As far as this "union bosses" stuff goes, George Becker and all of our past USWA presidents have been elected by direct secret ballot of the membership. George is going to go down in the books as one of the best presidents of the Steelworkers along with Phil Murray and Lynn Williams. Personally, I don't envy George his job. Here's a guy who spends his life getting on and off airplanes, driving to out of the way places only to get beat up by guys like me.
I really like the Baffler and I like the Baffler's style of criticism of modern corporate management techniques. I saw a new best seller management technique book at Borders the other day. It was called the Seven Secrets of Business Warfare and on the cover is a picture of an Asia-Eurasian with a stick in his hand. The author's name was Moskowitz or something like that---a real important read from the tout Borders was giving the book.
I often wonder what new corporate management technique is going to be sold out of the back of a car trunk here and across industrial America.
Pete, you have got to understand that there is a verbal judo :o) going on between corporate management and organized labor in this country. Part of this verbal judo :o) is over the meaning of these out of the back of the trunk terms.
Tom Lehman
"Peter K." wrote:
> >Pete & Yoshie---What's wrong with Steelworkers competing to raise
> environmental
> >standards here in the USA and around the world? That's healthy
> competition!
> >
> >Tom Lehman
>
> I'm sure not what you mean by competing to raise environmental standards.
> One of the union bosses' prevalent and effective points is that free trade
> as it currently exists leads to a race to the bottom. It pits workers in
> different regions and different countries against one another and the same
> goes for governments who will offer companies tax-incentives to relocate or
> provide a "good investment climate" which tends to mean "flexible labor
> markets", i.e. little or no right to organize, and little governmental
> regulation.
>
> The competition is for whoever can sell the best product for the cheapest
> price and since with capitalism you get overproduction what you end up with
> situations like Russia, Brazil, and Japan "dumping" their steel. I would
> guess true laissez-fair types would be against regulating "dumping", because
> how can there by unfair competition? The notion of "unfair" business
> practices always struck me as odd. If some company had the financial means
> to flood their market with goods that sell below production cost, thereby
> destroying the competition, shouldn't they be allowed to do so simply
> because they have the wherewithal, that is, they had earned the right to do
> so?
>
> Peter