Take That

Some might remember the lawsuit on behalf of workers at IBM. They were in salaried positions and not given overtime pay despite all the overtime work they do. The trick was that in order to be in this category, one has to be categorized like management and these workers aren't.

So the lawsuit was "won" and now IBM has moved to cut the base pay of these computer technicians by 15% (IBM Cuts Technicians' Base Pay After Lawsuit). The company claims that workers will make up the difference through overtime pay. The only way to counter this kind of backhanded slap is through organizing.

Tapeworm in the Belly of the Working Class

Company unions were formally outlawed in the United States in 1935 with the National Labor Relations Act. But this is a legal formality, and today company unions are again a dominant force in oppressing the working class and preventing them from having their own, independent organizations. As long as this situation persists, workers cannot expect their lot to improve.

Ron Gettelfinger (head of the most important company union in the U.S. – if not the world) just spoke up after a long period of silence (UAW Sees Big 3 Saving $1,000 a Car). The silence was due to the nasty concession contract he forced upon autoworkers in the fall. The rank and file were riled up from that vote, so it was best to let that settle down before saying anything.

But time has passed, and Gettelfinger and the union brass have their loyalties. Now, he proudly brags about how he has single-handedly cut the standard of living for workers everywhere: "the union's new labor contract with Detroit's Big Three auto makers should save the trio about $1,000 a car built in the U.S." (Are car prices suddenly dropping by that much?) He is proud of having let GM cut its workforce, putting workers out of their jobs. And, of course, his "decent relationship" with Cerberus founder Stephen Feinberg means that workers at Chrysler can expect more attacks soon.

The large 'No' votes on the auto contracts didn't come out of nowhere. There are workers, including those who've already faced Delphi, willing to organize against the concessions. Statements like these from Gettelfinger make it clear that the struggle continues.

Don't Mind the Man Behind the Curtain

The class nature of the legal system is brought into stark relief in the case of Lockheed workers whose case has now be kiboshed: Conflict of interest tanks worker's case. The majority of judges on the California Supreme Court have stock in oil companies and thus had to recuse themselves from this case. The remaining judges, instead of bringing in temporary judges, decided not to hear it. Case closed, sorry about your medical bills, now go home and shut up.

Many are happy to provide solutions to this situation. The primary suggestion from analysts and editorialists is to have the judges keep their investments in a blind trust. In other words, to hide their wealth from them, but more importantly from the public. This doesn't change the fact that these judges are members of the elite, benefiting from the misery of workers like those at Lockheed. But it does have the effect of illusion, making it look like these judges are neutral. And in the end, this is what most interests the ruling class.

Priorities and Motives

Hanlon's Razor, or "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity", is perhaps the most insidious and disgusting excuse of our time. It proposes a dichotomy between conspiracy theory and buffoonery, when the reality is that neither is culpable. It allows people to dismiss, off-hand, others as "conspiracy theorists" while appealing to their own sense of intellectual superiority. A good economist will tell you to look at motive and incentives, and in turn this should be enough to understand most situations.

Los Angeles public transit is riddled with so many holes and inefficiencies that a common saying here is "there is no public transit". An article in the Daily Breeze explores one of those holes – a Green Line that stops two miles from LAX (The mystery of the Green Line).

Early on in the article, a former councilwoman is quoted paraphrasing Hanlon's Razor, thus setting the tone. Fortunately, the article goes on to show the motivated interests involved and why we still have no direct connection to the third busiest airport in the United States.

One guilty party is LAWA, whose own lack of interest in the project has most certainly contributed to it never getting off the ground. Nominally, they supported the LAX-Green Line link, but "the support didn't go very deep". Whether to attribute it to parking fees or property concerns, it is clear that their material interests have conflicted with building the link. LAWA is an entity large and important enough to pressure local government if they so wished.

The Transportation Commission must take the rest of the blame. Unfortunately, the article does not go into details about who was on the committee and what their own possible interests might have been. In any case, the panel's initial motive was to serve a larger business community (El Segundo, at that time), which already tells the reader that pandering to business was more important than public service. And, of course, since no one was willing to fight for more funds to serve both ends, the public still loses.

Welfare Mothers Make Better Lovers

Fascinating research article over at Japan Focus, Single Mothers and Welfare Restructuring in Japan: Gender and Class Dimensions of Income and Employment. Apparently statistical analysis in Japan in about a century behind the rest of the industrialized world, as this study is the first to actually break out an analysis of single mothers.

Single mothers in Japan have the highest rate of workforce participation in the world (87%), yet struggle to make ends meet as the average salary is 2.2 million yen per year (c.f., 5.9 million for married fathers and 7.8 million when both parents work). The article explores the differences that come from the class of the mother, derived from their educational background. Overwhelmingly, single mothers in Japan are more likely to have less education, and in turn more difficulty getting a "permanent" position. This contradicts the "conventional wisdom" that divorce rates in Japan have been increasing as women become more educated and financially independent. On top of this, single mothers in Japan are much less likely to receive child-care assistance from relatives as compared to the U.S. and U.K. (only 12%).

The article points out one particularly interesting correlation that still needs to be studied. In Japan, the divorce rate and men's unemployment rate map quite closely. The chart is here: Trends in Japan's divorce rate and men's unemployment rate.

A notable aside from the article: the Japanese government does not maintain an official poverty rate. They maintain a count of the people who have received public assistance (生活保護 seikatsu hogo), but that statistic certainly leaves quite a few people falling between the cracks.

Hitting People In The Gut

Recent research examined the cost per calorie of the food available here in America, A High Price for Healthy Food. The result is not only that junk food is much cheaper – $1.76 per 1000 calories versus $18.16 per 1000 calories for nutritious food &ndash but also that inflation is much higher on nutritious foods. The price of healthy food increased by 19.5% during the two-year study. In the same period, junk food prices dropped by 1.8%.

A doctor who led the study summarized the results quite well: "Vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods."

And throughout the world, where junk food isn't yet as readily available, people are facing a similar problem – World Food Supply Is Shrinking, U.N. Agency Warns. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization's food price index increased more than 40% over the previous year. And last year's increase had already been 9% over the previous year. Storage supplies are dwindling for all varieties of staples.

The article attempts to put much of the blame on global warming. In some sense, this begins to explain why it is that governments are now being vocal about climate change – it makes an excellent scapegoat. The article avoids a serious discussion of food speculation, which has been egged on by pushing crops into biofuel creation. It also avoids any discussion of the agricultural industry, which favors monocultures that are highly vulnerable to changes in conditions as well as dependent upon fertilizer imports and continual seed purchases.

Research of historical peasant conditions demonstrates that droughts don't kill people, the concentration of food wealth to a centralized elite does. Famine can only happen in an isolated bubble, and under modern conditions, this isolation is imposed upon people. There has not been a shortage of food for at least a couple hundred years, simply a refusal to redistribute food to meet human needs.

Limbo Lower Now

The article Guantanamo suicide attempt confirmed reports on a man held at Guantanamo who tried to kill himself with his own fingernail. Guards stepped in and "saved" him.

This speaks volumes. How depraved must conditions be to drive someone to such lengths? How low must humanity sink?

Humane Inhumanity

Dark humor and irony abound in today's L.A. Times article, A fence without offense. It deals with the difficulty of building a border fence that doesn't offend the sensibilities of our rabid racists and imperialists. "They want to make it seem like you could shake hands through the fence," said Peter Andreas.

The fence must be formidable but not lethal; visually imposing but not ugly; durable but environmentally friendly; and economically built but not flimsy.

This is the U.S. today, where people can be concerned about an eco-friendly torture device. They can want to intimidate workers into taking lower wages, but not have to face the reality of it when looking out their backyards. The ruling class needs to divide people in a violent manner, but there is a benefit to pretending that the violence isn't there. "Other countries are a lot more into intimidation," he said. "This is the only humane border fence being constructed."

There is nothing humane in oppressing another people. That doesn't mean that industries cannot be built around trying to convince people otherwise.

It's All Your Fault

The L.A. Times has a cover article devoted to explaining how we will be responsible if the economy tanks. Consumers' free-spending ways face obstacles breaks down some of the numbers that have been crunching working people while speculating wildly about where the economy is going, mostly trying to say that things should be fine.

The real zinger is at the end of the article:

"Predicting a recession is pretty simple. Since consumer spending is 70% of the economy, if we become cautious and close our wallets, then we go into a recession,"

So, economic crises are not the stuff of speculation and over-production. The housing market bubble, which was fueled not simply by sub-prime mortgages but by high-end residential investments, won't have anything to do with it. The higher prices people are paying for food because that industry has found an opportunity to gouge working people with the excuse of ethanol won't be at fault. It will be because silly people get nervous and spend their money on food ...

Wal-Mart said its customers were spending more on lower-margin items such as food and less on clothes and other higher-margin goods.

Don't worry, Congress is already hard at work trying to make sure that hedge fund managers don't get hurt by our fickle buying habits.

Terrorist Attack in the Heartland

Two weeks ago, terrorists struck New York City. No one was too surprised, as it is New York City, after all. But yesterday terrorists struck Minneapolis, collapsing a major bridge that's responsible for 200,000 cars a day. At this point, only 9 people have died, and there is no clear number on the injuries.

But these aren't the terrorists that the media keeps warning us about. These are not the terrorists who come from a foreign country or "foreign" religion to wage war against a nation which has devastates their economy and people daily. These are the terrorists that sit on city and county governing bodies, deciding to cut funding to basic infrastructure and deny necessary maintenance. These are the terrorists who make the conscious decisions to undermine public health and safety by closing down hospitals. These are the terrorists that, despite record profits and booming economies, see the need to keep the corporations in power even more firmly entrenched in power down to every last penny.

Reports by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 2001 indicated problems with the bridge, particularly with steel joints because of "unanticipated out of plane distortion" of girders. The report also noted a lack of redundancy in the main truss system, indicating that a single point of failure could collapse the bridge. A 2005 report recommended replacement of the bridge, though the decision was made to avoid that option.

Even if this collapsed bridge on the I-35W turns out to be a fluke, it remains emblematic of the collapsing infrastructure all around us. The ruling class is carrying out a war, and they don't care who the casualties are.