The Long Game Against Organized Labor

[peristaltor]

By now, everyone has heard about what is happening seemingly all at once in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. Republican governors are trying to ram "emergency" legislation through their senates and houses that would strip the most robust union demographic, public employees, of their collective bargaining rights

Comments

[nebris]

Cross-post to the_recession?

~M~

[phantom_man]

Well done. You might think about submitting this to Reddit.

[peristaltor]

Go for it. It's public. I'm not even sure I would know how.

[plantyhamchuk]

Really enjoyed reading this, appreciate the research you've put into it. But I'm wondering... hasn't our economy changed over such a long time? I mean, we were all about industry, where labor was once needed. But we aren't about industry so much, but services, healthcare. We have technology that has in many cases reduced or outright made obsolete many forms of labor that previously humans provided. I'm not certain labor - especially highly skilled/paid labor is something that is in increasing demand.

[peristaltor]

Surprisingly, we still make an awful lot of stuff through our manufacturing. It's not as strong as it was thanks to mechanization and off-shoring, but it's still there.

Still, one need not make things to join a union. I'm in one (Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587). Dad was once chief negotiator for his, a group of public school teachers. You could be in one. There are union shop hospitals. Heck, thanks to their laws in Germany, workers at Wal-Mart have union membership available to them.

The public unions like mine and Dad's are the target of these current Republican laws in Michigan and Wisconsin. Something about unions has always and will continue to piss off a certain subset of people, like the Koch brothers.

[albionwood]

I am continually amazed by the apparently complete inability of the Economics profession to question its assumptions and Received Wisdom. And that anyone dares call it Science. And that it has any cred left at all!

This essay - very well done - only contributes to my increasing pessimism. The concentration of wealth and the takeover of edumacation seems to confer an overwhelming advantage to the Forces of Evil.

[peristaltor]

Yes, anyone who cites the Laffer Curve as anything but laughable should be sent to remedial training. Still, it appeals to those who don't like the empirical reality that high taxes on high earners make societies stronger, just as the Atkins diet allows fatty food when it promises weight loss.

I would wholeheartedly recommend the two books I cited, The Big Con and Economics for the Rest of Us to reinforce your increasing pessimism.

[albionwood]

Great, just what I need. *eyeroll*

(I should point out, though, that the Atkins diet does have a valid basis; and the notion that fatty food makes you fat, does not. There are of course a lot of problems with the Atkins, as with any diet other than that recommended by Milo Bloom; but you can indeed lose weight while on a high-fat diet.)

[sunfell]

You have a incredibly observant mind. I am glad to have made your acquaintance.

[peristaltor]

How observant I might be of course depends on whether or not I'm correct -- which remains to be seen -- but thank you!

[ankh_f_n_khonsu]

"Observation" has nothing to do with "correctness". That's a phenomenological error.

[peristaltor]

I was using "observant" in terms of the completeness of my observations. Theoretically, I figure, get enough accurate observations and one might get more and more correct conclusions.

But hey, you know me, all fast and loose with those darned definitions.