Labor

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"Labor, as a commodity, is subject to virtually no regulation. In international commerce, labor is at the whim of capitalism in its most rudimentary form. The labor component of every product can be as cheap as the market wants it to be, and it can be provided under inhumane conditions and with complete disregard for all domestic standards from occupational hygiene to equal rights for women to prohibitions on child labor - and yet no one at the customs office is evenly remotely interested." The War For Wealth, the True Story of Globalization, or why the flat World is Broken: Gabor Steingart

One of the reasons that the US has nonsensical social programs is that Republicans with their corporate allies have made union busting a high priority. The result is our health care, family time, long-term care, and other programs are at the bottom of budget priorities, and, unlike other developed countries, does nothing to mitigate insecurity for Americans. Fast track trade agreements also depress US wages.

Capital can move freely, but labor cannot.

The asymmetry in liberalization of capital and labor flows leads to a further inequity. With capital markets liberalized, countries have to fight to keep capital by lowering taxes on corporations. Because labor - especially unskilled labor is not as mobile, they don't have to fight as hard to keep it. Hence asymmetric liberalization leads to shifting the burden of taxes on to workers - leading to reduced progressivity in the tax system. The same thing happens in wage bargaining: workers are told that if they do not accept lower wages and reduced protection, the capital (with its jobs) will move overseas. Joseph Stiglitz. Making Globalization Work.

US policy of Union Busting

The US is a signer of the UN declaration of Human Rights that asserts that everyone has the right to join a union. It just doesn't practice what it preaches. (See International Law.)

In 1981 Ronald Reagan made an assault in the Republican war on labor. "Reagan gave dedicated union foes direct control of the federal agencies that were designed originally to protect and further the rights and interests of workers and their unions."

Continuing in the path set by his role-model Reagan, Bush is virulently anti-labor. He has made vigorous attempts to 'reform' Social Security' (remember when a Republican says reform...he means destroy), looks the other way while Corporations bust unions and outsource, and otherwise promotes regressive policies.

Automobile companies have bought out their union workers, even while sending all small car production to Asia.

Walmart, when faced with a successful union drive in Canada, simply closed the store. All the same is no shame in sending its employees onto public services when they need health care or other assistance. (About Walmart)

Immigration enforcement as a technique for union busting.

Raise the Floor

(Copied shamelessly from David McCluskey's page dated December 31, 2007)

A new study recently released by John Logan, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, points out that the intensity of employer opposition and government hostility to collective bargaining in the United States is unique among developed nations.

This “repressive character of U.S. labor law, which allows free rein to anti-union employers,” not only hurts workers in the United States and in other nations, Logan said today.

There is growing evidence that consultants, employer groups and multinational corporations are exporting U.S.-originated anti-union strategies to other developed countries such as the United Kingdom and Ireland and to transforming countries such as China.

Strengthening the right to organize and bargain collectively through the Employee Free Choice Act would benefit not only American workers, but also workers in other nations.

Logan’s report, Unions Facing Hard Times: The Global Crisis in Union Collective Bargaining, shows that Sweden has the highest rate of union membership with 80 percent, while the United States trails at the bottom with 12 percent. Click here to download a copy of the report (PDF).

Department of Labor

Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Labor, and Bush's longest-serving cabinet member is typical of the Bush administration's use of regulatory agencies to further the war on the people: see http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/chao_worstofworst

Condemn Bush's Labor Board FDR passed the National Labor Relations Act to protect workers.

Now George Bush has packed the Labor Board with his cronies – and they're serving corporate bigwigs at the expense of workers.

Join Change To Win in condemning Bush’s Labor Board and demanding that it protect workers

There is no free market for labor.

Unions Facing Hard Times: The Global Crisis in Union Collective Bargaining

Osha Takes a vacation

The NYT reports on OSHA's look the other way approach to workplace safety.

Sick Leave

Walmart Denies Workers Basic Rights

Union Busting Confidential

Feb. 21: The Attack on the Employee Free Choice Act

If U.S. workers could earn higher wages, benefits, and better working conditions, who would be against them?

A powerful network of anti-union employers, conservative business associations, industry lobbying groups, and right-wing policy centers and policymakers seeks to shut down choice in the American workplace. Get up-to-speed about the opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act by checking out our new backgrounder.

» Read more updates »

The American Worker Is Doomed

"Not since the Great Depression has the American worker faced such a bleak future. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, incomes for the lowest income quintile have declined during the past decade and the gap between the rich and the poor grows bigger each year. In essence, the rich are getting richer - and the poor are getting poorer. It's high time for a change," says Jay Richards.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/031907LB.shtml

Capitol Hill Holds Hearing on Black Male Unemployment

The black male unemployment rate is unacceptably high and it is time for the federal government to do something about it. That was the conclusion of a March 5 hearing held by the Joint Economic Committee, a bicameral, bipartisan committee of US representatives and senators who are charged with studying the nation's economy and making recommendations to the government for changes, if necessary.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/031907LA.shtml

Benefits

"The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights." Einstein on Politics, Rowe and Schulmann. Monthly Review, May 1949

Bibliography

The Great Risk Shift, Jacob S. Hacker

Nickel and Dimed: Surviving in Low-Wage America, Barbara Ehrenreich Throughout her three decades of journalism and activism, Ehrenreich has been one of the most consistent chroniclers of class in America. Listen/Watch/Read

The Big Squeeze: Steven Greenhouse

The Overworked American: Juliet Schor

The Overspent American: Juliet Schor

The Trap, selling out to stay afloat in winner-take-all America: Daniel Brook

The Trap: Selling out to stay afloat in Winner-Take-All America by Daniel Brook

Are you pro-union? You're fired!
By Joshua Holland
From the "what you already knew but couldn't put a number to" files …

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