Happy May Day!

The Internationale

Arise! ye starvelings, from your slumbers;
Arise! ye prisoners of want.
For reason in revolt now thunders
And ends at last the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses, arise! arise!
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

Chorus
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the human race.

No saviour from on high delivers;
No faith have we in prince or peer.
Our own right hand the chains must shiver:
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.
E’er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at his forge must do his duty
And strike the iron while it’s hot!

The law oppresses us and tricks us,
The wage slave system drains our blood;
The rich are free from obligation,
The laws the poor delude.
Too long we’ve languished in subjection,
Equality has other laws;
“No rights,” says she “without their duties,
No claims on equals without cause.”

Behold them seated in their glory
The kings of mine and rail and soil!
What have you read in all their story,
But how they plundered toil?
Fruits of the workers’ toil are buried
In strongholds of the idle few
In working for their restitution
The men will only claim their due.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we’ll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They’ll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We’ll shoot the Generals on Our Own Side.

We peasants, artisans, and others
Enrolled among the sons of toil,
Let’s claim the earth henceforth for brothers,
Drive the indolent from the soil!
On our Flesh too Long has fed the Raven;
We’ve too long been the vulture’s prey.
But now farewell the spirit craven:
The dawn brings in a brighter day.

Score one for Hillary

The late-night talkies are once again heating up as an electoral battleground, especially amid the charged environment of the writers' strike. And while one douchebag professed support for the strikers and then immediately turned around to cross their picket line, Hillary pulled off an absolutely fucking brilliant tactical coup:

David Letterman officially made his return to late-night television just after 4:30 on Wednesday afternoon, when he opened the taping of Wednesday night’s show by passing through a chorus line of long-legged showgirls clad in white tie and bearing placards that read, “Writers Guild of America on Strike.”

After the taping was concluded, the show’s producers inserted a one-line joke to precede the host’s entrance — delivered not by Mr. Letterman but by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, via satellite from Iowa, on the eve of the state’s presidential caucuses.

“Dave has been off the air for eight long weeks due to the writers’ strike,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Tonight he’s back. Oh well. All good things come to an end.”

A modest one liner to lead off the return of Dave, head of the only production company decent enough to negotiate and settle with his writers, and maybe more importantly, the only late-night gabber returning to the airwaves with the benefit of his formidable writing staff (Leno already isn't funny, and I can't imagine how unfunny he'd be without his writers). The hour looks to be a pretty blistering scornfest for the AMPTP, as Letterman has always been very pro-writer (he's a WGA member himself). Hopefully, his late-night megaphone can help re-build momentum that seems to have been lagging of late for the WGA to win a settlement.

And back to Hillary - well played ma'am. A low-key quip at the top of the anticipated return of one of currently only two union talk shows (the other being the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, also produced by Letterman's production company) is an astonishingly clever move.

In case you needed another reason

You tell me: is Mike Huckabee an asshole or an idiot?

Former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas today professed his support for the striking television writers union just a few hours before he was expected to board a plane to for a taping of the Jay Leno show where he will face a vocal picket line of striking writers.

Mr. Leno’s program is returning to the air for the first time since a long hiatus for the strike. Speaking to reporters, Mr. Huckabee said he was unaware that he would be crossing picket lines and believed that he the program had reached a special agreement with the union.

Settle now!

Does Hollywood have any clue as to the havoc they're wreaking by not agreeing to a fair settlement with the writers? My god!

For the love of god, settle!

Mmmmm, that's some tasty kool-aid

Well, it appears I've been thoroughly socialized into the intellectual and political norms of the organization for which I work. I just finished reading Richard Kahlenberg's Tough Liberal, a biography of Al Shanker, and I found myself nodding in agreement with his stands 95% of the time. On issues of public education, school standards, identity politics, and the future of unionism I would read of Shanker's contribution and think to myself, "Yeah, that sounds about right." Where I diverged was on issues of foreign policy. While I certainly believe that we (as Americans) have a responsibility to promote democratic institutions (like a free labor movement) abroad, I'm profoundly uncomfortable with Shanker's explicit linking of the promotion of democracy with militarism. I'm not naïve enough to believe that democracy doesn't require arms to defend it at times, but I can never bring myself to believe that it can be imposed, nor do I believe that those who most vocally trumpet the need to bring democracy via military force are, in fact, interested in it at all. The rhetorical linkage between "democratic values," economic free-market globalization, and military intervention isn't a topic that the book broaches

On the little matter of the book itself, Tough Liberal is a pretty straight-forward conventional biography. Admittedly, I like my biographies to be a little more analytic and critical, but as a tool for understanding teacher's unions (and one in particular) as they currently exist, Kahlenberg's book is an important contribution. I'll go on record as recommending it, if only to make you proud to be following in the footsteps of a truly gifted union leader and thinker.

What's not to love?

I love Steve Carell. I love his acting and writing. I love the fact that he's refusing to cross the Writer's Guild's picket lines. And I especially love his excuse:

Additionally, I've been told that Steve Carell informed NBC he is unable to report to work because he is suffering from “enlarged balls.” Not just enlarged, I'd say, but brass ones. The source on this one adds, "We wish him a happy, slow recovery."

Organizers take note

The new threshold for filing for card check recognition under the NLRA will now be 70% of the unit. Please file this under "ways employers will jerk you around" when you're undertaking a new organizing campaign.

That is all.

Happy fucking Labor Day

It's Labor Day! Time to roll out the "unions are ruining America" meme!

The companies, hit hard by the slump in sales of trucks and sport-utility vehicles, collectively lost $16 billion last year, and each is undergoing restructuring that includes eliminating tens of thousands of jobs and closing dozens of plants. Auto executives have repeatedly said they must find ways to lower the cost of unionized labor in North America to return to profitability.

This isn't to say that the UAW doesn't have problems. Their bargaining model is highly centralized and far-removed from the organizing model which involves the rank-and-file, and they remain wedded to a model of industrial organization that's no longer relevant with the advent of post-Fordist production, putting brakes on the ability to rapidly change production techniques to meet changing demand.

But to put the responsibility for the lack of profitability on those who are trying to maintain a middle-class life that so many fought for over the last century? Not blaming the overpaid suits who manufactured demand for grotesquely oversized gas guzzlers, and continued to bank on them when the writing was on the wall with regards to higher oil prices? C'mon!

But I know, it's Labor Day. Blame the worker.

I'm sure none of us expected this...

Firefighters Union to Endorse Dodd.

That's right, blame the mountain, fuckwit

From this morning's WP Express, p. 4 (sorry, no link):

"Had I known that this evil mountain... would do what it did, I would never have sent the miners in here."
- Bob Murray, Co-owner of the coal mine in Huntington, Utah, where the long search for six miners was nearing a conclusion on Wednesday.

That's right, because you couldn't have possibly known that ignoring, nay, actively subverting mine safety regulations to make a buck could have resulted in people dying.

Blame the mountain, asshole.

Welcome aboard

Despite the signaling of their indifference to my job application with cold, cold silence, the California Nurses Association is my favorite incarnation of New Labor. I like them even more now that they're affiliating with the AFL-CIO in order to push for single-payer health care.

And because the nurses couldn't say it in a family newspaper, fuck you Andy Stern.

Graduate employee union has been

Goodbye GTFF.

Except for the office, and the people who work there. And a lot of the activists. Huh, and I guess some of the members, too. Yeah, I'll be seeing all of you around for a couple more months.

But, all the same, goodbye GTFF.

And this will help your case how?

I'll admit it. I have no idea what the UFCW is gunning for here:

The leading US shop workers union has sent flyers to thousands of homes in Phoenix, Arizona that suggest Tesco sells alcohol to minors. The leaflets, distributed by the local branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, call on residents to "protect your family" by urging the State Liquor Board to block Tesco's alcohol licence applications. The move is part of a broader union campaign to force Tesco to talk to it. Bob Grossfeld, of the UFCW, said Tesco's management was refusing to make any contact. "They're exacerbating the situation by simply being arrogant and rude. It brings into question whether they are going to be a responsible member of the community."

I know this is standard operating procedure for the corporate campaign: dig up dirt on evil corporation X in order to build up public support for a unionization campaign. Tesco certainly fits the bill as evil corporation X as they mull over invoking the Wal-Mart model of employee relations, but the dirt dug up by the UFCW in this case seems like it could backfire mightily.

My first reaction (placing myself in the position of Joe Sikspak) was, "Okay, Tesco may sell booze to minors, and this means you should have a union because...?" The logic just doesn't follow, in my head. I then read these two grafs:

The latest batch of leaflets went out last Thursday to homes in Scottsdale, a wealthy suburb which attracts the likes of Christina Aguilera for its nightlife and Kate Moss for its rehab facilities, and is host to countless Republican party fundraisers.

For Tesco, this makes it a perfect destination for its Fresh and Easy neighbourhood market chain, which is expected to spark a revolution in US convenience shopping by offering high-end ready meals and fresh food. It also makes the residents unlikely union sympathisers, hence the threat of underage drinking at the heart of UFCW's campaign.

Oh, I see, since Scottsdale trends Republican, make underage drinking a "values issue!" Shrewd, except for the fact that said booze will be peddled by, you guessed it, employees who might want to unionize. So are folks who are already predisposed to be against unions in the first place going to be excited that the people selling their kids bottles of Boone's Farm and Thunderbird will be protected by a union grievance procedure and just cause? Probably not.

Which brings up the obvious question: is the goal here to force Tesco into some neutrality agreement with regards to a UFCW organizing campaign, or is it to keep Tesco from opening stores in the Phoenix metro area? Because if it's the former, this campaign might have hamstrung their community-organizing efforts right out of the gates.

Am I missing something here? Is this a brilliant campaign move or a paint-by-numbers corporate campaign where they're flinging the first piece of poo they can find that looks like a winner?

I wouldn't crack the bubbly just yet

The WaPo has a piece on a drop in the unemployment rate, hitching the drop to rising employment in the construction industry:

Unemployment fell in March to 4.4 percent as a rebound in construction hiring helped the economy add 180,000 jobs over the month, a better showing than expected, the government reported today.

Which all sounds well and good, with the Post going on to add:

A downturn in the housing and automotive industries had prompted concern that the economy was slowing, leading some analysts to predict that the Fed would lower interest rates sometime this year to spur growth.

But today's job report makes that outcome less likely.

Makes that outcome less likely, eh? I think a lot of people are going to be in for an "oh shit" moment in the not too distant future (via Wolcott):

[T]he media has still not put together the collapse of the housing bubble and the permanent oil crisis. These events will be happening simultaneously. The housing industry, so-called, will never recover because the oil crisis spells the end of the suburban build out. The cycle is over. The big production homebuilders will go down and never come back. We won't need any more retail, either. We won't be building anymore WalMarts and Target stores, and the thousands now running will die off just as the giant Baluchitherium of the Asian steppes crapped out in the early Miocene epoch.

The end of the suburban build-out will be a stupendous trauma for the United States because, unfortunately, we have made it the basis of our economy for a generation, as well as our living arrangement. Not only will incomes and livelihoods be lost on the grand scale, and never come back, but, as the global oil predicament deepens, the existing fabric of our vast suburbs will become increasingly useless and worthless. The people stuck in them will lose whatever wealth they have accumulated and our arrangements for daily life will become increasingly nightmarish.
This is the part of the story that the mainstream media still can't put together. Peak oil and the housing bust are a mutually-reinforcing clusterfuck.

So let's not start patting each other on the back just yet.

Would you like some cheese with that McWhine?

One day when I'm obscenely rich, I'm going to harass dictionary editors to remove words I don't like:

McDonald's Corp. is reviving its campaign to ditch the dictionary definition of "McJob," this time setting its sites on the vocabulary of Britons. The world's largest fast food company said Tuesday it plans to launch a campaign in the U.K. this spring to get the country's dictionary houses to change current references to the word "McJob."

The Oxford English Dictionary, considered by many wordsmiths as the gold standard for the English language, is one of those that will be targeted. It defines the noun as "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector."

The word first cropped up two decades ago in the Washington Post, according to the dictionary. But executives at Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's say the definition is demeaning to its workers and say theyll ask dictionary editors to amend the definition.

It's not demeaning to the workers. It's demeaning to the shitty, low-wage, no-benefit jobs for which McDonald's hires. Maybe instead of paying law-talkin' guys to write sharply worded letters to the OED, they should devote some of that scratch to transforming their corporate franchises into decent workplaces. But maybe that's me.

Wherein I play the role of nefarious union organizer

Listening to the EFCA debates today, we got a kick out of the claim that union organizers refused to return cards to people who changed their mind. I got someone to sign a card today who then had second thoughts (the lamest second thoughts ever, but second thoughts nonetheless), and I returned his card to him when asked. I suppose this downgrades my status from "nefarious" to merely "bad."

Labor hell

Imagine working for a boss like this:

Mr. Smith said he viewed most stories of drug use and physical abuse as exaggerations. “I don’t put a lot of stock in them because, to be brutally frank with you, abuse is like beauty. It’s in the eyes of the beholder,” he said. “A loud voice, anything, can be called abuse.”

Welcome to the world of the itinerant, door-to-door magazine solicitor, an occupation that doesn't cry so much to be organized as it does to be completely abolished.

The sellers have few labor protections because they are classified as independent contractors, which also insulates the companies from regulation, taxes and liability. Categorized as outdoor sellers, the door-to-door peddlers are also exempt from most federal and state minimum wage and overtime requirements.

This is yet another reason to universalize worker protections. Nobody should have to live and work under the conditions described by these workers.

I've had these kids knocking on my door at least three times in Eugene. I remember two distinct stories. The first, referenced in the article, are the ones claiming to be earning points for a trip. The other I remember is that the solicitor was in a job-rehabilitation program for at-risk teens. I may have actually bought a subscription through one of them. I'm now left to wonder what my ethical obligation is the next time someone's on my doorstep offering me a savings of 60% off the cover price.

Sisters and brothers

I just got back from a leadership development training put on by our friends at the UO Labor Education and Research Center, where I had the pleasure (and I'm not being snarky here) of spending ten quality hours with some outstanding labor leaders from around the state.

We (justifiably) give SEIU a lot of shit around these parts: from Stern stabbing us in the back in any number of ways to the authoritarian manner in which they run their union, they've earned it. However, they do deserve credit for doing what they do well, which is empowering some of the most marginalized members of our society. In my class this weekend were three homecare workers, housewives who took (poorly-paid, emotionally and physically intensive) jobs later in life, with relatively little in the way of education and job skills. These women were among the most able to articulate why they were union activists, what they were fighting for, and how they were going to get what they deserved. They understood the political-economy of their profession, the politics of their union, and were unafraid of confronting their bosses. So for all the faults SEIU has, I doff my cap (at least to local 503) for really giving working people at the bottom of the totem pole the dignity and tools to advocate for themselves.

Generic playlist

What, I need a reason to post a random playlist? Well, fine... the Employee Free Choice Act [H.R. 800] was introduced today. So here's your labor-law reform playlist!

Jeebus, that doesn't make any sense...

• Polly - Nirvana
• I Got Stoned and I Missed It - Freedom of Expression
• Re-Ron - Gil Scott-Heron
• Nowhere Near - Yo La Tengo
• Offshoot - Dave Brubeck
• I Am a Lonesome Fugitive - Leo Kottke
• A Tear for Eddie - Ween
• All the Young Dudes - David Bowie
• Good Night - the Beatles
• 1968 - Bill Frisell

You want me to end this with some sort of witty repartée about the EFCA? You've got to be kidding me. I'm not doing it.

Seriously.

Oh... fine. Recognized through card check, here's your bonus #11. Jerks.

• Eat Starch Mom - Jefferson Airplane

Digging deeper (or, Wallowing in the pig sty of statistics)

A little digging on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, and my wish was granted. Here's a linky-loo to today's BLS press release, chock full of all sorts of information to geek out over.

One of the first things to catch my eye was the roughly 10:1 fullee/fairee ratio (15.4 million union members, 1.5 million workers represented by unions but not members). This number is actually kind of a head scratcher for me. First, that 10:1 ratio seems remarkably high to me (and maybe I'm really misinterpreting the number, which is probably why I didn't pursue quantitative analysis very vigorously). My first guess was that there would be wild variations between occupational and industrial categories, but the ratio remained remarkably stable across categories. It does vary across states, however, unsurprisingly correlating with "right-to-work" laws. I suppose if there's anything to be gleaned from these numbers, it's that when workplaces become organized, the density of membership within those bargaining units seems to be fairly high.

To get the official word on a little car-ride trivia with lexdexter and Chicago Nick:

The largest numbers of union members lived in California (2.3 million) and New York (2.0 million). Just under half (7.5 million) of the 15.4 million union members in the U.S. lived in six states (California, 2.3 million; New York, 2.0 million; Illinois, 0.9 million; Michigan, 0.8 million; New Jersey, 0.8 million; and Pennsylvania, 0.7 million), though these states accounted for about one-third of wage and salary employment nationally.

Does anyone want to explain Alaska's third-highest union density rate? Government employees and petroleum workers? We know it's not fishing.

Looking at our own little neck of the woods, Oregon lost roughly 2000 union members and 6000 union jobs over the last year (no breakdown as to which job categories these were). I'm wondering how much of this loss was attributable to busting weak unions as opposed to more structural explanations.

The wage data is again unsurprising, showing that union workers across the board out-earn their non-union counterparts, in some sectors by as much as 30%.

I'm sure there's more to play with here, but the printout I have is very tiny and it hurts my eyes. I s'pose I should reward you for indulging my nerdy stats side. Here's a cute puppy:

Now wasn't that worth it?