Update on nonexistent really big news...

I spoke with someone pretty up there in the labor movement here in GA and he says it isn't true.

 

 

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wow... this is really big news... via Ezra Klein

ORGANIZED LABOR REUNITES.

Pretty big news out of the Labor movement yesterday as the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and the heretofore unaffiliated National Education Association are coming together to form the National Labor Coordinating Committee, a mega-federation led by David Bonior. Harold Meyerson broke the news in his Post column, where he also explained that this is a partial repudiation of Change to Win's belief that the movement should focus relentlessly on organizing. The new federation will focus primarily on lobbying and political action because the union movement as a whole now believes that major membership gains are impossible without legislative action mitigating employer power to break organizing drives. The structure, however, is a closer echo of Change to Win, with large union leaders holding more power than the Federation's president. I'm not exactly sure what that means in practice, however.

Meanwhile, over at Tapped, Tim Fernholz scored a quick coup by netting an insta-interview with David Bonior.

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Blame the unions!!!

Jason Pye is blaming the unions for the U.S. Automakers problems.

Only problem with that story is that its wrong...

Economist Dean Baker on foreign cars:

many of these cars were built in unionized factories in Japan, South Korea, and Germany. Unions didn't keep foreign manufacturers from producing high-quality popular cars in these countries. Even when these companies set up shop in the U.S. they have been able to work well with unions. Toyota operated a plant in California where the workers were represented by the UAW for decades (it may still be open).

And Christopher Martin reminds us that Detroit's Problem: It's Health Care, not the Union 

Two contentions - that foreign automakers in the U.S. have received no government help, and that union workers are grossly overpaid-are either misleading or completely untrue.

First, let's start with government assistance. It's easy to forget that there are government subsidies other than the ones asked for in Congressional hearings. For foreign automakers such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, and BMW, the better way of wringing out public subsidies is to get Southern states to battle for your plants by offering a bevy of tax abatements, infrastructure projects, and even employee recruitment, screening and training. According to the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan, between 1998 and 2003, the Southern states paid out an average of $87,700 in "government help" per nonunion auto job created-an average of $143 million per facility-compared to $50,180 per job created in the haplessly unionized North.

The second contention - that the unionized autoworkers of the north are grossly overpaid - is misleading. In fact, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), one of the opponents of the bailout, encouraged the deception. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported the Senator "said the automakers pay their rank-and-file employees an average of $70 to $74 an hour, including benefits, while foreign automakers pay an average of $42 to $44 an hour." The quote, repeated nearly everywhere in the news media over the past few weeks, obscures the situation.

Only a very few news organizations - Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic and David Leonhardt at the New York Times, among the few-bothered to break it down. As it turns out, the base wages are fairly close - about $29 an hour for Detroit's three automakers, and about $26 for the foreign automakers in the U.S. What nearly every Republican politician and news report fails to mention, though, is that wages in Detroit are already dropping. The UAW gave major concessions to GM, Ford, and Chrysler in 2005 and 2007, setting a new second tier starting wage at $14. This lower wage will continue to decrease the base wage cost going into the future.

Another difference in North vs. South autoworker wages is benefits. Adding in things like healthcare, training, vacation, and overtime, Big Three autoworkers make about $55 compared to about $46 for nonunion workers. True enough, unionized workers do better here. But a big part of this expense is healthcare.

Healthcare also is part of the largest difference between North and South: what the industry calls "legacy costs" - the pensions and health care of retirees. The foreign auto companies currently don't have these costs, since they've been operating in the U.S. for only about 25 years or less, and have few retirees. But, the Big Three have more than a million retirees and their families to cover. Corker and others unfairly lump this into average wage costs and arrive at something over $70 an hour.

There are many reasons to oppose unions.

For instance they raise wages for working people (union and nonunion) in this country: here, here, here

Creating a stronger middle class... a horrible thing to say the least...

If these companies made bad business decisions... (which wasn't helped by our country's health care crisis) why not blame management rather than the guy on the line? 

 

 

Posted via web from jimnichols's posterous

Phil Ochs --Joe Hill

Employee Free Choice Act

Myth vs. Reality: The REALITY is the Employee Free Choice Act Helps American Workers and their Families

news from the labor movement...

SEIU President Andy Stern is a threat to labor soul

What does Blagojevich have to do with making it easier for workers to form a union?

Nothing

Union busting

Pro-Business Group Sinks Over A Million Dollars Into Ad Linking Blago To Senate Dems And "Union Bosses"

The ad makes a bunch of guilt-by-association connections that take you from Blago all the way to the Employee Free Choice Act and are a bit difficult to track. First it hits Blago, the "corrupt Illinois Governor." Then it brings up SEIU, "the union" which discussed the "Senate seat payoff." And then it describes the Employee Free Choice Act as "payback" for "union bosses" who helped elect Dems to the Senate:

The idea, obviously, is to use the alleged Blago dealmaking to tar the Employee Free Choice Act, which is a pretty big leap. This will be one of the biggest fights of the upcoming legislative season, so expect much more like this.

Unions are evil because they allow human beings to use the purchasing power that private companies like Walmart get applauded for. Fact is markets are markets, they work. Private sector likes it when it keeps costs down, but when human beings use it to improve their own quality of life--well... thats another story.

the failed bailout

The Republicans blame the union. The union notes their fall guy status:

“We wondered if we were just being set up,” Mr. Gettelfinger said. “We did not know who Senator Corker was representing on the Republican side, and if he could deliver votes.”

He said Mr. Corker admitted to the union’s representatives that discussions over wages were “largely about politics in the G.O.P. caucus.”

John Judis on the failed bailout:Craven Senators Kill the Auto Deal

Here’s what bothers me. Japanese companies, which for years have benefited from one-way deal by which they could sell cars in the U.S. while U.S. companies were stymied in selling cars and trucks in Japan, set up non-union plants in low-wage, low-education, right-to-work states where they can pay less wages and benefits to their workers. Of course, in Japan, these same companies recognize and work with unions, but not here, where they have a chance to undercut American firms that work with unions. Corker and these other great patriots want to allow these Japanese companies to dictate the wages and benefits that American companies pay their workers. It’s despicable. Imagine, for a moment, American companies being allow to operate in this manner in Japan or South Korea. It would not happen.

Of course, this is not just about automobile companies. If you look at the history of the Great Depression, what tipped that event from a global recession to depression was precisely a series of dumb, craven--or in Keynes’ word, “feather-brained”--moves by politicians blinded by ideology or by narrow self-interest. An interest rate hike here, a balanced budget there, a spending reduction or two, and we went from ten to twenty percent unemployment. Don’t imagine for a moment that the failure to bailout the auto companies isn’t one of those feather-brained moves.

Put it this way. What we have learned from the economics of the Great Depression is that in order to end the spiral of unemployment, government has to throw money at companies and consumers. It should be trying to raise wages, not lower them. The Wall Street bailout was a fiasco, but it was probably better than nothing. And the auto bailout was considerably better thought-out. Now there is a good prospect that two of the Big Three will fail, jeopardizing, perhaps, as many as a million jobs. That’s exactly the kind of thing that Americans should not be doing. But don’t tell that to those great patriots Corker, DeMint, or Shelby. They know better.

And a source for TPM on what happened:

I don't think it'll be hard to explain why Senate Republicans had the final say: that's what the Constitution and Senate rules require. How else would we have passed anything?
I do think it'll be hard for Senate Republicans to explain themselves.

They were invited, repeatedly, to participate in more than a week of negotiations with a Republican White House. They declined.

They were asked to provide an alternative bill. They refused.

Finally, one of their members - Senator Corker of Tennessee - participated in a day-long negotiation with Senate Democrats, the UAW, and bondholders. Everyone made major concessions. Democrats gave up efficiency and emissions standards. UAW accepted major benefit cuts and agreed to reduce workers' wages. Bondholders signed off on a serious haircut. But when Senator Corker took the deal back to the Republican Conference, they argued for two hours and ultimately rejected it.

Why? Because they wanted the federal government to forcibly reduce the wages of American workers within the next 12 months.

What if we had just mandated mileage standards on these cars years ago? Might they not have sold more cars? We'll never know. Republicans don't want us to think about it.

As is always true throughout history, the Government is looking to protect the economy from itself by using the financial bailout money:

“Under normal economic conditions we would prefer that markets determine the ultimate fate of private firms,” said Dana Perino, Mr. Bush’s spokeswoman, in a carefully nuanced statement released just minutes before the New York financial markets opened. “However, given the current weakened state of the U.S. economy, we will consider other options if necessary — including use of the TARP program — to prevent a collapse of troubled automakers.”

Once again how does Lynn Westmoreland think a market system works?

Dixie welcomes non-union auto jobs

"Workers (in the South) understand that in order for them to have a job these companies have got to make money, because if they don't, they're not going to have a job," said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga. "That's the first issue (Detroit auto executives) need to address before they come to Congress asking for a bailout or a loan or whatever it is."

Adam Smith called it the invisible hand for a reason. "Workers" take the wages that the markets deem the going rate.

If a business wants to pay $10 an hour to scrub sewer systems with a tooth brush and they don't get anyone to take the job, an economist wouldn't say its because workers know x. They say workers won't work for x amount of money. People go to the jobs that pay an appropriate rate. Just because workers in the south are more desperate and less organized doesn't mean they "know" anything.