Look for the union label!

[prole]

Horseshit. Unionized workers are no more "artificially inflating" the price of labor than the owners or management of capitalist firms are "artificially suppressing" wages to maximize profits or tax-revenue. It's a political struggle over the conditions of employment and control over the work process. Nothing more. Your metaphysical abstracted "point of equilibrium" is no different than the other forms mumbo-jumbo you rail against on this board. Free your mind from these superstitions.

Edited September 23, 2009 by prole

[j_b]

Non-union employees make less than unionized employees? Tell us something we don’t already know. It seems to argue the case for unions pretty well unless you are arguing that people shouldn’t get cost of living increases (especially since the CPI basket is fixed to minimize inflation).

 

Budget deficits due to less sales tax revenues and capped property taxes? That’s what happens with regressive taxes. Aren’t you one of those who wanted to drown government in a bathtub? So, where is the news?

 

It's very difficult for union employees to make more than non-Union employees with the same skill-set unless they've managed to secure regulations that insulate themselves from competition,

 

They forced regulations thanks to their collective power to fight off unfair competition from employers that practice social dumping. It is remarkable that you are here arguing against cost of living increases yet we have yet to read you arguing to cut fat at the top.

 

and thereby enable their employers to transfer their excess labor costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

 

Social dumping (not paying living wages, healthcare, pensions, taxes that go for education, infrastrusture, social services, research and development, etc ...) doesn't result in cheaper prices for the consumer but is an effective transfer of wealth to the top which has resulted in people not being able to make ends meet despite the generalization of 2 wage earner households

 

Since the consumers in this case are taxpayers, it's not clear to me why you think that forcing them to pay artificially inflated prices for services that they have to obtain from the government is a good thing for society. Particularly when in practices that means that a given level of taxes results in fewer public services - ranging from providing beds in local shelters to fixing potholes - delivered per dollar spent. This is true no matter what the level of taxation.

 

Strange thing to argue for.

 

 

let's start by rolling back the tax cuts for the wealthy, banning doing business with tax heavens and taxing transfer pricing. That should get us a long way toward where we need to be.

 

Edited September 23, 2009 by j_b

[ivan]

christ, it's not hard to figure why economists are the first to get put against the wall when the revolutions come

 

like witchdoctors debating the virtues of snake spit!

[JayB]

Horseshit. Unionized workers are no more "artificially inflating" the price of labor than the owners or management of capitalist firms are "artificially suppressing" wages to maximize profits or tax-revenue. It's a political struggle over the conditions of employment and control over the work process. Nothing more. Your metaphysical abstracted "point of equilibrium" is no different than the other forms mumbo-jumbo you rail against on this board. Free your mind from these superstitions.

 

It's not clear to me that the semantic distinction between elevating prices by "artificial" vs "political" is terribly consequential, as workers who drive the cost of whatever it is that they're making above the price that consumers are willing to pay will ultimately meet the same end. The marketplace is littered with the remains of enterprises that domestic competitors ultimately put under. Candlemakers can only secure legislation that outlaws windows for so long before they lose either the political battle against the glass lobby or someone invents the lightbulb.

 

But assuming for the moment that we accept your propositions, and that the workers in the public sector win the "political struggle over the conditions of employment and control over the work process" against the tax payers and manage to increase their compensation by a percentage of your choosing, while providing no more services to the public, how exactly does this benefit anyone other than the public sector employees?

[JayB]

Non-union employees make less than unionized employees? Tell us something we don’t already know. It seems to argue the case for unions pretty well unless you are arguing that people shouldn’t get cost of living increases (especially since the CPI basket is fixed to minimize inflation).

 

Budget deficits due to less sales tax revenues and capped property taxes? That’s what happens with regressive taxes. Aren’t you one of those who wanted to drown government in a bathtub? So, where is the news?

 

It's very difficult for union employees to make more than non-Union employees with the same skill-set unless they've managed to secure regulations that insulate themselves from competition,

 

They forced regulations thanks to their collective power to fight off unfair competition from employers that practice social dumping. It is remarkable that you are here arguing against cost of living increases yet we have yet to read you arguing to cut fat at the top.

 

and thereby enable their employers to transfer their excess labor costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

 

Social dumping (not paying living wages, healthcare, pensions, taxes that go for education, infrastrusture, social services, research and development, etc ...) doesn't result in cheaper prices for the consumer but is an effective transfer of wealth to the top which has resulted in people not being able to make ends meet despite the generalization of 2 wage earner households

 

Since the consumers in this case are taxpayers, it's not clear to me why you think that forcing them to pay artificially inflated prices for services that they have to obtain from the government is a good thing for society. Particularly when in practices that means that a given level of taxes results in fewer public services - ranging from providing beds in local shelters to fixing potholes - delivered per dollar spent. This is true no matter what the level of taxation.

 

Strange thing to argue for.

 

 

let's start by rolling back the tax cuts for the wealthy, banning doing business with tax heavens and taxing transfer pricing. That should get us a long way toward where we need to be.

 

 

How does any of the above - which we've discussed at length before - constitute an argument for inefficiencies that result in the government providing citizens with fewer services per tax-dollar collected?

 

 

[JosephH]

I believe that the bottom line for all labor in this country is that your value, as labor enters a world market, is going down. It doesn't matter if you are a highly trained Aerospace engineer or working at the 7-11. Everyone is going to get hit in our lifetime. The time frame may span years, but you will see it. Union or no union. Some professions, like teaching and the medical field will lag, but eventually, they will see this as well. The effect will be mitigated and offset somewhat by price declines due to increased productivity vs underlying price pressures as it relates to the demand and availability of raw materials.

 

ie, your future competition isn't going to be Union or non-union as much as it will be Indian/Chinese/Malaysian/Indonesian. So hold on brothers, it's a rough ride ahead.

 

That's my view.

Bill sticks it here. If you have the skill set of a Guatemalan day laborer, you're not going to get paid much more than one even if you live in Portland. And going forward, if your work product, regardless of what it is, can be delivered by clicking a mouse, then you're going to be competing with the entire planet. The only way the U.S. will compete is on the basis of skills and we've been doing a lousy job imparting those to the majority of our population for some time compared to the rest of the industrialized nations.

[j_b]

How does any of the above - which we've discussed at length before - constitute an argument for inefficiencies that result in the government providing citizens with fewer services per tax-dollar collected?

 

 

Less services is due to a budget deficit caused by fewer tax-dollars collected: thanks to phasing in of regressive taxation that disproportionately nickled and dimed the bottom 90% of the income bracket and the phasing out of progressive taxation, i.e. the "drowning the government in a bathtub" part. Keeping the real cost of labor flat by adjusting for the rise in cost of living has little to do with fewer services being provided. Somewhere, somehow, the total cost of doing business has to be reflected in taxation and fair remuneration. Until that happens, extracting more from wage earners to pay for the transfer of wealth toward the top will do nothing toward providing adequate services.

[tvashtarkatena]

I believe that the bottom line for all labor in this country is that your value, as labor enters a world market, is going down. It doesn't matter if you are a highly trained Aerospace engineer or working at the 7-11. Everyone is going to get hit in our lifetime. The time frame may span years, but you will see it. Union or no union. Some professions, like teaching and the medical field will lag, but eventually, they will see this as well. The effect will be mitigated and offset somewhat by price declines due to increased productivity vs underlying price pressures as it relates to the demand and availability of raw materials.

 

ie, your future competition isn't going to be Union or non-union as much as it will be Indian/Chinese/Malaysian/Indonesian. So hold on brothers, it's a rough ride ahead.

 

That's my view.

Bill sticks it here. If you have the skill set of a Guatemalan day laborer, you're not going to get paid much more than one even if you live in Portland. And going forward, if your work product, regardless of what it is, can be delivered by clicking a mouse, then you're going to be competing with the entire planet. The only way the U.S. will compete is on the basis of skills and we've been doing a lousy job imparting those to the majority of our population for some time compared to the rest of the industrialized nations.

 

Really? Do our skills lag behind the UK, Italy, Greece, Belgium, France, Spain, NZ? Which skills, exactly? Last time I checked, the American worker was still the most productive and creative in the world. It think this statement is unsupported and parroted crap.

 

I also do not believe labor is as liquid as either you or Billcoe presume, especially in an increasingly energy-poor economy that will necessarily return to more local commercial relationships and geographical self-sufficiency. Not all goods and services can be got over the internet. Plus there is a cost, and often a fatal cost, to outsourcing.

 

It's no secret that the right person in the right job can leverage his position to be many, many more times as effective and productive than some foreign cookie cutter replacement. Many companies have failed in their outsourcing efforts because they failed to understand the 'art' part of human capital. Yes, low level information jobs can be outsourced to wherever...often at great expense to quality of service and subsequent loss of market share and company image, and if the outsourcing company knows how to manage foreign resources. Most don't. Particularly smaller businesses, which, after all, comprise and will continue to comprise 80% of jobs in the U.S. Then there are higher level jobs, jobs requiring creativity, design, and a unique force of personality. Outsource these. Not so easy...at all.

 

Finally, there are a host of companies in the U.S. that have said 'fuck this', and have invested in their home-grown human capital, and their doing just fine. Outsourcing is on model that works with replaceable, cookie cutter jobs in organizations that are savvy and big enough to manage the foriegn resource. That does not describe most jobs in the U.S. or anywhere else.

[prole]

Horseshit. Unionized workers are no more "artificially inflating" the price of labor than the owners or management of capitalist firms are "artificially suppressing" wages to maximize profits or tax-revenue. It's a political struggle over the conditions of employment and control over the work process. Nothing more. Your metaphysical abstracted "point of equilibrium" is no different than the other forms mumbo-jumbo you rail against on this board. Free your mind from these superstitions.

 

It's not clear to me that the semantic distinction between elevating prices by "artificial" vs "political" is terribly consequential, as workers who drive the cost of whatever it is that they're making above the price that consumers are willing to pay will ultimately meet the same end. The marketplace is littered with the remains of enterprises that domestic competitors ultimately put under. Candlemakers can only secure legislation that outlaws windows for so long before they lose either the political battle against the glass lobby or someone invents the lightbulb.

 

But assuming for the moment that we accept your propositions, and that the workers in the public sector win the "political struggle over the conditions of employment and control over the work process" against the tax payers and manage to increase their compensation by a percentage of your choosing, while providing no more services to the public, how exactly does this benefit anyone other than the public sector employees?

 

It's really quite hard to argue when I reject so many of your basic assumptions. It's no fun to start every post with "in the beginning...", or "first of all..." Nor am I much interested in playing along, accepting the premises of a system that is abhorrent merely for the sake of argument. I didn't letter in Debate and many of the arguments playing out here bear directly on too many lives, my own included, for parlor games.

 

The point above about artificial vs. political is not semantic. There is no such thing as "artificial" unless the you accept that the system you're talking about is a universal constant. Such a system can only exist outside time and space in a computer model or on a cocktail napkin. In fact, the struggles over how things are made, by whom, for whom, who controls the process, etc. play out in real time in a historical process. Capitalism is not a metaphysical constant with artificialities, anomalies, distortions. It's a set of relationships held in place by political power and ideology, riven by structural contradictions and conflicts. Thank you for pointing out again and again and again (in nearly all your posts) the fundamental structural conflict that exists between labor and capital. Many on this board have pointed out a similar existential contradiction with regard to the "conflict of interest" that exists between "health care providers" and patients in a for-profit health care system. The same fundamental conflict of interest runs clear across the spectrum of capitalist relations: owners and management seek to extract the maximum profit from its enterprise at the least cost possible and seeks to minimize those costs by all means at it's disposal. In the case of cutting labor costs those means run the gamut from packing up for Chinese FTZs to "social dumping" to beating striking workers.

 

It's been clear to the critics of capitalism since the beginning that it's enormously productive, that its means of generating efficiencies and economies of scale are unrivaled. The single minded pursuit of those things alone however are not necessarily compatible with human health and welfare or that of the ecological health of this planet. That people stubbornly refuse to commit social suicide in the name of greater efficiencies, cost cutting, economic growth, etc. is a mystery to you, Jay. Why? And why do you personally trumpet their miseries in the name of "creative destruction"? Part of it's probably your job, part of it is that you're comfortable enough that you can, but intellectually, I expect it's an undying commitment to human progress. As someone whose worldview extends from the same philosophical tradition as your own, I respect that. But at some point you guys started to fetishize the system, admiring its purity, its capacity for efficiency and left the human beings and their environs out of the equation. I'm not going to argue with you about the merits of milking the efficiencies of lowest cost per unit of production by minimizing the cost of inputs. As long as we're talking about people and not gears in a machine count me out of the parlor game.

 

 

 

[j_b]

It's been clear to the critics of capitalism since the beginning that it's enormously productive, that its means of generating efficiencies and economies of scale are unrivaled. The single minded pursuit of those things alone however are not necessarily compatible with human health and welfare or that of the ecological health of this planet. That people stubbornly refuse to commit social suicide in the name of greater efficiencies, cost cutting, economic growth, etc. is a mystery to you, Jay. Why? And why do you personally trumpet their miseries in the name of "creative destruction"? Part of it's probably your job, part of it is that you're comfortable enough that you can, but intellectually, I expect it's an undying commitment to human progress.

 

‘Efficiency’ doesn’t boil down to economic efficiency and it is time dependent. Maximizing productivity and short-term gain through destruction of social and environmental capital isn’t even economically efficient in the mid to long term. Human progress has little to do with limiting choices and killing innovation because they aren’t marketable.

 

 

[ivan]

you boys better slow down or you'll have this horse reduced to pulp BEFORE michael moore's newest film!

[prole]

‘Efficiency’ doesn’t boil down to economic efficiency and it is time dependent. Maximizing productivity and short-term gain through destruction of social and environmental capital isn’t even economically efficient in the mid to long term. Human progress has little to do with limiting choices and killing innovation because they aren’t marketable.

 

Yes, I agree, actually existing capitalism is a failure even on most of its own terms.

[Peter_Puget]

prole wrote:

Horseshit. Unionized workers are no more "artificially inflating" the price of labor than the owners or management of capitalist firms are "artificially suppressing" wages to maximize profits or tax-revenue. It's a political struggle over the conditions of employment and control over the work process. Nothing more. Your metaphysical abstracted "point of equilibrium" is no different than the other forms mumbo-jumbo you rail against on this board. Free your mind from these superstitions.

 

The entire look for the union label movement started as a way for people to encourage consumers to avoid products derived from the labor of African-Americans. African-Americans were excluded from unions and when they could find equivalent work were happy to perform at a lower wage. As a result they were taking business away from unions. The business of unions when they actually do create higher wage is to screw somebody else. Screw the black guy across town. Screw the Chinese immigrants. Srew the poor guy in China trying to get ahead. Some things never change.

 

So while Boeing machinists got good pay and that pay helped develop the area - everyone in the area benefited when all was said and done. The parties getting screwed were not in our picture. Now we can no longer screw the little guy across the ocean or across the country. If the union does not respond in such away as to keep jobs we all suffer. For example my house price has dropped. My neighbors are Boeing guys. If they lose their jobs, my house drops even more in value.

 

Related link from today's paper: More job losses...to the South and Far East.

[prole]

prole wrote:

Horseshit. Unionized workers are no more "artificially inflating" the price of labor than the owners or management of capitalist firms are "artificially suppressing" wages to maximize profits or tax-revenue. It's a political struggle over the conditions of employment and control over the work process. Nothing more. Your metaphysical abstracted "point of equilibrium" is no different than the other forms mumbo-jumbo you rail against on this board. Free your mind from these superstitions.

 

The entire look for the union label movement started as a way for people to encourage consumers to avoid products derived from the labor of African-Americans. African-Americans were excluded from unions and when they could find equivalent work were happy to perform at a lower wage. As a result they were taking business away from unions. The business of unions when they actually do create higher wage is to screw somebody else. Screw the black guy across town. Screw the Chinese immigrants. Srew the poor guy in China trying to get ahead. Some things never change.

 

Related link from today's paper: More job losses...to the South and Far East.

 

Are you competing against Kojak in the "my-ass-is hanging-out" contest? Read Up.

[Peter_Puget]

Actually prole, the only thing I might be wrong about is that the union label movement was started against African-Americans. While its outright racist origin is certain it may have been first used primarily against other ethnic groups. Booker T. Washington & DuBois werre both anti uinion because of union discrimnation towards African-Americans.

[prole]

As if the fact that there's been racism in the American labor movement is news to anyone. Next you'll be telling us that the US Army killed millions of Native Americans!

[prole]

Booker T. Washington & DuBois werre both anti uinion because of union discrimnation towards African-Americans.

 

Really rackin' up the points aren't you?

 

Du Bois was one of a number of African-American leaders investigated by the FBI, which claimed in May 1942 that "his writing indicates him to be a socialist".[38] He was chairman of the Peace Information Center at the start of the Korean War, and among the signers of the Stockholm Peace Pledge, which opposed the use of nuclear weapons.

 

In 1950, at the age of 82, Du Bois ran for U.S. Senator from New York on the American Labor Party ticket and polled a little over 200,000 votes, about 4 % of the total. Although he lost, Du Bois remained committed to the progressive labor cause. In 1958, he would join with Trotskyists, ex-Communists and independent radicals in proposing the creation of a united left-wing coalition to challenge for seats in elections for the New York State Senate and Assembly.

 

In the March 16, 1953, upon the death of Joseph Stalin, Du Bois controversially wrote of him in The National Guardian:

 

Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding his rightful place with dignity. He was the son of a serf but stood calmly before the great without hesitation or nerves. But also - and this was the highest proof of his greatness - he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate.[39]

 

While Stalin had fallen into disfavor among most of the American left of that era, and Communism had come to be regarded as "the god that failed" in the eyes of such African-American luminaries as Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, Du Bois, apparently not believing reports of Stalin's purges and dismissing them as propaganda, persisted in his admiration for Stalin.[40] He was frequently challenged for his support of Stalin, particularly after Khrushchev's 1956 "Cult of Personality" speech which seemed to further evidence Stalin's purges. Having once, after a 1920s visit to Russia, observed that "Russia is the victim of a determined propaganda of lies", he remained persistently skeptical of American media reports regarding the USSR; when challenged as to his beliefs on Stalin in 1956, in one instance he conceded that "[stalin] was probably too cruel; but... he conquered Hitler."[40]

 

In regards to Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956, the 88-year old Du Bois defended the USSR, suggesting that the Hungarian Revolution was a plot of "landlords and fascists".[41] For this he has been criticized, by some historians, for allegedly succumbing to dogmatism; while he was "one of the great pioneers of anti-colonialist scholarship", he was "a headstrong idealist: he idealized Stalinism... He saw what he wished and needed to see, and thus he replicated the hard, domineering consciousness he condemned."[41]

 

Du Bois visited Communist China during the Great Leap Forward. He was questioned before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) about his alleged communist sympathies. He was indicted in the United States under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and acquitted for lack of evidence.[citation needed] In 1959, Du Bois received the Lenin Peace Prize. In 1961, at the age of 93, he joined the Communist Party USA, at a time when it was long past its peak of support.

 

Just forty days before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at an event marking the hundredth anniversary of Du Bois' birth, at Carnegie Hall in New York City:[42]

 

We cannot talk of Dr. Du Bois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a Communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life, the English speaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Sean O'Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a Communist, or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a Communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr. Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a Communist. Our irrational obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking. …Dr. Du Bois' greatest virtue was his committed empathy with all the oppressed and his divine dissatisfaction with all forms of injustice.[43]

[Peter_Puget]

Forget wiki read this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674507002

[prole]

 

This one's even better:

 

 

Here.

[Peter_Puget]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812215931

 

But this one is by WEB and has some discussion of his views on unions. AT one point he claimed unions were the biggest enemy of blacks. Look for it. I need to ge tback to work

Edited September 23, 2009 by Peter_Puget

[prole]

See post above. WEB Du Bois was not "anti-union". He was a pro-union socialist, later Communist that was against the racial hierarchies and exclusion of Blacks from American unions that were so configured. No real contradictions here, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Edited September 23, 2009 by prole

[j_b]

‘Efficiency’ doesn’t boil down to economic efficiency and it is time dependent. Maximizing productivity and short-term gain through destruction of social and environmental capital isn’t even economically efficient in the mid to long term. Human progress has little to do with limiting choices and killing innovation because they aren’t marketable.

 

Yes, I agree, actually existing capitalism is a failure even on most of its own terms.

 

To be honest, my comments are directed at unfettered capitalism such as that advocated by libertarians rather than capitalism per se (whatever that is).

[j_b]

Actually prole, the only thing I might be wrong about is that the union label movement was started against African-Americans. While its outright racist origin is certain it may have been first used primarily against other ethnic groups.

 

robber barons have always used the existence of an underclass willing to work for next to nothing (usually recent immigrants and ethnic minorities) to undermine organized labor. It is therefore not surprising that racism also played a role in part of the labor movement in segregated America, but your assertion regarding the racist origins of unions is ridiculous.

[j_b]

robber barons have always used the existence of an underclass willing to work for next to nothing (usually recent immigrants and ethnic minorities) to undermine organized labor.

 

also note that it presents the distinct advantage of fostering divisions among wage earners, which explains that union busting and race baiting have historically been among the tools of conservatives. Modern right wing propaganda on Fixed News provides an excellent illustration of these facts.

Edited September 23, 2009 by j_b

[Peter_Puget]

Detail elude you prole.

 

What Peter wrote:

The entire look for the union label movement started as a way for people to encourage consumers to avoid products derived from the labor of African-Americans. African-Americans were excluded from unions and when they could find equivalent work were happy to perform at a lower wage. As a result they were taking business away from unions. The business of unions when they actually do create higher wage is to screw somebody else. Screw the black guy across town. Screw the Chinese immigrants. Srew the poor guy in China trying to get ahead. Some things never change.

 

Note that the union label movement started in the ~ 1880's.

 

Now Debois wrote and said in 1930:

Organized labor was [long] the enemy of the black man in skilled industry.

link

 

In the final line of my quote above I point out that unions have gone from being against African Americans and US Chinese to now being against Chinese workers in China. (See bold) As I wrote above, somethings never change.

 

Somebody gets screwed. Racism is often close to the surface.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 23, 2009 by Peter_Puget