[Peace-discuss] right to association, right to a union

[John W.]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 8:41 AM, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>wrote:

I find it kind of bizarre that because I want to guarantee the rights
> of workers to organize you basically call me un-American and tell me
> to leave the country. It's not unprecedented, but I didn't expect it
> on this list.


It illustrates perfectly why progressives can have no genuine fellowship
with libertarians, even if they do agree on a few issues.  With libertarians
it always comes down sooner or later to the very core of their philosophy:
"Me, me, me, and the hell with the rest of you.  How dare you 'hold a gun to
my head' (one of their favorite cliches) and FORCE me to care about anyone
else but myself?"

Ugh.





> On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 8:37 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:
>

> > It's pretty easy to get Canadian citizenship, Bob.
> >
> > One thing a person can always do it vote with their feet.  I
> > did that in '96 and it was the right thing to do.  One can always
> > question why it was that I came back here, though.  :-)
> > But the reasons seem to have been valid for returning to the US.
> >
> > It is not desirable to have a culturally uniform world or even a
> culturally
> > uniform USA
> > or even a culturally uniform Illinois, Champaign County, or Urbana for
> that
> > matter.
> >
> > The United States are sovereign states.  Remember the 10th amendment.
> >
> > Of course Canada is going to be a lot more like Europe than we are  here
> and
> > that is a good thing.
> > The canadians still have the Queen on their money.  Canada is a much
> > different country
> > than we are and comparing us to Canada and saying that they are right and
> we
> > are wrong
> > ought to be pretty damn offensive to any American.
> >
> > Under our constitution if the people in Massachusetts want to smoke
> Catalpa
> > beans and
> > barbecue guinea pigs, tom cats and canaries, thats cool with me and they
> > have every right to do so, and
> > we ought not be pushing the federal government to stop them from it if we
> > dont like it.
> >
> > If Venezuela chooses to be governed by a wise and benevolent dictator
> that
> > is no concern of mine.
> >
> > It's the whole idea of one group trying to impose their will by force
> upon
> > another, when that group is in a
> > sovereign state that is fundamentally wrong.  It's the thing that MLK
> warned
> > America about in regard
> > to being arrogant.
> > *
> > We do need to return to the rule of law and enforce the laws that we have
> > within our borders
> > rather than trying to police the world.
> >
> >
> >
> > Robert Naiman wrote:
> >
> > The relationship is already antagonistic, in the sense that the two
> > groups have different interests; what's tragic is that one side has
> > almost all the power, which is a recipe for abuse. Having a union
> > helps equalize things a little.
> >
> > The most straightforward way to measure the pendulum is to compare the
> > U.S. to Canada and Western Europe. The U.S. is the outlier in terms of
> > its labor relations, its fundamental failure to respect workers basic
> > rights.
> >
> > Speaking about miners: remember recent U.S. mine "accidents", and the
> > workers who died, and of course it was revealed in each case that
> > there were massive safety violations. Around the same time, there was
> > a mining accident in Canada. Only, in Canada, they have the safety
> > features that the US owners are too cheap to comply with: a sealed
> > room with oxygen, etc, and the oxygen is actually there. So they bring
> > out the Canadian miners a day later, and they're joking about how they
> > had the day off and played cards; they were never in any danger.
> > That's what being a worker in an industrialized democracy is like,
> > when you have strong unions.
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 1:55 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I have seen people who suffer from black lung and it's a tragic
> situation.
> > It's also tragic that the workers have had to organize themselves in an
> > antagonistic relationship
> > in order to accomplish change.
> >
> > I am most certainly not anti-union but how far does pendulum need to
> swing
> > before its enough?
> >
> >
> >
> > Marti Wilkinson wrote:
> >
> > My father used to be a union representative when he worked for the State
> of
> > Illinois and some of the grievances brought before him often had to do
> with
> > petty behavior from managers,supervisors, and other employees.  My mother
> > helped unionize employees at Parkland College several years ago and
> > participated in contract negotiations.
> >
> > In many organizations office politics are an unavoidable part of the
> > professional landscape and unions are able to protect individuals who are
> > unfairly targeted. A well run union structure does not prevent a bad
> > employee from getting fired, but does allow the individual due process.
> > Often what gets negotiated are things such as pay scales, benefits, and
> > eliminating health and safety risks to employees in contract procedures.
> > This is in addition to the due process I mentioned.
> >
> > For instance, my father handled a grievance from a woman who was being
> > harassed by her co-workers. When he investigated the people who were
> bugging
> > this woman claimed that she was not getting her work done and her
> > performance was dismal. So he calculated the caseloads being handled by
> the
> > complaining employee and her accusers and found that she actually had a
> > higher level of productivity than the individuals who were attempting to
> > create trouble for her. Needless to say when he presented his findings it
> > shut a few people up.
> >
> > It's interesting that the example of coal minors are brought up here.
>  One
> > of the reasons why unions formed for coal minors was to force industry to
> do
> > a better job of safeguarding the well being of employees. How many coal
> > minors have died due to the mine caving in or from poor air quality?  One
> of
> > my uncles worked in the coal mines in Southern Illinois and, amongst his
> > list of health problems, he suffers from black lung as a direct result of
> > his work in the mines.
> >
> > The unfortunate truth is that employers cannot be counted on to provide
> safe
> > working conditions, fair wages, and reasonable benefits simply out of the
> > kindness of their heart. Even though research can be presented to them
> which
> > shows a correlation between productivity and working conditions - the
> truth
> > is many employers only pay lip service to the research.  Their goal is to
> > get the maximum profit with the least amount of effort.
> >
> > Employee welfare often does not become a concern until it hits the
> employer
> > in the pocketbook. For instance Mitsubishi had to pay 34 million in
> damages
> > after a class action lawsuit was brought against them due to sexual
> > harassment.  More recently Starbucks has faced lawsuits due to their
> > practice of having  baristas share tips with shift supervisors. A well
> > organized union not only protects employees, but it can also save the
> > employers millions of dollars in legal fees.
> >
> > Marti
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 12:37 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Ricky,
> > I don't have any workers.  Its just my wife and I, but if I were
> employing
> > someone I would want them to wear the sort of
> > socks that I told them to, and I would like to be able to fire them
> simply
> > because I didnt like their attitude, and I would not
> > desire the hassle of being second-guessed by some 3rd party for my
> > management decision.
> >
> > If they work for me, they are there to do a job and if they wont or cant
> > do it then I don't need them around.
> >
> > It sounds like to me that this law you favour aims at putting the workers
> > in charge of the production.  That might
> > be ok provided that its their business to begin with, meaning that they
> > provided the innovation, management and
> > sweat to get the thing going.  Quite frankly most of the workers are
> > incapable of doing that, otherwise they would be
> > working for themselves in their own shop rather than punching the clock
> > for someone else.  I don't mean that
> > to sound belittling or deprecating of others.
> >
> > I have been self employed most but not all of my  adult life.  I started
> > driving a tractor on the farm at age 9.  I worked in
> > the oil field as a roughneck beginning at age 13.  It was dangerous work
> > but it paid good and I made enough
> > money to buy some cows that along with working oil field in summers I was
> > able to get through college and get
> > a DVM degree in 1980.   After that I had my own business in the
> > countryside for fifteen years.  I have had an
> > few employees in the office at times.  It's a hassle having employees.
> >
> > I went to China in 1996 and worked a few years for the Chinese government
> > for $250 (two hundred and fifty dollars) per month.  It cost me about
> half
> > of that
> > for my housing.  I lived exactly as the Chinese live, ate what they eat,
> > did what they did, washed my clothes by hand.  We worked 7 days a week
> most
> > of the time,
> > we worked on Christmas day like it was just another day (but I met my
> wife
> > the first time working on one Christmas day)
> > and we frequently worked through the night.  No one ever complained about
> > work.  No one ever complained that they were cold.
> > Nobody complained that they didnt have any money.  Lots of times I had to
> > dig through my desk to find enough money
> > to buy breakfast (it cost about a quarter).  We did have some fun
> > describing in eloquent terms how hot it was.  It got up to 45C (113F) in
> the
> > summer of 1997.  Nobody
> > laid down their work and went home.  We were excited about the work that
> > we were doing and that was enough most of the
> > time.  If you got sick, you went to the hospital and they gave you a
> > combination of herbal and Western medicine
> > and you got over it.  I had a root canal without anaesthesia.  The pain
> > was brief but very intense.
> >
> > After I got married, I did need a better job so I quit the ministry of
> > agriculture and got a consulting job.
> >
> > I do understand hard work and labour and poverty, and although at times
> my
> > poverty might have been
> > somewhat voluntary, there were times when it most certainly was not.
> >
> > The coal mines in southern Illinois were unionized.  The workers were on
> > strike almost more often
> > than they were employed.  Finally the coal mines were shut down and the
> > workers either moved away
> > or got jobs in the prisons.
> >
> > I really dont know anything much else about unions or union workers
> except
> > when I worked for the
> > University of Illinois in 2001 to 2004 and the farms were unionized.  The
> > university farms had cows dying because
> > the workers didnt know what the  they were doing, er...they needed more
> > training, and they didnt care and the department heads at the university
> > didnt
> > dare fire them.  From what I have seen it doesnt appear that unions are
> > compatible with agriculture.
> >
> > >From my perspective it looks like excessive regulation and excessive
> > pressure from unions is driving business out of Illinois
> > and out of the United States.  I have visited Canada.  It's a real nice
> > place except that there are so many Canadians there.
> >
> > If employers are good, they will take good care of their workers.  I work
> > for some farms who have had the same workers employed there
> > for more than 20 years.  The manager of the farms treat them like they
> are
> > members of the family.
> >
> > On the other hand, I have worked for people who are abusive of workers
> and
> > they typically don't get very good results.
> > I do have sympathy for everyone in those situations.
> >
> > I do think that all workers are employed by will, and that it is the
> right
> > of the worker to quit and the right of the employer to fire.
> > If your proposed law is aimed at destroying that relationship, you will
> > just export more jobs to places where a more satisfactory
> > production environment exists and further damage the US economy.
> >
> > Please explain the law you propose more clearly if I have missed
> > something.
> >
> > It looks like to me from the research I have done that this bill has
> > passed the House but got hung up in
> > the Senate.
> >
> > Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> >
> > Hey folks,
> >
> > Not sure who's doing AWARE's agenda for Sunday meetings these days, but
> > I'd like to put an endorsement request out for discussion.  It's from
> Jobs
> > With Justice, to which AWARE belongs, and which was instrumental in
> starting
> > US Labor Against the War.
> >
> >
> >
> > Jobs With Justice and many other organizations are currently pushing –
> and
> > trying to collect a million postcards in support of – national
>  legislation
> > to protect an important right of association that has been under severe
> > assault because it threatens the steep American gradient of power between
> > employer and employee: a workers' right to join with his or her
> co-workers
> > in a union.  The bill is called the "Employee Free Choice Act," and it's
> > nothing to sneeze at.
> >
> >
> >
> > Since 1935, in response to mass uprisings of workers – many of them
> thrown
> > out of work in the Great Depression – the US Congress enacted and the
> > President signed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as
> the
> > "Wagner Act," establishing the right to form, join and participate in
> unions
> > as the official policy of the US government.  It was a compromise,
> enacted
> > to stave off a feared revolution of the type that other countries had
> > experienced, notably in 1848 and 1917-1925.  It did not cover everyone.
>  It
> > specifically excluded large classes of workers – agricultural and
> domestic
> > workers, both much more numerous than today – mainly as a means of
> cutting
> > out Southern blacks and poor whites from the New Deal.
> >
> >
> >
> > But in the wake of passage, union membership increased in the US to over
> > 30 percent, raising the overall standards of wages, safety on the job,
> etc.,
> > even for non-union workers.  Union-sponsored legislation, like the OSHA
> Act
> > in 1970 – which has saved thousands of workers' lives even with its
> faults,
> > began improving the lives of all workers.  But it was no panacea, and it
> was
> > certainly not invulnerable to attack from anti-worker forces.
> >
> >
> >
> > The Wagner Act and its many "reforms" added afterwards, when the threat
> of
> > revolution had cooled, also took the US down a different path than other
> > industrialized nations have taken.  There are two legal doctrines
> concerning
> > workers that most Americans have never heard of, and not because they
> slept
> > through high school social studies classes.  One is called the
> > "master-servant" relationship, which basically says if your employer
> orders
> > you to do something, you have to do it (with some minor limitations,
> > obviously, for illegal activity, etc.) or you could be disciplined or
> fired
> > – there are few exceptions, including civil service regulations for some
> > public employees, and union contracts.
> >
> >
> >
> > Second, workers who are unrepresented by a union are "employed at will,"
> > meaning they can be fired "at any time for any reason or no reason."
> > Obviously there are a few legal restrictions there, too: racial, sexual
> or
> > religious discrimination, etc.  Can you be fired even if you did nothing
> > wrong?  Absolutely.  For voting Democrat or Republican or Green?  If
> you're
> > not a public employee and you don't have a union, absolutely.  You can be
> > fired because you wear socks the boss doesn't like.  You can be fired
> just
> > because.  Does this really happen?  Yep - the relative operation of the
> > employers' "economic interest" can be debated, but it happens - and there
> is
> > nothing illegal about it – at least not in this country.
> >
> >
> >
> > Workers in the US who are eligible for union rights and who wish to take
> > full advantage of union protections can't just sign up and BANG they get
> > union rights.  No, workers in the US have to win an election process –
> one
> > in which workers could be prohibited from union organizing on the job,
> union
> > organizers could be barred from the premises entirely, and employers and
> > managers were permitted to hold "captive audience" meetings to slander
> the
> > union and threaten mass layoffs or plant closings.  Employers and
> managers
> > also frequently call individuals into the office for a nice, quiet,
> > intimidating "chat," one on one.  Employers frequently fire the
> ringleaders
> > if they can identify them, even though this is illegal (it's hard to
> prove),
> > and hire union-busting law firms to run intimidation campaigns, spy on
> > workers, spread rumors and sew any kind of dissent they can think of.
> >
> >
> >
> > Employers may also hire new employees – such as family members – who they
> > know to oppose unionization, or to whom they can promise the moon, and
> thus
> > dilute the vote.  They may also declare that certain employees are
> > "supervisors" and thus ineligible to vote, and so on.
> >
> >
> >
> > Penalties for employer misbehavior are woefully inadequate: often the
> > sentence is posting a notice in the workplace stating that the employer
> has
> > violated such and such provision, blah, blah, blah.  Penalties for the
> > workers and their unions who violate guidelines, on the other hand, can
> > amount to one of the worst things that can happen, besides being fired
> and
> > having a pay cut: they lose their right to a union.
> >
> >
> >
> > Even if the workers win a union election, employers may keep them tied up
> > in court for years afterwards or may refuse to bargain a fair contract.
> > According to the law, if the union cannot win a contract with the
> employer
> > there could be another election to get rid of unionization, and under the
> > oppressive circumstances that prevail the disgruntled employees may
> change
> > their votes (if they are even the same workers – employers often use this
> > time to drive off the strong union supporters).
> >
> >
> >
> > So what does the Employee Free Choice Act do about all this?  It doesn't
> > address all of it.  There are a lot of things I'd like to see fixed in
> labor
> > law, primarily who's eligible.  But one thing it does establish is a
> right
> > that Canadians, for example, take for granted.  If more than half the
> > workers at a workplace want a union, they get it.  Period.  They sign a
> card
> > or petition and it's done.  If they don't want a long drawn-out expensive
> > election, rife with intimidation and legal battles, they don't have to
> have
> > to do it that way.
> >
> >
> >
> > The bill would also strengthen penalties on employers who coerce their
> > employees or otherwise violate their right to join a union.  And it
> > establishes a mediation and arbitration if workers and their employer
> cannot
> > agree on a first contract.  But the main provision is establishing the
> much
> > beleaguered right to unionization in the first place, and employers are
> > already fighting tooth and nail to block this bill.  That says something,
> > right there.
> >
> >
> >
> > AWARE can help by endorsing this campaign.  It costs no money, just a
> > decision.  And I'll bring postcards for anyone who'd like to sign one.
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
> >
> > Ricky
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "Only those who do nothing make no mistakes." - Peter Kropotkin
>
>
> --
> Robert Naiman
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>
> Ambassador Pickering on Iran Talks and Multinational Enrichment
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=kGZFrFxVg8A
>
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