Category: Labor

Card Check Killed in Senate

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Most of the rest of the reforms remain intact, but the card check provision has been removed.

What remains is the right of unions to campaign on company property, a faster election cycle, which gives less time for employers to strong arm and illegally fire employees, making mandatory anti-union meetings illegal, and binding arbitration.

Truth be told, I expect it to be watered down further, because the Barack Obama administration has been studiously silent on this measure, throwing yet another key constituency, unions, under the bus as they have with labor.

This bill will not progress with meaningful reform without White House support, and none is forthcoming.

A Real Progrom toi Help the Economy

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The minimum wage goes from $6.55/hr to $7.25/hr on July 24.

The linked article wrings it hands about the “stress” on the job market from the increase, but the reality is that no one has ever been able to find a correlation between increases in the minimum wage and unemployment, and getting more money into the hands of poor people, who spend the money more quickly, is the best way to get the economy moving.

That Whole “No Paid Leave Laws” Thing: H1N1 Edition

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It turns out that the place hit worst by H1N1 right now is the good old USA.

Why? Because of our antediluvian workplace and worker protections.

We are the only industrial nation that does not require paid sick and vacation time, so, “infections among healthcare workers suggest that people are showing up at work sick — meaning that workplace policies may be contributing to its spread.”

You think that the American workplace, with its inducements to come in sick might contribute to the spread of disease?

Who would have thunk it?

Boston Globe Newspaper Guild Rejects Wage Cuts

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So the New York Times Corporation is unilaterally implementing a 23% wage cut.

I think that the National Labor Relations board may have something to say about this.

Absent bankruptcy, a contract is a contract.

I think there have been a number of reasons that this was rejected.

First, the Times‘ financial problems, are not as a result of the declines in the newspaper industry, but because of the enormous amount of debt that they took on to build, and move into, a swanky new headquarters building in 2007, and to pay (borrowed) cash for it.

When they could not roll over the short term loan, because of the financial crisis, they had to take a loan from Carlos Slim at very high rates. (14% !)

It also did not help that management handled communications abysmally, refusing to talk to its employees about the offer, refusing to send New York execs to the newsroom, and getting the math wrong, and then refusing to adjust the deadline, and making the cuts for rank and file about 50% larger than those of management.

This wasn’t a communication of the needs of the corporation, it was a communication of contempt for Boston by the folks in New York.

It should also be noted that the fact that the Times was not looking at New York for any give backs, and in fact continues to spend profligately, and just 2 weeks ago, the gift that keeps on giving, Thomas Friedman, shot his mouth off about how he never had to talk to an editor about what he is doing or spending:

Thomas Friedman, the Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist, lauded the efforts that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., has made to keep the newsroom intact, saying, “I just have a great deal of admiration for him.” He told me that since taking his current post, in 1995, he has never been asked by Sulzberger what he was planning to write, or how high his travel expenses would be. “To be able to say what I want to say and go where I want to go—other than a Sulzberger-owned newspaper, you tell me where that exists today.”

(emphasis mine)

So, once again, Thomas Friedman, the man who is always wrong, drops another steaming redolent load on people who are ordinary enough that they have to work for a living.

I don’t know why the pay his travel expenses, he can create fictitious taxicab drivers who say exactly what he wants them to say while sitting at his home.

Another Day, Another Obama Backdown on a Campaign Promise

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So now Barack Obama is saying that they just don’t have the votes to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA):

President Barack Obama said there aren’t enough votes in the Senate to pass “card-check” legislation sought by labor unions and only a revamped measure would have a chance getting through Congress.

“There may be areas of compromise to get this bill done,” Obama said today a town hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque.

Suck it up man!

You are the President of the United States of America! Your job is to find the votes for this.

He thinks that by not pushing this, he’ll get cooperation from the ‘Phants healthcare or his other initiatives. He’s wrong.

And, BTW, I am sick and tired of all these people claiming that he’s playing some sort of ten dimensional chess, he’s not.

He figures that labor has no where else to go, so he will not work for them.

A Democrat You Should Not Make Donations To

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Senator Blanche Lincoln (R-AR), who has come out against the Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check).

Not only that, she is clearly signaling that she will support a filibuster.

Not only is this bad policy, it’s also bad politics, since union members vote Democratic, but being from Arkansas, Wal-Mart owns her.

Put your money elsewhere, and give to individual candidates, not the DSCC, which will doubtlessly funnel money to her race in 2010.

Kenneth Lewis Dead Pool

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I’ve kind of thought that the Obama administration’s ouster of Rick Wagoner was primarily a political ploy, but it has created a new question, with people asking why him, and not people like Bank of America’s CEO Kenneth Lewis, whose purchases of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch seem to be ample reason for his firing.

I’m hoping that someone in the White House actually intended this effect.

I don’t generally subscribe to the “Barack Obama has a plan, but it’s too subtle for us to see right now,” thing, but it does seem to me that, intentionally or not, the stage has been set for the firing of a bank president at one of the 5 or so banking giants out there.

It would be the a good thing to do, it would put the fear of God in these “masters of the universe.”

The reason that I am fingering Kenneth Lewis is that the other likely bank to be so target is Citi, but CEO Charles Prince was already forced out and replaced by Vikram Pandit, and BoA is the next sickest bank on the list.

Additionally, Lewis has been unrepentant in his attitude, continuing to (over) use the private jet, and chafing at the TARP restrictions, all while maintaining that he will send back the money “real soon now.”

The final reason for my suggesting that he might be forced out, in addition to my visceral dislike of him, is that he, and his bank, have aggressively lobbied against the EFCA (card check) legislation, and now directly calling for his ouster, which means that Obama picks up some labor credibility without having to go to the mat for the EFCA.

White House “Happy” that EFCA is Dead?

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I would offer the the caveat that one of the contributors to MSNBC’s “First Read” is Chuck Todd, who can be one of the stupidest muthf%$#ers in the White House press room,* but there is a report that the White House is “happy to have this debate out of the way” because, “sticking a finger in business’ eye wasn’t something the White House was looking forward to.”

This is about the most politically opportune time to do this, with the public attitude toward businesses being rather low, AIG is a symptom, not the trend.

I cannot for the life of me think of anyone in the White House who would even hold this opinion, except for economic adviser, and poster child for sex without partners, Lawrence Summers, who is on record saying that unions cause unemployment,† but even he isn’t stupid enough to mouth off to a reporter, or for that matter a co-worker, about this.

I’ll call bullsh%$ on this for now.

*Cases in point were his questions at the first two press conferences, would Obama veto something that doesn’t get any Republican votes in the interest of bipartisanship, and how Americans should sacrifice to address the financial meltdown (like millions of people out of work and losing their homes isn’t enough) because he does not understand the difference between a foreign war and a domestic economic downturn.
†Yeah, I know, with “Democrats” like him, who needs Republicans.

Political Scabbing and Management Threats Against Labor

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So Arlen Spector has decided to cave, again, because of his fears of being primaried, and he has announced that he will vote against cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act, and Federal Express has said that it will cancel its contract to purchase Boeing aircraft if the EFCA passes.

I am not surprised at Spector, who has never seen a principled stance that he couldn’t weasel of, though I am surprised that FedEx, which has a long history of virulent and nasty anti-union activity, put a clause in their aircraft purchase contract that allowed them to cancel if unionizing there gets easier,* is a surprise.

Needless to say, if I need to send anything, I will use the use the US Post Office or UPS, rather than those C*cks*ck*rs.

*The EFCA would change how FedEx organizes, moving it from the National Railway Labor Act to the National Labor Relations Act, which means that parts of the company could unionize, as opposed to the whole company at once.

Wishing that I Was German

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Yes, that’s number 217 of the things that I never expected to say, but when I read that Angela Merkel’s governing coalition is looking to put statutory limits on executive pay, that is what I thought. When the conservatives in government argue that, in addition to encouraging bad behavior, “that growing wage disparities “pose a threat” to social cohesion,” I wonder why our policies are run by John Galt wannabes.

Ford Is Going Bankrupt

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And existing shareholders will be wiped out.

How do I know this?

Because Ford has concluded negotiations with the UAW to allow them to fund their health care trust fund with stock.

If there is anything that I am sure of, it is that when equity in a company is used as a benefit for rank and file workers, they will be wiped out, along with other share holders, in a bankruptcy.

Call me a cynic, but just ask the United Airlines pilots.

What David Said

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David Sirota notes that the push by the ‘Phants to cut retiree healthcare and pensions may create a profound change in labor negotiations.

This makes sense. Why negotiate for pension benefits or health insurance for retirees if you cannot trust the company to be there when the bill comes due.

Just go for the money up front:

Now, I think workers should always drive a hard bargain, but I also think that we don’t want to have an economy that effectively tells workers that they should never trust the future commitments of employers and that they therefore should be willing to destroy a company in order to get cash/benefits up front.

And that’s what slashing autoworkers’ health care and retiree benefits would do: It would likely make unions far more rigid in their future negotiations with all employers. That, of course, would be rational behavior by unions – having learned that employers’ future commitments cannot be trusted, they would simply never be flexible in trading wages for future benefits.

Somehow, the right wing thinks that contracts are sacred, so no cramdowns on mortgages, unless, of course they are with their employees, in which case, they are mere scribblings in the sand…..on a beach….before a hurricane hits.

Auto Industry Update

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To get a perspective on just how bad the auto industry is hurting right now, look at this graph from Calculated Risk.

It’s monthly the total auto fleet in the united states divided by auto sales, which gives you the turnover rate, basically a measure of how long it would take to replace every car on the road right now.

It’s gone from 10 years to 23.9 years, meaning that if this were baseline sales, the average age of the auto fleet would reach 29.9 years.

It’s clear that something, either auto sales, or the number of cars on the road, or both, will have to give, but this is just nuts.

It’s not surprising then that unions for GM subsidiaries in Europe want the car maker to spin-off of Opel and Saab. They know that they are viable, but that they will be sacrificed by the folks in Detroit.

So, while all this is going on, GM and Chrysler have to make their pitches for their recovery plan today, in order to get federal money.

At this point, there is only one thing that I know, any bailout should make Cerberus pay. The private equity firm that now owns Chrysler were looking for a quick flip on their investment, and they are unwilling to put any skin in the game.

As a first step, Cerberus must open its books to regulators.

Senate Committee Approves Hilda Solis

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If you recall the Republicans have been blocking a vote because they are demanding that she recuse herself from anything involving the Employee Free Choice act, even though a labor secretary is supposed to, you know, support labor, and passage of the bill is an explicit goal of Barack Obama.

After all this, she was approved by a voice vote in a meeting lasting perhaps 2 minutes.

The ‘Phants are really a bunch of dickwads.

The Devil is in the Details

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Because Obama’s plan to limit executive pay to $500K to TARP recipients will sink or swim on the loopholes.

Larry Summers’ suggestion that, “Executive compensation above a specified threshold amount be paid in restricted stock or similar form that cannot be liquidated or sold until the government has been repaid,” is one such loophole, because if the restricted stock has dividends, it’s back to the races.

One of the things that needs to be understood is that Wall Street’s excessive salary structure is not just a symptom of the current banking problem, it’s one of the causes, because the excessive leverage and incompetent risk taking made year over year results so remunerative that it encouraged byzantinely complex instruments.

As a note, it’s actually not the executives who will get hit hardest by this:

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”

Mr. Reda said only a handful of big companies pay chief executives and other senior executives $500,000 or less in total compensation. He said such limits will make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms.

(emphasis mine)

It’s the “compensation consulting firms”, whose business model is to get paid lots of money from CEOs and Boards of Directors to recommend high salaries to those very same CEOs and Boards of Directors, who lose the most.

It sure beats working for a living.

Major Oil Refinery Strike Possible

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Talks between Royal Dutch Shell and the United Steelworkers do not appear to be going well, and a strike would idle about ½ the Gasoline refining in the United States.

The contract expires on Sunday, and if they go on strike, we can expect to see a significant spike in gasoline prices.

Needless to say, the ‘Phants would then be screaming for Obama to invoke Taft-Hartley, though I do not think that this would happen.