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

[John W.]

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 2:54 PM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:

 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 don't 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.
>

Cliched libertarian response.



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

Having lived a few years in the Real World while studying both law and
Christian theology, I know that in actual practice the precious Rule of Law
is a lot like the Golden Rule:  Them that wields the force says what the
Rule of Law is.




> 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.
>

Suddenly this is Ricky's government, Wayne?  What about YOUR government?
Oh, that's right...you don't believe in government.  And since you don't,
the Rule of Law (including the laws of impeachment) would come from WHERE
again?



> 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.
>

Which includes regulations, does it not?  I too am not a fan of more and
more unenforced regulations, but I am most certainly a fan of a regulatory
framework run by persons of integrity to keep persons of lesser integrity in
check.  The REAL problem in our world is, how do you create and sustain
integrity?  No one on this list would like my answer to THAT question.



> 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.
>

Ah.  A glimmer of recognition.  But see below.



> 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.
>

Here's the heart of it.  Sounds like you'd be perfectly fine with a
reinstitution of slavery, Wayne.  It certainly had the support of the Rule
of Law in its day, and justification for it can also be found in the Bible.
With your intelligence, entrepeneurial spirit, and WHITE SKIN, I presume
that you perceive yourSELF as the benevolent massa and not as the humble
slave?  But what on EARTH would you do with all of your fellow massas who
weren't quite as benevolent as you?  The ones who ran, say, the poultry
processing plant in Hamlet, NC, or the laundry plant that Ricky describes?
I'm guessing that the FREE MARKET would take care of the problem somehow.

Libertarianism: liberty for ME, slavery for YOU if you can't cut the social
Darwinian mustard.

John Wason




> 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> <ewj at pigs.ag>
> *To:* Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* peace discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net><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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