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We posted about this over at Conservative NC yesterday.

I have to say it looks like a desperate grasping at straws by big labor in order to maintain relevance.

Technology and productivity have moved at warp speed and the unions are still pretending it's the age of Norma Rae and Matewan.

Sad.

I doubt that EFCA will single-handedly change this state's historical resistance to unions. You're right, Doug, that we've talked and talked about whether the technical change in EFCA is sensible or not, but the fact remains that it's a pretty technical change. To be sure, the unions obviously believe that card check is an important thing to have. And just as obviously, business interests think it's terrible. My sense is that both sides are overstating the likely effects.

Remember, the South's traditional dislike of unions was a function of its low-wage/low-skill economy. But in the so-called New Economy, skills are what matter, and hence low wages aren't exactly a draw because they connote low skills. As the South moves along the path toward the New Economy, issues like card check will matter less.

If I were a business leader, I'm not sure but I might well suggest to my allies that we stop opposing EFCA for this reason. Labor would get a win, and the position of businesses in North Carolina probably wouldn't change much.

Technology and productivity have moved at warp speed and the unions are still pretending it's the age of Norma Rae and Matewan.

Sad.*Jeffrey Sykes

The last time I check! The American Capitalist system was falling apart like a "Old West Ghost" town with its massive unployment and the hugh bankrupty of America Corporations. Somehow it does meet the truth test that Norma Rae cause the collapse of Western Civilzation! One can only assume that Mr Sykes conservativism [ Blame it on anybody but George Bush the Younger 8 years of Republican rule] is nothing more than free market myths of Republicism economics.

If Mr Sykes conservatism was true, he should be packing his bags with Gold and tons of instant food dried paks and headed for Sara Palin paradise of Alaska.

For what it's worth, I think the Conservative NC post gets it wrong. It may well be that North Carolina has maintained high levels of labor productivity without unions--I won't dispute that. But increasing productivity isn't exactly the main goal of unionization, and hence this isn't really a good argument against unions in North Carolina. I'm not saying there aren't any, but this isn't one of them.

Productivity has to do with the size of the pie, whereas unions strive to split the pie differently as between management and labor. Of course they also care about such things as workplace safety. But even while safety concerns diminish (though I'd say we shouldn't be so quick to conclude that), the wage issues remain. So to unions, it's not about productivity, it's about wages. Unions note that while productivity has indeed risen steadily over the years, wages have not. Maybe that's okay--maybe we don't mind that. But it's what the data tell us.

The usual suspects still can't see the forest for the trees.

Just take a look at the U.S automakers in the union capital of the world, Michigan versus the foreign makers producing vehicles in the "right to work states."

Detroit was dying long before the Fannie/Freddie inspired meltdown. Not too many us want to pay up to $2500 more so that GM can pay UAW workers not to work.

The private sector union membership is about 7% of the workforce. Thay had to work hard to drop to that level! For anyone who believes that unions save jobs, just look at the UAW membership 15 years ago as opposed to today. Those figures will tell you that unions cost jobs.

Every time I hear the old "wear the union label" ad I can only think of the Big Dig! It's the crowning achievement of our unions.

Andy:

"Technical change?" Do you really believe that exchanging a secret ballot for allowing unions to buttonhole prospects is really just a "technical change?" Heck, if a secret ballot is just a mere technicality, why are we so uptight about it when we are voting for politicians.

This is a substantive change that unions believe will increase membership.

My wife's uncle had experience that tells us a little about what we what to expect. When he was a teacher members of the faculty were "encouraged" to join the NCEA. An NCEA rep. told him that they wanted to get to 100% membership at the school and that he was the only one that hadn't joined. (This was not true). This misrepresenation and the pressure of being the only hold out caused him to join the NCEA.

Granted, the NCEA is not exactly the Teamsters, but I think it gives us a flavor of what we can expect.

Well, Doc, the point Walden was making was a counter to the argument that cheap labor is of little value if the productivity levels lag behind those of the higher paid unionized workers.

By showing that workers in this state actually maintain higher than average productivity rates while remaining free of union influence to pressure wages, I think he was right to conclude, as have businesses, that workers in this state represent a good investment.

Now I don't have a PhD or an ACLU card, but I think I'm bright enough to look at the auto workers in SC, Tenn and Ala. and the transformative footprint those industries brought to the communities in question and conclude that the end result was a win-win for management and labor.

Your view that productivity-to-union rates "aren't a good argument against unions" is fine when argued from a pro-union position. However, from a broader economic view, it is the productivity that matters because it is an element of value.

Membership is what matters to the unions, not value in the larger economy.

As a consumer and lower-middle class wage earner, value is important to me as well.

Paul: We've already had that discussion on Doug's blog.

Jeffrey: Boy, the person who dares to disagree with you had better beware, for you will unleash your sarcasm on him. I like Mike Walden, but he at least has the class to argue his points without ad hominem comments. My Ph.D. is something for you to jeer at, but Mike's doesn't seem to bother you.

Having said that, and returning now to the realm of grownups, I believe that Mike might be wrong about the implications of unionization in North Carolina in recent years. Since the late 1990s, both the relative rate of unionization and the relative wage rate in North Carolina have risen. That's not enough time to draw grand conclusions, but it's possible that what I said about wages and unionization in the New Economy is right.

Finally, I didn't say that I thought that rising rates of unionization would be good for North Carolina, just that the changes in labor law represented by EFCA probably won't matter much. Of course such even-handed statements are too much for the true believers to tolerate.

Also, Paul: Just because the unions believe something doesn't make it so.

Dear Dr. Brod:

I just like to play hardball, especially with those at the top.

I didn't mean to jeer at your PhD. I just mentioned it in passing because I believe it is important for us to understand the perch from which each of us casts his subjective observations upon the world at large. I don't see that as ad hominem. Then again I never liked Latin very much.

I am sorry that my working-class perspectives don't suit you. I will try to learn from our conversations and become a kindler, gentler, more avuncular commenter. Usually when someone states that a belief I hold is wrong I tend to retort with spirit.

Sincerely and with reverence,

JHS

@Doug:"The only question in regard to Hagan is whether her party's national agenda on union issues is out of line with North Carolina interests."

I am reminded of Terry Sanford on the John Tower vote. I recall that because as a teenager I felt Tower had been forthright about his alcoholism and had moved beyond it and was deserving of a fair shake.

I remember specifically Sanford saying one day that Tower was a good man who had moved beyond his mistakes and deserved Sanford's vote. The very next day I remember seeing Sanford say "I cannot go against the will of my party" and he voted against Tower.

That was a big aspect of my becoming a Republican. I felt at the time that Sanford was wrong not to stand for his personal convictions.

I can't say that vote specifically was against the will of a majority of voters in this state, but I believe it is relevant for Hagan to remember what happens to freshmen Democratic senators form North Carolina when they walk lock-step with party leaders.

Although that didn't hurt her in the state senate much now did it?

I guess the difference between you and me, Jeffrey, is that I don't care whether your perspectives are of the working class, the upper class, or any other class. I care only about the content and substance of what you're saying. I never mentioned who you are, what you are, or anything else. That came up only when you brought it up.

For years, conservatives criticized academic liberals for caring more about a person's identity (e.g. as a black woman, a white-male laborer) than the actual content of his/her ideas. I always agreed with that criticism. But what's so interesting about modern conservatives like Jeffrey is that they do the same thing that they used criticize when it was done by wooly-headed academics. These days, if an idea comes from a "working-class perspective," that somehow elevates its status and import among conservatives.

I prefer to stick to the ideas. Jeffrey, you might consider trying that sometime.

Now we are getting somewhere, Andy. I began to to point out the small details in your mirror of embarrassment because of your flippant dismissal of another poster's perspectives.

You obviously haven't liked it very much. All I have done is observe that your details may in fact play a part in shaping your perspectives.

And now you slowly reveal the reason for your sensitivity, which is being part of a group that has been on the receiving end of "labelism" at the hands of Mr. Horowitz and others.

Am I supposed to ignore the fact that you are a former chair of an ACLU group when we are talking about the pros and cons of unions in general? A non-academic type who lives in the rough and tumble working world might think that is kind of important.

Again, I am sorry you don't like it. I don't think I've been overly ugly in pointing out the foundation of your perspectives. All I have done is point them out in and of themselves. I don't think we come by our ideas in a vacuum. I think our entire life experiences shape our ideas. Maybe its just the historian in me who sees the past as relevant to the present.

"Am I supposed to ignore the fact that you are a former chair of an ACLU group when we are talking about the pros and cons of unions in general?"

That should be corrected to "a member of the board of directors of an ACLU group"

Hey, I don't mind it at all. I just thought we might elevate the discussion here, and you're showing that we won't. So, fair enough. Now we know.

Mostly, I'm amused that the one group of people (conservatives) who've so vehemently objected to identity politics in the past is now just as bad as the group they've accused of the same thing. And I say "bad," because I'm no fan of "political correctness" on campus or anywhere else. When conservatives attack examples of that, I agree with them. I don't care if someone is a member of an oppressed minority as long as the substance of his or her contribution makes sense. So for you to focus on that same kind of thing is, well, rather lame. But there you go. This isn't exactly the intellectual heyday of modern conservatism.

"I began to to point out the small details in your mirror of embarrassment because of your flippant dismissal of another poster's perspectives."

I think the matter comes down to one of real world/real life perspectives in contrast to theoretical conjecture.

I'll go with the real world/real life perspectives every time.