Wisconsin

[moda0306]

Fnord 123,

Does he have the authority to fire police?  Would he stand a chance at reelection if he did?  So do the taxpayers really want all the police fired?  Aren't the taxpayers the ones who have the interest in seeing this budget fixed?  Are we now encouraging our public officials to fire anyone who speaks out against them... holding their jobs hostage?  Do the police not have a right to support who they wish on their own time?  How does their duty as police officers while on the clock have anything with how they choose to express themselves politically on their dime?  If the police were to be out there in support of Walker, not the unions, would you be calling this disgraceful?  Do you think there are enough qualified individuals to fill all those slots?  Will they have the option of organizing or should Walker outlaw the new sheepolice from assembling outside of work?  Do you think we'd have a middle class in this country without unions?  Do you think if they disappeared today we'd sustain a middle class?  

Unions are a natural thing, as are corporations and governments.  Each of which is benefitted through perversions in our society at the expense of freedom and individualism.  Just because the scales are tipped in different ways doesn't mean we should lose all perspective of what we're actually suggesting.

[MediumTex]

You know, the parallels between Wisconsin and Libya are sort of intriguing.

I wonder if Qaddafi has thought about just firing all of the soldiers who are not loyal to him and bringing in scab mercenaries to do the work that the disloyal soldiers originally signed up to do.

[fnord123]

Maestro wrote that the police "vow not to expel [the protestors]."

That means they are not doing their job.  This isn't about their off-duty time - they are free to do whatever they want when they are not on the clock.  However, while they are on the job, they are supposed to follow orders.  If they are given an order to remove protestors, and that order is legal, they must comply.  If they do not, they should be fired on the spot.

Most of the rest of the questions you raised were also asked about the ATC strikes early in Reagan's tenure.  See how that turned out for the answers.

As to the "unions == middle class" argument, I do not think there is strong evidence for it.  That being said, I have no problem with private unions (although I oppose laws like Davis-Bacon or "union shop" rules).  Public employee unions do not make any sense however and should be illegal.

[fnord123]

You know, the parallels between Wisconsin and Libya are sort of intriguing.

I wonder if Qaddafi has thought about just firing all of the soldiers who are not loyal to him and bringing in scab mercenaries to do the work that the disloyal soldiers originally signed up to do.

It isn't clear to me what you are getting at.  One of the reasons Qaddafi has been able to hold on is that he does have a bunch of non-army mercenaries that work for him and his sons.  Contrast this to Mubarak, where the monolithic army disposed of him with ease.

Two different approaches, two different outcomes.  Neither one really speaks to the value of unions in state and local government as far as I can tell.

[MediumTex]

You know, the parallels between Wisconsin and Libya are sort of intriguing.

I wonder if Qaddafi has thought about just firing all of the soldiers who are not loyal to him and bringing in scab mercenaries to do the work that the disloyal soldiers originally signed up to do.

It isn't clear to me what you are getting at.  One of the reasons Qaddafi has been able to hold on is that he does have a bunch of non-army mercenaries that work for him and his sons.  Contrast this to Mubarak, where the monolithic army disposed of him with ease.

Two different approaches, two different outcomes.  Neither one really speaks to the value of unions in state and local government as far as I can tell.

Well, the Governor of Wisconsin basically received support from the police and fire unions which helped him get elected and once elected he looked out for their interests by not including them in his proposed ban on public sector collective bargaining.

Qaddafi, like all good dictators, has presumably taken care of his military people over the years in exchange for them helping him maintain power.  

Now, Qaddafi is facing the loss of support from some of his military, as the governor of Wisconsin is facing the possible loss of support from some members of the police community.  In each case, we have a politician whose rise to power was facilitated by the armed element of each society, with part of those armed elements now potentially deserting the politician over matters of conscience and/or politics.

In Libya they are firing into crowds.  In Wisonsin they are walking around with signs and yelling.  Two different ways of dealing with and expressing dislike for the existing regime.

I just thought the parallels were sort of interesting.

As far as the union angle goes, it's just a mechanism for a group of people to concentrate power a bit more than they would otherwise be able to.  The unions are doing the same thing that the politicians are doing.  As I noted in earlier posts, the whole premise behind public sector unions is sort of flimsy--where are the greedy capitalists that the workers need to be protected from?

[Pkg Man]

Unions are a natural thing, as are corporations and governments.  Each of which is benefitted through perversions in our society at the expense of freedom and individualism.  Just because the scales are tipped in different ways doesn't mean we should lose all perspective of what we're actually suggesting.

Labor unions were originally subject to Anti-trust laws, just like monopolies.  From an economic perspective, there is no difference between the two in the outcome they seek to achieve -- obtain a higher price for what they are selling. 

Unions may or may not be natural, but they are unhealthy for an economy.

[moda0306]

I happen to think that both corporations AND unions are under-enforced when it comes to anti-trust laws, but saying unions are unhealthy for an economy is like saying public corporations are unhealthy for an economy.

Corporations impose many bureaucracies and rigid inflexibilities on their customers and employees just as unions do on their employers.  We all have different wants and needs as employees, employers and consumers, and there's no perfectly efficient way of reconciling those.  Here's one way to look at it.  

Corporations are a group of investors coming together because they think that by organizing they can make more money for themselves than if they go it on their own.  

Unions are a group of employees coming together because they think that by organizing they can make more money for themselves than if they go it on their own.

Both can get too large for an economy's own good.

[Pkg Man]

I agree with you that anti-trust laws are not enforced for corporations as they should be.  If they had been then "too-big-to-fail" would just be a theoretical discussion.

If I have to pay 10% more to buy a car it doesn't matter to me if the higher price was due to price collusion or unionized labor costs being passed on to the consumer.  The effect on my wallet is the same.  So I see both as harmful to the economy.

If two companies get together and decide to set prices for the products they sell they are breaking the law.  If two employees get together, form a union, and decide to set the prices for the products they sell (labor) they are not breaking the law.  But the reality is that in both casses they are doing essentially the same thing, i.e., setting a price that is greater than would prevail under competition.

[moda0306]

It's not always necessarily the same.  The cooperative/collusive behavior is only illegal and undesirable when they get to a point of controlling the market (which we seem to agree happens too often in both the case of unions and some corporations).  If two apple vendors in a crowded marketplace of apple vendors decided to collude and double their prices they'd still lose all their business.  Put those same 2 apple vendors in a group of 3 apple vendors, and you start to get what could be considered "collusion."  Until you approach a monopolistic scenario, collusion is pointless.  So I think your example is comparing apples (2 employees completely subject to the throws of the market) with oranges (2 businesses with market influence).

As it currently stands I think, on average, corporations much more often have this type of near-monopolistic (oligopolistic?) control over a marketplace than labor, organized and unorganized alike.  Obviously there is the UAW and public unions, but I think most of the time the employee has less bargaining power than his/her employer.

[MediumTex]

One of the easiest ways to annoy a monopolist is to create your own monopoly that interferes with his ability to operate his monopoly.

This dynamic is part of the reason that state governments have basically been neutered by the federal government.

[moda0306]

I think there is a balance, depending on industry and job type, of the right size and competition level of both companies, unions, and government... but as MT points out, once monopolistic cohesive bubbles start forming in one of those sectors (think big oil in the 1800's), another bubble tries to form to counteract it (union movement and federal labor laws)... it's all just a race to the bottom at that point, until we're left with a trifecta of bureaucratic, unsustainable, too-big-to-fail, self-fulfilling messes in big unions, big business and big government.

I think of Terminator 2 after the bad guy gets frozen and broken into a million pieces.... where all the little pieces of liquid metal are just running around bumping into each other (perfect competition) and then they start bonding with each other and forming the cop terminator (monopolistic bureaucracy trifecta).  I wonder when the day will be where we freeze and get broken into a million pieces again.

[Pkg Man]

One of the easiest ways to annoy a monopolist is to create your own monopoly that interferes with his ability to operate his monopoly.

This dynamic is part of the reason that state governments have basically been neutered by the federal government.

I think it is more of a case of state governments selling their sovereignty than being neutered by the federals.  They were willing participants at the government trough.

[6 Iron]

Well, the Governor of Wisconsin basically received support from the police and fire unions which helped him get elected and once elected he looked out for their interests by not including them in his proposed ban...

This is inaccurate. The governor was supported by the Milwaukee police and fire unions, but the statewide unions supported his opponent in the election. Governor Walker implied that he did not include police and fire in the ban on collective bargaining for non salary benefits because of his fear of disrupting emergency services, which based on what we have seen in Wisconsin, I would say was a reasonable fear.

[Maestro G]

In a show of solidarity, Wisconsin police have marched into the state capitol to support the protesters and vow not to expel them!

http://understory.ran.org/2011/02/25/br ... e-capitol/

The clock is ticking on Walker! Boy did this backfire on him!

He should resign now to spare the state the cost of a recall and save Wisconsin some much needed money! Wow!

Walker should fire the police immediately, along with their chiefs, call in the sherriffs or if need be the state guard, and hire a new non-unionized police force.  Reagan had the balls to do this with the air traffic controllers, I hope Walker is made of similar stuff.

The job of the police is to enforce the law, not to pick sides in politics. This action is disgraceful on their part.

The only thing that is disgraceful about all this is that Walker is in the "back pocket" of the Koch brothers, and his payback is an attempt to eliminate a basic labor right under the guise of pension reform. This borders on corruption, but of course, this is not unique to Walker.  Once again, a rabid pro business republican trying to resolve enormous fiscal problems on the backs of the working middle class!

Maestro G  >

[Pkg Man]

In a show of solidarity, Wisconsin police have marched into the state capitol to support the protesters and vow not to expel them!

http://understory.ran.org/2011/02/25/br ... e-capitol/

The clock is ticking on Walker! Boy did this backfire on him!

He should resign now to spare the state the cost of a recall and save Wisconsin some much needed money! Wow!

Walker should fire the police immediately, along with their chiefs, call in the sherriffs or if need be the state guard, and hire a new non-unionized police force.  Reagan had the balls to do this with the air traffic controllers, I hope Walker is made of similar stuff.

The job of the police is to enforce the law, not to pick sides in politics. This action is disgraceful on their part.

The only thing that is disgraceful about all this is that Walker is in the "back pocket" of the Koch brothers, and his payback is an attempt to eliminate a basic labor right under the guise of pension reform. This borders on corruption, but of course, this is not unique to Walker.  Once again, a rabid pro business republican trying to resolve enormous fiscal problems on the backs of the working middle class!

Maestro G  >

How exactly do the Koch brothers benefit from elimination of collective bargaining rights over benefits for PUBLIC employees?

Even if Governor Walker is in their "back pocket", I sure hope he is successful.  Even FDR saw no role for public employee unions.

[Lone Wolf]

an attempt to eliminate a basic labor right

You mean the "right" to block taxpayers from offering whatever terms of employment that they wish?  What is the origin of this "right"?  What principle is it based on?

Are you sure that this right even exists?

Corporations are a group of investors coming together because they think that by organizing they can make more money for themselves than if they go it on their own. 

Unions are a group of employees coming together because they think that by organizing they can make more money for themselves than if they go it on their own.

That's accurate, but you're forgetting something crucial.  I cannot be compelled to do business with any particular corporation.  However, I will be compelled by force of law to do business with a union (whether I want to or not) once my business has unionized.

This is a huge distinction because it equates to the use of force.  Imagine if a corporation could force you to buy their products.  This is the situation the business owner finds himself in.

It's not labor unions that are "bad" or "wrong".  It's the labor laws.

[Storm]

How exactly do the Koch brothers benefit from elimination of collective bargaining rights over benefits for PUBLIC employees?

Even if Governor Walker is in their "back pocket", I sure hope he is successful.  Even FDR saw no role for public employee unions.

The Koch brothers benefit by using their billions to elect anti-regulation conservatives who will dismantle the regulations, reforms, and organizations (unions) that prevent them from extracting the maximum profit from their business enterprises.

A world where the Koch brothers have their way would be similar to feudalism where we all work in menial jobs at a poverty level while a few kings live in their castle.  We have no worker rights, no protections, and none of the benefits that our parents and grandparents fought for.

You may not like unions, but think of the benefits we all enjoy because of them:

• 40 hour workweek
• Paid time off and sick leave
• Anti-discrimination laws
• Child labor laws
• General safety and security at your work and knowing that your company can't hire thugs to come in and beat you up whenever you don't work as fast as they think you should

[Wonk]

Every now and then I hire contractors on elance and odesk for different types of jobs.  The great thing about those sites is that I have my pick of labor with little to no regulations.

A casual observer might assume I bid out a job to the lowest price.  Not so at all.  I find it more efficient to evaluate the whole picture: price, language barriers, work history, etc and hire where I think I find the best value.  Often it's not near the bottom of the pack.  Why?  Because it takes 2x as much work to assess a bad worker, find out what went wrong and reassign to a new worker than it does to pay at the higher end of market value the first time.

My wife works for a pharmaceutical company that had a disastrous experience with business process outsourcing (BPO).  The bottom line was so compelling but they failed to assess the hidden costs of cultural and language inefficiencies.  An entrepreneur I highly admire, Tony Tsieh (of Zappos) has had a policy to overpay customer service reps in an effort to make the customer experience unforgettable.  He just sold it for $1B to Amazon.

The market is constantly assessing value.  To smart business people, cheaper is not always better.  Better value is better.  Likewise, unsafe working environments, lack of benefits, toxic culture, etc are often self-destructive to successfully growing a company.  It may work in the short term, but almost always backfires in the long term.  If you can't keep good employees, turnover is expensive and will kill you.

In a free market for labor, the problems that unions claim they solved would be fixed through the natural process of destruction.  We are entering an age where free agent labor is going to be the norm because of digital technology.  We're practically there already.  This bodes well for everyone who is productive.  Those who are productive will be rewarded accordingly and those who are inefficient and lazy will find themselves without a job.

For the pro-union folks out there, I'll ask you a question.  Let's say unions were allowed to organize and bargain collectively for the group, but business owners (and governments) retained the right to fire ALL the workers if a settlement couldn't be reached, would that be a fair compromise?  Before you respond, keep in mind it costs a tremendous amount of money to hire and train an entirely new workforce.  Out of necessity, management would be forced to bargain in good faith to avoid such an expensive scenario.  On the other hand, if union demands were so out of touch with reality, it would be increasingly favorable to explore the nuclear option.

[moda0306]

Wonk,

I think that's a perfectly reasonable compromise... but to analyze further... It's the inherant cost of the nuclear option that makes me doubt the sharp "tilting of the scales" effect that the "in good faith" regulations have on the negotiating process.  It would be interesting to see what would happen to unionized businesses if they removed that rule.  I think probably not much, as the cost would simply be too high for most companies. 

If the turnover you speak of happened in a lazzais fair economy, we wouldn't have had ultra-unsafe workplaces in the past to begin with.  Now I think it's more of a way to sustain a middle class than Storm's view of avoiding disaster-prone workplaces and bosses beating up employees.  I think we're past those days (in the U.S.)

[Storm]

If the turnover you speak of happened in a lazzais fair economy, we wouldn't have had ultra-unsafe workplaces in the past to begin with.  Now I think it's more of a way to sustain a middle class than Storm's view of avoiding disaster-prone workplaces and bosses beating up employees.  I think we're past those days (in the U.S.)

But it's precisely because we had unions to fight for our rights, and I mean literally fight, that we are even to this point now.  You realize that when the first unions formed, they were made illegal, and police and mercenaries were brought in to literally bust up picket lines and people were killed.  Management knew that if they just made an example of one or two people, killing or beating them, the rest would fall back in line.

Trade unions were not originally created to start strikes:

Besides acting to raise wages and improve working conditions, the federations espoused certain social reforms, such as the institution of free public education, the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and the adoption of universal manhood suffrage. Perhaps the most important effect of these early unions was their introduction of political action.

Sounds terribly unreasonable, right?  The abolition of imprisonment for debt?  Everyone can vote?  What kind of communist policies are these?

I also refer you to this page on wikipedia for the storied history of the US military being used to bust union strikes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... tary_force

[fnord123]

The Koch brothers benefit by using their billions to elect anti-regulation conservatives who will dismantle the regulations, reforms, and organizations (unions) that prevent them from extracting the maximum profit from their business enterprises.

What is the left's fascination with the Koch brothers anyway?  The objection cannot be to large donations being used to influence elections - if it is, please see: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?type=A
11 of the top 17 are unions
13 of the top 17 contributors money wise give more to democrats.
The 4 of the 17 that remain give money evenly to both democrats and republicans.
By the way, the Koch brothers would show up somewhere around slot 200 or so on the list.

Why don't people on the left object to these very large union contributions?

Are large donations to political campaigns such as the Koch's (although small in comparison to union contributions) only bad if they advocate positions the left disagrees with?

Do people on the left advocate that contributions to non-leftist positions should be banned?  If not, what's the problem with the Koch brothers?

[Pkg Man]

You may not like unions, but think of the benefits we all enjoy because of them:

• 40 hour workweek
• Paid time off and sick leave
• Anti-discrimination laws
• Child labor laws
• General safety and security at your work and knowing that your company can't hire thugs to come in and beat you up whenever you don't work as fast as they think you should

• I don't have a 40 hour workweek, more like 50-60
• Paid time off and sick leave is something that employers offer to attract workers.  It is part of the compensation that induces someone to get out of bed in the morning in the first place. Remember that health insurance came about after WWII as a way for businesses to attract workers.  
• Anti-discrimination laws are from Congress, not unions
• Same as above for child labor laws (which, by the way, implies that government knows better than parents, which may or may not be true)
• Again, safety laws come from Congress, not unions.  I believe hiring someone to beat the crap out of someone else is already illegal.  And on a personal note, I knew of one management person who, while driving a company truck during a strike, was run off the road by a striking union "thug".  The manager died at the scene.  So I find the idea of "knowing that your company can't hire thugs to come in and beat you up whenever you don't work as fast as they think you should" a not-so-humorous joke.

I'm not totally anti-union, they did serve a purpose in the past, such as the West VA coal mines where the mine owners had monopsony power as the only major employer in town.  And certainly for a union member does receive a higher wage than he would otherwise be paid.  But we need to realize these things come with a cost.  The more labor markets are distorted the more business will try to substitute capital for labor, which means fewer jobs will be available.  And by making labor more expensive they promote off-shoring of jobs, and make US exports less competitive.

Unions do not help to make the pie bigger, they merely try to get a larger slice for their members (and carve out a slice for themselves in the process).  If you would like to see what extensive labor union membership can do to an economy just look at a typical European country, where average growth in the economy is about 2/3rds that of the US and unemployment rates stay near 10% even when not in recession.

[radar]

Yet another angle on this...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/ ... ators.html

as reader petrograd indicates, an analysis of the state’s finances shows this shortfall to be entirely the result of spending increases planned by Walker. The state ran a modest surplus in the latest fiscal year and the projected falls in tax receipts over the next two years were less than $200 million cumulative. So this budget hysteria is a gross distortion of the state’s true condition

Not to mention, this governor also refused over $800 million in federal aid.  It seems like he has ulterior motives here.  Busting unions has been his focus for many years now, and he found an opportunity to do it.

Interesting political discussion on the site...I know this is a little late, but story below gives insight into 'modest surplus' claimed above.  And what exactly is the ulterior motive in refusing $800M in federal aid for 'high' speed rail?  Is this another way for him to bust the union?  Not seeing the connnection.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011 ... et-crisis/

[Wonk]

Update on Wisconsin:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wis-GOP-s ... et=&ccode=

One of the funniest comments on this article went something like this:

"Now that we know that legislating can be done quicker with half the legislators, let's start by firing half of all politicians."

[fnord123]

But it's precisely because we had unions to fight for our rights, and I mean literally fight, that we are even to this point now.  You realize that when the first unions formed, they were made illegal, and police and mercenaries were brought in to literally bust up picket lines and people were killed.  Management knew that if they just made an example of one or two people, killing or beating them, the rest would fall back in line.

Unions did help to improve the condition of the worker.  However, that doesn't mean that without collective bargaining rights that the condition of the worker would go down.  Federal government employees, for instance, are prohibited by law from collective bargaining for pay increases, and yet they have some of the highest pay of public sector workers.