President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%↑
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd
(D) Adam Frisch
52%↑
48%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
52%↑
48%↓
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 12, 2007 10:47 PM UTC
46 Comments
You know my position on Labor, it’s threats, and how it just needs to put up and shut up. ‘Nuff said.
Even if this was some elaborate stunt, it’s backfired
The standing of labor in Colorado continues its nosedive. Good riddance.
I am a Dem and I can barely stomach labor. They have such little influence in this state that almost every state House and Senate member should be able to move without fear of them!
” I am a Dem and I can barely stomach labor.” Amen to that.
At present it seems to all be about lcoking in the existing jobs and screw everyone else. That is a receipe for continued decline.
They need new leadership that can get large numbers of new members working in the private sector. If they don’t do that unions will continue to decline until they basically become a public employee only system.
– dave
Do you realize that Joan Fitz, in her last campaign (2006), recieved all of her money from Unions. If these union guys take a break in 2008 and Jared takes his, amendment 41 ball and goes home, the Dems might be hard pressed for money at the state candidate level.
1072 will be back next session. You can bet that Right to Work is coming as well.
This has turned out to be a really entertaining week already.
we still have the trial attorneys, but the unions wont take a break and jared aint going home.
As far as I know, no one here will be affected by 1072. Right to work, can impact anybody. It gives no guarantees to a job. In fact, it gives employers extremely wide latitude to fire anyone for anything at anytime, and provide no explanation. Please, correct me if I am wrong.
but why shouldn’t an employer be able to hire and fire as he/she will? Aside from discriminatory practices that are already covered by law, if I own a business and need to let someone go because I have to downsize, he/she isn’t a good worker or creates a negative working environment, shouldn’t I have that right? Downturns in the economy, restructuring, downsizing, changes in skills needed, etc. etc. etc. What jobs are guaranteed?
If you tell me I can’t fire someone for not doing a good job, you push us toward mediocrity. And I know other companies out there are making sure that everyone they have is extreemly efficient and effective.
– dave
There is a difference between letting someone go due to downsizing and letting them go for, say, drinking a competitors beer on their own time. Or, requiring them to join an organization on their own time with no compensation. Or, having a different selling strategy that is not the same as a higher up.
Lets say someone isnt a good worker. Would you fire that person right then and there if their prodcutivity was lacking for say, a day or a week? Would you not talk to them to discuss what the problem may be, or give them written notification that their job may be in jepordy?
Negative work environment is such a nebulous word. Lets, for a second, disregard practical negative work environment concerns, such as sexual harrassment or actively looking for a new job on company time, because I have no problem with a person being let go for those reasons, but often a person is notified of these restrictions when hired. How do you define negative working environment? Would it be meeting with union officials? Taking excessive sick days? Too much office gossip? Bringing personal issues to work with them? Too much seniority?
If a company is going to fire someone they need reasonable cause. If a company is downsizing due to economic concerns, restructuring due to takeovers or mergers, etc., there is reasonable cause due to redundancy or the fact that a company will fail due to great expenses. An employee should be notified of these reasons, not put out with “you have an hour to clean out your desk.”
Changes in skills needed can also be a nebulous idea. I can easily see this turning into a situation where new employees are brought in, paid less, and senior, higher paid, better compensated employees are let go. All of this under the guise of “change in skills needed.” Ive worked for large companies that pay for employees to get more training or certification or a degree. With that said, smaller companies, who do not have the ability to compensate like larger companies can offer different incentives for an employee to pay their own way in acquiring those new skills. My guess if a company is willing to let a person go and not offer them a chance to attain those new skills is probably doing so for any of the forementioned reasons.
No job is guaranteed, but if a person is going to be let go they need to know why they are being fired, and told at the point of hiring every possible reason they could be fired.
to determine “good cause”? Is it good business practice to hand out pink slips with no warning, to not give people a chance to shape up or acquire new skills? Absolutely not. Businesses and companies that have good business practices and treat their people right get better workers.
I know the ideal is that the government can make everything all right for everybody, but what you end up with is an imperfect system of laws, oversight, and intrusion into private business, with uneven results. As hard as it is to swallow for some, the person that owns the business should get to decide who works for him/her and for how long.
First paragraph I agree with, except the first sentence. Its hard to agree with a question.
Im not saying that the government can make everything right for everybody, and Im not denying that at times the system is imperfect, but there needs to be a minimum standard applied to all business. You will never convince me that laws, oversight and governmental intrusion are bad for business. Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC, Anti-trust, and others are all intrusions on government and I am ok with just about all of them. Those laws I mentioned protect business from business. They also protect investors. They also protect consumers from business. Why cant we have laws that protect workers from business?
You can, and you do. Lots of laws, lots of regulations. I am sure every law and regulation came about as a result of something that went wrong, either on a small or large scale. Keep in mind though, there is a cost to every new regulation, and that cost is passed on to the consumer. People cry foul when companies move oversees, but when the cost of doing business in the United States gets too high and a company gets priced out of the market, they will go elsewhere. A healthy push/pull between business interests and worker interests is OK by me. On this particular issue, I fall on the side of the employer in a private business deciding who works for him/her and for how long.
We do have laws that protect workers like the 8hr day, the 40 hr week, child labor, and ADA to name a few. Im talking employment. In my response to dave, I expounded on what I believe is a protocol that not only protects the company from a lawsuit but is also fair to the worker. Well run companies, at least the ones that I have worked for, use this structure not because it is the law, but because it is fair. And lets be honest, if an employer wants a person fired they will find a way to fire them.
I remember reading an article either right before or right after I started law school. The article was about legal work being outsourced to India. Legal Work! The workers were educated in American law schools, not sure the credibility of the law schools, but they were being used to draft briefs, do research, and write memos. Many had passed the bar, presumably in the states where they went to school.
When a company moves oversees they are not restricted by the cumbersome regulations of minimum wage or child labor. Hell, they could move to the Marianas, still get the “Made in America” label and not be restricted by US worker protections. But white collar work, short of the legal work I mentioned, is rarely outsourced. The obvious exception being customer service. Brick and mortar retail work can be put online, but sizing would be an issue. Menial tasks are being outsourced. I would argue that executive level pay has more to do with being priced out of markets than regulation being put on companies.
Bear in mind that adjusting regulation is often a one-time expense. Yes, that expense will probably be passed on to the consumer, but changing internal company and HR policies is not expensive as, say, changing marketing strategy. Look at “Ted,” United’s low cost carrier. Millions were poured into that naming, and then you have marketing and financial decisions, not to mention painting the actual planes. I dont know for sure how much a regulation change would cost, but I bet a slight pay cut at the upper tier would easily offset it.
When I was in college, I had some classes with a guy who whose boss didnt want smokers working for him. He had an ingenious way of ferreting out smokers. In the interview, he would bring up that there was an area where employees could smoke. If people said, “oh, thats ok I dont smoke,” they passed his test. No guarantee for a job, but not immediate dismissal if they said something like “good to know.” Its his business and it is his right not to hire smokers. When it comes to hiring I have no problem with people not hiring an individual as long as it is not illegal discrimination. When it comes to firing I would hope that a business follows a similar protocol to not only protect themselves, but to also protect the worker. My guess is that, like many of our previous debates, we will come to a respectful disagreement (one of the many reasons I like you).
and who knows, if you and I were on the “committee to reform business practices pertaining to firing employees”, we’d probably come to a reasonable solution we could both live with. Blogs are about ideas and opinions, I have mine, you have yours. In the real world, practicality demands compromise and cooperation if we are to get from point A to point B. What I like about Unions is the idea that union reps can sit down with business reps and carve out a compromise both sides can live with. (Ideally of course) When this is working, cookie cutter legislation and government regulation can be avoided. When either or both sides dig their heels in and take a “my way or the highway approach”, negotiations break down and Big Daddy government is called upon to “right the wrong”.
Regardless of where we fall on this issue or others, I think you have an amazing intellect and an ability to make cogent arguments without name calling and partisan rhetoric. That is a rare quality in politics these days so I hope you stay involved and active.
Negotiations are key to any healthy business relationship. I am obviously pro labor, but I am not so blind as to not recognize their flaws, and I like your and dave’s suggestions for more negotiations. Labor can not act as a monolith. All businesses are different in some form or another and they (labor) must recognize that cookie cutter proposals will not work for all business. If labor and business can work to craft better compromise, I bet people on both sides of the issue will be more accepting of the opposing side.
My experience is in sales, and the biggest key to selling is knowing your audience. One of the many reasons I like debating you is that you force me to craft a better argument. You raise great objections, provide real insight, and offer a different position that is held, Im convinced, by a sizable number of the population. So, thank you for the compliment, but you must accept some responsibility in making my arguments what they are.
What I love about blogging is that I cant just fire off some response. Im definitely not the best writer or the smartest contributor here, and it takes me a long time to craft a response, but I like it that way. I figure if I can be a part of a good debate, with good contributions on both sides, than hopefully my writing and debating skills will improve. You, definitely, make a debate solid. Your contributions are too well reasoned to respond with something trite. You are universally respected, because you dont wade into the muck, and you force us to stay above it as well. So, thank you for your contributions. Your presence makes for better, more civil arguments.
Now we really have to start sniping at each other or they will throw us out of here, lol!
But seriously, don’t underestimate your intelligence or your potential. If you hadn’t revealed your age, I would have NEVER guessed it in a million years. You have wisdom beyond your years and some of us “oldsters” could learn a thing or two from you!
Well, I havent seen any of your movies so ha! (thats the best I could think of)
Thank you, but I receive much more that I give to this site. My greatest advantage is that my fingers dont move as fast as my mind, and there are too many solid posters here to not offer something of substance, myself. I dont have the real world experience that you “oldsters” have. Hopefully, I will be able to get some of that.
So democracy is ok for as country’s political system and ok to export overseas (at will) in the name of freedom, but
not ok for the American workplace? Sounds like the typical status quo argument that those with the upper hand know best…Darwin lives and do not challenge my authority or you will pay the price. Under your reasoning, “the person that owns the business should get to decide who works for him/her and for how long”…How long will it be before governrnment subordinates and democracy itself?
Not too long in my mind. The cry for “smaller government” is really a clever way of saying, “do not question the authority of business. Where does personal responsibilty end and corporate or business responsibilty START, anyway? More balance is needed and unions provide that. But, sure, most employers are fair minded, but FORMAL safeguards are part of this process. Your “at will” reasoning is wrong, just like the Republican party and those who defend it.
Unlike the government, where each person gets a vote and elects representatives to do their bidding, a business is private, owned by a person or group of people. Unless the employees are all share holders in the company, they don’t put up the capital, bear the risk, or make the decisions. Can they lobby the government to force business to do what they want? Can they form a Union and bargain for what they want? Obviously. They can and they do, with a good deal of success. You and I would disagree on the “good deal” part, but as I said above, the push/pull between people like you and people like me keep the balance needed. As for your parting shot,
“Your “at will” reasoning is wrong, just like the Republican party and those who defend it.”
“Wrong” is subjective, and the rest of the statement is partisan rhetoric. Better to stick to a good argument like my buddy Toodles above. He always makes me think using logic, reason, and facts. Much more persuasive.
“Partisan rhetoric” is the only reasoning ever used to kill most labor bills. I am guessing you own or manage a company, but not that it matters.
You really think most bills are voted up or down based on facts? Party line votes are commonly based on beliefs. I could provide “facts” all day and you would likely maintain the same opinion. Of course “wrong” is subjective and as is your reasoning, so what? I maintain that the primary “facts” used to bust unions is about maintaining the the power of status quo. It is not about facts or certainly not justice. Employees bear risks too and a country that defines itself based its political system of “checks and balances” is wholly lacking when it comes to democracy in the workplace. That is certainly not to say that I think all small business need unions, but government and these mega corporations sure do. Unions help maintain a balance of power and social justice and promote the “efficiency of the service” in government. It will not be long before private (corporate) power becomes stronger than government itself. Or are we already at that point where the pursuit of profit has overtaken democratic principles and the common good? Unions are protecting the rights of people. Most mangagers are fair and try to do right as they see it, but I have defended employees who have been falsely accused of crimes and serious misconduct, shattered by sexual harassment, targeted for subjective reasons, put in unsafe working conditions, and just treated poorly in a variety of legal ways. On the same side of that coin, unions have keep reason and a sense of fairness at all times. In short, unions bring a needed balance on what this country holds itself out to be. Those who stand against unions do so for strictly “partisan” reasons and take away the very thing they so often claim to uphold.
I have owned a couple of small businesses in my life, but I’ve been an employee some 30 odd years, so I think I can speak to both sides of the issue. It is not only partisan rhetoric that kills or passes bills, it is a different world view. That world view is what causes people to join different parties and fall on different sides of the issues. Both sides use rhetoric to kill and promote their own agendas, that’s politics. Beneath that are beliefs which are neither good nor bad on their face. You are wrong when you say facts don’t matter. The fact that children were being used and abused by business and were dying in mines and factories were facts that brought about legislation to protect them. I don’t “stand against unions” for strictly partisan reasons, nor do I think unions “have keep reason and a sense of fairness at all times.” There is some of that “protecting the status quo” going on there too. You are correct when you say Unions bring about a needed balance, but balance requires an opposing force, namely business interests. Both sides could use a little less “good guy/bad guy” rhetoric.
..with your statement, especially the part of different world views. But I never said that “facts don’t matter”. Facts do matter. I think the facts prove that the balance is off the chart in favor of business. And I am not talking about history. I am talking about today.
Just some recent news clips –
David R. Francis, of The Christian Science Monitor recently wrote that “a third of American working women are given no paid leave, and a quarter of men get no pay from their employer if they take a week or more off for rest and recreation”. The article went on to state that ” this difference, the three economists hold, is not due to long-standing European culture. In fact, Europeans worked more than Americans as late as the 1960s. Nor can it be explained by higher tax rates in Europe with its socialized healthcare. Instead, they found that the greater power of trade unions in Western Europe accounts for the “bulk” of vacation time enjoyed by European workers”. An recent report from the AP further states, ” The United States lags far behind virtually all wealthy countries with regard to family-oriented workplace policies such as maternity leave, paid sick days and support for breast-feeding, a new study by Harvard and McGill University researchers says. The new data comes as politicians and lobbyists wrangle over whether to scale back the existing federal law providing unpaid family leaves or to push new legislation allowing paid leaves’.. I could list many more examples, but this illustrates my point.
As I am sure you have guessed, I am a union Democrat, but I was raised in very Republican family. I do not think workplaces should be dictatorships. Due process is needed at all levels of society including the workplace.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Yes, I kinda guessed you were a Union Dem. I’d further the debate by discussing the difference between “dictatorship” and “business ownership”, but the sun is shining and I was just invited to attend a BBQ with my friends, who are also Union Dems. Go figure?
Have a great one!
Well, afternoon, actually, but you can’t type that in an Irish brogue….
It may not be “business” that has the upper-hand over labor, as much as “class.” We like to think of ourselves as a classless society, and we certainly are, in a completely different sense of the word. But not in the sense of people born into different resource bases and different opportunity structures. While organized labor has progressed in political strength way beyond what is functional, and laborers themselves earn salaries that only laborers in other highly developed nations wouldn’t envy, they still are way behind, in terms of the material rewards available in our society, in relation to management, or capital, or whatever you want to call it. The disparity between the richest 20% and poorest 20% in our society has been growing astronomically since the early 80’s (guess who contributed to that?), and the disparity between our relatively well-paid labor force and their bosses has grown astronomically as well.
The door is locked to the highly motivated, the somewhat fortunate, and the exceptionally gifted, but it isn’t so easy to push open, either. We don’t live in a Horatio Algiers world: People are born with differential opportunities, and those differences are real and consequential, though not absolutely deterministic.
So, while organized labor is a pain-in-the-ass that might need to be dramatically reconstituted in pursuit of the collective good, the demand for a reduction in the basic social injustice that being a worker sucks in comparison to being a corporate board member, and that the chances of birth play a large role in determining who gets to enjoy which role, is completely legitimate.
some typos just have to be corrected!
(adjusted for inflation of course!) That is probably true. Part of it is mind set, no doubt, but I’m sure glass ceilings exist for some and not others. The question is, how do you create incentives for hard work, innovation, and an entrepreneurial spirit that a free market encourages, (and that leads to goods, services, and jobs we all enjoy) and create some form of artificial equity? I’m not sure you can. Who should decide how rich is too rich? How big a corporate executive’s golden parachute is? How much profit should be spread to workers? These things can be negotiated and this is where I see the value of unions. I get more skittish when the government gets involved and starts trying to legislate equity and income redistribution.
and particularly of “leveling the playing field.” The most important places to focus such efforts are in education and publicly sponsored pre-school, community development, retraining and placement for displaced workers, and other programs that target root causes rather than outcomes, or increasing the adaprability of laborers to a global economy. I don’t think income redistribution should ever be done arbitrarily: I prefer to see resources invested in productive ways, such as the programs I’ve described above. But, certainy, when there is a path down which some gain a lot and others lose less, the best way to proceed is to find a way to ensure that everyone gains at least a little. Nothing arbitrary about that. And it’s not due to some abstract notion of some people being “too rich,” but rather a commitment to a win-win strategy which will breed more consensus.
but the devil is in the details, as they say. The practical application is the worrisome part. Government attempts often have the precision of a club instead of a scalpel. I am certainly open to suggestions of the practical applications of lofty ideals though.
It’s all of a piece. Another aspect of the challenge is to sharpen the edge of government as a tool. But I think that it’s at least as dangerous (or dysfunctional) to shy away form using government to accomplish what government *should* accomplish due to the fact of inefficiency, as to rely on government when there are preferable alternatives.
There is a large literature in economics on the question of the economically correct mixture of markets and hierarchies for various purposes. Certainly, you want the hierarchies to be disciplined, and there are ways of making them more so. Nothing is simple, but much is possible.
First off, I have never wanted to fire someone. Anyone hired has a lot invested in them by the company so we very much want them to succeed. And will do everything we can to help them succeed.
Nor do we expect perfection or that they are on top of their game every day. People are imperfect.
But if you add additional hoops we have to jump through when letting someone go, that impedes our operating as effectively as possible. Especially if your hoops are similiar to what we ourselves already do – but we now have to do it your way.
With that said, this is where unions, if they learn how to do so, can be very valuable. They can negotiate with a company to find a system that works well for that company and that set of workers.
But this will require that the unions drop the one size fits all model and look at what the workers and the company need in each situation and come up with a system that works well for both.
– dave
Or, depending on the business itself, the managers, the VPs, the Ps, or the board. Im not saying that you have ever wanted to fire someone and I would guess that a manager who takes pleasure in firing people is not a good manager. What little I know about you, dave, I would assume that you are a good boss that does do everything in your power to help people succeed. But what do you do when they dont succeed the first time, or the second, or the third? My guess is that you have a protocol you follow when letting someone go. My guees is also that you let new hires know the rules and procedures when they are hired. The “hoops” that I am advocating are 1) letting a person know exactly what they can be fired for at the time of hiring (my guess is that a business can print up a list and have a new hire sign it, thereby covering them) 2) written notification that leads up to a firing (ie a paper trail, thereby covering an employer) and 3) when an employee is fired they are given a written reasons for being fired with copies of previos written notifications (again covering the employer). Are these unreasonable? Are you not already doing something similar to this? I would argue that the protocol that I am advocating protects the employer just as much as the employee.
This was what I talking about with negative work environment. Moreover, this is what concerns me about the stereotypical response to unions. The stereotype being that unions are monolithic and unchangeable. Yes, to a certain extent they are, but if a company considers them a hindrance to their efficiency no matter how malleable a union is a company will always consider them a problem.
as much as I admire the wisdom of the market, since we all seem to agree that there is some demand to regulate the free-labor-market (e.g., prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of race), the question, once again isn’t *whether* to limit employers’ rights to hire and fire who they please, but precisely *how* to limit such rights.
The reason why we have legislated against racial descrimination, for instance, is that we (collectively, I hope), believe in using government to intervene when necessary to prevent social injustices. The market obviously doesn’t automatically succeed in doing so: One could have argued that businesses that didn’t discriminate would have out-competed and out-survived businesses that did, yet there didn’t seem to be much evidence that the market was actually changing those behaviors in the regions where they were the most intrenched.
The question is, then, is there a demand for social justice that can be met by further regulation beyond, say, prohibitons against descrimination based on certain defined social categories: race, sex, and sexual orientation? Don’t you think that a fair number of people are fired, or not hired, for similar but undefined reasons: Being obese (when obesity is irrelevant to their job performnce), ugly, or some other unappealing characteristic over which they may have no control? Also, internal politics in any business-place can be incredibly vicious: I believe that honesty and integrity are often punished, and that it is in our collective interest to try to tweak the labor-market in ways which encourages rather than discourages such traits.
Granted, we should not have laws that protect all workers under all circumstances without regard for the requirements of the business or the competence of the worker. But I believe that we should continue to refine our laws to the best of our ability to cover the various dysfunctional and socially unjust hiring and firing dynamics that certainly do continue to exist.
Also, tangentally, since there are absolute gains to be had by maintaining a flexible economy that can adapt to changing demands in the marketplace, I think we need to put into place a system for redistributing *some* of those gains from those who benefit from them toward a buffering-system which helps retrain and relocate those who are displaced by them.
I had you guys (and gals) stereotyped. Shame on me! A thousand pardons.
at some of the “mixed” group meetings. What fun.
The AFL-CIO does not have the near monopoly on the voice of labor that it once used to — the Change to Win Coalition, which includes some of the country’s largest unions like the Teamsters & SEIU, has new ideas about what the 21st century labor movement should look like. I share some of the frustrations expressed on this thread regarding this most recent myopic bullying tactic by the national AFL-CIO, but I’m also frustrated when people speak in terms that indicate that the AFL = the entire labor movement.
…regardless of what they want to do, the fact is that every year then number of private sector union employees drops and public sector rises.
The bottom line is that an organization will almost always work to improve things for it’s leaders first and it’s members second. And as unions become more and more a public employee only representation system, we will lose private sector unions.
And that would be a very bad thing.
– dave
ps – The one othe rplace unions may remain is for crafts like film-making, professional sports, etc. But that doesn’t help the janitor, the secretary, the truck driver, etc all of whom need a union to have some power against their company.
through the legal system, if they choose to exercise it. Unions are a huge disincentive to investment. France comes to mind.
AFL CIO unions continue to believe that an injury to one is an injury to all and pull together to resolve workers’ issues. Every benefit workers receive are because workers organized and fought for (took to the streets) them – 40 hr work week; anti child labor laws; pensions; paid sick and vacation; health insurance – does anyone really think that these things were just thought-up and provided to workers by their employers because they wanted to be nice? Look at how workers’ rights are being decimated in America – look at how many are losing their pensions; the increased cost of health insurance (if offered at all); the workload of public employees where population growth placed increased demands on an ever-shrinking state budget and workforce. There are those who believe that the base-line for workers is slavery; that workers rights should be compared to those of slaves — and are working to take everything back that unions gained for the benefit of working families. I imagine their conversations to be “how much do we absolutely HAVE to give workers – where can we cut benefits and wages” all in the interest of increasing a bottom line that will, ultimately, benefit those at the top of the food chain…their wages, their pensions, their health insurance, their ability to vacation in the South of France or wherever they go. To hell with working families; the American Dream belongs to those at the top – working bastards are left with nightmares of mortgage payments, bankruptcies, foreclosures, bad credit, no insurance, no jobs, and don’t think about college for the kids – that’s for somebody else’s kids, not yours.
As far as the Change to Win coalition of unions – they split from AFL supposedly because they believed AFL spent too much money on politics and not enough on organizing. The interesting thing to know here is that CTW spends more on politics now than ever before because they no longer pay their fair share of dues to the national AFL so they have more to spend on stuff like…politics. They have become mercenaries; keeping members’ money for the glorification of those at the top of CTW – throwing money shamelessly at candidates and campaigns to buy a perception of power. THen they sell that hokey to employees along with empty promises they can’t keep, then collect and hoard their dues for the next election cycle. Employees are left with empty pockets and a watered down version of AFL CIO that can’t deliver what it promises.
As for me, I’m sticking with the union – the real deal – the AFL – CIO. Is it perfect? No. But it has a strong history of success in this country to deliver on the promise of a middle class and the ability of workers to provide for their families, protect them and their health, and enjoy weekends as well. The US has still a long way to go to get over the expectation that workers will work for nothing; slavery is not a good model. Sending jobs to third world countries may put more money in the CEO’s pockets, but only moves the US to third world status itself.
Lose the unions, lose the middle class. Ask where will we be then? By and large, unions are an important part of our society and economy. Hopefully the CTW folks will come back and allow the labor movement to speak with one voice. Working families and their communities can only benefit.
while unions certainly played a large role in winning those concessions, it’s an overstatement that no concessions are ever made without them. Much of the focus on employee satisfaction since WWII or so (and before, in some cases) has been initiated by management, not labor. It was Henry Ford’s idea to pay his workers 4 or 10 times the going rate (I can’t remember which), because he thought that it was a sound investment to do so, to keep skilled workers instead of enduring the high costs of high turnover. Many modern companies, particularly high tech companies, invest large sums of money in providing comforts and amenities for employees, under the philosophy that happy employees are productive employees.
On a larger scale, the notion that political power only accrues to those who fight for it is not entirely true either. Modern Democracy arose in England, more as a result of sovereigns needing to empower ever-broader categories of subjects in order to create incentives for them to be productive, in order to finance the endless European wars, than as a result of class warfare.
I am not trying to oversimplify the picture: There are many social injustices committed when those with the power to do so are left unchallenged. But there are also many occassions when the powerful find it in their own interests to cede some of the power to the less powerful. In fact, historically, almost any negotiated treaty or contract between more powerful actors and less powerful actors involves some concessions by the more powerful: The U.S. Constitution required the larges state to compromise, and give the smaller states a senate in which the latter would receive equal representation; In the U.N. charter, the most powerful nations, gave away (way too little) power in order to try to create viable international institutions. In both cases, the more powerful retained some or much of their advantage. But they also empowered the less powerful to some extant, because they found that, too, to be to their advantage, not in a zero-sum game, but in a win-win game.
The basic fallacy in the notion that capital only gives up what labor fights for is that persistant, and erroneous, belief in a zero-sum world, in which for one party to gain the other must lose, and therefore for one party to gain concessions the other must be forced into it. In fact, many challenges we face in this world are non-zero-sum, in which cooperation leads to gains on both sides, and the lack of cooperation leads to loses on both sides. In such circumstances, it is in the self-interest of the more powerful players to concede something to the less powerful players in order to win those potential gains.
Labor unions, at this point in history, tend to be guided by a zero-sum, “us against them” philosophy, and so, in that sense, obstruct rather than facilitate the gains that could be made through a more subtle approach. Capital, while perhaps not as non-zero-sum as it could be, actually has tended to show more awareness of the need to accomodate their workers than labor has shown a willingness to accomodate capital enough to permit survival in many cases. The recent history of American enterprise is strewn with large companies going bankrupt as a result of the intractible demands of labor. And when they do go bankrupt, or worse, truly go under, labor loses more than they would have had they made the concessions necessary to keep the company alive.
I agree Queen. For these reasons, I think the labor movement will be back strong in the coming years. It is all about balance. Of course life in the American middle class is good, but unions help keep that bridge standing. Claims to the contrary are just wrong in my opinion. Nobody has ever claimed that unions or any organizations made up of people are perfect, but I generally agree that “power only takes a step back in the face of more power”.
A “free market” means freedom to allow unions. As for the labor spilt, I think that will work itself over time. But that is only a guess on my part. It is important to note that from a local standpoint, that divide is more a financial matter than anything else.