The Flint sit-down strike of 1936/37

Eric Loomis, in another of his important series on the history of the labor movement in the U.S., notes that yesterday marked the anniversary of what is arguably the most important date in union history.  I won't excerpt any of it because the whole thing...you know.

Mural bias

The Republican governors' war on workers continues, this time in pictures!

Clashes at state capitols over organized labor have become commonplace this year, with protesters throughout the country objecting to proposed limits on collective bargaining and cuts in benefits. Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, has opened a new — and unlikely — front in the battle between some lawmakers and unions: a 36-foot-wide mural in the state’s Department of Labor building in Augusta.

The three-year-old mural has 11 panels showing scenes of Maine workers, including colonial-era shoemaking apprentices, lumberjacks, a “Rosie the Riveter” in a shipyard and a 1986 paper mill strike. Taken together, his administration deems these scenes too one-sided in favor of unions.

A spokeswoman said Mr. LePage, a Republican, ordered the mural removed after several business officials complained about it and after the governor received an anonymous fax saying it was reminiscent of “communist North Korea where they use these murals to brainwash the masses.”

UPDATE: House Republicans' war on workers is somewhat less fanciful.

Income inequality as public policy

In their new book, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson point to public policy as the source of income inequality and the growing economic pressure on the middle class. And there is very good reason for the middle class -- even, or especially, those not members of a union -- to pay attention to events in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana.

Mr. Hacker: We’re certainly not arguing that changes in the balance of power are the only cause of inequality and stagnating wages. The college premium has indeed grown, though it’s hard to see how this accounts for the most striking and distinctively American development – namely, the extreme concentration of economic rewards at the very, very top of the economic ladder. Most of those who have a college degree haven’t shared in the really big gains experienced by the top 1 percent or top 0.1 percent (average 2007 income: $7 million), which has seen its share of income more than quadruple since the early 1970s.

The big question is whether these outsized rewards could have been distributed more broadly given different economic policies. We’re convinced the answer is yes. The key to getting the answer right, we argue, is to look beyond the economics of rising inequality to examine the politics. Much of our book traces how major changes in policies governing finance, corporate governance, taxation, and industrial relations helped fuel the “winner-take-all economy.” These changes, we show, directly reflected the declining clout of middle-class voters and unions relative to a much more organized and mobilized corporate sector.

Mr. Pierson: We need to think more broadly about what shapes markets and the distribution of economic rewards. For instance, economists generally err in thinking that unions influence the income distribution mostly through direct negotiations with employers. Instead, we argue the most important role these forces play is to create some organized countervailing pressure in Washington. Cross-national research suggests that strong labor unions are associated with greater government redistribution through taxes and transfers. The United States is one of only a handful of countries where government taxes and benefits have become less redistributive as inequality has grown.

And failure to compensate for rising inequality through taxes and benefits is only the tip of the iceberg. From industrial relations policy to regulation of executive pay to financial deregulation, policy makers either remade markets in ways that encouraged inequality or stood on the sidelines (despite plenty of complaints and clear alternatives) as changes in the market outran existing policy rules. Especially after the financial crisis, it’s hard to deny that some of the big policy shifts that enriched those at the top have contributed substantially to the hardships faced by the middle class.

Conservative Republican crusades against collective bargaining and for making union dues "voluntary" and making it illegal to take public employees' union dues directly from their paychecks aren't about reducing deficits. They are about depriving unions of their members and their members' dues. They are about eliminating union clout as a countervailing political force against corporate control of public policy. And we are all -- or at least 99% of us -- victims of that.

And, the authors argue, the Republican party is no longer "conservative." It is radical in its ideas about economics, and that, along with the filibuster, have made financial reform all but impossible.

UPDATED for clarity

Solidarity

A Green Bay Packer sides with his fellow union members against the Koch-backed assault on union members' right to collective bargaining.

The Green Bay Packers veteran Charles Woodson issued a statement that said in part, “Thousands of dedicated Wisconsin public workers provide vital services for Wisconsin citizens.” He added: “They are the teachers, nurses and child-care workers who take care of us and our families. These hard-working people are under an unprecedented attack to take away their basic rights to have a voice and collectively bargain at work.”

The annual "Th' fuck" Hall of Fame vote

Once again, the most influential baseball executive since Branch Rickey is not in the Hall of Fame. Simply inexplicable. Five voters on the Veterans "Execs and Pioneers" committee didn't think Marvin Miller, whose organizing work led to the end of the reserve clause and the start of free agency, mattered enough. Bizarre.

Real plumbers

...hate fake ones.

Playing hardball on EFCA

Specter now opposes it. And FedEx has a gun. Of course, the overnight carrier may be using EFCA as a ploy to avoid having to pay for a bunch of jets they can no longer afford.

Just sayin'.

The greatest threats to civilization

Together with "Radical Islam," the Employee Free Choice Act. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Speaking truth to smug, self-satisfied morons

I sympathize with John Cole's and Glenn Greenwald's contempt for the Fox News actor who exhibited nothing but contempt and ridicule for his guest, Virg Bernero, the mayor of Lansing. But it has to be said that it is rare these days for a UAW supporter to be allowed to speak his mind on the teevee to the lengths mayor Bernero does. He speaks for many that it is high time that the leading lights of Washington stop feeling it is wise and appropriate for the sins of this economy to be placed on the backs of workers. The Fox talking head unknowingly illustrates Washington's disdain for people who make stuff, but at least the mayor is allowed to say his piece.

Watch it.

And the problem for GM, Chrysler, Ford, is not that it costs them $2000 more per car due to labor costs, it's that American cars typically cost $2000 less , according to Susan Helper of Case Western Reserve University, than comparable vehicles with Japanese marques and still Americans don't care to buy them.

Employer Free Choice Act and "democracy"

Of all the legislation that's likely to make its way through Congress in the next few months, one of the most contentious is going to EFCA and, in particular, the "card check provision." That's where employees can unionize based on a simple majority of cards that are filled out calling for a union, rather than conducting a secret ballot vote. That provision is the easiest one to bash the entire act with as journalists rarely are able to get past the idea that it's undemocratic, so Republicans committed to further weakening unions have jumped on that with particular glee. And it's gotten nearly all the attention about the bill.

In a provocative piece, T.A. Frank suggests the provision be dropped as it's not significant in the grand scheme of things.

That toddling town

Quite a day for Chicago. The U.S. Attorney indicts the state's governor. Sam Zell announces the Tribune Co. will file for bankruptcy, losing the collateral the bastard used to secure loans to buy the company-- it's employees' pensions -- in the process. And the Republic Windows and Doors workers win a round.

CHICAGO – The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend limited loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, but the workers declared their protest unfinished.

The Republic Windows and Doors factory closed last week after Bank of America canceled its financing. About 200 laid-off workers responded by staging a sit-in at the plant, vowing to stay until getting assurances they would receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

Their action garnered national attention, seen by some as a symbol of defiance for workers laid off nationwide.

A resolution appeared closer when the bank announced that it had sent a letter to Republic offering to "provide a limited amount of additional loans" to resolve the employee claims.

The bank appeared to side at least in part with disgruntled workers, expressing concern in a statement Tuesday "about Republic's failure to pay their employees the Employee Claims to which they are legally entitled."

Their hourly wage is what?

Well, at least the Times qualifies the statement, but isn't this $74/hr claim still wrong?

Currently, the average U.A.W. member costs G.M. about $74 an hour in a combination of wages, health care and the value of future benefits, like pensions. Toyota, by comparison, spends the equivalent of about $45 an hour for each of its employees in the United States.

Base wages between the Big Three and the foreign companies are roughly comparable, with a veteran U.A.W. member earning $28 an hour at the Big Three compared to about $25 an hour at Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Ky. (Toyota pays less at its other American factories.)

But the gap in labor costs becomes larger when health care, particularly for thousands of retirees and surviving spouses, and job security provisions are considered.

I'm unclear -- genuinely so -- how health care provisions for "thousands of retirees and surviving spouses" considered part of a current UAW worker's hourly wage. I won't argue that the union won't need to make concessions on retiree benefits and it sounds like they've already agreed on changes to the job security provisions, but the implication is that workers take home $75/hr gross, and that's wrong and misleading.

Are you smarter than a fifth grader? If so, please explain. Or lets all be fourth graders and agree it's all the union's fault.

The media's war on workers

Seeing the Big Three CEOs fly into Washington on separate private planes gets my dander up, too. But the media is still trying to paint union wages as the real villain here and it's not only wrong, it's wildly inaccurate. It's also a great example of why our policies are often so fucked up -- they're often the result of journalism that's too lazy to get past the ongoing mythology.

Canaries in the coal mine

The United Mine Workers refuse to accept bullshit.

Appalachia is supposed to be a one of Barack Obama’s biggest weak spots. But judging from a surprise work stoppage at the Blacksville No. 2 coal mine in West Virginia, Mr. Obama evidently has some pockets of support there.

Last Monday more than 440 members of the United Mine Workers of America took the day off, halting production at the Blacksville mine. The union declared it a Memorial Day, largely to protest what union officials said was an anti-Obama ad that the National Rifle Association was filming at the mine.

Phil Smith, the union’s communications director, said that the mine’s owner, Consol Energy, allowed the film crew to go on the property, and that the crew asked several miners: “How do you feel about having your Second Amendment rights taken away if Obama becomes president.”

Word spread to several miners who supported Senator Obama, someone called union headquarters in Virginia, and soon Cecil Roberts, the president of the parent union, declared a Memorial Day (which is allowed under the contract) to protest the NRA’s filming (and to show support for Mr. Obama).

“This was a surprise visit,” said Eric Greathouse, safety chairman of UMWA Local 1702, in an interview on WBOY, a television station in Clarksburg W.Va. “A lot of the miners felt that this was a direct slap in the face of the union because they were trying to coerce our people into saying things against Barack Obama.”

The parent union has endorsed Mr. Obama, asserting that he would be better than Senator John McCain for the nation’s workers and labor unions.

You got that, asshole?

Thanks, Ezra.

Impish in a Daniel Plainview sort of way

I guess all things are relative. If you're a UAW president, then throwing a chair at someone is...well...cute.

He had an impish sense of humor that was often on display when negotiating pressure was the highest. Angered at comments by Roger B. Smith, the General Motors chief executive, during a pivotal point in negotiations in 1982, Mr. Fraser declared that he wanted G.M. to get a “zipper for Roger Smith’s lips.”

Union officials were not spared, either. When one union delegate persisted in demanding attention at a meeting, Mr. Fraser, who was presiding, stood and threw his chair at the delegate.