What's Obama's vision for American capitalism?

"What we want to create is a race to the top where, because of a strong regulatory framework, the free market can still operate effectively and there's still innovation and dynamism and creativity -- all of the things that have made America great -- but that it's happening with some rules of the road so that things don't spin out of control." - From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Hm.

Tenets of a just economic system in an ideal world

These are thoughts.

1. Freedom to create and pursue what one wishes to create and pursue, within limits.

2. Limits based on whether or not a product or enterprise inhibits another person's capacity to create in pursuit of their own livelihood.

3. Sustainability with zero exceptions. All products must be entirely recyclable (as opposed to "downcyclable") or biodegradable. All energy used in production must be renewable.

New tack: African-Americans and Empowerment

Starting with the tone of the lyrics of "Darlin' Cora" (previous blog entry), I would like to examine empowerment in the workplace for African-Americans compared to white and/or other folks of color, and possibly how it has changed over time. I will take several angles, beginning with an examination of the presence of African-Americans in managerial or supervisory positions relative to their percentage of the population at large. I would guess they are not proportionally represented. I also hope to examine their presence in unions, and roles in union leadership. I would like to document these things both at the height of the civil rights movement and today.

Key data: BLS

The Struggle for Employment Equity for Blacks on American Railroads

Race disparities in health among older adults: examining the role of productive engagement Good paragraph on actual income disparities between blacks and whites pp. 661-2

Understandin Af-Ams Misunderstanding of Racial Economic Fortunes

The Political Economy of Hope and Fear...

Race, Socio-Political Participation, and Black Empowerment

Inequality in the Military: An Examination of Promotion Time for Black and White Enlisted Men full text not found yet.

"Blacks are less likely than others
to be attached to a single employer for an extended period
of time. While over 30 % of whites and Hispanics
spent 6 or more years with one employer, onIy about 20
percent of blacks did so."And the median number of years spent on the job between age 18-30 is 3.3 for Blacks compared to 4.2 for Hispanics and 4.6 for whites. - from here

Percentage of individuals age 28-36 able to perform their duties adequately when they started their job, 1993: Blacks 68.8% compared to Whites 62.2% and Hispanincs 65.7%. More Blacks also participated in on-the-job learning activites. "Typically, whites spent 116 hours learning, blacks 80 hours, and Hispanics 76 hours. These race/ethnicity differences are particularly evident for learning from supervisors or coworkers. For example, whites spent twice as much time working with supervisors as did Blacks."- from here

Black women, however, fare well in promotions next to white women. - from here

Earnings Mobility in the U.S. 67-91 Earnings mobility for blacks vs. whites. 23% of black men fall in the first quintile of earnings, while only 8% of white men fall in the first quintile. 17% of black men fall in the fifth quintile while 33% of white men do. Though the percentage that stay in the first quintile are realtively close, the percentage of black men that stay in the fifth quintile are only 59% compared to 78% of white men. Blacks economic positions are less secure.

Effect of Race on Promotions...

Race-Related Difference in Promotions... (1997) "Applicants of color were significantly less likely to be referred than white applicants; they were also significantly less likely to be employed in the hiring department, had significantly more work experience, and were significantly lower on the highest degree obtained." pp.118-9 significantly more work experience negatively related to panel evaluations, p.121 "Of the referred applicants, 8 percent of men of color versus 17 percent of white men...were selected for positions." (interestingly, almost three times as many women of color than white women were selected.) p. 123 "Applicants who had reached the pipeline grades for Senior Executive Service positions with fewer years of work experience may have been seen as more likely to succeed in the ranks of top management..." and more. Women of color did not experience the same negative effects of race... p. 124 Unique nature of government organization probably had an effect...procedural fairness... p. 125 * GREAT REFERENCES *

Support for digging through stats

Labor Force Statistics for the Community Population Survey

What Happens to Potential Discouraged? "persistent employer discrimination (Mason 2005; Pager and Quillian 2005; Moss and Tilly 2001a, 2001b; Holzer 1996; Braddock and McPartland 1987)"

from "Darlin' Cora" as sung by Harry Belafonte:

I don’t know why darlin’ Cora
Don’t know what the reason can be
But I never yet found a single town
Where me and the boss-man agree

I ain’t a man to be played with
I ain’t nobody’s toy
Been working for my pay for a long, long time
How come he still calls me boy

Well I’d rather drink muddy water
And sleep in a hollowed out log
Than to hang around in this old town
And be treated like a dirty dog

Well I whopped that man darlin’ Cora
And he fell down where he stood
Don't know if I was wrong darlin’ Cora
But Lord it sure felt good

Research: immigrants and unions (this post will be updated regularly)

From Labor Movement and Social Welfare (United States). Michael Polzin. Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. The creation of the 5-day 40-hour work week. This was nationally instituted but came about by union-led collective action. Was any population excluded from the offset? Who?

Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932. denied the federal courts the right to forbid strikes, peaceful picketing, and other actions not illegal in themselves that unions employed in their dealings with employers. From the early 1800s, courts had impeded collective union activity by ruling that such activity, though legal if it involved only one person, constituted a "conspiracy" if it involved more than one and was therefore illegal.

Wagner or National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935. Gave to employees the "right to self-organization, to form, join or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities, for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."

Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 dealt a blow.

Numerous other workplace benefits, now widely available to nonunion workers as well, can be traced to gains first achieved through collective bargaining. Paid leave time—as vacation days, personal days, holidays, bereavement days, and sick leave—are critically important to the well-being of individuals and families, not just to be able to respond appropriately in times of crisis but also to strengthen and celebrate the family ties that are essential for solid communities. Employer-paid insurances—health, dental, vision, life, disability, and legal—help to moderate the effects of situations that could have profoundly negative effects on workers and their families. Pensions, profit sharing, stock ownership, and other retirement funds allow working people to retire with dignity without becoming a financial burden on their families or their communities. Apprenticeship, training and upgrading, tuition assistance, and other educational programs strengthen the capabilities that people can apply to their workplace as well as to the vitality of their communities and the economy at large. Workplace health and safety programs save lives in the short run and in the long term. Federal occupational safety and health programs, underfunded as they currently might be, owe their very existence to union-led initiatives. Employee assistance programs offer a lifeline to workers whose employment, family life, and health are threatened by addictions or other disabling conditions. For a number of reasons that include deterring unionization as well as rewarding, motivating, or retaining employees, many nonunion workplaces provide some or all of these benefits, extending the gains to far more than households with union members.

- Parallel: the development of the American welfare state as mitigator to decrease the allure of socialism; so the development of myriad benefits to decrease the allure of unionization. With the fall of socialism, so the fall of the welfare state (Mishra); similarly, with the fall of unions, so the fall of non-union benefits provision.

Union leaders' reluctance to bring industrial workers into their fold—workers who were often female, recent immigrants, or members of minority groups—created unnecessary divisions within the labor movement, such as the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s, and diverted energy from the task of advancing a common agenda. Fortunately for workers, the labor movement, and U.S. social welfare, the AFL and CIO resolved their differences and merged in 1955. The loss of manufacturing jobs to low-wage, developing countries has contributed greatly to the decline in union membership that has also weakened unions' political influence. Today, the continuing decline in membership presents perhaps the greatest challenge to unions and their ability to enhance U.S. social welfare. Nonetheless, the mere presence of unions contributes significantly to higher quality of life for union and nonunion workers alike and serves as a check to a corporate-employer-driven social policy agenda.

From Migration Policy:

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAyQV8gOjo

NPR: Labor Unions now recruiting immigrant...

Britannic Online: Unions and New Immigrants

Bureau of Labor Statistics

What Kind of Work Do Immigrants Do? (MPI)
- A greater proportion of immigrant workers from central America are employed in the service occupations and as fabricators, laborers, and operators than native-born workers. These sectors are some of the "stickiest" jobs, meaning the least-susceptible to globalization (offshoring) and therefore the most amenable to unionizing.

"Sticky Jobs"

Overall unemployment in Seattle-Tacoma area hit 8.8% from 4.7% last year (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Percentage of population involved in production, transportation, and material-moving occupations: 19.7% of men, 6.6% of women. Info on union affiliation also in statistical tables here.

Krugman on income disparity (on youtube), incl. the fall of the unions. Full length here, incl. race.

"Organizing Immigrants"

BLS Foreign-born workers labor force characteristics 2008 "rates for foreign-born blacks
(73.2 percent)"? are higher than any other foreign-born population and higher than most or all native-born populations. Go to table 3. Table 4 is broken down by occupation but not race. Shows disproportionate representation of foreign-born in service. Table 5 shows weekly earnings, including that foreign-born blacks make more than native-born blacks, though substantially less than foreign-born whites and asians.

THESIS: Argument for unionization of immigrants as they hold many of the "stickiest" jobs, retail, services, construction, and others that can't be offsourced.

HISTORY COMPONENT: Examine tensions between unions and immigrants in the past in light of better relations in the present.

ROLE OF SOCIAL WORKERS: Facilitating processes to harmonize unions and immigrants to achieve success for both. On micro level, helping immigrants with wage, job security, and benefits, as well as a sense of inclusion and belonging, and on a macro level strengthening unions around "sticky" jobs to resist the capital drain of globalization.

Go to "Foreign-Born Workers" section at this CPS link for these News releases:
- Labor force characteristics of foreign-born workers
- Charts: Foreign-born workforce, 2004: a visual essay (PDF)
- Labor force characteristics of second-generation Americans (September 2006)
- The role of foreign-born workers in the US economy (May 2002)

Labor Force Statistics for the Community Population Survey

Refugee Act 1980, links here and here.

Read this whole thing: Journal of Community Practice, Volume 17 Issue 1 & 2 2009: Economic Justice, Labor and Community Practice In the Social Work periodical stacks.

loftiness

We need to be able to make our own choices. Only a free being can take full responsibility for his or her life. We have this idea that a person allowed to be free will harm others, crave power, dominate. But isn't this the result of not being free in the first place?

I don't know a practical way out of this - if we freed every person to do whatever they wanted right now without societal restraint or domination by one another...well, hell, maybe it would go over alright. I'm predisposed to imagine disorder, but then I only know people in their oppressed states. We've all developed under domination. If we were free to choose what we wanted, having maintained trust in others, having grown up loved and empowered, would we choose domination? Would it have any advantage or make us feel safer? Quite the contrary. I think if we grew up loved and trusted we would want to love and trust. Just a hunch. Underneath all this conditioning.

Dynamic unions?

If markets fluctuate dynamically to take advantage of new niches and technologies, then the workforce needs to be able to adapt as it does so. But how does the workforce protect itself?

As unions go, how does a union work with the dynamism of the market without compromising the security of workers? Can unions be dynamic?

It seems like a fair share in the yield would be the best motivation. If the business were essentially the workers' - and the connection between the workers' livelihood and the business' competitiveness made direct - perhaps they would be a bit more willing to take risks? This brings us back toward the idea of cooperative corporations, kibbutz-style (Okun, 1975).

And does the market need to be so dynamic? I would argue yes, if only because our culture and world is in such a state of flux. With all the technological change and the need to adapt to a changing awareness of environmental impact, new products, production methods, distributive processes (and so on) changing all the time, the market needs to be dynamic. Nimble. Quick. At least until things stabilize; if things stabilize. Which they may never do.