Six Little Words

posted by Christopher Hayes on 07/31/2008 @ 2:43pm

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An idea that could revolutionize workers' rights in the country: from Tom Geoghegan via David Sirota:

eoghegan reminded me that data show the more union members in an economy, the better workers' pay. The problem, he said, is that weakened labor laws are allowing companies to bully and fire union-sympathetic workers, thus driving down union membership and wages. Enter Geoghegan's six words. If the Civil Rights Act was amended to prevent discrimination "on the basis of union membership," it would curtail corporations' anti-labor assault by making the right to join a union an official civil right. "Hang on," I interrupted. "Joining a union isn't a civil right?" Correct. Under current law, if you are fired for union activity, you can only take your grievance to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) - a byzantine agency deliberately made more Kafkaesque by right-wing appointees and budget cuts. Today, the NLRB takes years to rule on labor law violations, often granting victims only their back pay - a tiny cost of doing business. Union leaders are now focused on reforming the NLRB - an admirable goal - but Geoghegan's plan implies that workers are harmed by being legally leashed to Washington in the first place. His proposal says rather than being forced to rely on an unreliable bureaucracy for protection, workers should be empowered to defend themselves. The six words would do just that. Regardless of whether the NLRB is strengthened or further weakened, persecuted workers would be able to haul union-busting thugs into court. There - unlike at the NLRB - plaintiffs can subpoena company records and win costly punitive damages.

Comments (40)

I see where the problem is going to be, Mr. Hayes.

You can't JUST make it "union membership"...you HAVE to make it "membership in ANY group or association".

Now...what's wrong with that?

It means that you can't fire somebody for being a member of..."Earth First"....OR ...the Klan....or Aryan Nation...or NAMBLA.

US Supreme Court would uphold an "association" anti-discrimination suit...and open the door for the rest, if an attempt was made to make it JUST "union membership".

Posted by Maskdelta at 07/31/2008 @ 2:52pm
I continue to maintain that the permanent fix for poor labor relations is more incentives to form employee owned companies. Why settle for diluted rights in constant adversarial battles with management, when you can form your own labor policies because you own the company?

Kucinich was on the right track with the 1999 Employee Ownership Act, in which a wide range of incentives were offered to induce corporations to be employee-owned. The goal was to have 30% of all corporations employee owned by 2010, and the bill had broad bi-partisan support.

Let's take labor-relations to the next level, Chris, by promoting employee owned corporations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Employee_Ownership_Act_of_1999

Posted by Metteyya at 07/31/2008 @ 3:07pm
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.1462.IH:

Posted by Metteyya at 07/31/2008 @ 3:08pm
Never gonna happen. Union membership is not a civil right it is a privilege, like driving. I work in Television and film. In my industry union membership is something you EARN not something your given. If it was a civil right then it would mean the unions would have to let anyone in the unions no matter what because it is their RIGHT to be in it.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 3:15pm
you're*

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 3:20pm
Tom Geoghegan would make a fantasic Labor Sec. in an Obama Admin, as Rick Perlstein is saying.

Posted by Peter Rothberg at 07/31/2008 @ 3:39pm
Just think how a 22-yrs old employee, single, on his/her 3rd job, would look for as to working for LUV Corp. vs. a 45-yrs old with a family and a kid in college? Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/31/2008 @ 3:44pm

Very true. There's a reason there are employees and there are owners. The employees don't know anything about the ownership of a company.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 3:51pm
Posted by JOMAMMA at 07/31/2008 @ 3:49pm

I think you could give all employees stock in the company. That would make for a little more caring.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 3:54pm
I think if EVERY company gave the employees a decent amount of stock in the company, enough that if the company does well then the employees can earn a decent amount of money for their pockets, then the employees would work a lot harder. Right now the only incentive for most workers is to work hard enough to not get fired but not hard enough to distinguish yourself. Employees need more incentive to work their asses off than just a pat on the back.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 3:56pm
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 3:51pm

Employees don't know anything because they are intentionally kept in the dark by upper management.

Making the corporate decisions transparent to the employees would be one benefit to employee ownership, but the main benefit is that good treatment of workers would be a given, and wages would be boosted across the board based on profits, not just for the top management.

No more layoffs to fund exorbitant executive perks.

Also, the structure of an employee owned corporation could have some similarities to a union, in that the employees would choose representatives they trust to keep them informed.

Posted by Metteyya at 07/31/2008 @ 4:23pm
Posted by Metteyya at 07/31/2008 @ 4:23pm

Making management decisions transparent is one thing talking about employee ownership is another. Employees do not know how to run a company that is the bottom line. It takes a specific skill set to do. Letting employees do something they don't know how to do is going to yield a guaranteed disaster. Making them privy to information is a positive step and being more open to suggestions from employees is good. However choosing to let them run the place is not going to help a company because the employees don't know the first thing about running a company.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 4:35pm
>>>Making management decisions transparent is one thing talking about employee ownership is another. Employees do not know how to run a company that is the bottom line

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 4:35pm .<<<

CCC,

"Everyone" who works for a corporation is and employee, including upper management!

Most SHAREHOLDERS, who are the current owners, do not know how to run a company, and their investments are usually based on gut-feel about the company or speculation concerning earnings.

This about keeping management honest and including their fate with the rest of the employees.

Get it?

Posted by Metteyya at 07/31/2008 @ 5:00pm
Get it? Posted by Metteyya at 07/31/2008 @ 5:00pm

Oh I get it. But what you don't seem to understand is that you don't have to make the employees own the company for management to be transparent. Also on top of that owners and upper management will NEVER share the fate of the employee. Here is why. Upper management and owners have millions more in their savings accounts than the employees. If the companies go belly up an employee will be out on the street where as the owner could probably live comfortably for a decent period of time before looking for a new job. '

You can't force ownership of a company into the employees hands. Hell that's not even communism. Understand employees do not know how to run a company. Maybe YOU think upper management and owners don't know what they are doing but they have managed to craft a successful business somehow so they must know something. If it was as easy as you purport it to be everyone would own their own successful business. I am an advocate of company transparency but I am not an advocate of the government forcing companies to transfer ownership to the employees.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 5:40pm
For instance I work at a small production company that is growing rapidly. I have direct access to the owners because they are directly involved in the management of their company. All department heads talk to them directly. Could I in my position step into their shoes and manage this company? Hell no. I wouldn't know the first thing about what they do. Will I learn to one day? I hope because I will need to when I own my own post production facilities but I sure can't now. Management is more than sitting in meetings.

Just like my managers couldn't walk into my office and do my job.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 6:00pm
>>>You can't force ownership of a company into the employees hands. Hell that's not even communism.<<<

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.1462.IH:

CCC,

I you read the text of the bill in the above link, no one is talking about FORCE. It is based on incentives and voluntary action based on the incentives.

I think your arguments are more appropriate for small "privately" held companies, not the large mega corporations that are doing the union busting.

And the question is NOT whether upper management "knows what they are doing", it is whether they separate themselves from the rest of their employees and pretend that only they are adding value or contributing to the success of the company.

The union scheme, which is based on the adversarial model of a courtroom, reinforces this division among employees, but if all employees were owners in their own corporation, then "we are all in this together", and let's treat "every" employee with the decency and respect of every other "owner" would prevail.

Its about changing the mindset and rewards so that everyone benefits during good times and everyone suffers when times are hard.

Posted by Metteyya at 07/31/2008 @ 7:05pm
It's often the 'new management'... the polished guys with the new bottom line, and the cost cutting efforts... the ones that do the 'profit taking' off of what were legitimate prospering businesses... essentially sucking the guts out of whatever value they find...

Those are the guys that need a wake up call and a cold shower...

Other than that... the US economy needs a "bubble alert system" that functions automatically... painlessly... and eliminates the need for this consistently 'after the fact' insanity...

Posted by ttr at 07/31/2008 @ 10:56pm
Posted by JOMAMMA at 07/31/2008 @ 11:18pm

I could get behind that.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 02:56am
Employee owrnership is an excellent counter to miss management going un checked and union hacks keeping production down and protecting dead beats who should be fired...-----Posted by JOMAMMA at 07/31/2008 @ 3:49pm

So, wouldn't another way to phrase that be...

"the workers controlling the means of production"???

Posted by Maskdelta at 08/01/2008 @ 09:11am
Think of it as 'trickle down' ownership...;^)

Fewer and fewer winners... playing for higher and higher stakes... using more and more socially irresponsible tactics... and eventually destroying the 'public trust' that our Country was inspired by... just to keep the machines of it's greed lubricated and maintained...

Who here has never played 'Monopoly' before?

Personally... I've been thinking that the allocation of 'wealth' for production, and time spent serving it up 'hot'... is becoming more and more inefficient.

Not only its is hastening our desertification of the planet... it makes us more and more beholden to the large money interests that are currently so misguided.

Posted by ttr at 08/01/2008 @ 09:56am
I have always been facinated by the Japanese model for building cars in America. They give their employees bonuses for profitability and seem to be able to beat us at our own game and on our home court.

Anyone have any experience with this model?

Posted by RAGGEDSTEP at 08/01/2008 @ 11:45am
i drive a honda made in ontario, if that counts.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 2:39pm
>>>That "model" is an export from Japan where employees understand the highest priority, is a healthy, growing and profitable automaker and secondly, where wages are benchmarked to be lower than UAW's, and where work rules allow highly flexible deployment of the autoworkers.

Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/01/2008 @ 4:56pm<<<

If that is true, HAP, why not give ALL employees a piece of the action rather than hoarding it in golden parachutes for top management?

Posted by Metteyya at 08/01/2008 @ 6:22pm
commie.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 01:49am
>>>....you seem the type to find a lifetime job, in the Gov't or academia and has absolutely no ambition to ever start your own business with your own capital!

Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/02/2008 @ 1:28pm<<<

Sorry HAP, you have mistaken me for someone else.

Currently working on a business plan for a green business start-up, and have an MBA, not a Ph.d. Also have a green business investment fund where I target businesses that are socially responsible AND have a great business.

I am one of those peculiar business types and entrepreneurs that believe you can run a socially responsible business without losing your shirt. The problem is this country doesn't have enough socially responsible business models because we are all programmed in business school that maximizing profit is the ONLY concern of the enterprise and that employees are fungible units of production, not human beings.

Fortunately, this is starting to shift, and with "Magic" - as you call him - we might start magically transforming the way we think about bsuiness so that everyone who contributes to the success of the enterprise benefits, and non-management employees are not simply a line item on financial statements that can be "adjusted" at any time to satisfy some bird-brain Wall Street analyst fresh out of B school who has never run a business.

Posted by Metteyya at 08/02/2008 @ 2:22pm
hollywood?!?

Domestic spying on anti-war groups forces ACLU into action

By MIKE BARBER

Monica Zucker and three other members of Seattle's Raging Grannies, a peace group of older women who dress in outrageous hats and sing protest songs, lifted up their voices in response Tuesday to recent Seattle P-I disclosures that they were in federal anti-terrorism files.

"Oh, we're a gaggle of grannies, urging you off of your fannies," they sang at a news conference in the downtown Seattle offices of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington.

Acting on behalf of the Raging Grannies and 10 other peace groups across the state, the ACLU of Washington is demanding to know whether and why federal government anti-terrorism units are spending time and money spying on peace organizations.

The local ACLU is using the Freedom of Information Act to seek information on any surveillance from the Defense Department, the FBI and the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force. The move was sparked by disclosures in the Seattle P-I last month. The newspaper documented government surveillance on a longtime Quaker peace activist Glen Milner, of Shoreline, and other anti-war activists during U.S. Navy fleet participation in the annual Seafair festival in recent years.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/03/2008 @ 1:37pm
Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/02/2008 @ 6:08pm

HAP,

I guess you misunderstood my previous post - no talk, all action on investing in socially responsible corporations. These corporations are REAL, and are making serious money WITHOUT government subsidies.

As for my green start-up, subsidies are not part of the business plan, but I would welcome any government incentive if it were available.

I think it is the proper role of government to channel business activity and innovation into areas that could most benefit this country.

Bush abused this privilege, giving tax breaks to Hummer owners and the dirty industries of the past like big oil and coal. The guy is simply an idiot.

Why should the government through the tax code ENCOURAGE taxpayers to buy gas-guzzling SUVs? What a joke!

Posted by Metteyya at 08/03/2008 @ 2:24pm
Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/03/2008 @ 3:59pm

It expired a couple of years ago, but got a 6 year run under Bush. Republicans only gave in to the expiration after getting heat publicly. If there was no heat, these wrong-headed tax breaks would have continued, which shows you the the true colors of the Republican party and George W. Bush!

Posted by Metteyya at 08/03/2008 @ 10:07pm
>>>Are you delusional or just generally want GM (it makes the Huumer, no?), Ford & Chrysler to disappear altogether?

Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/03/2008 @ 10:52pm<<<

GM showed it's true colors with the recall and crushing of the EV-1. Couldn't handle all that demand for the electric cars, so they crushed them after the California Air Quality Resources Board let them off the hook (see Who Killed the Electric Car).

If GM doesn't wake up soon and show some real leadership on the issue, they will become as extinct as the dinosaur by attaching themselves to the gas motor that no longer serves any meaningful purpose other than enriching big oil at the expense of everyone else.

Posted by Metteyya at 08/03/2008 @ 11:35pm
Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/03/2008 @ 10:52pm

HAPP, at $5 a gallon...who'll be driving those?!??!?!?

Posted by Maskdelta at 08/04/2008 @ 09:35am
I'm no expert, but for those willing to do the research, there are both historical and present-day lessons to be learned about employee-owned and/or managed companies.

Worker-owned cooperatives have a long history in Europe, and were often very successful and a major part of various industries (Germany, England), until a change in law (England) or regime (Nazi Germany), driven by contributions from their privately held competitors, helped put them out of business. Spain still has a famous worker-owned coop that is almost a minor conglomerate.

A number of businesses abandoned by their owners in Argentina in recent years were been taken over by their workers and run successfully, but are struggling to maintain themselves against attempts by their old owners to re-establish control. However, I think most of these were relatively small companies, employing in the hundreds or less.

Many stock-ownership plans implemented in this country over the last 30 years have basically yoked their employees to dying companies in return for concessions in pay and benefits (so-called "Lemon Socialism"). Workers or unions end up with a token presence on a Board of Directors that continues to pay exorbitant executive salaries and demand ever greater productivity for less pay and reduced benefits at higher costs. Some deal!

After the October Revolution of 1917, as well as virtually every other modern revolution - socialist, nationalist or just anti-colonial - there has been a brain drain of competent managers and specialists (engineers, etc.). I remember reading a quote from Lenin once questioning a group of workers who wanted to take over their workplace as to whether any of them actually knew how to run the place. Obviously, he'd had experience with other worksites that couldn't maintain production for lack of trained management. On the military side, Trotsky took a lot of heat from many revolutionaries - Bolsheviks and left anarchists - over his decision as Minister of War to retain the services of thousands of officers from the old Czarist Army in the new Red Army, but he argued that the new army needed their expertise, and he was proved right.

I belong to a consumer/worker-owned co-op, one of the few left in the Natural Foods Grocery field where members must work to get a full discount. So I have some predisposition for reforms like worker cooperatives and employee-owned companies. But I think Metteya is naive to think that employee-ownership will end the class struggle, especially given the history of its implementation so far in a country as dominated by business interests as this one.

To the objection of some like cccomfo1 about the inability of employees to run the company, I tend, with my inexpert base of knowledge, to think of companies and workplaces as needing a dose of democracy. Why shouldn't workers elect the Boards to run their company just as they elect legislators and executives to run the government? Let the Board choose upper management, and if the workers aren't happy with those choices, they can vote the Board out and out go upper management, too. But I think any moves toward these kinds of plans need to look at the models of worker-ownership and self-management that are or once were already out there.

Posted by cka2nd at 08/04/2008 @ 10:55am
As for Geoghegan's idea of amending the Civil Rights Act, on the one hand, I kind of like the idea of turning the tables on the corporations and using the same kind of dodge that they used in the 19th century by using the 13th or 14th Amendment to the Constitution to gain legal recognition as "persons" deserving equal protection under the law. However, it would be a dodge and I'd just as soon reform and strengthen labor law pending the revolution.

Mask also makes a legitimate point, why just protect union members? As a Trotskyist, I have always supported amending human and civil rights codes to protect anyone from being discriminated against for their political beliefs. I don't think Nazis or Ku Klux Klansmen should be any more subject to discrimination in housing or employment than liberals, conservatives, members of NAMBLA or my fellow Reds.

Of course, I'm not a pacifist either and times may change, so the Nazi and Klansman whose job or home I made sure they couldn't lose might none the less need to be cleared from the street by direct working class action. Legal discrimination is one thing, but the survival of the working class is another.

Posted by cka2nd at 08/04/2008 @ 11:09am
HAPP, at $5 a gallon...who'll be driving those?!??!?!?

Posted by Maskdelta at 08/04/2008 @ 09:35am

happy.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2008 @ 8:09pm
you know,

i see people driving much more slowly.

it's great.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2008 @ 9:50pm
On the other hand, because our taxes on gasoline have been so much lower, it has probably kept many, many jobs here in the U.S. and have resulted in the most efficient distribution system (by Mack trucks) on earth.

Two sides to every coin....just saying!

Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/04/2008 @ 10:17pm

17 sides to every side of a coin, happy.

if gas had been more expensive, there would still be a north american auto industry.

if gas had been more expensive, the great greenland ice cube wouldn't be as ready to fall into the north atlantic.

Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2008 @ 11:56pm
workers today are competing with the entire world and must remain competetive or particular industries will end up like GM..miss managed up the ass and unions thugs with a knife at the throat... Posted by JOMAMMA at 07/31/2008 @ 3:49pm

JM, One of the big reasons GM, Ford, Chrysler and other large American manufacturing companies are getting creamed, (aside from gross mismanagament) is the extremely high cost of health insurance.

You sir, are one of the folks complaining about universal health care coverage while a lot of larger American companies back universal health care coverage.

Why would large companies want to change to government backed universal health care? Maybe because they would become more competitive because they wouldn't be paying huge insurance premiums going to insurance company executives and stock holders. Workers are being squeezed from all sides in the U.S. right now.

The wealthy would suck blood out of rocks if they could for profit.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 12:25pm
However choosing to let them run the place is not going to help a company because the employees don't know the first thing about running a company.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/31/2008 @ 4:35pm

What makes you think having a business degree means the executives know how to run a company?

I've been around for a while and have become quite a student of the brilliant moves middle and senior level management do at places I've worked at.

They will do anything to protect their own jobs irrespecetive of what is good for the company. For example, say sales have levelled off and management want the investors to invest more into the company.

Here's what your average weenie head dipshit in a suit will do. Instead of looking at middle level or senior level management, or perhaps some marketing personnel lay-offs, they'll start trimming back people on the manufacturing lines, technicians, assembly folks etc. Now, the people making and building the products are producing the products that keep the company in business. But, the logic the senior management sees is the bottom line. If they reduce what appears to overhead, the company appears to be more profitable for a set amount of time, even though the company that was producing a level output will now be producing less because they just laid off people directly in line with the end product. If they wish to up production, they'll have to pay overtime and errors.

Even engineering jobs will be sacrificed before management folks get booted. By then, it's time to turn the lights out and shut the company down. All because a bunch of friggin bean counters are now running companies instead of people who truly know the real business of the company.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 12:38pm
If they wish to up production, they'll have to pay overtime and errors.

Whoops. Meant to say, "they'll have to pay overtime to produce the same amount of items, and more errors will take place due to tired workers which in turn costs more in the long run.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 12:48pm
I think it should be a civil right, but open to challenge by workers who would want to join, or who have joined, but who want to be sure that the union is not controlled by, or serving the interests of, criminal elements. Unions have been abused by racketeers, so the legislation authorizing the right to have a free union has to be carefully drafted to avoid it serving another "Jimmy Hoffa."

ofmelabes

Posted by ofmelabes at 08/06/2008 @ 10:08am
Unions have been abused by racketeers, so the legislation authorizing the right to have a free union has to be carefully drafted to avoid it serving another "Jimmy Hoffa."

ofmelabes

Posted by ofmelabes at 08/06/2008 @ 10:08am

True enough, but workers have been abused a hell of a lot more by corporate chieftons than the mafia ever could have. If you look up some history, you'll note that unions pushed for the 40 hour work week and safer working conditions for industrial workers.

Ask some of the families of the deceased minors what they think about the mining corporations cutting corners on safety while the Bush admninistration deregulated safety standards and didn't fine companies in violation of safety standards. I'll bet most of these families wish someone would have protected their cherished ones better than the mining corporations and of course the Bush administration.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2008 @ 3:47pm
Ask some of the families of the deceased minors.... sorry, meant to type in miners.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2008 @ 4:12pm