The single most important fact this Labor Day
(Dan here…lifted from Bonddadd blog; better a little late than miss it)
by New Deal democrat
The single most important fact this Labor Day
On Labor Day, highlighting the single most important secular problem in the US economy:
If there is a silver lining, it is that the hemorrhaging has stopped since the end of the last recession.
But we are long past the point where we need another corporate tax cut. We desperately need to increase Labor’s share of our $17 Trillion economy.
Happy Labor Day!
I have for a while now throwing out the plea that some state legislature or state ballot initiative somewhere please, please make union busting a felony …
… so easy to do; so sure to set the US on its way back to a good place to live (for non-whites this time too).
It was only last week when I read attorney Moshe Z. Marvit’s article, The Way Forward for Labor Is Through the States, in The American Prospect that I understood how deep the doctrine of federal labor law preemption really was.
http://prospect.org/article/way-forward-labor-through-states
[I’m not going to delineate or reference key points of the key decisions — Diego Building Trades v. Garmon; Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 — just want to get something in for Labor Day; wish I had another week.]
Major comeback of course is First Amendment right to organize — we say no way Congress may institute a scheme that prevents state from doing what it refuses to protect desperately neglected freedom of association. One of all-important judicial phrases supporting preemption is being guided by “experience not pure logic.” Perfect justification for the state providing desperately needed First Amendment right when nobody else will.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
What if Congress wakes up and provides some measure of First Amendment protection? Does all state protection suddenly disappear (strange situation). Another key phrase is not wanting to create a “patchwork” of labor law. Seems to me we can argue that disbanding a patchwork people have grown use to just as debilitating. Especially when the state “patchwork” (making union busting a felony) would be very simply constructed and not contradict federal law in any particular.
Seems if Congress lets the area of law lie fallow for generations that it has lost some of its force of preemption. To wit:
Referring to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974
Building and Construction Trades Council — 507 US 218 (1993) The Court did establish a few exceptions to the preemption doctrine. The state may influence labor relations when it is acting as a market participant, not a regulator. And state action will not be preempted when the conduct regulated is only a peripheral concern of the Act or touches interests deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_301_of_the_Trade_Act_of_1974
For a quick, comprehensive look at preemption see:
https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/labor_law/meetings/2010/annualconference/186.authcheckdam.pdf
Be back with something more worked out legally and politically I hope. Most important value of the above is that it will show state actors that they have hope protecting unions from being muscled out of the market. Have to get moving doing something before there is something for people to catch on to.
“If there is a silver lining, it is that the hemorrhaging has stopped since the end of the last recession.”
The hemorrhaging has not stopped, it has only slowed.
But if you stand back far enough, close one eye, and squint with the other, this economy doesn’t look too bad.
Smoke and mirrors are being used to hide the cumulative damage.
1. Producers are running up higher inventories instead of laying off employees.
2. Only low wage jobs are created and they distract from the low labor participation rate.
3. The Fed is keeping the US economy on low interest rates now but will that really help once consumers can not afford to take on more debt? (Even if their creditors would allow it.) We have currently surpassed the 2008 peak in Total Household Debt.
4. In the mean time these low interests rates are driving up home prices as speculators run rampant. Once upon a time we just lived in houses.
5. Low wages and a low labor participation rate must mean lower income tax receipts which bring on more cries for less government spending.
The rot is everywhere.
You are correct. “We desperately need to increase Labor’s share of our $17 Trillion economy.”
Re company tax.
Does anybody actually seriously believe the tax cuts create jobs/growth bullshit – or is it just “hope some of that tax cut ends up my pocket”. Any views of this?