My Netnewswire inbox is just overflowing with stuff I thought was interesting and worthy of comment. I have now decided that I either post these things or they will be lost forever. So here goes:
Interesting two-part article on labor media’s role in the reform of the labor movement. Part one is really excellent. It outlines many of the core problems of the current labor movement, especially its “corporate” structure and lack of democracy. Part two is less excellent, making the claim a primary culprit for labor’s decline is that corporations have taken over the public dialogue, says bad things about unions and now everyone thinks unions stink. I would definitely question the cause/effect here. Their solution, destroying copyright and free speech protection for corporations (no word on “voluntary” associations, which are also protected by the corporate “personhood” fiction) seems a little off the mark. I’d work a little more on the demand side – i.e. providing value to members who will then go around telling friends and family members (and perhaps media members) how great it is to be union. But that is so much harder work than just prohibiting people who believe in markets and capitalism from participating in the marketplace of ideas. Another similar take here.
Here is another good summary of the currents of the AFL-CIO reform movement.
Another great take from Mark Schmitt about the transactional nature of our political interactions – this is so true, not just with respect to politics but (as Mark points out) with other associations, including unions. This is an extension of a similar riff Mark had here. Unions have got to make this idea any part of an effective reform strategy. Juicy bit: “As Steven Waldman and John Green argued on beliefnet, the percentage of regular church-goers declined as a proportion of the electorate. Large-scale membership organizations such as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are in decline. As I understand it, Karl Rove didn’t find his 3 million evangelicals (if he did) by going to the membership of those organizations, or even of churches, but through classic demographic analysis: he looked for people who looked like like evangelicals, based on where they lived and how they lived and what magazines they read and so forth. And then the party bombarded them with transactions: calls, visits, questionnaires, opportunities to get involved.”
Terrific little editorial on the upcoming (again) San Francisco Hotel negotiations. Best quote: “It makes for compelling theater, but the undeniable truth is that when push comes to shove, the hotels can hire more workers, while the union can never hire more hotels.”
On a related (California labor) note, this Sacramento grocery contract got settled without a strike – bet the So Cal grocery workers who walked for 5 months wish they could have gotten this contract (of course, this contract may only have been possible after the companies suffered a 5 month strike).
Organizing hispanic workers is a key priority for unions, as this item explains.
This was a nice interview with a reformer from within the SEIU – gives some perspective on the kind of union Andy Stern actually runs. The New Unity Partnership will be decidedly non-democratic.
Steven Greenhouse wrote a nice (and by and large balanced) article summarizing the Battista labor board’s rulings over the last year. The quotable quote comes from Charles Craver, who is a very smart guy but either lets his emotions get the better of him or is quoted out of context when he says: “I think we have a labor board as conservative as any time since the Reagan board,” Professor Craver said. “It really troubles me because we’re revisiting a lot of cases that have been fairly well settled.” I don’t think the name Battista gets people nearly as red in the face as the name Dotson; and I guess if you define “fairly well settled” as “in place since William Gould left office” then maybe I could agree with that last statement. The fact is that all the Battista Board’s important cases are merely reversals of Gould Board reversals of what most people would define as “fairly well settled” case law (i.e. in place for 20 years or more). One certainly can argue that the well settled law needed changing, and I will grant that if the Board limits card-check that will be a major change of a well-settled rule, but so far it has mainly been the political ping-pong match that is our labor relations system.
