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

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Perhaps I overdid it in telling part of my story but I wanted to make it 
clear that I had
some understanding of difficult conditions.

Of course I'm not joking about voting with one's feet as one of several 
alternatives.

We dont have and have not had free markets in the US by any stretch of 
the imagination.
Maybe we should give free markets a try for once.

The Rule of Law is supposed to be in force.
If laws are not being enforced, there is your problem.

Your government is unwilling to impeach its P and VP who have committed 
serious crimes
worthy of the ultimate penalties prescribed by the law.  If your leaders 
can get away with murder,
(literally) then they set the pace for the whole society.

One of the worst examples I know about was a poultry processing plant in 
Hamlet NC
where the only exits were the loading dock which was blocked by a truck 
and locked fire doors.  There was a fire
and many workers died because there was no way to escape.  Read more 
about it here.
http://www.emergency.com/nc-fire.htm

Again, the issue is not one of more regulations but it is an issue of 
not following the Rule of Law.

We have so many regulations on some businesses that the only way that 
they can operate is if the law is ignored.
I can give examples from experience.  Management often exerts political 
pressure on the bosses of inspectors,
who warn the inspectors to "back off".  I got several such warnings when 
I was in a quasi-inspection/oversight role
at the university.  Again the problem was not the regulations but the 
failure to observe the rule of law, and animals
suffered and died, experiments failed, and taxpayer's money was squandered.

The horrid abuses of power by the union at the UIUC  have indeed made me 
leery of unionization as the answer,
but I am also aware of many good things that unions have accomplished.  
Indeed part of the problem with incompetent
employees is incompetent and inconsistent/incoherent management.

OSHA can be pretty stupid and ineffective.  They got involved with 
agriculture at one point and they were totally clueless
and counterproductive because they knew almost nothing about the 
industry they were overseeing.

*
I think that the employer should be absolute lord over the workers.  
That means he also has the responsibility to
take good care of them.  The problem with excessive union power is that 
it frustrates the employer in his pursuits
and creates an antagonistic relationship between employees and 
employers.  I see no evidence that the "right
to unionize" is a valid Natural Right.  In fact, Matthew 20.1-16 
suggests that the power to employ and reward
naturally lies with the employer and the employee makes a contract to 
either work or not work.



Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> Well, Wayne, I appreciate learning more about you.  You have led a 
> very interesting life, for sure.  I could recount some of my life, 
> childhood in a trailer, single mom, or on welfare, without 
> electricity, working on a railroad, etc., but I'm not sure it would 
> enlighten anyone about this specific issue.  I will just point out 
> this concerning your bootstrap story: white people in this country, 
> even poor ones, have hand holds in their long scrabble up the economic 
> cliff that many blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, et al., do not.  
> They are often subtle - such as an opportunity to drive a tractor as a 
> kid, a face that reassures bankers or potential business partners - 
> and whites do not often even notice that these things do represent a 
> kind of white privilege.  Such privileges often have a nasty 
> consequence in addition to simply excluding others by definition: they 
> impress those who have been able to "make it" or "get by" that 
> everyone ought to be able to, if they simply had the pluck and 
> determination of a "winner" - but that's probably not what you meant 
> it to sound like.
>
> The fact is, too, many abusive employers make tremendous profits, as 
> I'm sure you're aware, so I'm not really sure of your point about 
> "getting good results."  Sounds a bit like the old argument that 
> slaveholders didn't really beat their slaves all that much because of 
> their "economic interest" - which is sound BS, as I'm sure you know.
>
> I'm not sure how you mean a reform like this would "put workers in 
> charge of production".  If only we could.  All the Employee Free 
> Choice Act would do is lessen some of the repression faced by workers 
> in the US every day.  It's largely unreported and unknown, and it's as 
> common as streetlights.  It would be a substantial gain for the 
> workers who face this kind of repression, but it would not "put them 
> in charge."
>
> I assume you're joking about people voting with their feet, too.  I 
> suppose Iraqis who don't like being bombed to smithereens can just 
> vote with their feet, too, likewise Americans who don't like 
> Blackwater, police repression, etc.
>
> I worked with a bunch of laundry workers in Buffalo, for example, who 
> labored under the such hazardous conditions that when I tell people 
> the story, they think I'm talking about another country or another 
> century.  The laundry had very profitable contracts with area 
> hospitals, cleaning linens, gowns,  etc.  The sheets and things were 
> often soiled with human excrement, blood and unidentifiable fluids.  
> Workers often discovered turds, used needles - even human body parts - 
> in the laundry.  There were no labels or warnings of any kind of what 
> deadly diseases they might face, and not even the basic provision of 
> gloves or safety glasses.
>
> The mostly black, mostly female workforce was routinely harassed by 
> white male supervisors - not just with sexual/racial comments and 
> innuendo, common enough there - but by grabbing employees from behind, 
> etc.  One manager apparently had a predilection for licking a female 
> employee's exposed, sweaty back.
>
> Every day huge bags of laundry swung overhead, weighing hundreds of 
> pounds, suspended on cables by heavy hooks.  Sometimes the bag would 
> fall.  Sometimes the hooks would fall.  Electric wires dangled 
> everywhere, some of them in standing pools of water and other 
> chemicals.  An employee would get "wet shocks" from this.  Exits were 
> blocked, and egress was narrow and obstructed.  Fire hazards were 
> everywhere.  Workers were frequently fired for "insubordination" - 
> voting with their feet? - you see, there was a ready pool of 
> desperately poor, underemployed and unemployed workers ready to step 
> in to replace them.
>
> Of course there are laws against some of these conditions.  However, 
> because of the supremacy of "property rights" in the US Supreme Court, 
> OSHA is not allowed on the premises without permission or a specific 
> court order, which is hard to get.  Employees of course knew that 
> working there sucked, but without an advocate well-schooled in the US 
> labyrinth of rights-on-paper none of it is of much use.
>
> One realistic option that can actually help workers like these is the 
> one they decided to take: they took action themselves.  They banded 
> themselves together in a union, much as we band together to try and 
> interfere with our government's war, torture and other abuses - 
> largely on behalf of the "captains of industry" so to speak.  But the 
> fight was long and hard, as you might imagine starting out from such 
> abysmal conditions.  The employer was ruthless, but the workers were 
> determined. 
>
> At any rate, the point is, and as a good libertarian you will 
> understand it, people in this country are at the moment being denied 
> the right to join unions, as a real right and not just a right on 
> paper, and this law would help.  If a majority of employees at a work 
> site want a union, they can get it.  Then if they can't bargain a 
> contract, a mediator will help.  Employers can express their opinions, 
> but if they attempt to interfere with the employees' free exercise of 
> their rights, there will be penalties, though probably not enough.
>
> And by the way, undoubtedly many workers do not know what they are 
> doing, union or non-union.  Many bosses, too.  How many of us have 
> stories of trying to explain to thick-as-a-post managers or owners how 
> a process works or how to fix it, etc?  Too many to count.  Does the 
> "invisible hand" of the allegedly "free" market weed these out?  Hm, I 
> guess the economic events of the last month answered that, if there 
> were still any real doubts after Enron, etc.
>  
> Ricky
>
> "Only those who do nothing make no mistakes." - Peter Kropotkin
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>
> *To:* Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* peace discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> *Sent:* Saturday, October 25, 2008 12:37:35 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] right to association, right to a union
>
> 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
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>
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