I know there's been a ton of crazy shit in the news in the past couple weeks (including my accurate prediction of a massive earthquake on the Pacific plate just two days before the Japan tragedy - yikes) but I wanted to address the Wisconsin labor situation for a minute. I am very passionate about the subject, and I have a thought on how to improve the unions' bargaining situation:
It's been well established for quite sometime in the field of behavioral economics that as long as someone's standard of living is improving -- i.e., they're making more money and/or have more buying power -- they tend to not give a shit about how everybody else is doing financially. A rising tide may lift all boats, but even when it lifts some more than others nobody tends to complain (at least not in substantial numbers).
This is part of the rationale behind Reaganomics being a socially-stable economic policy position: yes, the rich may become fantastically fucking richer, but as long as it spurs enough economic growth that even the people at the bottom get a little richer there won't be riots or other forms of unrest.
China's leaders have played this tendency beautifully, papering a 9% annualized growth rate over an incredible rise in income disparity since the market reforms of Deng Xiao Ping began in 1978.
[quick trivia fact] Deng is the source of my favorite quote from a modern Chinese leader (the ancient ones were decidedly more badass, for the record). Once, Deng agreed to take a foreign reporter's questions -- the first example of such government openness since Mao's revolution triumphed in 1949. When asked if moving to a market system represented an acknowledgment that communism had indeed failed, Deng said the following (paraphrased): "No, that is not what is happening at all. You Westerners use too many labels that we do not have use for in China. Command economy? Market economy? Black cat, white cat -- what is the difference so long as it catches mice?" SO EPICALLY CHINESE!!![/quick trivia fact]
But bad shit happens when you don't have economic growth. When the proverbial 'pie' stops growing in total size, people use extra-market means -- i.e., political upheaval, riots, violence, etc. -- of squabbling over who gets what from the newly-set size of the pie. So if you want to avoid civil/political strife and unrest, you better have a growing economy more often than not.
I think this effect may help explain why unions are not supported 100% by the public.
Unions in general -- and public employee unions in particular -- have spend much of their energy and political capital over the past ~30 years fighting for more job security rather than better pay and benefits. As a result unionized government jobs on average pay less than their private-sector counterparts given constant levels of education, but they have a lot more job security when the economy goes through a cyclical downturn (or goes down the fucking toilet like in the Great Recession).
This is why people are upset at unionized public employees. They see themselves hitting hard times -- losing jobs, taking hits on their pay, working extra hours for no additional compensation, benefits freezes, etc. -- but not the unionized public employees.
The proverbial 'pie' has stopped growing, and people are resorting to extra-market means -- in this case, electoral politics -- of squabbling over who gets what from the set size of the pie.
And so we face the following reality: a whole shitload of people who make $40k a year and are sliding backwards are angry at the unionized public employees who are making $45k a year, and a majority of them just got convinced by a couple of billionaire Koch brothers to vote in the interests of the fabulously wealthy because of the more-visible perceived unfairness of the public employees' compensation being shielded from the negative effects of the recession.
Napoleon first termed this strategy "Divide & Conquer." Historically, it's been brutally effective. It's just what we did to the Native Americans: pitting tribe against tribe over comparably petty differences and old rivalries while we were fucking genociding the 'winner.' Dark, but effective. And the corporate anti-labor people are playing it really well.
He's my idea.
The unions need to focus on improving overall pay and benefits for their members, not just on shielding them from the trials and tribulations of the business cycle.
When Joe Six-Pack sees that Joe Gov't-Employee is also hurting, they'll likely feel solidarity rather than rivalry, even Joe G-E is making more money in absolute terms. They won't get taken for a ride by a socioeconomic class that has absorbed nearly all of the economic gains of the past 30 years and now faces no campaign donation restrictions, amplifying their power well beyond their meager numbers. They'll stop this anti-labor charade that actually hurts their own interests and focus on the real problems of economic inequality in a country where the richest 400 citizens have as much wealth as the entire bottom half -- 155 million people -- of the country does.
Just a thought.
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