Union Man (Edwards)

[question everything]

Note: I am not trying to bash Edwards but I thought that the writer raised some points of which I don't know anything and would like to read comments - question everything


The Wall Street Journal

Union Man
By JOHN HOOD
May 26, 2007; Page A8

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Presidential hopeful John Edwards is fond of telling us that he's the son of a mill worker. And, although he now lives in a mansion and sports expensive haircuts, he also has another thing in common with some wage earners. He's betting his future employment on the power of organized labor. But is this a safe bet? In Tar Heel, N.C., where organized labor is trying to unionize the largest meat processing plant in the world, that is a pressing question. And it's one that even Paula Deen, a popular host of a down-home cooking show on Food Network, may have to answer.

Smithfield Foods slaughters more than 30,000 hogs a day in Tar Heel, employs some 5,500 people and pays competitive wages -- especially for the rural South. But the United Food and Commercial Workers union wants to organize the plant anyway, arguing that it will protect workers. So far Smithfield workers aren't going along. They have voted against forming a union, twice, and would likely do so again if another secret ballot election is held. Undeterred, union supporters have protested at one of Ms. Deen's book signings demanding that she cut ties to Smithfield. The union also wants to dispense with elections and unionize the plant through a controversial process called "card check" -- which merely requires gathering signatures from a majority of workers.

This is where Mr. Edwards enters the fray. He supports the union in its fight against Smithfield and he supports legislation under consideration in Congress that would make it easier to use the card check instead of an election. Mr. Edwards also recently sent a letter to Smithfield CEO Larry Pope demanding that he "protect the right of workers" to bargain collectively. He wants Mr. Pope to support the card check. This -- his support for dispensing with secret ballot elections in the name of workers' rights -- makes Mr. Edwards one of the most pro-union presidential candidates in a long time. And it is a departure from who he was when he was elected to the Senate in 1998 as a Southern centrist. That reputation led then-Vice President Al Gore to consider tapping him as a running mate in 2000, and it was one reason why John Kerry put him on the ticket in 2004.

(snip)

He also feels that he has found an underserved constituency -- people displaced by the New Economy. And he is on to something. Outside of edge cities and burgeoning metro areas, the painful churning in the economy is easy to spot. Think boarded-up textile mills. Granted, this isn't the image North Carolina has as a prototypical New South state. The banking capital of Charlotte and the knowledge-worker Mecca of the Research Triangle are more familiar symbols. But North Carolina used to have one of the nation's highest rates of employment and economic production in manufacturing, which offered good pay and stable employment for people with relatively little education.

(snip)

Recognizing public trepidation about these events, Mr. Edwards and the labor movement lay blame on the North American Free Trade Agreement, other free-trade pacts and the decline of unionization. But international trade didn't start with Nafta, nor did the downward trend in manufacturing. Many textile executives in this state even supported Nafta, hoping to join with lower-cost factories south of the border and thereby compete with Asia producers. The problem is that the Chinese -- and others -- are now making better quality products than they used to. American consumers are getting more for their money.

(snip)

Mr. Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, is the author of "Selling the Dream" (Praeger Publishers, 2005).

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118014232483415425.html (subscription)

[rurallib]

1. A local union rep - a died in the wool Hillary fellow - surprised us all

with a very pro-Edwards ltte in the local paper Thursday. No one saw that coming.
Edwards has staked some very core Dem positions first and very sincerely so. I thanked him for standing up to Fox. He has been one of the most vociferous on the Iraqipation.

[Catchawave]

2. JE received the Paul Wellstone Award

(Dec 2006)Last night, the AFL-CIO Organizing Summit took a break from strategy sessions to honor two men who have been stalwarts in the fight for workers’ rights: Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and former Sen. John Edwards. The two received the Paul Wellstone Award, named in honor of the late senator from Minnesota, which the AFL-CIO established to highlight elected leaders who take a strong stand for workers’ freedom to form unions and who fight for social and economic justice.

more here: http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/12/09/edwards-miller-honored-at-afl-cio-organizing-summit/

No wonder the WSJ's doing a hit job on him :evilgrin:

[iamjoy]

3. A Very Slanted Article

Define "competitive wages" which this article says Smithfield pays. Oh, yes "especially for the South" - so, it's okay to under pay people in rural North Carolina because they don't have anything else?

Could the Union do more than provide higher wages, like, oh, say, hmm - safer (or at least better) working conditions? The article doesn't mention anything about that. No, it's those darn Unions again stirring up trouble and trying to meddle where they aren't wanted.

Of course, I am slanted myself - I am an Edwards supporter. But I don't know much about Unions.

[question everything]

19. With the decrease in manufacturing jobs

and increase in service ones - how relevant are union jobs?

Look at the auto makers. Last year (before anyone was talking about 2008 candidates) I asked about jobs with the Toyota and Honda that are in the South and that are not unionized. Several DUers responded that they thought workers there are happy with good benefits and compensation. And when you see how badly Detroit companies are hemorrhaging.. one has to wonder.

[iamjoy]

22. But Is That A Good Thing

I mean, if it wasn't for Unions, would we have many of the safety and health regulations that many take for granted today? Would we have the "40 Hour Workweek"?

I have to wonder sometimes. I don't know much about Unions, but I have read a little history and it seems like in the nineteenth century before Unions really became powerful, workers were seen as just another part of the machine and it didn't matter if they were injured or killed on the job - even less than it mattered if a mechanical piece of a machine broke.

[question everything]

25. Unions have been very important in developing

our working environment that we have today.

Yes, it is thanks to unions that we have child labor laws, OSHA, paid sick leave and vacation - for most of us - and overtime pay.

But things have changed. I've just read someplace that when cars first replaced the horse and buggies, contributing to cleaner environment was an important incentive (what with horse manure, literally, and horse carcasses.)

But our economy has changed. Since the 70s, I think, certainly since Reaganomics, we switched from being a manufacturing economy to a service one, the latter contributed to 78%. Good paying jobs, with benefits and pensions - even for high school graduates or even dropouts - disappeared. Instead we have "service" jobs - fast food chains and retails with low wages and with barely any benefits. The number of employers still offering pensions is continually decreasing and even the ones that still offer them - who knows where they will be when their employees will start retiring? Yes, pensions have been replaced by 401K - good idea however what I would like to see is mandatory matching of 50%, not miserable 3-5% that we see today.

In addition, the changes in the employer-employee relations - our parents and grandparents used to work for the same employer all their lives - put many of us through periods of unemployment and under employment and many of ended up going our own way, self employed or starting our own business with a couple of employees.

I don't have the data but the percentage of workers belonging to unions these days is continuously decreasing and not because of "union bashing" a-la Wal Mart, but because of the change of our economy.

Thus, I have to wonder about the importance of labor in politics these days.

[LBJDemocrat]

4. WSJ disses Edwards? Reason enough to support him.

When organizations like WSJ, Club for Growth, and CATO criticize a politician, that's a good thing.

As for workers not wanting to unionize: It might be truthful, but a lot of people are greedy and want to screw over their fellow workers. Such people are known as scabs.

[1932]

5. add to that list, The National Association of Manufacturers.

[MannyGoldstein]

6. His Vote For Permanent 'Free' Trade With China

Makes his new love of unions irrelevant. As the jobs whoosh over to China, the unions will have little bargaining power.

We need to reverse the permanent 'free' trade with China vote (and NAFTA, and so forth) if the Middle Class is to have a chance here.

[LBJDemocrat]

7. True.

Then again, George McGovern voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

And in any case, Edwards has been, at least, rhetorically consistent since 2004 about fair trade. He pushes the issue more than any of his rivals. It's smart to be wary, but a vote for Edwards is a mandate for a fair trade agenda in 2009.

[MannyGoldstein]

9. Has He Mentioned China?

'Free' trade with China is, far and away, the biggest threat to the Middle Class. NAFTA is, by comparison, a red herring.

[LBJDemocrat]

10. Hmmm

I can't find anything.

He did vote for normalized trade with them. This is why I supported Gephardt in the beginning of the 2004 primaries.

I worry about that as much as you do, and I hope someone posts something to assuage those worries.

[1932]

12. This was vote that the Clinton white house lobbied heavily for. The only democrats

who voted against it were the ones who had no interest in helping Clinton.

I didn't know that Gephardt didn't vote for it, but no Democrat made life harder for Clinton than Gephardt did.

[LBJDemocrat]

13. God bless Gephardt

One may dislike him for his support of the IWR, but there was no bigger friend of the working American.

[1932]

14. Edwards's CATO free trade rating is 5% lower than Gephardt's.

17% vs 22%

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dick_Gephardt_Free_Trade.htm

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/John_Edwards_Free_Trade.htm

[LBJDemocrat]

17. Hmmmmmmm.

Well; even more of a reason to support Edwards.

[1932]

18. It was lowest of all '04 candidates who had been members of congress.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

24. Edwards has also come out in favor of repealing NAFTA

He is the only major candidate to advocate that...

[question everything]

20. This is the problem that I had with Gephardt

and am now having with Edwards: the demand that employers shoulder even more responsibility in providing health insurance.

This is really a different topic that some day I will start but I don't think that it should be the responsibility of employer to worry about health care of their employees.

Either have a true universal health care administered by an independent authority, or let all of us purchase our own insurance.. and realize first hand the dysfunctional state of our health care system.

BTW, I contributed to and voted for Edwards in 2004, now I am not sure.

[LBJDemocrat]

21. Completely with you

The current system of employers providing health insurance has to go. It harms those who are unemployed and it discourages employment because companies have to worry about covering these costs every time they hire someone.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. Helping Clinton - To Destroy The Middle Class?

Any 'Democrat' interested in helping with that process is a Democrat that we'll be better off without. We should stop enabling awful behavior.

[1932]

16. Well, Edwards did less to help, since his CATO free trade rating is lower.

[1932]

11. Yeah. His CATO rating on trade is what? 17%? Show me a Dem with a lower rating.

And I'll vote for him or her too, hopefully on a ticket with Edwards.

[papau]

8. The wall street journal crap can't be taken seriously - card check is the only safe way to do union

selection or rejection.

As part of management I went through two massive attempts to unionize my corporation (2 different corporations) - and each time it was easy to defeat the inion because of the time lag between folks signing up for the union and the election - indeed in both cases the union gave up before there was an election.

Management has the megaphone that will be the main influence on the election vote if there ever is an election - and can even deny the union a list of personnel and can punish workers in all kinds of ways for even thinking union.

In one case it only took some firings that were easy to justify on other grounds - they are always easy to justify - when in the last time you heard of a person fire - then claiming it was for union activity - appealing to the NRLB - and then getting a positive response of any kind?

In the other case the card check was too organized and had a list of personnel. They used that list and printed up a copy that was sent around with the cards for you to check off your name that you had seen the card check request. A secretary photocopied the list with the check marked, and non-check marked, names and gave it to management (she was sleeping with her boss and wanted to do a good deed), and over the next 6 months before the thing got even close to the NRLB ordering an election everyone that had checked off that they had seen the cards - we assumed they had signed - was fired for performance reasons.

The only safe way to form a union is the outside of work collection of cards.

The election sounds good - but then all the GOP con jobs sound good - don't they.

[rucky]

23. This says more about the strength of the union than John Edwards. n/t