Anyone who is "generally progressive" but doesn't support the labor movement is either delusional or not really progressive. Not that unions are perfect, but what is?
And, the Steelworkers are a particularly good and progressive union, at least in my experience. Good for them. Hopefully, EFCA will pass and we'll get some more union members across the board.
Anyone who is "generally progressive" but doesn't support the labor movement is either delusional or not really progressive.
But they're not uncommon. There are plenty of upper middle class Democratic voters who react to organized labor as if it were uncouth, corrupt, and archaic. And anyone who feels that way should realize first, of course, that they're wrong on the substance, but also that they're turning their back on a movement that is capable of unmatched support for the kind of ground game that wins elections.
If the Steelworkers union is so great, what happened to the steel industry? UAW? Detroit?
Should the union pension plan be forced to own shares in the corporation? Why not?
My brother and I were discussing on the phone last night how pissed we were about McCain's "Pennsylvania will never elect a black man" strategy, and how glad we were that failed totally. (I'm from PA, and he still lives there.) Any part you did, LB, is much appreciated.
3: 1. They were mismanaged. 2. No, because no one should be forced to own shares in any corporation. But the company is welcome to offer it at the bargaining table.
Should the union pension plan be forced to own shares in the corporation? Why not?
Would you like to spell out your thinking there? You look to be saying that an organization made up solely of people employed by a corporation is insufficiently interested in the continued ability of that corporation to profitably employ them, unless they're also required to make their retirement as well as their salaries solely dependent on the fortunes of that corporation. But that would be ridiculous, so you must mean something else.
Why shouldn't those who will benefit from the future profitability (pensioners) of a company have to have a stake in it's ownership? ESOPs align employees and other shareholders interests.
If the Steelworkers union is so great, what happened to the steel industry? UAW? Detroit?
Note sure about the steel industry, but I can answer about Detroit - They decided to build shitty cars that nobody wanted, and then put all their eggs in the SUV basket right before the price of gasoline went through the roof. They've been consistently caught flat-footed by innovators from non Big Three companies because management is complacent and unimaginative. It was obvious two decades ago the hybrid and electric drivetrains were promising areas for R&D investment. What did the Big Three do? - tons of research on Hydrogen, the stupidest automotive propulsion technology since hamster wheels and rubber bands.
Low-level employees have no control over the success or failure of the company. Forcing them to hold stock in the company is like doubling down on their bet that the company will continue to pay their wages. When in fact, diversification would be better.
6. Well, it puts the demands of current workers for higher wages or benefits at odds with their potential future benefits. Pay me now or pay me later. Now usually wins.
1. In the US, progressives started separating from labor in the 60, as intellectuals and upper class progressives came to think of civil rights and opposition to imperialist wars as the core of the progressive movement, and often found union working stiffs on the other side of those issues.
It got so silly in intellectual progressive circles that the only way people could understand class conflict and bring it into the progressive movement was to see it through the lens of identity politics. So "classism" became an enemy along with racism and sexism--as if the main problem a steelworker has is hiring practices that are discriminatory against steelworkers!
It was a really dumb move and I blame baby boomers for it.
12 is correct. Hunter S. Thompsons' "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" is a good read. So much of it is about the totally incompatible interests of Democrats allied with social justice movements, and Democrats allied with the "hardhats", whom George Wallace could tell to vote for him or allow to vote for someone else depending on his mood.
I say the only reason air traffic control is done here is that Reagan broke the controllers' union. Otherwise it'd be outsourced to India.
One of the nice things about yesterday's victory is that victories of this sort are self-reinforcing. Labor will become stronger with card check and other reforms, which will make Labor a stronger influence in future elections.
With 11 I think TLL is saying that his proposal is a deliberate attempt to sow distrust between older and younger members of a workforce. It's a good proposal for that!
12. -- Bullshit. They left us to embrace Reagan. Over Walter Mondale (after having embraced Carter). Not the union leadership, but the rank and file.
I support unions, appreciate everything they've done, and will do. (And I was a union member before law school). But without illusion.
I'm glad the unions, and union activists have stayed with the Dem coalition. I'm sorry too many members have bought too hard into the 'they're going to raise my taxes' and 'they're going to take away our guns' fictions peddled by the right.
11: Right. That proportion of the workforce of a company one week from retirement, so they have no interest in future payment of salaries, has a huge conflict of interest there.
You do know that there's already federal law mandating that a union may not have sole control of a pension fund, that control has to be shared with the employer?
12: If civil rights and opposition to imperialist wars aren't the core of the progressive movement, what is?
And if they aren't, I'm not really sure I want to be a part of this movement.
16: Too many, but not that may. Union members continue to vote more progressively than demongraphically similar non-members. They aren't as lockstep Democratic as, for example, black voters. Perhaps that's the illusion you're without. But unions are very good at motivating their members to vote for Democrats.
18: Economic justice. It's actually possible to build coalitions on the links between these issues, though, instead of threatening to leave because other people don't share your priorities.
You people have heard too many hippies spat on returning Vietnam vets to remember who spat on -- and beat up -- whom in that period. Antipathy towards hardhats wasn't a function just, or even primarily, of academic elite disdain.
Unions are great. Their membership's role in progressive politics in the 70s and 80s was like that of African-Americcans in the gay rights struggle of the 00s. Not allies yet. Contempt won't win them, obviously.
TLL: Unions don't manage corporations.
The shift of heavy industry out of the US wasn't caused by unions.
Enron pensions were invested in Enron, with the result that they disappeared. No one should invest everything in a single stock, especially not their retirement money.
IANAL, and my knowledge of ERISA is limited to my time as the management rep on a health and welfare fund. But management mistakes, as per toglosh's 8. have done more to ruin the manufacturing base of this country than greedy unions. My point is that sustaining an industry for the long haul should be the goal of both union and management, but it hasn't worked that way.
If civil rights and opposition to imperialist wars aren't the core of the progressive movement, what is?
At one point, class warfare & opposition to capitalism. Your major divisions were between anarchist and communist, not between women's rights and racial justice.
The shift of heavy industry out of the US wasn't caused by unions.
No, the management decided it wanted to spread the wealth to some foreign nations.
How can you say that the decision to offshore manufacturing is not the result of having to pay higher wages as a result of collective bargaining?
Mission statements are a bunch of poseur posters, but most don't have make money for the shareholders as the only item.
24: To be fair, you're talking about the left, not perfectly synonymous with progressivism. We moderns with out debased vocabularies read the two similarly, but in the long struggle of the oppressed, the "progressive" chapters have been policy-heavy and concerned with shaping, managing and mitigating capitalism, and only recently have come to be identified with building power among disadvantaged groups.
Plenty of non-union firms found cheaper labor offshore, TLL. The real problems you're identifying are the minimum wage, the cushy American standard of living, and the pesky regulations against indentured servitude and slavery.
Here's how union members made the difference in last night's big win.
* Union voters supported President-elect Barack Obama 67 percent to 30 percent over Sen. John McCain. In the top-tier battleground states the difference was even more stark, with union members going for Obama 69 to 28--a 41-point margin.
* While McCain won among voters ages 65 and up, active and retired union members older than 65 went for Obama by a 46-point margin.
* While McCain won among veterans, union veterans went for Obama by a 25-point margin.
* Working America members, concentrated in key states, supported Obama by 67 percent to 30 percent.
(Working America is a membership org. for people who aren't in unions. It gives labor a way to communicate with them in general and especially during elections, when unions can use hard money only to talk to members -- whereas employers can communicate with workers about elections using any corporate resources they want.)
"Progressive" is a an unstable label: Teddy Roosevelt, the LaFollettes, Henry Wallace. Three different things. It seems to be a non-left Left.
pesky regulations against indentured servitude and slavery.
Damn straight. Child labor laws, too. Who am I to stop a six year old from crawling under a drill bit to recover the recyclables.
So I was born in 1981, and coming of age when I did and how I did I found it very easy to have no strong feelings about unions one way or another for much of my life. My parents never said boo about them, as far as I can remember, and as such it always surprises me when slightly older folks here talk of pro-union ads on TV and pro-union sentiment (e.g., buy union, don't cross picket lines) being fostered and reinforced, it seems, by their family and friends. No one in my life really spoke about unions, either for or against. Unions were something we learned about in US history class (Pullman strike, 8-hour day).
So these days I'm inclined to think unions are a good thing, but I do so more at an abstract level and more as a consequence of people I generally agree with also thinking unions are a good thing than as a consequence of a more visceral belief in the importance of organized labor, of the sort I have when it comes to other issues.
Great numbers Kraab. This is why it's a new world.
If we can keep it.
There are plenty of upper middle class Democratic voters of all classes who react to organized labor as if it were uncouth, corrupt, and archaic.
Though, yes, very common among Dems in my education & income demographic. Many of them also feel free to inform me of that the moment I mention I work for a union. Why thank you. Now can I insult your life's work?
My point is that sustaining an industry for the long haul should be the goal of both union and management, but it hasn't worked that way.
Possibly worth noting that people don't always achieve their goals, not only in unionized industries but in life in general.
Unions' agency cost problems may be as bad or even worse than corporations. But people are a lot quicker to write unions off.
Generally when I tell UMC liberals about my organizing background, they tell me that they could have better public schools if not for the teacher's unions.
Well, it puts the demands of current workers for higher wages or benefits at odds with their potential future benefits. Pay me now or pay me later. Now usually wins.
Absolutely, and importantly, untrue. Workers routinely trade off wage increases to protect and improve pensions and retiree health care. Companies agree -- explicitly -- to those trade offs and then whine about how pension costs drag them down.
Possibly worth noting that people don't always achieve their goals, not only in unionized industries but in life in general.
The members of Buggy Whip Assemblers local 423 say you don't know what you're talking about, and are a capitalist tool and lackey.
Further to 36, it was fantastic that Obama acknowledged that near the beginning of his informercial when talking with the retired worker.
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Bill Moyers is on Fresh Air talking about the "reptillian right." Love that guy.
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Companies agree -- explicitly -- to those trade offs and then whine about how pension costs drag them down.
Because they do. The fixed costs for cars puts them at something like a $3000 disadvantage to their foreign counterparts.
It all goes back to the immediate post war period when the US had something like 50% of the manufacturing capacity of the world. It was downright unpatriotic to think that wouldn't last forever, however deluded.
You people have heard too many hippies spat on returning Vietnam vets to remember who spat on -- and beat up -- whom in that period.
I'm not disagreeing with your larger point, but no one has been able to prove a single incident of returning veterans being spat on. Bra burnings neither.
Who am I to stop a six year old from crawling under a drill bit to recover the recyclables.
Hence an origin of the phrase, "Drill, baby, drill..."
I burned a returning veteran's bra once.
Marge Simpson burned her bra. I saw it on TV.
The fixed costs for cars puts them at something like a $3000 disadvantage to their foreign counterparts.
Then the companies shouldn't sign those contracts. When I say they explicitly agree, I'm not exaggerating. At the bargaining table, employers often say something like they're willing to increase total payroll costs by 3% and the conversation then becomes about how that 3% is divided up on wages and benefits. And the reason for the $3,000 disadvantage is that Japan has national health care. It's not actually pensions that add the cost, it's retiree health care.
20: Well, if political coalitions are ever (again?) aligned so that opponents of imperialist wars are on a different team than proponents of economic justice, I'm siding with the opponents of imperialist wars.
I doubt that'll ever happen, but I know where my priorities lie.
Then the companies shouldn't sign those contracts
Oh, OK then. Pay no attention to the picket lines, and the fact that we will lose money everyday of the strike.
Seriously, why aren't the retirees health care costs covered by Medicare. Is it supplemental?
Oh, OK then. Pay no attention to the picket lines, and the fact that we will lose money everyday of the strike.
Poor widdle companies. Are they being put in a tight spot by the big mean auto workers? Aww.
The fixed costs for cars puts them at something like a $3000 disadvantage to their foreign counterparts.
And if they'd funded those costs at the time they were incurred by setting adequate cash aside in their pension and OPEB trusts, they'd be fine.
Seriously, why aren't the retirees health care costs covered by Medicare. Is it supplemental?
Yes.
The fixed costs for cars puts them at something like a $3000 disadvantage to their foreign counterparts.
It bears mentioning that the Detroit Three has produced literally millions of vehicles that no one wants to buy even at thousands of dollars off of list. The cost disadvantage in general is something of a red herring. Ford and GM went from near the bottom in the international productivity tables to near the top, but they remain as distressed as ever, because they have failed to produce vehicles that contemporary consumers want to buy.
The UAW agreed to a two-tier wage agreement that makes newly hired UAW labor cheaper on an hourly basis than non-union Japanese factories in the US, but the domestic OEMs are still getting their asses kicked.
"But UAW labor is inflexible!" you say, Mr. Kaus. "The Detroit Three have to pay those people no matter what, so they keep the assembly lines running even for mediocre models." But guess what: Toyota Manufacturing in the US voluntarilyadheres to a no layoff policy, using the unproductive time in periods of slack demand to develop the skills of the workforce.
This isn't to say that the UAW is free of blemish. But it's a slanderous simplification to blame them for the fate of US auto manufacturers.
using the unproductive time in periods of slack demand to develop the skills of the workforce.
Now there's a revolutionary idea.
47: Because Medicare doesn't kick in until 65. It's pretty damn hard on a body to work in a steel mill or auto factory or as a hotel maid (try changing the sheets on 16 queen-sized beds a day) for 45 years. And Medicare is inadequate. Seen those prescription drug costs?
My point is that sustaining an industry for the long haul should be the goal of both union and management, but it hasn't worked that way.
In the case specifically of US Steel, it is improper to discuss the "mistrust" between labor and management. "Mutual contempt" gets closer, but "undisguised hatred" is even better. This did not result in the best decisions being made on either side of the bargaining table.
The bottom line is that the steel managers of the 1950s and 1970s had the same attitudes towards their workforces that Frick did, and it was only through FDR that steelworkers were able to organize and gain any workplace rights at all. US manufacturing in general was about evenly split between those who wanted to support the war effort in WW2 and those who would rather stand down than share decision-making with the unions. As soon as the war ended, management made very clear to the unions and their workers that management managed, and workers should shut up and work. This is the origin of the whole "work rules" concept - management actively rejected offers of cooperation from the union, and so forced the union into an adversarial role. It was US Steel's idea, for example, that you needed a registered electrician to change a lightbulb - they didn't want to permit the workers flexibility or initiative, so the workers doubled down on that.
And the Wolf Finally Came, y'all. You don't know enough about labor history in the postwar era if you don't know that book.
Thanks KR. I can't remember buying a domestic auto, though my folks did.
The chips are stacked against the individual employee, so collective bargaining attempts to even the playing field.
Free speech being what it is, unions are free to support whomever they choose, regardless of lunchbucket issues.
one lousy t-shirt, and LB totally sells out to Big Labor. At least have pride enough to demand more for your soul!
She didn't even get the shirt, that's the worst part.
Oh, OK then. Pay no attention to the picket lines, and the fact that we will lose money everyday of the strike.
48: Christ, TLL, you really understand jack about power. Unions have to have the ability to affect a company's bottom line in order to have any power whatsoever, and strikes aren't exactly easy on workers. They give up most or all of their pay every day they're on a picket line and risk their health care coverage. They can be permanently replaced. The company can lock them out. Employers can drag their feet on negotiations for literally years.
Nor are strikes a tactic limited to labor: cf. the Montgomery bus boycott, the grape boycott (though initiated by the Farm Workers, effective because of consumers), disinvestment in S. Africa.
There are exactly two significant checks on corporate power in the U.S.: government and unions, and the government doesn't always do a bang-up job.
She didn't even get the shirt, that's the worst part.
Memo to Buck Breath: If she mentions that you could stand to gain a few pounds and that you'd look good in a hardhat and a moustache, you need to start asking questions about that Pennsylvania trip.
There are exactly two significant checks on corporate power in the U.S.
You forgot the third- shitty product.
Illegals get all the janitorial jobs because Americans are not willing to collect the big bucks and live in chateaux. It's as simple as that!
The shift of heavy industry out of the US wasn't caused by unions.
No, it wasn't. And of course, once heavy industry did shift out, the unions became perceived as somewhat less important as a political base. Add to that the typical blinders anyone has about things they haven't experienced, and the UMC liberal policy types end up ignoring the unions or misunderstanding them.
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No more masturbating to Michael Crichton.
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Fynny Palin - Biden debate slideshow
Michael's family respectfully asks for privacy during this difficult time.
I'm willing to ignore them forever. Just give me their names and locations and I'll ignore them every minute of every day as long as I fucking live.
The Franken recount will last forever and will get dirty. Coleman has declard victory and has already slimed Franken. Current gap less than 500 votes.
In his recent book My Grandfather's Son, Clarence Thomas relates an argument he had with John Bolton over mandatory-motorcycle-helmet laws. Bolton said: "'Clarence, as a member of a group that has been treated shabbily by the majority in this country, why would you want to give the government more power over your personal life?' That stopped me cold. I thought of what Daddy had said when I asked him why he'd never gone on public assistance. 'Because it takes away your manhood,' he said. 'You do that and they can ask you questions about your life that are none of their business. They can come into your house when they want to, and they can tell you who else can come and go in your house.' Daddy and John, I saw, were making the same point: Real freedom meant independence from government intrusion, which in turn meant that you had to take responsibility for your own decisions. When the government assumes that responsibility, it takes away your freedom -- and wasn't freedom the very thing for which blacks in America were fighting?"
Perhaps John Bolton can be the Republican Obama promised in his Cabinet. (!) Sadly, I fear a different future: Obama's radicalism will prove to be yet another in the long list of disservices done by government to blacks in America.
Generally when I tell UMC liberals about my organizing background, they tell me that they could have better public schools if not for the teacher's unions.
Christ! What is wrong with people? I'm glad that I was brought up in Pittsburgh, surrounded by labor historians and union organizers. I hope we don't accidentally fail to give our own future offspring an equivalently correct start in life.
Isn't the real argument that the Big 3's management was lazy and stupid (and so bad product, etc.) because of the UAW? I don't think it's a good argument, but if you're going to make a claim, that's got to be it. (The contours of it being that innovation, quality and efficiency were stifled due to (1) inflexibilty in labor arrangements, (2) time spent negotiating with unions rather than managing the companies, (3) adversarial relationship established between workers and management. Possibly other factors too.)
The last non-fiction book I read was about the history of the shipping container, aka the history of the breaking of the longshoreman's unions. Maybe it was a one-sided depiction, but descriptions of unions agonizing over whether or not to make the concession of not requiring people to be hired to stand around doing nothing make it hard to muster up much sympathy.
The argument giving the UAW some responsibility would probably have something to do with the job bank system making labor costs fixed and thereby incenting the Big Three to keep producing low-value-add cars for captive markets. It's not a very strong argument; management (or the board) should have taken a long-term view rather than just pushing the pain off onto future generations.
69: Not to pick on you, Brock, because you acknowledge that it's not a good argument, but it seems worth pointing out that to the extent that (1) and (2) are true, it's due in large part to (3).
Make-work makes work work, water moccasin.
It's not a very strong argument; management (or the board) should have taken a long-term view rather than just pushing the pain off onto future generations.
There's your answer.
Vid from a USW member who is a friend of a friend.
I think TLL is right about unions holding company stock. I support nationalisation of every large corporation, with the ownership being given to the union.
if we can't get that done, the problems of corporate governance, not unrelated to our current financial crisis, really should be something on the agenda
history of the shipping container, aka the history of the breaking of the longshoreman's unions
Those unions may be smaller, but they're very much alive, at least on the West Coast and in Hawaii. The people running those big cranes and the like make good money.
Those unions may be smaller, but they're very much alive, at least on the West Coast and in Hawaii. The people running those big cranes and the like make good money.
I should have said "downfall", not "breaking". The unions still exist, and the members of those unions still make good money. But the unions are incredibly smaller, the vast majority of the big pre-container port cities in England and the US are no longer big ports, the dockworkers in those cities lost their jobs and different people in new cities got the replacement jobs, and nearly all of the manufacturing in the old ports is now gone.
It's an interesting book; The Box, by Mark Levinson.
And
why aren't the retirees health care costs covered by Medicare.
Not only what Kraab said, but also possibly because the workers know that it can sometimes be difficult to find docs who'll *accept* medicare. So if you actually *want* health care in your old age, having supplemental insurance matters.
11
Well, it puts the demands of current workers for higher wages or benefits at odds with their potential future benefits. Pay me now or pay me later. Now usually wins.
There would be little conflict if future benefits were required to be fully funded when the obligation is incurred.
49
And if they'd funded those costs at the time they were incurred by setting adequate cash aside in their pension and OPEB trusts, they'd be fine.
I sort of agree. Although part of the problem was inadequate accounted rules blinded management to the actual costs of the benefits they were promising. This is part of the reason for the shift to defined contribution (instead of defined benefit) pension plans, with honest accounting the costs of a traditional defined benefit contribution plan are horrendous.
The economics literature on monopoly unions and efficient bargaining is highly relevant here. It's a very interesting literature, but unfortunately that's all I have the energy to say right now.
27
Plenty of non-union firms found cheaper labor offshore, TLL. ...
This is correct. The market price of labor is a lot less in poor countries. Giving an incentive to move work there. Unions have little to do with it.
I miss the Yahoo Chat adult role-playing rooms. Where do perverts go to chat these days?
In his recent book My Grandfather's Son, Clarence Thomas relates an argument he had with John Bolton over mandatory-motorcycle-helmet laws. Bolton said: "'Clarence, as a member of a group that has been treated shabbily by the majority in this country, why would you want to give the government more power over your personal life?'
"You see, Clarence, if you support traffic safety laws, it's like you're supporting Bull Connor!"
"OMG I never thot of that! I am overawed by yr legal genius John Bolton!"
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Jesus H Christ on a bike, WTF is the matter with these people!?
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I need some pro-union arguments.
My boyfriend's father has become a card carrying member of the Conservative party, in part to tweak his NDP neighbors. He's quick to tell me that the Conservatives are more like the Democrats down here, because he thinks that the Republicans are wackos, but he's very anti union. He will agree with me that they are sometimes needed. I've pushed the easy cases already. He agrees that people who work in chicken factories in the South need them. Here are the two main examples he gives:
(1.) The Ontario teachers union can hold the entire province hostage. (I haven't been able to suss out the details.)
(2.) Union autoworkers for the big 3 used to have contracts which allowed them to bolt on a certain number of parts per hour, so they'd do their work quickly and then laze around in laz-y-boy chairs. This anecdote comes from a friend who worked as an engineer for one of the American auto companies who said that productivity improvements he'd design were useless, because the workers would just take more breaks which he, as a salaried employee, could never get away with. Arguing against personal experience is always risky, so I need to be careful here.
BG, it's difficult, but I think you have to start from here: He agrees that people who work in chicken factories in the South need them. also, people who work in Walmart in New England need them, and so on. So is he arguing that people should be encouraged to unionise until they attain some unspecified level of wages and security and then somehow stopped? Who is to decide what the target should be? The question is self-evidently nonsense; if you agree that unions are a good thing for the highly exploited, they are also a good thing to prevent the not so highly exploited falling back into that condition. You can't have two sets of rules with an arbitrary line.
The question of overly powerful unions is harder. IMHO most stories of such beings are myth, but it's probably not wise to say so if you're arguing with somebody you care about. I mean The Ontario teachers union can hold the entire province hostage. Per-leeze. With the help of whose army? It's probably better to point out that many serious companies around the world prefer their employees to be unionised, because then they know who they're talking to. Those which don't likely don't have the interests of their workers at heart (even to the limited pragmatic extent that a cynic such as I would allow), so those workers need a union even more.
In the last resort, you can point out that if there have been cases where unions have acted anti-socially, it's usually been possible to defeat them where they don't have public support. I don't like this argument at all, because it can be seen to imply that unions have to be popular to be right. But it might set his mind at rest if he's really a Conservative.
I had a friend who worked in the auto industry in the 70s, and the way he described it it was an unpleasantly tough, hurry-up job.
OFE has the first point covered. I'll take the second, and I'd argue that the problems with the work slowdown are not a problem with the union, but a result of the fact that the task is extremely amenable to being measured. Long story....
shiv's work is non-unionized. But exactly the same dynamic happens. There are two types of contracts a seismic driller might have: a 'good' contract, in which they are paid by the meter (as in, how much they drilled, literally), or a 'bad' one, in which they are paid a day rate. On the good job, there is usually an hourly minimum amount below which they can't fall (sometimes rigs get stuck or break down.) On the bad job, they're usually at a day rate because the terrain is so rough that no one could make money on the meter rate.
But sometimes the contracting companies are idiots. On one bad job last summer, they were on a day rate, and the company contracting them wanted them to drill a maximum 20 holes per day (because they were pennypinching bastards.) They weren't allowed to do more because of the contract. It was also fairly easy terrain, and a Texas summer. So, they decided to start at 5am, and if they finished 20 holes by 10am, they'd stop for the day. Too hot to work later in the day, and they weren't getting paid for doing extra.
Then it got interesting. The contracting company was upset that they weren't out in the field all day. So they said they couldn't come back until two or three. So they finished by ten and sat in the air conditioned truck until two or three. So then the contracting company (whose responsibility it is to provide the dynamite) started telling their dynamite people not to show up until 9am, so they couldn't start drilling.
Lots of passive-aggressive game playing. Lots of people sitting around in trucks. No union in sight. The problem's a problem with the contract negotiated, and a problem with the way the work is measured. If the auto manufacturers are going to pay the workers the same no matter how hard they work, they're going to get the productivity they are contracted to and no more. That's not the fault of the union. That's because people don't work for free. And if the engineer's job were measurable in the same way, we'd see a similar dynamic.
Yes. I mean chemists get in trouble if they don't produce enough new compounds in a week.
If the auto manufacturers are going to pay the workers the same no matter how hard they work,
Accepting your broader point, to be fair, isn't exactly this sort of thing more likely in union-negotiated contracts? That's the whole point, right?
(By "whole point", I mean whole point of the anti-union argument, not the whole point of the union. Sorry if that was unclear.)
That's not the fault of the union. That's because people don't work for free. And if the engineer's job were measurable in the same way, we'd see a similar dynamic.
People work for free if they are constantly afraid of losing their jobs. This doesn't happen if A) they are hard to replace because they are highly skilled, or B) they are in a union, or C) they have an actual employment contract despite neither A or B being true. (C is not likely, right?)
The union argument, properly understood, is a pro-market argument. The same way that we ban monopolies - which are, after all, a natural part of an unregulated market - we should empower workers who otherwise aren't in a position to bargain for what their labor is actually worth.
Markets work. Unions and management can come up with reasonable arrangements, and do so all the time.
Yeah, sure, there's always going to be a problem competing with workers who are paid 10 cents a day. But underbidding those workers is not the answer.
I often say to my blue-state conservative friends: You think they run things so well in Mississippi, you ought to go live there. Somehow the strong union areas are the same ones that are the most productive and economically competitive. Go figure.
91: Sure, but the point is that it doesn't go away automatically if you were to get rid of the union. That means the problem is somewhere else.
Right. It's something that can go wrong in any equal bargaining relationship where there isn't enough trust or flexibility to renegotiate when a deal turns out to be inefficient in practice. You avoid it when one party can set terms by fiat, which leaves you in a chicken-processing plant, or when the parties are hostile or inflexible, as in shiv's situation. Unions certainly make negotations more likely to be equal, but I don't think there's evidence they make things more inflexible otherwise.
Unions certainly make negotations more likely to be equal, but I don't think there's evidence they make things more inflexible otherwise.
They might make things more inflexible, but I think they act like more of an intensifier of an already bad situation. If management thinks the way to motivate people is to make rules about how fast they have to work (widgets, call center times, etc.), then the union is going to start from a point of trying to make those rules reasonable.
But the fundamental point is that of course there are bad union contracts and individually corrupt unions and all that -- cherry-picking individual cases doesn't tell you anything about how unions function as an institution. No one (or, few people, anyway) looks at Enron and says maybe we should eliminate the corporate form.
Sure, but are we talking about a few bad apples, or the way most unions tend in practice to operate (especially once they become entrenched)?
99 cont.: Because I think we're talking about the latter. Certainly, that's the view of those who are critical of unions, which is what's under discussion. (I'm mostly just the devil's advocate here. I don't dislike unions--I think they're essential and should be supported. But I do think they've got real downsides that shouldn't be brushed aside.)
Cala's 97 is good. I can't point to any data, but I'm pretty sure that when top end car manufacturers in Europe started moving away from production line processing towards a "gang builds car" model in the late 20th century, the unions participated enthusiastically, because the workers loved it.
Whereas, under the old "Modern Times", men-with stopwatches regime, there was inbuilt hostility between management wanting to speed up the lines and the unions wanting to slow them down.
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85:Jesus H Christ on a bike, WTF is the matter with these people!?
I don't know, but I devoutly hope they all find nice homes in faraway countries.
In other post-election news, the RNC is sending lawyers to look at Sarah Palin's clothes. I bet she just can't wait to get out of those gosh-darned citified suits and back into her comfy printed corduroy blazer.
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100: I'm not trying to brush aside the concerns, either. But the fact that the analogous situation exists (there is no union for low-impact seismic specialists) in non-union situations should make us skeptical that simply undermining the union would make productivity higher, or whatever good results Canadian Conservative hopes would happen by being generally anti-union. The rot's deeper; all the union is doing is working within a rotten frame.
As a side note, BG, I have no idea how to get a Canadian man not to be a Conservative, especially if said man is from Alberta.
It all gets very philosophical. Do human beings have any intrinsic worth, or is their economic worth all that they have? Does the economy work for people, or do people work for the economy? Is economic value value itself, or one kind of value.
In other words, if workers get more than their market value because of unions, maybe that's a good thing. For the owners, labor is a cost and the ideal wage is zero. From other points of view, that's not true.
With sufficient policing it's possible to run a very prosperous economy within which the majority are very poor and all the wealth is concentrated at the top. It isn't an iron law, but in general people with a lot of wealth stay wealthy, people with a little wealth are at risk of losing it, and people without wealth have trouble gaining it. So a rich economy with mostly poor people isn't impossible at all. Government sometimes intervenes in order to keep that from happening.
Left economists point out that poor people can't buy anything and that there are aggregate advantages to increasing labor buying power, since that increases the market. That way you sort of shoehorn the idea that labor is more than just a cost in without arguing the main point. To me, though, the main point should be that people have intrinsic worth which is not fully shown in their economic contribution, and that economic value is a kid of value and not all value.
"For the Common Good", Cobb and Daly.
Cala--He's actually from Manitoba originally; he grew up in Winnipeg.
The funny thing is that every time I point out bad things that corporations have done, he'll agree that they were badly managed and that the free market doesn't always work. So, I can definitely get him to agree that we needed more financial regulation and that Blue Cross of CA's policy of rescinding insurance contracts was wrong. He still thinks that the American health care system is better than the Canadian one. His son, however, would prefer to have one insurance company. But they did live in Sweden for a few years, and he worked for a healthcare company that made surgical gloves, so he's terribly impressed by the Swedish system, but he thinks that sort of thing only works really well in small countries or Alberta.
Both of the parents watched the Obama infomercial and said that they would have voted for him based on that and his power to move people, but he hated Pierre Trudeau.
And he also firmly believes that the separatists have done a ton of damage. (I don't know enough to comment.) Anyway, I'm just trying to work on the younger one who has imbibed the anti-union stuff but not much else.
Palin's upscale panties should be off limits. Or at least, should be examined by a heterosexual woman who's not at all gossipy or catty. She should be allowed to launder them before they are examined.
They'd fetch a pretty penny on Ebay, so there should be safeguards in place to make sure that they're not stolen during the inspection, and to prevent a switcheroo.
/beastliness.
Sorry, I can't help myself. I've tried to be good.
100: Well, that's a situation (work rules allowing massive featherbedding) that's only possible where management is either stupid, excusably ignorant, or in a very inferior bargaining position to the union (which is generally a fairly unrealistic assumption). Unless there's something really wrong with management, they're not going to knowingly agree to a contract that provides for the workers to work ten minutes of each hour and sit around for the rest -- that possibility arises only when management wants to set productivity standards but has no idea what they should realistically be.
That can't be a consistent problem across industries, can it? It seems like the kind of thing that could happen flukily in one or another situation, but not something that could be unilaterally instituted by a 'bad apple' union, whatever that would mean in this context.
Cala, if your guy worked in Canada a lot there's a pretty good chance that he ran into my brother at some point (Em/erson Gro/undwater Cons/ultants, De/lta, BC).
"For the Common Good", Cobb and Daly
i recalled a proverb 'ekhiig n etseexgui tugalug n turaakhgui' which means
let's not exhaust the cow and starve the calf
And he also firmly believes that the separatists have done a ton of damage.
Ah, Canadian politics. Here's my differential diagnosis: his dad has caught anti-Quebec disease. Canadian politics can be very provincial, quite literally. shiv has a tendency to blame all of Canada's problems on 'the French' or 'down East', which he uses as synonyms. ("But we were talking about Toronto." "Still French.") From a very Albertan-centric point of view, the population and hence the political power is concentrated in Ontario and Quebec (20 million of 30 million), but the money and the common sense is in Alberta. (From the other point of view, the problem is that Alberta has all the oil money and has become awfully uppity for a province that needed help in the 70s.) At least in shiv's case, this does not extend to support for Harper. ("He's French, too.") Alberta's heath care system also seems to be particularly well-run, probably because it's a wealthy province.
So this might be just as much of a tribal thing as being Republican in Utah (e.g.) is.
Dad lives in Ontario about an hour or so from Toronto, but he dislikes Toronto. We're actually flying into Ottowa at Christmas which is much farther away (though his brother's there), because they hate the Toronto airport so much.
He feels that the young French are okay and that they have seen the error of their ways. Oly a few oldtimers complaiend that Paul McCartney's concert in Quebec was an awful reminded of the British over-running of Quebec and the massacre of the French language.
Plus, Dad has worked for American companies his whole life after he left the Y, and he likes Americans and thinks we work hard. French people (salaried ones in France) on the other hand spend all of their time figuring out how to avoid working.
Against Bachmann, Tinklenberg was endorsed both by the Independence Party (Jesse Ventura's) and the Democrats, but by law he couldn't be listed twice, so a no-name stooge filed for the Independence Party and got 10% of the votes.
In Colorado's 6th District, Democrat Hank Eng fell short in attempting to become the first Jewish Chinese-American in Congress.
86: Tell him to read Striking Steel.
Re: 86.2: Arguing against personal experience is always risky, so I need to be careful here.
The personal experience of spending 6 months on an auto assembly line should clear things up. In the alternative, there's Rivethead. (Amazon link for excerpt-reading purposes; Powell's link for purchasing.)
so a no-name stooge filed for the Independence Party and got 10% of the votes.
That sux.
Ed Jew looks like he isn't going to make it to Congress either.
As a side note, BG, I have no idea how to get a Canadian man not to be a Conservative, especially if said man is from Alberta.
You could always try... well, you know.
Hoon-Yung Hopgood - a name to watch
Rivethead is great, and a really fun read. Incidentally, Sir K, I don't know if Michael Powell knows that unionization won him customers among union people everywhere. I was working for Powell's when the union drive started; it went on for a long time and got ugly and personal, and he's still bitter about it. If it comes up the next time I see him, I'll let him know.
Well, that's a situation (work rules allowing massive featherbedding) that's only possible where management is either stupid, excusably ignorant, or in a very inferior bargaining position to the union (which is generally a fairly unrealistic assumption). Unless there's something really wrong with management, they're not going to knowingly agree to a contract that provides for the workers to work ten minutes of each hour and sit around for the rest -- that possibility arises only when management wants to set productivity standards but has no idea what they should realistically be.
Depends on how powerful the union is and on how much ability their employer has to pass the expenses on to its consumers, surely? US auto companies in the 60s? Probably lots of featherbedding. Shipping companies when the ICC and FMA were regulating rates? Also lots of featherbedding. These days, when unions are much weaker and there's more competition among industries? Obviously much less featherbedding.
From The Box, talking about shipping in 1960: "Two months later, when the draft of the Mechanization and Modernization Agreement was presented to the ILWU's October caucus, delegates knew it meant the end of an era. 'It is the intent of this document that the contract, working and dispatching rules shall not be construed so as to require the hiring of unnecessary men. [...] The ILWU retained control of cargo sorting on the dock, but containers and pallets arriving fully loaded would no longer be emptied and repacked by longshoremen."
121: I know I can't tear my eyes away from it.
Federal prosecutors charge Jew with felony mail fraud in connection with an alleged scheme - carried out between March and May 2007 - to extort money from operators of tapioca drink shops in his district.....
The lawyer, Steven Gruel, represented Jew in U.S. District Court....
From The Box, talking about shipping in 1960: "Two months later, when the draft of the Mechanization and Modernization Agreement was presented to the ILWU's October caucus, delegates knew it meant the end of an era. 'It is the intent of this document that the contract, working and dispatching rules shall not be construed so as to require the hiring of unnecessary men. [...] The ILWU retained control of cargo sorting on the dock, but containers and pallets arriving fully loaded would no longer be emptied and repacked by longshoremen."
But that sort of thing is a time-limited response to new technology -- work rules governed by a contract that made sense when negotiated, but no longer makes sense in light of new methods. It gives you some bad sounding stories like that in transitional periods, but it's not an ongoing norm anywhere.
122: Yeah, please do. The company has some gague, because if you buy online by going through the union's site, 10% goes back to the workers, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't go through the local's site.
I always wonder if people like Michael Powell realize that millions of union members see his company's name on "do buy" lists. In this case, that's probably millions of people who'd never considered an alternative to Amazon. So count your lucky stars your workers organized, Michael!
And the reason for the $3,000 disadvantage is that Japan has national health care.
Not to mention vastly better management. The big three are to a large extent paying the cost of incompetence. Trying push that off onto `the unions fault' is just bullshit.
He still thinks that the American health care system is better than the Canadian one.
This is the sort of attitude you can only get from listening to pundits and ignoring evidence. At best, if you squint hard and have a certain idealogical bent, you can argue they are about par, with the US one being overpriced and the Canadian one being a bit underserved in particular locals. You have to squint pretty hard.
My Republican uncle got medical care in Canada and was quite impressed. My Canadian brother and cousin are happy with it too, except that the cousin is a major grumbler and scam artist.
The problem with the analysis contained in 123 is that before the unions (certainly in Perth, and probably elsewhere), being a wharfie was a shite job, with very little job security, with all sorts of degrading practices, etc.
In other words, you're looking at the costs, but completely ignoring the benefits -- and I don't know the details, but they'll be legion, almost certainly.
(And waterside workers tend to be very good on the whole solidarity thing -- they wouldn't let arms for Zimbabwe be unloaded in Durban, and so on.)
The longshore unions are pretty fascinating. I've been involved with the West Coast union, the ILWU, which is different from the Gulf and East Coast ILA. The short version is that the ILWU is Red and the ILA is Mob, although both those tendencies are in remission.
The ILWU is very political -- they've shut down the West Coast docks to protest the WTO. Even though expanded trade benefits their narrow self-interest, they understand it as a broad question of global solidarity. The Pacific Maritime Agreement signatories understand that they're going to lose a few days a year to some kind of solidarity shutdown.
In Hawaii, where I worked with them a little, they represent hotels by an interesting historical fluke. After organizing the docks--a thrilling saga of multi-racial organizing in its own right--they organized the plantations, and when they were plowed under for resorts, they wound up organizing the displaced plantation workers who went towards the tourism sector. In the 1950's they were expelled from the AFL-CIO for communist influence, and the hotel union (forerunner of UNITE HERE) came in to raid the hotels. Relations are patched up now, but ILWU members still referred to UNITE HERE members as "AFL" when I was there, even though both unions were in the AFL-CIO. (I wonder if it's still the case now that UNITE HERE has left the AFL for Change to Win.)
132: I've lived in and worked peripherally in both systems. So while I don't know much about it compared to people who actually work in the area, I'm pretty clear on how much bullshit is being floated about the subject. Typically by people who are largely ignorant about one (or both!) systems.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Canadian system is significantly better. However, I was allowing that it is at least arguable from a certain ideological bent (i.e. you have to accept the idea that people will be left out in the cold in the US as a feature, not a failure -- it being their just desserts or something). Under these assumptions, it maybe becomes close. Otherwise, parity or supremacy of the US system is simply laughable.
I briefly worked as a longshore sub in Seattle in 1970 or so. We didn't work very hard but a strike was impending and there was a slowdown on. They were required by law to accept outside subs but not required to give us actual work.
The old timers carried threatening looking freight hooks (used for grabbing bales of stuff) in their back pockets. I never saw on needed; they were already a relic, I think. (a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F03E4D71F3EE733A25755C1A96F9C946797D6CF">Old story. One shop steward told stories about a summer he spent on the Danube barges as part of a union exchange program.
At some point a TV newsman came looking for an interview about the strike and I referred him to the Danube guy. The newsman looked like an utter clown in that environment in his spiffy TV outfit.
I remember irregular cubes of rubber weight hundreds of pounds dropping and bouncing six feet in the air. I also remember a special lift truck fitted with a 20 foot long penis-like attachment to insert into rolled up carpets to pick them up. Everyone gathered around in awe when the attachment was inserted. No joking or snickering. (True story).
One of the radical leaders in Portland for decades was Julie Ruutila of the "Longshore auxiliary", a Cimmunist. She did a successful sitin protesting electric rate hikes, and also was involved in anti-war work. A biography has been published: "Sticking to the Union".
135: Soup, the way, he'd put it is that in America we have the best care, but some people get left out while in Canada everybody gets in, but you have to wait. I think he's learning that in MA you often have to wait for certain specialties and that it can be hard to find a PCP.
It's not exactly ideological. He thought that the Swedish system was superb--beautiful hospitals there (I know that that's not a great measure of quality).
His feelings about the liberals are that they manage to spend a lot of money, but they haven't been able to help the poor; there are just as many homeless people.
Yeah, liberals have been in power forever!
Franken is down by 336 votes.
Democrats have a real chance in all three outstanding seats, especially because they'll get a second chance in Alaska if Stevens wins.
Well, the Liberal Party was in power for a long time in Canada, and they still run Ontario's provincial government.
Oh, he wasn't talking about the US.
138: I understand that is what he would say, but it just isn't true.
Here, some small percentage of the population can get about as good health care as anyone can. Of course, this same level of care is largely available here to a small percentage of non-Americans as well, and similar care is available a few other places also.
If you aren't in this small percentage, you have to wait. Here, Canada, wherever, you have to wait. Some geographic areas are worse there than here, others the other way around, same goes with specialities. Typically, for the US in comparison with Canada, regardless of your insurance coverage, health care here will cost you much more and be more of a pain in the ass in total (dealing with in/out of system, all the inevitable headaches of insurance, etc.). You'll get less dedicated time from the MD's, and be more likely to be overprescribed (labwork/tests/drugs). The Canadian will be slightly more likely to be underprescribed (labwork/imaging, probably not drugs). Underutilization happens here too, but more often for complicated insurance reasons than for lack of resources.
The simple summary of the Canadian vs. US system in practice is something like this: The averages health insured American gets similar health care to the average Canadian. The American will spend more for it (either a little, or a lot, depending on state, etc.), and have immeasurably more hassle, stress, and beaurocracy to deal with in the course of it. The Canadian will wait longer for some (particularly elective) procedures, the American will wait longer for others; on average the advantage is slightly to the American (but nowhere near as much as the bleating about Canada === waiting for health care would make you think). The American will be potentially really screwed on long-term care, particularly prescription drugs when they are elderly. Emergency medicine is about par in the two, except Americans may wait a lot longer to receive it if not immediately life-threatening, due to over utilization of emergency rooms for non-emergency care.
The typical uninsured American is worse off for health care than almost everyone in Canada. The exception is isolated indigenous populations, whose health care is often really poor. Of course, this is also true in the American system. In both places isolated rural areas typically do poorly compared to densely populated areas. In these cases, more of the locational costs etc. are borne by the person in the US system, but there are also more likely to be charitable aids for this.
His feelings about the liberals are that they manage to spend a lot of money, but they haven't been able to help the poor; there are just as many homeless people.
This is a pretty bizarre thing, as the Liberals (I assume that's what you mean) have never been a particularly progressive party, nor advertised themselves as one. They're centerist to the bone. What big spending does he imagine they did to `help the poor' ?
Well, the Liberal Party was in power for a long time in Canada, and they still run Ontario's provincial government.
Sort of. It's a different party.
It's a mistake to think of Liberals === Democrats, Conservatives == Republicans. First off, it isn't a two party system. But there are deeper reasons. The comparison is closer to being natural these days, though.
What I hear from most people is that the Liberals are somewhere between the Democrats and Republicans, and the Conservatives are somewhere between the Democrats and Republicans. In fact, this is also what I hear about the Labours and Conservatives in Britain.
Maybe a >2-party system isn't so great after all. I bet Unfoggeteers would not enjoy voting Lib Dem every year of our lives.
Another thing from The Box; the ILWU realised that containerisation would happen, and they made it work for them, The big quid pro quo was that the ports had to take on casual dockers as permanent employees. Later, the pace of mechanisation became an issue - the ILWU went on strike to demand more forklifts and cranes, now that the port was going to be industrialised.
Further, Walter Reuther actually offered the auto industry a deal back at the time of the River Rouge agreements; you join us in lobbying for universal health care, and we'll let you off the hook for health benefits. The automakers were so keen to fight the principle they signed a blank cheque. Stupid is as stupid does.
Another thing; I worked in a factory in West Yorkshire where the machinery came from Germany in the 1960s....East Germany.
144: The think that makes it complicated is that prior to the current incarnation (also a long story) the Conservative party of Canada was largely an economic positioning --- they had no space for social conservatives. So the dynamics were complicated in different ways than here.
Those Conservatives imploded though, and were eventually essentially taken over (it was basically a coup) by a populist, social conservative movement out of Alberta. So the party currently in power is in some ways closer to the Republicans, except some of those who would naturally be Republicans here are Liberals there.
Canada has a more `actual' left federal party, the NDP, but it is made somewhat ineffective nationally by the existence of the Bloc, which is quite liberal but also francophone, which pulls all of what would be natural support for the NDP out of the 2nd largest province. It is more effective in some places at a provincial level.
Canada suffers badly from first-past-the-post problems, which stultifies the system a bit even though it is theoretically many party. The English/French dynamics make it odd also.
What I hear from most people is that the Liberals are somewhere between the Democrats and Republicans, and the Conservatives are somewhere between the Democrats and Republicans. In fact, this is also what I hear about the Labours and Conservatives in Britain.
No. The British Tories are like the right-wing of the Democrats, and the British Labour Party ranges from being like the left-wing of the Democratic Party to being like the right-wing of the Socialist Party.
Parts of the British Labour Party are very left by American standards, while other bits are merely slightly left.
Unfortunately, it's the slightly left bits that run the Party at the moment, but the rank-and-file are more left, and the Party is culturally very left -- sings the Red Flag at Conferences, is a fully paid up member of the Socialist International, etc.
(Also -- the Lib Dems are an awful lot like the DLC, tbh.)
Norm Coleman has sent out letters to all of the county officials asking them to ensure the security of the ballot boxes. Presumably he's setting up a big whine in case he loses the recount.
"In Grant County, the ballot boxes sat unguarded for 17 hours on November 8th!!!1!1!!!"
except Americans may wait a lot longer to receive it if not immediately life-threatening, due to over utilization of emergency rooms for non-emergency care.
I have heard anecdotally that many Canadians are using the emergency room, because they don't have or can't get in to see their GP.
It's the same as the U.S. where many insured people wind up going to the emergency room.
I have heard anecdotally that many Canadians are using the emergency room, because they don't have or can't get in to see their GP.
That's true, in places. Not so much because they can't get in to see their own GP, but there are places chronically short of GPs (for complicated reasons, but not very good ones). It's not as bad as here, yet, but show no sign of getting better quickly.
146: Yeah, I'm not a fan of the Reform party people joining the Conservatives and making it more Western, but I guess that Mulroney messed stuff up.
This thread seems to have drifted, so I'm going to try a tangent to the original post. I've been sitting here trying to figure out how I feel (or what I think) about having done absolutely nothing to help elect any democrats this cycle. This is prompted, in part, by a notice I got saying that the county party was having a meeting Saturday to discuss reducing the size of the Central Committee - meaning that fewer people would be able to officially participate.
On the one hand I feel fine: obviously no one needed my help, since NM elected not only BHO but all blue representatives and senators. On the other hand I think that maybe there'd be some hanging on of Obama volunteers who'd possibly become involved in the state party. On the third hand, both with the Kerry and apparently with the Obama campaign there was a positive desire to not have anything to do with the party, to spend absolutely no time or effort even letting people know about the party organization.
After Kerry there was a flurry of interest in the local party, and a lot of people started showing up for meetings. the party was happ to have big crowds sitting in the audience listening to boring presentations about things we all pretty much agreed on (like health care reform) and waited for people to get bored and drift off. Which they did, leaving the party unaffected.
I can't imagine LB is going to start organizing the steelworkers for PA candidates, not do I see CC becoming big in the Montana party - but is anyone thinking of doing anything before a couple of weeks before the next election?
I also wonder what the effect of all that calling and canvassing in the last couple of weeks is. My impression is that all it really does is provide an outlet for volunteers' energy, to give people the feeling of participating, without changing the vote much. Of course there'a a point to big public performances: they give observers the impression that everyone is doing it so they should too (see Durkheim) but spending hours and hours standing around so I can be one of 40,000 people in a crowd scene strikes me as much effort for little return. Does anyone have any actual data about the effect of GOTV?
I can't imagine LB is going to start organizing the steelworkers for PA candidates, not do I see CC becoming big in the Montana party - but is anyone thinking of doing anything before a couple of weeks before the next election?
I'm really thinking hard about Bill Thompson's campaign for mayor of NY next year. I still don't know much about him, other than 'not Bloomberg', but if I can figure out whether I approve of him substantively, I may try and weasel my way into the campaign on the front end. (Assuming he's running, what with Bloomberg running for a third term. He hasn't formally announced.)
