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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Another Con

Another Con

by Kay|  March 5, 201112:26 pm| 77 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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The Indiana Chamber of Commerce dominated the “Right To Work” debate in Indiana until last Thursday, when The Higgins Labor Study Program at the University of Notre Dame had the temerity to weigh in: (pdf)

Empirically, the argument that RTW laws will, in the long run, lead to higher wages is not accurate either. Since the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947, and since 18 of the 22 RTW states had passed RTW laws by 1955, the long run should have already arrived. But the evidence indicates, as
noted above (Gould and Shierholz, 2011), that wages and benefits today are lower for union and non-union workers in RTW states than in non-RTW states. If the Chamber’s argument seems familiar, it is because it is the same “trickle-down” approach that has been used repeatedly in the past thirty years.

And here’s the Indiana Chambers response:

(INDIANAPOLIS) — Dr. Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economist and principal author of the recent Indiana Chamber of Commerce-released study, Right-to-Work and Indiana’s Economic Future, comments on the latest union-backed attack of his work:
“The ‘analysis’ released today from the Higgins Labor Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame is not surprising considering that supporting unions is actually spelled out as part of the program’s mission statement.
“The Higgins response to the Indiana Chamber’s right-to-work study is embarrassingly weak. It offers no new research to refute our study, but rather uses lame arguments, such as the claim that per capita income is an inappropriate measure. Much of the work we incorporated into the Indiana study was published in a refereed academic journal – something that cannot be said for the Higgins effort.”

Hmmm…..a recent report in the libertarian Cato Institute’s Cato Journal written by Ohio University economics Prof. Richard Vedder….

Vedder also pens editorials promoting RTW in Ohio newspapers, which makes him a fair and neutral arbiter, unlike those union thugs at Notre Dame. You can read Vedders RTW study at the Chamber link, where you’ll find that the Chamber sponsored the study.

Vedder and the Indiana Chamber are concerned that a labor-backed university program had a seat at the table in what had been, up until last Thursday, a completely one-sided debate.

Conservatives and libertarians are running a con. They’re insisting they’re not after private sector unions, because private sector union members split their votes between Republicans and Democrats. Union votes are important to conservatives and libertarians in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. But off course they are hostile to private sector union members. They’re pushing RTW, hard. Those two positions are incompatible, and require an explanation.

Daniels, Kasich and Walker should be asked their position on RTW and private sector unions. I’d say “get it in writing” but we just found out in Ohio that conservatives will happily pledge to support unions in writing, and then renege after they’re elected. Mitch Daniels adroitly dodged the private sector union question when he realized pursuing RTW was politically problematic right now, due to conservative over-reach on public sector unions in Ohio and Wisconsin. He shouldn’t get away with that.

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77Comments

  1. 1.

    ant

    March 5, 2011 at 12:38 pm

    So is per capita income is an inappropriate measure?

    Or not?

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 12:40 pm

    That this whole debate is framed around legislation called “right to work” is a good index of how much of an uphill climb this is going to be for collective bargaining and workers in general.

    It would help to change the discourse first.

    “right to work” = right to work for lousy wages and terrible benefits

  3. 3.

    cleek

    March 5, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    wages and benefits today are lower for union and non-union workers in RTW states than in non-RTW states

    that is, of course, the goal of RTW.

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    I’d also remind people — and I wish the media would do this, since it ain’t that hard — that when Walker puts forward a union-busting bill, he IS negotiating with public sector workers. It’s not about negotiations. It is a negotiation.

    His opening gambit is scorched earth.

  5. 5.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    @ant:

    You’ll have to read both. The Notrde Dame study claims that Vedder cherry-picked his data carefully. They’re wondering why he didn’t use long-range data on RTW, because (as quoted above) it’s been available since the 1950’s.

    11 southern states have been RTW since the 1940’s. It’s not like we don’t have numbers.

  6. 6.

    Southern Beale

    March 5, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Last week the Economic Policy Institute issued its report, Does Right To Work Create Jobs? Answers from Oklahoma

    The whole report is interesting but this from their summary:

    Despite ambitious claims by proponents, the evidence is overwhelming that:
    __
    • Right-to-work laws have not succeeded in boosting employment growth in the states that have adopted them.
    __
    • The case of Oklahoma – closest in time to the conditions facing those states now considering such legislation – is particularly discouraging regarding the law’s ability to spur job growth. Since the law passed in 2001, manufacturing employment and relocations into the state reversed their climb and began to fall, precisely the opposite of what right-to-work advocates promised.
    __
    • For those states looking beyond traditional or low wage manufacturing jobs – whether to higher-tech manufacturing, to “knowledge” sector jobs, or to service industries dependent on consumer spending in the local economy – there is reason to believe that right-to-work laws may actually harm a state’s economic prospects.

    I just would love for this kind of information to get out there. Have these guys booked on some of the bobblehead shows and get interviewed and get their op-eds published. I’m SO FUCKING TIRED of constantly getting shouted down by the Chamber of Commerce assholes. When do we get to push back? WHEN?

  7. 7.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    “You have the right to work. We have the right to pay you as little as possible. And, by the way, you’re all considered managers now so don’t even think about asking for overtime pay.”

  8. 8.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    The private sector union member protesters in Indiana use “right to work for less”.

    It just bothers me that Kasich and Christie and others are running around pledging fealty to private sector unions.

    It looks like a pure political strategy to retain those voters in eastern and industrial midwest states. I’d like some clarity on the conservative-libertarian view on private sector unions, because Vedder has some really radical views. He objects to every labor law passed since 1930.

  9. 9.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 12:52 pm

    @kay: The problem of course is that many union folks, especially those in private unions, vote for people like Daniels/Kasich/Christie because of issues that have nothing to do with labor. Social and religious issues, for example.

    What the current overreach by Walker, and, I hope in time, Kasich, is doing is allowing people to take a more holistic view of what these guys are up to.

    Let’s put this differently: take all the “right to work” states and then show their ranks in education, health, and all the quality of life measurements.

  10. 10.

    ant

    March 5, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    @kay:

    You’ll have to read both.

    OK. I’ll take a look into it. It’s just that I saw you attack this Vedder guy for being a shill, but didn’t deconstruct any of his arguments.

    Usually, I find the latter more compelling.

  11. 11.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 1:00 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    I’ve mentioned a lot that I live in one of those “right wing union voters” areas, and I would dispute that it’s social issues. IMO (and this is, of course, anecdotal) it’s just general disinterest until it affects them directly. Unionized law enforcement weren’t voting on abortion. They were voting because they had what amounted to an informal agreement that GOP pols wouldn’t gut their wages or privatize their jobs.
    It was safe to vote for GWB is you were UAW in Ohio. He didn’t do anything directly to hurt or harm them.

  12. 12.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 5, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    Facts have a well known liberal bias. But the LEOs (aka idiots) don’t love Kasich in OH, do they? That can help, but is it enough?

  13. 13.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    @ant:

    That’s not what I wrote. I wrote that Vedder and the Chamber objected to the labor-backed program at ND when Vedder is backed by the Chamber, and his study was reviewed by CATO.
    The Chamber don’t refute any of the ND study arguments. They simply state over and over that the ND program is backed by labor.
    It’s ridiculous. They widely disseminated a study commissioned by the chamber and reviewed by CATO (WSJ, FOX both relied on it), and then whine that ND released a study backed by labor.
    They don’t want a debate. They want to issue directives.

  14. 14.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    I’m not going to give the Indiana CoC a click. Can anyone tell me the name of the “refereed academic journal” that published Vedder’s opus?

  15. 15.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    @kay: I didn’t mean abortion (though for Catholic union folks, and there are lots in midwestern urban areas, that’s a chunk), but more along the lines of general soft conservative stuff. Like pro-military and guns, tough guy talk, and so on. Not strict issue-based voting.

    I think we’re in agreement here. I certainly do agree that working class folks can be passive about politics until it hits home, which is why the WI stuff is so important regionally and nationally. I come from a firefighter background (father and grandfather) and what’s great in WI and elsewhere is to see teachers and firefighters/cops standing together. They often don’t, locally (they compete for funds and there’s a class cold war).

  16. 16.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    The spin is just incredible, though,isn’t it? I feel as if national media are portraying Kasich as “a moderate” because they’re comparing his approach to the lunatic in Wisconsin.
    But the issues are the same. Kasich was able to run roughshod because Democrats couldn’t deny a quorum. That’s the one and only difference. Kasich actually pioneered locking the statehouse. He was first with that.

  17. 17.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    @Dennis SGMM: If it’s the CATO journal that would be hilarious.

    Peer-reviewed by other glibs.

    Anyone know?

  18. 18.

    Martin

    March 5, 2011 at 1:13 pm

    The use of quotes around analysis is one of those ad-hominem attacks that perfectly correlates with extreme dickishness. Stopped reading at that point. It was obvious what was coming next.

  19. 19.

    Yutsano

    March 5, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    @Martin: Half a Cavuto mark is definitely a big tell here.

  20. 20.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Absolutely. It’s interesting for me, because this has long been a point of debate and gnashing of teeth here locally, among Democrats and (active) union members.
    I will never forget passing out Kerry handouts outside a UAW plant here locally, in the 2004 election.
    I knew many were voting for Bush. There was this sheepishness, almost an apologetic air when I engaged them. I could feel it :)

  21. 21.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    @kay: Kay, what do the big OH newspapers have to say about this? Which way do they lean?

    The Chicago Trib, for example, is cheerleading this shit as loudly as they can, and while I would never touch it with a ten foot pole, I know the Indy Star will be too.

  22. 22.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 1:17 pm

    @kay: Unfortunately, that’s how my people did politics.

    The “who’d you rather have a beer with?” phenom goes really far in working class, low info places.

    Makes me mad as hell.

  23. 23.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 1:21 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    This is from the FOX link:

    A recent report in the libertarian Cato Institute’s Cato Journal written by Ohio University economics Prof. Richard Vedder found that about 4.7 million Americans moved to right-to-work states between 2000 and 2008.

    I’m going to give you this, too, because it’s more of his work in the CATO Journal. This one is absolutely alarming. It begins with how state law limits economic freedom. That’s PRE federal labor law. He’s got problems with any labor law, of any kind, ever.

  24. 24.

    Martin

    March 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    @BGinCHI: The free market will purchase the most accurate articles, obviously.

  25. 25.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    @kay: It’s telling if it’s an inside CATO journal job.

    Look, as an academic, I can tell you that there is a difference between refereed and non-refereed. But, it’s pretty simple to point out that if you define “refereed” as “judged by an interested, non-objective group of peers,” you aren’t living up to the spirit of a refereed journal.

    It’s an echo chamber, in other words.

    What a shock.

    His response to the ND folks is especially pathetic and I bet they laughed when they read that charge. The devils will be in the data here and won’t be hard for smart folks to sort out.

  26. 26.

    ppcli

    March 5, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    I thought I had seen all possible shameless rhetorical dodges, but props to Ohio University economist Dr. Richard Vedder for coming up with one that was new to me. Someone objects to your work that it cherry-picks data and it ignores multiple well-known studies that are familiar to everyone in the field? Response:

    “It offers no new research to refute our study”

    I’ll have to remember that the next time that a referee points out that, say, the claims in my paper are inconsistent with the existence of gravity, or the ideal gas law.

  27. 27.

    Kyle

    March 5, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    We need to spread the meme Cheap Labor Republicans. Because that is the essence of their efforts — tilting the field against labor and toward business. Like trickle-down, any promise of long-term benefits for anyone but business is propaganda.

    If you earn a living through your labor, you’d be nuts to support the Repukes.

  28. 28.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Just roughly, I would say northern Ohio papers are neutral/pro-labor (The Toledo Blade). The Columbus paper backs Kasich no matter what he does, and southern Ohio is conservative. I don’t read the Cleveland or Youngstown papers, so I don’t know about NE.
    I started looking at Michigan papers last week, because they have a Tea partier gov, and they’re wary, to say the least.
    Yesterday, the Michigan GOP voted to pull same sex benefits, under the guise of “budget constraints”

  29. 29.

    kay

    March 5, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    I read both, and the ND paper is interesting, because it has a section on social justice and unions, within religion. I’m glad that’s coming back into the discussion, if it is, and the noise machine doesn’t just drown it out.

  30. 30.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    @BGinCHI: @kay:

    Thank you both. Seems to me that characterizing the Cato Journal as “academic” is like characterizing WWE as Greco-Roman wrestling.

  31. 31.

    UmYeah

    March 5, 2011 at 1:46 pm

    @kay:

    Divide and conquer.

    Public sector union jobs have a much harder time being shipped elsewhere.

    For those in the private they know they can threaten to ship jobs to China or Dumblefuck,Alabama.

  32. 32.

    Pangloss

    March 5, 2011 at 1:55 pm

    Vedder also pens editorials promoting RTW in Ohio newspapers, which makes him a fair and neutral arbiter, unlike those union thugs at Notre Dame.

    Plus, he put “analysis” in quotes, which, you know, casts doubt on its accuracy.

  33. 33.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    @kay: Thanks, Kay, for both responses.

    Good post and an excellent discussion.

    If you have time, I’d suggest an email to the ND folks alerting them to the thread and asking if they have comments on the controversy and/or details on the research and methodology questions.

  34. 34.

    aimai

    March 5, 2011 at 2:02 pm

    This right to work wheeze is like the laffer curve, or trickle down. Its one thing to push for the grinding poverty for all that makes oligarchy really worth living. Its another to try to sell it to the rubes as some sort of get rich quick scheme for the average person. Why can’t they just be honest and tell all of us to curl up and die already? Instead we are forced to watch these fake academics and the paid mouthpieces of crony capitalism explain to us, condescendingly and with graphs, that if we just forget reality we will all be rich!

    aimai

  35. 35.

    burnspbesq

    March 5, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    Odd how so many people who are so quick to label the Catholic Church as a useless and evil institution are equally quick to embrace research done at a Catholic university.

  36. 36.

    Morbo

    March 5, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    “Analysis” in scare quotes, aw, that’s cute.

  37. 37.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    @burnspbesq:
    That might be because the research was done by academics rather than by priests.

  38. 38.

    Southern Beale

    March 5, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    @kay:

    I will never forget passing out Kerry handouts outside a UAW plant here locally, in the 2004 election.
    __
    I knew many were voting for Bush. There was this sheepishness, almost an apologetic air when I engaged them. I could feel it :)

    Yup. I remember being at a visibility event for Kerry in 2004 and amid the thumbs-up and horn-honkers was always the “get a job!!” asshole and I remember one being a union guy — we could tell from a bumper sticker. I remember my friend in his lovely Southern way shouting at him: “And you’re a UNION MAN! Shame on you!”

    Ah well. Same as it ever was.

  39. 39.

    RSA

    March 5, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    It offers no new research to refute our study, but rather uses lame arguments, such as the claim that per capita income is an inappropriate measure. Much of the work we incorporated into the Indiana study was published in a refereed academic journal – something that cannot be said for the Higgins effort.

    This doesn’t sound very scholarly. (Is that the biggest insult an academic can receive? If not, it’s probably close.) It’s full of weaseling. The Higgins report questions the methods and analysis of the Vedder work, and it doesn’t seem lame on the surface. For example, if you’re studying right-to-work laws, it makes sense to look at the incomes of people who are most affected by changes to right-to-work laws, rather than everyone including CEOs. And the business about “much of the work” being published (but does the work address the points the Higgins report raises?) and a “refereed academic journal” (Please. As Kay indicates, the Cato article is the only reference to Vedder’s work in the Indiana Chamber study).

  40. 40.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    @RSA:
    I always thought that the Gold Standard for academic work was not just publication, but peer review as well. Although I’m just guessing, I’d say that Vedder will submit his work to peer review around the same time that the Winter Olympics are staged in Hell.

  41. 41.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    @burnspbesq: Not everyone who teaches there is Catholic, or even religious.

    This isn’t about religious affiliation.

    Nice try though.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    March 5, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    Hmmm…..a recent report in the libertarian Cato Institute’s Cato Journal written by Ohio University economics Prof. Richard Vedder….

    What immediately comes to mind is that ancient Sanskrit text…

    The Rigged Vedder

    @UmYeah:

    Public sector union jobs have a much harder time being shipped elsewhere.

    Sadly, this is not the case (Costa Mesa to lay off nearly half of city workforce, outsource services)

    The city of Costa Mesa plans to lay off more than 200 employees and outsource 18 city services by the fall.
    __
    The layoffs would cut the city’s municipal workforce by 43%. The City Council approved the layoffs in a 4-1 vote late Tuesday night, despite nearly unanimous opposition from the audience.
    __
    City officials said pink slips will go out in the next six months. The mayor blamed years of missteps by city staff and rising pension costs.

  43. 43.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 2:41 pm

    @Brachiator:

    What immediately comes to mind is that ancient Sanskrit text…
    The Rigged Vedder

    Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  44. 44.

    Caz

    March 5, 2011 at 2:41 pm

    You shouldn’t lump conservatives and libertarians in together – they have distinctly different views on these issues. While their proposed actions may sometimes intersect (as I suppose democrats and libertarians do as well), that does not mean they are approaching the analysis in the same manner. There are usually distinctly different reasons why a libertarian would do something and why a conservative would do the same thing.

  45. 45.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    @Caz:
    I’d say that they lumped themselves together on this one.

  46. 46.

    Chuck Butcher

    March 5, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    I thought I knew this guy’s name:

    Current Positions:

    (emeritus, part-time) distinguished professor of economics at the Ohio University
    Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute
    member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Public Interest Institute
    member of National Taxpayers Union’s Board of Directors
    adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
    member of the Board of Scholars at the Virginia Institute for Public Policy

    He’s a real piece of work

    The “Austrian Economics Newsletter” lays claim to him as well:

    Richard K. Vedder is professor of economics at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

  47. 47.

    jwb

    March 5, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    @Caz: libertarians fuck us over on principle; economic conservatives fuck us over because they can; wingnuts fuck us over because they enjoy it; David Brooks fucks us over because someone has to suffer and he’s going to make damn sure it isn’t him. Yes, I’m sure that each species of conservative has a different reason for fucking us over.

  48. 48.

    Chuck Butcher

    March 5, 2011 at 2:58 pm

    @Caz:
    Really? IGMFU isn’t a GOP plank?

  49. 49.

    The Republic of Stupidness

    March 5, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    Don’t know if they have unions in India or not, but apparently Indian workers tend to take things into their own hands when they get laid off…

  50. 50.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    March 5, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    @BGinCHI: Or better yet “right to work” means “no right to work”

    ETA: It’s funny how Vedder pints out a potential conflict of interest in the Notre Dame study but fails to note the conflict of interest in his (who paid for the study).

  51. 51.

    Cacti

    March 5, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    Also worth noting that NAFTA decimated manufacturing in “right to work states”, when Mexican labor was found to be cheaper still than non-unionized American labor.

  52. 52.

    burnspbesq

    March 5, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    That might be because the research was done by academics rather than by priests.

    And all the indigent care provided for free at Catholic hospitals is provided by doctors and nurses, not priests. So?

    Call me when you have a real point to make.

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    March 5, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    @Brachiator:

    It sounds like they outsourced them to local companies, not overseas or to a RTW state, which I think is what UmYeah was saying. Costa Mesa can’t move its garbage collection to South Carolina or decide that all of its fires are going to be put out from a call center in India. You still need actual people to provide those services in the city.

    Of course, I can pretty much guarantee you that this outsourcing is going to cost the city far more than keeping the employees on the city payroll would have, but that’s because firing public workers has more to do with ideology than cost savings. It’s more important to break the union than it is to save money, but saving money sounds really nice to taxpayers, and they don’t notice that the savings never arrive.

  54. 54.

    aimai

    March 5, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Well, you might think that the fact that people on the board have great respect for people who do their jobs well, regardless of their presumed religious affiliation, means that when they criticize specific Catholic individuals or institutions for specific acts or crimes that they *aren’t in fact being anti Catholic.* So instead of getting on your high horse every time a poster criticizes some Catholics for some acts you might just relax and stop being so defensive.

    aimai

  55. 55.

    Cacti

    March 5, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Odd how so many people who are so quick to label the Catholic Church as a useless and evil institution are equally quick to embrace research done at a Catholic university

    Always looking for an out for the child rapists, aren’t you?

    So, how many child rapists were involved with the study in question?

  56. 56.

    Mike G

    March 5, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    @The Republic of Stupidness:

    Fired workers burn Indian executive to death

    Now THAT’s class warfare…

  57. 57.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    @Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Feature, not a bug.

    I’d like to make these guys eat inconvenient pages of the New Testament one page at a time.

  58. 58.

    RSA

    March 5, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    I always thought that the Gold Standard for academic work was not just publication, but peer review as well.

    Oh, yeah. I believe that Cato is peer-reviewed, and I don’t know much about public policy journals, but I was suggesting (not very clearly, though) that an economic analysis would have more credibility if it appeared in an economics journal rather than a free-market libertarian public policy journal.

  59. 59.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    @Mike G: It’s a “right to burn management” state.

  60. 60.

    Lesley

    March 5, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    From http://robertreich.org/post/3638565075

    The National Employment Law Project…new data brief shows that most of the new jobs created since February 2010 (about 1.26 million) pay significantly lower wages than the jobs lost (8.4 million) between January 2008 and February 2010.

    While the biggest losses were higher-wage jobs paying an average of $19.05 to $31.40 an hour, the biggest gains have been lower-wage jobs paying an average of $9.03 to $12.91 an hour.

    In other words, the big news isn’t jobs. It’s wages.

    For several years now, conservative economists have blamed high unemployment on the purported fact that many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech jobs market.

    So if we want more jobs, they say, we’ll need to take pay and benefit cuts.

    And that’s exactly what Americans have been doing.

  61. 61.

    Kyle

    March 5, 2011 at 3:47 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    decide that all of its fires are going to be put out from a call center in India

    Careful, or a Republican who wants to “run government like a business” will actually try this.

    I used to work for an IT contractor who has since outsourced all server support to Indians who cannot speak or understand spoken English. If you have an issue you have to type it on the screen (they can just barely read English but not understand speech) while they remote in.

  62. 62.

    Lesley

    March 5, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    From http://robertreich.org/post/3638565075

    The National Employment Law Project…new data brief shows that most of the new jobs created since February 2010 (about 1.26 million) pay significantly lower wages than the jobs lost (8.4 million) between January 2008 and February 2010. While the biggest losses were higher-wage jobs paying an average of $19.05 to $31.40 an hour, the biggest gains have been lower-wage jobs paying an average of $9.03 to $12.91 an hour. In other words, the big news isn’t jobs. It’s wages. For several years now, conservative economists have blamed high unemployment on the purported fact that many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech jobs market. So if we want more jobs, they say, we’ll need to take pay and benefit cuts. And that’s exactly what Americans have been doing.

    Had to remove the paragraph breaks to make blockquote work.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    March 5, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    The Rigged Vedder

    Sorry. I’ve be re-watching episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle. A regular punfest.
    @Mnemosyne:

    It sounds like they outsourced them to local companies, not overseas or to a RTW state, which I think is what UmYeah was saying.

    The companies may not necessarily be local, or even US companies (consider all the various “place of incorporation” games that could be played). So the outsourcing could end up siphoning revenue out of California even if there are local jobs. And either way, public employees get shafted.

    You’re right that the cost savings may not really be there, although you can pretty much guarantee that wages paid will be lower, which is a shame. Also, some of these jobs involve jail administration. There may be the potential here for some incredible civil rights violations by private security firms.

  64. 64.

    gnomedad

    March 5, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    I’ll point it out again: Milton Friedman opposed right-to-work laws in Capitalism and Freedom; don’t know if he ever walked it back.

  65. 65.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 5, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    @Kyle:
    I was a machinist for many years. When the industry collapsed because of outsourcing no one bothered to stand up for it. Instead, it was “That’s what you get for working with your hands,” and “We don’t want those jobs anyway, we want the cool, high tech jobs.” I paid for my own training and moved into IT. That held up long enough for me to retire when the wave of outsourcing hit that profession. Some of my friends who still work in HR have told me that HR is being outsourced as well. At this point, I’d say that any white collar worker who feels that their job is secure is whistling past the graveyard.

  66. 66.

    timb

    March 5, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    @BGinCHI: That’s silly. There’s no newspaper in Indianapolis. Trust me, I live here. Ain’t been a paper round these parts since Gannett bought out the Pulliams in aught 2.

  67. 67.

    timb

    March 5, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    @burnspbesq: If the academics used the Bible for their labor research, then they’d be as silly and stupid as the rest of the Church. Just because there’s accidental knowledge created at a place which takes money from the Church, doesn’t mean it is completely tainted by the Church’s bullshit.

  68. 68.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    @timb: I wouldn’t wipe my ass with the Star.

    And I’m being charitable.

  69. 69.

    timb

    March 5, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    @BGinCHI: Which is why no one reads it anymore.

    Seriously, I get my new from Doghouse Riley and the rest of this blighted city (new motto: still SLIGHTLY better than Detroit) gets it from Rush Limabugh and Mitch Daniels’s press secretary.

    It’s why no one around here knows what IBM is and why the sort of person who thought of giving them TANF administration should be recalled and not be allowed to ask to do for America what he did for Indiana

  70. 70.

    nancydarling

    March 5, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    Thanks, Kay for this post. Good information to refute the opinions of the “upper classes” here in Arkansas. I notice that on page 10 of the Higgins report, Arkansas is third from the bottom for median household incomes for 2009—just above West Virginia and Mississippi.

  71. 71.

    BGinCHI

    March 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    @timb: Guy I went to Purdue with was one of Mitch’s chief staffers. Total asshole.

    Other some Lockerbie area bars and people in pockets trying really hard to make some culture, Indy ain’t one of my favorite places.

  72. 72.

    ckc (not kc)

    March 5, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    …peer-reviewed
    ..hmm – you know that “peer” is debatable, popular usage notwithstanding?

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    March 5, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:
    Bingo!

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    March 5, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:
    A nice big THIS!

  75. 75.

    El Cid

    March 5, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    The role of newspaper writers and journalists in pushing “right to work” policies cannot be overestimated.

    The phrase was popularized (“created”) by Dallas Morning News columnist William Ruggles in 1941.

    So all you union types producing all our goods for World War II, fuck off & die.

    Anyway:

    On Saturday, Aug. 30, 1941, William Ruggles finished his daily bowl of cottage cheese, washed it down with a cup of coffee and sent an editorial he’d pecked out with one finger to the newspaper’s backshop for typesetting.
    __
    His bosses hadn’t seen it, but the 40-year-old associate editor of The Dallas Morning News was fairly certain they’d agree with his call for an end to closed shops.
    __
    The News staunchly supported the right to form and belong to unions. But the newspaper was alarmed by the National Labor Relations Board, which it felt was steadily outlawing nonunion workers, ramming unions down the throats of employers and socializing industry.
    __
    The unionized linotype operator who set the copy that afternoon told Ruggles that if his idea of mandating open shops were enacted, it would mean the death of unions in America.
    __
    That wasn’t Ruggles’ objective. He just wanted to end forced union membership.
    __
    On a personal note, Ruggles, who had joined The News as a reporter in 1919, was worried that the Newspaper Guild, which was “encroaching” into many American newsrooms, would force him to join or quit.
    __
    Amendment urged
    __
    Ruggles thought every American had a right to work. He used those words in an editorial asking for a 22nd amendment to the U.S. Constitutional guaranteeing the right to work with or without union membership.
    __
    In so doing, he coined a phrase and sparked a movement that would change the labor landscape in America.
    __
    “The answer seemed to me to be an amendment to the federal Constitution that would be so clear and unequivocal that no jurist could argue against its meaning,” Ruggles said later.
    __
    Although that constitutional guarantee never materialized, 22 states enacted legislation patterned after the editorial. These laws prohibit agreements between trade unions and employers that make membership and payment of union dues or fees a requirement of employment even if the company is operating under union-negotiated bargaining agreements.

    A “closed shop” is different than one requiring either an employee join the union when hired (or by paying the same dues). With the former you’re only to hire union members.

    Taft-Hartley outlawed the closed shop in ’47, “right to work” states banned any requirement that new hires join the union or pay its dues.

    So, effectively, pretty much no reason to form or join.

    Thus, the attraction of businesses to the South. Once again. In the late 1800s, the South became the Northern industrialists’ 3rd world non-union manufacturing area to get away from higher wage and more protected union labor.

    In passing the RTW laws, Southern states guaranteed they would retain the low wage, low protection environment we all know and love.

    The Ruggles fans run the “National Right to Work Committee,” and a legal foundation, and a scholarship, etc.

    On their blog, they cheer for Michelle Malkin who’s showing what’s what to those teacher union “agitators” in Wisconsin. Or to “Big Government” for exposing how firefighter thugs sent a nasty e-mail. Or how Maine’s governor is really the man for shoving it to the unions with another “Right To Work” state.

  76. 76.

    Origuy

    March 5, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    @BGinCHI: My sister works at the Indy Art Center; she’s one of the ones trying to make culture. They live in a subdivision near Brownsburg. The Obama sign in their yard kinda stood out.

    Hey! WP finally stopped flagging Obama as a misspelling! When did that happen?

  77. 77.

    TheF79

    March 6, 2011 at 11:10 am

    After a quick readthrough of the Notre Dame study, it seems pretty solid conceptually. Basically they’re doing a regression discontinuity design with adoptance of RTW as their quasi-natural experiment, and then looking at growth before and after. This helps control for other cross-sectional variation and is pretty SOP. I would have liked to see more formal modeling, but perhaps I just missed a link to another paper where that was done.

    Vedder is simply running cross-sectional analysis on a small sample and basically hoping he can control for every variable that might be correllated with RTW and influence his dependent variable. Given the sophistication of econometric modeling in the labor economics field, there would have been a snowball’s chance in hell of Vedder’s paper being accepted in a proper economics journal. Vedder’s piece in Cato is like a well-written, first-year PhD student’s final paper for an econometrics course. Praying that you capture all sources of cross-sectional variation with 5 control variables is not an identification strategy.

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