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You are here: Home / Economics / Free Markets Solve Everything / My God, How Will They Survive

My God, How Will They Survive

by John Cole|  August 26, 20119:55 am| 66 Comments

This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Glibertarianism

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Look at this horribly oppressive rule:

In a move that angered business groups and cheered labor leaders, the NLRB’s new regulations mandate that companies display notices “in conspicuous places” that inform workers about their right to unionize.

The notices must tell employees that they have the right to strike and picket under certain circumstances; to form or join a union; to bargain collectively; to raise work-related complaints with a federal agency or union; or to decline to do any of those things.

How will business survive? It must probably cost several dollars to print a poster that informs people of their rights. How will they handle this heavy-handed oppressive regime of regulation?

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Reader Interactions

66Comments

  1. 1.

    jane from hell

    August 26, 2011 at 9:58 am

    Employees must also wash hands after using the restroom.

  2. 2.

    lonesomerobot

    August 26, 2011 at 9:59 am

    can I just say that this country is fukked?
    In other news, David Brooks went there like we all knew he would:

    It is time to take Perry seriously as a Republican nominee and even as a potential president.

  3. 3.

    rdldot

    August 26, 2011 at 9:59 am

    Actually I’m not sure it costs anything to get the posters. The ones I’ve seen appear to be issued by the government so it is more likely just a matter of getting one and putting it on a wall that’s not a closet.

  4. 4.

    adolphus

    August 26, 2011 at 10:00 am

    If this is handled the same way other mandated postings are handled, they probably won’t even have to pay for the poster. They will just get them (for free)from the Department of Labor or its state level equivalent. Or maybe the Chamber of Commerce will print a business friendly with scary fonts in blood red and images of unionists lurking in the bathroom with wide stances.

    Irregardless, they will still have to buy push pins or tape. The horror.

  5. 5.

    Zifnab

    August 26, 2011 at 10:01 am

    We can’t have people knowing their rights. Next thing, you’re going to want cops explaining to suspects that they can remain silent and seek legal council.

  6. 6.

    lonesomerobot

    August 26, 2011 at 10:01 am

    @jane from hell: Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks?

  7. 7.

    John Cole

    August 26, 2011 at 10:01 am

    Irregardless,

    SCREAM!

  8. 8.

    maye

    August 26, 2011 at 10:02 am

    @lonesomerobot: we may find out the mayans were right.

  9. 9.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    August 26, 2011 at 10:04 am

    This ought to have my wife’s big-box employer shitting their pants. Lately they have been training employees from other departments to be “temporary” cashiers and then laying off the actual cashiers. Why? So they won’t have to pay the wage differential (a measly 25 cents an hour) to the real cashiers.

    The store tried to unionize about ten years ago but the stupid gits in this town swallowed the store BS and it failed.

    This year the company is mandating health screenings for every employee and family member if they want to continue their shitty insurance coverage. We’re seriously thinking of fighting it as we don’t like the idea of handing our health information to any fucking ‘third party’, especially one that our insurer is a part owner of.

    We are sick and tired of the invisible hand being shoved up our asses on a daily basis.

  10. 10.

    maye

    August 26, 2011 at 10:05 am

    @John Cole: elitist Strunk and White snob.

  11. 11.

    OzoneR

    August 26, 2011 at 10:07 am

    Why does the Obama Administration hate unions?

  12. 12.

    Rick Massimo

    August 26, 2011 at 10:08 am

    Don’t you people ever think about the company’s right to repress people?

    Do ya?

    DO YA?

    It’s the last acceptable form of discrimination in this country. (Sniff)

  13. 13.

    Matt

    August 26, 2011 at 10:10 am

    The people whining about this are probably still pissed they have to display the poster explaining the minimum wage, overtime rules and FMLA rights…

  14. 14.

    maye

    August 26, 2011 at 10:11 am

    @OzoneR: ask this guy. he’ll be happy to explain it to you:
    http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/08/afl-cio-head-says-president-obama-made-strategic-mistake-in-deficit-talks/1

  15. 15.

    lonesomerobot

    August 26, 2011 at 10:14 am

    Growing up in a family whose father worked on the management side in a company, I recall the one strike we had to endure, and the thing I most remember was how demonizing they were to the striking workers. They pointedly warned the families of the company workers who were crossing the picket lines that we could be targets of violence (none occurred). It was around 4th of July that year, my brother and I were setting off fireworks which only caused my mother to think we were being attacked and hysterically summon us into the house.

    Looking back it seems to have been a really bad example of anti-union propagandizing. Because, you know, union thugs and all.

  16. 16.

    xian

    August 26, 2011 at 10:14 am

    the comments on that post are hilarious. unions thugs to the left of me, unelected chicago thugs to the right. proud serf-consciousness in praise of the lord of the manor, and daddy Perry coming to save us all from bad mean thuggish Obama.

  17. 17.

    Libby

    August 26, 2011 at 10:15 am

    Dear Lord, will the “job crushing” regulations never stop?

  18. 18.

    OzoneR

    August 26, 2011 at 10:15 am

    @maye:

    Trumka said that, rather than cut, the government needs to spend more money on infrastructure to update crumbling highways, rails and other public entities, as well as to create jobs.

    Impossible, Mother Jones told me updating rails was a waste of money!

  19. 19.

    kay

    August 26, 2011 at 10:19 am

    @maye:

    Unions always pressure Democratic politicians prior to election season. It’s what they do. They use leverage and they negotiate terms. Always. Everywhere. In everything. I (personally) wouldn’t take it as a specific damning indictment of Barack Obama. It’s as regular as rain.

  20. 20.

    maye

    August 26, 2011 at 10:20 am

    @OzoneR: as we fling ourselves headlong into the abyss, post-keynes.

  21. 21.

    maye

    August 26, 2011 at 10:22 am

    @kay: I hope you’re right. I also hope President O. pulls a rabbit out of his hat in the next 14 months.

  22. 22.

    Montysano

    August 26, 2011 at 10:23 am

    I bounced through the comments at Politico; these people are such delicate hothouse flowers. A poster on a wall = tHugGery!

  23. 23.

    adolphus

    August 26, 2011 at 10:23 am

    John: I always read that irregardless was a supposably a word. Clearly you are not in agreeance. Next time I am in WV lets conversate on it and you can orientate me on local cuisine.

    (I love people with pet grammar/spelling/punctuation peeves. Its so easy to disorientate them.)

    Edit: I learned conversating and rhetoritating from Booked on Phonix. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izpa9D7c77U

  24. 24.

    kay

    August 26, 2011 at 10:24 am

    @maye:

    You don’t have to go back too far to see it. Kerry, Clinton. I don’t know about union voters and Barack Obama, but union leaders are advocates, and they push prior to elections. Always. Everyone.

  25. 25.

    bleh

    August 26, 2011 at 10:26 am

    It’s not the cost of the poster or the pins, it’s the infringement on their God-given (and free-market-mandated) right to treat employees like disposable serfs.

    Because behaving like an obscenely wealthy, powerful, and immortal sociopath is what America is all about!

  26. 26.

    boss bitch

    August 26, 2011 at 10:26 am

    @OzoneR:

    What is the deal on that? Yesterday I read that Trumka dismissed all the things that Obama has been calling for FOR MONTHS (infrastructure, etc.) but I remember Trumka calling for these useless measures months ago.

  27. 27.

    rlrr

    August 26, 2011 at 10:40 am

    @lonesomerobot:

    Because the last Texas governor to become President worked out so well…

  28. 28.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 26, 2011 at 10:44 am

    This is very funny to me. It’s one more poster on the giant wall of posters every company is required to have by the government. Most of them are notifications of employees’ rights.

  29. 29.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 26, 2011 at 10:45 am

    @boss bitch:
    Years, actually. Since day one of his presidency. The competition for attention has just attenuated.

  30. 30.

    Steve

    August 26, 2011 at 10:47 am

    When you have a business, all sorts of people send you those posters for free. They’re hoping you’ll call them when you want to order more posters or whatever the heck else they sell.

  31. 31.

    RSA

    August 26, 2011 at 10:49 am

    @xian:

    the comments on that post are hilarious. unions thugs to the left of me, unelected chicago thugs to the right.

    Thugs forcing companies to put up posters telling employees about their legal rights? We’re practically living in a dictatorship.

  32. 32.

    cathyx

    August 26, 2011 at 10:53 am

    @John Cole: I am so with you on the irregardless thing. Fingernails to a chalkboard, I say.

  33. 33.

    agrippa

    August 26, 2011 at 10:54 am

    Excellent. I am glad that the NLRB is doing it.

  34. 34.

    Ken

    August 26, 2011 at 10:56 am

    Steve @30: Then there’s the version where the company sends you an official-looking notice that you must display the posters, and an order form. Just $25 to get what (as noted @4) is free from the government websites.

  35. 35.

    boss bitch

    August 26, 2011 at 10:56 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Yes, you’re correct. He has been saying it for years.

  36. 36.

    jwest

    August 26, 2011 at 11:01 am

    Employees have a right to extorted and intimidated by thugs and criminals, but does the government need to mandate posters to tell them?

  37. 37.

    wrb

    August 26, 2011 at 11:02 am

    President Perry’s proposed Department of Freedom will replace all the oppressive government agencies and all the dens of free-loading scientists and bureaucrats, from the NLRB to NOAA. Its main function, he claims, will be to issue Federal Permission Slips that exempt you from state and local regulation.

  38. 38.

    Derf

    August 26, 2011 at 11:03 am

    btw, looks like part time libertarian Greenwald may be looking for a new job pretty soon. Salon traffic down 37%
    http://theobamadiary.com/2011/08/25/a-long-and-desolate-night-of-bitterness/

    So Cole may have to find some other privledged white boy libertarian curious talking bobble head to fap over.

    btw, check out that video of the Libyan muslim kissing the American flag and thanking Obama. Things you would NEVER see during a Rethug or Libertarian presidency and if ANY of the talking bobble heads, neoCons, and Coles of the world had their way.

    So suck on that you ignorant idiots!

  39. 39.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 26, 2011 at 11:04 am

    @wrb:
    Is that a joke? Poe’s law has come into effect and I can’t tell.

  40. 40.

    Hungry Joe

    August 26, 2011 at 11:12 am

    When they busted the Newspaper Guild at my paper, one of management’s arguments was that the union “would no longer be able to stand in between you and the company” when it came time to negotiate wage increases. And they were right; after the union was thrown out, we were simply told what our raises (if any) would be. Beginning, middle, and end of conversation. Before long they were cutting hours to avoid providing benefits, and laying off experienced reporters and offering them their jobs back at half their old wages.

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    August 26, 2011 at 11:13 am

    I was especially amused by the comment at Politico that this poster will be a reason for small businesses to not hire people. Yeah, they’re going to fire all their workers or not hire any more just because they have to put up a free poster, which most employees will probably just ignore. What kind of idiots read and comment at Politico anyway?

  42. 42.

    mellowjohn

    August 26, 2011 at 11:13 am

    however companies can only get these posters for free if the cost of printing and distribution is offset by spending cuts elsewhere in the department of labor budget.

  43. 43.

    kay

    August 26, 2011 at 11:15 am

    @jwest:

    Well, I think they do, because media in alliance with conservatives are completely remiss on reporting or discussing anything having anything to do with the vast majority of the workforce in this country.

    Who are not people like Mitt Romney.

    So. It’s important to inform workers of their rights, under law. They aren’t going to encounter this information anywhere else, that’s for damn sure.

  44. 44.

    wrb

    August 26, 2011 at 11:16 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Yea I was going to write it up as a fake AP story with quotes about the USGS spends billions not predicting earthquakes and we all saw NOAA ships swarm the Gulf to feed material to the greedy lawyers who were preparing to attack Job Creator BP, but I was lazy.

    One could riff on it for awhile.

    Tubes being what they are, next week Bachman will probably come out with a more extreme proposal, so’s to retake the lead.

  45. 45.

    catclub

    August 26, 2011 at 11:16 am

    @adolphus: I can promise you that you CAN pay for the posters because companies spring up to print them and sell them. Whether there is a free one available, I do not know.

  46. 46.

    Bulworth

    August 26, 2011 at 11:16 am

    OMG. I hope the Wash Post editorial board and the Sunday talk fests address the incivility and outrageousness of this new imposition on hallowed small businesses by the heavy paw of big gubmit.

  47. 47.

    Margarita

    August 26, 2011 at 11:17 am

    It’s one more poster on the giant wall of posters every company is required to have

    This is true. The real reform would be if a professional designer came up with a coherent format integrating the whole shebang that didn’t resemble the iTunes agreement printed out in 17 different fonts, shuffled, and posted like band flyers on a telephone pole.

  48. 48.

    Bulworth

    August 26, 2011 at 11:19 am

    I’m currently reading the book Triangle, which as it sounds, is about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911 that killed 146 workers in NYC.

    Trying to decide how our Galtian overlords and Fox & Friends would have responded to the tragedy and the subsequent reforms put into place to prevent a reoccurence.

    Of course, there was a mining collapse not long ago and our Galtian overlords didn’t care about that either. Sigh.

  49. 49.

    jwest

    August 26, 2011 at 11:23 am

    The best anti-union documentary ever made was the product of a rabidly pro-union filmmaker.

    “The Last Pullman Car”

  50. 50.

    Judas Escargot

    August 26, 2011 at 11:24 am

    @Bulworth:

    Trying to decide how our Galtian overlords and Fox & Friends would have responded to the tragedy and the subsequent reforms put into place to prevent a reoccurence.

    “Lazy, shiftless, depraved ingrate-workers burn down Job Creation Engine.”

  51. 51.

    ericblair

    August 26, 2011 at 11:26 am

    @Soprano2:

    I was especially amused by the comment at Politico that this poster will be a reason for small businesses to not hire people.

    Yep, cuz I know at our firm we just like to hire people out of the goodness of our hearts, and when the Big Mean Gubmint tells us to put up another poster we all has a big sad and stop hiring people because our hearts are so heavy and we’re not going to bring these new baby employees into this new godless commie world. It’s not like we have a business plan, staffing projections, new contracts, or any of that fancy shit to make actual quantitative decisions. We go with our guts. Well, at least with our gallbladders.

    I’m starting to wonder if these billionaire-funded think tanks actually operate like that. They might: they’re not out to make money, as they’re a combination of vanity project and propaganda mill, and everything is cliquish and personal. Obviously, these people haven’t been in a real business that actually has to make money through selling products or services.

  52. 52.

    Comrade Dread

    August 26, 2011 at 11:27 am

    This country wouldn’t know an actual communist/soshalist movement anymore if it lined them up against the wall and shot them.

  53. 53.

    kay

    August 26, 2011 at 11:30 am

    @jwest:

    There are always new workers. People age and die. New people go to work. How would they know they had certain rights? Osmosis? Some sort of national institutional memory?
    Conservatives and media certainly aren’t telling them anything useful or pertinent or practical. If I’m 16 and it’s my first day at work, how do I know these rights exist?

  54. 54.

    ericblair

    August 26, 2011 at 11:31 am

    @Margarita:

    The real reform would be if a professional designer came up with a coherent format integrating the whole shebang that didn’t resemble the iTunes agreement printed out in 17 different fonts, shuffled, and posted like band flyers on a telephone pole.

    Remember when Windows and the Mac came out with WYSIWYG word processors, and everybody who put together a newsletter felt obliged to use every. damn. typeface. in the program in one document? I’m still trying to drink that memory away. And I’m not going to give up, either.

  55. 55.

    jwest

    August 26, 2011 at 11:37 am

    Kay,

    In a Galtian society, if you were a 16 year old wondering about your rights you could take it upon yourself to find out about them.

    In a nanny-state, you would accept the government imposed information without question, thereby reinforcing a lack of personal responsibility and dependence.

  56. 56.

    wrb

    August 26, 2011 at 11:41 am

    and everybody who put together a newsletter felt obliged to use every. damn. typeface. in the program in one document?

    and Shadows. SHADOWS

  57. 57.

    Zagloba

    August 26, 2011 at 11:44 am

    @kay: Some sort of national institutional memory?

    You jest, but the much-vaunted new economy of changing jobs every 18 months does mean that only one side of the bargaining table has institutional memory — and it’s the side of the table that holds all the other cards too.

  58. 58.

    kay

    August 26, 2011 at 11:47 am

    @jwest:

    In a Galtian society, if you were a 16 year old wondering about your rights you could take it upon yourself to find out about them.

    Baloney. In a Galtian society, a 16 year old worker wouldn’t have any rights.

    I know this because we tried it your way. Didn’t work. We were losing a lot of 16 year olds. I interview 16 year olds all the time. Some of them are genuinely funny people, but they’re deeply unserious. They all know they have a right to remain silent. They all know Miranda, because they hear it on tv all the time :)

    Conservatives opposed making that information available to them, too. What’s with you guys and information? Big threat, huh?

  59. 59.

    kay

    August 26, 2011 at 11:55 am

    @jwest:

    I’d be ashamed of myself if I were that slick, dapper gentleman who is paid very well to run the Chamber of Commerce and I felt threatened by the teenager who sweeps the floor at the Dun’kin Donuts, but that’s just me.

    Talk about punching down. The masters of the universe are sort of whiny.

  60. 60.

    Jim Pharo

    August 26, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Hasn’t President Perry made unions illegal already? I thought we had taken care of that a while back…

    Unions! Ha ha ha ha ha! People will never believe that Once Upon A Time in America, LABOR thought it had the right to act collectively. Silly Labor! Only capital has that right, as We All Know(tm)…

  61. 61.

    grandpajohn

    August 26, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    @jwest: No, management already knows what they can get away with in the way of harassment so no poster is needed

  62. 62.

    Svensker

    August 26, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    jwest has officially outed himself as DougJ

    In a Galtian society, if you were a 16 year old wondering about your rights you could take it upon yourself to find out about them.

    You better not also too be Derf or Uncle Crazy Thomas. It’s one thing to be mildly irritating– like Tabasco sauce — and another thing to be a crushing bore — like lutefisk.

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    August 26, 2011 at 2:49 pm

    Every fast-food place I ever worked at made sure that you attended a meeting where they told you that belonging to or trying to organize a union wasn’t in your best interest, and wasn’t anything you wanted to have any part of. They didn’t say it that bluntly, but the message was easy to hear and understand. I’m sure they still do that.

  64. 64.

    AA+ Bonds

    August 26, 2011 at 4:32 pm

    Pretty cool stuff.

  65. 65.

    mclaren

    August 26, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    In a move that angered business groups and cheered labor leaders, the NLRB’s new regulations mandate that companies display notices “in conspicuous places” that inform workers about their right to unionize.

    That’s great. I like that.

    I bet when businesses like WalMart display notices “in conspicuous places” that inform workers about their right to unionize, this benefits WalMart workers immensely…

    …Especially when WalMart shuts down the entire store the day after workers decide to unionize.

    And I bet that when workers decide to unionize in those GE plants and AT&T plants, and then GE and AT&T respond by shutting down those plants and shipping all the jobs to India or coastal China or Haiti, the workers who get thrown out of the street to root through dumpsters for their dinner get a big boost out of those notices displayed “in conspicuous places.”

    Once again, Obama is trying hard. He’s doing what he can. But he and his supporters are trying to work within a catastrophically broken system to fix a collapsing and unworkable structure called ‘capitalism,’ and it’s just not going to happen.

    Capitalism worked okay for about two centuries. Then computers + databases + algorithms + the internet came along, and the basic components parts of capitalism started snapping and mangling themselves, like pistons and rocker arms shooting through the hood of a race car that’s tearing itself apart with a stuck throttle.

  66. 66.

    Mayken

    August 26, 2011 at 6:57 pm

    Funny how it is oppressive government interference when we want workers informed of their rights but it is “protecting women” when we want them to stay out of our doctors’ offices. Craziness!

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