Re: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
I didn't realise that he had become a legal specialist in Iowa. I admire his work at lot, even as I struggle with financial problems. The transition from economics to law happens to quite a number of economists and I often wonder what exactly motivates that, since, if you are an economist (which I am not, my Master's was in education) then one would think that there are more economically efficient methods for the administration of social justice than legal stuff. But there does seem to be something in human nature as we know it, which places limits on that. Michael Camdessus opined once that economics is in our genes (jeans ?) but in fact, even in the investigation of paid sex work, it is clear that human emotions do not truly have some kind of "economy", at most an "ecology". Bit of blog. I am personally inclined to the view that arbitrary violations of legal rules are not desirable. But in my somewhat klutzy Forrest Gump/Fight Club-type state I do engage in a bit of arbitrary behaviour, and I got to curb that. Main criticisms I had were too much false alarm, too much provocation, too much advertising. Sometimes it seems better not to share insights for the sake of one's responsibility to fellow citizens so as not to increase the volume of disappointment, which is ecologically preferable. Main thing about being more successful, is to get rid of past hurts and grievances as quickly as one can, change behaviour to fit with new circumstances, and just be kind, interesting and friendly to people and to yourself. But it ain't easy, at least not for me, I have to somehow tear myself out of past grief. Sociologically, Frederick Engels remarked upon the historic memory and persistence of oppressed nationalities which causes the struggle for justice by a people to continue for a very long time. But of course it could be made into a happier kind of struggle (?). I had a woman say of me once "he still thinks he has to struggle", but I really felt there was not much depth of insight there :-) I got to get another job to pay the bills and get to where I want to go... economics still on my mind. There is no depression in New Zealand There are no sheep on our farms There's no depression in New Zealand We can all keep perfectly calm - "There's no depression in New Zealand", by Blam Blam Blam J.
Re: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
Yes, and his stuff on time is great - overtime, break time, etc. "Moments are the elements of profit," as one of his titles says. I've got a couple of interviews with him up at <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>. Doug Michael Perelman wrote: yes. he does wonderful stuff. I especially like Linder, Marc and Ingrid Nygaard. 1998. .Void Where Prohibited: Rest Breaks and the Right to Urinate on Company Time. (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press). On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 11:34:55PM -0500, Max B. Sawicky wrote: Anybody ever read Marc Linder? -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of andie nachgeborenen Subject: Fwd: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
yup. very prolific guy. -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jurriaan Bendien Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 1:13 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger Yep I have (though not all). He's great. Didn't he do that book Anti-Samuelson ? J. - Original Message - From: "Max B. Sawicky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 5:34 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger > Anybody ever read Marc Linder? > > > > -Original Message- > From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of andie > nachgeborenen > Subject: Fwd: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger > >
Re: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
Yep I have (though not all). He's great. Didn't he do that book Anti-Samuelson ? J. - Original Message - From: "Max B. Sawicky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 5:34 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger > Anybody ever read Marc Linder? > > > > -Original Message- > From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of andie > nachgeborenen > Subject: Fwd: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger > >
Re: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
yes. he does wonderful stuff. I especially like Linder, Marc and Ingrid Nygaard. 1998. .Void Where Prohibited: Rest Breaks and the Right to Urinate on Company Time. (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press). On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 11:34:55PM -0500, Max B. Sawicky wrote: > Anybody ever read Marc Linder? > > > > -Original Message- > From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of andie > nachgeborenen > Subject: Fwd: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
Anybody ever read Marc Linder? -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of andie nachgeborenen Subject: Fwd: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
Fwd: Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger
Note: forwarded message attached. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools--- Begin Message --- Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:50:01 -0500 Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> X-Mailer: Open WebMail 2.30 20040103 X-OriginatingIP: 66.65.35.252 (modps) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 New Strategies Why U.S. Labor Law Has Become a Paper Tiger By David Brody New Labor Forum - Spring 2004 http://forbin.qc.edu/newlaborforum/ The National Labor Relations Act, whose stated purpose and original effect was to encourage collective bargaining, has been hijacked by its natural enemies. The law serves today as a bulwark of the "union-free environment" that describes nine- tenths of our private sector economy. My aim is to identify the central process at work in this amazing outcome and, on that basis, suggest a course of action. The core of the law, as true today as on the day Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it in 1935, are three interlocking sections. Section 7 declares the rights of workers. These were not new in 1935. They had already appeared in the Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act of 1932, and had been a long time evolving. In 1935 they were uncontroversial. Section 8 listed a set of unfair labor practices, acts that violate the Section 7 rights, which, under Section 10, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was empowered to prevent. This was new, but not surprising. The rights enunciated as public policy in Norris-LaGuardia were merely expressions of principle until the labor law made them enforceable. Sections 7 and 8 were reported out of Senator Wagner�s committee as a package. Finally, Section 9 dealt with the issue of union recognition, setting forth the criteria that justified, in effect, a constraint on the employer�s liberty of contract. It became an unfair labor practice to refuse to bargain, and bargain exclusively, with a labor organization chosen by a majority of the employees in an appropriate unit. Section 9 further provided that, if the demonstration of majority support was supervised by the NLRB, the labor organization so chosen would be certified and be officially designed as bargaining agent. For that purpose, the NLRB could hold a secret ballot. It is this final wrinkle, the representation election, that is the focal point of my discussion. I want to defer any consideration of the defects that make unions increasingly hostile to the representation election and cut at once to what, viewed historically, is the crux of the problem: namely, that the representation election is the instrument by which labor�s enemies have hijacked the law. Historically, it was self-organization-workers freely associating to advance their common interests-that produced the labor movement and gave it legitimacy. Indeed, the definitive case establishing the legality of unions, Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), grounded that finding on the view that trade unions were voluntary associations, and were presumed, in an enterprising society whose hallmark was voluntary association, to be in the public interest until, by the standards that applied to all combinations, they acted unlawfully. The trade unions embraced self-organization (and in Gompers� time elevated it, under the rubric of voluntarism, into the defining principle of the AFL). And so did the Wagner Act, whose enumeration of the rights of workers in Section 7 begins with self- organization. The succeeding rights-to assist, form, or join labor organizations, to bargain collectively, to engage in concerted activity-all march in concert with self-organization, except in one respect. The right to bargain collectively is qualified by the words, "through representatives of their own choosing." This familiar phrase might seem unproblematic, inherent in any statement of worker rights, but in fact "representatives of their own choosing" has its own particular history.[1] It first appeared, as best I can determine, during the labor crisis after World War I and was fashioned against a specific challenge: company unions-employee representation plans, so called-that gave employers the excuse that they need not deal with outside unions because their employees already were exercising their right to organize and bargain collectively. The issue crystallized during the Steel Strike of 1919, the greatest recognition strike in American history. The union response was: ok, let the employees choose-and that�s the origin of "representatives of their own choosing." Nothing came of this effort; the steel strike, in a long train of failed recognition strikes, failed. But the issue had been injected into a grand conclave on a postwar labor policy for the nation, and given a standing it might otherwise not have had. Once enunciated, employee choice stuck, finding its w
