This Labor Day, For The First Time In Years, Senators Have A Choice On Workers Rights | Talking Points Memo

TPM Article Topics
41

From what I’ve read of the PRO Act (admittedly, just summaries), it seems to take a middle-of-the-road position. It doesn’t mandate permission of “union shop” agreements (where you have to be in the union or join the union within a period of time), but does mandate permission of “agency shop” agreements (where you have to either be in the union or pay “representation fees” for the benefit you get from the union’s negotiated contract).

That sort of “anti-free-rider” language is an easier sell, I think, in the face of “freedom” arguments. You don’t have to join a group you don’t want to join, but you have to pay for services that benefit you.

8 Likes
42

No one should have to go through medical bankruptcy.

Half of the refi mortgages I was trying to underwrite under Obama’s HARP refinance program (to keep families in their homes) in 2009 involved medical bankruptcy. Can’t pay for that broken leg, no problem, medical corps would just put a lien on your home (with negative equity). Even saw it happen to homeowners with lots of cash and good FICO scores as well. The GR lasted too long and they tapped out.

Glad to see you made it through. Experienced similar misfortunes about that same time when the country (NE especially) had a short but steep recession. Like a faucet turning off, everything I touched turned to gold and then, poof, everything I touched turned to shit. And I was just getting used to my life as a country squire! Even put up signs threatening rabbit poachers. It’s not fair I tells ya!!

8 Likes
43

I haven’t been an Amazon member since it was a books only concern. I don’t even know what happened to my account from back then. It might have disappeared into space.
I’ll stick with my cable package, Netflix and YouTube.
Grocery shopping once or twice a week can be a healthy respite plus the once a week CVS stop usually on Sundays, coupons in hand for sundry items. A Fresh direct order every now for some gourmet items works well.

4 Likes
44

So… he’s looking for a final solution?

3 Likes
45

I would have dropped Prime except… it’s a $20 dollar round trip to town and while WallyMart carries a lot of shit, there’s a lot of shit they don’t and there’s no other supplier around for 80 miles either way.

2 Likes
46

I haven’t been to a Walmart since the 90’s. It’s mostly my way of boycotting them since there aren’t any in the 5 boroughs of NYC. There is one just over the border in LI. They have tried to wedge their way in but have been beaten back by unions and elected officials. Additionally Target and Kohl’s have that niche covered.

2 Likes
47

I think unions are culty. Still a Democrat but not a big union fan. There’s a lot of situations outside of high profile McDonald’s, Wal Mart, and Amazon types where unions aren’t appropriate but they go crazy anyway.

48

United We Bargain.
Divided We Beg.

7 Likes
49

The error we make here is letting the Republicans frame this as “raising taxes”, when in reality it would be “reducing your spending on health care”. The whole “more taxes” meme is deeply, deeply ingrained in their world view, even though it doesn’t actually stand up to scrutiny.

But based upon my own experience with my conservative Ohio (now Florida) brother dislodging it is going to be hard.

He has a tendency to keep me up late at night when he visits to poke and prod my “liberal views”. To his credit, I do think he wanted to understand them, but I never felt he was looking to be “converted”, just wanted to confirm his own views stood up to the challenge we represent.

So one night, he was trying to work over US versus Canadian Health Care, insisting that the Canadian version was “just so much more expensive”. I tried to explain that, no actually, the Canadians spend far less per capita than we did; “Yabut, the quality of their care is terrible”, well, no their national outcomes exceeded ours. It’s true they can wait longer for elective procedures (which can be mitigated by buying supplemental insurance, if you want it), but it was only pockets of the US (code for “higher income”) that did better in the US, overall we did worse; “Yabut, that can’t be right, I spend very little on health care insurance”, errr, no you don’t, “No, my deduction each month is only $x”. Errr, bro, look at your pretax deductions for the amount your employer is paying - you have to add that to what you’re paying, and keep in mind - if you go with a universal health insurance, then you stop paying those premiums and instead pay for the cheaper program through taxes, so actually spend less on health care.

“Oh…”

He stopped pushing the topic at that point, but did not actually concede he was wrong, just moved on to another topic - which happened to be how unions hurt corporations. I pointed out that when unions thrived, workers shared in the growing economy, but as they’ve declined so has workers share of the pot.

I pointed out the death of corporate-funded pension plans as a symptom of this. “Not a problem for me”, he said, “my mega-huge aerospace company would never do that because we workers are too valuable!”

This year, they cancelled the corporate pension plan and offered a buyout program. He could see the writing on the wall, took the buyout and moved to Florida (because they don’t have a state income tax, and taxes are evil).

He’s not a bad soul, is very supportive of his wife and son, he’s just got that damned republican “selfish” gene. I don’t try to bring him around any more, just use him as my local ph indicator of what they are all currently obsessing about.

Sad…

4 Likes
50

I think of it as living in a “we have the right to fire you whenever we want” state.

1 Like
51

Have to totally agree with you. The newspaper union I belonged to negotiated a clause in our contract that allowed workers to retire at 62 and stay on company health care until 65! I never even knew it was there but boy did I take advantage of it. A good example of how unions can help workers in so many different ways.

4 Likes
52

I’m not sure what “culty” and “go crazy” mean here. I’m also not sure what you mean when you talk about situations “where unions aren’t appropriate” but they are present anyway.

Could you give a current example where “unions aren’t appropriate but they go crazy anyway”?

(I’m not challenging your opinion at this point. I just want to know more about it.)

53

Don’t let him load his floppy disc into your hard drive.

1 Like
54

I think he may be conflating union leadership with union members. Leadership, is not always out for the benefit of its members. Which in part has lead to the decline in unions.

55

Maybe, but I kind of doubt it. His/her statement that unions are in places where they aren’t appropriate sounds more like an opinion about unions themselves.

Anyway, I hope to hear from @tetrisd himself/herself about what was meant. That’s usually the safest way.

1 Like
56

Good point. In the 19th Century private fire departments (mostly run by insurance companies) were private entities. In case of a fire, responding fire departments would ignore the fire if the house didn’t have the right insurance medallion. There are cases on record of fire departments engaging in fist fights over the right to put out a fire.

The problem of free riders is a real one, however. In unionized workforces, the union is required under labor law to represent all workers in the shop. The union is required to negotiate on behalf of all workers in the shop. Those activities require funding. I wouldn’t object to the Janus decision so much if it freed unions of the responsibility to represent workers regardless of their union membership.

4 Likes
57

I’ll take this opportunity to say once more that if workers had been paid commensurate to the increase in labor productivity over the pas 40 years, then all this hub-bub about social security falling short would be laughable.

5 Likes
58

True to this day in some parts of this country. One seminal case occurred when a fire department in rural Tennessee responded to a reported fire just outside the town limits. In their neck of the woods, if you wanted the local town fire department to respond, you had to have paid the annual $75 fee - the neighbor did, the guy with the yard fire did not, so they just stood by and watched as the family lost everything, including the family’s three dogs and a cat.

Lest we forget, this is what we’re fighting against…

4 Likes
59

I can’t think of a place where unions would seem less appropriate than among University faculty. I’ve belonged to both unionized and non-unionized faculties. Organized faculty have several benefits relative to their un-organized colleagues:

  1. A simpler appeal/grievance process.
  2. Better ability to negotiate the terms of the appeals process.
  3. Better representation in the appeals process.
  4. The Faculty Senate is freed to worry about academics. Faculty personnel matters belong to the union.
  5. More ability to get rid of bad administrators.

Faculty unions do have a place on campus.

3 Likes
60

My ex, a shop steward and union business agent, informed me that any and all “free riders” got “removed” by the rank and file who had too much to do and too little time to do it to tolerate anyone who didn’t pull their weight.

2 Likes