Free Traders for Card Check

By
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:08 am

Unmentioned in President Obama’s speech to Congress last night was the impending battle over “card check,” which promises to be anything but post-partisan. As conservatives debate how to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act — which, if passed, proponents argue would make it easier for workers to form unions — advocates of the law have fired their own salvo,  a letter of support from more than three dozen prominent economists, including two Nobel Prize winners.
The statement, released by the Economic Policy Institute today, states:

“Although its collapse has dominated recent media coverage, the financial sector is not the only segment of the U.S. economy running into serious trouble. The institutions that govern the labor market have also failed, producing the unusual and unhealthy situation in which hourly compensation for American workers has stagnated even as their productivity soared.

EFCA, which would allow workers to unionize without a secret ballot,  “is not a panacea,” the signatories say, “but it would restore some balance to our labor markets.”

Among the supporters are several economists better known for their neoclassical “free trade” convictions than defending unions — including Laura Tyson, a former adviser to President Clinton who sits on the boards of Morgan Stanley and ATT, and Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia University professor and former adviser to the World Trade Organization.

The Nobel Prize-winning economists checking in for labor are Kenneth Arrow and Robert Solow, emeritus professors at Stanford and MIT respectively. Their support for unionization reflects an emerging viewpoint among many economists that a successful global free trade regime depends on the growth of strong social safety nets.

Comments

7 Comments

Dave Palen
Comment posted February 25, 2009 @ 8:05 am

Clearly, these are political economists. Unionization brings inflexibility and conflict into the workplace. What a great way to move us out of this recession. Let's have little Michigan's everywhere!


Michael Powe
Comment posted February 25, 2009 @ 8:39 am

I've worked in both union and nonunion shops. I have experienced the advantages of unionization. The nonunion shop is notable for promoting the incompetent lickspittle, the boss's nephew and the foreman's main squeeze. The union shop requires promotion to be based on both merit and seniority. Openings are typically offered on the competitive basis; you have to have the skills as well as the time on site. More importantly, however, unions give employees a stake in the company — stick with the company, do your work well and you can get ahead. You have pension, medical and job security.

Go the nonunion shop and you're on your own. Lick the manager's booty, or never get a promotion or a raise. Wear the wrong shirt on Tuesday, you're fired. Pension? Go live under a bridge, for all we care. Once you're too old to work here, you're put out with the trash. Medical? Miss a week of work and don't bother to return. We'll mail your check.

I've worked on both sides of that divider. Put me down for a union man. I hope card check makes it into law, and we can restore or introduce some plain decency into the way workers are treated on the job.

Thanks.

mp


Hawaiianstyle
Comment posted February 25, 2009 @ 9:24 am

Mr. Palen, sir,

Unions bring what the members want. Union leaders are elected, and unelected by democratic vote.
Good union leaders try to tell their members the truth about the company and the industry they work in.

Unions in the 1930s brought conflict. Not because they wanted it, all though I'm sure some workers were so angry they welcomed it, but because the employers used strong arm tactics backed up by the local police. Unions brought economic and political power to the lower economic classes.

Unions created the middle class. Without unions we would not have a super rich and a poor class.
Unions forced employers to grant better wages, less hours, pensions and vacations.

If there is a fault to unions its after they have gained all these things, and the membership has moved from the organizing generation into the second and third generation membership. Then the leaders to keep their jobs must please members that have become just like much of the labor force that says we want MORE without regard to the market and the employers honest plea for help. Where the leadership is smart they work with the employer at this stage of the labor management equation.

I have been a union man all my life. I have a pension, health program, a reasonable set of work rules. There is very little strife in the work place as the rules have been agreed upon at the bargaining table when the contract negotiations take place.

You sir, I'm sorry to say are parroting what your father said or you are an unreasonable employer, or live in an anti-union environment. Employers that want to treat their worker fairly do better with unions. NuCorp Steel was a good example. The unions could not organize that plant because the workers trusted management.

How do you sir, answer the problem where the company leaders are laying off workers in bad times and taking huge bonuses for being such “good” managers? How do you answer the disparity that has grown in the last 20 years between the CEO Wages and the worker's wages? If you tell me that its His company and he should be able to do what he wants then I would argue that He is the source of the conflict not the union.


EFCANOW
Comment posted February 25, 2009 @ 9:45 am

A letter of support from more than three dozen prominent economists, including two Nobel Prize winners.

The statement, released by the Economic Policy Institute today, states:

“Although its collapse has dominated recent media coverage, the financial sector is not the only segment of the U.S. economy running into serious trouble. The institutions that govern the labor market have also failed, producing the unusual and unhealthy situation in which hourly compensation for American workers has stagnated even as their productivity soared.

For More Information on EFCA please visit our websites and blog

http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org

http://efcanow.blogspot.com/

http://efcaunionbustingclub.blogspot.com/

http://www.FreeChoiceActNow.Org

http://www.LaborUnionResources.Org


More support for EFCA « Later On
Pingback posted February 26, 2009 @ 3:33 pm

[...] Daily life, Democrats, GOP, Government, Obama administration, Unions at 12:33 pm by LeisureGuy Jefferson Morley at the Washington Independent: Unmentioned in President Obama’s speech to Congress last night was [...]


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