weight on top of private sector businesses. Is this — the first global recession since WWII — really the best time to do this?
March 10th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Happy now? Heck, the management of GM-Chrysler-Ford should be lined up against a wall in front of the firing squad too, for being just ignominious, cowardly deserters.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Wow, such blood lust.
Myles, I think you should look a bit closer at what has caused the problems at American car companies. It’s mostly bad planning (they assumed they could live off SUVs, trucks, and their financial branch forever) and legacy costs that their competitors don’t have to deal with to any meaningful extent yet (namely, pensions).
March 10th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
DaveInHackensack, unions lead to upward pressure on wages. At a time when spending is dangerously low, you really think that preventing an increase in unionization should be a priority?
March 10th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Wow, such blood lust.
Whoever capitulates to organised labour (as Detroit management has done) is a traitor and ought be shot or hung. There is no greater crime than treason. Those auto executives, they are turncoats. They are disgusting, filthy human beings even lower than organised labour, who are at least fighting for their own advantages; the auto executives haven’t done even that.
I want their heads. On a pole.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
They are like the soldiers in the trenches who have turned over their sections to the enemy, and have negotiated with the enemy to not shoot at each other while their fellow-soldiers are fighting with lives for victory.
They are ignominious traitors. Traitors, are to be shot at dawn.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
As a resident of a card check jurisdiction (Ontario), let me give you some perspective. We’ve had card check for many years now. Number of complaints our LRB has upheld for union intimidation (into signing union cards)?
Zero.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Snapshots of Miley during that last rant.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
And really, Miley, we don’t mind you eating up Nancy Mitford novels, but don’t shit them out, half-digested, on these threads.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Myles, what makes you think auto executives weren’t fighting for their own advantages?
The one part of the crisis in American auto that unions genuinely have some part in is pensions. That came about in the 1950s and 1960s. The executives then decided to put off costs into the future for an easy bargaining agreement. No matter what happened, they were going to be fine, and I assure you that they died comfortably in giant mansions in 500 thread count sheets under the supervision of the best medicine money can buy. After which they were buried in golden caskets.
What you’re arguing for isn’t executives fighting for their own advantage; it’s class solidarity and loyalty to an institution greater than themselves. Which is fair enough, but at least get it right.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Myles, I’ll politely repeat myself here. Clearly you feel that unions, which are LEGAL organizations, are a form of “treason”. Fine. Will you pressure your local representative to press for a Constitutional Amendment making them illegal? If not, getting this violently angry over a LEGAL organization is both counterproductive and mentally unhealthy.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
They are worse than traitors. They are devils, devil werewolves who bite and scratch and shoot their allies without mercy or decorum. Wolveroids and demoniads, the lot of them.
Shooting at dawn is too good for them. They should be shot before dawn, at 3 am or some similarly ungodly hour. We will wake them up just as they are enjoying a sex dream and then shoot them, with our dirtiest, most ignoble guns. While they are hanging from a poison guillotine.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
you feel that unions, which are LEGAL organizations, are a form of “treason”. Fine. Will you pressure your local representative to press for a Constitutional Amendment making them illegal?
He have to bitch to Canadian MP.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Don’t reply to Myles. He’s either a troll, or a parody. Either way, you will never get an intelligent reply out of this particular poster.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Sorry – I should clarify that Ontario *had* card check, until 1995. Other provinces currently have it.
A few other important safeguards. Even in Ontario, where there are certification elections (after signing up 40% of the workers), the election must take place within a week. This cuts down on the time an employer has to embark on an anti-union campaign. We also have automatic certification as a potential remedy in instances where there has been employer misconduct so as to taint the certification election. I mention these because EFCA doesn’t have to be solely – or even principally – about card check; there are lots of other safeguards that can address employer misconduct.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Having actually practiced labor law for years, I think I can add a little to the discussion.
The Chamber is coming right out and taking the following position = unions are bad. They are job killers. U.S. business would be better off if they were completely eliminated.
Those who support card check need to start out at the opposite end of the continuum and work up from there. The right to collectively bargain has been a right of every American worker for 74 years. All we are talking about are minor tweaks to that law whereas the Chamber is trying to re-fight a battle they lost in 1935. (A right which was coincidentally granted during a comparable economic downturn yet somehow the economy survived!)
Then the ground is properly set for a debate on the proposed changes. Again, a lot of the opposition is premised on the simple unions = bad. That said, I do think that the “grand compromise” eliminating card check and calling for quicker elections and more severe penalties for unfair labor practices is probably going to be the result.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I am saying the managers who succumbed to unions are traitors. Unions in themselves do no treason make.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Further government institutionalization of unions just seems so counterproductive. Instead of hiring on merit, competitive businesses will waste their energy psychoanalyzing their potential employees for union tendencies. Instead of training for a good job with a high market wage, potentially high-producing workers will aim for the good paying union-inflated jobs. I don’t understand why there is no thinking on the left as to the best way to massively redistribute wealth in favor of the people who haven’t been getting it recently without disrupting good economic practices. Direct transfer from the rich to the poor and middle class would redistribute wealth but not encourage the kind of socially unproductive behavior that extensively institutionalized unionization encourages.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Realist, very good point. However, another perspective is that businesses might instead decide not to waste money, as you put it, and continue to hire on merit and simply invest an equal amount and improve employees’ compensation and benefits to reduce the allure of unions. Even in past eras where the administrative system favored unions, plenty of businesses avoided them the old-fashioned way – they treated their workers well.
And judging from his comments during the election, this is the meme which has caught Obama’s attention. I think he sincerely views unions as one (of many) solutions to the decline in real wages in the U.S.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
competitive businesses will waste their energy psychoanalyzing their potential employees for union tendencies.
That sounds like the way to be competitive. This company will rule over all in the future.
I have no idea what the fuck “the kind of socially unproductive behavior that extensively institutionalized unionization encourages” means. I know what uninstitutoinalized unionization behavior is though, that’s bombs and brickbats and when I read bullshit like this it sounds better anyway.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Myles lives in an alternate universe. One where the party that lined up against the UAW and bashed them left and right isn’t at Dick Cheney levels of popularity, and where their elitist class-warfare-from-above hasn’t been thoroughly repudiated by the American public.
By all means, make this a referendum on whether the public hates unions more than they hate management. In early 2009. Where do I send the check for THAT political campaign?
Oh, right: the SEIU’s PAC, that’s where.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
However, another perspective is that businesses might instead decide not to waste money, as you put it, and continue to hire on merit and simply invest an equal amount and improve employees’ compensation and benefits to reduce the allure of unions.
Some businesses will probably do this. Some will not. The problem is, when you make unions powerful, you give great incentive to businesses to compete in giving up as little as possible to the unions rather than in producing goods as cheap and high quality as possible. And for what purpose? It’s not like unions are the only tool the government has. It is possible to redistribute wealth downwards without giving such poor incentives to workers and businesses.
I don’t doubt Obama’s sincerity. I just wish there was more of a debate as to the comparative technical merits of unionization vs. other means of redistribution, whereas in the current environment it appears all battles are fought on a left-right continuum.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Tomemos,
The UAW did a good job of putting upward pressure on its wages. Look where that got the domestic automakers. I’d rather see more Americans have slightly lower paying, non-union jobs at companies that aren’t on the verge of bankruptcy than slightly higher wages in union jobs that are about to disappear.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Ed Marshall,
Do you really doubt that finding ways to discourage the formation and empowerment of unions is a mechanism by which a business can increase its competitiveness? Money which doesn’t go to unionized workers can go to cheaper prices and higher profits. The “unproductive behavior” refers to such anti-union activities, which, unlike cheaper prices and higher quality goods, increases competitiveness without producing any social value.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
The problem is, when you make unions powerful, you give great incentive to businesses to compete in giving up as little as possible to the unions rather than in producing goods as cheap and high quality as possible.
As if there isn’t an incentive to compete by going after labor costs without unions.
Labor costs make up about 10% of the cost of a Big Three automobile. Upward pressure on wages had the result of making millions of people middle class for decades. GM is going into bankruptcy because it’s been badly managed. You’d have to be willfully ignorant to think its condition had anything to do with unions.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
joe,
Without unions, businesses pay market price for labor. Decreasing wages means decreasing quality (as Circuit City demonstrates), and businesses don’t have much room to act outside of that quality-wage relationship; if you pay someone substantially less than they can get elsewhere, they will quit. Unions change the game because they can increase wages above market prices, meaning that two businesses with two different union relationships can employ workers of equal quality but different cost. This gives a lot more room for competing on the price of labor front.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
The anti-union people on this thread seem to be unaware that the rise of unionism in America (not, coincidentally) also coincided with our era of greatest economic growth.
A strong middle class that shares in the growing wealth of a country is the key to sustainable economic growth. Any argument to the contrary is just sophistry in defense of oligarchy.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I agree absolutely that “a strong middle class that shares in the growing wealth of a country is the key to sustainable economic growth.” I just disagree that the optimal means of attaining a strong middle class is through unionization. We can agree on goals without agreeing on means.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
The anti-union people on this thread are the pro-rich people. I think that’s an excellent thing. This is the fight the Dems need. of course, instead of fighting for their kleptocratic rents, I imagine that the fight, however, will be quickly disguised as a matter of the worker’s rights. Oh, they are just concerned about that Joe the Plumber worker! And his rights, dear thing.
And unfortunately, that is how the press will play it.
Which is why it is important to put this in class warfare terms. The Chamber of Commerce represents the usual oligarchy, the successful kleptocrat, the rentseeker, the parasite, the, well, the upper management type. Country club mentalities,self centered, greedy, full of short term horizons. Terrible managers of their companies, as one can see in times of stress. Villainizing them is a very good idea. They contribute nothing. They take, like the mafia, an incredible vig. They aren’t going away. But if the unions get their way, finally, we will have a way to start draining the wealthy outside of government action. Government intervention is always the liberal’s second choice – a good, robust labor union is the first choice. Cut the upper management fat, shift that money to the cost of paying the people who really produce stuff, let them chew on that. Bring back the mixed economy model of the sixties. Get the compensation of the upper management back to earth, say 1 to 19, like it used to be. I’ve always thought all compensation deals should be tied to the upper management’s compensation – some ratio such that if they get a raise, labor gets a raise.
I think this may well be realizable. Given that the GOP only has Dixie, and is paying no attention as Southern workers are sacrificed on the altar of GOP politicians playing I’m against the stimulus, things might keep shifting leftward in a very interesting way.
Ultimately, however, without an international union – one that, for instance, could bring to a halt work at Boeing plants in the U.S. and China, if a strike was needed – capital will have the upper hand.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
The anti-union people on this thread are the pro-rich people.
No. I think we should take most of the wealth from the rich and directly distribute it to everyone else. Much more efficient means of redistribution than unionization.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:02 am
Realist,no it isn’t. That ignores tghe fact that politics is a marke, and that increased inequality of wealth leads to increased inequality of political outcomes. Just as in any market, the large players get the breaks. Walmart can demand pricing from its suppliers that the small store down the street cannot. The wealthy can demand favors from the legislators that the small mechanic or greeter at Walmart’s can’t. In a market, you have to have countervailing power. In fact, there’s a direct relationship between the decline of progressive legislation and the decline of union power.
Myself, I have a more conservative view of the state – I think, by balancing labor and capital, re-distribution
March 11th, 2009 at 1:03 am
oops, sentence cut off: …can occur in the private sphere without the interference of government. At the present, government massively interferes on the side of capital.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:08 am
joe from Lowell,
Myles lives in an alternate universe. One where the party that lined up against the UAW and bashed them left and right isn’t at Dick Cheney levels of popularity, and where their elitist class-warfare-from-above hasn’t been thoroughly repudiated by the American public.
You’re partially correct. Myles is indeed living in a alternative universe, but in the world Myles inhabits he’s perpetually lounging about with Charles and Sebastian, snacking on quails eggs and drinking a Brandy Alexander, while remarking on how “p-p-positively dreadful” he finds that phillistine Rex. Oh, in this version, Aloysius is his.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:15 am
Unions change the game because they can increase wages above market prices, meaning that two businesses with two different union relationships can employ workers of equal quality but different cost.
I take it “two different union relationships” means “one of the businesses treated its employees shittily enough that they felt like they needed to form a union to protect their interests.” Seems to me like there’s a pretty obvious way to fix that problem.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Also, for all the handwringing I’ve seen about the prospect of increased intimidation from unions, I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer to the following question: What can unions to do intimidate workers that is not already illegal?
March 11th, 2009 at 2:16 am
I agree with you on the “increased inequality of wealth leads to inequality of political outcomes.” The question is, once a progressive party gets hold of power, what they can do to counteract this tendency.
My answers are:
-Actively break up companies with monopolistic or monopsonistic power
-Forcibly redistribute wealth downwards
-Create popular social programs which are very hard for right-wingers to dismantle once they get back into power. Social security proves the success of this method.
This will all serve to weaken powerful harmful political interests.
I agree that you have the more conservative view of the state. Your position is to empower one interest group to oppose a countervailing interest group, mine is to have the government itself act as the opposing force. I think this is superior on technical grounds; unions may be a positive political force but they are a negative economic force compared to direct government action.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:27 am
I take it “two different union relationships” means “one of the businesses treated its employees shittily enough that they felt like they needed to form a union to protect their interests.” Seems to me like there’s a pretty obvious way to fix that problem.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s always the way it works–there are other ways besides appeasement to reduce union tendencies, e.g. hire people who aren’t going to be working for you a long time, or illegal immigrants, or fire people who show union desires or try to weed them out before hiring. You don’t want a business to outcompete another because it is more efficient at treating its employees poorly without them forming unions. Also, once a union does form, it’s not obvious that the best way to minimize its demands is to give it whatever it wants, and companies can also compete on the level of union management.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:27 am
How about a compromise? Let business owners form legally binding cartel agreements and then workers can do the same. Although, I have no idea what dead weight loss is this is probably the most pragmatic solution.
I’ like to point out that this is less ridiculous as it sounds. In the Netherlands, it has been the standard system for the last 25 years. Th big unions and employer’s organizations have a yearly conference, together with the executive government, and they agree on a benchmark wage rise for the coming year. Many businesses choose to accept this benchmark as official, to save them from negotiations themselves.
The key here is the inclusion of the government. In good times, it tends to side with the workers to demand serious wage increases, if wage demands are too high and threaten the econmoy it sides with the employers, giving them a moral authority they would otherwise lack. And often, the workers and employers can gang up to demand lower taxes and social security payments form the government, in return for easy wage negotiations.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Without unions, businesses pay market price for labor. Decreasing wages means decreasing quality (as Circuit City demonstrates), and businesses don’t have much room to act outside of that quality-wage relationship; if you pay someone substantially less than they can get elsewhere, they will quit. Unions change the game because they can increase wages above market prices.
So, let me get this straight: it’s possible for workers to enjoy a power imbalance in wage negotiations that results in a pay level about “market level,” but it’s not possible for employers to enjoy such a power imbalance. Nonsense.
You’re describing a fantasy-land, “perfect market,” where there are no transaction costs, perfect information for workers, and zero friction on labor mobility.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Realist,
You look around at our political history over the past 30 years, and decide that you trust the government to look out for the best interests of workers.
I don’t. I don’t believe that there will be meaningful protection of their rights and interest unless they, themselves, have enough power to protect their own interests.
As a bonus, though, once they do, you will quickly see the political reforms you wish for come about.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:55 am
I think one can debate the merits of EFCA for as long as one wants (I think it’s junk); at the end of the day, however, there is one little problem:
There is one country, and one country only, with which the U.S. has almost an absolute parity in terms of human resources and labour costs, as well as complete freedom of trade: the country is Canada. One could very plausibly move a factory from a card-check U.S. jurisdiction to the non-card-check Province of Ontario, Canada’s industrial base and home to something like 13 large research universities. This isn’t US vs. China or US vs. Mexico. Canada is a comparable country.
And I suspect some people will be tempted to do it. At the end of they day, if all EFCA does is to drive out jobs, well, haha, you guys LOSE.
Good work guys.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:58 am
By the way, since Ontario is set to be run by either the Liberal Party (uber-pro-business, a la New Labour, and pro-fiscal sanity; this is the more powerful party), or less likely, but the even more pro-business Tories, well, there will be no labour activists popping champagne about an Ontario EFCA anytime soon.
And for that I am very happy.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:58 am
And also, if EFCA causes the woodchucks to take up arms against their human oppressors, that would suck, too.
Good work, guys. Why do you hate jobs, and humanity?
March 11th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
The National Labor Relations Board has five slots, three of which Obama can fill immediately. Even if ECFA is filibustered to death, there is a lot that can be accomplished simply by having a board majority that is not composed of pro-business hacks. The left blogosphere should start advocating the appointment to the NLRB of people like Tom Geoghegan or Nathan Newman. If they are filibustered, appoint them during a recess.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
“…if EFCA causes the woodchucks to take up arms against their human oppressors, that would suck, too.” – Wow, that comparison is so wrong, and so symbolic of the psychology of the Bush era we are leaving! The workers, here, are woodchucks – not even humans. Helpless creatures. They depend on the mercy of the hunters – obviously the swift, terribly terribly smart businessmen that we should adore, to whom we should allow looting privileges that exceed those given to the European nobility in the eighteenth century. It is this servility of mind that the corporation owned media and such byproducts of reaction as the GOP has tried to instill in the last thirty years. The automatic crawling on one’s belly befofre corproations for “jobs” – any kind of jobs, at any pay. Look what that wonderful philosophy has done for northern Mexico! Why, I bet those maquilladora workers are so proud that they have the opportunity to work for slave wages, and would beg corporations, if the stockholders needed a bit higher profit, to lower their pay even more.
The good thing about the coming of a stronger union era after the moderating of the capital-state stranglehold on union organizing is that this way of posing the question, as if our corporate overlords could move to mars with their activities, will start petering out. In reality, only in a world in which the powerful make it the case that the richest have broad freedom of choice can they use that freedom as a weapon against the vast majority. Having a taste of the freedom enjoyed, as recently as the seventies, by the working class, maybe middle class America will wake up and stop being led by the nose by the vulture class and their dittohead zombies. Especially as it isn’t the case, now, that you have something to lose – your retirement benefits. They are gone – thus, you have nothing to lose than your chains.
The failure of the market to rise to even what it was at the end of 2008 for the next couple years will have profound effects on the thinking of the middle class, even in Dixie.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Myles, the competition for stupidest fucking guy on the internet has long been over – you won, now stop trying.
Even though Ontario is no longer a card check jurisdiction [although in areas of federal jurisdiction, card check is in place], it remains much easier to unionize here than in the US.
For one, elections must take place within a week of the union presenting its certification cards to the LRB – which eliminates the lengthy process (up to several months) of intimidation by employers that takes place in the US between the time the union applies for certification and the election.
For another, we have meaningful penalties here for employer misconduct: it becomes a reverse employer onus to any dismissal was entirely untainted by an employee’s involvement in a union certification drive, for instance. And critically important – unlike the US – the law provides for effective and speedy adjudication of such cases (ie. what use does it do for a union organizer to win his job back 4 years after the fact, long after the union drive failed – due in large part to such dismissals). Also, if an employer fails to bargain in good faith with a newly formed union, the union is entitled to a first contract arbitrator – who sets the terms of the first collective agreement.
So no (sane) business would move to Ontario in the event of EFCA enactment, because it thought it would be easier to escape a union shop.
However…
Ontario has one very important thing going for it that makes it extremely competitive with the US in the battle for businesses: government paid universal health insurance – which alleviates the need for the employer to provide health insurance. But I don’t imagine we’ll see you clamouring for the US to close that competitiveness gap…
March 11th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
So, let me get this straight: it’s possible for workers to enjoy a power imbalance in wage negotiations that results in a pay level about “market level,” but it’s not possible for employers to enjoy such a power imbalance. Nonsense.
The workers can always quit, so there is a maximum level of abuse that employers can impose on employees, but companies can’t fire union members if there are laws against it. I acknowledge that no market is perfect and that quitting imposes costs on its own; nevertheless, it is an option. Note that under my proposal (direct transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor) quitting would be an even more accessible option because the government would provide a better income to people without jobs than is available now, so they would feel safer quitting and going on the job market.
You’re describing a fantasy-land, “perfect market,” where there are no transaction costs, perfect information for workers, and zero friction on labor mobility.
I don’t think I said any of this. Is your opinion the opposite extreme; that there is no cost to employers of dropping wages continuously? If so, why don’t all workers get paid the same tiny wage?
March 11th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
You look around at our political history over the past 30 years, and decide that you trust the government to look out for the best interests of workers.
If you don’t trust the government to look out for the best interests of workers, why are you so strongly in favor of government institutionalization of unions by EFCA and other laws? The government can take away union institutionalization just as easy as anything else they give–easier, actually, because unions represent a particular economic and political constituency whereas popular government programs like social security or universal healthcare (if done right) will be appreciated by all except the rich, and thus extremely hard for the right to dismantle.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Frankly, the unions can go do whatever they want. While they are at it, they can also jump off a bridge for all I am concerned.
I don’t have much in terms of solidarity with the American worker; maybe with the German worker, the Swiss worker, the Austrian worker, even the Spanish worker; but the American worker, whose efforts have resulted in the worst possible corporation in history (General Motors); hells fucking no. They can all die and suffer in hell.
I worked during the summer for a couple weeks at a Teamsters closed shop (mandatory membership), until I got a better job as a energy analyst; they were the most loathsome people I have ever met: provincial, petulant, and spiteful. I am happy to be able to burn my Teamsters membership card.
Unions and communists are the reason I am to this day a big supporter of Franco; at least he appreciated the precepts of Western civilisation, based on the inviolable sanctity of property rights.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:34 am
Nice point about this, good summary.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:29 am
The workers can always quit Don’t worry, you can always not have a job! That’ll show ‘em!
I don’t think I said any of this. Your position, that the functioning of labor markets will work to prevent working conditions and wages from falling below their social end economic optimum, relies upon those assumptions. I realize you didn’t say it – you seem to be unaware of this issue at all.
Is your opinion the opposite extreme; that there is no cost to employers of dropping wages continuously? No, my position is that unionization increases the cost to employers of paying inappropriately low wages.
If you don’t trust the government to look out for the best interests of workers, why are you so strongly in favor of government institutionalization of unions by EFCA and other laws
Precisely because that is an act of the government recognizing and accommodating a power – that is, unions – outside itself, instead of the government itself being the power charged with defending that interest.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for the government doing what it can. There is only one of us arguing an either/or position on unions and government, and it is you.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Have you asked the question: The unions need the fed. government to survive, but working for our fed. government why do the employees need a union?
March 12th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I am to this day a big supporter of Franco; at least he appreciated the precepts of Western civilisation, based on the inviolable sanctity of property rights.
Property rights over human rights – I suspected, in addition to being a stupid little shit, that you were a fascist little shit, and I see now I was right.
March 13th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Yes, I agree. Labor cartels are wonders of humanity, for they are great motivators of mechanization and automation. They increase workers safety by eliminating manual jobs and replacing them with productive automation.
They really work well in locking people out of jobs for which they don’t have a connection through the union stewards and union leaders. If you’re lucky enough to buy your way in to a union you’re set for life and you don’t have to add any value to the company’s operations. You can milk the employer for all you can and be satisfied that you’ve driven up the cost of your employer’s business and helped him increase his prices to your neighbors, family, and friends.
You get to support organized crime bosses and their extravagent gold courses and luxury resorts, thus adding to the SEIU membership at those resorts.
And think of the foreign employement unions encourage. Unionization creates an incentive for business people to develop overseas operations to help third world countries as their socialist governments cannot. The developing economies love U.S. unionization because their workforces can grow from the new jobs created when unions destroy the jobs in the countries from which the jobs are driven.
Good job union thugs and the organized crime party that encourages them. You’ve done a great service to America and Americans.
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