Wading Through the BART Propaganda

A second Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) strike was narrowly averted Monday when Governor Jerry Brown intervened to order a seven-day investigation of the labor dispute during which workers are banned from walking out.  BART management, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1555 are still miles apart on the basic issues of pay, benefits and worker safety.  Management is hoping to essentially freeze real wages at their current level after four years of cuts while workers fight to increase their real take home pay, institute new safety measures and protect current health plans and pensions.  The entire union-management dispute is a case study on the dangers of union givebacks, media’s anti-union bias, management’s leveraging of the recession to cut wages and declining solidarity in American society…

Freedom Isn’t For the Little People

George Mason University’s conservative Mercatus Center has just published a report on “Freedom in the 50 states” and guess what – the liberal bastions of New York and California are running dead last for the second year in a row!  But fear not severely repressed Angelenos and New Yorkers.  The study says far more about the contemporary Right’s distorted views on freedom than it does about the range of choices available to Americans.

Freedom is for the rich…

The report’s main revelation is that conservatives equate freedom almost exclusively with “the freedom to spend money as you see fit (especially if you’re a business).”  More than two-thirds of the freedom score is based on fiscal and regulatory “freedom,” with a blunt measure of the overall state and local tax burden alone accounting for almost 30%.  Under Mercatus’ rubric, things like allowing businesses to harm consumers with reduced consequences, banning free speech on private property and not paying for health insurance that allows people to live fuller lives are freedom promoting.  Giving new mothers family leave to spend with their children, assuring workers the right to speak freely in the workplace and providing tax dollars to poor people for benefits like food stamps or childcare subsidies, these are all freedom reducing.

Freedom is for the powerful…

This gets at a larger point that comes increasingly into focus as you read through the reports details:  Conservative freedom is freedom for the wolf, not the sheep.  Freedom is the right of your boss to fire you for your political beliefs, not your right to express your political opinion at work.  Freedom is the right of rentiers to jack up your rental rates, not your right to have an affordable place to live.  Freedom is the right of a business to pay you as little as they want, not your right to a minimum wage that dramatically expands the choices of you and your family.  Primacy is given to business and the wealthy consumer, with only indirect scraps of freedom left to workers and other citizens.

Freedom is not your grandpappy’s freedom…

Items one traditionally associates with freedom – civil liberties, free speech laws, civil rights, freedom from unjust incarceration – are either completely absent or given short shrift.  Restrictions on police and judiciary power are only important as they relate to the victimless crimes of drug and alcohol use.  If you so much as think about lifting that 7-11 Twinkie though, your ass can rot in a cage for 25 to life with nary a dent in “freedom.”  Totally fine to have police fly mini-drones down your suburban street or place recording devices on all downtown light poles, but god help Lady Freedom if the local town council mandates that businesses have to marginally limit the size of their neon beer signs.  Also absent from the report’s analysis is racial/gender/sexual orientation discrimination, which dramatically impacts a person’s freedom to live where they want, have the job they desire and gain access to things like bank loans.

Freedom is not applicable in your daily life…

This seemingly glaring oversight is only possible because Mercatus’s “freedom” relates exclusively to freedom vis-à-vis business and (to a lesser extent) individual interactions with government.  There is no room in this conservative framework for freedom in spheres where most of us spend our time:  at work, in our community or interacting with large corporations.  Racial bigotry or misogyny doesn’t restrict freedom in the right-wing worldview, as long as it’s perpetuated by landowners, businesses or dominant social groups (and not the government).  Similarly, the dictatorial workplace power of business owners, who can fire employees for their party affiliation or the color of their hair, doesn’t budge the free-o-meter because freedom doesn’t extend to the work sphere.  Culturally, conservatives view San Francisco’s nose-ring wearing, tattooed green anarchists as less free than blue-haired Tennessee churchgoers because they completely ignore the role of progressive social/cultural heterogeneity in giving people the freedom to live without oppressive social norms.

… and freedom is definitely not for the masses

Overall then, the right-wing vision for freedom is a sad one.  Gone are the enlightenment emphases on freedom of speech, freedom of association and the broader right of the little man to be free from interference by large institutions.  Instead, conservative freedom is largely freedom for business owners and the rich to exercise control over their property, workers and money.  For the rest of us, Mercatus carves out a tiny free-space where we can consume unregulated corporate products, work long days for shit pay for said corporations, and smoke, drink, and gamble away the pain of losing real control over our lives.  Who’s ready to vote Libertarian!?

Studio Gangster CEOs

France’s press is enflamed today over fake tough guy comments made by Titan Tire CEO Maurice “Morry” Taylor.  The French government approached a number of potential buyers for a troubled Goodyear Tire plant in Amiens, and Taylor was just prickish enough to write a fuck you letter to the French Industry Minister and graciously CC major media outlets.  “The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours” writes Taylor.  “One hour they’re paid to do nothing but eat, scratch themselves or whatever” and then they “talk for three” hours.  He says the French government “can keep the so-called workers” because “Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government.”

A few points.  First, the media totally fawns over Taylor and his tough guy image.  Reuters writes that Morry is known as “’The Grizz’ for his bear-like no-nonsense style.” He’s “tough-talking” and describes himself as “’abrasive’ in order to ‘get the job done.’”  Since when did flying around on double-plush white leather seats in your private jet, splashing around in your mega-sized Jacuzzi, drinking rare wine from a golden flute and being a paunchy, balding sixty-something year old make you manly?  I’d bet all the Euros I could get my hands on that any union worker in that plant could’ve kicked the Grizz’s pudgy old ass.

The media also delight in beating up on European workers and unions while encouraging American workers to identify with, and obey, their capitalist masters.  Reuters titles its article (also featured on Yahoo News) ‘Keep your so-called workers,’ U.S. boss tells France,” setting up a US/France clash, and begins by framing Taylor’s rant as “how some outsiders view France’s work ethic.” It goes on to mention that “economists blame France’s rigid hiring and firing laws for a long industrial decline” and says that Taylor’s criticism “made for another public knock to France’s business image.”  This carries on a long tradition of Anglo-American media attacking European social welfare states for their vacation policies and worker protections, implicitly warning US workers against raising their heads or talking back to their masters lest their jobs be shipped to China.

The last remarkable part of this story is the incredible deference shown to Taylor’s opinion by the press.  Imagine if a charismatic French union worker wanted to take shots at a brash bag of hot air American CEO who was getting his ass handed to him by his French industrial rival Michelin.  Would any newspaper dream of printing that?  Would publications like Reuters dream of printing even one quote from a worker in the plant that Taylor used his wealth and connections to take pot shots at?  Of course not.

It’s time to retire the falsified swashbuckling corporate raider executive image and put CEOs back in the Rolls Royce parking, manicure getting, servant ordering estate where they belong.

The Incredible Shrinking Worker Bargaining Power

New York capital and derivatives market lawyer Charles Davi penned an interesting article (“The Mystery of the Incredible Shrinking American Worker”] for The Atlantic this week attempting to explain why the share of national income going to American workers is declining.  The answer?  Microprocessors and container technology – which are really stand-ins for a globalized labor market and capital-biased technological progress.  Davi’s article demonstrates the excessive emphasis that flat-worlders place on trade and technology, their refusal to accept a role for democratic interdiction to raise wages and some of the biases inherent to neoclassical economics.

Source: EPI

Davi writes that falling American wages reflect the fact that “people are becoming less valuable to companies.”  This is a classic economics move that obfuscates the real issue.  People aren’t becoming less valuable, companies are just able to pay them less for the same service.  American workers are a lot more productive than they used to be, they just aren’t being compensated for it.  Why pay Chad $12/hour and offer him healthcare to be a Wendy’s grillmaster, when you could just as easily threaten to fire him when he talks back and offer him a good Thermaflu recipe your gramma used to use? This type of unsupported assumption – that labor markets are perfectly competitive so marginal workers are paid their marginal product (i.e. value) – smells like horseshit the second you set foot outside the classroom.

Davi also focuses almost exclusively on out-sourceable jobs and services operating within a globalized supply chain.  But guess what?  Manufacturing jobs represent less than 20% of American production, with services comprising almost 80%.  Some of those services are IT jobs and phone centers, but mostly they’re provided by janitors, security guards, fast food workers and retail clerks.  These jobs are not subject to foreign competition, companies like McDonalds, Starbucks and Macy’s are making boatloads of money, and their workers still aren’t seeing a dime.  Proponents of the flat-world, “we have to face the reality of global competition (so STFU with all that “raise” talk peon)” world view simply ignore the bulk of U.S. workers in their arguments.

Davi’s answer to the incredible shrinkage of workers’ national income share is, of course, to train workers and invest in better education.  These are noble goals, but the fact is that even college-educated workers have seen their wages grow slower than their productivity over the past 15 years.

Source: EPI

Nowhere does he, or any other technocratic hack, mention doing things that would clearly raise wages – increase the minimum WAGE (it’s in the name for god sake!), increase worker bargaining power by expanding workers’ rights, incentivize companies to create jobs in the U.S. and penalize those that don’t, provide universal healthcare to remove the growing health insurance costs eating away at take home pay etc…  There’s been ample demonstration over the last few decades that rising worker productivity does not automatically translate into wage increases.  For that, workers and the populace will have to directly fight corporate America for a just share of America’s bountiful but unevenly distributed pie.

Get My Taxes Cut or You’re Fired

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recently enlisted hundreds of DC-area Starbucks workers to fight for the Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid cutting mission of billionaire-backed Fix the Debt.  Fix the Debt is a lobbying group composed of over 100 CEOs and executives from corporate giants like GE, Honeywell, and Goldman Sachs that aims to lower corporate taxes and protect defense spending, while cutting Social Security benefit growth, slashing Medicare funding and reducing expenditures on Medicaid for the poor.  Starbucks “partners” (which along with “member,” “associate,” “teammate” and “crew member” is just another bullshit Orwellian term intended to make you feel way more empowered at work than you actually are) were encouraged to write the phrase “Come Together [to cut my benefits and lower my boss’ taxes]” on patrons’ cups to send a “respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials” to lower the debt.

Schultz’ effort, which commenced the day after Christmas, follows a growing number of CEO attempts to influence the political positions of employees and harness worker manpower to push pro-rich, pro-business agendas.  No longer content to simply buy politicians, CEOs are now intent on directly coercing voters by threatening their livelihoods.

• In the run-up to the Presidential election, Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel told his employees that if President Obama was reelected and implemented new taxes, “I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company” which “means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.”
• ASG Software Solutions CEO Arthur Allen warned that if President Obama was reelected, ASG would “lose our independence as a company” resulting in the potential elimination of “about 60 percent of the salaries of the employees of [the] company.”
• Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray allegedly conditioned promotions and bonuses on political donations, and pushed workers to attend Romney campaign events without pay.

Similar examples can be found with the Koch brothers and a number of other executives.

This continuation and strengthening of corporate influence on the body politic is clearly disturbing.  In most states, your boss has the right to fire or discipline you based on how you vote, who you donate money to or which political policies you advocate.  While CEOs used to use this power sparingly for fear of facing public ire, the gloves are increasingly coming off.  It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to envision a near-future world where political beliefs are screened in interviews, employee contributions are tracked by HR and dissenters are slow-tracked or fired.  Employment contracts already restrict workers’ dress, speech, movement, rights to association and many other behaviors, so why not political beliefs?

The other important part of this story is to highlight methods of resistance.  In California, state law restricts employers from terminating or threatening to fire employees based on their political beliefs.  Oregon has laws banning captive political meetings by employers and threats/actualization of dismissal based on voting.  Union contracts, which typically require “just cause” for discipline or termination, are also an effective way to stop corporate meddling.  Then there’s always the possibility that progressives will put down their Quinoa-infused organic enemas and double skinny vanilla lattes for a half-second and actually start to boycott anti-worker companies like Whole Foods and Starbucks.  Unless the left begins to strongly push for freedom of speech at work, collective bargaining for workers and public fight-backs against these modern barons, we’re all in for a darkly corporate-dominated political future.

No Rights at Work

Two articles published today highlight the state of workers’ rights in America (I’ll give you a hint: they’re shit).  The New York Times reports in its labor section (or sorry, business section) that the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), comprised of organized grocery store, meatpacking and retail outlet employees, must immediately cease picketing Walmart stores.  The reason?  A federal law bans groups of workers seeking a union from picketing an establishment for more than 30 days.  If you’re a corporate HR director, guess how long you’re waiting out those workers?

Meanwhile, the recently proposed Paycheck Fairness Act is attempting to legalize, amongst other rights, the rights of workers to discuss their salaries with each other.  That’s right, under current law, if Bob working over in the deli meat section reveals he just got a raise to $26,000 a year, his boss can not only fire him, but can also take his ass to court and sue him!  And if you let him know what you’re making, you can suffer the same fate.

These are two of a litany of US laws restricting everything from the size of stickers you can wear at work to the composition and dimensions of picket signs and banners you can hold out front.  Complain about your working conditions to your boss?  You’re fired.  Raise safety concerns about your own work?  You’re fired.  Talk to your co-worker about organizing a union during your shift?  You are fucking fired. Even the few workers’ rights that are protected, namely collective rights to organize and raise complaints about working conditions, are laxly enforced and penalized.

To give but one example, imagine a Walmart clerk is leading a successful organizing drive with her co-workers to raise their wages from the current $8.00/hour.  Walmart illegally fires her for these activities, she finds another job after a couple months and she sues.  Assuming she can defeat the cadre of seven figure lawyers Walmart trots out, the nation’s largest corporation would be hit with a whopping ~$2,800 fine for annihilating the leader of a workers group.  Anyone at Walmart want to organize?

Source: CEPR [2009]

Let them Teach

Teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School are expanding their boycott of the district’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) tests.  The boycotters claim that MAP fails to identify specific areas of student weakness and doesn’t accurately assess student progress.  Additionally, the tests tie up computer labs for months and have a standard error larger than students’ expected performance gains.  Educators like English teacher Rachel Eells says they’d rather lose their jobs than waste any more of their students’ time.

This small, collective act of principle is important for a number of reasons.  First, the dissent of the teachers itself is commendable.  American authorities demand more and more obedience from citizens every year.  Police mercilessly crush Occupy Protests in the streets, TSA officers harangue travelers at the nation’s airports, service sector managers maintain near dictatorial control over their employees and school districts force educators to administer dozens of hours of standardized tests.  These teachers have rejected a direct command from district authorities based upon their principled belief that these tests are wrong.

The boycott also illustrates the importance of collective vs. individual action.  I’m not one to disparage the Scarface-from-Half-Baked school of one man armies, but there’s no way this boycott has an impact without coordination.  If one teacher stands up and none of her co-workers stand with her, you’re looking at a national geographic lioness on baby wildebeest type slow death scenario (represented in the professional world by a series of subpar performance reviews followed by a prolonged, awkward force out).  Instead, school district officials “acknowledge that some of the teachers’ concerns have merit and will be discussed as part of a long-planned review of all district tests this spring.”

Finally, this small band of Garfield teachers has inspired hundreds of others in Seattle and across the nation.  Nearly the entire Garfield faculty stand by the boycotters, teachers at three other area schools have voiced support or joined the boycott, Seattle PTAs and student organizations are on board and leading national educators like Jonathan Kozol, Diane Ravitch and Noam Chomsky have written in solidarity.

The boycott is important and praiseworthy independent of its strong argumentative merits.  The district Superintendent who paid for and instituted MAP in Seattle Public Schools also happened to be a board member of the company who sold the test, a fact she didn’t reveal until after finalizing the contract.  The MAP tests also appear to be particularly poor at assessing student progress.  In addition to these local issues, many national education analysts have attacked the proliferation of standardized tests in general, saying they eat into teaching time, destroy creativity and incentivize schools to defund music and art programs.  But arguments against flawed standardized tests can’t fight their own battles – they need an army.  Imagine the impact a dozen, a hundred or a thousand similar boycotts could have on education policy in the United States.