Why I prefer union organizing over #FightFor15 and Universal Basic Income
Don't get me wrong. I don't oppose raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Nor do I oppose the idea of a Universal Basic Income.
Both ideas are better than what we have now, and I'll be happy if either or both are implemented.
However, there is a flaw with both ideas that I just can't overlook:
Neither of these proposals empower the workers.
After watching several videos of economist Richard Wolff, I've come to the conclusion that he's right. We need to think bigger.
The important concept here is "power".
Power is everything. Just think back to your last job interview and you'll get the idea.
Power is the reason why workers formed labor unions in the first place. When you are alone against the company you have no power.
This is why I'd much rather see legal obstacles to forming labor unions be swept aside, rather than expend our limited energy and time on a one-time minimum-wage hike.
This goes double for Universal Basic Income, where workers would be forever dependent on the whims of whatever government bias of the time.
The other reason I believe we need to think bigger is because of just how bad things have gotten. Decades of class war have left U.S. workers disenfranchised and a domestic oligarchy that Russian oligarchs could only dream of.
“If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.”
- Chris Rock
First of all, we have to acknowledge that poor people have no idea just how rich wealthy people are, and thus how poor they actually are.
The poor underestimate how much the rich earn, while the rich underestimate the poverty of the poor.Some misperceptions appear extreme. For instance, among the 5 percent of U.K. respondents who said they or their family owned two homes, a whopping 40 percent thought they were in the bottom half of the income distribution. Meanwhile, 19 percent of Americans who said they had “often” or “sometimes” gone without enough food in the previous year placed themselves — implausibly — in the highest-earning half.
So how rich are wealthy people? To measure that accurately we have to stop talking about income inequality, which is a snapshot, and start talking about accumulated wealth inequality.
The conservative Hudson Institute in 2017 reported that the wealthiest 5% of American households held 62.5% of all assets in the US in 2013, up from 54.1% 30 years earlier. As a consequence, the wealth of the other 95 percent declined from 45.9% to 37.5%.
...If you only looked at data on income inequality, however, you’d see a different picture. In 2013, for example, the top 5 percent of households earned just 30% of all US income (compared with possessing nearly 63% of all wealth).
The next thing we must do is to put that wealth disparity into context.
One way to do that is a historical comparison.
One statistic cited by the Gilded Age documentary is that, by the time of that 1897 ball, the richest 4,000 families in the U.S. (representing less than 1% of the population) had about as much wealth as other 11.6 million families all together. By comparison, as of November 2017, the three richest individuals in the U.S. had as much wealth as the bottom half of the population.
To put it another way, wealth inequality is worse today than at any other time in American history.
Another more effective context is to compare that wealth to how much we are spending on the poor.
U.S. wealth increased by $8.5 trillion in 2017, with the richest 2% getting about $1.15 trillion (details here), which is more than the total cost of Medicaid (federal and state) and the complete safety net, both mandatory and discretionary, including the low-income programs that make up the social support package derisively referred to as 'welfare.'
...Another stunner: The richest 2-5%, those Americans with an average net worth of about $2.5 million, accumulated enough wealth in 2017 to pay for the safety net four times.
So the next time you hear that we can't tax the wealthy enough to pay for our social safety net programs, you know that it is a flat out lie.
Food stamps provide about $1.50 per meal for 42 million Americans, mostly children, the elderly, and the disabled, at a cost in 2017 of $64 billion. In the past year Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have together accumulated over $64 billion in new wealth.
Jeff Bezos has used tax havens and high-priced lobbyists to avoid the taxes owed by his company
The natural and perfectly logical reaction to these facts is to yell, "tax the rich".
That would certainly help, and I would totally agree with it.
But like raising the minimum wage, it also falls short of what needs to be done.
Raising taxes on the wealthy can be undone by the very next Congress.
What the U.S. needs is a much more structural change.
Power needs to be taken from the wealthy and corporations and given to the working class.
Of course the wealthy will resist this, probably with violence, but extreme poverty is a form of violence as well.
One of the best points Professor Wolff makes is how we leave democracy aside when we go to work. Why? Why should we just accept that work is a democracy-free zone?
In Germany, and many of the nations in Europe, it is law that workers determine who sits on the Board of Directors, and German companies are kicking the asses of American companies.
If workers had a say in how the company runs, do you think they would approve of dystopian tracking-wear like Amazon? Or that the owner would be worth $110 Billion, while the workers live in their cars?
Maybe if we started thinking bigger, half of the population that doesn't vote might find a reason to vote. And then who knows what might happen.
Comments
Americans are weird
upside down
The Pig Democrats would never let organizing happen.
They're perfectly fine with the AFL-CIO and the SEIU, but that's only because those bastards capitulated to the billionaires. Any worker or group who refuses to do so will immediately be punched the fuck down by both the Repigs AND Porky Dems. Oh, and they're also fine with the psychopathic Police Union and Screen Actors Guild for the same reasons. Pig workers, all of them.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Unions are problematic
My issue with unions is that they purged all their socialists in the late 40's.
That left labor unions without a political agenda, just an economic one.
Well, a union without a political philosophy isn't a union - it's a guild.
Fortunately, unions CAN be reformed. The membership has to care enough.
unions without politics
A geld, did you say?
UE is a union like that. Were I still working in a unionizable scenario, UE's the Union I'd want!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Owning 2 homes while in
the bottom half of the wealth distribution. Wow. That one is a bit of a stunner, although I don't know why that shocks me a bit, the propaganda is so thick in this country about inequality. Math is challenging for Americans, if it weren't I would think more people would simply look at the "defense" budget and see that we CAN "afford" it. But no, that one doesn't get through either and even when it does, it's usually followed by a shrug.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
The part that got me was
Wow! Just how poor does this 19% think the lower half is?
Just how delusional are these Republican voters? (Yes, I'm predicting they are Republicans)
@gjohnsit
From the quote, it seems like that 19% is a subset of "Americans who said they had “often” or “sometimes” gone without enough food in the previous year".
Without some quantitative information on how many or what ratio of the whole population the "Americans gone without" is, the 19% of that is extraneous.
Great post, agree wholeheartedly with the main arguments.
And half of the electorate does not vote at all.
Because they know better. Perfect point out of Jimmy to shut down the idiots who blame third party voters for Hers loss. And that isn't only in 2016 where that happened, as we all know.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Not voting isn't the solution
Put as simply as possible: the ruling elite doesn't want you to be engaged. That includes not voting.
So why would you do what they want you to do?
Fair elections no longer exist in most of America
Back at ya brother, why do you keep pretending the ruling elite provide fair elections when evidence shows otherwise? Do tell.
They aren't fair
But if my enemy doesn't want me to do something, I have to suspect that there is a good reason to do it.
It sure keeps you busy all the time
thanks for telling me your answer, I think I understand why some people want to keep doing what they are told to do over and over, hoping the plutocracy might give up someday because ... well because ... shit I lost it already.
Maybe I don't understand why y'all keep trying to GOTV, it sure isn't working that's the obvious part. Electoral politics are broken beyond repair, the money and energy is better spent directly on human needs right now, not more consultants and book tours. DNC is and always will be a private corporation with unelected delegates. What are you going to do, buy it to change their rules? That's sarcasm, not a real question.
It's a little early to give up
At least wait until after the 2018 elections to give up.
People only became aware of how corrupt the Dems are in mid-2016.
And yet we lose even when we win.
Remember 2006? 2008? Both times the Pig Democrats literally got on their knees and sucked dick for whoever would bribe them. Even when they had the congress and the presidency the Ds still let the Rs dictate policy 10 ways from sunday because Corporate Libertarians own both the Rs and Ds.
Third Parties? Nope. They're deliberately kept out by rules that make it impossible for anyone to challenge the Libertarians, the Republicans and their Pig Worker Democrat allies.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
I do agree with you here.
I just meant that Jimmy as well as you stated something rather obvious that most Americans know. So while they're busy blaming Russia or Jill Stein, there is no real discussion on that. And it shoots down the idea that either "influenced the election" to any significant point by tricking the electorate any more than it's already being tricked and lied to.
But I do agree that is another reason we're given such crap to vote for, keeps people turned off making it more likely a loony minority elects an idiot. Government being the only problem, ya know... s/
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
What jobs? Have you seen the rate of automation.
Let's get behind taxing robots to provide UBI for all humans. End poverty. Human rights for everyone.
Gjohnsit at this point in time I disagree.
Because of the degree of difficulty politicians have placed on employees to Unionize Unions MUST support this human right. I see UBI and $15.00/hour wage as floors for which Unions can bargain above. Just like a single payer system. In Canada they have basic coverage for all Canadians but Canadian Unions bargain supplemental coverage for members.
And part of the problem with Unions mirrors what has happened to the Democratic party. My experience is that Union leadership election is not about electing who may be best for the members it's about whose turn it is. Some of these people are deserving but some are not. Much of what leadership does is about preserving their jobs.
Also I feel that some Union leaders treat politicians like celebrities and try and suck up rather then hold their feet to the fire.
That being said I owe everything I have to being fortunate enough to have a Union job and it is a great feeling to know in a State like WI there just cause in contracts. Well worth the price of dues.
Edit: spelling
O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.
Many make the specific point that UBI does empower workers
This is an excerpt from Fast Company, although much of the economy-based literature agrees on these points:
That's assuming that UBI is fully funded
If they underfund it, which is a political decision, then it isn't empowerment.
True.
Underfunding would fail all the aims. Not giving it to everyone would, as well.
Guaranteed Living Wage Jobs Program
Here's an interesting analysis:
Here you go:
Because it worked for America and all Americans under FDR:
More good stuff here:
www.columbusunderground.com/opinion-provide-jobs-for-all-and-end-poverty...
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
@Meteor Man I've gone back and forth
I've gone back and forth between job guarantees and UBI, or perhaps even a resource-based economy.
My contention with job guarantees I believe reinforces all the wrong qualities of humanity.
The concept of automation is acceleration, more so in a variety of fields. With the potential for automated vehicles, imagine the millions of workers gone in an instant. This will only continue as the human population grows but the amount of work required by human hands decreases.
This then forms makeshift work. Busy work. Or as I've heard from Rutger Bregman and David Graeber "Bullshit jobs". Jobs that are created simply to have give a means for a person to "earn a living". They don't have any inherent value or any real purpose, but meant to box the individual in for 8 hours a day to earn a check.
But, our Protestant work ethic is still alive today - where work is valued above all else. Where work defines a human being. A human being only derives their worth from the work they produce. Which shows in modern society how those whom are looked down upon are the unemployed.
I enjoy this quote from Buckminster Fuller
My whole life I have loved that Fuller quote.
It turned everything around and brought into focus the meaning and dignity of being human.
You mention Rutger Bregman and David Graeber, and I urge anyone interested in the future and UBI to check out their talks on Youtube.
If we can get out of our own way, there is absolutely no reason why this planet cannot be a creative utopia for all creatures.
Productive Jobs For A Living Wage
It's a tough call Strife Delivery. They don't have to be shit jobs. We could look at Peace Corp, Conservation Corp, rebuilding infrastructure and all kinds of productive jobs to accomplish goals necessary to a healthy society and pay a living wage.
There is a part of every healthy human being that wants to do something productive with their life, maybe leave something behind for the next generation. Here's part of a comment I just left at my Abolish War post about how we could use the massive peace dividend from ending all wars:
We don't have to chain our definition of productive jobs to being wage slaves for our corporate masters.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
@Meteor ManIt's a tough call
But I believe that is limited in scope. You could for instance end up like China - building to simply build because they must have their GDP growth rate. I guess I'm not talking about say the next 20-40 years; I'm talking about the general arc of society for the next 100 or more.
I'm trying to imagine workers in the 60's. A store clerk or grocery bag guy and now in the 2010's (almost 2020's) you have self check-out stands. We are getting close to self-driving vehicles. Retail stores dying out (which includes their workers) because we have deliver-to-you-door Amazon. And on and on. What is the next 50 years going to be?
All of those things you listed are either admirable or productive for society as a whole. But, and perhaps this is my own thinking extrapolating this out to it's hypothesized completion, that we would run out of "human" work.
Yes, we could spend some trillions repairing and significantly upgrading our infrastructure (which 100 percent support; I wish we had high-speed rail 'loved my time in Japan because of them'). And this is a perfect-society scenario, but there would be less and less things that would require human hands to complete. I just wonder if we might run out of projects that require human labor at a significant level. I don't know what automation or advances will be in 50 years or 100 (well I'll be dead at that point). I guess my point is I think that the amount of human projects (while currently staggering) would not replenish at a fast enough rate to require a significant amount of the population to deal with.
The Abolish War post is great; I'm going to focus on the first sentence.
Perhaps it's just me and maybe I'd ask Pluto's Republic since he replied to me as well, but to me it again feels like linking "being productive" to "work". Or rather that we link fulfillment/humanity with work. We idolize the concept of work, but the reality is that work is merely work. I don't believe we should idolize work.
Now, I might go off and create terms and definitions here, but I would separate work vs. passions.
Jonas Salk, the man who invented the polio vaccine, devoted his time for the pursuit of research. His polio vaccine was found to be worth 7 billion, but he didn't patent it because he said it belonged to the people. And in the end he merely wanted to return back to the lab.
I bring him up for two reasons. The first is that yes we would call what he did work, but it wasn't work. It was a passion, a pursuit. The second is in the end we link work = paycheck, but here he abandoned 7 billion bucks because he didn't need it nor want it. If he was in it for the money, he would have taken it. But he didn't. I guess it is the difference between a researcher who has to work because they have to work vs. a researcher who does it because it is their pursuit; they just get a paycheck to keep the roof over their heads. Basically is the check the reason you're there or not.
Let's look at our current modern work force. Many individuals doing abstract management or bureaucracy jobs simply because it is work invented for them. They don't feel fulfilled nor is it particularly productive. Yes, we could move them towards more productive areas while making it a livable wage, but it's still linking wages to living to productivity to value as a human being.
It's late and I feel like I'm rambling/spinning multiple threads but they aren't going anywhere, ha. I guess I would rather, in an ideal society, have 2 Jonas Salk's who stay late in the lab simply because it is their passion vs. 5 guys who are there simply because the pay is good. It's a difference between work as a means of sustaining oneself vs. a passion they are invested into themselves, regardless of monetary compensation. Thus, if monetary compensation isn't a concern anymore, you would see folks pursuing said passions. You'd have doctors who well actually give a damn about their patients instead of the Tesla car in their driveway. Teachers who enjoy actually teaching who aren't burned out and dead to the world. You'd have an explosion (I believe) of micro labs and researchers doing their own pursuits simply because they are freed from the restraints of "work".
In a sense, I miss the 19th-century gentleman. And yes, I will define that. These were the individuals who were chemists/physicists/mathematicians/doctors and more all rolled into one. Yes, they often were wealthy in some form of another, but they had their own labs, their own research they could pursue. They could pursue that because they were wealthy (which yes meant others did required work at the time for them). But I believe we are approaching a scenario where there won't be required "work". There are times when I have my own ideas in virology or in various sciences but I A) don't have a lab (ha) and B) I can't devote the time to pursue it because of work = living.
OK, I'm done for now. Now it is even later. I'll just leave it at that for now.
Great comment! As usual, lol.
(Re-edit: forgot to add how much I appreciated the essential point you made about independence, probably because it seems so obvious that I thought I'd made it, and hadn't actually planned to post it without checking when it landed here. But, yeah, technological advances were supposed to benefit humanity, not replace us entirely and/or turn us into machines, going by those believing that 'evolution' calls for humanity's alteration into mechanical tools and the destruction of life itself as unnecessary.)
Seems to me that this comes down to, with the ongoing disappearance of human jobs - mainly because corporate interests don't want to have pay human workers and prefer to make humanity unneeded disposables - either we get things somehow under control (lol, if bitterly,) and fight for that guaranteed minimum income in our various countries, to be maintained by law at a 'living' level, or perish, because the alternative pretty much boils down to an increasing number of people starving, homeless, or disposed of more 'efficiently', to get us out of the way.
We shouldn't be effectively asking major corporate interests/the hyper-wealthy to pretty-please pay a living wage, begging them not to poison us and the environment quite to the absolute 'cost-saving' max, to consider voluntarily at least paying a fair share of tax on the wealth sucked out of the rest of us, as though they're somehow entitled by their often-ruthless acquisition of wealth - at our cost and that of life on the planet - to rule what they've been illicitly permitted to abuse. Wealth doesn't get 'extra rights' in a democracy, where all are to have equal rights, treatment and opportunity, and the fact that this is accepted by so many in the US is due to endless propaganda conducted by experts - and worsening, drastically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_PLNeMuqu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dL8vt1n-f8
This might have been coincidental and very likely was, but a Youtube comment I made paused for some time in a faded state and failed to post, although it promptly did when I removed a line mentioning corporate interest/multi-millionaire/billionaire-selected public officials, so sorta wondering about algorithms inflicting on Youtube users the same demands made of the Dem leadership, not to ever again mention the the 'b' and 'm' words in a disrespectful manner, although I'd think that would be too noticeable to actually do. A conditional trace of paranoia seems to be a good idea nowadays, though, as we can often only guess at whatever's going on with TPTB.
Edit: this seems to have posted on my clicking 'View', while taking me back to View, albeit with a blank comment box. What with all of the ongoing weirdness, I popped back here to check and at least avoided a duplicate. Lol, considering various potentials with that trace of paranoia can be helpful, lol. Now, will this post or View when I press post...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Marx made a distinction
between Use Value and Exchange Value.
Capitalism only sees Exchange Value.
Which is why capitalism values scarcity while humanity values abundance.
I can't stop saying it.
UBI is a scam to prop up capitalism. Period. Give every adult $1000 a month - your rent just went up $1000 and your boss just layed you off because there was someone else willing to work for $1000 a month less. (untill he saves enough to buy a machine that works for nothing)
Now guarantee everyone at least $25,000 a year (Universal MINIMUM Income) Now when a boss offers $12.50 an hour you'll say no - that's empowerment. Landlords won't raise rents because no one except the poorest of the poor will have more money to pay.
On to Biden since 1973
Exactly! Get the stipend where it's needed.
Which, as you point out also floats the boats nearest them, in the shallows, where it matters most.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Didn't Germany never have a minimum wage at all for a long , but
pretty powerful unions? It seems as if it had worked that way. I don't understand why, but I guess a guaranteed basic income for adults, who still can work, doesn't do the trick of guaranteeing less poverty among the working population. Guaranteed income for the elderly, who can't work anymore, I would support.
https://www.euronews.com/live
We already have that.
It's called Social Security, and no it's nowhere near enough.
This shit is bananas.
SS is dependent on how much you worked in your life
how much do you get if you never worked or were disabled and couldn't work? I thought more of a guaranteed income for elderlies that is unconditional and not dependent on your life circumstances you had before.
https://www.euronews.com/live
HOW DO YOU KILL A UNION?
BY KILLING THE JOB!No JOB no need for a Union.
DW
#FightFor15: One small point of order.
Integral to the #FightFor15 movement is the demand for full union rights. So it would seem that the #FightFor15 folks see your point, gjohnsit, and agree with it!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
"we leave democracy aside when we go to work. Why?" Laws
The laws don't protect workers, that's why, or they are unenforced. Unions have bosses and lobbyists, the two most useless gears in existence, machine grease. Collective ownership of the whole pie is where it's at, not bargaining for scraps. Collective bargaining is better than nothing, barely. Unions haven't kept wages or benefits up anywhere for a long time now, they are not raising any tides or whatever the rhetoric says now.
I'll say it again, there is a lot of showing up to do in a "democratic" workplace, it is not easy. Rugged individuals don't want to go to boring meetings, deal with petty power trips, and vote on business stuff. Most people don't want to run for the board to oversee operations, it's a hard job to do for "free". Don't most people still think free means without cost, instead of freedom to pursue right livelihood or whatever?
Unions and their lobbyists should think about doing something productive and constructive for a change. Stop retreading the same old tires, do something different. Let's see the Teamsters strike the ports, to get higher wages in all Chinese supermarkets, begin with the largest brick and mortar in the USA, WalMart. Teamsters could strike for better conditions at AMZ if they were so inclined, but they are not. Unions are divisive, that's what I think.
I prefer movements toward worker owned co-ops and housing collectives. Wolff is in to them too, I'm glad about that but think it should be the preferred approach to unify the masses. Thanks.
I believe this is what it is going to take.
Gotta love the WV teachers they are showing us how it's done. Union tentatively agrees, tells members to go back to work. Members say FU to the TA, the Union and "Wildcat" it. Fist pump to the members!!!!!!
O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.
When unions are "lead" by entrenched, insular,
go along get along, seat at the table insiders who protect their last minute processes, ummmmm ... who cares?
BTW/ anyone who wants to tell me it is up to me to change my pathetic ass union - go fuck yourself.
I already have a day job.
rmm
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
n/t (bookmark b/c wolff mentioned)