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

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

While the so-called heavy hand of government involvement may have China, I
do not think that is the only or the main reason that economic growth was
stimulated or caused the current boom.  I have a good friend who goes to
China frequently and lectures at the various universities and institutes on
such things as energy policy and environmental policy.  He has traveled
extensively in China and even has visited all the wind generation facilities
in Outer Mongolia (something that even the members of the Chinese Central
committee cannot claim); he is very bright, observant, inquisitive, and
analytical (someone whose veracity and intellect I both admire and respect).


 

 During the course of many discussion with him he has observed a number of
things that we in the West do not speak of.  Namely, much of the industrial
growth is not for domestic consumption but for export to the West; much of
the industrialization is carried on by foreign national corporation from
other major Asian countries and some Western countries.  Chinese method of
budgeting and appropriating funds to state agencies is one in which they
give the agencies half their budget and require the agencies to earn the
other half, which they do by renting out some of the land and facilities
that they control to foreign national corporations.   The foreign
corporation has exclusive control over the leased property and the people
and actions within it as if that property were sovereign nations (i.e., in
many respects similar to the status of foreign embassies); and in return,
the foreign corporation pays the agency rent and promises not to distribute
or sell it products, goods, or services within China except thru the Chinese
government.

 

This is very attractive to foreign corporations since they can set the labor
and work conditions, pay and benefits within their leased and controlled
areas without any intervention by the Chinese government.  They hire labor
from within the outlying areas of China for very cheap wages, few benefits,
poor housing and working conditions, long working hours with few days off.
They have the workers sign contracts with their workers which the Chinese
government honors and enforces which in effect are like indentured servitude
wherein the native Chinese worker remains the indentured servant to the
corporation for several years and has to follow the rules and regulations
set forth by the corporation; they cannot leave or easily get out of the
contracts.  Thus, all the poor conditions that we hear about are not the
product of the Chinese government usually but of the foreign corporations
that control the various leased areas as if they were private fiefdoms.  It
is this set of conditions that make China attractive to corporations who
want to cut costs to lessen prices while maintaining corporate earnings
without having to abide by any governmental controls or regulations,
interference in how Chinese workers in those area are treated, or without
having to concern themselves with environmental or health concerns within
their controlled territories or impacts beyond those territories caused by
the corporations operations.  The workers frequently are trapped into a one
company town situation where they are overcharged for housing and food, etc.
by the corporations so as to always remain in debt to the corporation which
they need to work off by renewing their contracts.

 

Similarly, in the U.S., businesses are not won and lost by states based on
regulations or even existing types of taxes as much as they are by the
positive incentives such as offers of (1) low cost or free land, the
furnishing free of cost of roads and infrastructures, and the existence of a
large skilled but captured labor pool to draw employees from at cheap wages
and minimum benefits; (2) the forgiving of the payment  or a portion of the
payment of the  taxes well into the future; (3) minimal applicable
environmental, health and other codes or low or ineffective implementation
of existing codes; and (4) the ease of access to transporation and raw
materials or resources.  The states all have varying degrees of regulation
with most gaining or losing in business growth and development having to do
with how competitive they are in the bidding wars over incentives offered to
companies to get them to locate or relocate in the state in question and not
with the degree of regulations it imposes on the business community.  Just
as many businesses have little or no loyalty to their employees which has
resulted in their employees having no loyalty to the businesses, most medium
to large sized businesses have little or no loyalty to the communities that
they locate and do business in, little concern with the community good and
well being, and little or no regard for the people in those communities.
They will pick up and move on a dime if they are given a better offer
elsewhere which will make any lost sunk costs or financial losses within
reason and available as a tax write-off.

 

However, unlike the U.S. which practices corporate capitalism which in
effect is corporate socialism, China internally tends to practice a much
more traditional pre-industrialized society type of entrepreneurial
capitalism domestically as illustrated by their budgeting and appropriations
practices as well as by actual competitive supply and demand modalities.  My
friend tells the story of how he was to take a small regional airline from a
small provincial village to Beijing.  While in the air, the pilot tells the
passengers that gas was too expensive at the location where they departed
from so the plane did not fill up.  It will need to make a n unscheduled
stop at village X where the price of gas is much lower.  When they landed,
my friend discovered that they had not landed in village X but rather in
village Y.  He asked why that was the case.  He was told by the pilot that
village Y overheard the conversation regarding the price of gas between the
pilot and village X, whereupon  village Y made a counter offer of an even
lower price for gas.  The pilot agreed to the counter offer and flew the
plane to village Y to get the cheaper gas before flying on to Beijing.  Now
that is real competitive capitalism in operation where there is little or no
government regulation except the rule of the marketplace.  Although I have
no information from my friend or anyone else, I am speculating that much of
the small domestic businesses operate much the same way that the airline did
with little governmental regulation or interference except if it happens to
boldly and publically challenge the political ideology or leadership.
However, I have to wonder how the US would function under that type of
capitalism with regard to  those sort of randomly made and occurring
decisions based on marketplace conditions rather than government regulation.

 

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of E. Wayne
Johnson
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 1:25 PM
To: Ricky Baldwin
Cc: peace discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] right to association, right to a union

 

except that the countries involved have chosen precisely the opposite path,
that of heavy government involvement, which has contributed to their
successes.)


It was indeed the withdrawal of the heavy oppressive hand of government
regulation from the society that
allowed the current boom in China to occur.  Some of the provinces where
growth occurred the
most rapidly were those that were the furthest from the hand and control of
the central government.



Ricky Baldwin wrote: 

I think it remains to be demonstrated that "too much regulation" is actually
"driving business away" from Illinois.  Closer examination may well show
that this state has a lot less regulation, tax, etc., than other places
where business is booming.  (The "Asian Miracle", for example, is often held
up as an example of the success of "free" trade and "free"markets - except
that the countries involved have chosen precisely the opposite path, that of
heavy government involvement, which has contributed to their successes.)

 

Ricky

"Only those who do nothing make no mistakes." - Peter Kropotkin 

 

 

  _____  

From: E. Wayne Johnson  <mailto:ewj at pigs.ag> <ewj at pigs.ag>
To: John W.  <mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com> <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
Cc: peace discuss  <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
<peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 9:42:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] right to association, right to a union

No genuine fellowship?  A sense of humour is helpful.

The reductio ad absurdum requires some absurdity on the part of the reducer
too.

You ought not construe a total lack of compassion to be the only product of
 one's desire to be free from oppression.

It was obvious that this was/is a loaded issue and a wedge concept to be
expected after the call for fellowship.

A quest for smoothness always turns up some snags and burrs.

There is a need for the rule of law since there is property that is held
collectively but
not all property is held collectively.

Since it is true that too much regulation is damaging the economy of Illnois
and the country, one should be leery of adding more regulations,
since as you so properly noted present laws are not being enforced.


John W. wrote: 

 

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

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20081026/2c988311/attachment.html