Becoming Third Rate Nation - We Have No Labor Policy - China Wins

[TheMastersNemesis]

FDR understood the need for a labor policy at the beginning of WWII. He signed into law the Wagner Act that established the National Employment Service that I worked for for 24 years. It was a great national agency that staffed the war industry when so many men were drafted. It was instrumental in helping win the war by helping the US corporations manufacture the war material needed to defeat Hitler and Hirohito.

Reagan and the GOP destroyed it and it has now been farmed out to all the local counties who are mostly corrupt and unable to help the unemployed. We HAVE NO LABOR policy in this country an have had none since Reagan was elected. We are now wasting generations of American talent because we have no way to match skills to employers.

In fact we have labor anarchy now and the GOP plans to make their failed plan even worse. They are now working on wrecking the rubble they have created.

Nothing makes that fact more clear than all the highly trained and experienced NASA workers who cannot find work. Many are now underemployed or not employed at all. Or they face a job at Walmart when they launched space shuttles.

We have now surrendered space exploration inadequate private sector contractors who will never get the job done like NASA did. The GOP essentially destroyed and eroded NASA as well. Now we must depend on the Russians to send our astronauts to the international space station.

And we have also enabled China to develop its own space program run by the Chinese government. They will establish their own space lab with our American dollars because of our trade policy.

And you all wonder why I hate Republicans so much and want to strangle them literally. They will use the deficit to bankrupt and destroy this country. Romney is their best hope for that. Their budgets prove that they are more interested in increasing the debt load rather than reduce it.

Sadly Bill Clinton bears some responsibility for this situation as well. Passing SHAFTA, GATT and favored nation status was a huge blunder.

If we have to face China in a potential ware they win because we have made ourselves defenseless. The fact the our Olympic team is wearing Chinese made clothing is the proof of our malfeasance. They even make our flag and our military clothing.

Thank the GOP, US Chamber of Commerce and their big business allies for this predicament.

[leveymg]

1. We have no labor policy because we have no industrial policy, or industry, left.

What else did we expect that multinational corporations and banks would do, left totally unregulated? Wasn't that the very point of our trade policy for the last 3 decades?

[pipoman]

2. The Labor Party is to blame..

oh wait, the labor party abandoned labor in favor of the same corporate masters as the republicans. THEY AGREE on every single labor sucking trade policy forwarded to them by multi-national business. I expect it from republicans..the difference is that in years gone by we had Democrats to oppose (right along with the vast majority of voters) the policies which would hang labor. Now Dems are tongue in tongue with Rethugs taking money from the US destroyers just like the thugs. No, feel free to sit around placing the blame on the repugs...you're kidding yourself.

[ananda]

3. Who needs Al Qaeda or bin Laden..

.. when we have Reeps.

[bvar22]

4. "Free Trade" is not just for Republicans.

In matters of International Trade, Nader was right.
So was Ross Perot.

The American Working Class has been blessed with 3 MORE "Free Trade" deals in the last 2 years,
and there are MORE quietly being negotiated behind closed doors.

"Negotiated away from the public spotlight, the Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement (TPP for short) would likely be the largest regional free trade agreement the United States has ever seen. Negotiators want new “NAFTA of the Pacific” set of rules for the global economic highway that could eventually include every Pacific Rim nation from Vietnam, Thailand, and Japan to Australia, Canada, Mexico and Russia. And instead of an open, transparent process the text is completely secret to the public while hundreds of corporate lobbyists from the biggest drug companies, job-killing corporations, major global banks, and agribusiness giants have been registered as “advisors” to the process."

http://www.laprogressive.com/free-trade-agreement/

You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
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[BOG PERSON]

5. all this means is that the empire is in decline

it is the same old story. imperialist countries increasingly depend on the xploitation of the lagging countries, while their own working class and productive forces basically morally depreciate. this has not ever been sustainable in any instance and there's no reason to think we will be the exception.

future generations will look back on our era and they'll think we lived in a golden age.

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. Care to define "productive forces basically morally depreciate"?

I recognize the words but don't see any meaning in them.

[BOG PERSON]

19. disuse, idleness, obsolescence

[Initech]

6. Reagan and his goons and their failed policies will be remembered for the end of America.

[BOG PERSON]

7. the end of america?

america will still be here!

[Initech]

9. Ok in 200 years.

[kenny blankenship]

8. Sure we have a Labor Policy:

FUCK LABOR! That's the policy and it's the policy of both parties, and every President since at least Reagan. More politely, in front of women and children, this policy is expressed through the euphemism of "Free Trade".

Whenever you hear a Centrist, Conservative or Phony Lib say "Free Trade" approvingly, he is really saying Fuck You, Working Slobs!

[NNN0LHI]

12. It was Reagan who made being anti-union cool. Here, read how he did it

http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html  

In order to reduce corporate taxes, it was necessary to reduce the size of the welfare state. This objective was carried out by the Reagan administration. After taking office in 1981, the administration set out on a course to alter the (relatively) labor sensitive political economy to be more business friendly. Reagan appointed anti-union officials to the National Labor Relations Board, "implicitly {granting} employers permission to revive long shunned anti-union practices: decertifying unions, outsourcing production, and hiring permanent replacements for striking workers". Reagan himself pursued such a policy when he fired eleven thousand striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Regulations designed to protect the environment , worker safety, and consumer rights were summarily decried as unnecessary government meddling in the marketplace. Programs designed to help the poor were also characterized as "big government," and the people who utilized such programs were often stigmatized as lazy or even criminal. With the help of both political parties, the administration drastically cut social welfare spending and the budgets of many regulatory agencies.

The new emphasis was on "supply side" economics, which essentially "blamed the nation's ills on 'big government' and called for lower taxes, reduced federal spending (military exempted), fewer government regulations, and more private sector initiatives ". Thus, to effect a change in the political economy, Reagan was able to win major concessions regarding social policy that continue today. By taking away the safety net, the working class was effectively neutralized: workers no longer had the freedom to strike against their employers or depend upon the social welfare system as a means of living until finding employment. Business was thus free to lower wages, benefits, and the length of contracts. The overall result was that the average income for the average American dropped even as the average number of hours at work increased.

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That is why when I see someone spouting anti-union nonsense somewhere I know what I am talking to right away. A scum sucking Reaganite. Makes it kind of easy.

Don

[BOG PERSON]

13. i think it was the transition to a "postindustrial" economy

and the consequent atomization and casualization of work (white collar and service-sector work in particular) - that led to the decline in trade unionism.

[NNN0LHI]

15. My job wasn't done away by automation. I was an Automation Machine Repairman

And about 70% of our production jobs could not be automated. They were lines that ran just service parts. Might only need a few hundred panels for each order. Would take more man hours setting up the automation and become more expensive to automate a line to run 300 or 400 panels than the job was worth.

I watched over 3000 of those type of jobs moved overseas from my one plant.

Don

[pampango]

14. And the countries with the strongest labor unions have more "free trade" than the US has ever had

and likely ever will have.

How is that possible if 'free trade' is the cause of all of our labor problems? If that was indeed a cause-and-effect linkage, unions in Germany would be basket cases as would those in France, Sweden, Australia, Japan, etc. They are not.

Those countries all have strong laws that protect unions and their workers. It would be an understatement to say that the US lacks strong union protection legislation. Perhaps that is where our problem lies.

[NNN0LHI]

16. Free trade is an illusion. Some countries don't use trade laws. They use other methods

Last edited Mon Jul 16, 2012, 07:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Korea for instance. You can purchase an American car there. They even have a few dealers. But expect a letter advising you to come in for a tax audit in the mail a few days after that purchase.

Needless to say they don't sell a lot of our cars there.

Every country has their little tricks to discourage purchasing imported goods. Except us I think?

Don

[NNN0LHI]

10. My job and millions more in heavy industry were off shored 10 years before any trade agreements

I am not saying that I am happy it is still going on to this day. On the contrary I am against off shoring .

But to suggest that trade agreements sent all of our manufacturing jobs overseas is simply not accurate.

My job and millions more left during the early 1980's.

I was laid off for a total of about 6 years from my job during the early to mid 1980's due to that happening.

I don't think Bill Clinton had anything to do with that.

Don

[TheMastersNemesis]

20. There Was Outsourcing Before NAFTA

Yes there was outsourcing before NAFTA. Capitalists used junk bonds and forced buyouts to dismantle a lot of industries to make money even during the 1st Reagan administration. NAFTA made it more official and even desirable. Open free trade was not an official policy but it was going on in a different way.

The public was not aware of the dismantling going on. It was pretty much under the radar. And there was a lot of Bain like activity before Bain.

[Taverner]

11. If you want capitalism to survive at all, we need a labor policy

And we need a return to the NES and NRA (National Recovery Act)

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. K&R for the sentiment, but we have a very explicit labor policy here.

Last edited Mon Jul 16, 2012, 09:16 PM - Edit history (2)

There was a debate in this nation regarding labor vs. capital. After WWII we decided that capital is superior to labor and have been suffering for it ever since. The pain was not obvious until the 70's and the consolidation was started in the 80's.

This is why nibbling at the edges of our problems is not working well or fast enough. We still have not acknowledged the underlying problem, so we are not looking at solutions. Our can create, through our government, a society that works for the many or one that works for the few, there is no compromise.