An open thread about labour issues

TBAT is happy to report that thanks to the efforts of community members we have a couple of articles ready to publish. However, we've also had a request for an open thread about labor issues following the Wisconsin results last night, and since this is timely and many of us may want to talk about it, we're declaring an open thread on the subject today and will post the first of the new articles on Friday.

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Comments

[Mmy]

@Lonespark re the Wisconsin recall election: Huge money was poured in on the other side, and the presidential election looms. I'm curious if anyone has any knowledge or links about what went wrong and right, what the outlook is for labor around the US and the world, what history can teach us about what works, and how society is changing and how labor movements need to change to be relevant and powerful.

A good place to start might be Who bought the Wisconsin election? by digby at Hullabaloo. And you might also look at What happened in Wisconsin at Daily Kos.

[cjmr]

Are we discussion the Wisconsin election or just labor issues in general?

The teachers in the town my Girl Scout troop is in went to the School Committee meeting en masse last night in protest of the fact that they are being asked to accept a one-year contract with salary and benefit cuts for the third year in a row.

[cjmr]

Clearly that should say 'discussing' not 'discussion'.

[chris the cynic]

Are we discussing the Wisconsin election or just labor issues in general?

My impression was both.

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The only local issue I've ever really been following was what was going on at my university (teachers were being shafted, staff was afraid to speak up in favor of the teachers because they could laid off at will, that sort of thing) but I was following via people rather than the news (which kept on getting key facts wrong and only took a passing interest anyway) and since the end of the semester a month ago I've been out of the loop. I have no idea what's going on now.

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On Wisconsin I have nothing to contribute. I thought everything would go wrong based on the polling, then had my hopes go up when the news seemed to be, "It's incredibly close, we'll be here all night," and then it was disappointingly like my original expectations.

I do think it is, if nothing else, extremely rude to call the election while people are still waiting in line to vote. (As far as I know, every network did that.) It may be the case that those people's votes don't really matter, but at least let them vote first.

[Mmy]

@cjmr: All labor issues are open and relevant.

When I worked in the US one of my pet peeves was having cost of living adjustments to my salary referred to as "raises." This especially angered me since the cost of living adjustments were always less that then actual increases in the cost of living. And each was accompanied by an increase in my health benefits co-pays.

In other words, each year they were actually cutting my effective salary.

[Froborr]

@Mmy: As far as I know, that is standard practice in the U.S., which is why they call them "annual raises" and not "cost of living adjustments"--there is no effort or intent to track cost of living. Pretty much, unless you get a promotion or change companies, your effective salary will *always* drop every year. Because American companies will do *anything* they're not explicitly banned from doing, and banning them from doing things is unchristian socialist communist fascism.

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Question for TBAT: Did you receive my submission? I haven't heard anything and it's been a few days, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't lost in the mails. Thanks!

[The Board Administration Team]

@Froborr: Got it, read it, sent you a response. Which has apparently gotten lost in cyberspace. Will resend it to you immediately.

[storiteller]

If anyone would like to hear good news on the labor front, the union my husband is in finally signed a contract with the hotel chain he works for. Everyone received $1000 to make up for a lack of raises in the last year because of the unfinished contract, as well as substantial raises the next few years. So it still does have some power, at least in the service industries.

Personally, I'm glad the labor exists in my workplace of the federal government because we have a lot of programs that are essentially free to the government but very valuable to employees that we probably wouldn't have otherwise. This includes alternative work schedules, where we can work long days for 9 days and get every other Friday off.

[Mmy]

@storiteller: That is good news for husband and everyone else in that union.

The thing that concerns me most about my friends in the US is that most of them are dependent on their jobs for health insurance and the defined benefit pension is, for the most, a thing of the past.

It also burns me that American vets are among those most disadvantaged in this "new economy." My dad is the (Canadian) vet of two wars. I shudder to imagine what life would be like if his pension was not indexed to inflation (he has been retired for over 3 decades) and if veteran affairs did not pay for all his drug costs. Not only would he be bankrupted so would his children.

[Cathy W]

@mmy - Social Security might be the one thing in the US that actually is indexed to inflation. There's controversy over what measure of inflation should be used (should it keep pace with wages, or should it keep pace with prices? very different numbers), but there are cost-of-living adjustments most years.

I laughed at the idea that "powerful national unions" were trying to buy the election for Barrett - what powerful national unions? Sure, labor was in on the Democratic side, but what union could possibly throw enough money around to counteract corporate spending? What *ten* unions combined could throw enough money around to counteract one Koch brother?

[Lonespark]

I am trying to join a national teacher's union, but I don't know if I can since I'm not a regular employee and I work at a charter school when I get to work. Hopefully if not I can get a different job and join one soon.

I am very excited about the idea of joining a union. I was not aware of any when I worked in consulting and then when I worked for the state of AZ we sort of had representation but it was a right to work state so therefore we didn't really. Possibly this means I should have been working harder to start or expand a union for environmental technicians? Hmmm.

I am trying to avoid just frothing and screaming about "education reform," but it's difficult. There are a lot of people who want to work to have good education, but they seem to busy fighting each other while big money laughs and the bedrock of the American Dream erodes. (Geology metaphor, wheee! But I do think public K-12 ed. is the bedrock of the American Dream.)

[MercuryBlue]

I don't think the Wisconsin election was actually about labor at all. I think it was about Citizens United.

[Froborr]

TBAT: Thanks, I got the response this time! Will make edits and resend later this week.

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Here's a fun little story:

A couple months ago, I mentioned I might be up for a promotion. Well, it got delayed for a while, because the raise my boss wanted to give me along with that promotion (which in combination with the tiny little annual raises I've gotten for the last five years, works out to slightly less than a cost of living adjustment) pushed our contract from the highest to the second-highest, and therefore required approval by our HR rep, the HR rep's boss, my supervisor, my supervisor's boss, and a freakin' vice president.

Then, because HR installed a new system that had serious bugs? I didn't actually get confirmation of the promotion or the raise for another month and a half after it was approved (specifically, yesterday). I'm still waiting on the back pay for the five extra weeks they payed my old salary.

So on the one hand, yay, I am now only slightly poorer than I was when I started working here! On the other... management is a bunch of bastards, but what else is new?

Oh, and there is no union for my job. Technically speaking I am a salaried employee of the contracting company, but because I'm on a contract at the customer's site, they can pull me off the contract whenever they feel like, and if I'm not working full-time on a contract they can fire me the same day without cause.

I don't think the Wisconsin election was actually about labor at all. I think it was about Citizens United.

That, and another test of Republican voter suppression strategies. 2008 was a major fail for their plan to never allow potential Democratic voters near a booth, and they're determined it won't happen again.

[Mira]

Hi everyone - I'm a lurker. But if there's anything that'll get me out of the woodwork, it's labor issues.

It just really, really bothers me that these huge structural issues of how we value people's work, and the amount of work and luck and connections required to have the basic foundations of a stable life (a living wage and health insurance, minimally), are still things we talk about in terms of "personal responsibility." If a major recession and slow recovery don't show that structural issues matter and are outside of individual control, I really, truly have no idea what will.

Becoming some kind of socialist over here, because I'm increasingly convinced that Americans need to figure out a way of supporting each other in solidarity, not being afraid that if someone else gets paid, there won't be enough money to get back to you. Clearly that's at the root of the hatred of public unions. But I don't really know what way.

[Silver Adept]

The Wisconsin election demonstrated a triumph of Citizens United, as outside groups and corporations were able to purchase ad buys for Walker against recall before the primary process produced a Democratic candidate to run against him. He was essentially able to saturate the airwaves for months before a response could be mounted.

Not to mention the toll that the still-likely-illegally passed bill that stripped collective bargaining rights took on union membership and fundraising.

If there's something to be learned, it's that Republicans now have a way to ensure that only messages friendly to them are permitted to be broadcast. Maybe it's worth resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine, now that we've seen what Citizens United does.

On a more personal note, I suspect that I still have a job because my position is union-represented, and the mandated disciplinary process was sufficiently long that I outlasted the manager that put a target on my back and brought me within a step of dismissal. Without that, she probably would have fired me at the beginning of the process.

In a country where most people have to work for corporations that only care about their profit margins, we have to have strong voices in both government and in the people if workers want a prayer of living a life different than miners in a "company town", paid in company scrip.

[MercuryBlue]

Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go. *sigh*

[hapax]

As a public employee, I am of course disturbed about the events in Wisconsin; but I'm more concerned about the elections in California.

Essentially, the public voted to break the promises they made to public employees and reduce their pensions. Since most of us in the public sector accept lower wages in return for benefits (including pensions*), that essentially means these employees are getting hit twice, and are being punished simply because voters can.

A horrible, mean-spirited result, that can't blamed on this particular politician, or that particular party, but a two-to-one vote of the entire electorate.

*employees who are enrolled in public sector pension plans, unlike those in private sector plans, are not entitled to Social Security benefits.

[Mmy]

To follow up what hapax wrote -- what has been happening in various communities across the US is the unilateral refusal to uphold previously negotiated agreements. Imagine if a group of home owners simply told the bank holding their mortgages that they had had a vote and decided to change the interest rate on their mortgages. That would never be allowed to happen -- this process of renegotiation only happens in one direction.

And it is like watching the people in the sled throwing out some riders to stave off the wolves. Once the principal of upholding worker/employee contracts has been breached for one group it will eventually be breached for all.

For example, now that the "conversation" about Social Security has been opened there is more and more talk about moving the retirement age far past 67 and of changing the cola (cost of living adjustment) formula so that it doesn't weight as heavily (or at all) things that most people need to buy.

And, as hapax said, many people who belong to the groups that are being most stigmatized initially agreed to a salary/benefit structure that paid less than the private economy in return for the very benefits of which they are now being stripped.

[MercuryBlue]

employees who are enrolled in public sector pension plans, unlike those in private sector plans, are not entitled to Social Security benefits

That sounds like something I shoulda been told when I signed on with the state.

[hapax]

@MercuryBlue -- it depends on your pension plan.

Check your paycheck stub. If FICA is withheld from your paycheck, you're eligible for SS. If it isn't, you're not.

Note, IANAL, talk to your Human Resources Representative, etc...

[Dash]

Here's part of the problem. Journalist(?) Frank James, in an article on the National Public Radio website says this:

Making it an even more memorably rotten day for organized labor were voter initiatives in two of California's largest cities, San Diego and San Jose, aimed at reducing the burden of public employees' pensions on taxpayers.

The framing of pensions as a "burden on taxpayers" rather than the way hapax framed it above pushes readers/hearers towards the understanding that pensions are unnecessary and undeserved and focuses on their effect on those who don't have those pensions. (For the record, many CA pensions are extremely generous by national standards. However, nationwide, part of the reason why obligations are "burdensome" pretty much everywhere is because politicians often weren't being watched when they spent the pension money on other things.)

As for Wisconsin, the Dems ran the same guy who had lost to Walker in 2010, rather than the person approved by the unions. (I don't know if she'd have done better, but the recall that worked--California's recall of Gray Davis, replacing him with Arnold Schwarzenegger--didn't run the same opponent, so it didn't look like a "do-over.")

And I heard that the Democratic National Committee didn't get involved, but I don't have the details.

[MercuryBlue]

*logs in to website with electronic pay stubs* I've got federal and state withholding, "Fed MED/EE" withholding, and "Fed OASDI/EE" withholding. Nothing says FICA.

[storiteller]

(I don't know if she'd have done better, but the recall that worked--California's recall of Gray Davis, replacing him with Arnold Schwarzenegger--didn't run the same opponent, so it didn't look like a "do-over.")

My husband pointed out that Russ Feingold would have been an excellent candidate, especially pointing to his history of financial reform and strong level of recognition. I wonder if he was offered it?

[MercuryBlue]

Fascinating hypothesis from Brad Hicks: the actual problem with Wisconsin is that they ran an anti-gun candidate.

[Lonespark]

employees who are enrolled in public sector pension plans, unlike those in private sector plans, are not entitled to Social Security benefits

This is huge. My parents are retiring, and they are educators, and neither has an appreciable amount of work outside the state system. My dad has none that made the SS threshhold.

They have anti-gun candidates in Wisconsin? Huh. The candidate does make a huge difference. It's kind of too bad they couldn't run "Anybody but Walker" and work it out later. I guess that's more like a parliamentary system...but in reverse, kinda?

Running weak candidates because "it's their turn" pisses me off. Running weak candidates because the strong candidate didn't get his/her stuff together for the primary really pisses me off. I think a lot of people around here are still mad about Coakley...but we need to get our crap together. Warren in the Senate would be good for more than just Massachusetts.

[hapax]

I've got federal and state withholding, "Fed MED/EE" withholding, and "Fed OASDI/EE" withholding. Nothing says FICA

You should be good. "Fed MED/EE" is Medicare, "Fed OASDI/EE" is Old Age Survivor and Disability Insurance -- that is, Social Security.

Once again, though, check with your Human Resources person. If they are also funding a state pension plan, they may not be withholding enough for you to meet the SS threshhold.

[Mira]

And it is like watching the people in the sled throwing out some riders to stave off the wolves. Once the principal of upholding worker/employee contracts has been breached for one group it will eventually be breached for all.

YES. This is exactly what is happening. And yes, it is only happening in one direction.

I really don't understand why public employees get so much ire, in particular - it essentially just seems like people who are suffering want others to suffer too. People who feel out of control about their own jobs want to "fire" somebody? I hope I'm not being uncharitable, it's just the only rationale I can really see.

[Andrea]

*employees who are enrolled in public sector pension plans, unlike those in private sector plans, are not entitled to Social Security benefits.

This always weirds me out, but I did just check, and my pay stub does have a "FICA/MED" line. I should know this, because I made a point of increasing my deferred comp withholding when the FICA withholding decrease went into effect (which left my net pay around the same amount as before), but I always get paranoid whenever I hear that other US public employees aren't SS-eligible.

[Lonespark]

Thinking about education whilst sitting here in a charter school... It seems like there are a lot of models that could work for educating everyone. We want a balance between options for different learning styles/personalities/backgrounds/needs and standards that mean education in all communities meet certain standards and provide transferrable skills for the next step. We could meet these goals with an all-public system or maybe a semi-privatized one with strong oversight, kinda like utilities ought to be, and other professions are? But the thing we never seem to have is a real recognition that educating everyone is both expensive in terms of effort and money, both of which need to be continuous, not subject to the whims of the administration or the electorate...and TOTALLY WORTH IT, an undeniably crucial component of building and maintaining a great nation.

I am on a LinkedIn group for a union where a guy who is married to a teacher so he knows everything is ranting against unions. One of his points was that there have been a lot of efforts at reform and there are still mediocre teachers. He seems to think this is some sort of huuuuge winning fact. But my response is Yes, and...? There are mediocre lawyers. There are mediocre scientists. Mediocre doctors, engineers, senators, presidents... How the everliving frak could anything be evaluated as a failure because it failed to eliminate mediocrity?!?!

It reminds me of those signs made by people who claim they refuse to be a member of the 99%. Because they'll just work harder, work more hours, work more jobs, never get too sick...and then when they do get sick they'll put up with suffering and discrimination and poverty because that's the deal we should have. Bootstraps! Freeloaders!

We could all have more. We could all live better. A lot better. But we can't do it by turning on each other. How do we get away from that? Surely that's not what most of us want?

[MercuryBlue]

hapax: thanks.

[truth is life]

The thing that concerns me most about my friends in the US is that most of them are dependent on their jobs for health insurance and the defined benefit pension is, for the most, a thing of the past.

I am certain this is behind the sentiments hapax talks about where people don't care about public employee pensions and benefits and are perfectly happy to cut them without even thinking twice. *They* don't get a pension--they get a 401(k) or a 403(b) or (if they aren't that lucky) have to make do with an IRA--so why shouldn't "lazy" public sector employees (insert DMV here) have to make do with the same!? It's why whenever someone wants to cut public sector pay or benefits they just compare them with the private "standard," nevermind if there isn't really any private-sector equivalent to compare to (eg., for firefighters).

However, nationwide, part of the reason why obligations are "burdensome" pretty much everywhere is because politicians often weren't being watched when they spent the pension money on other things.

To some extent, and because during the 1990s (especially) there were *really* optimistic predictions of what the markets would look like in the future (10% growth forever!), so people figured that in the future they would need to allocate a much smaller portion of the budget to filling the pension fund, and everyone went along with it because, hey, the '90s and there's a big dot-com bubble and Communism is over and all the economic ramifications of a large, relatively developed part of the world becoming more integrated with the rest of the world. Obviously this didn't work out, and now (with more realistic estimates of future stock market growth) the projected contributions necessary to maintain the pension benefits have ballooned (it doesn't help that many pension funds suffered serious losses during the dot-com crash and later events, as well), at the same time all the purported savings were either used to cut taxes (which people don't want to increase back to where they were) or provide additional services (which people don't want to eliminate). Of course, they shouldn't have made those bad estimates in the first place.

Pretty much, unless you get a promotion or change companies, your effective salary will *always* drop every year. Because American companies will do *anything* they're not explicitly banned from doing, and banning them from doing things is unchristian socialist communist fascism.

No, it's because if you haven't been getting a promotion every year you *clearly* are not working hard enough. You unchristian socialist communist fascist lazy bum.

[cjmr]

"Pretty much, unless you get a promotion or change companies, your effective salary will *always* drop every year. Because American companies will do *anything* they're not explicitly banned from doing, and banning them from doing things is unchristian socialist communist fascism."

And even if you change companies you aren't guaranteed to get a higher salary any more. Before cjmr's husband decided to take the option of moving 250+ miles to a different branch of his company, he did some local interviews, and the salary offers he was being given (someone with 20+ years experience) would have been a 20-25% pay cut for him--and only about 10% more than they offered the freshly-minted grad student co-worker of his (3 years job experience) who interviewed at the same places.

[Froborr]

Hell, I *did* get a promotion and it was only an 8 percent raise. Combined with 5 years of 1 percent annual raises, if I'm doing my math right, that gives me an average annual raise of 2.5 percent. A cost of living adjustment would be (for 2011, according to the Social Security Administration) 3.6 percent.

And every single one of those 1 percent raises came with "You're lucky to get anything," comments.

So... when do we start (metaphorically) setting fire to things? And what does that actually look like?

[Mike Timonin]

So... when do we start (metaphorically) setting fire to things? And what does that actually look like?

Ideally, five to ten years ago, but ASAP. I'm not sure what it looks like, though. Perhaps a massive strike of some sort.

[hapax]

@Froborr -- at the fine institution of higher learning where hapaxspouse teaches, they have had a wage "freeze" for the past seven years. When he was promoted to full Professor, he received a one time "bonus" of five thousand dollars.

They are now advertising for an Assistant Professor (lowest tenure-track position) at a higher salary than his. He sometimes says he should apply for the position.

[Froborr]

So... one idea I like rather a lot (suggested by, of all things, a self-described liberatarian coworker of mine) is combining a minimum guaranteed income with an overhaul of the tax code. So, for example (numbers completely made up):

Everyone has a minimum guaranteed income of $10,000 (the actual number would be defined by the poverty line--the goal is for this to be enough to completely eliminate poverty with a little wiggle room to spare). This means, if you made $0 last year, you file your taxes and get a $10,000 credit and therefore can claim a $10,000 tax refund (he didn't suggest, but I think it would be a good idea to allow people to get this as a monthly payment). This credit is reduced by your taxable income, so if you made $3,000 you get a credit for $7,000; if you made $50,000 you don't get the credit.

The first $10,000 of income (the actual number would be equal to the maximum MGI credit) is in the -50% tax bracket. That means the government matches half your paycheck. So if you made $0 last year, you get your $10,000 MGI credit. If you managed to find one hour of work that paid $10, you get a $9,990 MGI credit, the $10 you got paid for working, and $5 from the negative tax, totalling $10,005. (I call this the "Dear conservatives who think welfare creates a disincentive to work: STFU" tax.) Thus, anyone making $10,000 or more doesn't get the MGI credit, but they do get $5,000 subtracted off their taxes.

After that the tax brackets are similar to what we have now, with two major exceptions: First, there are two or three tax brackets higher than the top one that exists now, including a 90% tax on income over one million. Second, all the tax brackets (except the -50% bracket) are tied to percentiles of income, rather than fixed numbers that have to be adjusted. So, for example, the lowest positive bracket would be any income less than the national median income. The highest bracket would be the top 1%. And various points filled in in between.

Oh, and he showed me the math--this works out to higher net revenues than the current tax system, because of those new brackets at the top.

The system is FAR from flawless, of course. We'd still need guaranteed health care for all. We'd still need some way to help people who have no money *now* when it's still 10 months until they can get a tax refund. There's no provision here for people with dependents, especially parents with children. And so on.

--

What really bugs me about systems like I describe? If we had a full social safety net in place, if unemployment and underemployment *didn't* lead to poverty and suffering and misery and death? We could do what conservatives say they want. I'd have absolutely no problem with businesses hiring and firing people on a whim, if those people had an adequate net to catch them.

And yet, inevitably, conservatives bristle when they hear about ideas like this, or any other of the countless alternatives to our current bullshit people have floated.

I don't think it's that they want everyone to suffer, precisely. I do think, however, that they want "order," and that by "order" they mean bullies and assholes on top, everyone else scurrying around at the bottom.

Which is why, despite the time I just spent typing up that system, I don't really endorse it. It doesn't solve the underlying problem.

Everyone has always told me that, as I get older and more settled, I'll get more calm and complacent and accepting of The Way Things Are. It seems like the opposite has happened so far; in my teens and early twenties I thought a few little tweaks, get everybody their civil rights, and we're good. But the older I get, the more revolutionary I get, not in the sense of advocating violence (I've gotten more, not less, pacifistic), but in this sense:

The underlying problem is the social order itself. Reform within the system is not possible, because the system is designed to keep the powerful powerful. The system is breaking down, and its breakdown cannot be prevented--but we can seize control of and accelerate that breakdown, tear down the existing social order, and erect something new.

Historically speaking, odds are that something new will be horrendous. But if we're lucky and clever and careful and lucky, we might be able to hold on just long enough to make it something better.

Until the next crop of assholes solve the new system and figure out how to exploit it to make themselves powerful and prevent anyone from taking their power without tearing down the system. Typically that takes about ten minutes--but those will be a truly excellent ten minutes, if we can get them.

[Froborr]

@hapax: Huh, I have made the exact same joke. We have two people on our team who do the exact same work (supposedly), me and a never-ending parade of incompetents, and said incompetents all had the title and salary I just got promoted to.

[Mike Timonin]

Froborr - that's the Beveridge Plan, more or less. There's a good description here: http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1943/autumn/coyle-beveridge-plan/ Some version of this was used in England after WWII, and across Europe more generally a minimum income was widely adopted.

The thing I like about that sort of plan is that it means that you can take a job doing that thing that you really like to do, or that you think really needs doing in society, even if it pays crap, and still survive.

[Froborr]

@Mike: Yes, exactly. Or even choose to do that thing you think needs doing but *nobody is willing to pay for at all* and survive.

But the assholes-with-power, and more importantly the crowd of people who think gluing your lips to the ass of the nearest asshole-with-power is a moral requirement, will never let such a thing come to pass in this country. Which is why I really am starting to think the social order needs to die before anything useful can be done.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

One suggestion I've heard is a "Citizen's Basic Income" scheme. A lot of the expense of welfare is the checks to ensure that no one's gaming the system. So remove them. Everyone gets a basic income of enough to live on. Everyone. If that person is wealthy, they'll be paying more back in taxes. If they aren't, they won't. Simple.

How well it would work I don't know.

TRiG, not signed in because MyOpenId is having a hissy fit.

[histrogeek]

I was a union member before I left teaching and frankly my only problem with the union (AFT Local 1, Chicago Teachers!) was the often wimpy way they dealt with the board. Like so many other places, people really have been convinced that they have no power. The union had recently lost a lot of its bargaining power (thanks state legislature), but so much of the membership continued to support the don't-rock-the-boat strategy that was screwing us especially upper-grade teachers. There was little effort to protest, and WAY TOO MUCH support for obviously crappy deals.

Two more labor issues close to my heart. Don't cross picket lines (not always possible but really, really try). Pay your tips in cash. Wage theft is a huge problem among restaurant workers, so help them out.

[histrogeek]

Froborr,
One of the reasons that conservatives hate guaranteed income is that it provides an incentive to tell asshole bosses to shove it. Right now if you're screwed at work, you need to suffer either the job or the threat of (greater) poverty. With less danger of poverty, there is much less reason to stick with a sucky job and more incentive to push back if wages or conditions are bad. They (conservatives) talk about this as a disincentive to work, but really what they mean is it's a disincentive to work at a job you hate.
There is a legitimate negative side-effect. Guaranteed income does gradually reduce productivity, though it takes decades for that to become a factor (basically the thirty-some years from the 1940s to the 1970s and that was with almost full employment for the greater part of it).

[Silver Adept]

@Froborr -

I agree on the need to change the social order. If, say, taxation became about how much you could help your neighbors prosper, then we could have adequate tax funding of everything, and we could hope corporations would get in battles about how many millions they've helped with their taxes.

Basic income would also provide an incentive for crap jobs to pay well, because nobody will take a crap job that sucks in pay, as well. We could do a lot of good work just in that realm.

[lonespark]

A lot of the expense of welfare is the checks to ensure that no one's gaming the system.

OMFG is it ever!!! No matter what system you're using, you're going to need auditing and oversight, but so. damn. much. of the scarce funding goes to making sure that people on food stamps don't buy beer, that people on welfare don't dare try to go to grad school or stay home with their kids or look for a job they'll actually be able to keep or advance in or like... Aaaargh!!!

On a happier note, I got asked to write an article for the local paper on using foodstamps at the farmer's market. Market opens next Thursday. I can't wait!

[lonespark]

One of the reasons that conservatives hate guaranteed income is that it provides an incentive to tell asshole bosses to shove it.

Yes, this. And it's a reason why they hate unions, too. Yet in many cases unions don't have the power to really stand up against the assholes as much as slightly cushion the blows, buy time, etc. I think that's a really crappy situation, because then folks are expecting the union to help, and they do, but they don't FIX anything...

[Ross]

Two more labor issues close to my heart. Don't cross picket lines (not always possible but really, really try). Pay your tips in cash. Wage theft is a huge problem among restaurant workers, so help them out.

That is what my dad always did, but i've noticed over the past ten years or so thati f you pay with a credit card at many restaurants, they will FREAK THE FUCK OUT if you don't leave a tip on the card. I actually saw this happen once, the manager came out, desperate to find out how they had failed the customer, the server was in tears. All the dad had wanted to do was leave a tip in cash (The cash was already on the table when they came out, in fact)

[Froborr]

I'd think the solution to that is simple, Ross: Leave the cash tip in the same little book-thingy as the signed chit.

[Mike Timonin]

I have never been a member of a union. When I worked in Virginia, teachers and faculty were not allowed (by state law!) to unionize (or, to strike, which made unionizing somewhat pointless? I forget. There wasn't a union, anyway), just like police, firepeople*, and, I think, trash collectors - and here, as an adjunct, I'm not allowed to join the faculty union. They do "virtually" represent me, because its in the regular faculty's best interest that adjuncts get paid something close to what the regular faculty gets paid. That way, it isn't significantly cheaper to hire adjuncts than regular faculty.** Here, I think, the problem that histrogeek highlights kicks in. Our faculty union is crazy conservative - there's a clause in the contract that prohibits striking, and as long as they get small raises periodically, they're happy. Of course, there are progressively fewer regular faculty and exponentially more adjuncts, because adjuncts don't get benefits and can be fired without warning, but the regular faculty have no incentive to fight against that.

*Is there a good gender neutral for firemen? Firepeople looks awkward, but I can't just say fire, like police.

**Except that their negotiating doesn't take into account the other things which make adjuncts attractive to "management".

[lonespark]

It's firefighters, Mike.

[Izzy]

@Froborr: I will join your revolution any time. I mean, I'm not sure what skills I'd bring, but still--good plan, and good point.

@histrogeek: Right, and plus? I think we need to take a look at what we mean by "productivity" and what we're valuing when we say it. I feel like, with most things, "do more of it faster" should not be a goal.

[lonespark]

with most things, "do more of it faster" should not be a goal.

Right. Like, say educating children. Or building bridges. Or virtually anything, in any industry. Hair styling. Stock trades. (Super-fast trading really seems like some kind of hellish dystopia where no one really knows whose money is whose, except we all know it doesn't belong to the 99%, so it's like a con game of which corporations, banks, governments blink first....)

[Izzy]

Yeah. I mean, I'd say "public transportation", but...honestly, if everything else went a little slower, I feel like I'd care less about the T.

[lonespark]

You have a point about transportation. More trains! Faster trains! More wind turbines! Faster upload speeds! Sure, there's things where productivity is awesome: the ones where machines serve people, instead of the other way around.

Also, in terms of skills for the revolution, surely you could write amusing, sexy tales of revolutionary mutants/cyborgs/mermaids/etc. sticking it to the man, or something?

[truth is life]

I feel like, with most things, "do more of it faster" should not be a goal.

It shouldn't? I mean, assuming that the underlying quality is the same--hair is styled just as well, bridges are engineered no worse, children are educated just as well--it seems like there would be no downsides to doing more of it faster: the same number of stylists could style more people's hair; more non-bridge buildings and infrastructure could be built; more children could be educated, or educated more deeply (eg., universal foreign languages). It seems reasonably clear that in all of these cases everyone is better off--the children know more about the world, the country has more infrastructure, and more people can have their hair just the way they like it.

Obviously, in the real world, you can't necessarily do more of it faster without skimping on quality. However, in many cases you can, and I see no reason that doing so shouldn't be encouraged where possible.

[Mike Timonin]

It's firefighters, Mike.

lonespark - of course it is, I'm not sure why my brain wasn't functioning this morning. Thanks!

[Izzy]

@Lonespark: Ha! I like it. Revolutionary romance novels.

@truth is life: Fair point. Maybe, as a goal, it should be under both "do good stuff" and "treat your workers well", or, as per the plans above, "make sure everyone has a reasonable life". More-and-faster is a more acceptable sacrifice, it seems, than any of the above.

[Froborr]

@Froborr: I will join your revolution any time. I mean, I'm not sure what skills I'd bring, but still--good plan, and good point.

Pshh. Like I have any skills to bring? Revolution of the People Who Don't Have Any Skills Relevant to Revolting! Join us as we meander aimlessly through the streets occasionally shouting something incoherent!

[Mike Timonin]

Pshh. Like I have any skills to bring? Revolution of the People Who Don't Have Any Skills Relevant to Revolting!

What skills are necessary for revolting? I'm thinking back to successful, or memorable, revolts in the past. Off the top of my head - shop clerks and other middling class sans-culottes in France; farmers and/or former Revolutionary soldiers in Shay's rebellion; small whiskey distillers in the Whiskey Rebellion; lots and lots of slaves; poor people in Coxey's Army; former WWI soldiers during the Bonus March; ministers, house cleaners, laundresses, store clerks and middle class black people in Montgomery (and throughout the South); high school and college students on buses and trains and in high schools - the skills necessary for revolting are 1) being mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore, and 2) having nothing left to lose (which is just another name for freedom, if I recall the classics), or, at least, more to gain than to lose.

Really, it's #2 that keeps most of us (myself included) out of the streets. Are you willing to lose your job? Are you willing to be beaten, fire hosed, pepper sprayed, bitten by dogs, trampled by horses? Are you willing to be shot at, run over, killed? Worse, are you willing to be ignored, to have what you want denied, what you say distorted? Because I have too much to lose to do that right now, and not enough to gain. And that is, possibly, the most depressing thing I've written in a long time.

[Froborr]

To take part in a revolution once it's started, those are the only two things you need.

To start a revolution you need organization, the ability to network people, and above all you need the ability to inspire enough hope and/or anger to convince people they have nothing to lose.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

On a slightly serious note, how likely do we think an actual revolution is? And how much of a revolution? One that topples institutions? One which leaves the institutions standing, but changes the leadership? On a scale from nil to the poll tax riots to the Velvet Revolution to the Easter Rising?

Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably priced love! And a hard-boiled egg!

[Froborr]

Ah, I was wondering who would be first to reference Night Watch. I've finally gotten around to reading Snuff, and it is more Vimes goodness, but nothing will ever match that one for Vimes awesometicity (except maybe Thud!).

Anyway, I think the likelihood of a revolution is extremely low, but that's because I'm extremely cynical and physically incapable of hope (I can do cheerful productive despair, that's sort of close, right?), not because I have any evidence either way.

[Mike Timonin]

Looking back over the comment below, I think I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm writing entirely off the cuff here. If what I say makes sense to you, it's probably true; if it doesn't make sense to you, then the fault is entirely mine.

In the US? I'd say some sort of mild movement that maintains political institutions but changes the leadership is the most likely. I'd say it will probably take the better part of a decade, and be effected through legitimate grass roots organizing and political campaigning from the very bottom up - town and city councils and mayors to begin with, slowly building into a national campaign. I suspect, if the movement is a movement of the left, it will end up merged with/ co-opted by the Dems. A movement from the right might split the Repubs. I don't think this is at all guaranteed, but it's the most likely sort of change, largely because it's the way things have happened in the past.

For a fast, loud, violent uprising - perhaps a general strike, or a general strike-like thing (since unions in the US are a lot more conservative than they were in the 1930s). The Occupy movement looks most likely to produce something of this nature - arguably, they already have, but I think there's room for a more significant action there, we shall see. I think the effect is likely to be largely cosmetic, though - there needs to be a shift at the Congressional level before pressure tactics in the streets can affect policy. The group who are willing to be pressured are too small for their willingness to have an effect, and the group who is in charge (and I'm not talking political parties here, necessarily - we all know that the Dems don't really have a majority in the Senate - the conservatives do) are staking a lot of their political identity on not bowing to public pressure on the left. (There's more that could be said here, but y'all didn't sign up for a lecture, and I'm on vacation anyway)

A third option - Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williams recently published a very good book on the Tea Party (shameless plug - I reviewed the book here: http://guy-who-reads.blogspot.com/2012/06/monday-review-post-6542012.html) - the take-away seemed to be "wouldn't it be nice for there to be a movement as invested in engaging in the mechanics of politics as the Tea Party*, but as invested in engaging the facts as the left" - that sort of a group might cause significant change in the US with some speed. Hmmm. That's the sort of thing that could be launched from a site like this, actually.

*Skocpol and Williams note a willingness to track bills through the whole process of approval and voting among Tea Partiers, for instance. A knowledge of how the legislative process works, devoid of a knowledge of what bills were actually intended to do - very dangerous.

[Froborr]

Hmm, what do you mean by "political institutions"? Because it's hard to see how to keep those intact and have any non-cosmetic change. A movement from the left co-opted by the Dems, for example, will end up in the exact same place as a movement from the right, just slower. Which is to say it will end up where we're already headed.

[Mike Timonin]

Hmm, what do you mean by "political institutions"? Because it's hard to see how to keep those intact and have any non-cosmetic change.

In the grassroots slow model, I think you would see non-cosmetic changes. I'd love to see an increased number of municipalities revising what they tax in their property taxes, for instance, and I'd also love to see more states moving towards running their own state banks (ala North Dakota). Historically, by the time change reaches the federal level, the party/ies driving the change have been swallowed up by the larger, and more entrenched, organisations of the existing parties. So, the Progressive Party had a profound effect on federal politics, but largely due to the fact that the Democratic Party adopted versions of the Progressive's platform.

I guess what I'm saying is, it seems unlikely that there would be the sort of sweeping change which would remove the institution of Congress or the President, or even the Electoral College. There might be the gradual sort of change which replaces Congress critters and slowly changes ideas and ideals.

[hapax (occasionally-bitter old lefty)]

In the US? I'd say some sort of mild movement that maintains political institutions but changes the leadership is the most likely

Meet the new boss/
The same as the old boss

[Froborr]

That's what I mean, hapax.

The way I see it, and I think I've sort-of put it this way before, is that assholes keep solving our systems. Our government was designed to prevent the kind of abuses of power that occurred under feudalism and mercantilism, but people soon figured out how to acquire and abuse power in this system, too--turns out all you need is a *lot* of money, and you can rearrange the system to ensure you always get more, and manipulate outcomes how you please. First you use your money to shift one party farther in its direction, and the other party follows in a bid to pick up the close-to-center votes you're dropping. Then you fund voter-suppression tactics and misinformation campaigns to ensure those votes were never actually lost. Congratulations, you have now moved the center to where you want it to be.

One purpose, maybe the chief purpose, of government is asshole containment. Police exist to keep assholes from killing us and taking our stuff, armies exist to keep assholes from other countries killing us and taking our stuff, entitlement programs exist to prevent assholes from starving us as a means of pushing us around. Most people, I truly believe, would be perfectly happy to just help each other out and get along, if it weren't for assholes (and the fear of being exploited by assholes) getting in the way.

But once the assholes figure out the system (which, sooner or later, they always do), that's it. There is no way of preserving it; as long as you keep the system in place you can knock out the assholes in power all you want, new assholes will just take their place. (And I'm talking about the people with *real* power--in the modern-day U.S., that means the people who own the elected officials, not the officials themselves.)

To come back to specifics, what I'm saying is that our political system is too corrupt. Even if we put someone decent in charge with a massive swell of grassroots effort, they'd be out next election, or the election after. The only real solution is to either become WAY more socialist than we currently are, or get rid of the first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all system of elections that renders the two-party system inevitable. Probably both.

And there is no way to do that within the system. The assholes running it would never let us.

No, I really think what we need is a non-violent way to force a complete transformation of the system.

(And now I have catchphrases and songs from Les Mis, Utena, and Gurren Lagann running through my head. Good, I spent most of this thread in depressed-despair mode, but I seem to be transitioning to cheerful despair. We will most certainly fail, but damn it would be awesome to try.)

[Izzy]

Well, now *I* have "Do You Hear the People Sing" in my head, so...thanks. ;)

Y'know, looking at it, I...don't actually have a lot to lose. Young, healthy, no dependents. I really should get more involved in stuff. So...I guess this is my public commitment to doing that, or something.

[Mike Timonin]

Froborr - there are some interesting suggestions - dating back to Jefferson - that suggest that we should re-write the Constitution every 10 years or every generation, to reflect a) what we've learned since the last time we re-wrote the Constitution, and b) how the world has changed since the last time. I think this would be a valuable process.

[MercuryBlue]

I think it could be valuable, Mike, but it equally well could be hijacked by the very assholes it's meant to defend against.

[Froborr]

There is no system that cannot be hijacked by assholes. Nor is there a metasystem for changing systems that cannot be hijacked by assholes. No matter what you do, the assholes will eventually solve the system, and the only solution is to invent and implement a new system, until they solve that and you have to do it again.

AFAIK Social Democracy with aggressively protected civil rights and civil liberties and a fully realized social safety net has not yet been solved because it has not yet been fully implemented. I vote we try that.

[Mmy]

Required listening for those who want to know the history of the struggle for labor rights in the US:

Joe Hill (in my opinion nothing can top Paul Robeson's version)

Which Side Are You On? (my person favourite version is Pete Seeger's)

There's a Man Going Round Taking Names Leadbelly

and of course, Sixteen Tons

[lonespark]

I am all for The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, except that I cannot sing the whole thing. Whereas I sang my son to sleep with Joe Hill for years, and my mother sang it to me when my dad was leading a strike.