Nathan Newman's Blog

High-Tech Workers Have Unions Too

2008-12-02T12:42:03Z

A lot of folks take the fact that most high-tech industries appeared in the modern period of anti-union rules and thus there are few unions in such industries to mean that unionism itself doesn't "work" for high tech, high-skilled workers. But then you have one of the original high-tech industries-- modern aviation -- and a massive union of engineers and technical workers who just approved their contract with Boeing:

Nearly 21,000 engineers and technical workers for The Boeing Co., most of them in the Puget Sound area, have approved new labor contracts that will give them more say in the company's controversial outsourcing decisions and the use of contract workers. They also will receive more for retirement and a pay raise that will average about 20 percent over four years.

I've never quite understood the logic that says that blue-collar manual workers have something to gain from more democratic say over their wages and conditions of work, but higher-skilled workers don't.

]]> Of course, high-skilled workers have always been unionized. In fact, the conventional wisdom among some sectors of the labor movement before the New Deal was that only the most skilled workers could be unionized, since their skills were no indispensable that it gave them the leverage to win strikes. Before the New Deal, a few industries like the miners and garment trades in locations like New York had managed to organize less skilled workers, but it was only in the 1930s that massive numbers of manufacturing workers in routine, assembly-line jobs got organized in unions. And a new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) had to break off from the original AFL federation, because the original craft union leaders were so doubtful of the possibility of organizing anyone other than skilled workers.

The irony is that the New Deal union organizing was so successful that the conventional labor wisdom flipped and many came to believe that unions were so identified with blue collar work that unions made no sense for skilled workers. Of course, unions did persist among a whole range of skilled and even high-tech industries, from Hollywood to the telephone industry to most government-employed engineers to Boeing and the aerospace industry, mostly because those unions organized in industries already thriving at the same time as the overall New Deal unionizing explosion.

But in a world of corporate restructuring, outsourcing and financial manipulation, it is incredibly foolish to think that even the most skilled workers don't have something to gain by being able to assert some collective restraints on management power. In the case of the Boeing engineers, they have demanded in the most recent contract that current Boeing outsourcing practices be better coordinated and, not coincidentally, better preserve existing high-skilled jobs for workers currently at Boeing:

In fact, if the company had listened to the workers in the first place, it would have been better off itself financially:

Outsourcing was an important issue for SPEEA, just as it was for the Machinists union. Boeing's oft-delayed 787, according to SPEEA, represents everything that's wrong with outsourcing.

On past programs, Boeing took the lead in manufacturing. But for the 787, its partners in Japan, Italy, Kansas and South Carolina produce the large composite structures, and Boeing workers assemble them in Everett. Boeing argues this business model will significantly reduce the cost of making airplanes.

But those partners quickly fell behind with the untested manufacturing and production system, and Boeing engineers and Machinists have been forced to play catch-up during final assembly of the first 787s. As a result, the Dreamliner's maiden flight has slipped from August 2007 into 2009. Some customers have been told their planes will be up to three years late.

So for any high skilled and high tech workers who don't want to just sit on the sidelines as their companies make stupider and stupider decisions, getting a union is a chance to push for course corrections in management conduct at the next contact bargaining session.

Maybe Your Social Security Payments Weren't Such a Bad Investment

2008-11-29T13:11:07Z

Yeah, the stock meltdown of 401Ks is making the Bush-McCain proposals for social security privatization look idiotic, but the Wall Street Journal of all places has a nice quantification of how valuable social security is for most families:

The U.S. government pledges that you will receive those payments, adjusted for inflation, for as long as you live...This kind of bond has a name: an inflation-adjusted immediate annuity...The implicit bond of Social Security makes up about 40% of the total assets of the average household on the verge of retirement...

So most families have the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets that are untouched by the financial crisis.

]]> Since the Wall Street Journal numbers seem to be talking about "average" households (where richer households push the number up) rather than median households (where half of household have more and half have less), the saving grace of social security is even more apparent. Media households depending on the survey measure their assets in tens of thousands of dollars, not the hundreds of thousands of dollars that their stake in social security represents.

This is reflected in the fact (see p. 10) that social security is 39.6% of the income of Americans over age 65, with regular earnings accounting for 23% of their income. In fact, returns from financial assets are only 15.4% of older Americans income. So while the stock market collapse is definitely hurting some groups of the elderly, the reality is that a fifty percent drop in the value and earnings from financial assets cuts overall income of the elderly by less than 10%. Rising costs of medicine or other costs not fully captured by inflation-adjustments to social security may be far more critical to the financial well-being of most older Americans.

The wonders of social security for most older Americans in the face of the meltdown is one of key stories of the present meltdown. And the legacy of the original New Deal is one reason the challenges of this one will be far less.

Remembering Our Friends- Supporting the Autoworkers

2008-11-19T15:09:32Z

I'll hopefully have time to post on why allowing the U.S. auto industry to die without help would be a catastrophic mistake, but let me note a more basic political issue for progressives, of helping the UAW save their members jobs. The United Auto Workers has been a stalwart ally of progressives for going on seventy-plus years, from helping build the New Deal to supporting progressive government for years (thanks for Michigan, guys!) Without going through the longer list, let me just remind folks of the central role of the UAW in the civil rights movement. No organization gave more financial and political support to Martin Luther King Jr.'s movement.

* Few remember, but before the famous March on Washington in 1963, there was a precursor march in Detroit, backed by the UAW, where 200,000 folks marched down Woodward Avenue led by King and Walter Reuther, head of the UAW.

]]> * In D.C. Walter Reuther was the only white speaker at the March on Washington.

* And the UAW gave large financial sums, including paying bail money for countless southern civil rights activists thrown in jail, including the bail for Martin Luther King Jr. at Birmingham.

For an organization that was such a critical friend to other progressive movements for so many decades, anyone speaking out against saving the very livelihood and existence of that ally should be pretty damn sure of themselves before they question support for the autoworkers in their moment of crisis.

Card Check is More Democratic than NLRB Elections

2008-11-13T15:18:39Z

So some folks will say, hey labor law sounds good, but don't the business lobbies have a point that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) proposed by labor and its supporters will undermine democracy by eliminating the secret ballot. I'll have a post soon about how the secret ballot will be fine and more used in workplaces if EFCA passes, but let's take the basic corporate argument headon. Under EFCA, instead of holding an election with a secret ballot, workers can also choose a union alternatively by a majority of workers signing cards asking to have their union recognized.

Horrors, the business lobby cries, weeping for the lost democratic voice of their workers (as they threaten to fire anyone who supports the union during the election), but here's the thing-- an NLRB election recognizes the union if a majority of THOSE VOTING support the union, while the card check option requires support from a majority of ALL WORKERS IN THAT COMPANY OR VOTING UNIT. So the latter option is harder and actually is more guaranteed to reflect the will of the workers. Follow below the fold to imagine how this would play out in a federal Presidential election.

]]> Think of it this way, according to numbers at CNN.com, Obama won a solid victory with 66,495,305 votes across the country. But that was out of 213,005,467 total eligible voters, so Obama received only 31.2% of those who could vote.

Let's say their was a "card check" option for the Presidency. First, instead of having the government set up polling places in every community and manage an election, just to get those original 66 million plus votes, the Obama campaign would have had to independently pay to send cards to each voter and do far more extensive "get out the vote" work to get those cards returned. No depending on voters just to show up at the polls in safe states and districts. Every voter would require individual outreach.

So just duplicating the exact numbers Obama got would be more daunting under a card check Presidential system. But getting those same numbers would still leave the campaign short. On top of the 66 million plus votes he received, Obama would need an additional 40,007,429 legal voters (213,005,467 divided by 2 minus Obama's election total) signing cards supporting him for President. Which means Obama would have to reach deep into the mass of non-voters-- whether apathetic, disenchanted, dispirited Republicans, or whatever -- to get those last 40 million supporters. The resources required for that outreach would be a level truly daunting, and even the Obama machine is grateful that the government provides the easier route of elections. But I think unquestionably, a President who could demonstrate support from an absolute majority of all eligible voters, having 106,502,734 voters state their support for them, would have a clear democratic mandate.

The fact that unions would even want the option of card check is just a testament to how awful and unfair the NLRB election system has become (a topic for another post).

What about "coercion of workers? Yes, business lobbies claim that unions want the option so they can "coerce" voters to sign pro-union cards. Here's a question, since such coercion is clearly illegal under present law and unions have used card check authorized under some state laws for public workers and in negotiated cases with some employers, where is the list of convicted union organizers illegally coercing workers to sign cards? The Bush administration would have been happy to prosecute yet there are no examples. The union "coercion" argument is a lie and red herring to justify denying labor rights just as the right's cries of "voter fraud" is their screen for voter disenfranchisement.

The secret ballot is a useful institution and workers will retain that right under EFCA, since 30% of workers in a worksite can always demand an election and as long as a majority of workers refuse to sign cards authorizing the union, they hold onto a right to have an election instead. But where a majority of workers recognize that they want a union and want to avoid the employer threats and coercion that accompany an NLRB election, the right to a card check option should clearly exist and is the best way to reflect the real democratic will of workers.

Myth of the Reagan Union Vote

2008-11-12T14:52:56Z

In comments on my last post, Resistance writes that it's union members' faults for the anti-union legacy of Reagan because they supported his election: "Union workers cut their own throats; the movement was destroyed from within, I remember the election of Reagan and was so angry that Union workers voted for him."

Except this was a myth; sure some union members did support Reagan, as some did Bush, but the large majority supported Carter back in 1980. But it's not surprising that this myth persists, because it was a major rightwing propaganda operation to create the illusion of pro-union support for Reagan.

]]> DEVIL'S PACT: INSIDE THE WORLD OF THE TEAMSTERS. Zeller recounts how the Teamsters ponied up millions of dollars to support Ronald Reagan and his Republicans in 1980, but did even more yeoman work for the Republicans in propaganda that union and working class voters really wanted Reagan.

The Teamsters conducted a mail ballot poll of their members' preferences for President. When the results showed a strong preference for Carter, Zeller was ordered to throw away ballots and rig the poll and announce that Teamster members favored Ronald Reagan.

As the only major union supporting Reagan, the Teamsters were crucial for Reagan in campaigning not just as a candidate of the wealthy but as someone who related to blue-collar concerns.

When Reagan was elected President, the Teamsters were rewarded handsomely and directly for their support. Within days of his inauguration, Reagan made a public visit to the DC Teamster "Marble Palace" headquarters, the first President ever to do so. Reagan also chose as labor secretary Ray Donovan, the hand-picked choice of the top leadership of the Teamsters. Donovan was a contractor involved with many of the same corrupt business deals that many Teamster leaders had in New Jersey. (Donovan was indicted but not convicted for his association with those deals.) But most importantly, the Reagan White House agreed to pull back investigations into corruption among the Teamster leadership.

In 1984, the Teamsters dutifully rigged another poll of its members to fake rank-and-file support for Reagan and poured millions more into Republican races. The Teamsters endorsed Ronald Reagan and he basked in the image of blue-collar "Reagan Democrats" supporting him and his Republican party.

Soon thereafter-- and this is one of those things where Rudolph Guiliani gets credit -- independent investigations by the local federal attorneys office under Guiliani went a big off the reservation and forced a rank-and-file vote for leadership of the Teamsters that ousted the old crew that had cut the corrupt deal with the Reagan administration.

With rank-and-file union members electing the leadership, the Teamsters have supported Democrats for President ever since. So don't buy the old Reagan operatives' lies that union members ushered Reagan into office-- it's just one of the lies of their propaganda machine.

Lock in a Progressive Majority: Pass Labor Law Reform

2008-11-11T18:10:43Z

If progressives want to lock in and expand the progressive victories we had last Tuesday, everyone should be joining hands to push through labor law reform as the most important priority. Yes, we want to use our victory to deliver on needed priorities, from health care to green jobs to civil rights, and governing well to solve real problems will help at reelection time.

But from a cold, pragmatic level, the demographics of the election are clear-- progressives get the overwhelming support of blacks, Jews, gays and young people, but we can't create more of those (well not for eighteen years in the case of more young people). We can expand the latino and new immigrant vote through immigration reform legalization of undocumented immigrants, which should be more of a progressive priority for that reason, but in the larger electorate, there is nothing that will expand progressive power more than increasing unionization.

]]> Building Unions Delivers Union Voters: Look at the voting numbers--

67 percent of union members voted for Obama while only 30 percent chose McCain
More dramatically, union members over 65 voted by a 46-point margin for Obama, while all voters over 65 voted for McCain by an 8-point margin
And unionization is the decisive difference in how less educated whites voted-- Obama won by 23 points among white non-college graduates who belong to a union, even as he lost by 18 points among all white non-college voters.

Changing labor law to make it possible for the 50% of Americans who say they want to be in a union to be in one would lead to dramatic additional progressive gains in voting results. It is no coincidence that Obama won 26 out of the 29 most unionized states in the country (see this table for percentage of unionization by state). "Blue America" is largely America where unions still have the power to do outreach to working families at election time.

Unions create institutions with day-to-day contact with key swing voters: The reality is that the workplace remains, along with churches, one of the only institutions where large groups of people come together on a weekly basis. Unions create a voice in workplaces that emphasize the responsibility of corporations to deliver decent wages and demands for government policy that serve the interests of the public, not just elite interests.

Because unions represent a workplace as a whole, they necessarily have contact with a much more diverse set of people in each state compared to most progressive organizations whose membershipa are made up of self-identified activists and progressives of various stripes. Just by representing the diversity of workers in contract fights, grievances and other day-to-day workplace situations, unions develop relationships that make them surprisingly trusted sources of political information during elections. Seven in ten union members say they trust information on politics coming from their unions-- which when framed in solid issue-oriented information on candidates, translates into the strong Democratic voting patterns by union members. (See these instructions on how unions seek to talk to their members about politics to be effective.)

Helping to create more institutions where workers talk day-to-day about their political and economic needs is inherently a recipe for better political changes-- but the most obvious results come on election day.

Unions are Self-Funding Institutions that Fund Further Progressive Activity: One important fact to recognize is that there is always discussions of rewarding political friends when in power, but most progressive organizations don't have the capacity to generate significant additional funds for social change organizing and politics based on that help.

Unions don't depend on outside help for their financial existence. They are essentially the only progressive organizations that annually generate billions of dollars in income each year without government or corporate donations, allowing them to act independently on behalf of the interests of working families. This is important in blue states, but if labor law reform is passed and more unions form in conservative non-union states, the effects will be radical.

As I noted when 5000 janitors organized in Houston in 2005:

Think of the Houston janitors as a beachhead in hostile territory...Do these numbers-- janitors pay dues of roughly $20 per month, or a bit over $200 per year. Multiply by 5000 and you suddenly have an organization with $1 million per year to promote organizing and political mobilization in the Houston area.

The Right Recognizes the Danger of Labor Law Reform: It's worth remembering that major labor law reform was proposed in the 60s, the 70s and the 90s when Democrats controlled the Congress and the Presidency-- and business went to the wall to defeat and filibuster it each time. Business leaders never spent the same kind of political capital to defeat the civil rights laws, environmental laws, expanded aid to education, womens rights laws, Medicaid, Medicare and a host of other key progressive legislation that was enacted in the last fifty years, because they knew that if they could block labor's resurgence, the ability of progressives to pass new legislation would be undermined.

That strategy worked as the 70s gave way to the Reagan era and social programs and regulations were gutted. Despite hopes around the Clinton victory in 1992, that rapidly gave way to the Gingrich-Bush years.

But now, through a combination of disasterous mismanagement and ideological overreaching by Bush and a broad progressive regrouping of power on the ground, progressives have regained some real degree of power at the federal level. This was assisted by what was in some ways a labor resurgence, not of absolute numbers organized but of more intelligent mobilization of both members and funds by unions to assist in this victory.

For both the progressive movement as a whole, and unions in particular, this victory could be short-lived if we don't act to lock in institutional power beyond government itself. The corporate right and religious right both have institutions that sustain their power whether they directly control government day-to-day or not. If progressives don't use their time in power to enact labor law reform, the coming years will likely end up being just one more false dawn of progressive revival. On the other hand, supporting a resurgence of labor through labor law reform could well be the tool for permanent political realignment, just as it was in the New Deal era.

Big Victories in the States as Well

2008-11-07T18:21:39Z

Yeah, that Obama thing was pretty cool (I watched the returns the Obama campaign office in Harlem, which had to be one of the most inspiring places to be), but it's worth noting that the victory extended far down ticket to state races.

To some extent the victories at the state level were more limited because Dems had already made big gains in 2006 and 2007, with Iowa, Colorado, New Hampshire and chambers in Virginia and Indiana having gone "blue" in anticipation of Obama's wins -- with North Carolina Dems demonstrating increasingly progressive leadership by its Blue local leadership over the last few years. This had given those voters a chance to see and understand what progressive leadership was really about--and overcoming many of the caricatures of the rightwing.

]]> You can see a full writeup in this Dispatch at Progressive States, but here are some highlights of what happened both in control of statehouses and on ballot initiatives:

The bottom-line results for the night were that progressives took control of new legislative chambers in two of the largest states in the country, New York and Ohio, along with additional chambers in Wisconsin, Delaware and Nevada-- and created new ties in the Montana House and Alaska Senate, both previously controlled by the GOP. And depending on how final races and negotiations among legislators play out, the Texas House might shift out of the control of conservative GOP leader Tom Craddick. Conversely, the Democrats lost control of both chambers in Tennessee, the Oklahoma Senate and the Senate in Montana (the first two reflecting two states that Obama lost badly).

But Democrats also gained increased majorities in states including Connecticut, Rhode Island, Washington, the Michigan House and the Oregon House. And the Democrats had a net gain of one Governorship in Missouri.

The result of elections over the last few cycles means that Democrats are now in control of sixty chambers (give or take one or two as final results come in), with seventeen "trifecta" states in which they control both chambers and the Governor's office.

Highlights for What Statehouse Changes Mean: A few dramatic examples include:

For the first time since 1935, Democrats will control both legislative chambers and the governor's office in New York-- potentially ending a generation of legislative gridlock. Republicans are courting four more conservative Democrats in the hopes of retaining their power. If they fail to do that we expect a wave of GOP resignations to follow the election. Switched control of the Senate should drive reform of the legislative process and passage of stalled legislation such as green jobs, paid family leave, comprehensive criminal justice reform, and affordable housing reform.
In Ohio, Democrats retook control of the House for the first time in 14 years, after years of conservative dominance of both chambers blocking reforms ranging from paid sick days to labor rights.
In Wisconsin, Democrats are projected to take control of the House with a slim majority for the first time in 14 years. Combined with control of the Senate and the Governorship, Wisconsin has the potential to become the first state to guarantee health care for all its residents. Healthy Wisconsin, a bold health care reform initiative that passed the Senate in 2007, was rejected by the Republican-controlled Assembly, will now get a more positive welcome in the Assembly.

Key Victories on Ballot Initiatives-- along with a Few Bitter Defeats:
While the losses on gay marriage were terrible, that was actually an exception to a night of quite consistent progressive victories at the ballot box.

On election night, voters delivered a resounding message of rebuke to rightwing state ballot measures alongside a more limited message of support for progressive initiatives. Perhaps the clearest message was the emphatic rejection of corporate excess evidenced by a wide-ranging rejection of anti-union, anti-tax and anti-regulatory measures.

In Colorado, a hotly contested "right to work" initiative was soundly defeated, as was a "paycheck deception" initiative designed to cripple union funding. Unfortunately, a deceptively styled "anti-corruption" bill was apparently approved in Colorado. If upheld by the courts, the bill could cripple political participation by public employee unions. A similar measure in South Dakota was defeated. In Oregon, an initiative to undermine teacher seniority systems was also soundly defeated.
Anti-government tax measures were defeated overwhelmingly in Massachusetts, North Dakota and Oregon. In all three states, proposed measures that would have slashed or, in the case of Massachusetts, completely eliminated the income tax were rejected at the polls.
In addition, both Ohio and Arizona voters defeated measures, backed by the predatory lending industry, that sought to roll back pay day loan reforms.

Defeating Anti-Abortion Measures, but Losses on Gay Rights: Three different measures to restrict access to abortions and a woman's right to choose were defeated on Tuesday. For the third time California voters defeated a measure that would have required parental notification and imposed a waiting period on minors seeking an abortion. South Dakota voters, who repealed an outright ban on abortions two years ago, rejected an even less restrictive ban that would have provided exceptions in instances of rape, incest and pregnancies that threatened the health or life of the mother. The rejection in consecutive elections suggests that support for choice is solidifying in the state. And, in Colorado, voters soundly rejected a measure that would have criminalized abortion by defining "personhood" as beginning at the moment of fertilization.

Health Care: Voter support for health care reform was evident across the country:

Montana voters approved Initiative 155, Healthy Montana Kids, which will expand access to most of the state's 35,000 uninsured children through a combination of state and federal funds.
In Wisconsin, 22 local ballot questions, organized by Citizen Action of Wisconsin and other advocates calling on lawmakers to enact guaranteed and affordable health care for all residents by the end of 2009, passed overwhelmingly, capturing 74% of the vote across the 22 communities. The health care referenda provide a mandate for lawmakers to act on health care, and, specifically, to act on Healthy Wisconsin, enacted by the Wisconsin Senate in 2007 but stalled by the then Republican-led Assembly.
Voters in Arizona appear on the verge of rejecting, a constitutional amendment, pushed by conservatives, that could have prevented a mandatory universal health care system by disallowing laws mandating the purchase of health care. Opponents to the measure said it was too poorly worded and pontetially could have tied the hands of lawmakers in their efforts to address the state's health care crisis.

Victories on Environmental and Transit Projects: Facing extreme climate change and rising fuel prices, energy conservation, transit and renewable energy issues became popular state ballot measures. While many succeeded, a few failed, largely where progressive advocates were divided over the the effectiveness of particular initiatives. A few key successes:
Minnesota voters passed the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, which raises the state sales tax three-eights of one percent, raising an estimated $300 million a year to restore wetlands, forests, lakes, parks and cultural heritage sites throughout the state.

Both of California's two major transit ballot initiatives barely achieved victories. First, voters said "full steam ahead" to Proposition 1A, which will appropriate $9.95 billion of general obligation bonds to fund a $40 billion, 800-mile high speed train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Los Angeles County's Measure R will increase sales tax a half-cent to raise $40 billion over thirty years for major transit investments.
In Rhode Island voters approved a measure to allow the state to borrow $87 million as a means to improve the states transportation infrastructure. Projects that will receive funding include making repairs, building bridges and highways, replacing public buses and extending a commuter rail line.
Voters in the Puget Sound counties of Washington approved a massive $22.8 billion transit expansion package, funded by a .5% increase in the sales tax, that will improve and expand bus and rail service.
In Alaska voters authorized the sale of up to $315 million in state government bonds for more than two dozen transportation projects around the state. Lawmakers approved the package last April after sprinkling it with road construction projects around the state to broaden voter appeal.

Mixed Results on Civil Rights: The gay marriage losses were one of the big stories of the night, but the loss by the rightwing on a number of their other anti-civil rights measures is notable.

On the issue of immigration, there were surprisingly few initiatives that made it onto the ballot. Of the initiatives on the ballot most were defeated. Oregon Measure 58, which would have prohibited teaching non-English-speaking public school students in a language other than English for more than two years, failed. The proposition was widely opposed by teachers' groups and immigrant rights advocates. Missouri did pass a mostly meaningless "English only" measure which states that English is the official language for government meetings. This will not produce any changes to the current status quo.
Ward Connerly's campaign to profit from passing affirmative action bans is ongoing. Ward Connerly, who sponsored a similar measure in Colorado, has had measures in other states thrown off the ballot for defrauding signatories. Nebraskans did pass an affirmative action ban but it is facing a court challenge from those who question the validity of the signatures gathered to place the measure on the ballot. And Colorado became the first state to reject an affirmative action ban at the ballot box.

High Turnout reflects State Wins on Election Reform Policies: While final figures won't be available for several days, it is clear that voter turnout was higher than every election since at least 1960 when John F Kennedy was elected. Depending on how you calculate the number, it may have been the highest turnout of eligible voters since 1908! It is clear that this increase in voters was the engine behind Barack Obama's victory as well as the many important state-level victories throughout the nation.

Beyond the raw numbers, the composition of the electorate showed significant changes from 2004, with a higher percentage of minority voters and progressive voters coming to the polls. Early numbers suggest that young voters outperformed their turnout in the last presidential election. Even more importantly for progressives, they voted for progressive candidates in substantially higher numbers than in 2004, forming a critical element in the coalition that gave Obama and many other progressive candidates and issues support.

Key to this high turnout were election reforms, from mail-in and early voting to registration reforms that made voting easier. After many election cycles in which conservatives got the best of progressives in early voting, 2008 saw a dramatic reversal with Democratic early voting far surpassing that of Republicans in several close states. Both Florida and North Carolina saw big increases in early voting that was skewed toward Democrats. Those patterns account for the margin of victory for President Elect Obama in both states. It is clear that progressives are taking the initiative to get out the early vote and it is paying significant dividends.

In Colorado, election officials faced no major problems on election day, unlike 2006 when voting machine problems caused lines of up to eight hours in Denver. Since then, the state has embraced mail-in voting with the implementation of permanent absentee balloting. Early voting increased by two-thirds over 2004, reaching almost 65% of all votes, and appears to have greatly contributed to a lack of problems on November 4^th.

It is clear that reforms to expand the electorate and protect the right of citizens to vote have proven themselves a key tool to institutionalize and expand progressive majorities at the ballot box in the future.

Good News- SF Universal Health Care Plan Upheld by Appeals Court

2008-10-02T14:57:48Z

Not everyone recognizes that we have a universal health care plan in this country-- approved and in operation in the city of San Francisco. Since it went into effect this year, it has been enrolling residents at a rate of 600 per week with the goal of covering everyone in the city up to 500% of the poverty line (about $100,000 per year for a family of four) by early 2009.

The good news is that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld the law after a challenge by the business lobby that it violated federal ERISA benefits law, because employers not providing health care for their employees are required to pay $1.17 to $1.76 per hour to the city in order to cover their employees' costs under the city-provided health care plan. In Golden Gate Rest. Ass'n v. San Francisco upheld these employer responsibility provisions as in compliance with federal law.

]]>
The Court distinguished the San Francisco law from a Maryland law, which was held preempted by ERISA because it had required very large employers to spend 8% of their total payroll on health insurance or pay the same amount to the state. Whereas the Maryland law gave employers and their employees nothing in return for those fees paid to the state, the San Francisco law enrolls all uninsured employees for whom fees are paid in the city health plan, giving employers and their employees a clear benefit for the fees. For this reason, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the San Francisco plan was not an attempt to force employers to provide an ERISA health care plan but a reasonable regulation with clear benefits for employers and city residents. This is supported by the fact that 950 employers in the city have already enrolled their employees in the city health plan.

The court decision is also good news for the Massachusetts health plan, since that plan also includes a more modest employer responsibility provision and the state has just increased the funds it is collecting from employers to assure full funding for its program. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals also provides far clearer guidelines for all legislators and advocates working to create "health care for all" plans that include employer responsibility components.

A "Bailout" is Cheaper than the Status Quo

2008-09-30T16:28:31Z

Last week, I gave some of the reasons why I thought that the bailout was a lesser evil solution, but I want to emphasize that the "bailout" bill, especially if it can be tightened in the next few days to get more Dem votes, is a far cheaper alternative to the status quo.

Just look at the headline on the front of TPM itself: Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System, which details the massive emergency loans that the Fed has authorized for the financial system. This comes on top of the deal Citigroup got for buying Wachovia, where the federal government agreed to absorb ALL losses on bad loans above $42 billion in Wachovia's portfolio, similar to the deal JPMorgan Chase got for buying Bear Sterns. The risk and obligations assumed are unknown and could balloon astronomically for taxpyers.

Compared to these bailouts that already happening on a massive scale, here's the advantage of the explicit "bailout" legislation:

]]>

The federal government actually buys assets at a fixed price and absorbs losses but also gets the profit from any good loans in the whole tangled mess, rather than just offering unlimited insurance with no upside potential for taxpayers at all;

If the government takes equity in the companies selling the bad assets, the government also gets to participate in the upside profits of companies benefitting from a stabilized marketplace;

By removing bad assets from the marketplace, it will make the whole banking industry more confident in lending, making all financial assets worth more, including the ones purchased by the federal government;

By buying up lots of mortgage assets, the federal government is likely to consolidate ownership of the various "pieces" of each individual home mortgage currently spread over multiple institutions (see post below). This will make it far easier to avoid foreclosures and negotiate workout plans that benefit the lender (ie. the taxpayers) and the homeowner.

And this is of course a start. We need a real commitment to job creation to boost the real economy beyond stabilizing the damage done by financial speculation.

Do We Want to End up With Just Three Megabanks? But the point is that while I respect those who are complaining about the aid to undeserving financial firms, that is already happening. No legislation does nothing to end the bailouts that have been happening on a rolling basis; it just means they will happen more haphazardly, will cost more for taxpayers, and all of the upside profits when recovery happens will stay in the hands of the firms like Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morganchase that survive and have bought these assets at firesale prices with helpful guarantees by the Federal Reserve.

If there are going to be government-engineered firesales, it makes far more sense for taxpayers to be the buyers, than to hand over de facto insured assets to private firms -- Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morganchase -- that have a guaranteed limit to their downside but get to keep almost all of the upside profits from recovery.

Now, the final negotiated bill could have been a lot better. There should be tougher oversight, a better guaranteed equity share for taxpayers, a better deal for homeowners facing foreclosure, and, in the longer term, a commitment to using this new consolidation of home mortgages in the hands of the government to promote affordable housing more broadly. And if we want to go after the wealthy, we can do that explicitly through the tax code by raising taxes on dividends, capital gains and the wage income of high-income individuals. If there are any losses to taxpayers, it would be good to build in increased taxes or a financial transaction tax to automatically kick in to pay off those debts.

But we need some bill to create an alternative to these crazy Fed bailouts that are just helping Citibank, JP Morganchase and Bank of America become financial megabanks that will just dominate the economic landscape soon. I'd rather move assets into taxpayer hands that further strengthen a handful of these megabanks.

Gridlocked Markets, Gridlocked Politics

2008-09-30T14:28:49Z

Divided government and bipartisan gridlock has prevented serious revamping of the financial markets for decades-- and, as fingerpointing over the failed bailout bill now shows, has eliminated any sense of accountability, whether for which party leadership acted or failed to act to rein in financial excesses and who needed to act to solve the crisis. One toxic problem was the Democratic leadership's fear of owning a solution and seeking "bipartisan" support, even though this alienated their own party members.

I'm reading Michael Heller's Gridlock Economy, which is primarily about how a multiplicity of property rights from ownership of land to patents undermines economic growth and innovation, but he has a similar point on politics (written even before the recent meltdown). Financial markets loved Dems taking back Congress in 2006, mostly because it promised gridlock on regulation:

]]> According to money manager John Davison, "The market actually likes the executive and legislative branches as it reduces the damage coming out of Washington.. [Markets rose after the 2006 elections] as investors grew more confident that a huge victory by Democrats in congressional elections would result in gridlock and keep lawmakers out of the way of business interests." And the sad political fact is, success or failure, bipartisanship means that no party will be held fully accountable for the results, either of the initial failure of deregulation or the bill itself yesterday. Gridlock in markets, Heller writes, was the source of the mortgage problem in the first place, with too many people owning different parts of each mortgage:

Fragmenting mortgage ownership broke the link between borrower and lender..There were so many partial owners of pooled mortgages that no one cared to act like an old-fashioned mortgage banker with careful underwriting and locan servicing. Until recently, foreclosure had been the bankers last resort because it's costly for everyone, including the lender...[Now] scattered owners of pooled mortgages could not easily reach agreement to restructure troubled loans.

And he writes that there was longterm "regulatory gridlock" as well. The new packaging of mortgages meant they were now spread across multiple regulatory authorities, with no single agency with clear authority to fix the problem. Ultimately, Heller's point and the reality of our politics is we don't force any group or political party to "own" the problem and solve it. Presently, if a problem is fixed, everyone claims ownership and if things fail, there's enough shared responsibility for everyone to point fingers. Which encourages gamesmanship day in and day out.

The solution is less clear, but there are a few clear answers. Abolish the filibuster is the first one, since it is the toxic source of bipartisan finger pointing. Pundits should stop praising bipartisanship, as if that's a good thing, and instead demand that parties own their own solutions and condemn them for failures of party discipline. And most of all, the Democrats should step up themselves, own a solution to the present crisis, write a bill that is acceptable to their whole causus, and pass the thing-- take responsibility for solving the crisis without unneeded concessions to House Republicans. Principled partisanship should now replace gameplaying bipartisanship, as the only solution to the present economic crisis-- that as Heller notes itself derived from that toxic bipartisanship.

In Defense of the Bailout

2008-09-26T16:15:04Z

Okay, and I mean defending it only with the Dem changes, including especially the requirement for oversight and an equity stake in exchange for buying the bad debt.

But here's the thing, buying assets, however toxic, looks to me a far better alternative than alternative suggestions I've seen that amount to various forms of insurance without buying any assets. The reality is that the United States is de facto acting as an insurer of failed institutions, which means the US government is taking on massive risk with almost zero upside possible and less ability to control what's happening. And institutions continue to fail, as WaMu showed.

So contra even some of my lefty comrades who have righteously and rightly condemned the possibility of a giveaway to the corporate pigs, I think the bailout is in the end the lesser evil. Here's why (below the fold):

]]> The $700 billion figure is not the cost of the bailout. That's a figure for the value of the assets bought, which could amount to just transferred government money from cash into assets, with zero cost at all. Now, if the government pays too much -- and of course that's likely -- it will cost the taxpayers in the end, but it's a mistake to compare $700 billion to some of the other alternative discussed.

For example, any discussion of expanding financial insurance can make the costs look cheaper, since offering insurance upfront costs nothing until disaster hits. Of course, disaster is hitting now, and letting people take out any form of insurance for a hurricaine after the storm has it is a losing proposition. And the reality is that corporate types are just as likely or more likely to cut a deal for too-low premiums for any insurance as in any deal selling assets. In fact, I would argue that the government is more likely to drive a hard bargain when they are actually handing over cash for assets than when they are making an insurance guarantee-- hell, Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac came close to free implicit insurance over their years of operation.

And if the government demands an equity stake in exchange for buying assets, that means that if they underpay, the value of the companies they buy from will go up, meaning that the government will recoup some of the money lost in any bad deals. Warren Buffett may be too optimisitc (and maybe self-interested) in arguing that the US will actually make money through the bailout, but it is true that there are a lot of fire sales of assets out there and the U.S. is one of the only institutions with the money to purchase them. If the bailout works and the financial system recovers, financial assets worth little now could become a lot more valuable. The bailout will still probably cost a lot of money, tens maybe even hundreds of billions of dollars, but a lot less than the big number thrown around.

And then again, as Obama has proposed, if it turns out that the financial industry got too good a deal in those negotiations, the US government can slap a tax on them to recover the money. That's one advantage of being the government negotiating these deals-- if the financial corporations act too much like pigs, they will create a backlash that can rip the money right back.

Finally, I like the idea of the government taking ownership of all of the subprime and other screwed up mortgages. Some of them are speculative waste but others are owned by working families that just need a break. Adjusting bankruptcy laws to help out folks in foreclosure should be included in any bailout, but I'd rather see folks helped out before they are forced into bankruptcy. With the government controlling those mortgages, we would then have a more direct target for organizing demands for smarter solutions, including Dean Baker's smart proposal to allow people to release their mortgage and keep the right to rent their homes.

The private sector did screw up our financial system and I think a dose of government ownership could be just what is needed. Regulation is useful but equity and asset ownership by the government is one more alternative form of regulation. And in this case, it may be the more effective version until the financial system cleans itself up.

Despite all the worries that the government would own such large equity stakes in various financial firms, it's worth remembering that state governments through their pension funds already owe literally trillions of dollars in equities and other financial assets.

All that said, what will be needed is tough negotiations and smart auction systems to get reasonably good deals for the taxpayers when the assets are bought by the government. But what's true is that many financial institutions are afraid to buy these assets not because they are worthless, but because their value is uncertain, which means other firms will then be afraid to deal with them if they hold assets of uncertain value. The US government doesn't have the same problem, so it can potentially get a better deal for those assets than private sector players. That's the point that the defenders of the bailout are making and it's a reasonable one.

Of course, the big question mark is whether Paulson and Berneke will just act like typical Bush flunkies and sell out the American people. That's the most reasonable objection to the deal, but a tough oversight board and hawkish attention to each deal made could ameliorate that problem to some extent.

I'm not a pollyanna on this-- taxpayers will most likely lose money, but it still seems in the end better than almost any of the other proposals on the table near having a chance of being implemented. I don't think the Dems are acting in bad faith or selling us out in trying to make this work and I think the rightwing Republicans are resisting it because it actually doesn't serve long-term conservative interests. Bush isn't acting in the interest of the conservative movement, just for his own reputation to not go out as the next Herbert Hoover. Which is just about where progressives should want him to be at the negotiating table.

So I say cut the deal today, and mobilize tomorrow to tax the hell out of the financial companies tomorrow after they are back on their feet.

McCain's Reveals Instability in Crisis

2008-09-18T20:02:02Z

I think it's fair to say that I've been as strong an advocate of tougher "class war" attacks by Obama as anyone, but I actually thought Obama's two minute, sober demand for fixing the rot of the regulatory system and helping working families was exactly right at this crisis point. There was plenty of time to hit at the complete greed of the corporate execs before the immediate crisis -- which I wish Obama had done a bit more of -- and there will be time during the cleanup aftermath where we should sharpen the class warfare language. But right now, we needed a steady voice in a crisis.

]]> Which McCain sure as hell didn't deliver; forget the chutzpah of deregulator Phil Gramm's front man pretending to think Wall Street sin was the problem and the ridiculousness of his faux Huey Long impersonation. Actually calling to fire the head of the S.E.C. in the middle of this crisis is a mark of complete insanity and shows that he really would sacrifice the nation for political points on any issue. Chris Cox probably should be fired, as should most Bush appointees, but not this week. Of course, it's illegal for the President to fire the S.E.C. chairman-- and that provision is there precisely to prevent this kind of political gamesmanship -- but I'm sure McCain doesn't care since helping people through a crisis with real solutions is not his goal. Winning an election is precisely all he cares about. Just an amazing perfidious performance.

Don't Believe the Hype: Most States Taking Positive, Integrative Approach to New Immigrants, Not Punitive One

2008-09-11T17:32:41Z

Earlier in the year, Lou Dobbs and other media were giving the impression that anti-immigrant forces were sweeping the country. Immigration was supposed to be the grand wedge issue of the rightwing. Now, recent elections, including the Presidential primaries, showed the ultimate hallowness of the anti-immigrant political card, but it's worth understanding that below the hype, most states have quietly been promoting sane, sensible and positive programs to integrate new immigrants into our communities.

As a report Progressive States Network released this week (which I authored with support from our staff), what's astonishing is that at the actual point of implementation, anti-immigrant policy is dwarfed by progressive, integrative policy towards immigrants. Just a few facts from the report:

]]>

Integrative policies are far more pervasive than punitive policies, with the later having been enacted only in a small minority of state populations.

Only 11% of undocumented immigrants live in states that have enacted comprehensive punitive policies, while a significant majority of undocumented immigrants live in states with positive integrative or somewhat integrative policies.

Only 16% of undocumented immigrants live in states that have enacted sanctions against private sector employers. On the other hand, over 50% of undocumented immigrants live in states that provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrant children.

Nearly the same majority of undocumented immigrants live in states that are promoting Ã¢â‚¬Å"New AmericansÃ¢â‚¬Â policies to better educate new immigrants and nearly a majority also live in states that have recently enacted new penalties for wage law violations in order to raise wages for all workers, native and immigrant alike.

See this graphic for the percentage of undocumented immigrants living under different policies, as rated from Punitive to Integrative:

To give you just a sense of positive policies enacted around the country:

Nine states provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants to attend public colleges and universities. These include most of the states with the highest populations of immigrants, including California, Illinois, New York and Texas, along with a number of relatively conservative states like Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah which have recognized the gains from strengthening educational attainment among the new immigrant population.
Many states have promoted "New AmericansÃ¢â‚¬Â policies to provide English language instruction and provide help to immigrants in navigating the process to attain citizenship. States including Illinois, Massachusetts, and Washington provide funding for community organizations to provide assistance to new immigrants seeking citizenship.
Some states, including New York, Illinois and Washington, as well as several California counties, provide health insurance for undocumented immigrant children using state tax dollars. Recently enacted programs in these states have expanded health coverage for tens of thousands of such undocumented immigrant children just in the last few years.
In order to raise wage standards for native and immigrant workers alike, many states are cracking down on the low-wage economy exploiting undocumented immigrants and many native workers as well. Colorado, Minnesota and Connecticut have enacted new crackdowns on companies misclassifying employees as "independent contractorsÃ¢â‚¬Â in order to evade wage and tax laws. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York have created new investigatory arms to coordinate a crackdown on wage law violators, including a new Bureau of Immigrant Workers' Rights established in New York State.
Many states have enacted laws to crack down on employers engaged in abusive trafficking of immigrant workers against their will, including states like Florida, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and Texas which make public benefits available to undocumented immigrants who are trafficking victims.

This is actually the reality of policy for most undocumented immigrants across the country. With federal raids and employer exploitation of their vulnerability, it's not necessarily a great situation, but most state leaders recognize that a more positive approach makes sense. It's too bad that politics and Senate filibusters at the federal level have prevented equally positive national solutions.

The Non-Inevitability of Evil

2008-09-01T19:13:56Z

One key strategy for excusing evil and evil in American's history specifically is to treat it as an "unfortunate" inevitability, something to have sorrow over but nothing that could have reasonably been avoided-- so there is no point in making a moral judgment or seeing parallels with moral choices made in the present. In comments, offensivetoyou makes this argument in regard to genocide against Native Americans:

no government could stand against the land hunger of the people. ALL the people...Nor do you deal with the issue of disease, or of the impossibility of coexistance of two very different cultures, a problem which has existed all the time and everywhere.

Yet, of course, many contemporaries at the time DID stand against the supposed land hunger of the people.

]]> Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (which I happen to be in the middle of reading) deals with this fight indepth. And even with the enthusiastic, not reluctant, support of President Andrew Jackson, the Indian Removal Bill just barely passed the House in 1830, 102 votes to 97. Many opposed it on principle-- see Davy Crockett, then a Tennessee Congressman, who called the bill "oppression with a vengeance." Others more pragmatically opposed the cost of what would end up being a series of wars costing the equivalent of billions of dollars.

But the vote was close and was no more inevitable than an Iraq War based on "oil hunger" that many opposed on principle. But the idea of historic inevitability and manifest destiny in the past is still invoked to try to silence critics of US imperialism today, who argue that the "national greatness" of the past, base on those non-inevitable evil decisions, is threatened by dissent today.

So arguing that past genocide or US slavery was "inevitable" is merely an updated way to forget the wrong moral choices of the past, as if there were no choices, just inevtiable acts that are to be regretted but really can't be condemned since how can you condemn inevitability?

Forgetting the past does come in many forms.

Legacy of Mythological Patriotism from the Southern Gulag

2008-09-01T17:37:21Z

That few people in America even know the facts that Blackmon documents in my earlier post is astonishing--but this reflects a toxic "patriotic" denial of truths about American history that we see in contemporary politics today.

In fact, the core facts of continuing slavery in the South were repeatedly investigated and, for a short time starting in 1903, the federal government brought indictments over the issue with cases going to the Supreme Court--but the court proceedings came under such assault by southern politicians that they were shut down, all in a hail of denial of the problems of not just 20th century slavery but of the pre-Civil War version as well. The following quote sums it up:

As the twentieth century neared, though, the orthodoxy of southern patriotism was mutating virulently...The South now demanded in public forums an increasingly rabid level of absolute adherence to a baroque new mythology of the honorable southerner, the contented slave, and the tragically defeated secession.

In this, we see the same toxic DNA that twists any criticism of the government policy into hatred of government--and the metaphorical kissing of the flag that Michelle Obama was forced into. ]]> Michelle Obama's comments that indicated that there was much in America's past NOT to be proud of was a direct assault on this patriotic denial of memory. We can't discuss the fact that U.S. mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the native American population ranks as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the last two centuries, just as the persistence of slavery in the U.S. and its mutated form as Blackmon documents was a international crime that ranks with the worst of nations of the world.

All such discussions must be telescoped as far into history and the facts downplayed as much as possible in order to maintain not only a presumption of U.S. virtue in international affairs, but is also critical to maintaining conservative policy domestically. For to continually defend the past-- low taxes, "rugged individualism", "states rights" and so on -- you have to ignore the state-supported genocide and slavery that underpinned those old conservative values.

Almost everyone on the Left readily condemns Stalinism and its crimes, yet the Confederate flag still flies in many states and conservatives defend the right of those states to fly a flag that oversaw crimes as bad as Hitler's and Stalin's.

The toxic brand of patriotism that requires denial of the past is still all too prevalent in our politics. Hopefully, Blackmon's book will contribute in a small way to helping overcome it.