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Unions aren't a magic bullet though, I'm in a union and the majority of the union is firmly in favor of conservative politicians, including the ones who are completely anti-union.
When the next union election comes around, raise rabble and Cain against 'em? Sometimes you need to throw the bums out.
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Since the Boycott United Airlines thread has seen some recent activity and most of the posters are also in this thread,
Fight For $15 Protests Target McDonalds, United Airlines Shareholders
Anyway, what you guys are talking about, tying wage increases to inflation, was a standard demand of the communist/union movement in the thirties, the Cost-of-Living Allowance/Escalator/whatever (usually referred to as COLA).
We still have one at UPS, although it sucks (in the eight years I have been there we have gotten one once, and it was for 12 cents).
The United Auto Workers were famous for having an iron-clad COLA escalator. Anyone wanna guess when they lost it?
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Cost of Living Adjustment, going on memory.
I think it has different names in different contracts/contexts.
I usually see "Allowance" with the UAW; "Adjustment" in the Teamsters (and Social Security I have learned since my father retired); the old commie newspapers that I spent too much time reading as a teenager usually called it a "COLA escalator."
Unions don't work if your job can be shipped overseas.
Well, they can, if the union is willing to fight, rather than roll over and play dead.
A campaign that Comrade Omar (RIP) worked on:
Admittedly, they were facing bankruptcy, not outsourcing, but the playbook would be the same: occupy the factory and raise hell. If you're strong enough and can garner public support (which you get by being strong), the politicians and banks will come running.
But, it's true. In this day and era, most of the unions are too committed to playing by the bosses' (and Democrats') rules to unleash the full potential of the labor movement.
Less dramatically, the Verizon strike of last year was largely over outsourcing jobs to, among other places, the Philippines. Guess what? They won.
Well, they can, if the union is willing to fight, rather than roll over and play dead.
.
How? What can a union do to stop a business from moving a plant overseas? Either legally or even semi legally.
Did you read my post or just hit reply after the first sentence?
Well, for one it wasn't a plant. Verizon still relies heavily on US workers, and likely always will, because their business is here in the US. You can't install physical infrastructure in the US from the Philippines.
So, the US workers that can't be outsourced had the backs of workers who were being outsourced, plus they bargained for things they needed as well.
Because of the overlap in posting times, I figured BNW hadn't even seen that when he replied and, thus, wasn't referring to the Verizon article.
Republic Windows and Doors was trying to move its operations, admittedly not overseas, but to other states (and presumably to a non-union shop). The union still won.
[Pours one out for Comrade Omar]
As for the Verizon strike, it's important to note that not only did the US workers who can't be outsourced have their back, so did the workers in the Philippines.
International labor solidarity; it's awesome.
Did you read my post or just hit reply after the first sentence?
Do you think there's a possibility that your post doesn't answer the question?
Admittedly, they were facing bankruptcy, not outsourcing, but the playbook would be the same: occupy the factory and raise hell. If you're strong enough and can garner public support (which you get by being strong), the politicians and banks will come running.
Congratulations. You are now occupying a factory that they are closing anyway Now what?
Even bad publicity isn't a problem when all it takes is s corporate restructuring
The workers who occupied Republic Windows and Doors still have jobs.
In fact, if you would bother to read the link, which isn't very long, you would see that they ran a second occupation against the company that replaced Republic, won that, and, as far as I know, they all still have jobs.
Unions 1, Naysaying posters who can't be bothered to read 0
The workers who occupied Republic Windows and Doors still have jobs.
For different employers, who bought the plant. They were saved by another company buying and re-purposing their factory, not union action. Even if you want to attribute the publicity that got the attention which got the new owner to the union action, one dues ex machina is not ground for public policy, any more than trumps "tough negotiation" to keep a factory open in the us is a workable public policy.
The problem isn't that I'm not reading it's that you're superimposing the reality you want instead of the reality that we have.
verizon has more leeway because there are some things you can't do to a phone system from india or china. Like get a tree off the line.
The workers who occupied Republic Windows and Doors still have jobs.For different employers, who bought the plant. They were saved by another company buying and re-purposing their factory, not union action. Even if you want to attribute the publicity that got the attention which got the new owner to the union action, one dues ex machina is not ground for public policy, any more than trumps "tough negotiation" to keep a factory open in the us is a workable public policy.
The problem isn't that I'm not reading it's that you're superimposing the reality you want instead of the reality that we have.
verizon has more leeway because there are some things you can't do to a phone system from india or china. Like get a tree off the line.
Did you get to the part where the struck against the second employer when they tried to shut the plant down and are now a workers' cooperative?
Unions can, in fact, work, even if your job can be shipped overseas. Doesn't mean they always will, but they, in fact, can work if the union is willing to fight. Doesn't mean they will always succeed; there are, as Citizen Squeakmaan put it, no magic bullets.
Fighting Back: Workers Challenge Plant Shutdowns
A 1985 article from The Progressive (you have to scroll down a couple pages before getting to the article).
About a half dozen instances of the same deus ex machina.
EDIT: More like three or four.
Unrelated, but since you're a druid:
While mowing the lawn I came across a warren of baby rabbits that were scattering in every direction. They looked to be past nursing age (about the size of chipmunks) and I tried to use a towel to pick them up to put them in a box until after I was done mowing, but I inadvertently touched them a couple of times.
Will their mother keep them or should I look into rehoming them?
Unrelated, but since you're a druid:
While mowing the lawn I came across a warren of baby rabbits that were scattering in every direction. They looked to be past nursing age (about the size of chipmunks) and I tried to use a towel to pick them up to put them in a box until after I was done mowing, but I inadvertently touched them a couple of times.
Will their mother keep them or should I look into rehoming them?
mom will take them back, the smell of humans thing is a myth. if they live in your yard, they smell human allt he time.
(the myth is usually bandied about for baby birds and most birds have nearly no sense of smell. What happens is mom pushed the kid out of the nest for a reason: there's something wrong with you or "sorry, i can only keep 3 of you and you're the runt), the human puts it back and the reasons are still there, so RE BOOT!)mother nature can be a real...
Huzzah!
Maybe different for different animals?
While doing the other side of the house, I found mom. She was much more skittish than the babies, who just kind of sat there while I man- goblinhandled them.
While doing the other side of the house, I found mom. She was much more skittish than the babies, who just kind of sat there while Iman- goblinhandled them.
There's really no point in building in an "OH MY GOD RUN!" reaction to an animal until they have a top speed that could get them away from a predator. So babies up to a certain age are very "meh whatever" about being touched , considering they need to share cramped quarters and warmth with mom and the siblings.
Mom on the other hand has a fight or flight reflex going and being a rabbit its heavy on the flight. trying to convince her that you're a friendly human is probably impossible.
Hope the gerrymandering case goes the right way.
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The Republican wing of the court has previously contended that while it was clearly unconstitutional for some votes to 'count more' than others, there was nothing to be done about it because there was no way to quantitatively determine how big any such imbalance might be.
Given that one of the cases coming up revolves around a lower court concluding that the 'efficiency gap' constitutes just such a quantitative measure there is some hope that they will actually follow the Constitution and we can move towards less biased representation (and potentially less extreme partisanship) for the first time in the nation's history.
However, there are any number of ways that they could continue to avoid the issue. For example, they could say that determining what level of imbalance is a constitutional violation is impossible to determine... or that since the calculation is essentially (Percentage of votes received - Percentage of seats won) that it can only be applied AFTER an election has been held - thus allowing gerrymandering to continue for at least one election after each 10 year redistricting. They could even argue that since a state with a single congressional district could have up to a 49.99% efficiency gap without any gerrymandering that this must be the acceptable limit (rather than noting that the more districts are involved the smaller an unbiased efficiency gap should be).
A ruling respecting the equal protection clause of the Constitution would cause major GOP losses in upcoming elections. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see two or three justices put party before the law, but I'm somewhat hopeful that five of them won't do so.
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He graduated cum laude from harvard with a major in government. He is literally more qualified to be a senator than like 50% of the people sitting in the senate right now.
There you go with those pesky facts again.
P.S. It's probably more like 90%. Have you heard some of these people? ;-)
Sanders-Voting Female Teamster suggested they'd make good shishkabob.
I mean she still might wanna change her sign for business reasons. I'm sure just rabbits would work fine enough and shed have less people showing up just to question it.
I like rabbits, both ways.
I like rabbits, both ways.
We had rabbits when i was a kid until one bit my dad. Turns out if you mix rabbit in with chicken thighs and serve it its pretty indistinguishable from really good chicken thighs to kids
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My rabbits as a kid story is similar.
My sister and I found one in the backyard and fell in love. We brought in in the house and doted on it for a day or two, until my parents discovered that it belonged to a neighbor and gave it back. We cried and cried.
Later that week, my father brought home a rabbit of our own, whom we named Kermit. Then another couple days went by and he brought home another, Natalie. As is the way of things, Natalie soon got Kermit pregnant (we were stupid kids and got the sexes wrong), and soon we had somewhere between 20 and 30 rabbits. My sister and I were overjoyed, ("That one's Chocolate, and that one's M&M's, etc., etc"). Unbeknownst to us, our father, who had grown up on a farm outside of Pittsburgh, was also overjoyed.
Anyway, you can probably see it coming, but we didn't. One day, I get off the bus from elementary school and rush to the backyard to see the rabbits...and discover my father slaughtering them in his fish-cleaning tub. I cried and cried and cried, but, nonetheless, wasn't in the least bit suspicious when the "chicken" my mother served that night tasted different.
I was out of The Nation articles this morning (probably reset just now), so I have to resort to some re-listing:
This City Helped Pioneer the Fight for $15. Can It Revolutionize Housing Rights?
Also, short film I came across:
Rent control is a fine line. When housing is in short supply, prices get jacked up, which is what that article conveniently omits. In fairness, a 57% rate increase in 6 years is excessive. Combined with the fees that Washington State would appear to have not been challenged previously in court... yeah.
OTOH, it gives incentive to own. The only time mortgage payments go up is (usually) when the local gov't increases either the real property tax rate, the assessed value of the property or both.
On Yet-another-hand, there is legitimate risk to being a landlord. One bad tenant and you lose thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Most tenants are fine ... but it only takes one.
When rent control legislation goes too far is when a landlord is denied the right to sell their property in the name of tenancy rights.
Slumlords and terror-tenants aside, most of the time it works out more-or-less ... but I sure wouldn't want to be a landlord these days.
There is also The Left Forum coming up June 2-4th in NYC.
I think this might be the first time that I have pulled off a triple cross post!
Triple Cross Post!
A Principal Is Accused of Being a Communist, Rattling a Brooklyn School
From earlier last month, but posting now because La Principessa posted some pictures from a rally in Bloomberg's defense yesterday.
She's also doing a presentation on Bloomberg's case as part of her union caucus' presentation at Left Forum.
She's also told me stories about Bloomberg's Park Slope school over the past couple of years. It even was mentioned as an example of the tide of yuppie gentrifier racism in New York in one of those articles calling out Hollaback's racist anti-street harassment video that I posted however many years ago that was.
Should a Special Prosecutor be appointed to investigate Macedonian information farms?
I'm seriously considering registering Republican so I can vote AGAINST extreme-right Republican candidates in the primaries. As it stands, anyone who dares defy Trump risks being "primaried." And of course I can just vote D in the general anyway if I like. There really doesn't seem to be a down side.
What a perverse set of incentives and outcomes we've built. Our system is well and truly borked. :-(
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Rent control is a fine line. When housing is in short supply, prices get jacked up, which is what that article conveniently omits. In fairness, a 57% rate increase in 6 years is excessive. Combined with the fees that Washington State would appear to have not been challenged previously in court... yeah.
OTOH, it gives incentive to own. The only time mortgage payments go up is (usually) when the local gov't increases either the real property tax rate, the assessed value of the property or both.
On Yet-another-hand, there is legitimate risk to being a landlord. One bad tenant and you lose thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Most tenants are fine ... but it only takes one.
When rent control legislation goes too far is when a landlord is denied the right to sell their property in the name of tenancy rights.
Slumlords and terror-tenants aside, most of the time it works out more-or-less ... but I sure wouldn't want to be a landlord these days.
I think rent control is a bad idea. It genuinely interferes with the free market by discouraging investment in additional housing capacity. Ultimately, I think it exacerbates the problem it is purports to solve.
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Bulgey,
Like super borked and borged.
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The free market absolutely does not solve the problem though. Not in urban settings at least. Some form of subsidized, affordable housing is needed.
Because land is the premium and you can't invest in more of that. So it's more effective to make expensive housing on the limited land available and if poorer people can't find a place to live, that's their problem.
Rent control may not be the appropriate solution, but something needs to be.
Wow, this puts me on the side of the debate I don't often take. :-)
We know that price ceilings don't work. Nor is this a case of highly inelastic demand...yes, everyone needs a place to live, but one can usually move farther out from the urban center and find lower housing costs. If people value living closer to the urban center, then they'll be willing to pay more to do it. If not, they can drive in. If that's truly not viable, then business will grind to a halt (no employees), and property values will drop.
I guess in this case I have to disagree and say that something doesn't have to be done; instead, we should just leave well enough alone. I'm going to have to take the position that having to drive out to the 'burbs isn't actually a problem...or at least not one that the government should try to solve.
Other solutions that are in the purview of - in this case Seattle's governing apparatus - include (a) re-zoning areas that have fallen into disrepair into MUDs (mixed-use developments stacking residential atop light commercial and retail into a single multi-story building almost always with attached dedicated parking), perhaps including several in areas explicitly desired for lower income housing; (b) coming up with new incentives without subsidization; and (c) stealing other areas' solutions to incentivize lower-income housing solutions in new housing development whether they are subsidization or not.
An example of (c) that I am familiar with is that all new homes developments in my area are required to have a certain proportion of the development set aside as affordable housing. They are generally going to be the smallest floor plan and lot size with the baseline features, finishes and fixtures, but they're the cheapest homes offered in that community/development. This are built at cost or extremely close to it to make these units affordable, but at least they're there. The profitability of the rest of the development is derived from the larger, nicer homes/units sold.
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The free market absolutely does not solve the problem though. Not in urban settings at least. Some form of subsidized, affordable housing is needed.
Because land is the premium and you can't invest in more of that. So it's more effective to make expensive housing on the limited land available and if poorer people can't find a place to live, that's their problem.
Rent control may not be the appropriate solution, but something needs to be.
Wow, this puts me on the side of the debate I don't often take. :-)
We know that price ceilings don't work. Nor is this a case of highly inelastic demand...yes, everyone needs a place to live, but one can usually move farther out from the urban center and find lower housing costs. If people value living closer to the urban center, then they'll be willing to pay more to do it. If not, they can drive in. If that's truly not viable, then business will grind to a halt (no employees), and property values will drop.
I guess in this case I have to disagree and say that something doesn't have to be done; instead, we should just leave well enough alone. I'm going to have to take the position that having to drive out to the 'burbs isn't actually a problem...or at least not one that the government should try to solve.
What this actually results in though is poorer folks still needing to take city jobs, and also forced to spend far more time each day commuting, not to mention having a larger portion of there paycheck get invested in said commute.
I mean I live on Long Island, and there is no way I can afford to live within a half an hour of the place I work. So I either rack up the miles on my car on a minimum hour and a half round trip commute, or I pay 11 bucks per day to take a train into work.