Union Labor and the Battle for the Union

[The following is a bit of a retro piece but I feel that is serves as a good example of how things are blown out of proportion by political operatives in the Democratic and Republican Parties and in the media. Also, Labor Day is approaching which seems like a good time to discuss labor issues.]

The Scott Walker recall is another one of those issues that just begs a response because the rhetoric has gotten so extreme and silly. Is this really the epic battle of a free America vs. socialism? Is it the last stand of the common man, the worker vs. fascism? Let’s examine it:

Has anyone considered that this argument, this battle needs to be constant? Honestly, how does either side win? The government beats the union workers and forces them to work for peanuts and no health care or retirement benefits? Or the union workers win and get a 25 hour work week with full benefits and an extremely generous salary? What would either scenario mean for the greater economy?

Government jobs are supposed to be low wage jobs. They need to be. A government does not run effectively unless it is run efficiently. Once people's wages rise too high, we are all overly-burdened by the cost. There are a lot of government employees that are not in unions and they are not complaining about their pay and benefits. That's because they are well compensated for their work. These are politicians, scientists, judges, high level federal law enforcement personnel, etc. You see, if you want a big salary and nice benefits, you need to try to become one of those people. The educated, the invaluable and those that work risky jobs or jobs that require their attention 24/7. Driving a street-sweeper isn’t very risky and doesn't require much of an education. Most anybody can do it. Therefore the person hired to do that job should be compensated as such.

The flip side is that you can't just hire Hillbilly Harold to be a crossing guard if he's going to stare at the young girls and creep them out when they walk past and try to rub up against them when they're waiting for the light to change. You'd better be damn sure that whomever you hire for a rock bottom salary with limited benefits won't conduct themselves in a way that opens up the city, state or federal government up to liabilities, PR nightmares or other black eyes. After all, in order for the government to run efficiently, it has to run effectively.

Also, it takes time to train a new person, does it not? Even simple jobs have many nuances. In my street-sweeper driver example, what are the routes a driver must learn? What are the procedures? What does s/he do if there's a car in the way? What does that switch next to the fuel gauge do? At a point it is economically beneficial to pay a person enough that they won’t want to leave for quite some time. This balance is the free market at work.

So here's how I bridge the gap: we need to pay people enough to attract employees that will conduct themselves appropriately as they carry out their duties. They need to be paid enough that we can attract people who will be good representatives of our cities, states and of our country. The jobs need to pay enough that we can attract people who will be good stewards of our government resources (our vehicles, equipment, tools, funds, other employees and citizens). I think we may need to give up the idea of collective bargaining for government workers in favor of contractually-mandated bargaining power for each individual. Otherwise, the worst worker gets the same pay and benefits of the best workers. I believe that this is another area where we need to re-think things fundamentally to come up with a better system.

So people, this issue is a fight that we are always going to have. We must continually seek to find the correct balance of how much of a salary we should pay someone so that the government is running at its most efficient and most effective. It's not about which people want to destroy the country by suckling off the government teat vs. the people that want to suppress everybody they can to take all of the money for themselves. This is about hiring people we can trust to do the government's work and allow them to live a life of dignity for doing those necessary jobs. Why are people acting like you need to crush the other side to save the country? What's the point? The argument will never be won and just go away. It is the constant tug-of-war that is the political process.

If you're so passionate about it, form a citizen review board to evaluate the compensation of people in your community. Then pressure the government so that your findings will have influence. If you don't get the political influence you believe you deserve then shine the light on the politicians, get media attention and get others to vote people out. Otherwise what you have is politicians on the left catering to unions and politicians on the right trying to destroy them. And they want you to act as their minions to help them do something that will ultimately harm the country. Why play that game?

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/

Ease Up On the Propaganda, Dude!

If you are paying attention, you probably heard that GE earned over $10 billion in profit yet paid no Federal taxes in 2010 and actually got a tax benefit from Uncle Sam. That turned out not to be wholly true but GE has heavily invested in lobbying the federal government and usually pays a tax rate of about 7% whereas many other businesses may pay as much as 40%. This is pretty outrageous but even more so when you consider that GE has moved thousands of US jobs overseas. It doesn't seem like a company that deserves (or needs) a giant tax break to me. So I get a little put off when I see GE's advertising campaign that seems to serve as a PR (public relations) initiative. One ad talks about how the medical devices that GE makes have helped people diagnose and/or treat their cancer. It's a feel-good commercial for sure. It tugs at your heartstrings and makes you feel good about how this company helped to save the lives of people. The commercial makes GE sound much more like a company that deserves a big tax break from the federal government. But what if there was a smaller company out there that is working on a better machine? A machine that is more accurate, more convenient and more cost-effective? This company is hypothetical as far as I know but such a company would not be able to afford to compete with GE for special favors from Uncle Sam. Therefore, their better machine would not be available for anyone.



Are you convinced that you're getting a fair share?

This is the danger of having a plutocracy- a country where very wealthy are able to buy what they want from government at the expense of the general public. This is the reason that everyone should demand fairness in the tax code and the electoral and legislative processes.

Another disturbing piece of propaganda comes from Chevron. Their TV ad mentions that they donate money to schools to teach kids science. Great! Such donations rarely come without strings attached. And I certainly have to wonder if the stings attached to this deal will be tied at the other end to textbooks that have no mention to the environmental damage related to fossil fuel energy. I know for sure that letting companies that deny the science of climate change shouldn't be teaching science to our kids.

You almost have to admire what seems to me to be a well thought-out strategy: industries pushes for tax breaks and offshore their profits so that the government goes broke. And when government can't afford to educate our kids or provide health care to our citizens, well here comes big business to lend a helping hand! Do you think these businesses will be too important to fail when we are dependent upon them for education funding and cancer detection and research?

So industry and the wealthy appear to be well-organized to ensure that their interests are served by government and that their propaganda is disseminated to convince us of the benevolence of the whole situation. What do you think will happen if we are not also organized? Do you think we may get steamrolled, bamboozled and taken advantage of? You really don't need to wonder. Our public schools are bankrupt and under-funded while corporations reap record profits and pay record low taxes on that wealth. Most of the wealth in the country has gone to the top .01% while the wages for the rest of us have stayed flat (when adjusted for inflation) since the 1970's. Has there really not been a single US worker that contributed to that explosion of new wealth? Shouldn't those who helped to create that wealth also get a small piece of it? Apparently not, under our current system.

How did this happen? How did our government and our political system stop serving us in favor of serving the wealthy few? After all, we have the power to vote to hire and fire these politicians. When corporations are considered "people" and money is considered "speech" politicians are going to turn to the "people" that have the most to "say". I won't try to claim that every politician is a greedy, corrupt person but every singe one of them depends on campaign contributions to get re-elected. Do you have a few million bucks you can contribute to a political campaign? If not, your representative will be talking to George Clooney, Foster Friese, Susan Serandon and the Koch brothers instead.

Some of the wealthy people that have the privilege of having great influence over the government may be less self-serving than others but the mere fact that you can't talk to a politician today unless you are a millionaire, and probably won't be able to have any serious influence unless you are a billionaire, should be disturbing and infuriating to all of us. Do you accept being marginalized in your own country so that a privileged few can steer our country in a direction that serves their interests and/or ideology?

I strongly believe that our only chance to recover control of our government is for us to stand together and demand changes. Together we are bigger and stronger and more influential than the industries, the celebrities, the corporations and the media. I know that political pundits have often said that those people who are politically to the left or right of you are "loonies", "pinheads" and "brainwashed fools". But don't we all want the same basic things from our government and our country? Justice, fairness and a comfortable lifestyle with a shot at earning great success and wealth? A government that is more efficient, more effective and more accountable to us? Can we work together to achieve those things or shall we continue to fight with one another over disagreements? How successful has that been so far? If we work together we can achieve the things we all want. When we fight with each other we have to accept what the politicians give us.

In the past several years upward mobility has slowed to a crawl. Few people in the lower class ever move up to the middle class. And few in the middle class ever move into the upper class. When we go into full reversal and only the very wealthy maintain or advance their financial positions and the rest of us slide backward, will you then be motivated to change things? Will you have finally had enough? Will it be too late to change things? Our time is now. Our birthright--a country of our own--is at stake. Are we Americans or are we merely shadows of our brave and ambitious forefathers?

~R. Charan Pagan
information systems technologist, musician, writer, filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA 90017
http://www.reclaimingourbirthright.blogspot.com/