Tuesday, October 5, 2010

CORPORATIONS AND UNIONS, UNEMPLOYMENT AND GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS: Can we have a new "New Deal" with Corporate America

Let talk about the corporate America without gloves...


Workers don't  really like working for corporations, and rightly so: they sucking the daylight of every workers all over the world, demanding and receiving more work for less pay, so when I say that I am a progressive of the   -" How much left i can turn" kind and i state further that i admire them, of course you, my dear readers will be more then shocked!

Stay with me a little longer the plot thickens!


I admire the corporations!
Why?...
Their whole design is a cunning utilization of the material & human resources.
An ultimate money making machine, got to love that!
A beast that i rather have on leash next to my feet then facing her claws and pangs in the dark!
How can we tame the beast?
Knowing her weak spot!

So, if we look for corporations weaknesses in their internal structure and function we are in for a surprise: they don't have one!
What make their achilles heel is not inside of the corporation but outside of their control: it is a whip that make them scream in pain and it is their ultimate demise call Wall Street!

There they rise and fall!

Wall Street is forcing them to find a never ending new way to meet and deepen the bottom line so they can show more profitability, more growth, in order their stock to rise!

How can we protect ourselves then against that cut and slash ultimate no conscience money making machine?

Why don't we make a new "New Deal" with corporate America?
Is that a possibility?
My answer is - Yes!
For one, we can ask the biggest dog in the neighborhood to come to our protection: Federal Government!

Congress can set the new ground rules and POTUS can sigh them into a laws that  corporate America has to follow and Wall Street have to accept like:
   1. Elevating the minimum wage to a standard of living wage using broader CPI
   2. Working day being drop to 6 hours instead of today 8 hours per day!

This two simple legislative measure will restructure our Economy and will solve the unemployment issue on the long run without a dime of a new debt, cause will reach deep into the pocket of corporate America cash stockpile...

The implementations of those simple measure is not a question of doability, of course is doable:
1938 we get 8 hours and if you read the press of that time, i assure you the business was going Armageddon for sure...yet 70 and more years letter, they still making record profits!
The implementations of those simple measure is not a question of affordability either...
We produce more goods and services today in 6 hours then the greatest generation in 8 hours before and after the WWII, curtesy of ever rising productivity and it had a virtual quantum leap during the 80' and 90' due to computerization's of the means of production... look at the productivity indicators from the leading economists published works!

It is a question of the  awakening of the American working populations and pressing congress to stand tall to corporate America! By working population I understand whoever make a paycheck does not matter if the task is cleaning the school corridors, or working for an estimate Wall Street financial corporation and ranking a 6 digit yearly salary. It's still a salary and its still working to get paid.

We have to clear some illusions we have about the relations between labor and business, namely 
It is not theirs to give us anything, it is ours to ask for it, to be aware of our values as human beings, that we work and contribute much more in the cake of our nation wealth, and that part call productivity is not solely due to technological progress, but to our better skills that follow that progress respectively. 
To be a janitor today require operating at least one cleaning machine, not to mention how every single job requirement is specter of multitasking performance in workers daily activity. Even the simple check our paycheck, cause our corporation go green therefore paperless,  force our work force to know basic computer skills.
Saves a body or two in human resource not just paper...eh!

If we are not aware of our value, we will never be appreciate it, and we will never get any credit in a form of income increase for it, cause we will never be aware to demand anything!

Corporate America will never respect our effort or our time, we are the one who should.
Elevating the minimum wage to a level of a living wage is actually the easiest ever, cause right now every union use the CPI, Consumer Price Index measure inflation in a given country following number of items to calculate the cost of living, maintaining certain standard of living level also known as COLI, to negotiate every labor wage increase.

Needless to say is that every Union wage increase is linear wage increase to a whole industry wages, in order to prevent the rest of the work force going Union.
Clever on the part of corporate America, is in it!

The problem is that in calculating the CPI corporate America is using the lobbying power usually over members of both political parties, but GOP mostly, and Congress rarely add but most of the time shred so many items that will accurately forecast the cost of living.


   " Between 1971 and 1977, the United States CPI increased 47%.
In 2009, the Consumer Price Index fell for the first time since 1955."

wikipedia the free encyclopedia, under CPI history

The CPI not just fall down starting with the Reagan revolution and trickle down poverty economics, but the working people standard of living start falling short every year, every decade with the real buying power of their wages cause the CPI become bias by political interest!

"A first-order" bias of the CPI in the other direction has been argued to its failure to measure fully improvements in quality over time:
-change in prices of good and services that are included in measure of Cost of living index COLI;
-introduction of new goods and services if ignored;
-quality change in existing goods and services;
-shift in shopping pattern "
wikipedia the free enciclopedia, under CPI history

Ever wonder why our bills keep rising but officially there is no inflation or the inflation is so low? 
Now you can understand...
One thing that need to be changed immediately is the calculation of minimum wage per family of four, two adult and two children as necessary for simple reproduction, according to wildly accept demographic Laws, and not just an individual as it is today...Workers do have families and any jobs should provide a decent support of the worker family! This notion is dated sinse the dawn of  Modern Economics:


   "A man must always live by its work and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasion be somewhat more, otherwise will be impossible for him to bring up a family and the race of such workman could not last beyond the first generation... upon this account, to suppose that the lowest species of common labourers must everywhere earn at least double their own maintenance in order that one with another be able to bring up two children... "
Adam Smith, The Wealth of the Nation, page 77.

Next, because every profession require different set of skills to perform a job, and I don't see why we will not give a voice to every profession on the bargaining table with Corporate America to lay out its concerns trough massive democratization of the working force, namely that our Government can give to the middle class called: Employee Free Choice Act! 

Unions are powerless in America and that is not just because of their shrinking membership due to the jobs flying overseas, mostly manufacturing jobs, but also as a consequence of ability of corporate America to stall and actually never meet the labor demands until they discourage the Unions members or slowly firing them over the months and years of delays in  negotiations!
Needless to say, corporate America can afford to do that cause Union come solely, as one individual union instead as a Workers Labor Organization that will embrace all the union in one broad labor force.
Workers in America need to understand that every profession needs to go union, it does not matter how tiny the workforce is if they stand together, they can bring down to its knees any corporation.

Cause the only way to seat corporate America on the negotiation table and accomplish something will happen only if workers fight power with power!
There is no other way to talk with corporate America.
Workers shouln't beg, plead or ask for compassion.
Workers should demand fully aware of their contribution.
There is so many unemployed educated young people who can engage in scientific evaluation of the market justification of the input of labor in the profitability of any given corporation.
If the given Union set a clear agenda they will pursuit in their negotiation that agenda will make people willing to join the union and the new labor laws become power in numbers facing corporate power of expensive lawyers in a fancy suits who by laws they will have to negotiate the labor contract in a timely matter. 
That is the only way to negotiate with corporate America.

Productivity due the automations of the production process, inevitably leading to shortening the work day to 6, then 4, then 2 working hours per day. 
The sole purpose of technological innovation is freeing the work force of the laboring part, and therefore if the workday remind the same, logical conclusion is more labor then the labor demand will follow and gradually diminishing the wages. 
We see this happening all over America. 
True, technological innovations always break new ground and new industries and absorb most of the labor deem unnecessary in given industry, but that absorption barely catch up with the natural population growth in any given country. 
Scandinavian countries implement shorter workdays already with great success, mostly in their public sectors. It make workers happier, more productive and overall save on turnover. 
In America 6 hours workday will trigger 4 shift for every corporation that work 24/7/365. 
It will absorb great deal of latent unemployment in rural America. 
It will benefit the family life absent for many workers who work two jobs and never have a time to be home and tend to their families. 
In a nation bombarded with pills for every ills, no one is debating the time one need to rest, relax and enjoy from work as the greater happiness recipe for long prosperous life. 
6 hours workday is over due in this digital world nowadays. 

1 comment:

  1. First, why is this all in italics? I seriously got eye strain from reading this.

    Second, the weakness of Corporations is their inefficencies that lead to fraud. Strong audits could crush many of them.

    Third, you're talking about Neo-Corporatism which is the European Model: Government, Unions, Business. Very common in Scandanavian countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartism.

    Yes it works there but would Americans except it? Probably not.

    The economic system you referenced is also not based on massive consumption, in fact, many of those economies are export based. Guess who they sell to? The buyer of last resort the world over - America.

    Good post. Keep on keeping on

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