Tag Archive for: labor unions

What Defines a Legitimate Labor Movement?

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While it isn’t uncommon for anyone critical of organized labor to accuse them of being socialist, such criticism ignores an essential truth: All government, indeed society itself, consists of versions of collective behavior.

The many ways that individuals share the burden of coping with risk, chaos, and oppression, might all be considered forms of collectivist redistribution. When someone purchases an insurance policy, they are distributing the burden of an accident that may befall them onto a pool of similarly concerned individuals. When someone submits to government authority, they do so because the social contract they’re accepting, and the taxes they pay, enable them to live with increased safety and shared rules.

In this context, unions are just another form of organized behavior, accepted by individuals because it gives them a chance to live better lives. One may debate important details – should anyone be forced to join a union as a condition of getting a job, to offer one rather significant example – but the fundamental concept of collective bargaining is not some novel aberration, sprung from the bowels of Marxism. It is a normal feature in a healthy democracy.

Whether or not a union is a necessity, or an unchecked and parasitical menace, can often come down to whether or not the union represents private sector workers or public sector workers. The hypothetical examples of Sarah (private sector) and George (public sector) illustrate this point.

Sarah has worked for a major grocery store chain for the past 25 years. Adjusting for inflation, she makes less now than she did over a decade ago, especially since her hours were cut in order for her employer to avoid being required to offer her health insurance. Even more difficult, she is “on call” most of the week, without a reliable schedule, which makes it impossible for her to take on a 2nd part time job to help make ends meet. Including benefits, Sarah is lucky to make $30,000 per year. Now in her early fifties, she will need to work for as long as there is strength left in her body to do the job.

George works for a fire department serving an affluent suburb on the California coast. Taking into account the vacation time he earns as a 25 year veteran, he works less than two 24 hour shifts per week before qualifying for overtime. Since five day weekends are overkill, he often works one or two extra shifts a week, doubling his pay. When he goes on calls, 98% of the time they are medical emergencies, not fires. Including moderate amounts of overtime and the employer’s payments for his benefits, George makes about $250,000 per year. Now in his early fifties, he will retire in a year or two and collect a pension and health benefits package worth well over $100,000 per year.

Both of these individuals are hard working, honest and conscientious. Both of them perform jobs that have a vital role to play in our society. Both of them deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Neither of them wrote the rules. And both of them are represented by unions.

While these individuals and the work they do is beyond reproach, the unions that represent them leave much to be desired. In Sarah’s case, typical of tens of millions of private sector workers, the unions who represent her have ignored economic reality in pursuit of ideological fantasies. Almost universally, to cite a particularly wounding example, these private sector unions have supported immigration policies that increase the supply of semi-skilled workers who compete with Sarah for work hours. Also common are the pragmatic alliances these unions form with extreme environmentalist organizations who have bottled up development of land and energy, driving the cost of living beyond the reach of an ordinary worker. One may cogitate endlessly over what constitutes optimal and humane policies with respect to immigration and the environment. But to agitate for higher wages and benefits in a society awash in cheap labor and artificially inflated costs for basic necessities is a fool’s errand.

In George’s case, which is equally typical, at least in California, the unions that represent him should not even be permitted to exist. Associations of government workers who engage in collective bargaining are not unions in any traditional sense of the word. They elect their own bosses, they take money from taxpayers instead of competing for consumer spending, and they operate the machinery of government which lets them intimidate or co-opt any special interest that might oppose them. They have priced normal government services beyond the capacity of ordinary taxpayers, and bred cynicism about government into the heart of any financially literate American. And government unions have even less interest than private unions in acknowledging the complexity of issues such as immigration or environmentalist overreach. In both cases, policies that harm the aspirations of private workers have the opposite effect on them, enhancing their job security.

A legitimate labor movement is easy to justify in the abstract. If not unions, what sort of movement will speak for ordinary workers in an era when jobs are being relentlessly automated, global competition is tougher than ever, and the cost of living is punitive? What sort of movement can speak for ordinary workers if, along with these challenges, the nation is gripped by a deep recession brought on because interest rates can’t go any lower and stimulative debt can’t go any higher?

The reality today is that much of America’s labor movement has gone astray. Private sector unions often put ideological goals ahead of the economic interests of their members. And public sector unions, which are not unions in any traditional sense of the word, and which represent the economic interests of their members all too well, are an abomination. They have corrupted our democracy, they are a corrupting influence on government workers because they have exempted them from the economic challenges facing private American workers, they are driving our governments at all levels towards authoritarianism, they are bankrupting our cities and counties and states, and the pension funds they control are some of the most corrupt elements of America’s grotesquely overbuilt financial sector. Maybe what would remain after abolition of public sector unions, still very powerful voluntary associations, could start fighting for CEQA reform, for example, to benefit all workers instead of just themselves. Before unions infested our governments, that’s what public service meant.

Envisioning exactly how the labor movement might best operate in the interests of the American worker is difficult but necessary. It requires balancing libertarian and mixed-capitalist economic world views. But two reforms would be a very good start. First, outlaw collective bargaining in the public sector. Second, the leaders of the private sector labor movement need to starting caring more about American workers, and less about their elitist ideological fantasies.

This article originally appeared on the website of the California Globe.

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How Unions Can Help ALL Workers

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Last month on January 5, Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez resigned from the legislature to join the California Labor Federation. Gonzalez is likely to succeed the current Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski when he retires this summer. What will this mean for the labor movement in California?

Gonzalez has earned a controversial reputation in the State Assembly, partly by virtue of the legislation she’s sponsored, and partly by her Trumpian penchant for lobbing polarizing Tweets at her political opponents. But when Gonzalez takes the helm of the most powerful labor organization in California, as is expected, will the weight of the job moderate her political priorities?

It’s common for right-of-center politicians to criticize unions, and it’s worth repeating some of these criticisms. Public sector unions have an agenda that is inherently in conflict with the public interest, since the interests of their membership – more jobs, better pay and benefits – may be served regardless of whether or not public services are operated efficiently and effectively. They divert public funds out of public employee paychecks to wage campaigns to elect the politicians with whom they supposedly then “negotiate” labor agreements. The agencies they represent don’t have to compete for customers or make a profit, they can just raise taxes. Civil service laws offer ample protection to public employees, and voluntary associations that don’t engage in collective bargaining would still provide plenty of political leverage for public employees. Public sector unions should probably be illegal.

As for private sector unions, on the other hand, these unions often represent the only recourse that workers have when employers, for whatever reason, abuse their employees. The history of the labor movement in America is an evolution, whereby over the decades the rights of workers have steadily improved. While there is disagreement as to how much, private sector unions still have a vital role to play in the American economy. And union spokespersons who are always quick to attack “greedy CEOs” should reflect on a great irony: union encroachment into the private sector, along with increasing government regulations usually advocated and sponsored by unions, enables corporate consolidation because only the most financially resilient private companies can withstand the expense of excessive regulations along with union pay scales and union work rules.

The reality, in any case, is that in California, public sector unions exercise nearly absolute control over state and local elected officials, by virtue of the nearly $1.0 billion per year they collect in membership dues. And by this time next year, one of California’s most outspoken and arguably extreme advocates for union power is probably going to be running the most powerful union organization in California. With great power comes great responsibility. So in the interests of ALL the workers in California, here are three ideas that Lorena Gonzalez and her union colleagues are invited to consider.

Try Not to Restrict the Supply of Skilled Labor

The consequences of labor in short supply is that employers are required to pay more in order to attract workers. That’s good for workers. But if the pipeline that feeds trained workers into the marketplace is too narrow, there is an economic penalty that harms everyone. The shortage of nurses is a good example. There isn’t merely a short-term crisis in staffing health care workers because of COVID. There’s a long-term crisis as well.

An analysis from 2019, published by the California Policy Center, found that nursing programs in California turned away 62 percent of qualified applicants for lack of openings. The analysis reported, using 2018 data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, that by 2030, California will have to replace more than half of its nursing workforce, over 165,000 positions. Meanwhile, California is only graduating around 11,000 trained nurses per year.

There are solutions to the challenge of too few trained nurses. Some positions filled by nurses can be just as effectively filled by nursing assistants with vocational degrees. And the guidelines designed to limit the annual enrollment in approved schools of nursing, set by the California Board of Registered Nursing, can be revised to allow for more accredited private programs to be accepted.

If the union representing nurses wanted to, they could support policies that would safely eliminate the shortage of nurses in California. This may only be one step towards providing better health care to all Californians, but it’s a big one.

These shortages exist across many disciplines where unions could help. The State Building and Construction Trades Council has around 450,000 members in California. Most of their members are currently employed, which is a good thing. But what if California’s state legislature were to start making massive investments in, for example, badly needed water infrastructure? Is the SBCTC ready to support programs to double the number of their trained workers? Are they increasing available vocational training for high school and community college students, along with training for inmates and others who want to reenter the workforce?

It is possible that increasing the supply of workers puts downward pressure on wages. But releasing entire sectors of California’s economy from paralysis due to labor shortages helps all working families, not just those currently enjoying union pay and benefits.

Demand Public Projects That Offer Long-Term Economic Benefit

The classic example in California of a project of dubious value is the High Speed Rail project. Absolutely everything about this project is wrong. The project will never make an operating profit, even if amortizing the stupefying capital costs are not taken into account. It relies on imported rolling stock. It carves a scar across the land that disrupts thousands of private properties and sensitive ecosystems. It is mired in litigation and may never be completed. And supposedly we’re willing to squander countless billions on High Speed Rail because it creates thousands of good paying jobs.

If there is one example of where union power could have been used – and could still be used – to accomplish something truly great for all Californians, it would be to scrap the High Speed Rail project and instead direct that workforce to build something that will benefit Californians for generations. The checklist of worthy projects is urgent and obvious: Resurface and widen the freeways to prepare for green, sustainable, autonomous, high-speed next generation vehicles. Repair the aqueducts and seismically retrofit the dams, build plants to recycle 100 percent of urban wastewater, and add a few more offstream reservoirs to capture runoff, and bring California’s remarkable water system into the 21st century. These projects create just as many good jobs, but they also make California a better place.

Why won’t California’s unions demand these projects, instead of supporting High Speed Rail? Exploring the reasons for this exposes an ugly truth. California’s unions are unwilling to stand up to the environmentalist lobby, and the only major construction project that California’s powerful environmentalists apparently approve of is High Speed Rail. And even these environmentalists, if they’ve got any common sense at all, know that High Speed Rail isn’t going to do anything to help the environment. But unions want work, and environmentalists don’t want better roads and more water, so this hideous compromise is the best they can collectively come up with. Disclaimer: This is overstating the situation. But only slightly.

It isn’t labor costs that are the reason infrastructure costs so much in California. It’s the excessive cost of permitting and out-of-control litigation. California’s construction unions, if they want to advocate policies that will help all the workers in California, need to demand more spending on water and transportation infrastructure. At the same time, they need to demand regulatory reform so money can be spent on heavy construction instead paying bureaucrats and litigators.

Recognize that Lowering the Cost-of-Living is Equal to Raising Pay

Increasing wages in an inflationary environment is like a cat chasing its tail. You go around and around but never get to a better place. Unions are hardly the only culprit when it comes to the causes of inflation. But with the political power they wield in Sacramento, every time there is a new proposed law or regulation, they might ask themselves “this might be good for our members, but how will this affect the overall cost of living?” State spending on better roads and more water infrastructure, to stick to those fundamental examples, lowers the cost of living. Better roads and more water means it is easier to build new homes. More water means less expensive water, which means row crops such as lettuce and tomatoes, along with dairy products (cows eat alfalfa), can be produced in-state at lower prices than imported products.

California’s unions could use their power to deregulate the timber industry. Loggers have been driven out of California, relocating to states like Georgia, or nations like New Zealand, where the cost of operating is far less – not because labor is cheaper, but because regulations are more reasonable. Imagine if California’s timber industry were revived, producing 6.0 billion board feet a year again, like they did in the 1990s? Imagine if sawmills were back, and framing lumber could be imported from Redding instead of from British Columbia. Imagine all those union jobs for loggers and mill workers, but at the same time imagine the cost of lumber for homes costing a fraction of what it costs today in California.

There are cases, as noted, where literally hundreds of thousands of union jobs can be created at the same time as the overall cost-of-living is lowered, because the jobs that are created are producing a long-term economic return. Water and transportation infrastructure, along with a revitalized logging industry, are examples of this. The High Speed Rail project as it is currently envisioned in California, on the other hand, has the precise opposite effect. It is a long-term economic drain.

California has instead created a regulatory environment that in every way has priced people out of the ability to make a living. Home prices are out of reach, because there are not adequate enabling roads and supplies of water to facilitate home building, and because the price of lumber and other building materials is far higher than in other parts of the country. All of this can be fixed, and unions in California can take the lead in fixing it.

Lorena Gonzalez and the labor movement she is taking over must ask themselves: Do we want to continue on a path that suits our membership, but destroys opportunities for everyone else who is trying to run a small business or manage a household in California, or do we want to confront some tough questions and get out of our comfort zone?

This article first appeared on the website of the California Globe.

California’s Green Conundrum

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In 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the landmark AB 32, the “Global Warming Solutions Act.” Determined to leave a legacy that would ensure he remained welcome among the glitterati of Hollywood and Manhattan, Schwarzenegger may not have fully comprehended the forces he unleashed.

Under AB 32, California was required to “reduce its [greenhouse gas] emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.” Now, according to the “scoping plan” updated in 2017, California must “further reduce its GHG emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.”

The problem with such an ambitious plan is that achieving it will preclude ordinary Californians ever enjoying the lifestyle that people living in developed nations have earned and have come to expect. It will condemn Californians to chronic scarcity of energy, with repercussions that remain poorly understood by voters.

It isn’t merely that Californians will experience unreliable energy, as the percentage of energy generated from “renewable” sources continues to increase. That will eventually get sorted out, although at a stupendous cost. Battery farms will replace natural gas plants to fill in those times of day when there is no sun and insufficient wind, and over time, the entire solar, wind, battery, and “smart grid” infrastructure will get overbuilt enough to cope even with those months in the year when days are short and there isn’t much wind. It will cost trillions and despoil thousands of square miles of supposedly sacred open space, but it will get done.

The bigger problem is that this whole scheme is too space-intensive and too expensive to ever be scaled up to the level of abundance. To close the loop, “negawatts” will be required. That is, extreme conservation of energy solutions will become mandatory. This will affect every household, imposing LED lights, “smart” thermostats, “energy sipping” appliances, lights that turn themselves off when the sensors determine a room is empty. Every manner of intrusive, surveilled, algorithmic management of our lives will become mandatory. But it doesn’t end there.

Energy isn’t just required to run a household. It’s also necessary to run an economy. This is immediately obvious with respect to the future of California’s water infrastructure. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, “overall, water use accounts for about 20 percent of California’s electricity use and 30 percent of natural gas used by businesses and homes. This energy is used to supply, convey, treat, and heat water.”

Meanwhile, a rarely acknowledged fact about California is that, despite “green” ideology dominating public policy for decades, over 80 percent of California’s total energy consumption relies on fossil fuel.

This is the conundrum. California’s policymakers know that in order to fulfill their climate goals under the Global Warming Solutions Act, they cannot permit the growth of industry or infrastructure that may consume more energy.

The effect on water use is profound. Want to increase interbasin transfers, to deliver water from regions where water is abundant to regions where water is scarce? That, after all, was the realized intent of the California Water Project, one of the civil engineering marvels of the world. But why fix the collapsing aqueducts, or build additional pipelines and aqueducts, when that would require more pumping, and more pumping requires more energy? Why build desalination plants, when it takes a megawatt-year of electricity to desalinate every 2,000 acre feet of seawater? Why upgrade water treatment plants, when treating wastewater requires energy?

California’s green solution is to ration water consumption instead of generating more energy to produce more water. This priority is felt everywhere. Neglect the agricultural canals and let more runoff flow into the ocean. Decimate California’s once legendary agricultural sector. Squeeze the small farming operations into insolvency, and allow hedge funds to buy their land for pennies on the dollar. Replace a farming economy that delivers a diversity of row crops to the entire world with a few commodity monocrops that don’t require as much water, or turn the farmland into solar farms and nature preserves.

The impact on household water consumption is set to become equally severe. The state wants to reduce indoor water consumption to 55 gallons per person per day, then to 50 gallons per person per day, and eventually to 40 gallons per person per day. Ban virtually all use of outdoor water for landscaping. Promote, then mandate, “xeriscaping”—because it’s fun and responsible to send children out to play in the rocks. And hold on, anyway, isn’t having a private home with a private yard exclusionary and unsustainable and racist? Don’t laugh. They’re coming for you.

Californians, even during prolonged droughts, could invest in water infrastructure and maintain an abundant supply of water for farms and cities. But abundant water policies collide with the conundrum. To supply more water requires more energy. To supply more anything requires more energy. It won’t happen.

To implement California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, the state has raised an army of “carbon accountants.” They are charged with determining the carbon impact of everything. Want to bring back the timber industry in California? After all, there’s no better way to sequester carbon than to cut down trees and mill lumber. But wait. First the carbon accountants will have to calculate the net benefit. How much energy will the lumber trucks and the chainsaws require? What about the mills? What about the carbon absorption potential of the trees if they’re left standing? Blah blah blah. To be sure, this level of analysis can’t be done on a spreadsheet. Bring out the parametric database. Bring out the black box. Make sure you include a plethora of regression analyses. To do the “work,” hire PhDs by the dozens. Spend millions. Spend years.

Or never mind.

With a Sierra Club litigator looking over their shoulder, don’t expect carbon accountants to ever greenlight an industrial endeavor in California, unless it’s a solar farm, a wind farm, or a battery farm. And never mind the collateral damage of those projects. So let the forests burn. God forbid the timber companies might come in and clear out around the power lines, maintain the fire roads and fire breaks, and thin the undergrowth, all for free in exchange for the right to log again. That’s what they did up until the 1990s. Today? Not a chance. So burn baby, burn.

One way to address California’s green conundrum would be to embrace nuclear and hydroelectric sources of energy. After all, these power sources do not create any emissions. Keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open. Raise the height of the Shasta Dam and immediately have more water and more electricity. But these solutions are anathema to California’s green elite. But why? Is there a “climate crisis” or isn’t there?

Of course, if the goal of green policy in California is to reduce the standard of living of normal residents, implement draconian controls over their lives, and move people out of spacious detached homes and into energy efficient apartments, this is not a conundrum at all.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Recognize that fossil fuel cannot be phased out precipitously and set an example to the world of how to, for example, use clean natural gas in a manner that is as efficient and sustainable as possible. Pioneer new designs for nuclear power stations. Build water infrastructure that guarantees more water for everything—not only the farms and cities, but the streams and rivers. Stop using visions of an apocalypse to limit our lives and line the pockets of environmentalist litigants. Proclaim abundance in all things to be achievable and desirable, and refuse to compromise. There is no conundrum. It is a self-inflicted lie.

As America’s dissident reformers focus on confirming election integrity, maintaining medical freedom, and countering the woke mob—as if that weren’t enough—the agenda of the environmentalist extremists moves relentlessly forward. What’s happening in California is moving East, crossing the Sierras and the Rockies, traversing the plains, and infiltrating every state house and county seat and city council in the nation. Propelled by fantasy and panic in equal measure, and manipulated by fanatics and shameful opportunists, the extreme green agenda must be recognized for what it is: a highly contagious misanthropic pathology that afflicts the young, the impressionable, the uninformed, the well-intentioned but misguided, the profiteers and the tyrants. Beware of them all.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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