When my own side goes too far.

So here is an interesting article from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ports-labor-20121130,0,2659465,full.story] LA times[/url], not typically considered a hotbed of tea party anti-union sentitment:

Here is the money quote:



“Stephen Berry, lead negotiator for the shipping lines and cargo terminals, said the clerical workers have been offered a deal that includes "absolute job security," a raise that would take average annual pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks' paid vacation and a generous pension increase.”


These are jobs which require a lot of attention to detail and high end clerical skills, but don't require any college degree much less an advanced degree. It sounds to me like this is a job equivalent in demand to a paralegal but without the requirement of legal training. Paralegals in LA tend to make an average in the range of $70K per year (varying by location and type of practice.)

So even if you disregard the management reps assertion of a $195K per year offer, the current pay is $165K per year, which the union considers grossly inadequate, so bad that it is necessary to cause a strike which is screwing the LA economy of hundreds of millions per day?

WTF? Really, I mean WTF???. I am a strong proponent of the labor movement as an integrated working/middle class movement, and when unions behave as part of a progressive coalition, I strongly favor them. I also feel that most criticism of unions is conservative BS, and that without unions the American middle and working class would get forced into a nasty "race to the bottom" with cheap labor, which would lower standards of living for the large majority of Americans.

But from time to time, individual unions will focus on their narrow self interests and end up making every union in the country look like greedy idiots. This is one of those times.

All of the above assumes that the LA Times article is well researched and that the reporter did not get snookered by management propaganda. But IMO despite conservative hatred of the times, it is actually a pretty damn good journalism site, and not at all pro-conservative.

So, assuming the article is more or less accurate, I have to think that the maritime clerks are screwing the overall labor movement and the entire LA economy out of narrow self interest. This is one of those times that if there were an initiave on this type of issue, I would vote to throw the union under the bus.

This is going to recall the numerous times dockworkers were brought up on The Other Forum as a textbook example of the bad side of unions but then shot down by union apologists. It's good to finally start seeing some solid numbers.

Sharpe unfuck your link.

I tried several times but it won't accept my changes. Let me try again:

LA Times Story

Because you created an abomination:

Code (text):

1.  [url=[URL='http://[URL='http://[URL='http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ports-labor-20121130,0,2659465,full.story'''][U][COLOR=#0066cc]http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ports-labor-20121130,0,2659465,full.story[/COLOR][/U][/URL]] LA times[/url]

I don't even know how you did that!

I am FAIL at editing and linking. I plead exhaustion from overwork combined with too much PS2.

Should have used a union link.

But then the post would have cost twice as much and been lazy and drunk.

Like every other time a union job comes up, I'm going to go out on a precarious limb and predict that the current pay system and the offer do not contain anything like those numbers. Note the speaker:

I swear, liberals fall for this shit every single time. Just because it's in the paper doesn't mean it's right. Kevin Drum does it here. In the comments someone notes:

In other words, no. I'd guess the real compensation number is significantly lower.

What? Are you implying that one side in an argument may be biased for their own side?? You'll be paying for a new monocle good sir!

According to this news story these people are going on strike for absolutely no reason whatsoever despite being given more than they've ever asked for and every one else is just going along with it because this is the reason unions are bad. I'm sure they don't mind losing out on their paychecks for no reason whatsoever so no need to ever question this story.

Also did you guys hear: unions destroyed Twinkies!!!

Dock workers do have a damn good union, they just don't have that good a union.

I'm going to go ahead and say that number is effectively bullshit as far as offered salary goes. It's shockingly expensive on the back end to provide decent benefits, and if they're counting a pension in there as the benefits it's even more so.

From the AP:

So the AP says the actual numbers aren't 165k/year currently, but 97k/year, which would put the 195k down to what, ~115k? I'm cool with that. The 11 weeks of vacation is also up from 4 weeks, which smells like absolute bullshit. Nobody goes into negotiations to triple their vacation time.

edit: removed a bit of a rant. Ask yourself this: is it really wrong for Unions to try and correct the wage discrepancy that's been happening in this country? This is the point of Unions: left to their own designs recent history says these workers won't get raises and their wages will stagnate. Realistically, everyone needs to be unionized, because the current system is absolutely not working.

Jason, you are knowledgeable enough in economics to know that disregarding benefits as a form of compensation is disingenous. The cost of benefits absolutely totally must be included when determining total compensation.

Also that "assume a 50 hour work week" is a pretty damn big assumption. I have very extensive experience with wage and work hour issues and workers routinely think they are working more hours than they actually are, when you are compare their actual time sheets to their own assertions of how much they work. People routinely over-estimate the hours they work in the ballpark of 20 to 25% in my experience.

Also, if you accept that poster's evaluation that the dock workers are receiving about $46/hour in direct monetary compensation not including benefits, that is still by itself pretty goddamn high. The poster referred to $46/hour as "nice, but not eye-popping." What the hell is that dude smoking? The harsh reality is that the median wage in LA County is under $18/hour and many "full time" workers work less than 40 hours per week, with the net result that the median income for a "full time" worker in LA County is in the ballpark of $35K per year. Since non-union benefits are usually skimpy, that means the total compensation including benefits, for the median worker in LA County is around $40K.

Compared to that, the total compensation including benefits of the maritime clerks is $165K, which is 400% percent of the median compensation. Please note that I am NOT saying that the very low median compensation in LA County is a good thing or something we must accept. I strongly favor policies that would lift those median numbers substantially. But politically speaking, trying to sell the public on supporting a union whose members make 400% of the median compensation in a county where there are a damn huge number of people scraping by on far less than $40K, is a complete and total loser. In fact, it's such a loser that it makes the entire union movement, hell the entire progressive movement, look bad.

Liberals often complain that Democratic politicians are substantially less successful in elections than they should be based on priorities and policies, and this kind of idiocy is one reason why. Trying to sell this union position as reasonable and appropriate is a dead bang political loser, especially with swing voters.

Also, I'll say one more thing here: liberals who support this union position should ask themselves: who is really being hurt here? The companies are to some degree but they tend to have lines of credit and other means to ride out a crisis like this one. However, the working class folks who load and unload, drive the trucks, stock the shelves and sell the products are taking an immediate him, which in a lot of cases is going to cause immediate financial hardship, which they are often not in a position to ride out.

I feel that although liberals should support unions who work as an integrated part of the progressive movement, blind support for unions who act out of their narrow self interest is just as stupid, just as epistemically closed, as the tea party yahoos. The blind defense of unions I sometimes see strikes me as disconcertingly similar to the hard right "defend my side even when they are scumbags" approach which I thouroughly despise.

Bottom line: unions need to work to benefit the entire working and middle class, for two huge reasons. First: unions need the working and middle class to respect their picket lines to give their strikes bite. Second, if unions create conditions for themselves where they feast while others famish, they are behaving exactly like the self-interested economic elites who have been fucking up this country for decades.

Overall my criticism of this particular union is based on political considerations, but even more from a standpoint of criticising this union *from the left*. IMO, they are hurting the progressive cause, not helping. I know, I know, the union message is that unions help pass policies that are enormously beneficial to the working and middle classes, which is true. However, they help the working and middle classes *when they work together with liberals to pass policies for the greater goood* , NOT when they pursue that narrow self interest.

Also, one thing to keep in mind is that LA County is NOT the LA of Hollywood. LA County has a relatively high average standard of living but that's because the ridiculously excessive lfestyles of a relatively small minority drag the average numbers way up, high above the very poor lifestyles that a huge number of Angelenos are forced to endure. LA County is totally exemplary of the disgraced John Edwards' "Two Americas" speech. LA county is ludicrously split down the middle. There is no fucking middle class. Roughly half the county lives in conditions that when the true cost of living is calculated, are actually impoverished, and on top of that, their economic security is for shit. LA has a very high level of "grey market" employment, and also a very high fraction of jobs that are "temporary". I routinely see cases involving workers who are not unskilled, who have vocational or technical training and yet are working for $8.50 per hour and crap benefits. That is the real LA So when you compare that to union workers making at least $46/hour plus benefits are much greater than the median, it makes the unions look bad. I mean really bad.

Also, I've seen some liberals who take the stance that because CEOs make so much money, it gives a license to union workers to demand compensation far in excess of what most workers make. Look, as much as I disagree with this union, I disagree with the corrupt, profiteering, and self-dealing actions of the majority of CEOs/upper management much much more. I strongly support reforms which would reduce CEO opportunism. But to use that as an argument to defend this union is to sink to the level of the idiotic, greedy right.

There is a reason why union popularity has been decling for 50 years, and although a vicious coordinated attack by the right is a big part of it, unions who pursue their own insular concerns are shooting the entire movement in the foot. Not only does this behavior give traction to the right wing arguments, it weakens overall union credibility, and makes it much harder for liberals to fight back. It's a political "own goal" of biblical scale.

Well, in my view, these unions are NOT working to correct the wage discrepancy for all workers. They are working to improve their own individual wages. I've heard vague assertions that union success in these conflicts will "trickle down" (hey, where have I heard that phase before?) to other workers, but I see no more evidence of a causal mechanism for this than I do for supply side economics.

Also, I don't see the Teamsters or the Longshoremen doing jack shit to help out the legions of non-union custodians, caregivers, restaurant and hotel staff, laborers,etc who are working for $8 to $10 per hour and negligible benefits and make up a big fraction of LA workers.

Also those AP numbers do not reflect the present value of benefits. When you count the additional compensation of health care benefits which are typically in the range of $10K per year, and the present value of pension benefits, which are typically in the range of $20K year (yeah, really), then the managment offer would be in the range of $145K to $150K, which, when compared to typical LA salaries for workers without advanced degrees, is just way out of proportion.

Guys, you have to wake up. Not every criticism of the behavior of a union is a vicious slander by the right wing. Unions (or any other group) are not pure angels of progressive benevolence, especially when they act on their own, not as a part of a broad based political movement.

At the negotiating table with people who understand what it means, sure. In the newspaper? Not so much. Reporting the total compensation package in a newspaper article is just going to fool the average reader into thinking that's just their salary, which is a clear attempt to inspire anti-union sentiment. People will compare their salary alone to the union members' total compensation package and draw the wrong conclusions. It's underhanded and the LA Times should be above that.

So on the one hand we have unions whose stated goal is to push wages for their members above the market rate. And on the other hand we have companies looking to slash costs in the cheapest way possible, by reducing growth in labor wages (capital expenditure is more difficult to shift flexibly in response to changes in economic conditions).

And this is all going on at a port notorious for delays in expanding, that's under severe threat from Panama Canal expansion, new ports like Savannah on the east coast, the growth of arctic shipping and the rising importance of Mexico in US imports. We also know that in the curret period LA has little to no competition of sufficient scale and can charge above market rates for port services.

So now we've got a patina of context for the economic issues around this. Where do we put this story relativd to that story fgiven that there is most likely fuckloads more context of which we are not aware?

Fuck if I know. It sounds very Versaille, but it could be two groups fighting over what they know are the scraps of a dying port or the unions taking a much deserved raise or even just someone feeling pissy and kicking up a fuss because the negotiators on the other side smelled funny.

What we do know is that shipping delays are bad for consumers, and that there's no likelihood that consumers will see lower prices from this port whatever outcome of this fight. This is a distributional fight between players who jointly use their market power against us consumers. Arguing about the companies and unions involved as if they represented the average company or union is mendacious in the extreme.

Mendacious? I think people arguing about it here are just trying to build a bridge to a less obscure set of variables that can be reasoned out. There are certainly partisan lines within that but it doesn't seem like anything but a difficult issues being negotiated among pretty reasonable people. Granted, the troll under the bridge hasn't gotten out of bed yet, but let's not through the baby out.

That's not their "stated goal". Their stated goal is to keep fair market value wages, they just disagree as to what "fair market value" is. Union side says it's as high as possible, company says it's as low as possible.

Not to mention that this isn't even about pay, it's about jobs being quietly shipped overseas.

Unions in general, not this particular union. I'm not gonna start with the jobs going overseas thing.

Find me that Union.

Please note that at no point was I referring to this particular union negotiating unit as representative of the average union. I was criticising the conduct of this *particular* union as being *harmful to the average union*.

And how, exactly, would they do that (besides their standing offer to help organize unions for these people)?

Your other argument seems to be that because other workers are abused and underpayed the Union Workers are being selfish by declaring that they won't be, I'll refer you once again to this chart

Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Target etc etc etc can completely afford to pay all of their employees well above minimum wage and not cut hours or staff, they just don't have to and don't want to. Why? Because they don't have unions and the surplus workforce, due partially to the ease of outsourcing jobs, is so large complainers can just be fired and replaced with the next.
To presume that Union Workers, who are lucky enough to have jobs that can't be (or aren't yet) outsourced are being unreasonable just because they are being paid more ignores several huge factors in both profits and upper management wages.

Well said.

The globalization of the labor pool has caused a mass extinction among US unions. Only the very strongest have survived, and they are concerned entirely with the self-interest of their own members. That's cool; it is, after all, the entire point of having a union. But there's no reason for the rest of the progressive movement to be overly deferential to these highly evolved survivors. As Aeon221 says, this is a distributional fight between winners. It's like watching pro athletes squabble with team owners; when it comes right down to it, it doesn't really matter to the rest of us who wins.

The real question is: how do we move those median wages back up for everyone, not just the people in a handful of niche industries? The power imbalance between the worker and the corporation has swung too far out of balance to expect workers to win anything on a local scale, shop-by-shop, battle-by-battle, one new industry at a time. Unions were a way to privatize the struggle for fair working conditions when the government was not willing or able to do it. But some things really shouldn't be privatized. Access to health care, fair working conditions, and livable compensation levels are among those things.

I should have clarified who I meant by anyone, which was of course the parties involved and media reporting on it thus far.

That said, FUCK YOU MAN FUCK YOU MY WORDS MY CHOICE.

Otterloop source for that image?

"See guys, I know it sounds bad, but if you don't count our ultra-luxurious benefits plan, we're each only making three times the median household income in the US, not four times!"

Seriously, that's no defense at all, and that anyone would seriously consider "the real salary is a lot lower than that because we're also pushing for a benefits package worth $60,000 a year" a point in the union's favor speaks to exactly the problem Sharpe is talking about. Good for them for getting rich and all, but people really shouldn't kid themselves that this is some principled workers' rights stand rather than a coalition of very well-paid workers negotiating even better pay for themselves. Which is fine, but I don't see why I'm supposed to throw in with them out of some kind of misplaced political principle.

You don't have to throw in with anyone.* The point is that they are different kinds of numbers, and in a situation where it's simply a profitable industry trying to boost profits versus a union of relatively well-off workers trying to maintain or improve their slice of that pie relative to their leverage. Those different kinds of numbers spur someone like Sharpe to say things like

Which is the job creator stance the GOP falls back on in terms of any dispute between labor and corporations. The pie can only be cut one way, and that's in favor of management and shareholders because they pay the lawyers and the politicians. It's not like the money could come from anywhere else in a profitable industry, no siree. Those boxes would just unload themselves if the minimum wage was raised.
It's a complex negotiation with a lot of subtleties, and it's perilous to try to project from there to "average" workers and how invested they should feel in this particular struggle in either direction. But I'm pretty sure if they want to go toe-to-toe on turning management and shareholder parts of the pie into broad numbers, it's not going to favor the corporation.

*and I should add that I think the damage was done by the framing of the thread in the title.

Bill Marsh/The New York Times
Sources: Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley; "The State of Working America" by the Economic Policy Institute; Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics, and Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley; Census Bureau; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Federal Reserve

Now uhh...your source for " unions whose stated goal is to push wages for their members above the market rate."?

Otterloop, again my view is that this particular union is not in any way helping working class people, and by no measure can the members of this particular union consider themselves "working class". At a minimum even the liberal sources indicate these workers make 96K per year, plus very generous benefits which I would ballpark at a minimum of $25K. Overall, these guys are making $120K total package, which is 300% or more of what the working class in LA makes. Look, even in LA $120K total package is NOT frigging working class. Nor can it ever be considered to be working class even if money was redistributed b/c there just isn't enough money is the US economy to pay that to all workers. It's just not mathematically possible. Labor force participation in the US is around 180 million IIRC and the GDP is $14.5 Trillion. Even if the entire GDP was distributed in a perfectly even fashion, the best workers could expect is $80,000 total package per year. Of course, the entire GDP does not constitute income and its not at all reasonable to have perfectly even distribution so the best that could be expected would be to bump up that median total package from roughly 40K to 50-60K. Also, more important than raw numbers is increasing security: requiring more notice and severance for layoff, possibly requiring business who downsize to pay to the re-train workers, changing "employment at will" to a more "termination must be backed up by good cause" standard, dramatic regulation of grey market and "temporary" employers, improved worker safety and working conditions regulations, and improved enforcement of those regs. and also better access to collective bargaing and representation.

I strongly agree with Mister Widget, unions are a way to "privatize" pro-worker policy development and implentation, and I do agree that we should support that in general. But IMO the union movement is by no means the ONLY method to improve policy outcomes for the working and middle classes. I know that the fucked up state of US politics makes actual implementation of pro-worker policies hard but we should not give up on that and just say "UNION UNION UNION UNION ALL THE WAY NOTHING ELSE WORKS". Pro-union policies are a part of the overall package of reforms that are needed, but they are not the only method. And when individual unions look out only for themselves as opposed to the broader worker movement, they are screwing the people who they should be helping.

Keep in mind that in regard to employers like McDonald's and Wal-Mart the lack of unions is NOT the only reason they can keep wages so low. The bigger problem is that these lesser-skilled workers have terribly weak bargaining power: with a low minimum wage, difficulty in accessing skill-improving training, and the competition from outsourcing, these workers find it very hard to apply market pressure to raise wages. And unionizing would not do the trick: for example if Wal-Mart got hit by a big unionizing campaign, they are so hardcore, and they have so much massive ridiculous bargaining power that the Walton family would simply shut down the Wal-Mart brand entirely and open a new chain under a different name. The bigger picture here is improving the market power of the working and middle classes and althugh unions are one way to do that, there are many other pro-worker policies like more progressive taxation and the various pro-worker policies mentioned above which should be considered as part of the overall solution. Also, moving towards a more "fair trade" than "free trade" policy is a good idea IMO, assuming it is implemented reasonably and phased in appropriately so as to avoid a trade war.

This continues to be a monstrous concern troll. Why are unions in particular high wage fields (relatively) responsible for helping all working people and highly profitable businesses in those same fields not responsible? Simply because American popular discourse accepts as a given that businesses are only responsible to the shareholder doesn't make it a reasonable way to assess responsibility in the big picture.

I take it back, this is worse. Atlas Shrugged is fiction. People don't just close down businesses when the marginal returns go down, and if they do they would get creamed by their competitors more than likely. If Walmart's reason to exist is in fact worker exploitation and that's a non-negotiable, then I'm happy to watch them yield the ground to Costco and other less shitty businesses.

I will concede that the title is somewhat contentious but hey I did post this in the Sanctum. I am in now way endorsing "job creator theory" or saying the pie can only be cut one way in favor of management. I am also in favor of changing the pie chart to improve the share that workers get, at the expense of the wealthiest tier. But this union is in no way representative of working class conditions in LA. As Mister Widget mentioned most of the unions who represented the true working class have been exterminated. In LA County there is a relatively high level of unionization compared to national averages but it is highly focused on relatively high wage earners: entertainment industry, construction, etc.

Part of that is the true poverty that is hammering such a big chunk of LA. In LA focusing on bumping "middle class" incomes for 70K to 80K instead of bumping the low-skilled and unskilled segment from $10K to $20K (yeah really, there is a big chunk of LA crawling by on such low incomes, even for "full time" workers) is not a great set of priorities. Also, nothing I've said is a defense of the wealthy elite: I actually think the users of the ports should be hit a lot harder than the impact of those union salaries, but that hit should take the form of taxes and labor compliance which are used to benefit ALL workers, not just 800 lucky dudes in San Pedro.

Look, you guys who don't live in LA, a *very big chunk of LA residents are living in third world conditions*. It's really bad: you have big chunks of people struggling on $10K to $15K per year doing menial work to beneft people making $200K per year. In that context, crying over whether union workers should make $120K vs $140K is whistling past the graveyard.

I feel like I should point out that unions always only look out for themselves. In a way I'm surprised they're something that liberals are assumed to support, because they're a fundamentally market-driven approach to solving a problem that as a liberal I think we'd be much better off having the government solve. Maybe it's an indication of just how conservative the US really is in this area that the "liberal" approach to the issue is to let the market deal with it and the conservative approach is to do nothing at all.

Well I'm glad you feel that way since that's pretty much what I'm saying too. However, many people disagree, including (apparently) some of the people in this thread.

That's ridiculous. I'm not sure which fallacy stands out the most, but my hunch is that you're primarily generating a false dilemma where one must be critical of relatively successful workers even in situations where they are expressly competing with their management and ownership for a share of profits (rather than the hackneyed GOP stereotypes in education or twinkie-likes) in order to benefit the poor.

Dude, you have no idea. I've been representing Wal-Mart for years, and they would without questions close their entire business rather than submit to unionization. And due to their mighty ability to bully suppliers into contracts that are incredibly advantageous to Wal-Mart, they would not lose ground to Costco etc.

Also, I know that liberals like to praise Costco, but I've also represented them and IMO they are a pack of black hearted scoundrels.

Also, do not compare me to Ayn Rand. Seriously that's BS. I'm not saying the vast market power that Wal-Mart has concentrated unto itself is good: I think it's terrible and the company should both be broken up and forced to put itself on the public market. To have such a huge accretion of market power only by the private members of a single family is ridiculous. But unionization not backed up by broad based pro-worker policies is not going to work.

Unions are not the only answer, especially when they act out of narrow self interest.

Also, I am not giving business a pass on focusing on short term narrow self interest: I definitely favor policies which punish companies for short term profiteering, policies which require companies to pay for their externalities, policies which improve working conditions and economic security for workers etc.

Here's one more thing: I have a lot of experience in this area and implementing the policies I've discussed would do a hell of a lot more for the working class than simple unionization. I do think unionization is helpful, but it should be part of a broad progressive agenda.

All of the rest is predicated on the idea that, somehow, this particular union has a responsibility to help other, completely non-related fields. I don't understand why you think that. Or even how they would do that in the first place. Go on strike until all wages everywhere are fair?

...If...if Wal-Mart closed their entire business they wouldn't lose any ground to Costco at all?

I'm gonna have to ask you to show your work.

Except unions weren't created to fix all your civil social ills. LA has a lot of unique problems - from what I've heard, the homeless population is huge and the mental health problems within that group are astronomical. How can we fix that? Proper national healthcare, a good social safety net, accessible jobs and training. How much of that are you laying at the feet of unions? How much of that should you be laying at the feet of businesses?

I've never understood this strange focus on unions for not fixing ALL THE THINGS. Unions are created like businesses - in response to special conditions, and to advance to the welfare of a very specific group of people. The fact that unions have been such a huge part of the progressive movement is due to their hugely inclusive population rather than their philosophical basis for existing. They exist to bargain, just like management. You can criticize them for not bargaining well, of course, but blaming the dockworkers union for problems in LA lays out the blame in exactly the wrong places. The people and businesses who stripped out the social safety net and refuse to pay a living wage have earned that - politicians and businessmen, respectively.

You're shooting yourself in the foot, here. Blame those who deserve it.

So what? You probably make far more than the average person in LA, too. So should your wage be depressed because other people make less money than you? Or is it only union workers that are supposed to accept less money than they can otherwise bargain for?

So what? Unions aren't reserved for the working class, nor is working class something that is measured in dollars per year. Working class describes the relationship of the worker to management; it's not a set dollar figure.

This is true from a technical and legal point of view, but just as people everywhere talk about "business" and really mean the group of businesses that should do things in a broader social context, so should unions. Each one acts individually but there really ought to be broad Nash equilibria (hand waving away details here, just run with the idea) that unions coordinate between each other to accomplish greater goods.

US union membership has been dropping precipitously in part (I believe) due to their becoming more inward focused rather than inclusive of other unions' ideas and ideals. I mean, they aren't in competition so why would they not legally collude for the wider benefit?

So you're saying that if they shut down their operation to spite unionization, they would not lose ground to competitors? Part two: what happens to contracts when a company goes out of business? What do the fixed costs and frictions that would arise for rebuilding NotWalmart look like and how would that affect their ability to compete? More on this in a moment.

Then it's a good thing that my comparison isn't premised on my personal opinion of the individuals involved but rather on the well-documented difference in worker treatment. Again, you have no sense of proportionality relative to the facts in terms of how each company treats their workers and their business models relative to one another.

It's a good thing I didn't make a blanket comparison between you and Ayn Rand. Specifically, I said that Atlas Shrugged is fiction, and that's because business owners and managers don't just up and leave when the situation becomes marginally less advantageous. That's the same canard the GOP levels when tax increases are suggested. As a general rule, when you look at historical examples of this sort of thing, it's a lot like the Hostess shutdown: OH MY GOD GREEDY UNIONS on the top, with a delicious "unions had little to do with structural problems or outright greed that ran them out of business" filling.

Unions are a damned good answer though, and *because* they act out of self interest in order to function properly. You're defining it as narrow in this case because you are hostile to higher income workers, because there is obviously nothing "narrow" about negotiating with a profitable business for a larger or constant share of the profits. That's not narrow, that's normal. And then your fallback is that they aren't somehow providing for the unskilled workers who have no leverage thanks to the absolutely pro-business climate in the country, as if that's the union's fault for trying to hang on to their edge.

It's not narrow, again. It's part of a strategic approach to marginalizing individual worker rights relative to corporations that has always existed but accelerated radically in the 80s. None of those policies you support there are in conflict with this union doing its thing. You can be critical of them, I guess, if you have specific reasons for why their negotiation is pernicious to workers broadly or something other than the media being eager to spin up another Hostess storyline for bereaved conservatives to have a circlejerk over, but it's not the same as framing them as in opposition to the policies you list there.

That's significantly less persuasive than you intended it as.