...which, as everyone in Ann Arbor knows, marks the end of winter. Woot!
The rest of you can keep your groundhogs.
3/11/07
Michael Jackson is dancing in the alley...
...which, as everyone in Ann Arbor knows, marks the end of winter. Woot!
The rest of you can keep your groundhogs.
3/9/07
Profile in courage
"I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials." |Newt Gingrich|
3/8/07
Don't keep bringing that weak ass shit
Via Drum I see that Tyler Cowen is approvingly citing a paper making the claim that unions don't produce higher wages. Well, I can't get through the pay wall[1] to read the study, but the abstract suggests an obvious problem. Here's an excerpt:
What's being compared here, then, are firms with weak unions and firms that barely beat back a unionization drive. What you would expect in such a case, or at any rate what I would expect in such a case, is that there wouldn't be much of a wage differential. This is because, first, a weak union won't be able to win much in the way of wage concessions, and, second, a firm which barely beat back a unionization drive will have an incentive to mollify workers. Cowen's suggestion that this result indicates that, "there may be no union wage premium at all" is, to say the least, a far stronger conclusion than is warranted.
----------
1 Though I'm sure I'll be able to work that out without much trouble tomorrow.
Addendum: And there's the paper in my inbox. I gotta tell you, having the right readers is almost as effective as having access to a university library system.
Using multiple establishment-level data sets that represent establishments that faced organizing drives in the United States during 1984-1999, this paper uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of unionization on business survival, employment, output, productivity, and wages. Essentially, outcomes for employers where unions barely won the election (e. g., by one vote) are compared with those where the unions barely lost. The analysis finds small impacts on all outcomes that we examine; estimates for wages are close to zero.
What's being compared here, then, are firms with weak unions and firms that barely beat back a unionization drive. What you would expect in such a case, or at any rate what I would expect in such a case, is that there wouldn't be much of a wage differential. This is because, first, a weak union won't be able to win much in the way of wage concessions, and, second, a firm which barely beat back a unionization drive will have an incentive to mollify workers. Cowen's suggestion that this result indicates that, "there may be no union wage premium at all" is, to say the least, a far stronger conclusion than is warranted.
----------
1 Though I'm sure I'll be able to work that out without much trouble tomorrow.
Addendum: And there's the paper in my inbox. I gotta tell you, having the right readers is almost as effective as having access to a university library system.
Union thug fashion
I saw one of these numbers for the first time yesterday morning. I was on campus on my way to do some face to face organizing. Having no way to carry it, I had been forced to leave my bat back at the office.
Somehow I managed to get the card anyway, and to hear horror stories about funding and workload in the department, and to look at baby pictures, but it sure would have been reassuring to have a weapon handy just in case.
3/7/07
"Vampire Hunters" drive a stake through Milosivec's heart
It's true. To prevent the Serbian dictator from returning to life, they dug him up and drove a three-foot wooden stake through his heart.
This would be more reasonable--well, reasonable for vampire hunters--if Milosivec, like some other dictators, had a reputation for entanglement with the dark arts, but to my knowledge he didn't swing that way. So it's a bit of a vampiric non-sequitur.
Are there stories about Milosivec I haven't heard?
This would be more reasonable--well, reasonable for vampire hunters--if Milosivec, like some other dictators, had a reputation for entanglement with the dark arts, but to my knowledge he didn't swing that way. So it's a bit of a vampiric non-sequitur.
Are there stories about Milosivec I haven't heard?
dolorous
[From Old French 'doloros', from Late Latin 'dolorosus', from Latin 'dolor', pain, grief]
adj.
1. Causing, characterized by, or affected with physical pain.
2. Causing, marked by, or expressive of misery or grief.
adj.
1. Causing, characterized by, or affected with physical pain.
2. Causing, marked by, or expressive of misery or grief.
3/6/07
Perspective and compromise on EFCA
This is about right:
This is what EFCA is about. It's about the fact that unions are unable to organize effectively, and that this has had bad effects for workers. Card check will make organizing easier. This will increase the bargaining power of unions, and will, thereby, allow them to negotiate better terms of employment for workers. And this is a good thing because, for the last thirty years, the working class has been getting the shaft. Simple.
I can hear you asking, though, "What about the secret ballot? Isn't it the foundation of American democracy?" Well, no. But leave that aside. Here's a compromise proposal. Instead of card check recognition, let's just legislate that each workplace shall have a union recognition election not less than once every five years. With secret ballots and the whole shebang. What do you say to that bub?
There's a weirdness to this anti-union hysteria that's genuinely puzzling. I mean, I'm not actually the biggest union sympathizer in the world, and I sort of get the fear of unions that some people have. If it were 1975, I might sympathize more.
But it's not 1975. We don't live in an era of corrupt union bosses, inflation-busting contracts in dying industries, or endless strikes that threaten to cripple the economy. We live in an era in which unions are as decently managed as any other similar-sized enterprise, middle-class workers haven't gotten a raise in three decades, and management locks out workers unless they agree to pay cuts and benefit reductions. If you thought labor had too much power 30 years ago, fine. I'll let it pass. But today? You must be kidding. |Kevin Drum|
This is what EFCA is about. It's about the fact that unions are unable to organize effectively, and that this has had bad effects for workers. Card check will make organizing easier. This will increase the bargaining power of unions, and will, thereby, allow them to negotiate better terms of employment for workers. And this is a good thing because, for the last thirty years, the working class has been getting the shaft. Simple.
I can hear you asking, though, "What about the secret ballot? Isn't it the foundation of American democracy?" Well, no. But leave that aside. Here's a compromise proposal. Instead of card check recognition, let's just legislate that each workplace shall have a union recognition election not less than once every five years. With secret ballots and the whole shebang. What do you say to that bub?
3/5/07
I don't know jack about Mike Huckabee
I titled the post this way to deter anyone from thinking that I'm about to become a "Huckabee Democrat." It's a sad state of affairs, but my starting assumption about any politician is that she will say anything, anything, to get elected. It is, in fact, his job to do so.
Policy does matter, however, and the rhetoric that politicians use to get elected ends up shaping the policy, often more than the politicians might have hoped.
Firstly, the rhetoric constrains the winner of the political contest, at least a little, as the winner may have future contests and needs to avoid flagrant hypocrisy to win down the road.
Second, and probably more significantly, the rhetoric can take on a life of its own and move the center of the debate in one direction or another. This latter effect can immediately undercut a politician's favoured course (example: Bush and the Dubai ports deal), but can also ripple down through the years, shaping entire political platforms (example: Barry Goldwater).
Thus, it is heartening to see a Republican candidate for president staking out these sorts of positions, no matter what his motivations may be:
Here is a piece of Salon's profile, as quoted by Yglesias (with our patent-pending Bellman bolding):
Leading off with poverty? That's the starting position of the so-called "Religious Left." Taken seriously, it implies all sorts of positions that are far closer to my left-wing nutjob socialism than the policies pursued by any Republicans in my lifetime.
Here is another bit of the Salon profile, as quoted by Ezra Klein:
This is the exactly the kind of position, written into platform after platform of the Democratic party, that makes me a Democrat. However, our Dem Congressfolk and Presidents haven't acted on this position--or even tried very hard to shape the debate--for some time. Our highly-paid inside-the-beltway consultants tell us that hammering on this sort of thing will lose us votes rather than gain them.
And they might be right. But at some point somebody has to actually fight to fix the clusterfrak that is our prison-industrial complex. And if that person turns out to be a Republican, that person might just gain more votes than he loses for doing so. He might just get mine.
At the very least, I'm happy to see anyone out there pushing on my side of the envelope.
Policy does matter, however, and the rhetoric that politicians use to get elected ends up shaping the policy, often more than the politicians might have hoped.
Firstly, the rhetoric constrains the winner of the political contest, at least a little, as the winner may have future contests and needs to avoid flagrant hypocrisy to win down the road.
Second, and probably more significantly, the rhetoric can take on a life of its own and move the center of the debate in one direction or another. This latter effect can immediately undercut a politician's favoured course (example: Bush and the Dubai ports deal), but can also ripple down through the years, shaping entire political platforms (example: Barry Goldwater).
Thus, it is heartening to see a Republican candidate for president staking out these sorts of positions, no matter what his motivations may be:
Here is a piece of Salon's profile, as quoted by Yglesias (with our patent-pending Bellman bolding):
"If I really know what it means to follow Jesus, it means no kid goes hungry tonight," he said, at one stop in Iowa. "It means no wife gets the daylights beat out of her by some alcoholic abusive husband. It means no kid lives in a neighborhood where he is scared to death of some child predator that is going to pick him up and carry him off. It means not one single elderly person has to make the choice between food or medicine." Unlike former Sen. Rick Santorum or Sen. Sam Brownback, Huckabee does not spend time pounding the pulpit over baby murder and sodomy. He's a self-styled "compassionate conservative," a poll-tested concept that worked once before. But while President Bush discarded the slogan like a prom queen's sash, Huckabee wants to convince America that he is the real deal.
Leading off with poverty? That's the starting position of the so-called "Religious Left." Taken seriously, it implies all sorts of positions that are far closer to my left-wing nutjob socialism than the policies pursued by any Republicans in my lifetime.
Here is another bit of the Salon profile, as quoted by Ezra Klein:
[Huckabee] has refused to take the predictable path by talking tough on crime to deflect the DuMond criticism. Instead, he campaigns on a compassionate approach to wrongdoers, especially those whose crimes are the result of drug or alcohol addiction. At Philly's Finest, he condemned the "revenge-based corrections system," sounding every bit the sort of squishy liberal that the Bill O'Reillys of the world long ago scared into the shadows. "We lock up a lot of people we are mad at rather than the ones we are really afraid of," he said. "We incarcerate more people than anybody on earth." As governor, Huckabee pushed for drug treatment instead of incarceration for non-violent offenders. He pushed for faith-based prison programs, and was critical of governors who "gladly pull the switch" on death penalty cases, an apparent knock on President Bush, who was criticized as governor of Texas for being cavalier about capital punishment.
This is the exactly the kind of position, written into platform after platform of the Democratic party, that makes me a Democrat. However, our Dem Congressfolk and Presidents haven't acted on this position--or even tried very hard to shape the debate--for some time. Our highly-paid inside-the-beltway consultants tell us that hammering on this sort of thing will lose us votes rather than gain them.
And they might be right. But at some point somebody has to actually fight to fix the clusterfrak that is our prison-industrial complex. And if that person turns out to be a Republican, that person might just gain more votes than he loses for doing so. He might just get mine.
At the very least, I'm happy to see anyone out there pushing on my side of the envelope.
3/2/07
asper
[Origin 1580-90, from Italian 'aspro', white (probably referring to the whiteness of new silver coins)]
n.
A Turkish money of account (formerly a coin), of little value; the 120th part of a piaster.
[from Latin 'asper', rough]
adj.
Rough; rugged; harsh; bitter; stern; fierce.
[from Latin 'spiritus asper', rough breathing]
n.
The rough breathing; a mark placed over an initial vowel sound or over [rho] to show that it is aspirated, that is, pronounced with h before it.
n.
A Turkish money of account (formerly a coin), of little value; the 120th part of a piaster.
[from Latin 'asper', rough]
adj.
Rough; rugged; harsh; bitter; stern; fierce.
[from Latin 'spiritus asper', rough breathing]
n.
The rough breathing; a mark placed over an initial vowel sound or over [rho] to show that it is aspirated, that is, pronounced with h before it.
3/1/07
Hell no they don't believe their own bullshit
Most of what the Democrats want to do in Congress is just unwise, but H.R. 800, the Worker Compulsion Act, is vile. The statute, a thank-you to organized labor for its role in November's elections, would deprive American workers of the right to a secret ballot in union certification elections.
The secret ballot is a fundamental tenet of any effective democracy, and has been part of American labor law for many years. There is no possible explanation for why the Democrats want to abolish the secret ballot, other than the truth: they are trying to enable coercion and intimidation by union thugs.
The quote is from Powerline, though I hesitate to ascribe authorship since on this issue everyone on the right just cuts and pastes talking points from the National Association of Manufacturers.
For the record, the bill is actually called the Employee Free Choice Act. But whatever. At least they spelled 'democrats' right.
Here's the deal. The reason that unions want card check recognition isn't that unionists oppose secret ballots or want to 'enable coercion and intimidation by union thugs.' The reason is rather that employers have a well documented tradition of fighting tooth and nail to prevent recognition elections from taking place at all. It is laughably dishonest for NAM and their proxies to claim, in the face of mountainous evidence to the contrary, that their objection to the bill is grounded in a commitment to worker democracy.
edited for clarity, crappy writing
Suck it
...I feel like I should cite a source, but all I know is that my friend Jef sent this to me.
Folks just called him yellow
Over at the Great Big Onanism Revue, Dave3544 has expressed his doubts that the Democrats in the Senate will pass the bill calling for unionization of the TSA. Actually, he's offered a bet a 4 to 1 odds that the Senate won't pass the bill.
Don't throw away your money!
Legislative cowardice or no, it seems to me that giving Bush a chance to veto TSA unionization wouldn't be good politics. It's clear from the NY Times article linked above (and yesterday), that the Republicans have the votes to sustain the veto. So passing the TSA unionization bill won't accomplish anything concrete, but will instead be a symbolic gesture.
That's not bad in itself. There's nothing wrong with symbolic gestures as such, and the principle at stake here -- that every worker should have the right to engage in substantive collective bargaining -- is a good one, and well worth defending symbolically and otherwise.
The problem is that defending that principle by taking a stand on this issue gives the Republicans a chance to make a symbolic gesture of their own. That is, it lets the Republicans make speeches about their commitment to national security, speeches in which they take shots at Democrats for caring more about the concerns of special interests than about defending the homeland.
Why give the Republicans that rhetorical opportunity? Especially when there are better bills out there?
Don't throw away your money!
Legislative cowardice or no, it seems to me that giving Bush a chance to veto TSA unionization wouldn't be good politics. It's clear from the NY Times article linked above (and yesterday), that the Republicans have the votes to sustain the veto. So passing the TSA unionization bill won't accomplish anything concrete, but will instead be a symbolic gesture.
That's not bad in itself. There's nothing wrong with symbolic gestures as such, and the principle at stake here -- that every worker should have the right to engage in substantive collective bargaining -- is a good one, and well worth defending symbolically and otherwise.
The problem is that defending that principle by taking a stand on this issue gives the Republicans a chance to make a symbolic gesture of their own. That is, it lets the Republicans make speeches about their commitment to national security, speeches in which they take shots at Democrats for caring more about the concerns of special interests than about defending the homeland.
Why give the Republicans that rhetorical opportunity? Especially when there are better bills out there?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
