16 ms·

Having worked at two manufacturers in the Midwest, anecdotally the majority of forklift drivers, line workers on specific lines, and even many white collar offi

Having worked at two manufacturers in the Midwest, anecdotally the majority of forklift drivers, line workers on specific lines, and even many white collar office roles were filled by temp agencies. A similar structure existed for engineering too; we would have a problem and the engineering firm with workers under the same roof would develop a solution. For the temp workers the motivation was always very clear and very much based on working around labor laws. If a forklift driver got in an accident, it wouldn't be counted in the same way. Line workers could be less rigidly brought on board or let go with seasonal or other varying demand. They were cheaper too and everyone worked hard to try and become a regular employee. I am not sure what a solution is, after all these types of temp companies only exist to skirt existing labor laws, suggesting these laws may defy economics a bit too much. On the other hand what other ways do we have of increasing the bargaining position of labor? Growing the economy, but that isn't something a politician can honestly promise. Pulling back from globalization would, but that is bad economics and bad for national security. Perhaps something like earned income tax credit? Or perhaps we should just continue waiting until the rest of the world develops and the supply of labor finally becomes constrained.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Ending right to work laws and bringing back unions.
- RHSeeger 9y ago
  Of course, that too comes with it's negatives. Unions have both positives and negatives. It's not a simple discussion.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Unions are a counter-balance to corporate power which helps to preserve the power of labor. That unions have some negatives does not mean we should not have them.
  - Frondo 9y ago
    What is an alternative to unions that gives workers some power in the relationship between worker and employer?
    - te_platt 9y ago
      The ability to get another job.
      - lovich 9y ago
        And when companies coordinate to prevent that? It doesn't even have to be explicit behind the scenes coordination. Companies that base your salary offer off of your previously salary are still coordinating even though they don't plan it
      - vkou 9y ago
        A company with 100 employees losing an employee costs them ~1% of their revenue until a replacement can be found. An employee losing their employer loses ~100% of their revenue until a replacement is found. The two are nowhere near equivalent. On the other hand, when employees unionize, a company with 100 employees stands to lose ~100% of their revenue if employees choose to strike. That puts the two sides on an even footing.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Corporations have both positives and negatives, yet somehow there's never a debate over whether we should have those. It's very strange to me that employees organizing and working together is so controversial, but management doing the same thing is not only expected but we can't even envision anything else.
    - benlorenzetti 9y ago
      I think one reason it seems so strange is that it is sort of a mis-characterization/failure of communication that easily happens in politics. There is nothing wrong with unions in principle, but once someone has written into law exactly what a union is, then the possibility for mistakes and unintended negative consequences exist. When the UAW were fighting for better wages and conditions in bygone days, I don't think many at that time thought the same laws would contribute to GM declaring bankruptcy and needing to be bailed out by all 300+ million Americans, who were never involved in any of the bad decisions made. And reasonable people can quibble about who shoulders more of the blame, but one can't deny that American labor costs were significantly higher than foreign competition and were largely impossible to adjust. Unions today need better leaders, who realize that the future is in collaborating across national borders with their brethren at all global corporations. The United States simply cannot enforce its own labor laws in China or any other proud nation. Workers created unions themselves, they did not need government to do it for them...which is good because neither the US nor Russia or China rules the whole world.
- mcgarnagle 9y ago
  When the notion of a union was proposed to the management at Fierra, the owners spread the word that if the workers began forming one, everyone would be immediately fired and replaced. source: My grandmother used to work at this very factory when we first moved to Canada. She worked for about 5-6 years, starting in the 90s. When you are new to a country, don't speak the language or know the laws well, you don't have as much power as you think.
  - mrguyorama 9y ago
    An industry based union would make them more difficult to replace, increasing the price of labor
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. Instead of helping the workers it more seeks to punish American capitalists--including all the people like me who hope to retire in the future with investments that grow. When the rest of the world is developed enough that a union could span the entire globe, then this would at least be logical again. As an electrical engineer working for the company, two of my assigned jobs were 1) evaluating the cost effectiveness of replacing all the forklift drivers with robots and 2) installing new equipment to eliminate repetitive lifting roles on the packaging lines. I was actually surprised how much cheaper the human forklift drivers were than the robots (mostly this was because we had really efficient, hardworking drivers and the robots needed special accommodations and could not handle all special cases). I left the company because it was very demoralizing working alongside people who you were being paid to replace. But make no mistake, the autonomous forklifts would have been cheaper if the company had to employ the drivers directly, taking the hit to their safety record and bottom line. There are other ideas for increasing the bargaining position of American labor and reducing capital inequality. For example, plugging up the mechanisms by which trade deficit capital returns to the United States (through economics--not by law, so by increasing property taxes in cities with big foreign investment, reducing the federal debt, switching to regional taxation system, etc.). Another example, if economics, as a collective school of thought, could reconsider its obsession with monetary inflation and consider if technology driven deflation is actually a bad thing. A worker getting a deflationary pay raise would be in a much stronger bargaining position and would actually be claiming some of the rewards of all the technological advances of capitalism by default.
  - bildung 9y ago
    > I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. So what is the qualitative change in these three factors that changed so much in your opinion? Globalization was important for the US from its very inception (example: European price and production developments where a big factor in the Panic of 1819[1]). And productivity growth has been more or less constant over the last 100+ years [2][3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 [2] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17oEm8g.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17o... [3] https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm
- jdboyd 9y ago
  How would temp agency workers having collective bargaining with the temp agency (their employer) prevent Fiera from switching to a non-unionized temp agency?
- rukittenme 9y ago
  Why? All the law does is prevent compulsory membership in a union. That seems like a good thing.
  - vkou 9y ago
    No, because it introduces the free rider problem. It creates an incentive for any particular union member to defect from the union, because they no longer have to pay fees, but are legally entitled to whatever the union negotiated for. It's like a law that prevents compulsory membership in a fire insurance plan, but also allows you to sign up for retroactive fire insurance after your house burns down. It's sole purpose is union-busting.
    - KekDemaga 9y ago
      > but are legally entitled to whatever the union negotiated for. How so? Wouldn't they be independently discussing their salary with management at that point? What law guarantees that non union workers get the same benefits as union workers?
      - vkou 9y ago
        Thanks to the National Labor Relations Act, if a union represents >50% of employees of a company, then the union's negotiations apply to all employees. So, you have an incentive to not pay union dues, as whatever the union negotiates for, you will get without paying a penny. Not to mention that if there's a members-only agreement, where members get more pay/benefits/etc, this creates a reason for an employer to not hire union. Due to this, unions can't really fight for members-only agreements.
        KekDemaga 9y ago
        Sounds like the National Labor Relations Act needs to be repealed as opposed to right to work laws.
        9y ago
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  I'd prefer not being forced into a union myself if my compensation was linked to the productivity of my peers I'd make much less.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    I'd prefer all sorts of things that I don't get. See this portion of my other comment: Right-to-work is about ending free association, it's odd to paint unions as anti-free association. In an ordinary market environment a widget company could set up an exclusive supply deal with a plastic company where plastic is supplied at a set rate under certain agreements and we'd all be fine with that. But if we switch out "plastic" for "labor" and "plastic company" for "labor union" then suddenly we outlaw it. The idea that you think government should interfere in the contractual dealings of labor-supply in our market but not commodity-supply describes the hypocrisy.
    - KekDemaga 9y ago
      Workers could form a corporation and enter into such a deal if they wished, this is about forcing new employees to use the contract other employees have negotiated.
Kadin 9y ago
> what other ways do we have of increasing the bargaining position of labor? You tighten the labor market. It's not coincidental that unions, which depend on a tight labor market for a bargaining position (striking is fundamentally their real weapon), have been on a downhill trend since basically the same time that trade laws were changed to favor capital, via removing barriers to both foreign labor and foreign trade. In some cases the labor supply is slackened by bringing in more workers, in some cases by just offshoring production to a place where the labor market is already slack. Most of the reasons used to justify this were related to the West's perceived existential struggle against Communism: it was necessary to open the door to China trade because that was a wedge against the Soviets; NAFTA was necessary to secure America's standing "as world champion of the free-market cause" ([per the NYT](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09iht-think_1.html?mcubz=1)] http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09i...) as a hedge against an increasingly multipolar world in the 1990s; continued rounds of deals, up until very recently with the failure of the TPP, have always been justified similarly. Though I am not intimately familiar with Canadian politics historically, I assume that the justifications there were similar (and with significant arm-twisting from their southern neighbor). Intriguingly, the necessary sacrifices for American leadership (let's not call it 'hegemony', it has such an ... imperialist ring to it), in the form of the cost of economic subsidies to Western allies necessary to keep them toeing the free market line, have always seemed to fall on American -- and Canadian, apparently -- workers, and benefited American businesses and business owners. Workers are constantly reassured that these deals have been good for the country, but this explanation is starting to wear thin, as it becomes more and more apparent that the gains have gone to a small portion of the country at the expense of a great many. Free-trade proponents have managed to extract a great deal from labor, but the gig is seemingly up. Pro-trade, pro-business parties such as the British Columbia Liberal Party should take note of the current state of the US Republican Party, and take steps not to overplay their hand. While the gains made by businesses and capital owners at the expense of industrial workers are historically audacious (in the sense that they didn't result in getting anyone killed by an angry mob, which should be ),
Kadin 9y ago
> what other ways do we have of increasing the bargaining position of labor? You tighten the labor market. It's not coincidental that unions, which depend on a tight labor market for a bargaining position (striking is fundamentally their real weapon), have been on a downhill trend since basically the same time that trade laws were changed to favor capital, via removing barriers to both foreign labor and foreign trade. In some cases the labor supply is slackened by bringing in more workers, in some cases by just offshoring production to a place where the labor market is already slack. Most of the reasons used to justify this were related to the West's perceived existential struggle against Communism: it was necessary to open the door to China trade because that was a wedge against the Soviets; NAFTA was necessary to secure America's standing "as world champion of the free-market cause" (ref. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09iht-think_1.html?mcubz=1 http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09i...) as a hedge against an increasingly multipolar world in the 1990s; continued rounds of deals, up until very recently with the failure of the TPP, have always been justified similarly. Though I am not intimately familiar with Canadian politics historically, I assume that the justifications there were similar (and with significant arm-twisting from their southern neighbor). Intriguingly, the necessary sacrifices for American leadership (let's not call it 'hegemony'), in the form of the cost of economic subsidies to Western allies necessary to keep them toeing the free market line, have always seemed to fall on American -- and Canadian, apparently -- workers, and benefited businesses and business owners. Workers are constantly reassured that, despite appearances, these deals have been good for the country, and somehow by extension also them personally, but this explanation is starting to wear thin, as it becomes more and more apparent that the gains have gone to a small portion of the country at the expense of a great many. The gig is seemingly up. Pro-trade, pro-business parties (such as the British Columbia Liberal Party, mentioned in the article as a recipient of donations from the factory owners) should take note of the current state of the US Republican Party, and take steps not to overplay their hand. While the gains made by businesses and capital owners at the expense of industrial workers are impressive, history suggests that going down this road too far leads to what we might politely call a "disruptive overcorrection", either to the political hard right or hard left. In the US, we have seen this frustration elect the first unashamed populist and trade skeptic of the modern era (well, at least, someone the electorate apparently thought was a populist; time will tell); if things had gone a bit differently we might have gotten free-trade skepticism in the form of a Socialist (Sanders). The current path, or just telling workers in the industrialized world to suck it up until they hit wage parity with the developing world, is not sustainable. Governments that try may find themselves replaced by governments that don't.
Mikeb85 9y ago
> I am not sure what a solution is, after all these types of temp companies only exist to skirt existing labor laws, suggesting these laws may defy economics a bit too much. The solution is to limit the labour pool or, in other words, limiting immigration. > Pulling back from globalization would, but that is bad economics and bad for national security. How is it bad economics? And what is your benchmark for success? Are you optimising for GDP, for quality of life, GDP per capita, what? > Or perhaps we should just continue waiting until the rest of the world develops and the supply of labor finally becomes constrained. Good luck with that, it'll take 200 years.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Correct, limiting immigration is a solution. While I personally am more favorable toward immigration, I respect people who support Trump's opinion on this. They have a point, the contract between citizens is...between citizens. Bad economics from the point of view of maximum efficiency of human labor across all humanity. I was not suggesting we just wait complacently, more lamenting that it seems to be the only not-actively-failing policy idea we have pursued up to this point.
  - Mikeb85 9y ago
    > Bad economics from the point of view of maximum efficiency of human labor across all humanity. Only if you think of humanity as a labour pool. Immigration hurts developing countries as it siphons away labour and especially educated labour, preventing their development... If the goal is economic parity across nations, you help the development of other countries through investment, not by taking their workers.
    - benlorenzetti 9y ago
      Smart people emigrating to a place where their talents can be put to use and then sending their greater earnings back home is efficient. I don't think that economic parity across nations should be a primary goal of any nation's policy, but I do think it is basically an inevitable, positive side effect of trade. As an aside, I'm also not 100% sure maximum efficiency of human labor across all humanity should be a goal of national policy either, but that is usually what I consider good economics.
otakucode 9y ago
The solution is simple. Criminal prosecution of the executives of the company, coupled with treating white collar crime the same way we treat street crime.
- wnevets 9y ago
  Like the great George Carlin once again, if you wanna stop illegal drugs just start executing the bankers laundering the drug money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI&feature=youtu.be&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI&feature=youtu.be...
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Can't even begin to think about all of the negative side effects this would have...
jakobegger 9y ago
The solution is simple: make every company involved in a project liable for every worker. Worker has an accident? Make sure that both the factory, the temp agency, and any intermediaries are liable. If every company involved in a project was liable for ensuring employment laws are upheld, there would be no point in using “temp agencies” to shift the blame. Temp agencies are a somewhat recent move to circumvent employment laws; we should be able to fix that loophole.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Its not that there are no consequences for safety incidents involving temp workers. It is more about company prestige and preserving the existing benefits of being an full team member. Both of the companies I worked for had very good safety records among all workers in the facility, most serious incident in years was a severed thumb. American companies generally have good safety records and a good regulatory environment. Contracting the riskier jobs is mostly done to safeguard the company's image, or it is like other contracted jobs and is done for cost savings or temporary work. With forklift drivers, there was just always going to be some minor collision incident every month, and its easier for the big company bureaucracy if this doesn't count towards their accident statistic or if some other account can be billed for the damage. Its just risk aversion and risk management since the penalties are high for screw ups and protecting the image of the company treating its employees well. Also they could be paid at ~1/2 the total compensation of a team member.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Ending right to work laws and bringing back unions.

RHSeeger 9y ago
Of course, that too comes with it's negatives. Unions have both positives and negatives. It's not a simple discussion.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Unions are a counter-balance to corporate power which helps to preserve the power of labor. That unions have some negatives does not mean we should not have them.
- Frondo 9y ago
  What is an alternative to unions that gives workers some power in the relationship between worker and employer?
  - te_platt 9y ago
    The ability to get another job.
    - lovich 9y ago
      And when companies coordinate to prevent that? It doesn't even have to be explicit behind the scenes coordination. Companies that base your salary offer off of your previously salary are still coordinating even though they don't plan it
    - vkou 9y ago
      A company with 100 employees losing an employee costs them ~1% of their revenue until a replacement can be found. An employee losing their employer loses ~100% of their revenue until a replacement is found. The two are nowhere near equivalent. On the other hand, when employees unionize, a company with 100 employees stands to lose ~100% of their revenue if employees choose to strike. That puts the two sides on an even footing.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Corporations have both positives and negatives, yet somehow there's never a debate over whether we should have those. It's very strange to me that employees organizing and working together is so controversial, but management doing the same thing is not only expected but we can't even envision anything else.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    I think one reason it seems so strange is that it is sort of a mis-characterization/failure of communication that easily happens in politics. There is nothing wrong with unions in principle, but once someone has written into law exactly what a union is, then the possibility for mistakes and unintended negative consequences exist. When the UAW were fighting for better wages and conditions in bygone days, I don't think many at that time thought the same laws would contribute to GM declaring bankruptcy and needing to be bailed out by all 300+ million Americans, who were never involved in any of the bad decisions made. And reasonable people can quibble about who shoulders more of the blame, but one can't deny that American labor costs were significantly higher than foreign competition and were largely impossible to adjust. Unions today need better leaders, who realize that the future is in collaborating across national borders with their brethren at all global corporations. The United States simply cannot enforce its own labor laws in China or any other proud nation. Workers created unions themselves, they did not need government to do it for them...which is good because neither the US nor Russia or China rules the whole world.
mcgarnagle 9y ago
When the notion of a union was proposed to the management at Fierra, the owners spread the word that if the workers began forming one, everyone would be immediately fired and replaced. source: My grandmother used to work at this very factory when we first moved to Canada. She worked for about 5-6 years, starting in the 90s. When you are new to a country, don't speak the language or know the laws well, you don't have as much power as you think.
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  An industry based union would make them more difficult to replace, increasing the price of labor
benlorenzetti 9y ago
I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. Instead of helping the workers it more seeks to punish American capitalists--including all the people like me who hope to retire in the future with investments that grow. When the rest of the world is developed enough that a union could span the entire globe, then this would at least be logical again. As an electrical engineer working for the company, two of my assigned jobs were 1) evaluating the cost effectiveness of replacing all the forklift drivers with robots and 2) installing new equipment to eliminate repetitive lifting roles on the packaging lines. I was actually surprised how much cheaper the human forklift drivers were than the robots (mostly this was because we had really efficient, hardworking drivers and the robots needed special accommodations and could not handle all special cases). I left the company because it was very demoralizing working alongside people who you were being paid to replace. But make no mistake, the autonomous forklifts would have been cheaper if the company had to employ the drivers directly, taking the hit to their safety record and bottom line. There are other ideas for increasing the bargaining position of American labor and reducing capital inequality. For example, plugging up the mechanisms by which trade deficit capital returns to the United States (through economics--not by law, so by increasing property taxes in cities with big foreign investment, reducing the federal debt, switching to regional taxation system, etc.). Another example, if economics, as a collective school of thought, could reconsider its obsession with monetary inflation and consider if technology driven deflation is actually a bad thing. A worker getting a deflationary pay raise would be in a much stronger bargaining position and would actually be claiming some of the rewards of all the technological advances of capitalism by default.
- bildung 9y ago
  > I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. So what is the qualitative change in these three factors that changed so much in your opinion? Globalization was important for the US from its very inception (example: European price and production developments where a big factor in the Panic of 1819[1]). And productivity growth has been more or less constant over the last 100+ years [2][3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 [2] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17oEm8g.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17o... [3] https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm
jdboyd 9y ago
How would temp agency workers having collective bargaining with the temp agency (their employer) prevent Fiera from switching to a non-unionized temp agency?
rukittenme 9y ago
Why? All the law does is prevent compulsory membership in a union. That seems like a good thing.
- vkou 9y ago
  No, because it introduces the free rider problem. It creates an incentive for any particular union member to defect from the union, because they no longer have to pay fees, but are legally entitled to whatever the union negotiated for. It's like a law that prevents compulsory membership in a fire insurance plan, but also allows you to sign up for retroactive fire insurance after your house burns down. It's sole purpose is union-busting.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    > but are legally entitled to whatever the union negotiated for. How so? Wouldn't they be independently discussing their salary with management at that point? What law guarantees that non union workers get the same benefits as union workers?
    - vkou 9y ago
      Thanks to the National Labor Relations Act, if a union represents >50% of employees of a company, then the union's negotiations apply to all employees. So, you have an incentive to not pay union dues, as whatever the union negotiates for, you will get without paying a penny. Not to mention that if there's a members-only agreement, where members get more pay/benefits/etc, this creates a reason for an employer to not hire union. Due to this, unions can't really fight for members-only agreements.
      - KekDemaga 9y ago
        Sounds like the National Labor Relations Act needs to be repealed as opposed to right to work laws.
        9y ago
KekDemaga 9y ago
I'd prefer not being forced into a union myself if my compensation was linked to the productivity of my peers I'd make much less.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  I'd prefer all sorts of things that I don't get. See this portion of my other comment: Right-to-work is about ending free association, it's odd to paint unions as anti-free association. In an ordinary market environment a widget company could set up an exclusive supply deal with a plastic company where plastic is supplied at a set rate under certain agreements and we'd all be fine with that. But if we switch out "plastic" for "labor" and "plastic company" for "labor union" then suddenly we outlaw it. The idea that you think government should interfere in the contractual dealings of labor-supply in our market but not commodity-supply describes the hypocrisy.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    Workers could form a corporation and enter into such a deal if they wished, this is about forcing new employees to use the contract other employees have negotiated.

Kadin 9y ago

> what other ways do we have of increasing the bargaining position of labor? You tighten the labor market. It's not coincidental that unions, which depend on a tight labor market for a bargaining position (striking is fundamentally their real weapon), have been on a downhill trend since basically the same time that trade laws were changed to favor capital, via removing barriers to both foreign labor and foreign trade. In some cases the labor supply is slackened by bringing in more workers, in some cases by just offshoring production to a place where the labor market is already slack. Most of the reasons used to justify this were related to the West's perceived existential struggle against Communism: it was necessary to open the door to China trade because that was a wedge against the Soviets; NAFTA was necessary to secure America's standing "as world champion of the free-market cause" ([per the NYT](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09iht-think_1.html?mcubz=1)] http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09i...) as a hedge against an increasingly multipolar world in the 1990s; continued rounds of deals, up until very recently with the failure of the TPP, have always been justified similarly. Though I am not intimately familiar with Canadian politics historically, I assume that the justifications there were similar (and with significant arm-twisting from their southern neighbor). Intriguingly, the necessary sacrifices for American leadership (let's not call it 'hegemony', it has such an ... imperialist ring to it), in the form of the cost of economic subsidies to Western allies necessary to keep them toeing the free market line, have always seemed to fall on American -- and Canadian, apparently -- workers, and benefited American businesses and business owners. Workers are constantly reassured that these deals have been good for the country, but this explanation is starting to wear thin, as it becomes more and more apparent that the gains have gone to a small portion of the country at the expense of a great many. Free-trade proponents have managed to extract a great deal from labor, but the gig is seemingly up. Pro-trade, pro-business parties such as the British Columbia Liberal Party should take note of the current state of the US Republican Party, and take steps not to overplay their hand. While the gains made by businesses and capital owners at the expense of industrial workers are historically audacious (in the sense that they didn't result in getting anyone killed by an angry mob, which should be ),

Kadin 9y ago

> what other ways do we have of increasing the bargaining position of labor? You tighten the labor market. It's not coincidental that unions, which depend on a tight labor market for a bargaining position (striking is fundamentally their real weapon), have been on a downhill trend since basically the same time that trade laws were changed to favor capital, via removing barriers to both foreign labor and foreign trade. In some cases the labor supply is slackened by bringing in more workers, in some cases by just offshoring production to a place where the labor market is already slack. Most of the reasons used to justify this were related to the West's perceived existential struggle against Communism: it was necessary to open the door to China trade because that was a wedge against the Soviets; NAFTA was necessary to secure America's standing "as world champion of the free-market cause" (ref. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09iht-think_1.html?mcubz=1 http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/09/business/worldbusiness/09i...) as a hedge against an increasingly multipolar world in the 1990s; continued rounds of deals, up until very recently with the failure of the TPP, have always been justified similarly. Though I am not intimately familiar with Canadian politics historically, I assume that the justifications there were similar (and with significant arm-twisting from their southern neighbor). Intriguingly, the necessary sacrifices for American leadership (let's not call it 'hegemony'), in the form of the cost of economic subsidies to Western allies necessary to keep them toeing the free market line, have always seemed to fall on American -- and Canadian, apparently -- workers, and benefited businesses and business owners. Workers are constantly reassured that, despite appearances, these deals have been good for the country, and somehow by extension also them personally, but this explanation is starting to wear thin, as it becomes more and more apparent that the gains have gone to a small portion of the country at the expense of a great many. The gig is seemingly up. Pro-trade, pro-business parties (such as the British Columbia Liberal Party, mentioned in the article as a recipient of donations from the factory owners) should take note of the current state of the US Republican Party, and take steps not to overplay their hand. While the gains made by businesses and capital owners at the expense of industrial workers are impressive, history suggests that going down this road too far leads to what we might politely call a "disruptive overcorrection", either to the political hard right or hard left. In the US, we have seen this frustration elect the first unashamed populist and trade skeptic of the modern era (well, at least, someone the electorate apparently thought was a populist; time will tell); if things had gone a bit differently we might have gotten free-trade skepticism in the form of a Socialist (Sanders). The current path, or just telling workers in the industrialized world to suck it up until they hit wage parity with the developing world, is not sustainable. Governments that try may find themselves replaced by governments that don't.

Mikeb85 9y ago

> I am not sure what a solution is, after all these types of temp companies only exist to skirt existing labor laws, suggesting these laws may defy economics a bit too much. The solution is to limit the labour pool or, in other words, limiting immigration. > Pulling back from globalization would, but that is bad economics and bad for national security. How is it bad economics? And what is your benchmark for success? Are you optimising for GDP, for quality of life, GDP per capita, what? > Or perhaps we should just continue waiting until the rest of the world develops and the supply of labor finally becomes constrained. Good luck with that, it'll take 200 years.

benlorenzetti 9y ago
Correct, limiting immigration is a solution. While I personally am more favorable toward immigration, I respect people who support Trump's opinion on this. They have a point, the contract between citizens is...between citizens. Bad economics from the point of view of maximum efficiency of human labor across all humanity. I was not suggesting we just wait complacently, more lamenting that it seems to be the only not-actively-failing policy idea we have pursued up to this point.
- Mikeb85 9y ago
  > Bad economics from the point of view of maximum efficiency of human labor across all humanity. Only if you think of humanity as a labour pool. Immigration hurts developing countries as it siphons away labour and especially educated labour, preventing their development... If the goal is economic parity across nations, you help the development of other countries through investment, not by taking their workers.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    Smart people emigrating to a place where their talents can be put to use and then sending their greater earnings back home is efficient. I don't think that economic parity across nations should be a primary goal of any nation's policy, but I do think it is basically an inevitable, positive side effect of trade. As an aside, I'm also not 100% sure maximum efficiency of human labor across all humanity should be a goal of national policy either, but that is usually what I consider good economics.

otakucode 9y ago

The solution is simple. Criminal prosecution of the executives of the company, coupled with treating white collar crime the same way we treat street crime.

wnevets 9y ago
Like the great George Carlin once again, if you wanna stop illegal drugs just start executing the bankers laundering the drug money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI&feature=youtu.be&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI&feature=youtu.be...
benlorenzetti 9y ago
Can't even begin to think about all of the negative side effects this would have...

jakobegger 9y ago

The solution is simple: make every company involved in a project liable for every worker. Worker has an accident? Make sure that both the factory, the temp agency, and any intermediaries are liable. If every company involved in a project was liable for ensuring employment laws are upheld, there would be no point in using “temp agencies” to shift the blame. Temp agencies are a somewhat recent move to circumvent employment laws; we should be able to fix that loophole.

benlorenzetti 9y ago
Its not that there are no consequences for safety incidents involving temp workers. It is more about company prestige and preserving the existing benefits of being an full team member. Both of the companies I worked for had very good safety records among all workers in the facility, most serious incident in years was a severed thumb. American companies generally have good safety records and a good regulatory environment. Contracting the riskier jobs is mostly done to safeguard the company's image, or it is like other contracted jobs and is done for cost savings or temporary work. With forklift drivers, there was just always going to be some minor collision incident every month, and its easier for the big company bureaucracy if this doesn't count towards their accident statistic or if some other account can be billed for the damage. Its just risk aversion and risk management since the penalties are high for screw ups and protecting the image of the company treating its employees well. Also they could be paid at ~1/2 the total compensation of a team member.