SCOTUS says fuck you to care workers.

As I tweeted yesterday, SCOTUS is really just giving working women the finger. The Hobby Lobby decision is about working women. The Harris v. Quinn decision is also about working women. We all knew we were in trouble when SCOTUS Blog announced that Alito was giving both opinions. Think all the way back with me, I wrote about this a long time ago. You can read the ThinkProgress article. This was about whether “partial public employees” can be required to pay union dues for the collective bargaining they benefit from. I know, you’re wondering what the hell is a “partial public employee,” which I’m comfortable defining as low-wage care workers who are largely women of color.

The 5-4 decision could have been worse, but it is still pretty bad. The decision leaves the financial viability of unions in jeopardy, but Alito’s opinion hints at further problems in the future because he says allowing unions to collect dues from nonmembers as “questionable on several grounds.” The home health workers are hired and fired by individuals so they aren’t covered by the law requiring them to contribute to the union if they benefit from the collective bargaining. Technically, this is a First Amendment decision. It is a blow to workers, unions, and a high-five to “right to work.” You can read the full opinion.

The next shot looks like it will be coming out of California where teachers are suing to get out of union dues on First Amendment grounds as well. Part of me wonders if this logic can be applied on a larger scale.

Once again, I’d like to point out who exactly this impacts: unions and women of color. It is almost like the years of discriminating against care workers is coming back to bite unions in the ass. Not that that makes it ok. Really both this decision and the Hobby Lobby decision just reinforce that this SCOTUS’s legacy will be as a corporate champion. Corporations are valued as entities over people and individual rights. This Harris decision is particularly insidious to me because it hinges on classifying a certain kind of employee as not deserving of collective bargaining.

I don’t really know where to go from here. Either the left is going to get serious about workers, people of color, women, trans people, etc or they aren’t. If they are going to get serious there needs to be some kind of organization. I read a tweet about how SCOTUS pissed off women, which is going to be dangerous for the conservative right. Another tweet about how the Democrats are on the side of women. And now, President Obama used on executive order to increase border enforcement. These aren’t the movements of progress. Time to force our team to play ball or go with someone else. I want proof these jerks are on our side or we need to cut the dead weight loose.  And our side is women’s rights, labor rights, immigration rights, voting rights, etc.

Personal news: This is going to be the longest three day week ever. I’m not guaranteeing I’m going to blog Thursday through Monday because I’m taking another anti-media vacation. I’m going to read and write for four days. I don’t know if I can handle trying to be productive as well. I might just say fuck this and read fiction all weekend. On that note special thanks to C, BA, and BigKate for their attempts to help me with this block.

Northwestern gets to organize, but white people don’t like it

I think I’ve written about the attempts of Northwestern football players to unionize, well the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago ruled they can on Wednesday. Northwestern said they’d appeal the ruling.

According to Sara Ganim for CNN, the university claimed the students weren’t employers and can’t unionize while the student argued they were employers being paid via scholarships, working between 20 and 50 hours a week, and generating millions of dollars for their institutions. The athletes want better medical coverage, concussion testing, four-year scholarships, and the possibility of being paid. You know outlandish demands.

The regional NLRB office said any review requests have to be filed in DC by April 9. The appeal could go as far as the Supreme Court and will likely take years to resolve. The NCAA said it was disappointed with the ruling and disagreed “with the notion that student-athletes are employees.” NCAA Chief legal officer Donald Remy said,

“We frequently hear from student-athletes, across all sports, that they participate to enhance their overall college experience and for the love of their sport, not to be paid. While improvements need to be made, we do not need to completely throw away a system that has helped literally millions of students over the past decade alone attend college.

“We want student-athletes—99 percent of whom will never make it to professional leagues—focused on what matters most---finding success in the classroom, on the field of life.”

Fuck this guy. Let’s be clear, the students are employees, but without job security if they are injured some can lose their scholarships so much for focusing on the classroom. They have shit insurance, as all of us did when we got it through our universities. Finally, these students are overwhelming people of color working as entertainment for white people; that is a clear oppressive power dynamic.

Former Northwestern University’s President Henry Bienen has threaten to give up Division I sports, “If we got into collective bargaining situations, I would not take for granted that the Northwesterns of the world would continue to play Division I sports.”

Sounds like union busting threats to me. Of course, he also noted that some academically rigorous institutions opted out of the current model to preserve academic integrity. Notably 15% of men’s football, baseball, and basketball players have said they would have had different majors if not for athletes. Additionally, 12% of Division I football players said athletes caused them to forego majors they wanted. They also found that the average time devoted to sports hovered around 40 hours per week, which is in direct violation of the NCAA 20-hour rule.

So back to the issues of social construction, well we know that college sports are pretty sexist. They invest far more funds into men’s sports than women’s, they cover up sexual assaults committed by players (Norte Dame, Duke, Penn State, not OSU though where our couch benches anyone accused like a boss), and then the whole recruitment process which lends itself to rape culture, and I’m sure I’m missing things.

I read on Deadspin this morning, that white people don’t really want college athletes to be paid, in a piece written by Barry Pechesky. He cites a poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, which found that the majority of Americans are opposed to paying student-athletes, mostly white Americans. Try to contain your shock.

The findings showed that 33% of respondents were strongly or somewhat in support of paying salaries to student-athletes, while 64% strongly or somewhat opposed it. Of all respondents about 56% were college sports fans. As you may expect, young, liberal, less religious people are more likely to support salaries, while old, conservative, religious people opposed pay. I can’t really work out that religious piece, because Jesus.

Naturally, the real difference was in race. White people opposed paying student-athletes by a 72-24 margin, while non-white respondents supported salaries for student-athletes by a 51-46 margin. There is a 47-47 split when respondents were asked if they were in favor of student-athletes forming unions, of course with similar breakdowns.

Obviously, I’m in favor of unions and pay for student-athletes because of the dangers and lack of protection in these sports and institutions. I find the system (while I like sports) to be exploitative of low-income men of color. And of course the awful racial implications of promising an escape from poverty through the means of sports for the entertainment of white, wealthy, educated people. Anyone else feel like they need a shower? But this is what inequity yields, who am I to decide this is an unreasonable attempt for class jumping? However, if it is going to be a means, then it has to be fully thought out and as beneficial as possible for those participating.

In These Times Magazine’s staff get their union cards.

This was the big news on Tuesday. It felt like everyone was talking about on Twitter, but Dave Jamieson had a piece up at Huffington Post. In These Times Magazine joined the Communications Workers of America; their local is Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, which also represents the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and Bloomberg BNA. Not surprisingly the decision to unionize was unanimous about staff and was unopposed by the magazine’s management. Staffers hope that representation through CWA will give them a greater voice if they face another financial squeeze. 

Employers win one in the New Orleans Court of Appeals

US Court of Appeals in New Orleans issued a decision that permits employers to require workers, as a condition of their jobs to agree to arbitrate all workplace disputes and to do so as individuals standing against their employers. This ruling could be the end of employment class actions, which were so important in addressing barriers of race and sex discrimination after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and of course are still important to enforcement of labor standards including minimum wage.

I read about this from a Politico post by Craig Becker.  The actual cases involved D.R. Horton, a home-builder which operates in 27 states with annual revenue of more than $6 billion. The company required all employees to sign an agreement providing that the employment disputes would be resolved by binding arbitration and that the arbitrator “may hear only Employee’s individual claims.” One employee attempted to pursue a claim the D.R. Horton misclassified an entire category of workers as exempt from the protection of federal overtime regulations, the company insisted each worker had to file an individual claim.

So what’s an employee to do? To the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) Bat Signal. The NLRB found that the “agreement” to waive the right to join with co-workers for workplace claims violated federal labor law saying not only do employees have the right to join a union, but they can “engage in…converted activates for the purpose of…other mutual aid or protection.” The NLRB found that as employers can’t require employees not to join a union via a “yellow dog contract,” the employers can’t require employees to “agree” not to file class action suits.

The New Orleans Court of Appeals reversed the NLRB’s decision in a 2-1 vote. They found the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) trumps the employee’s right to act collectively. The FAA doesn’t actually address class action suits. The court’s holding is in line with the Supreme Court’s decisions expanding their interpretation of FAA. If the court’s holding becomes governing rule, no employer will permit its employees to bring class action suits. Many employers already require these waivers such as J.P. Morgan and United Healthcare. However, all those represented by unions will have to yield their rights.

One federal judge said, “each employee would have to…undertake the person risk of litigation directly against his or her…employer. Many employees would likely be unable to bear such…risks.” Oh good, some states the reasons for all of this. It is perfect, employers can cheat employees they keep in poverty and there is nothing the poor can do about it, suckers. No one reading this blog would be surprised to hear me say workers in the US are vulnerable to a host of labor violations and it is just getting worse. This is particularly true of low-wage workers. We also have to remember that organized labor continues to weaken almost across the board, the only hope really is to organize unskilled service workers, which is very difficult because the Walmart business model where unionbusting is key.

Becker concludes by suggesting Congress might do something about this when it takes up the Arbitration Fairness Act this year.  I’m a far more cynical person. I worry that one Congress is alerted to this problem they will make it worse by banning unions or individual suits against employers, ok so I’m being a little tongue and cheek here, but the point remains. I don’t believe Congress will help especially the House of Representatives, remember who pays the bills here.

Fast Food Workers’ Strike

Remember back when fast food workers from the major chains walked off the job in protest? Yeah, well obviously they did it again, but this time in 100 cities, more actually, but I don’t have a head count. This strike included cities in the south where they have minimum wages lower than the federal minimum wage.

 

Allison Kilkenny continues to write about it for The Nation. These workers are calling for $15 an hour wages, which is close to a living wage and fringe benefits. Kilkenny’s piece includes interviews noting how difficult it is to live off poverty wages. These interviews note a lack of resources for the underpaid employees. Overall, these workers feel undervalued and defeated, and the organizing going is giving them hope.

 

This link will take you to a map of where the strikes took place.

 

Some of you may have noticed on Twitter and Facebook last week that I had a long, too long, conversation with a libertarian about fair pay. His arguments are weak, which you know because he perpetually switched between them when facts disproved him. Mostly his argument centered on a race to the bottom argument where poverty wages are the only way to have large numbers of jobs and make a profit. This is a shitty argument because paying people a fair wage enables them to buy the product they are producing (as proven by noted capitalist and anti-labor force, Henry Ford). Also, jobs increase over time because more people can afford the products and thus they need more product.

 

However, we went around and around. In the end this comes down to people or profit. The rights of human beings verses corporations. Also, despite what the Supreme Court has said, corporations are not people. If the goal is mass profits for a few then higher wages will hurt them, if the goal is a work force that can support itself and buy products then an increase in wages will help.

 

This libertarian also made some amazing arguments about how everyone can work two jobs (two minimum wage jobs at the federal level is only $14.50 per hour). He did it after all with no privileges, like being white and a man. The obliviousness of libertarians is astounding.

 

Fingers crossed the largest fast food strike is successful. Hopefully, these workers will get living wages, but the Dems aren’t going to get anywhere in Congress. Republicans are going to shut this bill down every time the Dems try to push a bill through, and the White House will be no help. This has to be a grassroots movement where the elected officials are actually afraid of losing their positions. I doubt this will happen because of gerrymandering. Maybe on a local level? Well, this took a depressing turn.