While driving home tonight, what little sympathy I had for the grocery workers' strike vanished when I heard on the radio that the Stanlinist group International ANSWER has joined forces with them in the "racist, criminal war against workers." Some news: the strikers stopped picketing the Ralph's grocery chain and decided to concentrate on Vons and Albertson's; unfortunately for them, the three grocery companies saw this coming, and put a secret pact into action to share revenue. People are pouring into Ralph's, and some of that money is going to the other two chains to support them while the strike continues.
I'd like to speak directly to the workers: you've lost. You've been on strike for a month, and you've been out-maneuvered every step of the way. From the reciprocal lock-outs at the beginning to the revenue-sharing plan now, you're getting beaten like a rented mule. I know that many of you are just trying to make ends meet; you're trying to save free healthcare for your kids; you're hard-working and honest. It doesn't matter.
See, you're not fighting against other folks who stock shelves all day, you're fighting against an army of lawyers, accountants, scientists, businessmen, and marketeers with one simple unified goal: maximize shareholder value. The nature and origin of your plight (such as it is) is irrelevant. No one cares if you want more money, free healthcare, or sharks with friggin' lasers on their heads.
These corporations have hundreds of officers who devote their lives to maximizing shareholder value. They've got banks of computers that spew out reams of paper, covered in numbers that tell them how to screw you over; those stacks of numbers are fed into even more computers, and those computers determine the prices of every piece of inventory, including you. They know what you're worth, and it doesn't matter how much you want to get paid. They've got scientists with beakers of bubbling liquid, smoke, test tubes, bunsen burners, and those cool electric doodads with the sparks that shoot up into the air between the two metal spikes. I don't know what these scientists are for; they're probably working to genetically engineer cheaper and more efficient bag-boys -- then what are you going to do?
Here's the thing: it's almost Christmas, and little Timmy and Susie are going to want more under the tree than a pile of picket signs. People are starting to care less and less about your marching and chanting. Plus, it's starting to rain. Take the hint -- go back to work. Be thankful you have jobs, because I know what it's like to not be able to find work. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I think $40,000 a year is pretty decent for putting boxes on shelves, and if you have to buy your own health insurance, well, join the club.
And if you want to hedge your bets, buy some stock in your companies. Then you'll be a shareholder yourself, and you'll have all those capitalists working for you instead of against you. That's the only way to win, otherwise you're just a pawn. Pawns don't win, even kings don't win -- they've just pieces that get moved around and stuck back in the case when the game's over. Only a player can win.
Excellent stuff, Michael. A little facetious sarcasm can go a long way!
It's not just about being a player by becoming a small time capitalist. It's also about looking at yourself as a producer of work with inventory, product lines, and sales numbers of your own. I'm willing to devote 40 hours of my life to earning money. Shall I be a bag boy or shall I upgrade my production line and move on up to sales, or marketing, or whatever.
Markets that fail to perform are exited and you move into new markets that will earn you a better return. You have to learn that it's often necessary to fire your employer and go off to a better deal elsewhere. Too many people stick around because they won't move unless they get pushed. That marks them as suckers and puts then on the express line for lower wages.
Quite right, many people sell themselves too cheaply because they're lazy.
There's a reason these chains have been willing to go along with union demands for so many years: Those corporate magicians with their spreadsheets and flame-thingies managed to
a) buy out all the smaller competition, creating a 3-firm oligopoly, and
b) wring out all the efficiencies in purchasing, merchandising and distribution they possibly can.
They could afford to pay extremely high costs for semi-skilled labor because the other efficiencies the firms created have until now kept lower-cost competitors out. Their labor costs (virtually identical among the three firms) has simply been passed on to us, their customers. This arrangement works well until at least one major competitor with a lower cost business model finds it sufficiently attractive to enter the market.
The firms are willing to take this strike because they believe this time the threat is real. So, the union has a choice: Hold out for that top dollar and continued free health care, and live with your employers' downsizing as Wal-Mart skims the high-volume business, or settle for more reasonable contracts and preserve a lot more of your jobs.
Your prescription is on the mark.
Unfortunately, workers do not sell their labor in a free market. The state's laws stack the rules to make the labor market a buyer's market. Thanks to banking laws that create entry barriers for the supply of credit, interest rates are artificially high, and labor's access to capital is therefore restricted.
Imagine what would happen if all legal restrictions on the free market provision of credit were removed: any group of private individuals could form a banking cooperative, and issue mutual banknotes against any form of collateral the bank's members were willing to accept. A member could put up his house for a "loan" in mutual banknotes equal to half or three-fourths of its value, for an interest rate just high enough to cover the overhead costs of administering the "loan"--but as a condition, he would agree to accept mutual banknotes as tender for his own services.
This is essentially what a capitalist bank does in a second mortgage or other secured "loan": it does not in fact "lend" anything, but rather monetizes the collateral of the "borrower." But because of licensing, capitalization requirements, and other market entry barriers, it is able to charge a monopoly fee for the service in the form of usurious interest rates. Without such barriers to a free market in credit, competition would force the price of secured "loans" down to the actual cost of overseeing them--probably well under one percent.
Imagine the effects on the relative bargaining power of workers and employers. Near-zero interest rates would increase the independence of labor in all sorts of interesting ways. For one thing, anyone with a twenty-year mortgage at 8% now could, in the absence of usury, pay it off in ten years. Most people in their 30s would have their houses paid off. Between this and the nonexistence of high-interest credit card debt, two of the greatest sources of anxiety to keep one's job at any cost would disappear. In addition, many workers would have large savings ("go to hell money"). Significant numbers would retire in their forties or fifties, cut back to part-time, or start businesses; with jobs competing for workers, the effect on bargaining power would be revolutionary. Not only would a significantly larger part of the labor force be self-employed or retired early, but those still working for others would keep a much larger portion of the value they produce. Regardless of the formal ownership of small and medium-sized businesses, many of them would be turned into de facto producers' co-ops because of the increased bargaining power of their workers.
Dave Sheridan,
As you point out, most markets are heavily cartelized. And, as you do not point out, the chief force behind that is state intervention in the market. Given the fact that most large corporations are state capitalist entities that owe their profits to government intervention, I don't believe the labor force of such large corporations is under any obligation to play nice by the Wagner Act rules.
Jumping through all the NLRB hoops in a "legal" strike is, indeed, a loser's game. It's pretty much a recipe for union-busting.
A much better alternative is the Wobbly tactics of direct action on the job. In today's climate, a legally announced strike is welcomed by most bosses as a golden opportunity for a lockout. But if workers stay on the job, there are a thousand opportunities every day for increasing costs and impairing efficiency, with virtually no chance of getting caught. The only thing that stops workers from doing these things, and forcing their employers deep into the red, is a little boss inside their heads--and it's time to kill that little guy off.
As out ancestors learned 200 years ago, when the enemy's regular army outnumbers you, asymmetrical warfare is the way to go. Examples:
1) unannounced one-day strikes at random intervals, so the bosses can't make plans to hire scabs;
2) a "good work strike": if you work in a restaurant, pile the plates high and figure the checks on the low side; if you work in a hospital with a sticker accounting system for patient supplies, throw the sticker away;
3) an "open mouth" strike: your boss' worst nightmare is for his employees and customers to see him as their common enemy. Use the press and use it heavily; and whenever you're talking to a customer you can trust, tell him all the company's dirt and encourage him to pass it on;
4) "work to rule" strike--follow to the letter all those irrational, bureaucratic rules the bosses have made. After all, they're bosses, so they must know best; you don't get paid to think, just to do what you're told. Using independent judgment or initiative would be insubordination, when you don't have the benefit of an MBA;
5) waste, waste, and more waste--they can't put a camera over every trash can, can they? And if you DO have to go on strike....
6) make sure the machines go on strike, too. Not much point hiring scabs THEN.
I don't condone violence at all, in a genuinely free market. But we don't have a free market. What we have is state capitalism, with massive government intervention on the side of employers, to make sure workers can't sell their labor in a free market. This is a war. And as Benjamin Tucker said over a century ago in reference to the Homestead stike, the bosses started the war. Let them stop their initiation of force through the state, and allow labor to sell its product in a free marketplace. Then, and only then, will I condemn violence by labor.
An interesting perspective from TCS suggests that is it not the strikers who are so much to blame, rather power hungry unions.
Interest rates don't get much lower than they are now, Kevin. I just refinanced my house at around 3%, and the finance charges are pretty low compared to the cost of the house. As interest rates dropped further, it would just drive the price of the house itself up (as has been happening already).
Furthermore, I'm not sure what regulations you're talking about the prevent people from issuing money. If I remember correctly, the only organizations prevented from issuing bank notes are banks themselves. You're advocating a sort of barter system, and to the best of my knowledge it's perfectly legal to issue a note against the value of your house to anyone willing to accept it. Of course, who would be? Not many people, not without the backing of a huge institution that can be held legally accountable and isn't likely to flee the country.
Further, all such systems benefit from concentration of capital. Banks are just that. No conglomoration of small lenders could compete with a huge company, it's pure fantasy.
We live in as free a labor market as is possible; I'd argue that the deck is stacked pretty heavily against corporations, even, and that labor enjoys far too many artificial protections.
Danny: No question about it. Most union people are decent folks, they're just being used by their leadership. Like the Palestinians, for example.