Bernie Sanders, Organized Labor & the Use of Force

Striking mill workers facing off with National Guardsmen in Greenville, S.C., in 1934. (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

by Thomas Neuburger

     Power concedes nothing without a demand. 
     —Frederick Douglass

One of the things I worry about in the coming election is not just whether a progressive will be elected, but whether enough of a progressive will be elected. I've written about that previously — see "Thoughts on Warren and Sanders: How Much Change Is Needed in 2021?" — but there's a lot more to say on the subject.

One example of Sanders' more aggressive-progressive approach to both policy and process was recently captured in, interestingly, the New York Times, and by, also interestingly, former Hillary Clinton supporter Jamelle Bouie. (For an example of Bouie's 2016 Clintonism, see "Bernie Sanders' Scorched Earth Run Against Hillary Clinton Is a Mistake").

And yet Bouie is onto something — that the fight against a radically entrenched, radically anti-worker establishment must be engaged with force, not negotiation or the use of insider leverage alone.

That argument makes itself. To quote the great Frederick Douglass, "Power concedes nothing without a demand." And more often than not, that demand must be backed by enough force to make the demand impossible to ignore. It must be accompanied by an "offer that can't be refused."

From Bouie's article on Sanders' needed radicalism, here's his retelling of the turbulent, violently repressed yet successful labor strikes of the 1930s. Consider the force these labor actions represent, and consider if anything less would have worked. Also consider how far labor leaders are today from anything like these approaches.

First, Bouie discusses Sanders' radical labor proposals (emphasis mine):

The Necessary Radicalism of Bernie Sanders

His plan to enhance workplace democracy puts the strike back where it belongs: at the center of political power.

... [T]he most important parts of Sanders’s plan have to do with striking and other powerful levers. He would give federal employees the right to strike and ban the permanent replacement of any striking workers. He would also end the prohibition on secondary boycotts, which keeps workers from pressuring “neutral” employers — like suppliers and other service providers — in the course of an action against their “primary” employer. This prohibition closes an important avenue for collaboration among workers. Lifting the restriction would open new paths for collective action.

This push to enhance workers’ freedom to strike is more consequential than it might look at first glance. Conflict was the engine of labor reform in the 1930s. And mass strikes and picketing, in particular, pushed the federal government to act.

In the post-war era, labor has been successively hobbled by these restriction, each encoded into law. Then Bowie tells the story of the mass strikes of the mid-1930s that forced passage of the Roosevelt-era pro-labor laws in the first place.

It's an amazing, inspiring, impossible-to-believe-in-today's-environment tale:

In 1934, the historian Irving Bernstein writes in “The Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941,” “there were 1856 work stoppages involving 1,470,000 workers, by far the highest count in both categories in many years.” In that year, nearly five years into the Great Depression, “labor’s mood was despair compounded with hope.”

The despair was self-explanatory. The hope came from the growing conviction that workers had to act of their own accord — to, Bernstein wrote, “take matters into their own hands and demonstrate their collective power to recalcitrant employers through the strike.” And strike they did.

In Toledo, Ohio, for example, workers demanding union recognition organized a strike against Electric Auto-Lite, an automobile parts manufacturer, and its related firms. When Auto-Lite and its partners hired strikebreakers and kept their factories open, the union worked with the American Workers Party, a small, radical political party that organized jobless workers to keep them from breaking strikes.

Together, unionists and labor radicals led mass pickets against Auto-Lite. Thousands of workers, employed and unemployed, surrounded the plant. Fighting broke out when a strikebreaker attacked a striker. The police and company guards attacked, and a battle ensued. The National Guard arrived and the fighting continued. In their attempt to break the siege and evacuate the strikebreakers, troops killed two strikers and injured more than a dozen others. After a week of violence, Auto-Lite agreed to close the factory. The next month, after additional mass protests and the threat of a general strike, the company backed down, recognizing the union and agreeing to rehire the strikers.

Mass pickets appeared elsewhere in the country. Late that summer, the United Textile Workers of America called a national strike, demanding union recognition and a shorter workweek. Hundreds of thousands of workers formed pickets at mills as far north as Maine and as far south as Alabama. “This strike now in progress,” Joseph Shaplen reported in The New York Times, “is obviously a mass movement.”

The strike was most active in North and South Carolina, where strikers closed hundreds of plants. “Moving with the speed and force of a mechanized army,” Shaplen wrote in a Sept. 4, 1934, report, “thousands of pickets in trucks and automobiles scurried the countryside in the Carolinas, visiting mill towns and villages and compelling the closing of the plants.” He continued: “The growing mass character of the picketing operations is rapidly assuming the appearance of military efficiency and precision and is something entirely new in the history of American labor struggles.”

Of course, the reaction to the Auto-Lite strike from those in power was violence:

Mill owners and management responded with private militiamen and armed strikebreakers, all backed by state and local authorities. A police officer killed a picketer in Augusta, Ga. In one South Carolina mill town, sheriff’s deputies fired on picketers, killing seven. In Rhode Island, armed state troopers — equipped with machine guns — drove a crowd of 600 strikers from a mill that refused to close. And during a confrontation in Burlington, N.C., soldiers bayoneted several picketers.

Bayonets, machine guns, the arsenal of the State in defense of ... I have to say it ... capital and its owners. This is what labor, working people, always face when they resist the wishes of wealth.

Finally, the Roosevelt administration capitulated to the strikers: "The strike ended when the Board of Inquiry for the Cotton Textile Industry, established by President Franklin Roosevelt at the start of the strike, issued its report, which recommended a federal study of work conditions and pay." The unions' leaders declared a victory and ended the strike — to the great and bitter disappointment of the striking workers, I might add, since even under Roosevelt workers didn't trust government to ultimately side with them when the final report was issued.

There were many other strikes in 1934; it was a turbulent year:

The year saw many other monumental strikes. After the San Francisco police killed four workers in a confrontation with striking longshoremen and their allies, local unions announced a general strike. More than 150,000 workers left their jobs, paralyzing the city. And in Minneapolis, tens of thousands of workers walked off the job in solidarity with a Teamsters strike in the city.

It was this widespread labor struggle — as well as an overwhelming victory for New Deal Democrats in the 1934 midterms — that created new space for political action in 1935. Senator Robert Wagner of New York introduced a labor bill that would give workers “the right to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.” Facing re-election and eager to shore up support from labor, Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act that summer.

That's how the National Labor Relations Act got passed — not because labor asked, or negotiated, or leveraged deals with insiders, cleverly and carefully trading one thing for another. The law was passed because FDR had two choices — do what Hoover had done and call out the army (thus risking his support in the 1936 election), or give in to labor's demands because those demands were backed by a force — constant and national strikes — that no one could ignore.

Sanders' radical plan, which is curiously and academically called his "theory of change," is plainly and simply the massive use of force — the wielding of his multi-million-person mailing list to mobilize anti-establishment resistance and demand that his policies be passed.

These days, given how entrenched insiders are in their force-defended world, I don't trust anything but outside force to dethrone them. Let us negotiate with them after we've given them no other choice, not before. For example, consider what a nationwide general strike would do today to the balance of power in the U.S.

Any course of action — any "theory of change" — that doesn't depend primarily on force is doomed, I fear, to fail. And if it does fail, I also fear for the fragile, pre-revolutionary nation it attempted to save.
  

Which Candidates Can Working Families Most Trust In 2020?

I spend a lot of time on the phone with congressional candidates trying to figure out who to believe and who not to believe. How progressive are they? How courageous? How capable? It didn't take much of a discussion to figure out AOC was going to be a super-star if she ever beat Joe Crowley, which seemed impossible to everyone (but her and her posse). But she beat him-- and she's a superstar. Sometimes we get disappointed. I talked so much about how great Jared Golden (ME) would be... but did he ever turn out to be a dud! I got that all wrong. Rashida Tlaib-- somehow just tasting her mother's cooking-- plus glimpsing at her record in the Michigan state legislature-- made it clear exactly what kind of a congresswoman she was going to be. And she is! It makes it so much easier when candidates are already where they have to be and don't need persuading.

Yesterday, Jeremy Gantz noted in his piece for In These Times, Here's Where The 2020 Candidates Stand On Labor, that "Democrats have a history of empty promises when it comes to bolstering unions and workers' rights." Amen, brother! He then asks-- and tries to answer-- Who can be trusted in 2020? He noted that "During the primaries, Democratic presidential candidates have always made a point of showing up at union halls and playing up ties to working people: It’s one of the first pages in the Democratic political playbook. Biden officially started his campaign at a Teamsters banquet hall in Pittsburgh, announcing he is a 'union man.' Warren kicked off her campaign at the site of the historic 1912 textile workers’ Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass. Klobuchar and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) mention union members in their extended family while speaking to union audiences."

But historically, what comes next is what Gantz calls "a pivot to the center during the general election. After fighting for union endorsements during primary season, the Democratic nominee zeroes in on swing voters, taking union voters for granted even as unions send a door-to-door army to get out the vote. Labor has been a core part of the Democratic Party’s coalition going back to the Great Depression." Does anyone have to guess that that will be "union man" Joe Biden? But who can working families actually trust and believe?

Eighty years later, in 2016, something changed. Donald Trump had the best GOP presidential candidate performance with union households since 1984, trailing Hillary Clinton by only 8 percentage points. In 2012, Mitt Romney trailed Barack Obama in this demographic by 18 points. All of which raises the question: Are Democrats losing labor as a reliable constituency? Dems can still count on union endorsements, to be sure. But with Trump attacking from the left on free trade, support from white male union members-- who still make up a plurality of the movement’s members-- is up for grabs.

This uncertainty was born of neglect: Since the 1970s, as the country’s industrial base withered and unionbusting flourished, Democrats in Washington have done little to reverse the labor movement’s decline. Under Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, union money and organizing muscle helped deliver control of Congress and the White House to Democrats. Each time, the party failed to pass labor law reform that would have empowered workers and bolstered the movement.

In 2016, the party paid an electoral price for their waywardness. This time around, will candidates do more than pander during the primaries? Public support for labor is at a 15-year high, especially among young people, women and college graduates. Nearly half a million workers were part of a strike or lockout last year-- the highest figure since 1986. Might we finally see Democrats place unions at the heart of their political agenda? It’s far-fetched, but conceivable. Candidates know they can no longer take union votes for granted.

More significantly, the center of gravity on labor and economic issues has moved left.

“There’s this sense now that we have a big problem of inequality and capitalism run amok,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. “That’s clear on the Democratic side. But what is the solution? Is it about taxation? Or is it vitalization of the union movement? That latter idea has become more understood.”

In some ways, candidates’ rush to the left makes it harder to discern just how deeply committed they are to strengthening unions. Everyone always says they want to rebuild the middle class. Who really wants to rebuild the labor movement?

If you zero in on the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) ACT, the answer appears to be: most of the leading candidates. Co-sponsored by 40 senators and 100 members of the House, the PRO Act offers a litany of labor law reforms. The larger context here is that the United States has among the weakest workers’ rights protections of any industrialized country-- on par with Myanmar, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Over the past 40 years, employers have aggressively fought unionization through (perfectly legal) tactics like “captive audience” meetings, when workers must sit and listen to anti-union presentations, or the (sometimes legal) firing of striking workers.

The PRO Act would strengthen the right to organize and strike by, among other things, eliminating so-called right-to-work laws, banning permanent strike replacements, legalizing secondary boycotts and picketing, and broadening the definition of “employee” to include many current independent contractors. Compared to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the reform law pushed by the labor movement during the 2008 election cycle that ultimately died in the Senate, the PRO Act is a progressive smorgasbord. But the PRO Act does fall short of EFCA in one significant regard: While EFCA enabled workers to organize through a majority sign-up process (“card check”), the PRO Act only requires card check if an employer is found to have violated labor law during a failed union election. Every current senator running for president backs the bill.

With multiple leading candidates able to point to a history of support for unions, today’s Democratic field stands in stark contrast to the 2016 primary with its binary choice of establishment liberal Hillary Clinton versus change agent Bernie Sanders. Nearly all unions endorsed Clinton, many early on, rankling rank-and-file Sanders supporters. This time around, unions are in no hurry to back a candidate-- only the International Association of Fire Fighters has done so (Biden got the nod). The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association and others have unveiled new endorsement approaches to more deeply engage both candidates and members (and, one assumes, to close any perceived distance between the wishes of the rank-and-file and executive boards).

“There’s intensity for a bunch of candidates this time,” says Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT. The union endorsed Clinton in July 2015 and poured $1.7 million into her campaign and pro-Clinton PACs.

Heartburn from the calamitous 2016 election appears to be giving the union endorsement process a dose of democracy. As millions of union members decide who to back, they’ll be wrestling with the question of which candidate would most effectively fight for their interests. Because the leading Democratic candidates are staking out similar ground to make their case, it’s important to look at the candidates’ records, how central the union movement is to their theory of change, and what unilateral actions they would be willing to embrace as president (should Congress fail to act).

This much is clear across the Democratic primary field: Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 and taxing the rich have become table stakes. All the leading candidates-- Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Harris, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas), Sanders, Warren-- support both. Beyond those two issues, the top of the field is replete with differences big and small.

It’s easy to sort out where candidates stand on a raft of proposed legislation. It’s harder to know what they would try to do for the labor movement if all those proposals become moot-- which will be the case should the GOP hold the Senate.

Biden is an old pro at signaling he’s a fighter for the union cause, but it’s hard to find an example of him sticking his neck out for workers. In May, Biden held a fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of a board member of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, a subsidiary of healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which has a longstanding dispute with Kaiser in California over mental health staffing levels, called on Biden to cancel the event. They never heard back, says NUHW President Sal Rosselli. NUHW members protested outside the house, but Biden “went into the event and didn’t even talk to our folks,” Rosselli says. “That’s very disappointing.”

Biden also didn’t endear himself to the labor movement by voting for NAFTA and supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, both of which unions opposed. Biden did support EFCA as a senator but has not committed to the PRO Act, and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

In contrast, the leading presidential candidates from the Senate have been out front on labor law reform. Sanders has been pushing the Workplace Democracy Act (WDA) for decades (beginning as a congressman in 1992), which is co-sponsored by Booker, Harris and Warren. The WDA can be seen as a forerunner of the PRO Act; it also legalizes secondary boycotting, stops companies from delaying a first contract with workers and gives bargaining rights to many workers who are currently classified as independent contractors. (Unlike the PRO Act, it would let all workers unionize via card check as a matter of course.) Sanders’ method has been persistence: He reintroduced the WDA throughout the 1990s in the House, then brought new versions into the Senate in 2015 and 2018. As with other issues, such as Medicare for All, the Democratic Party has now caught up to him.

It took Sanders years to earn the backing of any national union. They didn’t flock to him when he first ran for Congress in 1988, but came around after he won congressional campaigns in the early 1990s. Today, Sanders remains as outspoken as ever about the power of unions-- they live at the heart of his agenda. “The trade union movement is the last line of defense against a corporate agenda that not only wants tax breaks for billionaires but wants to privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” Sanders told In These Times via email. “We must strengthen unions and bargaining rights of workers everywhere.”

It’s not hard to imagine the other leading candidates saying something similar-- indeed, most have before crowds of union members. It’s Sanders’ long record of actually supporting labor actions that makes him stand out. Political candidates love to call their campaigns a “movement,” and Sanders is no exception, but it feels less cliched when a campaign actively urges supporters to join protests around the country-- like those held by University of California campus workers and Delta Air Lines flight attendants. “What Bernie is doing is very, very unique,” Lichtenstein says. “The most radical thing in this campaign cycle that’s happened is Bernie using his email list to get people to picket lines and protests.”

In March, Sanders’ staffers became the first presidential campaign staff to unionize, starting a trend. Castro’s campaign staff followed in May, and Warren’s team did so in June. The candidates each publicly supported the union efforts. “Every worker who wants to join a union, bargain collectively, & make their voice heard should have a chance to do so,” Warren tweeted.

Unlike Sanders, Warren can’t point to decades of direct solidarity work with the labor movement, but the two New England senators share much in common. Yes, Warren has called herself “capitalist to my bones” while Sanders keeps trumpeting his democratic socialism, but both have New Deal liberalism deep in their blood-- including the sense that worker empowerment is vital to economic justice-- and they broadly agree that American capitalism needs structural change.

Warren’s Accountable Capitalism Act is a good example. Introduced in the Senate in 2018, the bill would empower employees to elect at least 40% of board members at large U.S. companies. This new board could then (in theory) push management to do something about yawning pay disparities between the C-suite and average workers. For Sanders’ part, he unveiled plans in May to boost employee ownership of corporations and attended a Walmart shareholders meeting in June at the request of United for Respect, a workers’ rights group, to support a resolution to require Walmart to put hourly employees on its board.

Both senators want to do more than tinker around the edges of neoliberalism. This perspective, and a willingness to call out the rich as an enemy along class lines, is what sets them apart from their primary season peers.

“Strengthening America’s labor unions will be a central goal of my administration,” Warren told In These Times via email. “For too long, a worker’s right to unionize has been under attack. The rich and powerful have teamed up with the Republican Party to push for measures at all levels of government designed to decimate unions and collective bargaining.”

Warren says she wants to “modernize our labor laws for the 21st century,” noting various reforms included in the PRO Act, and that she would fight for “fully portable benefits for everyone and make sure that all work-- full-time, part-time, gig-- carries basic, pro-rata benefits.” She also wants to push to amend federal law so the president and federal courts cannot “enjoin lawful strikes that pose a threat to national health or safety.”

“Far too often, these injunctions have been invoked in strikes not because there is a genuine threat to national health or safety, but rather to curb the power of unions engaging in lawful strikes,” she says.

This attitude has endeared Warren to the labor movement. She spoke in Las Vegas at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Center for American Progress Action Fund’s National Forum on Wages and Working People in April, along with a handful of other candidates. “We need more power in the hands of employees,” she said. The Washington Post reported the crowd gave her its “most passionate response.”

...Jane McAlevey, a former union organizer and author of No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, says that getting a sympathetic Democrat in the White House is only the first step. The next, McAlevey says, is a massive wave of strikes.



The relationship between direct action, power and creating a crisis with a Democrat in the White House is “the missing link so often in this discussion,” McAlevey says. The labor movement should back a candidate who will “restore the fundamental constitutional right to strike” (as the PRO Act effectively would) and commit to never calling out federal troops on striking workers. “We need a candidate ... who commits to defending the right of workers to be on strike and using the full resources of the federal government to aid workers in re-claiming some of what’s deserved by the working class.”

Nothing like that has been seen in the United States since the 1930s, when FDR first entered the White House and waves of strikes followed. The backdrop was the Great Depression. Short of another crisis, far-reaching strikes are far-fetched. But one thing is clear enough: Waiting for Democrats to lead the labor movement out of decline is a losing strategy.

I wish Gantz would do as thorough a job on congressional candidates. If that's even actually possible. (He does talk about the other presidential candidates in his piece and you can read about them by clicking here and going back to it. But I decided to ask for comments from some of the candidates Blue America is backing this cycle.

Omaha progressive Kara Eastman emphasized that the Trump enabler she's running against has a clear record of stifling the legitimate aspirations of working families. "Bacon," she told me, "is all about supporting and strengthening the wealthy and large corporations. He touts the GOP tax bill-- a clear government hand-out. He touts the economy-- without ever mentioning the struggles of families in the district who have to work 2-3 jobs to make ends meet. He talks about unions but supports 'right to work' laws."

In contrast, she pointed out that she has "been fighting for working families, people living in poverty, and communities of color for my entire career. I have seen students in the district who cannot afford community college, mothers who are raising babies on their own who end up in bankruptcy because their car breaks down, and families in North Omaha who live in rental housing that most people would never step foot in. Government for the people should be just that. When elected, I will never stop fighting for working families who deserve a voice in the Nebraska 2nd."

Audrey Denney is also running for a seat currently held by a Trump-enabling Republican, Doug LaMalfa, in a largely rural northern California district. "Workers’ rights in our country have been under attack, and intentionally eroded for the past few decades," she said. "This is directly linked to the increasing poverty in our country and the growing gap between rich and poor. Unemployment in my district is significantly higher than the national average (7.4%, compared to 4.9% nationally in 2016). Incomes in CA-1 are less than state averages, and the poverty rate in the district is significantly above the state and national average. In the last fifty years, corporate profits have increased 500% and average CEO salaries have gone up 1,500%. It is ethically and morally wrong to perpetuate a system where it is possible for people working full time to live below the poverty line, while the businesses they work for make a profit. It is time that workers be fairly compensated for the work that they do, which supports the thriving of our economy. Reestablishing and fighting to protect the right of workers to organize is an essential step in poverty reduction, and rebuilding a thriving American economy and society.  I will fight for North State workers to bring more jobs to our region, increase job readiness and workforce development through improved career and technical education, and support workers’ rights."





Eva Putzova is in a primary fight against an "ex"-Republican, Tom O'Halleran, who didn't suddenly become pro-union when he changed his party registration. O'Halleran is still a union hater and no friend of working families. But Pelosi and Bustos still support him-- and even trick some unions into supporting him!-- because... these confuse Blue Dog and Democrat. Eva told us this morning that ""I support the current effort to reform our labor laws to make it easier for workers to organize as reflected in the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO ACT) introduced into the House of Representatives in May of 2019. There are 175 Democratic co-sponsors on this bill. Four out of five of the Democratic House members from Arizona support it, with the exception of my opponent. I support the Raise the Wage Act that raises the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024. My opponent wants to weaken that legislation. I support Medicare for All. My opponent does not. I support expansion of social security benefits. My opponent does not. I support a federal jobs guarantee, paid family leave, extending full labor rights to farmworkers, and domestic workers. My opponent is nowhere to be seen or heard on these issues. Instead, he takes campaign contributions from corporate giants like Walmart, Verizon, APS, Wells Fargo, Cigna, and arms and prison industries. Working people in Congressional District 1 need a representative who will fight for their interests every day. But we will change more than the policy trajectory of this country. With my fellow progressives, we will change the rules of politics."

Subverting Public Education-- A Top Conservative Goal

My best friend Roland is a public school teacher in Compton. He texted me last night that teachers nationwide are wearing all black today in anticipation of the Supreme Court revisiting a 1977 compromise between union and non-union workers at unionized workplaces that declared that when public employees vote to affiliate with a union, state and local governments can require those who don't join the union to pay partial fees to help cover the costs of negotiating and administering the contract that the non-union employees benefit from. Conservatives have been working to undermine it ever since and a case is back in front of the Supreme Court today. And right-wing fanatic Neil Gorsuch, Trumpanzee's appointee, could be the key.

The court split 4-4 the last time it considered the issue in 2016. Gorsuch joined the court in April and has yet to weigh in on union fees. Organized labor is a big supporter of Democratic candidates and interests. Unions strongly opposed Gorsuch's nomination by President Donald Trump.

Illinois government employee Mark Janus says he has a constitutional right not to contribute anything to a union with which he disagrees. Janus and the conservative interests that back him contend that everything unions representing public employees do is political, including contract negotiations.

The Trump administration is supporting Janus in his effort to persuade the court to overturn its 1977 ruling allowing states to require fair share fees for government employees.

The unions argue that so-called fair share fees pay for collective bargaining and other work the union does on behalf of all employees, not just its members. People can't be compelled to contribute to unions' political activities.

The American Civil Liberties Union is on the unions' side against an individual's free speech claims. ACLU Legal Director David Cole said fair share fees do not violate nonunion workers' rights.

Labor leaders fear that not only would workers who don't belong to a union stop paying fees, but that some union members might decide to stop paying dues if they could in essence get the union's representation for free.

The far right is in a frenzy of anticipation.

Clint Smith was a high school English teacher in DC whose work at Harvard focused on race, mass incarceration and education. He's probably best known as a poet and for being part of the winning team at the 2014 National Poetry Slam. Earlier this month he penned an essay for The Atlantic, The New Tax Law’s Subtle Subversion of Public Schools. As Betsy DeVos wanted, the bill facilitates private-school attendance and puts more obstacles in front of the neediest students.

"American public schools," he wrote, "have long been, and remain, deeply unequal. At the most dilapidated and underperforming schools, teachers are blamed for stagnant graduation rates, students are derided for low tests scores, and parents are chastised for not being involved. Too often, however, scrutiny of these schools’ performance doesn’t take into account the structural factors that have contributed to their outcomes. One of the most significant factors contributing to the chasm of educational opportunity is the way that schools are funded."

According to the most recent data made available by the Department of Education in 2015, the wealthiest 25 percent of school districts receive 15 percent more in per-student funding from state and local governments as compared to the poorest 25 percent of school districts. Nationally, that accounts for a $1,500-per-student funding gap, a gap that has grown by 44 percent since the 2001-02 school year. It’s a system that leaves the poor with less and the rich with more-- a phenomenon that the new GOP tax law has the potential to make even worse.

Under the Republican plan passed through Congress last December, families can now use 529 college-savings plans to pay for private K-12 schooling, allowing them up to $10,000 in tax-free withdrawals per child annually. This new provision effectively operates the same way a voucher program would, but without the name: While vouchers distribute funds directly to parents to pay for private school, the new law uses the tax code to facilitate private-school attendance.

This change in tax law will largely benefit the rich, providing families that are aware and take advantage of 529 plans-- families that are predominantly wealthy and can likely already afford private education-- with a $10,000 tax deduction. (It’s worth noting that since 529 plans are administered by states and some states have stipulations in place that don’t comply with the new rule, families who make withdrawals could face high state-tax bills or tax penalties, depending on the state in which they live.) This deduction also creates an incentive for parents to take their children out of public schools and put them in private ones. Without those pupils, many public-school systems could get less money-- but have the same overhead costs-- because they rely on enrollment numbers to qualify for much of their funding.

The Republican plan also caps the deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000. Public schools receive most of their funding from these state and local taxes, and with the cap, many may have a more difficult time finding the money they need to keep their doors open. “It is nothing more than a massive transfer of wealth-- a giveaway to corporate special interests and the wealthy paid for by working families and students,” the National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García said in a statement. According to an analysis from the NEA (which represents more than 3 million teachers, school staff, and administrators and has historically supported Democratic candidates), the tax law would, over the next 10 years, blow a $150 billion hole in state and local revenue earmarked for elementary and secondary schools, putting more than 130,000 education jobs at risk. California would lose more than $35 billion in funding, New York $31 billion. Individual schools will have to come up with millions of dollars to make up for the shortfalls; those in poorer districts will be hit the hardest, as they already receive insufficient funding to begin with.

“We already have a huge teacher shortage due to multiple factors,” said Jose Vilson, a middle-school math teacher in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood. “Losing that many teachers would only exacerbate the issues of large class sizes, special-needs students not getting serviced, lack of arts and music classes, and the over-reliance on narrow measures of learning.” To Vilson’s latter point: With fewer teachers and subsequently larger class sizes, educators often have less of an opportunity to provide students with the sort of individualized learning opportunities that come with having a smaller group of students, and that are most closely correlated with increased student achievement and developing deeper, more conceptual understandings of various subjects.

Many GOP governors have already slashed billions of dollars in public-school funding, often redirecting education funding toward programs like vouchers, although recent research suggests that vouchers may not have the unequivocally positive impact that its proponents espoused. In fact, as Kevin Carey of the New America Foundation has noted, recent studies have found that the educational achievement of students who received vouchers to attend private schools has often suffered. In one study, the Brookings Institution’s Mark Dynarski found that voucher students scored lower on reading and math tests than similar students who remained in public school and that, more broadly, the assumed academic superiority of private schools as compared to public schools is no longer necessarily true.

Even the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative, pro-school-choice think tank, found that “students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools.” Interestingly, however, the study also found a correlation between the existence of a voucher program and improved academic performance among public-school students who didn’t take advantage of it; the researchers attributed that finding to the competition created by vouchers.

That the competition created by school choice improves education for all is certainly a compelling idea. President Trump touted this logic on the campaign trail before the 2016 election when he advocated for reassigning $20 billion in federal funding to a block grant that would enable poor students to enroll in the private or public school of their parents’ choice. “Competition always does it,” he said that September. “The weak fall out and the strong get better. It is an amazing thing.”

The GOP education platform is predicated on the idea of “school choice,” stating that it “gives parents the option to choose the school best suited for their child’s success.” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has long been a champion for vouchers, arguing that they reflect “investments made in individual children, not in institutions or buildings.” The rhetoric is enticing. School choice, in theory, is incredibly appealing and sensible-- no one would disagree that it is important for parents to be able to send their children to a strong school where they are able to learn and thrive. Additionally, few would disagree that there are examples of children who have been well-served by the opportunity to attend a different school based on a voucher program.

But in many ways, the very notion of school choice operates under a false pretense-- an assumption that every child has the same set of choices to make and the same places to choose from. It doesn’t contend with the host of structural factors including housing, transportation, and low-wage jobs that preclude parents in poverty from taking advantage of opportunities presented under the guise of choice. Nor does it acknowledge that the disparities in school funding and quality are not simply grounded in the different socioeconomic demographics of neighborhoods, but rather are the result of decades of public-policy decisions meant to socially and economically isolate black people and many immigrants.

This makes especially dangerous the free-market logic of school choice, which operates in a paradigm of winners and losers rather than treating quality education as a universal public good with investments that intend to help all children. The new tax provisions will reinforce the misperceptions about school choice and their consequences.

The rhetoric around competition reflects either a misunderstanding or purposeful ignoring of  how schools are beginning at the same proverbial starting line, when in fact structural disparities such as property-tax funding continue to stagger these starting lines. And over the past 20 years the gap has only continued to widen. According to a Stanford University study, over the past two decades the gap in academic achievement between children from high-income families and low-income families is approximately 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years earlier.

Since the Puritans set up the first public schools in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, local school districts have largely relied on property taxes for funding. In 1973, Demetrio Rodriguez sued the state of Texas, accusing it of violating the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment on the grounds that his children in the predominantly Mexican American West Side of San Antonio were not receiving adequate funding for their schools. The case advanced to the Supreme Court, which ultimately held that the school-funding mechanisms in Texas were constitutional. In his opinion, Justice Powell stated that the system of school funding in Texas “was not the product of purposeful discrimination against any class, but instead was a responsible attempt to arrive at practical and workable solutions to the educational problems.”

Justice Powell’s opinion, however, seems to under-appreciate the extent to which resource allocation allows students to receive any semblance of a quality education. It also reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about how systemic inequality perpetuates itself—it need not exist under the pretense of being purposeful in order to be real.

The federal government has never stepped up in a substantive way to establish more equitable funding practices. Lyndon Johnson-- who had, as a young man, taught fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders in an impoverished school for the children of Mexican immigrants in the Rio Grande—signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law in 1965 as part of his War on Poverty, giving schools some federal funding to reduce the disparities between rich and poor school districts. But the federal government still contributes only 10 percent to the cost of running public schools in the United States, less than its counterparts in most other developed countries in the world. Per the National Center for Education Statistics, 93 percent of education expenditures come from state and local funding. As a result, as disparities in wealth and income continue to expand, so do the disparities in school funding. As The Atlantic’s Alana Semuels has previously pointed out, in the 2014-15 school year the schools in the wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut, spent $6,000 more per pupil as compared to the impoverished city of Bridgeport, in the same state.

The Republican tax law is poised make these disparities worse. What’s perhaps most insidious is the public’s lack of familiarity with the harmful impact of tax deductions on public-education funding. Because private-school money is not being directly given to families, the potential for the tax law to exacerbate educational inequality has moved largely under the radar.

Until lawmakers can disentangle property taxes from public education, inequalities-- perpetuated by the Supreme Court and Congress—will persist. Schools shouldn’t have to choose between serving a student with special needs or cutting an art class, laying off teachers or using outdated textbooks. But these are the positions that far too many schools have been placed in, and only a meaningful acknowledgment of the problem can begin the process of getting them out.

Helen Klein was a school psychologist until she retired recently to devote for time to DWT. She wrote this morning that the bottom line question we all have to ask in about what our priorities as a society are. "How much do we really care about our children and their education? They are the future of this country. We will not be competitive without a highly educated work force and our democratic principles will continue to suffer as we have fewer informed citizens. If we really want to 'make America great again' education is surely key. We have lost our way and have been turning a blind eye toward this critically important issue: Betsy DeVos is the ultimate representation of this failure. After World War II, we invested heavily in the GI Bill: the result was the most highly educated work force in the world. We could surely do so again if we had the will. Finland did so-- they decided to invest heavily in their future and decades later, their educational system is number one. Are we willing to put our hearts, minds and money behind educating our students? At this time it does not look good. The Republicans have shown their hand with DeVos: they are clearly not invested in education and have little incentive to change-- poorly educated voters suit them quite well. They’d rather spend our money on other things that please them but do little for the American people."

Ellen Lipton a former Michigan state legislator-- and later President of the Michigan Promise Zone Association-- was successful in holding DeVos at bay in her state. Blue America has endorsed her in her run for Congress. This morning she told us that "One of the best ways to change the narrative around school funding is to require statewide adequacy studies to answer the question 'What are the true costs of educating a student in my state?' When I was elected to the Michigan State House in 2009, I asked this question because two years prior, Pennsylvania had just completed its statewide adequacy study which resulted in a gradual increase in education funding. In Michigan, given the influence of the DeVos agenda, funding to our public schools had been slashed, and by 2010, many of our school districts were in crisis. As such, I introduced legislation to create a statewide adequacy study, and this became law in 2014, when I left the legislature. As we all expected, once the adequacy study was completed, we now had the backing to prove that our state was underfunding our schools by at least 50%, and more if special education costs were included. For the first time in years, a significant increase in the school aid budget has been proposed, primarily in response to the results of the adequacy study. The conversation around public school funding has dramatically shifted from 'schools just need to spend their dollars more wisely' to 'we need to put more dollars into our public schools because we have been underfunding them for so long.'"

Jenny Marshall is a public school teacher in a hot electoral battle with Paul Ryan's chair of the House Education Committee, a vociferously anti-education fanatic. I have been fighting the privatization of public education," Jenny told us, "for almost a decade now. When I first became a teacher in the late 90's there was no talk about vouchers or charter schools. In the Indiana schools I taught, we were highly unionized and we boasted about having some of the best teaching universities in the nation. Those teachers often came back home to their communities and put down roots to educate the next generation. We all knew that we would not be making the kind of salaries other degreed professionals touted, but when you are a teacher you in it for the outcome, not the income. We would make a difference, but little did we know that the GOP model of educational reform was looming. In 2010 it hit like a tornado out of the blue bill after bill was filed aiming to strip union rights, create a voucher system, greatly expand charter schools and create a system of accountability that would hamstring schools into failing. Over the past decade I have seen the over regulation and systematic defunding of public education push entire school systems to the brink of collapse. It is time that we begin to fight for fully funded public schools. It is time we fight for the rights of teachers to unionize and to ensure that schools are places where both teachers and students have an positive learning environment. It is time that we treat teachers with the dignity and respect that they deserve."

Serious about putting out the absolute minimum effort? Again, Dilbert's Wally is our inspiration

DILBERT     by Scott Adams

-- December 18, 2016

by Ken

I've never shied away from the embarrassing reality that Dilbert's Wally is my guy. Not so much a role model, perhaps -- who has the courage to carry slacking to that extent as a life principle? -- as perhaps an inspiration, a dream soulmate. So I confess to mild surprise that in this saga Wally has been so slipshod as to present his doctor's note in what is recognizable even to the Pointy-Haired Boss as his own handwriting.

But then, I guess in Wally's World, where the governing principle is to put out the absolute minimum effort to every task, the operative test for what we might call "necessary authenticity" as applied to the note would be: Is it good enough? And the concluding panel suggests that, at least in Wally's mind, it appears to be.

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Obama Using Nike to Sell TPP; Does Nike Have Access to TPP Drafts?

In this video, "Gap" is a proxy for the whole industry, including Nike. To learn about the problem with subcontractors, start watching at 10:30.

by Gaius Publius

Nike is ground zero for "made in Asia" shoe apparel. President Obama is ground zero for "let's send more jobs to Asia and claim the opposite." I'm not sure it benefits either to put the two together. Nevertheless, Obama will travel to Nike headquarters in Oregon to put the case to the nation that TPP is somehow good for American workers.

Reuters:

Obama to push case for trade deal at Nike headquarters in Oregon

President Barack Obama will travel to Nike Inc headquarters in Oregon next Friday [May 8] to argue that a 12-nation Pacific trade deal and the fast-track legislation needed to finalize the pact are good for workers.

Obama faces tough opposition from his fellow Democrats in Congress over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, which they fear could hurt American jobs and the environment.

He will use the trip to the headquarters of Nike, a company once criticized for its use of "sweatshops," to "discuss how workers will benefit from progressive, high-standards trade agreements that would open up new markets and support high-quality jobs," the White House said in a statement.

Nike was targeted by labor activists in the early 1990s for contracting with factories in Asia where workers faced dangerous conditions and low pay. The criticism prompted the company to create a code of conduct for contractors and open factories for inspections.

Reuters is being polite. There's a lot wrong with Nike and TPP, but I want to focus on just one aspect — the use of contracted and subcontracted labor. From an article in Business Insider, we learn about Nike, its place in the world of off-shored manufacturing, and its history as a sweatshop owner:

One Stunning Stat That Shows How Nike Changed The Shoe Industry Forever 

When Nike was founded in 1964, just 4% of U.S. footwear was imported.

Five decades later, that figure has skyrocketed to 98%, and Nike has likely played a role in driving it up.

Now one of the world's biggest retailers of athletic shoes, Nike manufactures a vast majority of its footwear and apparel outside the U.S.

The company's founder, Phil Knight, came up with the idea of outsourcing manufacturing jobs to cut costs while attending Stanford Business School in the early 1960s, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The company now has 68 factories in the U.S., representing just 9% of its manufacturing facilities. Those U.S.-based factories employ just 1% of its total workforce, or 13,922 employees.

Becoming an early adopter of outsourcing has helped propel Nike into one of the biggest athletic footwear and apparel companies in the world.

Not only is Nike wildly successful; Phil Knight is wildly successful as well. Forbes has him as the richest person in Oregon, the 21st richest person in the U.S., and the 35th richest human on earth. His "real-time" net worth as of this writing, according to Forbes, is $23 billion. That's $23,000,000,000. Net worth.

Here's how he and Nike got that way. It's a simple method, one you'll understand immediately. Back to Business Insider:

Nike [became] a symbol of abusive labor practices, after reports of unsafe conditions at many of its foreign factories began emerging in the 1990s.

In a May 1998 speech, then-CEO Phil Knight was forced to admit that Nike had "become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse."

If you use global wage-power to pay people as little as 30 cents an hour to make something wildly popular you can sell for $100 each — and you have the kind of conscience that allows you to do that — it's not that hard to pocket that first billion. After that, the money just makes itself, especially if you can blackmail your home state as Knight has been doing to Oregon (read on for that).

Nike Will Say They've Changed, But Do They Police Their Contractors?

Nike has been saying they've seen the light, so to speak, and "established a new set of working standards, as well as a vigorous new auditing system to monitor labor practices in its factories and restore consumer faith in its brand" (Business Insider again).

I suspect the only light they saw is the need to "restore consumer faith" in their brand. Because companies like Nike are notorious for not policing their contractors, who often have contractors themselves, whom no one polices. Watch the John Oliver video above starting at 10:30 and you'll see what I mean. (That segment starts with the sentence, "Deniability seems to have been stitched into the supply chain" — which should tell you where that part of the discussion is headed.)

What Percentage of Nike's Workforce Is Contracted? Most of It

To what extent does Nike rely on contractors? Consider just these two data points. First, Nike's stated workforce, according to the Portland Business Journal:

The company employs 56,500 worldwide, including retail workers, a 17 percent increase in the past year, according to the company's most recent annual report.

Yet if you go to the Nike Manufacturing interactive website, and use the controls to select Vietnam, for example, as the country of manufacture, you find 67 factories, 333,000 workers.

And those are just the people it knows about, or claims to know about, in Vietnam. Does it know everyone to whom its work is subcontracted? Does it police its contractors' subcontractors?

And while we're at it, two more questions:

1. Is Nike getting any poorer? Not likely. If you click through to that Portland Business Journal article, you can read about how Nike used the threat of leaving Oregon entirely to strong-arm state government ito giving it "tax certainty."

In exchange for a commitment that it would create at least 500 jobs and spend at least $150 million on [Nike] campus expansion by the end of 2016, lawmakers agreed to give Nike "tax certainty," and continue taxing the company only on the sales of products in Oregon.

A global company, one of the richest in its industry, pays state income taxes only on sales in Oregon, not its total income. All in exchange for 500 local jobs and the promise to upgrade the Nike campus. Not state infrastructure, say. Just its own corporate headquarters. Nice deal you "negotiated," Mr. Knight.

2. Does Nike have a seat at the TPP bargaining table? According to Public Citizen (pdf): "In the United States, approximately 600 corporate lobbyists have been named as official advisors [to TPP negotiations], granting them steady access to the negotiating texts, as well as the negotiators."

Would Obama cut Mr. Knight, the king of moving manufacturing to Asia, out of TPP negotiations? I'd be shocked if he did.

Two Questions for Mr. Obama When He Speaks at Nike

So if anyone has a press seat at Obama's Nike speech, I suggest asking two simple questions:

• Do Nike's lobbyists or other representatives have access to TPP draft text?
• If so, why can't the American people see it before Fast Track is voted on?

I'd love to see the answers. So would Elizabeth Warren, I'm sure.

GP​
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U.S. Trade Rep Says Murdering Union Leaders Not a Violation of U.S. "Trade" Agreements

Operators are standing by: (202) 225-3121.
Seriously. Please call.

by Gaius Publius

You can't make this stuff up; it invents itself faster than you can find and print it. Two quick points, both about TPP and Ron Wyden's Fast Track sell-out.

First, AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka testified before the Senate Finance Committee in opposition to Wyden and Hatch's Fast Track bill. (For its toxic and deceptive provisions, see here.) Like almost every progressive leader and follower you can name, he's opposed to it. Because he represents the largest labor organization in the U.S., the AFL-CIO, he's strongly opposed and for good reason. (By the way, just because someone is from the AFL-CIO doesn't mean they're "right" on labor. AFL-CIO was complicit in Reagan's destruction of the Air Traffic Controllers union. But Trumka is very "right" on labor.)

From Trumka's testimony via Huffington Post (my emphasis everywhere):

AFL-CIO's Trumka: USTR [U.S. Trade Representative] Told Us Murder Isn't A Violation Under U.S. Trade Deal

Defenders of the White House push for sweeping trade deals argue they include tough enforcement of labor standards. But a top union leader scoffed at such claims Tuesday, revealing that administration officials have said privately that they don’t consider even the killings of labor organizers to be violations of those pacts.

Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, testified to that claim at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on legislation to grant President Barack Obama so-called fast-track authority to cut at least two new enormous trade agreements with Pacific Rim nations and the European Union. It appears to be the first time anyone has revealed such a stance on the part of a U.S. government that has been touting its efforts to improve wages and working conditions among its trading partners, relying in part on trade agreements. ...

“When you say, ‘Oh these are some standards, they’re better than no standards,’ we were told by by the [United States Trade Representative] general counsel that murdering a trade unionist doesn’t violate these standards, that perpetuating violence against a trade unionist doesn’t violate these agreements,” Trumka said, directing his remarks to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who backs the deals.

The article verified Trumka's claim; click to read how.

Second, union leaders are frequently murdered in Colombia, a country with whom we have a strong "trade" agreement. Trumka again:

Trumka pointed specifically to the Colombia trade pact that was signed in 2006, but passed by Congress in 2011. Trumka said that even after the Obama administration crafted an agreement to tighten labor protections four years ago, some 105 labor organizers have been killed, and more than 1,300 have been threatened with death.

“Excuse me. Excuse me if I’m not willing to accept that standard.” Trumka said.

And Coca-Cola, the mega-wealthy global corporation, is complicit in those killings:

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Florida accuses the Coca-Cola Company, its Colombian subsidiary and business affiliates of using paramilitary death squads to murder, torture, kidnap and threaten union leaders at the multinational soft drink manufacturer’s Colombian bottling plants. The suit was filed on July 20 by the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, the Colombian union that represents workers at Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants; the estate of a murdered union leader; and five other unionists who worked for Coca-Cola and were threatened, kidnapped or tortured by paramilitaries.  ...

Not directly, of course; that's unregulated what right-wing militias are for. What's not to love about "free trade" if you're the killer Coke company? TPP — Alan Grayson calls it the Fast Track to Hell. He's right. Click to play the video above to see why.

About Ron Wyden's Betrayal of Progressive Values

This is only "bipartisan" — Obama's characterization — because of Ron "I'm the designated Democratic Party Perp on this one" Wyden. If you'd like to explain yourself to Mr. Wyden, here's all you need to know. And here's how to contact him:

Senator Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C., 20510
Tel (202) 224-5244

Suggested messages: "Thanks to your betrayal of progressive values, I'll close my checkbook to any of your appeals for funds."

And for the very bold in Oregon: "Thanks to your betrayal of progressive values, I'll vote against Mr. Wyden, even in the general election. TPP is that bad for my state and its wood products industry."

(Hint: You can decide later how to vote. You can decide now what to say to Ron Wyden's staff.)

GP

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In 1848, Workers Could Barely Feed Their Families And There Was No Hope For Change

No one had Twitter in 1848, the first Spring of Nations. That was probably lucky for the plutocrats and kings of the day, who crushed the pan-continental revolutionaries, barely breaking a sweat. Erdogan is having a tougher time in Turkey these days-- and he's blaming Twitter. (They used to always blame "the Jews" for these things.) In 1848 there were almost three separate revolutions going on (in several dozen countries) simultaneously-- students and some in the middle class who wanted democracy, nationalists who wanted their own countries, and workers and peasants who wanted a living wage. Most of the thousands of people who were killed, of course, were the workers. Can it happen again? Workers are again being pushed to the breaking point by the plutocrats, who are grabbing a bigger and bigger share of the pie for themselves and squeezing the rest of us, but especially the working class. Last week Timothy Taylor of ConversableEconomist.com got down into the weeds about how workers have been losing ground for a couple of decades.

When I was getting my feet wet in economics back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was conventional wisdom that the share of national income going to labor fluctuated a bit from year to year, but didn't display a rising or falling trend over time. But the stability of labor's share no longer holds true. The Internation Labour Organization discusses some of the data in Chapter 5 if its Global Wage Report 2012/13 on the theme of "Wages and equitable growth."

..."The OECD has observed, for example, that over the period from 1990 to 2009 the share of labour compensation in national income declined in 26 out of 30 developed economies for which data were available, and calculated that the median labour share of national income across these countries fell considerably from 66.1 per cent to 61.7 per cent ... Looking beyond the advanced economies, the ILO World of Work Report 2011 found that the decline in the labour income share was even more pronounced in many emerging and developing countries, with considerable declines in Asia and North Africa and more stable but still declining wage shares in Latin America."

...One of the results of the declining labor share of the economy is that as productivity growth increases the size of economies, the amount going to labor is not keeping up. Here's a figure showing the divergence in output and labor income that has opened up since 1999 for developed economies. The results here are weighted by the size of the economy, so the graph largely reflects the experience of the three biggest developed economies: the U.S., Japan, and Germany.

What can be said about this pattern of a declining labor share?

1) When a trend cuts across so many countries, it seems likely that the cause is something cutting across all countries, too. Looking for a "cause" based on some policy of Republicans or Democrats in the U.S. almost certainly misses the point. The same is true of looking for a "cause" based in policies more common in Europe, or in China.

2) The causes are still murky, but one possible answer can be pretty much ruled out. The declining labor share is not caused by a shift from labor-intensive to more capital-intensive industries-- because the trend toward a lower labor share is happening across all industries. The difficulty is that the other possible explanations are interrelated and hard to disentangle. They include technological change, globalization, the rise of financial markets, altered labor market institutions, and a decline in the bargaining power of labor. But after all, technological changes in  information and communication technology are part of what has fed globalization, as well as part of what led to a rise of the financial sector. Globalization is part of what has reduced the bargaining power of labor. The ILO report offers some evidence that the rise of the financial sector is a substantial part of the answer. Here's a post from a couple of weeks ago on the growth of the U.S. financial sector.

3) The flip side of a lower share of national income going to labor is a higher share of income going to capital. The ILO report argues that in many countries, this pattern seems to involve rising dividend payments.

4) While understanding causes is useful, policies don't always have to address root causes. When someone is hit by a car, you can't reverse the cause, but you can still address the consequences. However, it's worth remembering that the falling share of labor income has been happening all over the world, in countries with a very wide range of different policies and economic institutions. For example, European labor market institutions are often thought of as being more worker-friendly, but they haven't prevented a fall in the labor share of income.

5) It's important to remember that the falling share of labor income is different from a rising level of wage inequality. The share of income going to labor as a whole is falling, and also a greater share of labor income is going to those at the highest levels of income. Both trends mean that those with lower- and middle-incomes are having a tougher time.

One day if your behind a barricade, you may kick yourself that you shrugged your shoulders when you found out Obama was developing the ability to hack your Twitter account back in 2013.

Unions Always Side With The 99%, Right? Ummm...

Labor unions built the middle class. Period. Like any human endeavor there are times when they haven't been perfect but they have pretty much always been the bulwark against plutocracy. Union bureaucrats in DC, however, are something else entirely... like the rest of Washington. You know how I feel about Washington, right? Too many of these union bureaucrats seem more interested in careerism and the cocktail circuit and chummy friendships among the liberal elite than doing the right thing for the men and women paying their dues and getting the short end of the stick from Lewiston to Kalamazoo to Denver, Seattle, L.A. and back to Baltimore. We've often featured inspiring, hard-hitting speeches by Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Leo Gerard of the Steelworkers and the former SEIU president Andy Stern.

But I've been in too many meeting with too many DC union bureaucrats for my own comfort. I'll never forget one chiming in during a debate about endorsing Ilya Sheyman not that his union would endorse the conservative Democrat the DCCC was pushing down unions' throats, but that they were thinking (seriously) about endorsing the Republican. He wasn't joking. Unions have endorsed some of the most hideous Blue Dogs in the country who vote month after month and after month in lockstep with the Republicans against working families. And when the DCCC demands they help out with anti-worker candidates, many political directors just want to go along and get along. Unions have endorsed anti-working family shills like Marty Chavez against labor champion Eric Griego and I've heard from dozens of local unionists that the bosses in the state had been pressured by DC to go for someone who just broke their hearts to have to endorse.

Since 1989 the Building Trades Unions-- the biggest donors and often the most transactional and conservative-- have doled out $123,961,998 in campaign contributions. The third biggest recipient is arch-conservative Tim Holden, a Blue Dog from Pennsylvania ($562,594). Holden's default position is to vote with the Republican Party. He's virulently anti-Choice and was one of the loudest Democratic voices singing from Boehner and Cantor's hymn book about why health care reform would be a disaster. He voted for the Stupak Amendment and against the health care bill. Other Blue Dogs who scored the heaviest from this group of unions include Loretta Sanchez (CA-$521,400), Baron Hill (IN-$460,550), Leonard Boswell (IA-$455,550), Earl Pomeroy (ND-$409,500), Adam Schiff (CA-$359,000), Joe Donnelly (IN-$342,450), Nick Lampson (TX-$325,800), Dennis Moore (KS-$304,750), Mike Ross (AR-$280,500)... that's a list of grotesque Blue Dogs, many of whom line up against working families as faithfully as Republicans. This year, among the biggest recipients of Building Trades Unions cash are the usual array of right-wing Blue Dogs (Joe Donnelly, for example, is #2) and corporate shills in the party leadership like Hoyer, Wasserman Schultz and Crowley but also, coming in in the Top 10 of all members of Congress, Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Steven LaTourette (R-OH), Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-NY).

Let me tell you a little about one of the most hideously corrupt and conservative members of the California legislature, Juan Vargas down in San Diego. Back in 2010 when Insurance Industry shill Juan Vargas was trying to reclaim a seat in the state legislature, labor waged one of the most expensive campaigns in state Senate history to keep him out-- and almost succeeded.

Click so you can see who valiantly opposed Juan Vargas in 2010

The 40th State Senate District-- currently represented by termed-out Democratic Senator Denise Ducheny-- includes the South Bay of San Diego (with cities like Coronado and Imperial Beach), and then spans inland to encompass Riverside and Imperial Counties. With a large Latino population, the race is between State Assemblywoman Mary Salas of Chula Vista-- and Juan Vargas, who represented the same Assembly District until 2006.

Salas is clearly labor’s favorite-- with endorsements by the California Labor Federation, SEIU, UFCW, the Nurses Association and the California Federation of Teachers. She’s also the choice of the League of Conservation Voters and Equality California. Sixteen of the State Senate’s 25 Democrats (including President Darrell Steinberg) have endorsed her, along with 32 of the 48 Democrats in the State Assembly. Most of the Democratic clubs in the San Diego area have endorsed her, as did the California Democratic Party.

...But the big story in San Diego is not who’s endorsed Vargas-- but who has been funding the attacks on Salas. Insurance companies have thrown their weight around in this June election (over $17 million statewide), and the 40th State Senate District is one of a handful of races they have focused on. That’s because Vargas was their “go-to” legislator in the Assembly. ... CJAC is playing a starring role in this race. They have set up two campaign committees-- “Californians for Balance and Fairness” and “California Back to Work”-- which poured in $257,000 and $721,000 respectively on behalf of Vargas in this race.

Who is CJAC? Donations (often in six figures) to these campaign committees include: (1) Jobs-PAC, which is the California Chamber of Commerce’s political arm, (2) Farm-PAC, which represents agribusiness interests, (3) Mercury Auto Insurance, while it’s not spending millions to pass Prop 17, (4) Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy, who represents Safeway, Blue Cross and a who’s who of the largest corporations in America.

Wanna know how much the landlords love Vargas? The California Apartment Association has-- to date-- spent over $103,000 in the past month alone in independent expenditures on his behalf.

Vargas has been as horrible in office as the unions feared (and as the insurance companies hoped) so what are the unions doing today? Backing him for a seat in the U.S. Congress-- because they want to get him out of Sacramento. See all those unions opposing Vargas two years ago? Today he has been endorsed-- against two more progressive opponents-- by the California Democratic Party, the San Diego and Imperial Counties' Labor Council, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the International Association of Firefighters, International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the United Association: Union of Plumbers, Fitters, Welders, and HVAC Service Techs, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-AFL-CIO, the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, the SD International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 569, the Laborers' International Union of North America, the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Federation of Teachers, the California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers, and, in case you missed the point, the California Labor Federation. And almost all the Sacramento political leaders who opposed him a year and a half ago. If Californians are wondering why our state failed to enact single payer health care legislation with such big Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature. They might want to ask the unions who are backing Juan Vargas, who refused to vote for it.

Is there a bright side to this dismal story? Well, kind of. A friend of mine running for Congress was asked to sign a pledge from a labor union. This is the pledge:

Southern California District Council Labor Pledge

I, __________ pledge to the following if elected:
(Candidate)

• I will unflinchingly support organized labor, collective bargaining and workers' rights.

• I will not support the subcontracting of public services.

• I will support public education and not support "Public School Choice."

• I will support a new model for infrastructure repair.

• I will protect SOCIAL SECURITY.

• I will work for the removal of the funding cap on SOCIAL SECURITY.

I will work for:

• Single payer healthcare and the protection of MEDICARE

• A pre-school subsidy for single parents.

• The restoration of HEAD START

I will work for:

• A progressive income tax structure, corporations paying their fair share of taxes and a penalty tax for corporations that offshore American jobs.

• A green jobs initiative, funding and research for alternative fuels and a national priority for green programs.

I will keep an open mind on U.S. and international human rights issues, the right to choice in marriage, affirmative action and religious freedom.

I will support a woman's right to reproductive choice.

Now think about all the "Democrats" being pushed by corrupt Beltway party hacks Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Joe Crowley who could never in a million years be endorsed by these unions, locals that really do stand for the legitimate aspirations of working families, not Beltway fatcats on the cocktail party circuit.


UPDATE: Oh Yuck!

I was just going through Paul Ryan's FEC report and came across something that made me really sick. The Carpenters and Joiners Union was one of his top 5 contributors this cycle, right up there with Goldman Scahs and all the other plutocrats financing the reinstitution of slavery in America. Go unions! Especially in Wisconsin!