SFalex's Blog

Employee Free Choice Act and Americans' Conception of Themselves

2008-11-12T21:15:42Z

As a Union staffer I'm eagerly awaiting the renewed effort to pass EFCA and keenly watching the maneuvering around it. And unfortunately, I'm seeing EFCA as currently conceived to be a strategic blunder that may not only fail but also undermine efforts to expand workers' rights in the workplace.

The main pillar of EFCA is that it allows workers to form a union through a simple card check and dispense with the rigged and unfair NLRB election. This pragmatic approach has resulted in rhetorical response from the business lobby claiming that big bad union bosses want to take away workers' rights to a secret ballot and force workers to join unions against their wishes.

Those of us familiar with the massive unfairness and dishonesty of boss-controled NLRB elections know this argument to be dishonest and at best misleading. Captive meetings, closure threats, harrassment, firings, and lack of organizer access to the workplace are just a few of the obstacles workers have to contend with if they go the election route; no wonder why the most successful Unions now avoid the NLRB like the plague. Nevertheless, few Americans are as deep into the weeds of the issue and the argument does have enough resonance that we are forced to defend our position

The plain fact is that the argument - regardless of its dishonesty - taps into a basic American belief that our votes are our own and need not be disclosed to others.

And this is the problem. Once we're fighting on this conceptual terrain we're in an uphill battle.

A better approach is to see the Chamber of Commerce's Americanistic rhetoric and raise the bar to the Free and Fair Union Election Act.

The FFUEA would have these basic tenets:

Criminal penalties with liquidated economic damages for harrassment, threats, or firings related to a Union election
Equal access to the workforce, allowing Union organizers to speak with workers at the workplace during non-work times. Captive meetings would be outlawed.
Secret ballot for certification and decertification.
Mandatory arbitration on 1st contract if no deal reached through collective bargaining in 180 days.
Card-check by supermajority (2/3)

In my opinion this apprach would be superior to the one envisioned by EFCA for several reasons.

First, it would be consistent with the values that Americans ascribe to themselves when it comes to voting and elections. Second, it would open up the workplace to organizers, giving them greater access to workers and dramatically reducing the climate of fear that comes with an organizing drive. And third, it would completment the important work of the very important organization American Rights at Work (which is supporting EFCA).

Workers have a lot of hills to climb and hurdles to leap in order to win the basic rights of association needed to improve the workplace and the country. We should make it easier by linking the struggle to a worldview that most Americans already hold.

Clinton spinning herself dizzy

2008-03-13T20:16:32Z

The report that HRC told her chief financial backers to look at three data points for her campaign's chances to win the Democratic nomination:
1. pledged delegate count
2. popular vote
3. the specific states where HRC won

Well Hillary's either not paying attention to the details or is simply delusional.

On the first point, it appears that they've pretty much conceded that she will not come in first.

On the second point, BO is ahead in the popular vote and it is unlikely that he will lose that lead. I haven't seen anyone run likely vote total scenarios but it is quite likely that whatever his loss in PA & WV, Obama will make up some great ground in Oregon and NC. With his success in rural areas Indiana may end up being a wash. Regardless, it is doubtful that HRC will prove to be the popular vote leader when its all said and done.

It is in the third point that HRC is holding on to a very thin reed. Her argument is based on the basic fallacy that her supporters will not support B.O. HRC's prinicipal support has been concentrated in a few deep blue states or states where the Dems have an abiding loyalty to the Clinton brand. I believe the Obama campaign said something to the effect that 1/2 of HRC's votes have come from 5 states. So while HRC has a ton of very deep support, its not as broad as Obama's. BO's argument is simple - I do reasonably well in areas with mainline Dems and expand the coalition in places that we've conceded over the past decade.

Will someone please do an intervention on this poor woman?

Two thoughts on the unfolding Clinton campaign

2008-03-06T23:07:42Z

two thoughts...

1.. when hillary says that she learned from republican attacks on them in the 90's, what she means is that she learned how to parrot those attacks. her insinuating that rezko is
anything more than a small-fry problem with no real stain on obama is right out of the whitewater playbook, the subtle racial attacks are straight up southern (or shall we say archie bunker) strategy. her red-phone gambit is straight up content free fear mongering. she's definitely learned well.

2. i've heard it said that 'the establishment' would rather lose a race but maintain control of the party than vice versa. HRC more strident and republican-eque attacks on obama are a perfect example of that. if she can't be president then
she'd rather that obama (the dems) lose the general than allow the grassroots movement that he's built to supplant the establishment's hold on the democratic party. its utterly cynical power-grabbing and deserves condemnation from all quarters.

the energy economists were wrong

2006-04-19T03:01:05Z

I distinctly remember that a huge portion of the debate around the Kyoto pact was that the US economy would be seriously harmed by the imposition of a carbon tax to fund energy research and improve efficiency. The US's experience of the past several years shows that those economists were wrong. The only thing we have to show for their mistake is lost time and a slew of fat and happy energy execs and shareholders

A major argument used during any debate about global warming is that the shock of a energy price hike would do significant damage to the economy. During the Kyoto debate and even the tepid McCain-Lieberman bill economists - usually on the dole of the oil companies and their allies - trotted out all sorts of macro-economic models that purported to show that the world's largest economy simply couldn’t handle any effort to limit carbon emissions. While those arguments weren't very strong IMO, they were provided legislators with the cover they needed to sell out future generations.

It turns out the economists were wrong. And we have nothing to show for it.

In looking at recent energy trends I was struck by the steepness of the rise in oil/energy prices since the US invasion of Iraq. I was similarly struck by the fact that despite this massive price shock the economy seems to be humming right along.

While there are real concerns about savings and the distribution of wealth, productivity, corporate profits, and the stock market are all rising. All of this has occurred despite the fact that the price of oil has more than doubled in the space of just a few years.

With this in mind, I pose everyone a 'what if'. What if say a quarter of the windfall secured by the energy companies had instead been a tax that was directed at renewable energy R&D? What if another quarter of that windfall had gone into retrofitting the homes and businesses of Americans to make them more energy efficient? What if those retrofit dollars were used to hire tens of thousands of unemployed and underemployed Americans to do the work? What if the R&D had yielded promising results that could be developed into a thriving new industry?

There are too many what ifs to mention.

But now we are where we are. We've lost precious time. Other countries are moving ahead of us. Our planet continues to warm, daily approaching a point of no return. Countless species edge closer to extinction. Energy companies continue to plunder the earth and our pockets. Our leaders cover their ears, close their eyes, and scream at us that it’s nothing to worry about. And even it is, then there's nothing we can do about it and we should simply learn to cope.

But all is not lost. We've been provided with a natural experiment on a global scale. We now know that our economies can handle an oil price shock. We now know that the nay-saying economists were all wrong. And we now know more than ever that we need to do something about it.

you mean every phone in this country is tapped?

2006-04-07T00:23:36Z

Last night my wife and I watched a satire from 1967 called the "President's Analyst". Its eery on two levels. First it foreshadows Nixon's abuses of power (there's even throwaway line about a plumber) and the findings of the Church Commission. Second, it seems like it was predicting today's headlines of Gonzales halfway telling us that the President's been engaging in purely domestic spying and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's suit of ATT for complicity with the lawbreaking. I just have to let people know about it in the hopes that someone can pull the audio from the DVD and play it for the world

The premise is that the President of the US needs someone to dump all of this problems on - someone who doesn't want anything from him. The problem is that the analyst, played by a grinning James Coburn, himself is now not allowed to talk anyone about this - including his own analyst. Needless to say, this leaves the President's analyst in a very very nerve wracking position. After a bout of paranoia he runs away. A good third of the movie is about the hijinks that ensue.

The movie's best minute comes at the end of chapter 16. While what I recount doesn't really give much away, I recommend that you not read further if you don't want the movie spoiled for you.

Setting the Scene:
A wayward KGB agent has just recovered the president’s psychoanalyst, who went missing and was being pursued by the secret services of every imaginable country in order to capture and extract the President’s deepest secrets from him and the FBR (FBI), which wanted to kill him. They are driving through the middle of nowhere, returning to Washington DC, when the analyst decides to place a call to DC.

The analyst is stuck on hold and they’re out of change; the KGB guy drives to a nearby town to get some more coins. When he returns with the CEA (CIA) guy close behind they find the analyst gone and a brand new phone booth where the old one used to be. This conversation follows…

CIA Who knew he was here?

KGB Only you and me. And you only knew because I called you from town.
Your phone’s not tapped

CIA But this phone booth was

KGB Are you telling me that every phone in the country is tapped?

CIA That’s what’s in my head

KGB Indignant This is America! Not Russia

CIA Coolly shrugging What do you want from me?

I am a legal immigrant and I support those who have come here illegally to find a better life.

2006-04-04T21:06:04Z

I came here in 1980 with my parents as a Soviet Jewish refugee and subsequently became a citizen. We didn't get into this country because we waited in a line, but because the US Government prioritized our entry due to the political environment we were fleeing. Many, if not most, of my family members did as well.

Those who come here illegally do so for the same reason as my family. They simply didn't have the 'fortune' of being born in a country on the US's shit list.

Despite its many flaws, the US remains a beacon for those who seek a better life for themselves and their families. While there is certainly a case to be made for enhanced border security, the lack of enough viable ways into this country will always overwhelm any border control scheme.

In addition to dramatically increasing legal immigation, the answers are right there in front of us:

1. Give people a reason to stay at home: People come here for economic opportunities that they cannot get in their homeland. We must figure out ways to provide local economic development options whose benefits outweigh the opportunities in the shadows.

2. Remove incentives for cheating: Employers love undocumented workers since those considered 'illegal' can be intimidated. Cheating employers don't have to pay them fair wages, don't have to respect labor laws, and can get away with not paying taxes - all to the competitive advantage against those who do follow the law. Undocumented workers have reason to stay in the shadows; even with this exploitatation, many undocumented workers consider this situation better than the alternatives in their home countries

3. Strengthen and enforce labor rights: Unions provide a non-regulatory and extra-legal way to eliminate cheating since they eliminate the unfair competitive advantage of an exploited workforce.