What do we talk and write about?
Lifted from an op ed e-mail from Stormy:
A piece in the Guardian is interesting, dealing with poverty (real poverty) and inequality. I think that Angry Bear should really address what can be done about rising inequality. Here are the last two paragraphs:
The prospect is one of a society such as the one we live in, only more so. Nobody, in the Beveridge sense of the term, is lacking the means of subsistence: nobody is “poor”. But it is a society that is also starting to look uncomfortably feudal, and many economists think it is overwhelmingly likely to be our future. I know, because they’ve told me. But this is a conversation we need to be having out in the open, because keeping quiet about it makes it more likely to happen.
This may sound grim, but I am not pessimistic. Rising inequality is not a law of nature – it’s not even a law of economics. It is a consequence of political and economic arrangements, and those arrangements can be changed. Inequality in the developed world fell for most of the 20th century; we can make it fall for most of the 21st century, too. But it won’t happen without sustained pressure on politicians from electorates. So let’s get on with it. Let’s start to make them hear what we’re saying: it’s about the inequality, stupid.
Instead of celebrating laissez-faire capitalism, we should start talking about how we would change things to lessen inequality. Exactly what political or economic arrangements should be created? Simply asking the rich to share is laughable. If you want to understand Ferguson, ask, “Where are the jobs?”
How about a hefty tax on capital gains? Higher corporate taxes? If American companies want to make their goods cheaply elsewhere and send them for us to buy, how about a tariff on those goods?
And what about those trading rules? Do we want our workers to compete with slave labor in countries that do not have meaningful collective bargaining? I say, “No.” Insist they compete fairly. Either they have collective bargaining or we put a tariff on their goods. In case you have missed what is really happening: American companies, like Apple, use virtual third world slave labor to make goods that they then sell to us. Who gets rich doing this?
But often, because economists choke at the mention of labor unions or collective bargaining, they simple do not see this as an option. I remember a discussion on AngryBear that labor unions are really gangster led. I could not believe that intelligent people could so easily toss away collective bargaining.
Trade? No one discusses that any more. I have described how trade rules could be changed. Big silence. Yet the rise of inequality world-wide is connected to trade imbalances and to foolish trading agreements. My piece, “Trade and the Great Recession” spells out the connecion.
Similarly, blaming loss of jobs on automation is absurd . Manufacturing jobs went to China and third world countries. These countries now have enormous trade surpluses with the U.S. Who wants to claim that these third world countries have such sophisticated automation that they now have a trade advantage in goods?
Most economists bow and scrape before the idea of free trade—a ridiculously foggy idea. Do they mean we cannot insist that our trading partners allow meaningful collective bargaining? Do they mean that we cannot insist that our trading partners rigorously enforce comparable environmental regulations? Ignoring these structures simply increases the growth of inequality world-wide.
Then there is that silliness that all economists protect: exogenous variables. It is absolutely impossible to talk sensibly about the true cost of a thing if we cannot quantify, for example, its effect the environment. Take the case of climate change. Is four or six degrees of global temperature an exogenous variable? Economist should ignore these projections even if they entail the collapse of civilization?
Are the acidification of the oceans and the destruction of its wild life exogenous variables?
Then there is the silliness in talking and modeling a world that simply does not exist! A few days ago, Dan sent me an article from Naked Capitalism discussing the flow of money as a function of imports and exports. Unfortunately, the writers never considered the effect of currency manipulation. Currency manipulation has had an enormous effect on money flow and an enormous effect on trade. But we simply hear nothing of that.
I have repeatedly described how currency manipulation affects trade and corporate profit. I doubt that many could see a connection. If they were real business men, they would see the connection.
These conversations are never had. Watching economists is like watching horses tread a circle with blinders on. The rich have trained them well….they move according to proscribed lines of thought, tightly leashed to some very profitable ideas for the very rich.
Just a thought.
Stormy
It was called Occupy. It was publicly pilloried, harassed and eventually brutally suppressed in a manner the citizens of Ferguson would recognize.
The DFH were properly frightened away once it became clear how easily the police could get detailed electronic surveillance on them and marginalize their mostly non violent demonstrations. Some of them are still on probation.
A skeptical eyebrow raise to those who continue to insist that the Occupiers should have done more within the existing political system. Those cocktail and canapé fundraisers just cost too much.
” American companies, like Apple, use virtual third world slave labor to make goods that they then sell to us. Who gets rich doing this? ”
The labour that makes the goods? Chinese manufacturing wages have gone from $1,000 a year to $6,000 a year in the past 14 years. The way to aid making the poor rich is to buy things made by poor people.
“Yet the rise of inequality world-wide is connected to trade imbalances and to foolish trading agreements.”
Inequality is certainly linked to trade yes. But the greater trade openness of the past 30-40 years is also what is reducing global inequality (yes, really, global inequality is falling).
“These conversations are never had. Watching economists is like watching horses tread a circle with blinders on.”
Economists don’t just have these conversations. They go off and write papers about these very things that you mention. What you really mean is that their conclusions don’t agree with yours…..
My first comment was kind of dour so for the other hand I will point to this piece on Naked Capitalism today on Cuomo’s primary win:
Zephyr teachout was outspent about 30:1 and still managed a decent showing. This was a campaign of ideas many of which Stormy and Dan refer to above. So maybe electoral politics can still be made to work. Maybe.
I have been railing about income inequality since the last century. I believe the statistics will bear out that it goes back to the 1970’s–about when the boomers hit the labor market in force. Plainly NAFTA and its progeny have exacerbated the trend as did the Reagan years which punished the middle class to give benefits to the wealthy–remember “voodoo economics”? For all of those who wring their hands and think nothing can be done, we got to this point through deliberate government policies. In a democracy–even one bought and paid for- we have no one to blame but ourselves. If we are not to devolve into a feudal state it will require a reversal of the government policies which have deliberately gotten us to this point. Paramount are the flattening of the progressive income tax, the special treatment afforded capital gains and dividends, the failure to establish meaningful single payor health care coverage–and the AMA’s ability to restrict competition among physicians–our inability to stem the tide of cheap immigrant labor, permitting educational institutions to fleece students and saddle them with lifelong debt, the “reform” of bankruptcy laws, the ready availability of credit at usurious rates, the rise of mega farms at the expense of the family farm, the failure to understand and adopt basic Keynesian economic principles because of concerns about national debt, the maintenance of a strong dollar, the “tech revolution” etc. As a country we have driven down the demand for lower skilled labor, gotten the labor we do need through outsourcing overseas and in sourcing through immigration and as a result only the most highly skilled–educated and able–have been able to hold their own.
test — for some reason I am unable to upload a comment
Dan here: Here is Denis Drew’s comment:
I think I’m going to make up a cut-and-paste explanation for the value of — the absolute indispensability of — having all employees doing the same kind of work (e.g., retail clerk) negotiating one common contract with all employers.
This not only resets the labor market to even bargaining power — it also resets the political forum in nations with nearly no unions (e.g., the US) with equal financing with the Koch brothers (the latest liberal phobia), equal lobbying corps and of course 99% of the votes.
* * * * * *
I see the biggest obstacle in the way as a tiny part of the brain of human males — the limbic system within which our social instincts work.
Just as human males focus their eyes hundreds of feet off in search of predators or predatees, human males also focus first on what the group is doing when any new social modality is broached. The vision of 300 million doing it differently now is downright depressing to human males. This teams up with the human male tendency not to want to talk about something just for the sake of talking — but only if it concerns actually doing something. Together, these can make human males think it outright neurotic to even talk about rewriting society — they can become visibly upset when such a topic is broached.
Alas, there also seems a simple way around this mid-brain (limbic system) male blockade. I’ve discovered that if you just throw one more fact in the stew, then, human males will suddenly open up to “abstract” discussion just like human females (individual gatherers — individual thinkers).
Example: the absolutely necessary advantages of centralized bargaining (what I was talking about above — what I talk about on every economic topic unless I’m getting embarrassed by my own one-note-tune) — just throw in that when labor is putting out maximum pressure that the test really becomes what the the consumer will pay (not what the boss can squeeze out of workers who have no place else to go), putting the consumer in direct charge of what the economy produces.
Relevant to the practicality of centralized bargaining? ??? But it opens the male pea-brain door. It’s as if our male instinct was to be slaved to the group at first (all important evolutionary advantage) but on second thought we are allowed to think individually. The midbrain can be like that — a sort of pinball machine that lights up here or there depending on where the instinctive ball hits. (Cabdriver brain theory — it is good sales theory.)
* * * * * *
Centralized bargaining is the foundation of the most successful union contract in this country: the National Master Freight Agreement of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. You’ve got a 1.25 million mostly high school educated guys (if that) who cannot be raced-to-the-bottom by employers paying less here so others are forced to pay less there (so far — the way the US is going who knows what’s next — some group tried to undermine the Chicago teachers union by getting the legislature to require a 75% majority strike vote — they voted) .
My old local 804 just won a 30-and-out pension of $3900 a month — about twice what (unionized? — but not centralized bargaining) regional airline pilots earn still working. $10 extra a seat would allow them a good living but they have no way to achieve that.
[New York State just passed a law to force Fed-X to deal with its 3,500 drivers as employees. This put 29,000 other drivers in the same position. But Fed-X simply morphed into a different kind of company wherein it claims to be selling delivery routes to companies who rent trucks. This could not happen if labor owned the legislatures — then the 1% could try to occupy.]
Jimmy Hoffa single-handedly fought for 30 years to spread his unified bargaining Teamsters contract across the whole country. Continental Europe for historical reasons I don’t understand instituted the same system after WWII to keep labor from going on a race-to-the-top — thereby conserving money for rebuilding. French Canada, Argentina, Indonesia (just a few that my limited cab driver knowledge has knowledge of) adopted centralized bargaining presumably because it was the only way to have a fair an balanced labor market — and — a fair an balanced political forum.
>>>So let’s get on with it. Let’s start to make them hear what we’re saying: it’s about the inequality, stupid. <<< And the inequality is all about not being unionized under the only labor system that for over half a century of world-wide practice has proved itself the only system that works.
“Chinese manufacturing wages have gone from $1,000 a year to $6,000 a year in the past 14 years.”
Key words: $6,000 a year.”
E:
You are fixating on a number rather than the percentage or ratio of Direct Labor (sans burden or Overhead) in the manufacture of a product or the cost of manufacturing. The percentage of direct labor in a product is around 10%. Here, a little reading again: http://www.plasticstoday.com/articles/manufacturing-china-true-cost-may-surprise-you in a field I work in today.
>>> The way to aid making the poor rich is to buy things made by poor people.<<<
And in the US at least, we can pay poor people more for doing what they are doing already.
Wal-Mart: at 7% labor costs. Double Wal-Mart's average wage ($11 — according to them — to $22 an hour), then, ladle on health benefits, paid vacations, etc., worth 25% of wages and prices might go up 10.5% (7% + 3.5%). If were an effective bargaining agent at Wal-Mart that arbitrage-like gap would have been taken advantage of long ago. 🙂
“prices might go up 10.5% (7% + 3.5%).”
Hey! Great! WalMart’s sales were $260 billion or so in the US last year. So that’s $26 billion the US consumer has to pay extra to get their stuff. And it’s not really a surprise that WalMart’s target market is that low paid group, the working poor, is it?
So one group of poor people must pay more, have lower living standards, so that another group can, through union power, have more.
Fun stuff this exercise of union power, isn’t it?
Tim,
Don’t you get the idea — which is that all employees should have a viable bargaining agent.
To get an idea of scale of income that could be shifted around: a $15 an hour minimum wage would add 3.5% directly to prices — meaning roughly the same shift in income to the poorest 45% of workers.
On the assumption that $15 is the 45 percentile US wages (figures are approximate to keep it simple — for me):
70 million employees X average $8,000 yearly increase (45%% of the US labor force + 5% who will be getting a full $16,000) = $560 billion = 3.5% of $16 trillion economy. PS. We should grow that much every few years.
$26 billion’s beginning to look pretty insignificant isn’t it? 🙂
“income that could be shifted around”
That’s the bit that you don’t seem to be considering. Shifted from whom?
I do get the point that if it’s shifted from rich to poor then there’s a gain in equality. But that’s not even what you’re arguing. Rather, that there should be a shift from consumer to worker. But given that each worker is also a consumer, what exactly is gained here?
Incomes go up, prices go up, consumption ability is affected in what manner?
Worstall
forgive me, but i think you are trying to be stupid here.
raising the wages of the lowest paid workers will undoubtedly cost the rest of us somewhat higher prices. but probably not high enough to change our lifestyle, while higher wages would undoubtedly change the lifestyle of the min wage worker. i suspect this could all be demonstrated mathematically, but just as a matter of impressionism… the standard of political debate… i could care less if you have to pay 25 cents more for your latte out of your 100k income if that would raise the min wage from 14k to 20k.
and i am not even all that big a fan of “equality.”
stormy and others
because i have said i don’t like “equality” above and in another thread, i think i should say i agree with you… with your specifics for atticking inequality… because you are attacking injustice and stupidity.
it’s the word “equality” that i object to because it calls up the image of the poor demanding they get the same as the rich… which is neither workable nor “fair.”
i think it’s fair to say that even us poor workers understand the difference between a worker and … well, i don’t want to give words to the disloyal opposition… just that workers understand and value “differences” among themselves. they don’t like the sound of “equality.” but even the honest rich would be all for addressing legalized crime in high financial circles.
Tim,
The bottom 45 percentile (I’m sticking to the $15 minimum wage for concrete comparison) probably get only about 10% of overall income — going by the very long in the tooth chart from Dean Baker below. The 45% sell the product of their labor to the other 55% who get the other 90% — not just to each other.
Example: 65% of McDonald’s consumers come through the driver through — as often as not in their $4 a gallon guzzling four-wheelers (I live across the street from one; goes on 24 hours). They are not afraid of Diabetes, they do not fear heart failure — it’s fast food; it’s addictive.
Riddle this: If labor works for what I call below market value — for less than the consumer would be willing to pay (e.g., cheeseburger) then the dollar the fast food worker might have spent on a shirt will be spent by the consumer instead, possibly on the very same shirt.
In an economy that is 95% deunionized (should be diagnosed as pathological) half or most of employees may be working for below market wages.
Meantime the top 1% share of income has grown from 10% to 23% since 1980. I see that as a matter of “squeeze a toothpaste tube on the bottom and it all comes out the top”: pressure equalizes in the middle and income passes through from the squeezed bottom out the top.
“Five False Promises of Recovery.”
LONG IN THE TOOTH CHART — WITH EXPLANATION
Dean Baker (in 18th reply on his blog post — the only reason I know the most vital “Great Wage Depression” stat) reproduced what he called “a slightly altered table” from Gordon’s paper, showing income shares in 1972 and 2001″ — my percentage changes on the right.
% _________1972_____2001
0-20 ______ 2.6%, ___ 2.0%____ – 0.6
20-50 ____ 16.0%, ___ 11.7%____– 4.3
50-80 ____ 33.7%, ___ 27.2%____– 6.5
80-90 ____ 17.0%, ___ 16.1%____– 0.9
**********************************
90-95____ 10.8%, ___ 11.3%____+ 0.5%
95-99.0___12.2%, ___ 14.8%____+ 2.6%
99.0-99.9__ 5.7%, ____ 9.6%____+ 3.9%
99.9 -100__ 1.9%, ____ 7.3%____+ 5.4%
(see p. 84 of Gordon for similar breakdown of wage income)
just playing editor (hey, it’s a living)….
“But often, because economists choke at the mention of labor unions or collective bargaining, they simple do not see this as an option.”
Replace “simple” with “simply”.
(Then delete this comment.)
Jack:
If you place the name of the person you are addressing, it would be easier to follow your comments.
” i suspect this could all be demonstrated mathematically, ”
Great. So, do the math.
It’s difficult to see that transferring $26 billion from largely low income consumers to largely low income earners does very much to reduce inequality.
But, you know, you do the math and prove me wrong.
Do recall that higher income earners tend not to be shopping at WalMart and so aren’t going to be facing those higher prices. Look forward to your sums.
Tim,
Using the $15 minimum wage for our model again …
… the FORMERLY poor folks who have gotten an average better than $8,000 a year wage raise …
… better than average raise because the poorer they WERE the bigger the jump to $30,000 a year …
… will be spending some of that money they soaked (a few percent) out of the 55% who did not get a raise — who were getting the OTHER 90% share of income … at Wal-Mart (unless they decide to go more upscale, like Target or even Macy’s).
As we saw in 2007, many people will lose their jobs if the Minimum Wage is raised to $15/hr. Some people’s labor is just not worth that much.
Worstall
better men than I have done the math.
you have a different kind of problem.
reminds me of your contention (?) that Ford was expecting to sell all of his cars to his own workers.
even if that were the case with fast food, fast food is not the largest part of the budget with fast food workers, so if it costs MacD a dollar to make a hamburger he sells for a dollar and ten cents, and he raises the wage of his worker ten cents per hamburger and that worker makes a hundred hamburgers a day, the worker makes an extra ten dollars a day. and if MacD has to raise the price of hamburgers ten cents to come out even, then by your logic the worker would have to eat a hundred hamburgers a day to fail to come out ahead on the deal.
now, if you are arguing that EVERYTHING the worker buys is made by min wage workers and that all of a sudden every thing he buys will cost ten cents more (proportionally) then perhaps your “math” would be right (i don’t know, too lazy to work it out for you), but I find it hard to believe that everything a min wage worker buys is made by another min wage worker, or conversely, that everything a min wage worker makes is bought by another min wage worker.
I think we really owe Jack and Tim our appreciation for demonstrating by example why it is genuinely difficult to talk about these things.
Some people’s kids.
Jack,
Think overall numbers and I think it is overwhelming. First, 45% of today’s labor force (appox.) at $15 or below is not going to be massively laid off over a 3.5% shift in income share (see comments above).
I think fast food workers (fast food by far highest labor cost) would be willing to lose a percentage of jobs if they could make a hundred percent more. Wouldn’t you?
I also think there a lot more workers who are worth a lot more than they are making — as judged by whether the consumer would pay for the increase. Think the other side labor costs, Wal-Mart: 7%. A $15 an hour minimum wage would add about 3% to prices.
BTW, Wal-Mart supports a minimum wage raise (not $15) because it is losing sales because of low incomes among its customers.
Note to stormy:
Collective bargaining is not allowed in this country either.
There is another factor missing in the computations. So assuming Wal*Mart pays 7% in labor costs, on what does it spend the other 93%? Energy, perhaps? Well, all the people working for the power company will need a raise if the Minimum Wage were to go up to $15/hr. Transportation? Those truck drivers will have to be paid more, too.
In short, if you think your labor is worth more than you are currently being paid for it, go try to get a higher-paying job. If you cannot do that, then your assessment of the value of your labor is incorrect.
On the other side, if you think the guy at McDonald’s deserves more money, then by all means feel free give him some.
Jack:
If Labor is 7%, then the balance is Overhead and Materials (to include transportation). People do not go to China to avoid Labor costs primarily. They go to China to avoid Overhead which is far greater than the cost of Direct Labor.
Labor is 7% of Wal*Mart’s DIRECT costs. What you are not considering in a Minimum Wage increase scenario, is the percentage of labor cost that goes into Wal*Mart’s overhead and materials.
“How about a hefty tax on capital gains? Higher corporate taxes? If American companies want to make their goods cheaply elsewhere and send them for us to buy, how about a tariff on those goods?”
The simple solution would have been to keep fair trade. But today after 30 plus years of free trade and what this has integrated into government policy and embeddedness of Deep State has almost eliminated any change threw the vote or demonstrations.
The other issue is that the Federal Reserve over rides any policy that does not enhance higher numbers on Wall Street, or may negatively effect Wall Street.
Jack
you are making up facts and relationships that seem “obvious” to you but are not borne out by experience in the real world.
moreover, i made some replies to you a couple of threads down that i thought should have given you something to think about. there is no evidence that you did that, or even stuck around long enough to hear them.
i think you are only hear to let off gas.
What facts do you think I am making up, Coberly?
Jack,
>>> In short, if you think your labor is worth more than you are currently being paid for it, go try to get a higher-paying job. If you cannot do that, then your assessment of the value of your labor is incorrect.
On the other side, if you think the guy at McDonald’s deserves more money, then by all means feel free give him some. <<<
I don't see it as a matter of "deserving" more pay — I see it as a matter of wringing out of the consumer every penny the consumer is willing to pay — just like ownership. It's the market. 🙂
Would regional airline passengers be willing to pay an extra $10 a seat so the pilots can make more than $500 a week? I think we can agree they would. So why don't they? Because there is no workable way in today's American labor market for the pilots to withhold their labor to bargain for all the market will bear.
[Side story to the same point: A few years back Northwest Airlines squeezed a billion dollars a year in givebacks out of flight crews — next year gave a billion dollars in bonuses to a thousand executives.]
If Wal-Mart or McDonald's employees could squeeze the consumer (NOTE: NOT THE EMPLOYER — WHO IS NOT THE ULTIMATE CONSUMER OF THEIR LABOR] I am sure they would find plenty of willingness to pay extra. If you were an employee of either wouldn't you be optimistic about your ability to squeeze the market for more?
If not, consider the following.
By early 2007 the minimum wage had dropped almost in half from it's high (in 2014 dollars) of $10.95. Meantime, per capita income nearly doubled (with more family members working). Sounds like a lot of room built up over many decades for squeezing. :-0
Under (pre-industrial) Malthusian theory, following the US population increase of one-half between 1968 and 2007, the minimum wage should have dropped off only one-third. :-O
If we could have foretold to Americans of 1968 that almost 40 years in the future the minimum wage would drop almost in half (in constant dollars) what would they have guessed: a comet strike, a limited nuclear exchange, a global Ebola catastrophe?
* * * * * *
For more market squeezing potential story — a minimum wage shrink/per capita income growth chart:
yr..per capita…real…nominal…dbl-index…%-of
68…15,473….10.74..(1.60)……10.74……100%
69-70-71-72-73
74…18,284…..9.43…(2.00)……12.61
75…18,313…..9.08…(2.10)……12.61
76…18,945…..9.40…(2.30)……13.04……..72%
77
78…20,422…..9.45…(2.65)……14.11
79…20,696…..9.29…(2.90)……14.32
80…20,236…..8.75…(3.10)……14.00
81…20,112…..8.57…(3.35)……13.89……..62%
82-83-84-85-86-87-88-89
90…24,000…..6.76…(3.80)……16.56
91…23,540…..7.26…(4.25)……16.24……..44%
92-93-94-95
96…25,887…..7.04…(4.75)……17.85
97…26,884…..7.46…(5.15)……19.02……..39%
98-99-00-01-02-03-04-05-06
07…29,075…..6.56…(5.85)……20.09
08…28,166…..7.07…(6.55)……19.45
09…27,819…..7.86…(7.25)……19.42……..40%
10-11-12
13…29,209…..7.25…(7.25)……20.20?……36%?
<<>>
The consumer, in this instance, is your employer. You charge him as much for your labor as you think he will pay.
Are the employers so stupid that they do not “squeeze” the customers for as much as they think they can? Are those who run the airlines so stupid that they would not raise their prices by $10 if they think they would not lose business by doing so?
And why in the world would you expect the price of unskilled labor to keep pace with per-capita GDP? The increase in per-capita (really per-worker) GDP is driven by improvements in products and processes, and it is not unskilled labor which improves products and processes.
Jack,
First, I want to thank you for forcing me to think this all through. 🙂
The airlines (or Wal-Mart) set their prices so the market will clear giving them max profit: charge 2% more, profit 3% less; charge 2% less, profit 3% less. No?
Jump to the airlines: if oil goes up, jet fuel goes up; airlines follow the same max market clearing as above, charge a little more ($10?), profit a little less under the circumstances but stay in (reduced) business (all other things being equal).
If pilot’s wages go up — because pilots have an effective bargaining agent that can withhold labor without being instantly replaced by other labor; or being told the airline down the road is paying less so if you strike they will put their airline out of business (see legally mandated, centralized bargaining above — ask Lufthansa flight crews) — airlines can add a little to their prices ($10) and see profits drop a bit; but otherwise they stay in business (or else the flight crews go down the road for the exact same wage — ask Jimmy Hoffa’s drivers with their National Master Freight Agreement).
It is no sense THEORETICALLY treating the labor market as a market-within-a-market (you didn’t exactly say that) — it is one organic market, labor and ownership together squeezing the consumer. Even though in this land the labor market is ACTUALLY a market-within-a-market because of inability of employees to bargain for all the consumer will pay (5% private unionization shouldn’t be marked as merely pathological but closer to terminal).
As for productivity. Hair cutters in Poland don’t get paid nearly as much as hair cutter in France because French consumers have relatively more to be squeezed out of. And 50 years from now hair cutters everywhere will earn more than today because they live in a more productive society. Classic example. We’ll make a progressive unionist out of you yet.
“Some Walmart (WMT) employees are not happy about a new mandatory “dress code” or the fact that workers have to pay for clothes to comply with that dress code out of their own pockets.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/walmart-workers-unhappy-about-new–dress-code-191739053.html,
Just to lay it on thick — since the topic is what should we talk about — we never would have had the Great Recession if there were even normal unionization level like in the 50s and 60s (35%), not even German level (centralized bargaining). The Wall Street Casino went wild in the aughts precisely because there was nobody there minding the store.
Ditto for about every other present day, economically based horror story. Sufficient unionization (only centralized bargaining, a.k.a., sector-wide contracts can fit that bill in the 21st century — otherwise where did all the unions go/) would put David Cay Johnston out of business.
Let’s put David Cay Johnston on the unemployment line. 🙁
So bottom line, Dennis, you think you are smarter than the Airline Pilot’s union negotiators, and they could have gotten more in their last negotiations. Right?
Jack,
They could have gotten more if they were negotiating one common contract for all pilots at all carriers. That way company X cannot tell them they have to pay less to stay in business because company Y is paying less: the old race-to-the-bottom.
Walmart had to close 88 big boxes in Germany because it could not compete paying the same wages and benefits as other retailers.
PS. Now, since I have been so helpful to you — and I’m sure you appreciate that immensely — maybe you could instruct me on how to make ITALICS here, so I don’t look like I am shouting. Jimmy Hoffa would want you to help (that is not a threat).
Well, Denis, the government forbids companies’ negotiating together like that. So we have to change the law so that the airline companies can form a union to negotiate with the Airline Pilots’ union!
Now, as for italics and bold… I do not know whether I can show you, but if this fails I will tell you as best I can.
\bold\ will show bold, and \italics\ will show italics.
Didn’t work. Let me try again…
< B > bold</B>\ will show bold.
The codes are B and I. Start is less-than-sign B greater-than-sign; and end is less-than-sign forward-slash B greater-than-sign. (No spaces.) Upper-case or lower-case does not matter.
http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/htmlbold.php
Jack,
Sounds like you’ll never want to join the Teamsters Union, but, thanks for the hints; I will try them out on some real old post where nobody is looking.