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Good News for Hyundai: It looks as if UAW workers are rejecting the proposed contract that would not-quite give Ford the same concessions the union gave GM and Chrysler. After all, Ford is still losing fewer billions than the other two were losing before the government helped them slash their debt in bankruptcy. So Ford clearly needs to be bled a bit more. The near-certain prospect that Ford will in response ship more work out of the country may not matter if you are a UAW veteran 2 years away from retirement. ... P.S.: Is Obama aide Austan Goolsbee's prediction--that saving Chrysler would cripple Ford's comeback attempt--coming true? ... [via TTAC] 5:41 P.M.
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Titans of Spin: Chickaboomer on CNN CEO Jon Klein's hypocrisy. (He used to think the 25-54 demographic segment that CNN's now losing was crucial.) ... Mediaite makes the same point--more respectfully, alas. ... P.S.: Remember what CBS veteran Bernard Goldberg said of his former colleague Klein:
"[A]t CBS news he had a reputation as the kind of guy who thought people who tell the truth do it mainly because they lack imagination.
5:40 P.M.
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Fisker also announces upcoming "Seppuku" two seater: Why would electric luxury car maker Fisker decide to build its new model in a UAW shop in Delaware that only recently turned out some of the least reliable cars GM made? TTAC suspects federal dirigisme. ... 5:39 P.M.
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I knew they'd find a way to punish Ford: The new UAW contract with Ford apparently does not give America's surviving non-bankrupt automaker parity with GM and Chrysler, reports Bloomberg: "The plan doesn’t include cuts to retiree benefits, such as vision coverage, that were granted to GM and Chrysler." Rather, the pain seems even more concentrated on future hires (if there are any) than with the GM/Chrysler deals. ... TTAC wonders whether the UAW had an extra incentive to resist giving concessions that might make Ford more successful now that the union owns a large chunk of its main domestic competitors. ... P.S.: The argument that "the day the union owns the firm is the day workers will need another union" has always seemed a bogus argument against worker ownership. But in this case, where the union actually owns only competing firms, maybe it's not so bogus. Ford, GM and Chrysler workers used to have more or less equal status within the UAW. Now the union has a reason to give GM and Chrysler an edge wherever possible. ... 5:39 P.M.
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One Too Many Cherubim: Blog commenter "Cherubim," who may or may not be Elizabeth Edwards, has resurfaced . She's still a big Michael Jackson fan. ... P.S.: I would say this cuts against the Daily News report that Cherubim = Elizabeth. But others disagree. ... P.P.S.: And yes, there is a Multiple Cherubim Theory. ... 4:52 P.M.
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Unions Bend the Curve! 'Card check' may be stalled in Congress, but Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo report that public employee unions are still successfully bankrupting states and cities. Highlights:
-- Unionization has bent the cost curve of government health benefits--in the wrong direction:
Under the brilliant leadership of Dennis Rivera, 1199 built a top-notch political operation, and with the hospitals, which were barred from political activity, formed a partnership to maximize the flow of government revenue. The union-hospital alliance has been so successful in aligning itself with politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, that not only has 1199 been largely untouched by the downturn, but New York spends as much on Medicaid as California and Texas combined. [E.A.]
That last sentence is stunning. Coming soon to a "public option" near you? ...
-- ACORN, not a straw man! According to Siegel and DiSalvo, it's becoming a real power in New York City thanks to its affiliation with the Working Families Party (WFP):
[T]he WFP is thriving while New York's Democrats atrophy. In last week's New York City primaries, WFP candidates for city council won easily, as did the party's candidates for the city's second and third highest offices: comptroller and public advocate. Those are the best platforms from which to make a run for mayor of New York City when Bloomberg finally gives up his throne.
-- Even Barry Bluestone--the leftish economist who was one of the first to spot the rise in income inequality--worries about the vast gap in the benefits public employees win and the vastly less lucrative benefits ordinary private sector workers get. Thanks in large part to public employee unions, Siegel & DiSalvo note, the price of state and local services is growing rapidly--41% from 2000-2008, vs. 27 percent for private services. Ordinary workers have to pay for them.
The justification for public sector unionism is way weaker than that for private sector unionism. "[Government] workers are not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of taxes," as former N.Y. Liberal Party leader Alex Rose puts it. And the right to strike, in the hands of key public unions, approaches a blackmail power. But the political strength of the unions is such that even most Republicans, at the state and local level, are scared to question them. They gelded Arnold Schwarzenegger. You want to be next? ... 4:39 P.M.
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Q.: Who would have been a more disastrous nominee for the Democrats: John Edwards or Bill Richardson? A: Edwards, but Richardson is giving him a run for his money. ... 5:12 P.M.
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Good for the Juice? The prospects for health care reform have been looking up. I've now seen it described by two separate non-complacent pundits as a "fait accompli." The only problem is this. That part's not still going so well! ... P.S.: I was going to write a post saying that Democrats in Congress are likely to ignore the polls (and the survivalist id those polls awaken) simply because they won't want to have to go through this whole tedious process again. Then I thought, have they really hated the process? Legislation like this is a good "juice" bill--it motivates all sorts of lobbyists--for insurers, hospitals, drug companies, unions--give a Congressman lots of money to try to make sure the fine print goes their way. Suddenly even backbenchers are worth millions. Meanwhile only a few Senators and Representatives have, so far, been put on the spot and forced to make difficult votes, no? Unless you are one of those unlucky pols (e.g., Blanche Lincoln) what's not to like?
Someone who knows more about the culture of Congress might be able to better answer that question: Is Congress hating the health care reform slog or happily wallowing in it? ... 12:07 A.M.
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Funding for 300 miles of actual (not "virtual") fence along the Mexican border appears to have been killed in a House-Senate conference, after the Senate voted for it 54-44. So Senators from California, Arizona and Texas get to say they voted for the fence, but it doesn't get built. That's how Kabuki is done! ... [Tks to alert reader M] 12:06 A.M.
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Bending the curve both ways: Obama is planning to require a "Project Labor Agreements" on big federal construction projects, which will force non-union workers "to pay union dues and pension contributions for which they likely will never receive benefits," complains the Washington Times. But if that's what "delivering" for labor comes to mean, we'll have gotten off easy. Really delivering for labor would be applying Davis-Bacon-style government-set "prevailing wage" requirements to, say, all health care workers who are paid with federal money, no? ... [via Going Rogue] 12:05 A.M.
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According to the WSJ account of CEO Fritz Henderson's conference call, New GM! is meeting its goals ... except for the one about getting people to buy its cars. (Matthew DeBord, please note.)
GM lost two percentage points of market share in the critical U.S. market. Mr. Henderson said GM's market share remains slightly ahead of the conservative estimates the company made early this year when laying out its restructuring. ... [snip]
Mr. Henderson faces intense pressure from GM's new chairman and the U.S. government--the company's new majority owner--to stem the sales slide and improve GM's financial performance.
The company has responded by getting rid of its sales chief (who had failed in his goal "to reverse the decline in GM's U.S. market share") and replacing him with a GM lifer--or as the Truth About Cars puts it, "a lifer [who] owes her career to the timid, inept culture Henderson is simultaneously a product of and ostensibly bent on breaking." She may have a short tenure. But the next exec to go is much more likely to be Henderson himself, as must be by now clear to everyone (including Henderson).
There's also this advance Thanksgiving card:
However, GM has about 10,000 more U.S. workers than it plans to have by the end of 2009 after buyout programs for hourly and salaried programs fell short. GM aims to have 64,000 workers and isn't as far along toward that goal as it expected by this point.
So they let Henderson take the bad press for the layoffs, then they fire him! The bad news goes out the door, and the new CEO gets to do something more popular. ... Maybe it really is all going according to plan.
P.S.: Ten thousand new layoffs would provide a test of whether Congress and the White House can refrain from intervening to stop them, I suppose. Wouldn't it be better for the UAW to take a small cut in hourly pay and save some of the jobs? And attract more production in the future? ... But I forget: Hourly pay cuts hurt all union members. Layoffs only hurt the laid off. If you are an elected UAW official, the course is clear. ... 6:50 P.M.
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What is wrong with our democracy that it is losing the service of legislative giants like Mel Martinez? We shall not see his like again. ... 8:56 P.M.
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Lots of fuss lately about Toyota's troubles. ... I suppose there are two ways to look at it. 1) See, even Toyota's in trouble! Hah! ...2) Toyota is panicking and taking corrective action while there is still time as opposed to the Detroit/UAW traditional method of one step (or two, or three) too late. ... P.S.: I'm not saying that this too-little-too-late phenomenon is built into Wagner Act unionism. ... Oh wait. That's exactly what I'm saying. The Wagner Act sets up a clunky, rule-bound bureaucacy of tooth-pulling negotiation--especially when it comes to administering pain--that wouldn't have worked even in the WWII era of massive industrial behemoths if we'd had any competition. It certainly won't work today. ...
Of course, GM once tried to set up a subsidiary with a less clunky, less rule bound bureaucracy--with flexible shifts and profit sharing but many fewer work rules, etc.. The UAW killed it, lest all those efficiency-enhancing innovations spread to other GM factories (where they might have, you know, saved GM). That wasn't what unionism was all about, argued the UAW traditionalists. They were right. Paul Ingrassia has the grim details. [via Hit & Run via Insta]
Update: Fire Mickey Kaus helpfully documents kf's decade-long record of "fact-free-speculation" eerie prescience regarding the Plot to Kill Saturn. ...
P.P.S.: The Next GM/Chrysler Bailout (#2): Pelosi seems to be on board! [Detroit News]
Pelosi said Democrats want automakers to "thrive," and she hasn't ruled out additional support for automakers if they show that they are "viable."
Here's a striking chart suggesting why Bailout #2 might be needed sooner rather than later. ...Toyota is down 19%. But GM is down 45%. ... [via TTAC]
Update: Big Money's Matthew DeBord argues that "signs are actually good" for Detroit's Big Three because "[a]ll are seeing their market share increase," He's apparently referring to this chart, which shows GM's share rising (from about 18.8 percent in July to 19.46 in August to 20.87 in September) while Ford and Chrysler are essentially flat, Unfortunately, many more people bought cars in the cash-for-clunkers months of July and August, when GM's share was down. It doesn't do much good to have impressive market share in September if the market is puny. When you add up all the good and bad months in 2009 to date, in fact, GM's share has fallen from 22.3 in 2008 to 19.6 in 2009. Chrysler's down from 11 to 9.2, Meanwhile, Ford rose from 14.2 to 15.2 (and in the most recent three months is up at 16.4). Honda has gained a tiny bit and Toyota's share is flat. None of that convinces me that "signs" are "good" for GM and Chrysler. (It is suprising that Toyota hasn't capitalized on their distress, which may explain this.) ...12:21 P.M.
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A big 10-pt jump in relative support of health care reform in Rasmussen's latest poll, which either says something about public opinion or something about Rasmussen. Either way, it's good for Obama, since Rasmussen has been the most pessimistic of the health care pollsters.** ... Maybe everyone is calming down as familiar, boring Senate moderates take center stage. ... P.S.: But the Rasmussen progress is hardly enough to pacify the throbbing Congressional id--health care reform still loses by a 50-46 margin. ...
**--Update: Until this grim new FOX poll.. ...12:20 P.M.
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Always trust content ... : kf readers are not surprised Gourmet magazine is dead.. They're surprised that Bon Appetit isn't. ... 12:19 P.M.
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The "man in charge of the [Chevy] Volt’s battery development and integration" is bailing out of General Motors "in the middle of [the Volt's] frenzied gestation." TTAC thinks it's a perverse side-effect of government intervention--with all the new federal electric car money sloshing around, and pay caps looming, it's more lucrative to be an independent "consultant." ... 5:35 P.M.
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Ben Sheffner says Gawker is "running a very risky business." Why? No libel insurance. ... 12:30 P.M.
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Bob Wright thinks the Web is the new God, in a particular sense. .... 1:37 A.M.
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Charles Lane argues that unions are now a "significant" impediment to "sensible health care reform" because of their tooth-and-nail fight against taxing "Cadillac" health plans. ... Even if you think (as I do) that the unions have a point when they argue they gave up wage increases in order to get lavish health benefits, isn't the answer to give them five years (or until their next contract negotiation) to rebalance the mix to what it would be in a world in which employer health benefits didn't go untaxed? ... If the problem for powerful unions is they no longer have quite the clout they used to have to extract wage increases in exchange for giving up "luxury" health benefits ... well, that's their problem. ...
P.S.: Lane also criticizes unions who support single payer but want to preserve their right to bargain for "supplemental" coverage.
Probably the only thing less likely to pass Congress than single-payer is single-payer with a layer of extra benefits for unions only.
Hmm. Why shouldn't unions, or anyone, be free to bargain for supplemental benefits**--at least for more treatments or services--on top of what's available in a single payer plan (as long as those benefits are taxed)? Lane seems to imply that the idea of single payer is that the government plan would have near-monopoly status--you take what it offers, and that's it. No adding on to the system for, say, cancer drugs the government's decided not to pay for.** If that's Lane's version of single-payer, I know a woman named Betsy who'd like to talk to him. ... 1:50 A.M.
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Whatever you think of the Polanski case, this is a good hed:
Free Roman Polanski! Demand Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen
1:51 A.M.
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Roger Simon says John Edwards could rehabilitate himself by becomng the "poster boy for tort reform," He forgot about the sex tape. ... 6:47 P.M.
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Jimmy Carter cites racism as anti-Obama factor. Instant reaction: Kiss of Death. Gift to the GOPs. Remember the Carter era of smug moralizing? Anyone want to go back to that? ... P.S.: A good example of how, if the MSM wants to tilt against the Republicans, it's often too wedded to its own conventions--e.g., the desire to 'make news' with an ex-Pres.--to be effective. ... No sophisticated campaign propagandist would say, "OK, let's throw Jimmy Carter at them. They'll be reeling!" ....6:42 P.M.
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Obama Overexposure Tour continues. ... Next: Bloggingheads? Mediaite Office Hours? 6:40 P.M.
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Jeffrey Lord gives a good description of the MSM Gatekeeper's Greatst Hits. Then he goes on and on. Makes Rabbi Saperstein look like Marcel Marceau. ...P.S.: Lord lays it on as if only conservative bloggers, etc, have been rebelling against Big Media. As if he wants a piece of the Mark Levin business. Depressing. ... [via Lucianne] 6:40 P.M.
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Why did the GOP lead in "generic" ballot evaporate on Rassmussen, even as Obama health bounce also vanished? Is the Joe Wilson heckle hurting? ... Could this be an example of a successful kamikaze-style attack? Wilson's "You lie" badly damaged its target (Obama has apparently now caved on the central issue of verifying legal status) but it also damaged Wilson. ... Except that it's not clear it damaged Wilson himself, reelection wise. It's his party that's maybe been hurt. "Kamikaze" isn't the right analogy. ... What's the word for a kamikaze attack in which the pilot survives but the carrier he took off from gets sunk? ... 6:23 P.M.
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Twitter is not @marcambinder's friend! It broadcasts his initial take--which is often 180 degrees wrong. Example #1: Twittering as if Obama would be mad at the networks that his off the record "jackass" comment leaked. #2: Twittering as if town hall rebelliousness would help the Dems. ... 6:09 P.M.
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That False Consciousness Keeps On Coming: Workers at Boeing factory vote to un-unionize. By secret ballot. ... Because when it comes to decertifying unions, union lobbyists insist on the sanctity of the secret ballot. ... 6:08 P.M.
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Jack Palance Plays Elmer Gantry: Andrew Breitbart + Good Haircut = Slightly Scary Rabble-Rousing Potential. ... 6:05 P.M.
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Gruesome new poll numbers on public support for unions--the percent who say they "mostly hurt"the U.S. economy jumps from 39% in 2006 to 51% last month, for example. .... Tom Edsall calls them "horror show numbers" and wants an explanation! Hmmm. I wish I could say "card check"--the labor plan to avoid secret ballots when organizing--but that isn't the most visible of the roles unions have played recently. The most visible would be 1) the auto industry, where the UAW helped bankrupt two of the Big Three and stuck taxpayers with the bill without even taking a cut in hourly pay, and 2) the public schools, which the teachers' unions have helped to degrade in a way that adversely impacts the lives of even affluent Dem yuppies (at least those with kids). ...It will be hard for me to avoid the Howell Raines Fallacy on this one: Once again the great and good American people have it right. ... P.S.: Polls like this aren't going to make it easy for the Senate to pass even a watered-down labor law "reform." Did the UAW kill "card check"? ... 8:56 P.M.
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Pull the Triggers: If you want to compromise on the public option, isn't the federalism route better than the currently much-discussed "trigger" approach? Triggers are complicated and subject to gaming. It's hard to see how they can even be drawn up fairly if nobody knows what to expect in a reformed health insurance market. But it's easy to say that 10 states can apply for federal funds to launch a public option. Or 20 states. Or 30. Even the most inept negotiators should be able to arrive at some number between 0 and 50. And then in a few years we'll have a better idea what the private insurers can accomplish on their own and what a public option adds. (The intra-state comparisons would also provide an incentive for the private insurers to behave.) ... Buried Lede: Rep. James Clyburn is talking about a federalist compromise. He's not Senator Snowe, but he's in the Dem House leadership. ... 9:30 P.M.
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kf is falling behind its self-imposed 15-items-per-week quota. ... Time to play catch-up!** ...
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Everyone hates the teachers' unions now. ... 5:42 P.M.
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I thought tomorrow was the ideal day to bury embarrassing news: "It was killed in Washington." 5:44 P.M.
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Fear of karmic retribution prevents me from quoting the unfortunately very funny part of this Pareene post. ... Update: Gore Vidal showed up yesterday at the Nixon library. So there. ... 5:45 P.M.
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Creepiest kicker of the week? Year? ....5:50 P.M.
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Jennifer Rubin spots K-Street Make-Work ... on her side of the cap-and-trade issue. ... P.S.: My old boss Charles Peters would say this scare-your-client/save your client theater is a form of "Washington Make-Believe"--and that, in Washington, "Make-Believe = Survival." ... I mean, imagine you're the poor lobbyist hired to fight "cap and trade" on behalf of industry. You've accidentally won, only 6 months into the administration. But you still have kids to put through college. What to do? ... 6:11 P.M.
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**-- If I start posting items from my twitter feeed you'll know things are really desperate. ...
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Harry Reid or Casey Jones? According to Roll Call, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is "sketching a process for railroading the [card check] bill through the floor as quickly as possible." And maybe not even the vaunted "compromise" card check bill, says Jennifer Rubin--she suggests some union leaders are holding out for allowing labor organizers to avoid secret ballots. ... Obviously this isn't legislation that holds up in public view for long, so the rush approach is strategically sound. But Reid sems like a deeply cynical operator. He apparently likes to engineer train wrecks. (Remember what happened to "comprehensive immigration reform"?) Is he really trying to ram this explosive bill through, or is he trying to demonstrate to labor that it can't be rammed through? ... I note that even Rubin, a congenitally optimistic they-don't-have-the votes card check foe, seems rattled. ... 1:54 P.M.
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Old Comeback: "I'd rather waitress."
New Comeback: "I'd rather have a seat in the European Parliament."
12:55 A.M.
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I'm sure the NYT has already assigned a top reporter to find out what Steve Rattner's old colleagues at Quadrangle think of him. Aren't you? ... 12:45 A.M.
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Postrel 1, Orszag 0: As originally presented, OMB Director Peter Orszag's vaunted "game-changers" were cost-saving changes to the entire health care system. The implication--in Obama's big February Congressional Address (and in Orszag's blog posts) was that you couldn't get the game-changing changes unless you had "comprehensive health care reform," including expansion of coverage to offer "quality affordable health care to every America," According to Obama
[I]t's a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come.
Along came Virginia Postrel, who noted in a blog post that if Orszag's changes were so great, why didn't he apply them to Medicare and Medicaid first? Orszag was concerned and conscientious enough to phone Postrel to defend himself. But now, with Orszag and Obama having wholeheartedly embraced the IMAC plan to cut Medicare expenses in the long run, hasn't Postrel's suggestion won out? IMAC appears to be restricted to recommending changes in Medicare, not the entire health delivery system.
That, of course, is a tacit admission that controlling the federal budget deficit by cutting Medicare and expanding non-Medicare health coverage are two separate policy initiatives--and that Obama was dissembling when he said, in his address, that you had to do both parts at once "to bring our deficit down." It looks like you could have an IMAC panel to cut Medicare costs and shrink the deficit without any of the rest of Obama's "comprehensive" reform, including universal coverage. Or you could have the rest of Obama's reform without the IMAC panel.
The connection between the two appears to be entirely political, and conjectural--the idea that either you need IMAC as a way to get Blue Dog votes for expanded coverage, and that only by offering an extension of coverage can you get the senior lobby (AARP) to go along with Medicare changes. Like so many "comprehensive" reforms, it's not an interlocking web of mutually dependent policy mechanisms so much as an interest-group sandwich.
If all you had to do is appease the Blue Dogs and AARP, the strategy might be sound. The problem is that the IMAC "game changer" scares the daylights out of lots of people, and adds to the ballast of the whole package with the general public. ... 12:41 A.M.
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GM's best cars--the Chevy Malibu, the forthcoming Buick LaCrosse and possibly the next Buick Regal--are all basically Opel designs. Yet GM is selling Opel. I don't get it. ... 12:35 A.M.
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Via Jennifer Rubin: "Card check"--allowing unions to avoid secret ballots--is now semi-officially out of the "card check" compromise bill. But the other sweeping structural change in the economy--allowing government "arbitrators" to set wages in the first union contract-is still in. The goal for unions is now to hide this "mandatory arbitration" provision and pretend that the fight was almost all about the defunct anti-secret ballot provision. The NYT's Steven Greenhouse, as usual, gives the unions what they want.
Opponents may need to come up with a new name for the bill (though "card check" is working pretty well for them). How about "federal pay determination"? Keep in mind that not only does the apparent "compromise" propose abandoning the hoary idea that wages should be set in the marketplace, it also abandons the New Deal's substitute idea that wages should be set in labor contest where unions threaten to use their strike power and management threatens to survive a strike. Unions seem to have given up strikes. Instead they want to authorize an official--maybe even an actual federal bureaucrat--to simply swoop down and impose what would undoubtedly be a wage increase. That's more akin to FDR's notorious, failed National Recovery Act--except the NRA at least let industries set their own rigid wage scales. ...
Note also that the arbitration provisions give now-unorganized workers a new, powerful incentive to unionize: Vote for the union, wait a few months, and an arbitrator will fly in and give you a raise. No strike. No fuss. No muss. ...
P.S.: Opponents also need to go on offense. ... 5:53 P.M.
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When Father Hesburgh throws down ... How can we know when the tide of respectable opinion has decisively turned against the teachers' unions? When a panel that includes Father Hesburgh, Birch Bayh,. Bill Bradley, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Roger Wilkins goes medieval on them, saying their resistance to reforms designed to hold schools accountable has hurt "disadvantaged students" and led to "calcified systems in which talented people are deterred from applying or staying as teachers ..."
Here are two undiplomatic grafs from the report's final page:
The unions have battled against the principle that schools and education agencies should be held accountable for the academic progress of their students. They have sought to water down the standards adopted by states to reflect what students should know and be able to do. They have attacked assessments designed to measure the progress of schools, seeking to localize decisions about test content so that the performance of students in one school or community cannot be compared with others. They have resisted innovative ways-such as growth models-to assess student performance.
In their attack on education reform, the national unions have often been unconstrained by considerations of propriety and fairness. They have sought to inject weakening amendments in appropriations bills, hoping that they would prevail if no hearings were held and the public was unaware of their efforts. They have used the courts to launch an attack on education reform, employing arguments that could imperil many federal assistance programs going back to the New Deal. They have failed to inform their own members of the content of federal reform laws.
The report follows up a much heralded establishment call for reform in 1996 that was endorsed by two union presidents. But it notes that in the twelve years since, "few of the necessary reforms" have been put in place. ("Twelve years--the entire length of a child's education--is a long time.") In other words, it implicitly serves as an argument against trying to reform the schools in cooperation with the unions, and in favor of trying to reform the schools by defeating the unions. ...1:48 A.M.
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The Grander Bargain: Hmmm. The SEIU, a major proponent of "card check" labor law revision, has also been attacking moderate Dems on health care:
In recent weeks, liberal bloggers and grass-roots groups such as MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Service Employees International Union and Progressive Change Campaign Committee have targeted Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Arlen Specter (Pa.), Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). [E.A.]
Does this hurt the SEIU's "card check" push by annoying the very moderate Dem Senators they must convince in order to get a pro-labor compromise passed? Or does it help the union, which can now say "Sen. Landrieu--if you vote for card check we'll give you a pass on health care and stop attacking you"? It's a form of leverage, after all. And it's leverage that's unavailable to the SEIU on the "card check" issue itself: It's not as if the union could run an ad attacking moderate Dems for failing to embrace "card check," which is hard to defend in public. ....
Bonus question: Does the possibility of trading some health care provisions for card check in some sort of gruesome grand bargain help or hurt Obama, assuming he cares a lot more about health care than card check? ... I guess if you think left-wing pressure for a public plan is hurting his health care effort, then it arguably helps--the unions and "progressive" Senators can be bought off with card check, freeing up moderate senators to vote for, say, a health bill with a weak public option without fear of provoking serious (non-Kabuki) opposition. ....If you think the left wing union and grass roots pressure is helping Obama, because he really wants to push the "moderates" into a plan they might not otherwise like, then arguably it will hurt him, because if the SEIU gets mollified on card check the pressure on health care will let up. ... Of course there may be other, more important factors at work, like the extent to which unions are enabled to organize in the new, more heavily regulated health care sector. ... [Thanks to reader J.] 5:48 P.M.
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Whippersnappers Over the Hill: A new publication promises to be like "The Awl with a younger focus." Ha. Choire Sicha is already past it. ... Next, Ezra Klein takes WaPo early retirement. ... Update: Sicha emails: "Dude, I am 37! I am TOTALLY OLD." Who knew? Keep rockin' ... 5:46 P.M.
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According to National Review's impressive indictment, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill has this payoff for organized labor:
Projects receiving grants and financing under Waxman-Markey provisions will be required to implement Davis-Bacon union-wage rules, making it hard for non-union firms to compete - and ensuring that these "investments" pay out inflated union wages. And it's not just the big research-and-development contracts, since Waxman-Markey forces union-wage rules all the way down to the plumbing-repair and light-bulb-changing level.
Stick the equivalent provision in a health care bill--requiring government-administered union wages for hospital janitors and uniform-launderers as well as nurses--and you can kiss Obama's curve-bending health-care cost-savings goodbye. ... [Thanks to reader A.] 1:42 A.M.
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"Half the U.S. servicemen in Nam lost their virginity there ..."
My BS Detector begin to vibrate and yelp at that sentence in Slate's hit-grabbing Asian babe piece. I understand that the sexual histories of those who went to Vietnam did not necessarily replicate the experiences of my friends, most of whom avoided the draft and went straight to college. Still, I'm skeptical. ... P.S.: The piece reminded me of the NYT "ethics" column in which the normally permissive Randy Cohen suddenly turned on a seemingly innocent questioner:
I'm a white male, straight, and I'm attracted to Asian women. It's a simple question of the sort of look that I find physically attractive. Recently, an Asian friend of mine (male) confided that he found my dating patterns offensive. Am I being racist, or does he have some issues of his own? --Anonymous
Here's what this is not: a simple question about looks. Here's what it is: racism, albeit not in a malicious form. ... [snip] Race is a cultural construct, a set of ideas. Before you try to date Michelle Yeoh, or Margaret Cho, or Madame Chiang Kai-shek, think a little harder about what those ideas are, about what you mean by "Asian."
O-kay! And ... huh? ... I claim the cracked, unexplained out-of-the blue severity of Cohen's response was echoed effectively in the second item of this Steve Martin parody (which was funnier when it didn't have a bright green background). ... 1:05 A.M.
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The U.A.W., now a major GM shareholder, has delivered its final punishment to those auto workers who dared move to Spring Hill, Tennessee and show up the rest of the union by building reliable car without Wagner-style work rules. GM's new small car will be made in Michigan, and the Spring Hill plant will close. .... P.S.: Nikke Finke has a better chance of making money producing this car than GM does. ... 3:52 P.M.
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South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, who would succeed Mark Sanford should Sanford resign, needs to update his web site! His blog still has Sanford "hiking along the Appalachian Trail" (though Bauer is waiting for "a more definitive idea of what part of the Trail he was on"). ... P.S.: With his campaign to allow "I Believe" license plates, Bauer seems ripe for liberal mockery. And even papers that have demanded Sanford's resignation don't seem to have much confidence in him. The Spartanburg Herald Journal, after calling for Sanford to step down, writes:
“South Carolinians cannot be sure that Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has the capability to lead the state in this recession. They can only hope that he will be up to the task.“
They can pray! ... Update:
"He’s an attractive, conservative Republican, single, straight — and he has a lots of attractive women that want to be his friend on his public Facebook and MySpace page," said [Bauer strategist Chris] LaCivita. "What’s their complaint? I’ll tell you — they're jealous."
1:46 P.M.
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Wagner Act Unionism is bringing its benefits to the Bay Area, where the BART transit system may go on strike despite having negotiated what seem to be generous wages and benefits:
A top-scale station agent and top-scale train operator each make $30.01 per hour, $62,860 a year, in base pay. The transit system also pays 100 percent of the so-called employee contribution toward pensions — an amount equivalent to 7 percent of a salary — though many other California public agencies require workers to pick up some or all of that contribution toward their state pensions.
Overall, BART employees - including managers and hourly workers - get average total annual pay of $71,633, including overtime, and BART picks up an average of $48,000 a year for each worker's benefits, the transit system said.
Workers contribute $81.90 a month toward medical insurance.
But for all that the taxpayers get a finely-wrought mesh of work rules:
Antiquated work rules hurt BART finances by ramping up overtime, BART officials said.
They point to rules requiring that two workers remove seat covers and backing for cleaning. A utility worker unsnaps the cushion. A journeyman mechanic is called in to remove two screws for the seat backing.
Among cleaning crews, a worker in one job classification cleans inside stations and another worker in another classification cleans outside the roof line of stations.
This isn't an example from the 1950s. It's an example from this week. Why would anyone fail to support a "card check" reform designed to encourage the spread of these practices? They worked in Detroit, right?...
Update: Here is a searchable database of BART salaries. ... It's the #1 most-viewed page in the Contra Costa Times at the moment, so it might be slow to load. ... 2:02 P.M.
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First hit, best hit. ... 8:36 P.M.
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Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center reports that Sen. Baucus
is floating the following trial balloon: Congress would fund fund part of health reform with a cap on the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored health insurance but only at a level "significantly above" the cost of the standard plan offered to federal employees. The measure would also exclude policies bargained under current union contracts. ... [E.A.]
Why exclude policies negotiated by unions but not policies negotiated by individuals? Politics, I assume. Unions wouldn't stand for anything else. Fine. But here's the thing--the provision appears to be more than a simple "grandfather" clause that protects current union contracts. A kf source says that the new tax will not take effect until 2013. Does this mean that labor contracts agreed on between now and that date would also be protected? If so, Baucus has just given a big tax incentive for workers--perhaps encouraged by labor signature collectors under a "card check" bill--to form unions and bargain for lavish health benefits that will then be exempted from his tax on lavish benefits. Join a union, get a tax break! (A break the rest of us would have to pay for). ... If Dems start lavishing IRS advantages on union members, maybe organized labor won't even need the "card check" bill to reverse its declining membership numbers. ... 9:53 P.M.
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Mitosis in the Faster Electorate: Conor Friedersdorf notices that the fast twitter-driven news out of Iran has divided his fellow citizens and friends into two groups: 1) Those who keep up to the second with what is happening and how the U.S. should react; and 2) Those who take the weekend off and only know the vaguest details (i.e. " that Ahmadinejad won"). I'd say that Friedersdorf has stumbled upon Jerry Skurnik's "Theory of the Two Electorates"--except it's a peculiarly accelerated version of the Skurnik theory, because Friedersdorf's two groups are both made up of people who would normally be part of the better informed of Skurnik's two electorates:
And those out of the know? They aren't any longer just grandmothers, the apolitical, and the middle manager in Scranton who gets all his news at 11 o'clock after the game. Now people who watch The Daily Show, subscribe to The New Yorker, and read the CNN subtitles as they run on the 24 Hour Fitness treadmill possess radically less information than a self-selecting group of their fellow citizens, granting that they mostly catch up on any given piece of information in a matter of days.
Will this make a difference, Friedersdorf asks?
Are we approaching a point where political information is processed so fast that an event happens, information elites weigh in to shape the discourse surrounding it, the conventional wisdom is communicated to Congress, and elected leaders formulate reactions based on public opinion... all before most of even the formerly plugged in members of the public ever learn what on earth is going on, or have a chance to form an opinion?
I could see Congress, spooked by twitter, overreacting in this fashion--if, say, a draft of Senator Baucus' health care plan comes out that displeases the left, which reacts by shutting down various switchboards before the David Broders of the world can even get to their typewriters keyboards. ... It's hard to believe it will have an effect on official U.S. Iran policy.** (Friedersdorf agrees.)
Of course, to the extent it does empower Friedersdorf's first group, including the fastest bloggers, it would empower Andrew Sullivan-- which (as Obama has learned) is always a dangerous thing. ...
**--That doesn't mean it hasn't had a big effect on the events in Iran itself--the events that the U.S. government must react to--or on the unofficial reaction of American activists to those events. ... 8:53 P.M.
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Alert reader J: "Interesting that the WaPo could write an entire article on the decline of public housing in NYC without ever mentioning the words "ACLU," "liberalism," and "Lindsay." [Link added] ... True! The piece--on Sotomayor's childhood--makes it seem as if the projects were just suddenly swamped by waves of drugs ("Then heroin surged through the projects ... Then came crack ...") as opposed to, say, an increasingly concentrated culture of fatherless dependence in which drug users and dealers and gang members couldn't be evicted because of misguided due process concerns about deprivation of "new property"! ... (I remember an excellent piece by WaPo's Blaine Harden on the difficulty of evicting bad actors from housing projects, but haven't been able to find it.). ...
P.S.: The Post's Robin Shulman does mention that in 1981 Congress "changed eligibility rules to give preference in public housing to the poorest households," which had the perverse effect of intensifying the culture of poverty by excluding middle class and working class tenants. But Shulman doesn't make that point--instead quoting an expert who simply says the change made public housing the "housing of last resort." And that was a problem because ...? ... 8:21 P.M.
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Matt Cooper calls "the idea that that the Clintons were unwilling to take half-a-loaf" on health care "total revisionism." Hmm. It sure seemed that way at the time! ... P.S.: Unless Cooper's talking about a specific early-on period when the Clinton plan was first being produced--he uses the vague qualifier "back then" .... 7:32 P.M.
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Obama vs. Slate: Obama cites "medical errors that lead to 100,000 lives lost unnecessarily in our hospitals every year." [E.A.] Walter Olson smells BS, and cites a Slate article to back him up. ... 7:25 P.M.
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The NYT's David Leonhardt punctures General Motors' comic overoptimism, but in at least one respect seems to share it. He asserts that, as part of the bailout/bankruptcy deal ,
Orwellian work rules that sapped productivity and creativity have been removed.
Really? Here's the concession agreement between GM and the UAW. This is what looks like the relevant provision on work rules:
Work Practices
The National Parties discussed locations that haven't reached new local agreements and those that have ratified local agreements, but haven't achieved General Motors' 2007 competititve operating agreement rating of ninety-three (93) percent or more. Those locations that currently have ratified local agreements that meet the rating will not be subject to the following:
As soon as practicable, but within thirty (30) days of ratification, the National Parties will assist and engage the locations with the implementation of modifications, comparable to General Motors' 2007 competitive operating benchmark, needed to achieve a minimum ninety three (93) percent rating. Additionally, the aforementioned locations efforts to achieve the goal will be completed as soon as possible, but no later than December 31, 2009.
The National Parties will be responsible to review the progress of each location every thirty (30) days to ensure compliance by the completion date.
Maybe all these words have meaning to insiders that's not apparent to outsiders. But it sure looks like 1) Some union locals are holdouts in GM's campaign to get rid of inefficient work rules. (The power of union locals, even in the face of the UAW national leadership, has always been a problem when it comes to streamlining work practices); 2) Under the new agreement, the work rules haven't "been removed." Rather, the parties have pledged to complete the tooth-pulling process of negotiating their demise by the end of the year. It's a target, not a fait accompli. And what happens if that target isn't reached (as, apparently, the earlier targets weren't reached)? The deal doesn't say. ...
P.S.: Note that the agreement doesn't commit plants that have achieved the 93% "rating" to making further improvements. One big secret of Toyota's success, of course, is that its factories are continually looking for "modifications" that further increase productivity, without worrying about whether those modifications violate "local agreements." Standing pat at 93%, whatever it means, doesn't seem like the way to beat Toyota.
P.P.S.: Leonhardt also writes:
G.M. cars haven't been as good as their rivals. If you've ever experienced the joy of being told that your rental car is a Toyota Corolla rather than a Chevrolet Impala, you know this.
I dunno. I think I'd rather have an Impala, assuming costs are equal. It's a bigger, more luxurious car. It's not going to break down during a brief rental! It's just not a car you'd buy for yourself. ... If Leonhardt had compared the Corolla with its actual same-size GM competitor, the unpleasant Chevy Cobalt, he'd have an unassailable point. ... 1:25 A.M.
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Chrysler Bailout is "capitalism at work," writes private equity macher Scott Sperling in the WSJ. Here are some of the more questionable sentences in his essay:
Without a drastic restructuring neither Chrysler nor GM would have a chance for long-term success ...
These decisions include "right sizing" industry capacity by cutting many union and white-collar jobs and closing numerous manufacturing plants and dealerships; making the unions accept lower wages and benefits so that these companies can compete ... [E.A]
The cuts current union members were forced to accept were not impressive. Before the deal, Chrysler's UAW workers made $28 an hour. After they deal, they'll make $28 an hour. They gave up a scheduled increase in wages, plus a couple of scheduled bonuses. That explains why Chrysler's Belvidere, Illinois workers told TV station WIFR that "the plan is not nearly as drastic as they expected." ...
As for Chrysler's "chance for long-term success," it appears vanishingly small. Italian manufacturer FIAT is supposed to save Chrysler with new products, but according to a recent Automotive News article, "four of the six new vehicles from Fiat will enter the small-car segment," which is highly competitive but "covers only 14 percent of the entire U.S. light-vehicle market."
"The volumes need to be big for Chrysler to survive," [market analyst Tracy Handler] said. "Will they be? I have doubts about that."
See also this BBC article ("it's madness"). Pathetically, Chrysler hopes that even if they don't save the company the new small cars will "[b]urnish the environmental image of Chrysler brands," says Automotive News. Unfortunately, the pipeline for those brands' other, larger, products--burnished or not--is pretty much empty.
If Chrysler workers were paid, say, not $28 an hour instead of $24--still not bad--the firm might actually have a "chance for long term success" through charging lower prices. But that wasn't a sacrifice Obama was ready to ask (even if Belvidere workers were apparently willing). ...
Final obvious point: I don't want to sound like Veronique de Rugy here, but who will pay the price if when this half-baked "restructuring" fails? In normal "capitalism at work," those who would pay the price will be those who made the deal and put up their money--the capitalists. (Query: Would Scott Sperling invest his firm's money in this dubious proposition?) If When Obama's plan fails, the monetary loss will fall not on Obama, but on the taxpayers. It will likely be made up somehow by the taxpayers (via higher tax assessments or inflation). That's not "capitalism at work." It's something else at work. But I'd be all for it, if I thought it really would work. It won't, and it will be Obama's fault. (He'd certainly get credit if it succeeded.) ... 6:05 P.M.
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Buried Lede of the Day: Thomas Edsall, summarizing a new Pew poll, notes the Dems have gained some support recently! While Republicans have lost ground! And voters care more about the economy than "moral values."
We knew that. What we maybe didn't know is this:
Conversely, public support for labor unions appears to be weakening: the percentage of people agreeing that "labor unions are necessary to protect the working person," has dropped from 74 percent at the start of this decade to 61 percent this year. The decline was sharper --- from 76 to 53 percent, a 23 point fall -- among independent voters than among either Democrats or Republicans. [E.A.]
Some 61% say labor unions are "too powerful," a big jump from 52% in 1999. ... Support for unions, says Pew, is at an "all-time low.". ... Also, perhaps counter-intuitively, "'the overall balance of public opinion on the government's responsibility to provide for the needy has shifted to the right' despite the onset of a severe recession." This rightward movement appears to be the result of growing fear among the above $75K set (a big set) that the poor have become too dependent on government programs. ...
Hmmm. Democratic. But skeptical of unions. And worried about welfare dependence. ... What kind of Democrats are these? ... 6:04 P.M.
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Arianna's secret weapon: Are you running a political site and worried about reversing the "inevitable post election traffic decline"? Arianna Huffington has the solution. ...
There are things Don Graham won't do, and this is probably one of them. Which is why Huffington Post will always have an edge on WaPo (and the rest of the MSM). She's not scared to go there. ... 5:49 P.M.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
John Podhoretz's analysis of the New Newsweek's doomed daring market strategy seems near-definitive, but guilty of second-degree reification:
[P]artisanship is the hallmark of the opinion journal–not necessarily of the variety that would lead to support for one political voting faction over another, but in the sense that serious journals of opinion stake claim to a side of the ideological divide and then defend its base and attack outward at the other camp. This is what gives them their fire, their vim, their vigor, their reason for being.
Why couldn't you have an opinion journal in which the various sides vimmily and vigorously attacked each other? Come to think of it, The New Republic in its Kinsley/Hertzberg glory days was famously schizo, no? ... But I agree that in today's market such an opinion magazine may be even less likely than a partisan magazine (Rushweek) to sell a million copies. ... 1:18 P.M.
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" ... will study anything to get me out of this f---ing profession for a year." Am I crazy or are the Nieman study subjects even more BS-y than usual? ... 1:05 P.M.
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009
This is no time to start relying on the LAT: The Times' Tom Hamburger writes a virtual post-mortem on card check (" 'We were outspent, outhustled and outorganized,' said one chagrined union advisor ..."). The only problem is that card check isn't dead. In fact, you could argue that the LAT is all too characteristically out of synch here--printing this 'how business did it' piece just when an almost-as-bad-as-the-original compromise is being floated. ....
P.S.: One part of the currently-floating "compromise" would apparently allow workers to unionize if 50% of them mailed in ballots, as opposed to letting union organizers turn in signed cards. This is supposedly "takes away the harassment issue,"according to Sen. Harkin. But if union organizers can distribute the ballots, watch the ballots being signed and collect the ballots for mailing, I don't see where the potential for harrassment has been much reduced. [Why isn't this harrassment potential present in any mail-in balloting procedure, even in presidential elections?--ed Who said it isn't? Despite warnings. ... But people are much better able to resist pressure a) when it's a big, community-wide election that everyone knows is going on, with a tradition of respecting voter independence; and b) when, if they piss off some thuggish organizers (or businesses), it's not going to affect them where they earn their money. I'd be a whole lot more worried about annoying the Teamsters union if it tried to organize my workplace than about annoying ACORN if it tried to collect mail-in ballots on my block.] ...
P.P.S.: Note that Hamburger scrupulously observes the artificial MSM convention that venerates judgments about process in order to banish judgments about substance. The one thing the LAT will never write (if the time comes) is that "card check" failed because it sucks. It's an antidemocratic idea and unions were arrogant in their desperation to push it. In the LAT, if it fails, it will be because the "business groups" out-organized labor groups. ... 11:22 P.M.
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If we're entering an era of politicized media, where you can't count on the NYT to sabotage Obama any more than you can count on the Manchester Union Leader to trash Ronald Reagan, how is the public going to learn the truth (aside from reading more than one paper)? One way is by encouraging news organizations to require reporters to write regular columns like this, where they detail the controversies in which they think their side has its facts wrong. ... If Kos can do it, anyone can. ... [This is constructive and solution-oriented. You OK?-ed I need a think-tank job.] 11:20 P.M.
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One Way Streets Save Energy! Obama has "a healthy disdain for the overrated virtue of political loyalty," writes Jacob Weisberg. Well, I'm convinced he has a healthy disdain for the idea that he should be loyal to subordinates who are no longer "useful," as Weisberg's examples demonstrate. Where's the example of Obama's healthy disdain for the idea that subordinates should be loyal to him? .... 11:13 P.M.
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