Looking For A Picket Line? The AFL-CIO Has Your Bat-Signal

 

http://joehillslc.org/joe-hill/joe-hill-songs/there-is-power-in-a-union/

"There is power in the factory, power in the land,

Power in the hands of the worker...

But it all amounts to nothing,
if together we don't stand:

There is power in a union..."
<Billy Bragg: "There Is Power In A Union">

I've been on various mailing lists for as long as I've surfed the 'net, and the AFL-CIO happens to be one of them. This latest nugget of theirs, which I got last week, really got my attention, though -- it's a link to find strikes that they've authorized, which you can check out right here:

https://aflcio.org/strike-map?link_id=3&can_id=4e6c8046819e1ba183f676fa03eddc7a&source=email-strike-map&email_referrer=email_1999734___subject_2510488&email_subject=find-a-strike-near-you

To find out about all strikes happening across the U.S., click  this map from Cornell, via its niftily-named Labor Action Tracker:

https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu/?utm_medium=partnership&utm_source=website&utm_campaign=ilr-strike-tracker&utm_term=aflcio

Whichever one you click, there's a fair amount going on, as you can easily see. The entertainment industry strike is obviously the hottest one of the moment, by no means the only action that's happening. 

The AFL-CIO link also offers various resources to follow up, and show solidarity, to make its link even more relevant and valuable -- like the Tom Morello tune, which I have to check out yet, as well as advice, contacts, and other organizing tools.

Overall, it looks like a neat package, and it's certainly good to see organized labor flexing some kind of muscle again, after decades of dormancy, and continued attempts to dismantle unionism as a political force -- which is always a precondition for wannabe authoritarians, like Donald Trump, or the water carriers he jammed onto the so-called Supreme Court, like Sam "I Love Giant Salmon" Alito.

Or maybe we can call him "Scandal-ito," for short? At any rate, whatever gets you to click that link, don't ever forget the central premise, as the AFL-CIO expresses it:

"Working people want safe jobs with good health care, flexibility, sick leave, and where they feel respected and valued."

Now there's a bottom line that we can all get behind! On your mark, get set...start clicking! --The Reckoner

Links To Go: Get Organized (Not Atomized):

Billy Bragg: There Is Power In A Union:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFgT7eQRjeI

Campaign Legal Center:

Why The Current Supreme Court Is A Threat To Democracy:

https://campaignlegal.org/update/why-current-us-supreme-court-threat-our-democracy*

JoeHillSLC.org: There Is Power In A Union:

http://joehillslc.org/joe-hill/joe-hill-songs/there-is-power-in-a-union/

(*Remember, folks -- this analysis came out before we heard about their giant salmon, giant stogies, and all the other extravagant bribes lavished on these right-wing culture warriors they've installed there! 

(But, worth a read, all the same, to remind us what we're fighting for, all the same -- the curbing of all this unchecked corporate power, and the brutalist architecture on which it depends to function.)

Race To The Bottom: The H-1-B Blues

It's a big vision in the first world
But no one's seein' the other connection

Somebody's stuck in the fourth world

And the sun's goin' down in the wrong direction

There's a big vision

There's a big vision

In the fourth world

<Screaming Blue Messiahs:
"Smash The Market Place">

<i.>

If you live in a town dominated by one large corporate employer, like I do, don't blink too quickly....or you'll miss the funny things going down. Though it's theoretically nice to have one company employing hundreds or thousands at a time, that arrangement also carries big drawbacks. The obvious one, of course, is that they can leave (or go under) as quickly as they've arrived.

And once a company becomes entrenched, it quickly morphs into something less desirable: the 800-pound gorilla (think Consumers Power in Jackson, MI). Before long, the corporate gorillas who never stop thinking of how to benefit off the sweat of other begin to exert an outsized influence, one way out of proportion to their actual numbers. 

A good example is the battles that communities are often forced to wage against big box stores seeking to avoid paying their share of taxes via the so-called "dark store" valuation method -- one that forced Marquette Township to refund $755,828 to Lowes, and wound up drastically curtailing the local library's hours (among other blowbacks). 

As always, it's the taxpayers who foot the bill, with a giant screw driven through their spine. What else is new? (For a snapshot of how this hustle works, see the link below, although I think the blogger's elation is way premature -- it's not dead until the Michigan Supreme Court, to whom the big boxes will surely appeal, shoots down the practice. With a solid Republican majority dominating the court, the big boxes have no reason to break out into a cold sweat just yet. Trust me on this.)

Of course, with disposable property comes disposable labor. One sign, at least in our little town, are the masses of Indians moving into our complex. Unlike many people I know, they don't seem to be going without: they always seem to drive the latest model cars, and never return home without shopping till they drop. The American Dream seems to be working out pretty well for them. (Ditto for the gas station owner whom I saw stepping out of a massive black Hummer in front of the bank last week.) So what's the discordant note in this homespun picture?

They got a big vision,

big vision in the fourth world

Don't miss the connection, 

'cause the sun's goin' down in the wrong direction.

Smash it into tomorrow

Smash it into spite!

<ii.>

Well, as always, I asked around a little bit, and got the answer. Most of them are here on contracts with our town's mega-employer. The main entry point is the H-!-B visa, which allows U.S. companies to bring foreign workers temporarily. The program dates back to 1990, when President George Bush (The Elder) created it to solve a serious shortage of skilled labor....or so he and his minions said.

However, as an article in the Charlotte Observer suggests, the program has become the latest unsavory vehicle for American companies to undercut their own workers by flooding the nation with cheaper outsourced labor. How cheap, you ask? Well, as longtime advocates like U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren have finally admitted, the going rate for a computer services analyst in her district -- which includes Silicon Valley -- is $52,000 for the H-1-B visa worker, versus $92,000 for his U.S. counterpart.  No wonder CEOs are busting such a collective gut.

What's more, as the Observer details, IT workers are often asked to train their replacements before they're laid off for good -- how's that feel before the door smacks against your nether regions? Still, I wonder why people play along with such a dog and pony show. What's the point of greasing your humiliation if your job's gone up in smoke? (Speaking from experience, I wouldn't, and I haven't.)

When pressed, employers naturally claim that they're lacking the labor to get their work done. Of course, this defense is often a dodge, since much of the work being outsourced doesn't always involve skilled labor. As one of the displaced IT workers told the Observer: "The jobs that we're replacing here aren't rocket science. It's database developers, skills you can learn through a four-year program....at any major American university."

This is only one snapshot behind the phenomenon that fueled Donald Trump's rise during this election cycle. The Donald, of course, has zigzagged on this issue -- promising to crack down against H-1-B abuses, on one hand, while holding out some leeway for certain sectors of the economy, like Silicon Valley, on the other -- so I wouldn't look him for salvation, anymore than his (cough, cough, ahem) Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton.

I'm trying to square all of these images and statistics with a more disturbing one: a good friend whom I've paid to step in whenever my computer starts sending coded messages from another galaxy. He charges by the project, not the hour, and has never had to do anything over. He can explain what he does in a way that makes sense (unlike a lot of IT denizens I've encountered). 

He's an unassuming guy who's caring for his mom right now, which is one reason why he's not working full-time....but if he ever did, I'm sure any company would find him an asset to their payroll. But I don't see anybody rushing to offer him a contract, let alone the crumb of a temp job, nor anything similar....and therein lies the problem. And why the groundswell, and the popular outcry against such practices, will only continue to grow. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Start Your Race
To The Bottom Right Here):

Electablog: Appeals Court Ruling
Brings An End To Big Box Stores 
Ripping Off Local Communities:
http://www.eclectablog.com/2016/05/appeals-court-ruling-brings-an-end-to-big-box-stores-ripping-off-local-communities-tax-dollars.html

Charlotte Observer:
In Charlotte, Foreign Workers
Replace Americans In Tech Roles:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article81676692.html

Professor Norm Matloff's H-1-B Web Page:
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html

Screaming Blue Messiahs:
Smash The Market Place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng5j1l622Go

Shock, Horror, Film At 11: The Wall Street Journal Doesn't "Get" '60s & '70s Radicalism

<i.>

Reading this book reminds me of a comment in 1971, a documentary recently aired on PBS about the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI -- a group of activists whose break-in of the agency's satellite office in Media, PA, unmasked the agency's COINTELPRO program...and its snooping into millions of Americans' lives, to an unprecedented degree: in short, more or less like today's climate (just substitute the names of Edward Snowden, and the National Security Agency). Anyway, one of the former activist burglars makes a telling point by saying that, in many ways, he feels that America has never gotten over 1968.

The Wall Street Journal's review of Days Of Rage makes me feel the same way. Reviewer Peter Hellman co-authored Chief! with the late Albert Seedman, the New York Police Department's own Chief of Detectives, who spent a fair amount of quality time pursuing the era's radical bogeys -- including the Black Liberation Army, the FALN, and the Weather Underground, who get much of the ink here.

It's always fun to read what establishment voices think, and Hellman's review is no exception. Consider how Hellman characterizes the book's more significant scenes -- such as the November 4, 1984 capture of Ray Lavasseur, ending the bank robberies and bombings of his own United Freedom Front (whose fugitive partners also raised children on the run -- ponder the implications of that one for a moment). As Hellman writes, "Two days later, the United States reelected Ronald Reagan in a landslide. So much for Lavessur's dream of fomenting popular revolution." 

To which I would humbly retort, "Um, not so fast, grasshopper." While a massive effort to overthrow the U.S. government didn't materialize, it's a  stretch to imply that the Gipper's re-election invalidated concerns about America's social ills, which seem more noxious than ever (unprecedented levels of social equality, jobless recoveries, massive expansion of state and federal power at citizens' expense -- need I say more, or go on?). At that time, barely half the U.S. population voted -- so, when considered in that light, Mr. Reagan's so-called "mandate" looks far less impressive.

Hellman also misses the mark with this observation: "Arriving on the 50th anniversary of Selma, this book provides a rare chance to appreciate the true radicalness of Martin Luther King's non-violence, a strategy for creating social change that was scorned by the radical underground." His review glosses over the reason why groups like the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army ridiculed the idea -- because the feds didn't respond with love and kisses to anyone seeking to stop the Vietnam War, or halt any of their crazier schemes (as even a casual listen to Nixon's many infamous White House recordings will quickly attest). 

<ii.>

Similar responses occurred around the world, especially in Germany, where the Baader-Meinhof Gang/Red Army Faction rose in response to the federal police's excesses -- such as the June 1967 shooting of Benno Ohnesorg, a student demonstrator whose wife was pregnant with their first child. New research by federal prosecutors and Der Spiegel shows that a) police didn't shoot in self-defense, as claimed; b) the medical examiner was ordered to falsify the post-morterm report; and c) subsequent investigations covered up key points that implicated the responsible parties. Naturally, none of these facts will prove sufficient to hold any of them accountable.

While these facts weren't common knowledge among the German New Left of '67-'68, sufficient grounds existed to suspect them. The presence of numerous ex-Nazis in lower- or mid-level government positions and unrelenting hostility from a conservative media establishment also did nothing, one suspects, to dissuade radicals from believing that peaceful dialogue was possible...or desirable. Ulrike Meinof presumably had this climate in mind for her spring 1969 article, "Columnism," which offers a cogent critique of the mass media space that she herself occupied as a noted journalist:

"My criticism is aimed at the way publishers internalise the conditions of the market, and at the way editors internalise the publishers' focus on profits. We are not looking for saints. We simply want an oppositional stance. We do not want our subjugation to market demands to be presented as free journalism, or the art of meeting deadlines to be confused with the of presenting people with the truth. We do not want editorial democracy to grind like sand in the gears, and we want the columnists' freedom to be recognised for what it is: a prestige and profit factor, a fraud for the readers, a self-deception, a personality cult."

Whatever you think of Meinhof's subsequent murderous odyssey, the article offers a glimpse into her thinking -- which, by now, rejected the idea of working within the system, or trying to influence it in a non-militant way:

"It is opportunistic to claim to be struggling against the conditions that one is actually reproducing. It is opportunistic to use the methods that stabilise a system and claim to be seeking change. It is opportunitistc to clamp down on editorial freedoms and the extra-parliamentary opposition and cave in to the market, i.e., to profits. It is opportunistic to limit the anti-authoritarian position to the authoritarian form of the column." 

<iii.>

Of course, the radical leftists made numerous mistakes. The biggest came in assuming that Maoist- or Stalinist-style Communism could simply be transplanted, root and branch, into consumer societies that had not experienced traditions of revolutionary violence (except Germany, perhaps). Also, it's hard to think of a successful radical group that didn't have a political wing -- as exemplified by the African National Congress, or the Irish Republican Army.

At least Hellman acknowledges that the government committed plenty of excesses in pursuing these small radical groups, though it's curious that he doesn't see fit to question the John Wayne Complex that often grips law enforcement. A good example is the so-called 1974 siege that led to the Symbionese Liberation Army's demise. It's curious that police never entertained the idea of simply blockading Donald DeFreeze and his would-be revolutionaries until their food, water and ammo stocks ran out...then again, it probably didn't sound as attractive as the full-scale operation to kick weirdo butt on live TV.

Naturally, Hellman does dwell at length on the middle- or upper-class backgrounds that characterized radical poster children like Bernadine Dohrn -- but, far from discrediting their ideology, it only makes the whole story more poignant. If people from monied backgrounds doesn't think they have options, what does that mean for the rest of us? The answers aren't pleasant to contemplate.

Finally, Hellman also ignores one other point: if the nation's radical business really is a finished affair, done and dusted, why do so many conservatives and ultra-right-wingers continue running so hard against it? Think back to the 2008 election, when Obama's Democratic and Republican opponents tried to tar him with the Weather Underground brush. If those ghosts really are dormant, why do commentators like Pat Buchanan continue to resurrect them, when the need arises?

Read Hellman's review and draw your own conclusions -- though, per usual, it seems like a missed opportunity for the substantive discussion that the subject deserves. Perhaps he missed the implied memo of JFK's famous 1962 quote: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." Then again...what else can we expect from the Paper Of The One Percent? --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Just Don't Shake That Molotov Cocktail):
Der Spiegel International Online:
New Probe Into 1967 Student Killing:
Police Covered Up Truth Behind Infamous Student Shooting:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/new-probe-into-1967-killing-police-covered-up-truth-behind-infamous-student-shooting-a-810877.html

Lib.com: Ulrike Meinhof: Columnism:
https://libcom.org/library/columnism-1968

PBS: 1971: FBI Office Break-In Changed Everything
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/1971/film.html

The Wall Street Journal: A Pestilence of Bombs:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-days-of-rage-by-bryan-burrough-1429307327

Life's Little Injustices (Take II): I Feel An Overdraft

A funny thing happened to my bank account last week. Late one night, I decided to check my account online, only to find myself staring down a big, ugly, negative number. How'd this happen? I wondered.

Only yesterday, I'd deposited $100 to cover another bill hovering around the corner.  What happened?  I thought I was covered! I quickly found my answer...somebody had cashed a couple checks that I'd written three and four months ago, yielding a black hole in my account.

I did what any rational person does in this type of situation...I narrowly missed doing a limbo dance off the ceiling!  After all, in this economy, most people don't wait that long to cash their checks...because they literally can't afford the luxury (like my hairstylist, who cashed a check of mine within two hours after doing her work).

Anyhow, I popped by the drive-through and made a deposit to erase the deficit, and pleaded my case to the manager that afternoon.  "Surely you can't expect me to anticipate somebody sitting on a check that long..." I contended.  "I assumed those checks were long lost, or long cashed. Either way, I had no reason to question them."

Not quite, the manager responded: most jurisdictions impose a six-month limit for cashing checks, so the bank had to honor them. The overdraft protection policy was crafted to spare the embarrassment of bouncing a check or two.  At $32 a pop, I could afford it, right?

Fortunately, we struck a compromise. The manager lifted one overdraft charge, because I'd never asked for a reversal before, and the situation was a little unusual. By Friday, I closed the gap after transferring $25 from another source, and selling a stack of albums for $35 at my local music shop.

Normally, the shop only pays a dollar apiece on used vinyl, but the owner gave me $2 each, because he liked my selections so much -- including my second copy of The Clash...to my Faces stack (Long Player, First Step, A Nod's As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse, Ooh-La-La)...to some imd-'80s Lou Reed fare (Legendary Hearts, New Sensations)...and my early XTC collection. Ouch!

Of course, we know why banks charge these types of fees. They're pure gravy, as a June 2013 white paper from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suggests.  According to the report -- which comes from survey data reported by larger institutions -- overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees accounted for 61 percent of the charges that banks got in 2011.

Based on those figures, the bureau estimates that banks netted about $12.6 billion from consumers in 2011. That same year, the average consumer paid $225 in overdraft charges, and roughly 27 percent of all checking accounts paid at least one overdraft fee. If you felt stung, you've got plenty of company.

You can read the full report below, or skim the New York Times story if you're pressed for time. Suffice to say, more discussion needs to occur, Thankfully for me, good musical taste still pays off when you're struggling, as another vinyl proprietor told me earlier this month: "I still get people saying, 'Why can't you pay three bucks a pop for my Journey albums?'" 

The CFPB report's figures also convince me of something else...if John Dillinger had owned the banks that he robbed...he might have been a hell of a lot better off.  As for those copies of Legendary Hearts, or Ooh-La-La?  I'll just have to replace them later, I suppose. Such is life. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (C'mon, You Know The Drill Already):
ConsumerAffairs.com (Lots of good info here):
Bank Fees Are Hard to Avoid, Especially For Low-Income Customers:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/bank-overdraft-fees-news-and-analysis

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
CFPB Study Of Overdraft Programs:
http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201306_cfpb_whitepaper_overdraft-practices.pdf


The New York Times:
Banks Rake In Overdraft Fees, Report Finds:
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/banks-rake-in-overdraft-fees-report-finds/?_r=0

1957: Social Class In America

It was a much different world back then wasn't it?

One thing to notice, they shared the same high school and were born in the same hospital though the rich Dad tells his son, he wanted him to have a democratic background. Even that way of thinking has changed, that Dad didn't want his son to be elitist and wanted him to know what other folks were like.  There was much more interaction between the classes even if there was far more racial segregation. I have seen that change even within my lifetime where different social classes would mix a bit more. In the 1980s in high school, I had rich friends who lived on the border of the country club and ones who lived in the projects. Now the social classes are more separated but in smaller towns, the world's overlap a bit more then in urban places. Zip code in many places now is determined by the income you have for rent or what home you can afford to purchase.

Today now, many people fall out of their parent's class, the vertical mobility goes down instead of up--The Squawker.