Don's Tuesday Column

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   9/03/2019

Government, big labor power play

It’s often said that “politics makes strange bedfellows,” a sanitized expression of activities associated with the bed and bedroom, as well as metaphorical intimacies between parties. Likewise, for litigation, legislation and burning social issues. Individual and group self-interests are often the driving motivations; ideology also enters the calculation.

That came to mind upon reading that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (Dem-Loonville) used Twitter to criticize former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer “over her work opposing a California bill that would make it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors in many industries, including those workers participating in the ‘gig economy’ for services like Lyft and Uber.” (S. Behrmann, USA Today).

Ms. Cortez certainly has a keen sense and insight when it comes to the best interests of “workers.” She preemptively killed a reported 25,000 of their jobs in New York City by lobbying and cajoling the city’s powers-that-be into rejecting an Amazon facility in the city borough she represents. Sticking it to the corporate “man” or some other twaddle, I guess.

To clarify the issue, she stated “we’re supposed to fight FOR working people, not against them.” Boxer “is advising Lyft (and) penned an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this week where she criticized the bill writing, ‘Switching to an employee model will mean far fewer opportunities to drive.’” (Behrmann) Ironically, as Labor Day passes, I see the merits of Ms. Boxer’s position—perhaps a sign of end times but more likely just the “stopped clock that’s right twice a day” in Boxer’s case.

Organized labor mistakenly thinks: 1) Labor Day is dedicated to unions and union labor, and 2) the history of unions through current times is one of endless and unsullied beneficence to both the economy and workers.

1) “Labor” is what any worker, blue- or white-collar, does to create goods or services; the primary motive for most is simply pride in a “job well done,” and the approval of the business owner or manager, not a union boss. 2) While the 8-hour work day, 40-hour work week and paid vacations can be arguably attributed to past union efforts, the fact is that many choose a longer, 10-hour, day if it means an extra day off, and some prefer to negotiate their own vacation arrangements.

Beyond that, as auto manufacturers have found, union-mandated work rules undermine the flexibility and adaptation needed to produce a quality, competitive product that, when fewer man-hours are needed, allows for compensation similar to union wages. At the very least, having to compete for market share with non-union products means the consumer gets more for their money, and workers have the stability of knowing they help insure their value in their company. It’s worth pondering, anyway.

This column has recounted the struggle over separating unions from the leftist, even communist, forces that sought to enlist organized labor in the cause of destroying capitalism. The leftists wanted May 1, the communist holiday; American leaders chose the current Labor Day.

Few union leaders or rank-and-file would support that Marxist trope in today’s free market economy, which stands as an abundant giant compared to the miserable, destitute dictatorial conditions wherever communism’s inevitable offspring—socialism—has seized power. The supreme irony: Russian/Soviet communists marshalled labor unions into the anti-capitalist cause, only to outlaw them as “counter-revolutionary” once Leninists/Stalinists seized all power, brooking no lesser, undermining bosses.

 “The bill, California AB-5, takes aim at the titans of the ‘gig economy’ such as Lyft, Uber, Doordash and Postmates. If it became law, the bill would make it more difficult for such companies to deny a number of legal protections to workers which they don’t currently enjoy as independent contractors.” That’s one spin. I see a crass power-play to force people—who may prefer to work when it’s most profitable and efficient, while complementing their non-work needs and priorities—into the iron grip of state mandates and controls.

How long before Big Labor eyes the now-corralled employee and his-or-her income as a revenue stream to make up for lost union dues as membership declines? Many workers are shedding the unions’ tender mercies, gatekeeping  and voracious appetites, corruption and theft. Headline: “Feds Launch Raids on Homes of UAW Brass.”

Witness the power grab to unionize home health care workers who have free-will arrangements to schedule their work around the needs of their clients, often their own relatives. Big Government/Labor cares not whether such independent workers really want to be forced into unions—join, pay or else.

Let’s give credit to those who create the jobs: entrepreneurs who risk their savings, possessions and credit worthiness to create a business, whose viability is often threatened by excessive union demands and inflexibility. Unions don’t create jobs, except for the union’s payroll which wouldn’t exist but for the workers’ paychecks. Governments don’t create jobs; their budgets don’t exist but for the taxes collected from private sector businesses and employees.

Public employee unions should be outlawed—I agree with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and early labor leader George Meany that such unions are, by nature, in opposition to the taxpayers who pay the wages of the public sector. Union dues should at least be prohibited from being used for lobbying and political campaigns; it is corrupt for politicians, elected with union money, to pass union-friendly laws.

Finally, AB-5 is the kind of overreach that has tried to undermine the most successful business practice in modern history: the franchise model. It allows a business person to benefit from reliable marketing, hiring and accounting practices to profitably generate a product or service—and jobs. Regulators, lawyers and union bosses cast voracious eyes on franchises; tax and control is all they know and do.