New Hampshire is looking better all the time as a state worth living in. Rumor has it that perhaps three dozen of the newly elected Republicans and Democrats in the New Hampshire state legislature are closet libertarians. This news suggests that may be true.
"Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils."
- General John Stark, July 31, 1809
State Targets Permits For Concealed Carry
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/newsstatenewengland/912550-227/state-targets-permits-for-concealed-carry.html
"CONCORD – New Hampshire would become the fourth state in the nation to let residents carry concealed guns without a permit under legislation that easily cleared the House of Representatives on Wednesday."
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Telecoms Want "To Put Netflix Out Of Business Entirely"
Telecoms Want ‘To Put Netflix Out Of Business Entirely,’ Sen. Franken Tells SXSW
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/16/netflix-comcast-att-internet-franken/
"Appearing in a recent panel discussion at the South by Southwest music, film and technology festival in Austin, Texas, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) warned that net neutrality, or the treatment of all data on a network as equal, was under threat by Comcast and other telecoms."
"I came here to warn you the party may be over," Franken said. "They're coming after the Internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom."
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/16/netflix-comcast-att-internet-franken/
"Appearing in a recent panel discussion at the South by Southwest music, film and technology festival in Austin, Texas, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) warned that net neutrality, or the treatment of all data on a network as equal, was under threat by Comcast and other telecoms."
"I came here to warn you the party may be over," Franken said. "They're coming after the Internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom."
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
"People copy stuff they like. They don’t copy stuff they don’t like. The more a work is copied, the more valuable it becomes. Value isn’t taken away by fans, it is added by them, every time they copy." - Nina Paley, creator of the Mimi and Eunice comics.
White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20043421-281.html
"The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers."
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20043421-281.html
"The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers."
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
Time to Stop Deferring to Federal Authority
Time to Stop Deferring to Federal Authority
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-03-16.asp
"The Saudi dictatorship’s intervention in Bahrain to prop up its fellow U.S.-supported dictatorship should serve as another wake-up call to the American people. It’s time for Americans to abandon the passive role they have played for decades with respect to U.S. foreign policy. The time has arrived to stop deferring to federal authority and take moral responsibility for moving our nation in a different direction, one that involves the dismantling of the U.S. military empire and the restoration of the American limited-government republic, non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations, and a liberation of the American private sector to interact peacefully with the people of the world."
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-03-16.asp
"The Saudi dictatorship’s intervention in Bahrain to prop up its fellow U.S.-supported dictatorship should serve as another wake-up call to the American people. It’s time for Americans to abandon the passive role they have played for decades with respect to U.S. foreign policy. The time has arrived to stop deferring to federal authority and take moral responsibility for moving our nation in a different direction, one that involves the dismantling of the U.S. military empire and the restoration of the American limited-government republic, non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations, and a liberation of the American private sector to interact peacefully with the people of the world."
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
The CIA's "Visas for Terrorists" Program (4:16 video)
Did the CIA aid and abet the 9/11 terrorists?
The CIA's "Visas for Terrorists" Program (4:16 video)
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1058.html
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
The CIA's "Visas for Terrorists" Program (4:16 video)
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1058.html
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
buy your ticket now Tommie
COUNTRY AVG. ERECT SIZE (IN INCHES)
|
__._,_.___
IF YOU LOVED YOUR BROTHER THE SAME AS YOURSELF,
THERE WOULD BE NO HATE LEFT IN THE WORLD !!
THERE WOULD BE NO HATE LEFT IN THE WORLD !!
.
__,_._,___
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North Carolina Considers Dumping Vehicle Safety Inspections
Does your state have a similar money-sucking hole that needs removal?
North Carolina Considers Dumping Vehicle Safety Inspections
Legislative report finds no measurable benefit for safety and emissions inspections.
"Fourteen state senators want to do away with safety inspections for vehicles in the North Carolina. Led by state Senator Stan Bingham (R-Denton), the group introduced Senate Bill 123 last month in response to a 2008 legislative report suggesting the benefit of imposing the $165 million annual burden on motorists has yielded no measurable safety benefit."
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3430.asp
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
North Carolina Considers Dumping Vehicle Safety Inspections
Legislative report finds no measurable benefit for safety and emissions inspections.
"Fourteen state senators want to do away with safety inspections for vehicles in the North Carolina. Led by state Senator Stan Bingham (R-Denton), the group introduced Senate Bill 123 last month in response to a 2008 legislative report suggesting the benefit of imposing the $165 million annual burden on motorists has yielded no measurable safety benefit."
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3430.asp
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
Winter Storm : IMPORTANT READING . . .
What a storm we had yesterday, but I still had to go to the grocery store.
So I went to get my car and some dick had me blocked in!
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Film festival to host special event with world's first blind feature film director
http://tinyurl.com/4ldl9w8
Exclusive: World's first blind feature film director to share historical
vision
a.. March 15th, 2011 11:59 am ET
By Joe Belcastro
Tampa Film Examiner
When information first came across my college dorm room styled looking desk
(I keep it real.Simple), regarding a blind director shooting a feature film,
my initial thought was, "Man, I need to interview this guy right away." That
thought was followed up by, "This may dethrone Troll 2 as the Best Worst
Movie Ever." Then, "No way this is possible and the guy is being used as a
gimmick."
After my mind finally matured for a moment, the following line was written
to open my first article about this surprising - and now inspiring - act,
"Avatar and Inception were considered must-sees. You can now add The Bunker
to that list."
The guy - blind guy - who directed The Bunker is Joe Monks. The 43 year-old
Monks, owner of the production company Sight Unseen Pictures, is about to
make history as the first ever blind filmmaker to direct a feature film,
which will attain some form of distribution. How does he know he is the
first? He did his research. After placing extensive phone calls with Variety
and The Hollywood Reporter, both famed media outlets could not register any
hits on a blind filmmaker shooting, completing and then distributing a
feature film. Even with all my cleverness and disbelief, my personal fact
finding mission could not disprove what Monks was telling yours truly. By
all accounts, he will be the first ever blind director to achieve this feat.
Still, doubts on how this production was executed were plentiful. When I let
a few people know about my interview with a blind director, they all
responded with very similar questions. How does that work? How does he amass
a crew? Who would waste their time? One of Monks' responses added to this
growing debate.
"With compiling the crew, I set up the meeting, and I had already built one
of the flats for the set. Twenty four-Twenty five people showed and they saw
that I still had all ten fingers, and that got them over the hump."
You read that correctly. Monks was building sets for his own movie. And it
did not stop there. He designed the light rig for the primary set of The
Bunker. By having a consultation with a guy who did indoor and outdoor work
for ESPN, he confirmed Monks' design would work flawlessly.
So thus far, Monks had convinced a crew - who he never met prior to the
initial meeting - and already designed and built most of the sets. In case
you forgot, the man lost his sight. However, that was not always the case.
Prior to losing his eyesight, after a long battle with diabetes, Monks'
passion was writing fiction. He made a name for himself penning graphic
comics that mainly tackled the horror genre. Finding success and having one
of his properties optioned as a film (Chance Meeting), he was ready to
attempt arguably his greatest challenge to date. Writing and directing a
feature film. Having the "lights go out," this being his greatest challenge,
has obviously been laid to rest. It is.
Clearly, this has already taken place, so the next boggling question was
whether or not the guy truly took on all the duties a typical director would
be saddled with on a set.
Monks recalled an example during the shoot to help answer this query.
"Most directors look for the same couple of things that we all do. You want
to hear the lines ordered correctly, you want to hear the emotional stuff,
you want to hear what is written on the page. For me, I put two people from
the crew into positions, that I trusted. I knew the DP from his sample reel
and films that we talked about, which we used as reference points, which
helped me describe what I wanted and he would transcribe that onto the
frame. Then we had my script supervisor with me, and I would say, Carmen, I
want to see this, this and this in the scene. Then I would physically walk
through it with the actors while everyone was on set watching. I would
literally play every part to tell them how I kind of wanted it to look."
Like most studio productions, Monks always had the camera rolling during
rehearsals just in case he felt they nailed it. On independent productions,
time is very valuable and one needs to take advantages and risks in getting
what they want. As for the performances, he subscribes to staying as
hands-off as possible. By doing so, he believes he may gain a perspective
other sighted directors might not be in tune to.
"If they can convince me that this is the scene as I envisioned it. And I
can't see it, there are no visual cues, there is no music, nothing that will
distract you. I'm going to hear the performance and nothing else. And I
think that is where I have the advantage over some sighted filmmakers."
Now everything in this article suggests this production went smoothly. But
that's definitely not the case my friends. The Bunker production ironically
had its share of horrors when it started shooting. From replacing cast
members at the last minute, to dealing with all of mother nature's weapons
(two hurricanes in 2005 and snow storms in NY), the worst possible scenario
was dealt. The death of a vital crew member. A somber Monks briefly tells
the tragic tale.
"The film is near completion, and I'm hearing out distribution deals. All I
need is about 3 minutes of music to work into the score. So I was placing
lots of calls to Gary Finneran (music supervisor), but never received a
response."
"I decided to go on Myspace, cause he could access that from anywhere. And
the page has been turned into a memorial. I'm like, what the hell is this?
There was a reading and it became clear.Gary's dead. He committed suicide
about eight days before. That was one of those things where you go, what
else can possibly happen."
"Since he didn't copyright the music, I had to start from scratch. It was a
shame, for this was going to be his (Gary) first film."
After dealing with that hardship, Monks, with the support of his wife Pam,
pressed on with a nearly completed film. Not only were the music rights in
limbo, but a few scenes needed to be shot up in New Jersey. Monks did not
want to half-ass his first effort, yet the funds were all used up. Pam
suggested they try soliciting support via Kickstarter - a funding platform
for all sorts of independent projects.
"I didn't really understand exactly how the Kickstarter thing worked. So I
looked into it and decided we'll try it and see what happens."
So what happened.
"We got a great response - not just from the backers - everybody always says
you have the backing and those people help you out - absolutely, they're
great. I'm thrilled for anybody who contributed from a dollar up."
In less than two months, The Bunker raised and surpassed its goal of
generating $5000.00 to compile the necessary footage. The support didn't
stop there.
"On Twitter, Myspace and Facebook and all these social networking sites. The
various communities that pitched in were just unbelievable. We had disabled
people tweeting about the film." Groups from all over ranging from diabetics
to the Latino community - he has a Latino heritage - all embraced the film
and took it upon themselves to promote Monks' work. This overwhelming
response reduced the chatty Joe Monks down to just two words when asked
about what went through his head upon hearing this news.
"Very humbling."
At this point, the logical question to ask is why haven't any of the major
studios been all over this? To a certain extent, a few "known" distributors
have made so-so efforts with Monks, but in the end, Monks decided to go with
somebody that is looking to innovate the way a unique product such as this,
can be distributed with today's technology. Enter Russell Hess of Commodity
Films.
Russell Hess is a veteran in the world of filmmaking and his creative
business mind is always on. He's had roles in major studio releases along
with doing numerous voice-over duties on a variety of commercials and
narratives. These days, his focus is on producing and innovating the
distribution process. Five years ago, when he first heard about what Joe
Monks was getting into, he extended a hand.
"I was more interested and fascinated by the idea of what he was trying to
do, as I was not overly concerned about the final product."
By keeping in touch, the two finally had a meeting in December 2010 and the
bond was formed.
"Pardon the pun, but Joe needed to 'see' me, in order to believe me."
Monks echoed these feelings.
"I had six solid distributors who showed initial interest." (Although he
refrained from naming the ones who blew him off, he assures that they are
very well known in the business).
Monks was intrigued by the various forms of distribution that Russell could
offer. Russell proceeded to give him a detailed outline and a structured
marketing plan. He opened up his resume and Monks checked him out. Right
then and there, Monks was sold.
"Honesty is something you can't really quantify."
Now that Russell and Joe are moving forward together - and with the film
being completely ready for distribution - what plans does Russell have with
this gem of a product?
"We are already in the process of reaching out to several film festivals in
local, national and international areas. Logically and honestly, it is a
matter of business logistics. If it is accepted by one of the major film
festivals, that potentially has a market attached to it. And if they want
the worldwide rights, the business has to go where it needs to go. So the
festivals with the most clout will win."
As of today, Russell is awaiting a response from Cannes. If accepted into
the mega-festival in France, this is where the recently completed product
will make its worldwide debut. Joe Monks on the other hand, will be making
his first appearance since completing his film at the 5th annual Gasparilla
International Film Festival in Tampa, Florida. He will partake in his own
Q&A panel with festival attendees and is receiving an award for his
incredible achievement in filmmaking.
From that point, the duo will entertain other film festival offers as they
see fit. They expect offers right out of the gate, but they do not plan on
answering all the possible suitors projected when they announce The Bunker
is ready to rock.
Probably a novel idea at this point to alert the readers - that have hung
with this odyssey-like story/interview - on what the flick is all about. Not
entirely sure the plot even matters at this point for one would think people
will seek this out just to see if a blind guy can competently direct a
movie. To be fair though, here is the official synopsis:
The Bunker is a psychological thriller/horror film which revolves around the
kidnapping of a congressman's daughter. Julia, better known as Jewel to her
friends and family, is a teenage runaway who is unwilling to live within the
rules and boundaries set by her parents. She has run away once before, and
her father's connections have kept that quiet. This time however, an
election cycle is about to begin, and the scandal of a runaway daughter has
congressman Robert Jennings taking desperate measures. Which include having
half the NYPD out quietly looking for his daughter, and desperate enough to
pay privately to have her found and brought back home. The problem for those
looking for her though, is that she is no longer on the streets, and is
instead imprisoned in an underground bunker. Having been kidnapped by a
sadistic serial murderer, Jewel knows exactly how much longer she has left
to live, but will it be long enough for anybody to find her?
Monks sums it up rather nicely.
"Psychological torture film. Race against the clock scenario. Kind of like
Panic Room."
Finally, the last portion of the chat with Joe Monks and Russell Hess was
more of a reflective approach. As an artist, the response one wants from an
audience is all over the place. I posed the question to Monks - in a very
playful and shallow manner - if he would be bothered by a marketing campaign
that simply highlights the fact that he is blind, and overlooks (no pun
intended) his talent. In other words, does it matter to him if he is the
proverbial hot chick with the amazing rack, who kind of gets what she wants
but in the long-run, will not be taken seriously. Here's a few of Monks'
candid thoughts on the matter.
"There are certainly plenty of naysayer's. Message boards and emails said,
what are you, an idiot? Stick with the comic books and don't waste people's
time trying to make a movie you can't see. Since I'm rather belligerent
about doing what I want, I had all the more intention to prove them wrong."
"Wow, a blind guy directed the movie. Either it will be kind of cool, or it
will be a cinematic Hindenburg."
"The few people who have seen the film have said it is not crashing and
burning. It's a good indie effort."
(Fangoria magazine raved about a rough cut of The Bunker without having any
bias or interest in the film).
Overall, Monks does not mind people focusing on the blind theme, but he
hopes that people will not put much emphasis on that down the road. He
wouldn't mind losing the advantage of having the blind card as what some may
refer to as a gimmick. But in the end, he doesn't really worry about it.
"Every filmmaker just wants a chance. What can I say? I got dealt a hand of
blind cards. And its like when people say, life gives you lemons, make
lemonade. Well, I got these cards, the lights have gone out, I'm going to
open a lemonade stand. These are the cards, I'm going to play them. I'm not
going to hide that fact (loss of sight), whether it helps or hurts. Everyone
has their hand to play and this is mine."
Russell also chimes in on this concept.
"There is an interesting opportunity here. For a second, We can set aside
the financial possibilities of this endeavor and any personal and
professional successes.
I would have to think that being a filmmaker myself and coming from that
side, I believe this film will have an overall appeal to the masses. Of
course we can use the blind angle because it is unique and new. I expect
three or four movies down the road, people are going to forget so much about
the sensationalism about Joe being the first blind feature filmmaker.
In addition to this mass appeal, this film should appeal to every filmmaker
on every level. if a man without sight can direct a film? Every filmmaker
who exists, past, present and future should have the ability to learn what
Joe has done."
What Russell was getting at is how valuable this product is outside of
money. The educational value later on is virtually priceless.
Staying with priceless, no matter what the masses will think of Joe Monks'
The Bunker, they will always remember it. The majority of people who have an
appreciation for cinema, may reference this work for years to come. It's the
equivalent of seeing the one-legged Zack Gowan compete in professional
wrestling. He may not be the next great star, but he definitely made his
mark when he was given an opportunity. And that's all Joe Monks ever wanted.
A shot in the dark.
Best,
Joe Monks
Every day you haven't written is a day you've written off...
Chanting Monks Press
http://www.chantingmonks.com
Sight Unseen Pictures
http://www.sightunseenpictures.com
__._,_.___
.
__,_._,___
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government union looters and tax predator ruling class vs the rest of us
Here's what the US gov says about the top 5% and top 1%...not some little 400 number.
-----15 MarThe rich don't pay their fair share… they pay much more! [Reader Post]
Flopping AcesThere's an old saying; A picture is worth a thousand words. Pie charts will likely never be confused with great art in terms of story telling, but they have a way of making complicated issues clear. Income taxes are one of those things that are naturally difficult to grasp and the issue is made that much more opaque because liberals love to obscure the facts.
One of the shibboleths of the left is that the rich don't pay their fair share of taxes. One of the more amusing segments of the 2008 Presidential campaign involved Neal Boortz asking then Democrat hopeful Dennis Kucinich two simple questions:
- What percentage of total income is earned by the top 1% of income earners?
- What percentage of total federal income taxes are paid by the top 1% of income earners.
of all of the federal income taxes – according to Congressman Kucinich answered: He thought the top 1% of income earners earned 60% of the income and paid about 15% of the taxes. He was a little off. In fact, the top 1% of income earners earn approximately 17% of all the earnings in the country. That's certainly higher than the 1% they represent of the population but a far cry from Congressman Kucinich's 60%. More astounding however, is that they pay fully 39% a 2009 Congressional Budget Office report. The below chart demonstrates clearly the absurdity of the notion that the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes.
The first chart shows that the rich do indeed pay far more than their oft cited "fair share" of income taxes. Not only that, it also shows that the bottom 40% of wage earners actually have a negative tax rate and get money back from the government in the form of income tax credits!
Another of the left's arguments is that the lower income wage earners pay a disproportionate amount of the Social Security / Medicare tax. That too is false. The second chart states that the top 10% of wage earners pay 43.5% of all social insurance taxes while the bottom 40% pay just 15%.
Why does any of this matter in the first place? The third chart (taken from a 2010 report from the Tax Foundation) demonstrates why…Jobs. It compares wage & salary, capital gain, and dividend income for all income earners. As you can see, for the 80% of income earners below $200,000 per year, wages (i.e. a job) make up almost their entire incomes. Without jobs that someone else creates they would have no income… except government transfer payments.
At the $200,000 and above level, business and dividend income starts to take off and by the $1,000,000 and above level the three are almost equivalent. Those are the telltale signs of success. Those people earning those $200,000 and above incomes are the people creating the jobs that employ most of the remaining 80% of the population.
Put another way, jobs are not created by wage earners. Jobs are created by entrepreneurs risking their capital to start businesses… And those entrepreneurs are the usually found in that $200,000 and above group. The businesses they start generate 65% of all new jobs created in the United States.
While the first two charts debunk the myth that the rich do not pay their "fair share" the above chart demonstrates why it matters: The rich are the ones starting small businesses and creating jobs and prosperity.
Myths die hard, particularly when their proponents willingly ignore the facts. The myth that the rich don't pay their fair share should soon be headed the way of the global warming hoax. Clearly it is the people at the upper end of the income spectrum that are being treated unfairly. They are not paying their fair share… They are paying more. Not only are they responsible for 2/3 of all new jobs created, but in return they are rewarded with being allowed to keep even less of their income as they become more successful. Perhaps as more Americans examine and understand what it takes to generate and sustain a dynamic and growing economy the "tax the rich" cries will begin to fall on deaf ears. That's exactly what America could use right now, a reinvigorated entrepreneurial class striving to put more money in their pockets… and generating millions of jobs in the process.
This entry was posted in Barack Obama, Class Warfare, Economy, Obamanomics, Politics, Socialism, Taxes and tagged capital gains, dividends, entrepreneurship, income, job creation, Taxes. Bookmark the permalink. Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 4:27 pmBill
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Earl
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The Constitution Requires a Congressional Declaration of War against Libya
"We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
-- A Pledge to America, Republicans in Congress, September 2010
Thursday, March 17, 2010
The Constitution Requires a Congressional Declaration of War against Libya
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Given the battlefield success of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's standing army against Libyan rebels, President Obama has now shifted his tune. Instead of simply advocating a no-fly zone over Libya, Obama is now requesting the United Nations Security Council to authorize the United States to bomb Libyan tanks and artillery.
Did you catch that? The president of the United States is going to the UN to seek permission to attack a sovereign and independent country.
Where is the Tea Party when you need it? Aren't they the ones that carry the miniature-sized versions of the U.S. Constitution in their pockets? Attention Tea Partiers: Check out the section of the Constitution that requires the president to secure a formal declaration of war from Congress before he can wage war against a foreign regime. Let's hear from you. This is no time for silence.
The fact that Obama decides to go to foreigners to seek permission to wage another war of aggression just goes to show, once again, how far our nation has strayed from its founding principles.
For one thing, America was founded on the principle of no standing army. Our ancestors knew that a standing army is antithetical to the principles of a free society, a principle that the rebels in Libya and other Middle East countries are now discovering.
But there is another reason that a standing army is dangerous, as Americans have discovered: It can be used by a ruler to involve a nation in endless foreign military escapades, which oftentimes are so expensive that they bring financial bankruptcy down upon a nation. I'd say just ask the British Empire or the Soviet Empire but they're out of existence owing to bankruptcy.
What's fascinating is how virtually no one, except libertarians, brings up the U.S. Constitution when it comes to foreign wars, specifically that part that prohibits the president from waging war without a congressional declaration of war.
It's almost as if Americans have just come to accept the fact that the president is now a ruler with omnipotent powers when operating in foreign affairs. The notion is that the president, operating through his military and paramilitary forces (who are always ready and willing to loyally obey whatever orders he issues, no questions asked), can do whatever he wants with respect to foreign policy.
The Constitution is the highest law of the land. It embodies the constraints on federal power that were imposed on the federal government as a condition of permitting the federal government to come into existence. The Constitution is the law that we the people have imposed on federal officials, including the president and his military and paramilitary forces. Just as federal officials require us, the citizenry, to obey laws that they impose on us, they are required to comply with the law that we have imposed on them.
The Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war before the president can wage war against Libya or any other nation. If the president uses his standing army to attack Libya without a congressional declaration of war, he is a lawbreaker and should be impeached for his high crime. The fact that this critically important part of the Constitution has been ignored in the past should not be permitted to serve as a defense or an excuse at the president's impeachment trial. The law is the law. If Obama or anyone else doesn't like it, they're free to seek a constitutional amendment authorizing the president to both declare and wage war. Until then, the law should be enforced.
Should the U.S. Congress declare war on Libya? Should the president wage war on Libya? No to both questions. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya has not attacked the United States, which would make the U.S. government, once again, the aggressor in the conflict. Wars of aggression were condemned as war crimes at Nuremberg.
What can Americans why sympathize with the Libyan rebels do to help them out? They can take personal responsibility for their beliefs and travel to Libya and join the rebels. Not surprisingly, not one single American interventionist has done so.
Our ancestors brought into existence a nation with no standing army, no militarism, and no empire, no Federal Reserve, no federal torture, no federal kidnapping, no war on terrorism, no CIA, no war on drugs, no foreign wars, no public schooling, no paper money, and no wars of aggression. They brought into existence a government based on limited powers expressly enumerated in the U.S Constitution, an economic system based on free-market principles, and a society deeply committed to the preservation of civil liberties and fundamental rights.
The time arrived has arrived for Americans to return to first principles.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-03-17.asp
-- A Pledge to America, Republicans in Congress, September 2010
Thursday, March 17, 2010
The Constitution Requires a Congressional Declaration of War against Libya
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Given the battlefield success of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's standing army against Libyan rebels, President Obama has now shifted his tune. Instead of simply advocating a no-fly zone over Libya, Obama is now requesting the United Nations Security Council to authorize the United States to bomb Libyan tanks and artillery.
Did you catch that? The president of the United States is going to the UN to seek permission to attack a sovereign and independent country.
Where is the Tea Party when you need it? Aren't they the ones that carry the miniature-sized versions of the U.S. Constitution in their pockets? Attention Tea Partiers: Check out the section of the Constitution that requires the president to secure a formal declaration of war from Congress before he can wage war against a foreign regime. Let's hear from you. This is no time for silence.
The fact that Obama decides to go to foreigners to seek permission to wage another war of aggression just goes to show, once again, how far our nation has strayed from its founding principles.
For one thing, America was founded on the principle of no standing army. Our ancestors knew that a standing army is antithetical to the principles of a free society, a principle that the rebels in Libya and other Middle East countries are now discovering.
But there is another reason that a standing army is dangerous, as Americans have discovered: It can be used by a ruler to involve a nation in endless foreign military escapades, which oftentimes are so expensive that they bring financial bankruptcy down upon a nation. I'd say just ask the British Empire or the Soviet Empire but they're out of existence owing to bankruptcy.
What's fascinating is how virtually no one, except libertarians, brings up the U.S. Constitution when it comes to foreign wars, specifically that part that prohibits the president from waging war without a congressional declaration of war.
It's almost as if Americans have just come to accept the fact that the president is now a ruler with omnipotent powers when operating in foreign affairs. The notion is that the president, operating through his military and paramilitary forces (who are always ready and willing to loyally obey whatever orders he issues, no questions asked), can do whatever he wants with respect to foreign policy.
The Constitution is the highest law of the land. It embodies the constraints on federal power that were imposed on the federal government as a condition of permitting the federal government to come into existence. The Constitution is the law that we the people have imposed on federal officials, including the president and his military and paramilitary forces. Just as federal officials require us, the citizenry, to obey laws that they impose on us, they are required to comply with the law that we have imposed on them.
The Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war before the president can wage war against Libya or any other nation. If the president uses his standing army to attack Libya without a congressional declaration of war, he is a lawbreaker and should be impeached for his high crime. The fact that this critically important part of the Constitution has been ignored in the past should not be permitted to serve as a defense or an excuse at the president's impeachment trial. The law is the law. If Obama or anyone else doesn't like it, they're free to seek a constitutional amendment authorizing the president to both declare and wage war. Until then, the law should be enforced.
Should the U.S. Congress declare war on Libya? Should the president wage war on Libya? No to both questions. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya has not attacked the United States, which would make the U.S. government, once again, the aggressor in the conflict. Wars of aggression were condemned as war crimes at Nuremberg.
What can Americans why sympathize with the Libyan rebels do to help them out? They can take personal responsibility for their beliefs and travel to Libya and join the rebels. Not surprisingly, not one single American interventionist has done so.
Our ancestors brought into existence a nation with no standing army, no militarism, and no empire, no Federal Reserve, no federal torture, no federal kidnapping, no war on terrorism, no CIA, no war on drugs, no foreign wars, no public schooling, no paper money, and no wars of aggression. They brought into existence a government based on limited powers expressly enumerated in the U.S Constitution, an economic system based on free-market principles, and a society deeply committed to the preservation of civil liberties and fundamental rights.
The time arrived has arrived for Americans to return to first principles.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-03-17.asp
Child porn raid wrong, but no apology by feds
No arrest, no explanation, no apology. They terrorized this guy at gunpoint, and confiscated his property even AFTER acknowledging that he was innocent.
May God hasten the death of this Regime. -- William N. Grigg
Child porn raid wrong, but no apology by feds
West Side businessman traumatized at home because of 'Wi-Fi theft'
By Dan Herbeck
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: March 17, 2011, 7:43 AM
At about 7 a.m. March 7, federal agents battered open the back door of a Buffalo businessman's home, where they seized his computer after allegedly pulling him down a flight of stairs.
They told him he was in a lot of trouble, accusing him of downloading child pornography, although they didn't arrest him.
The federal agents pointed automatic weapons, scaring the businessman and his wife.
Three days later, agents returned the computer to the man. Law enforcement officials now realize he never sent or downloaded any images of child porn.
Someone else, it turned out, repeatedly used the businessman's wireless Internet service -- commonly known as Wi-Fi -- downloading child porn onto a different computer from an apartment close to the businessman's West Side residence.
A Buffalo man -- John E. Luchetti, a 25-year-old neighbor of the businessman -- was arrested in the case Wednesday.
But so far, there has been no apology. Nor any offer of payment for the battered door. And the businessman, who did nothing wrong, had to hire attorneys to represent him.
"It's a cautionary tale for the Internet age; that's for sure," said attorney Barry N. Covert, who represents the Buffalo businessman, who does not want to be identified for fear that it will adversely affect his livelihood.
This is not the first time in the United States that "Wi-Fi theft," or "Wi-Fi mooching," caused someone to be wrongly suspected of involvement in child porn, according to computer experts and Covert's co-counsel, Christopher S. Mattingly.
A similar incident occurred last June in Sarasota, Fla., when a dozen FBI agents approached a lawyer at his waterside condominium and told him he was suspected of sending images of child porn. In that case, the real culprit turned out to be a man who used the lawyer's wireless connection while sitting in a boat in a marina nearby, police said. That man was arrested.
"These two cases are kind of a worst-case scenario, but it can happen," said David J. Murray, a cybersecurity expert who is an associate professor in the University at Buffalo's School of Management. "Most people don't realize the dangers they could face if they don't take the right security steps when they install Wi-Fi on their computers."
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on the March 7 raid in Buffalo, and officials from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement declined to comment directly on it, although they did address some general questions about child porn raids and investigations.
"All search warrants are conducted in a manner that ensure to the greatest extent possible the safety and security of both the special agents executing the search warrant and anyone who may be inside the premises," said Michael W. Gilhooly, a spokesman for ICE.
But what about busting into an innocent family's home?
The West Side businessman said he is angry with ICE. "To come in the way they did seems overzealous," the businessman told The Buffalo News. "I guess they felt I was scum and I deserved whatever I got."
The man, who is in his 40s, spoke on the condition that his name not be published. Even though he is innocent, he said, any publicity attaching his name to the phrase "child pornography" would hurt his restaurant business. He said he considers child porn "disgusting [and] abhorrent."
"I'm angry because they didn't do their homework," the businessman said of the ICE agents. "I'm not a computer geek, but even I know that someone standing outside your home can use your Wi-Fi."
He said he and his wife were sleeping when they were awakened by a series of loud bangs on their rear door. The man said he threw on a bathrobe and rushed down the stairs. He said he was halfway down the stairs when a team of "at least seven" federal agents screamed and pointed firearms at him.
"Their jackets said 'ICE' on them, and I didn't know what that meant," the man said. "They yelled at me to get down, but I was about seven steps from the bottom, and I didn't know what to do. Some of them grabbed me and dragged me down the stairs. I fell against a table and landed on the floor. I was lying there with all these guns pointed at me."
The businessman said he asked the agents what they were looking for.
"You know why we're here," the man quoted one agent as telling him. "You're a child pornographer. Your screen name is 'Doldrum.' ... We know you had a big download from a child porn site just last night."
The businessman said he repeatedly told agents that there must be some mistake. "For 90 minutes, they treated me like there was absolutely no question or doubt that I was guilty," he said. "Agents went upstairs with me and watched me while I got dressed and used the bathroom."
Agents looked at his computer for about two hours, and during that time, the businessman said, "their demeanor toward me started to change."
"I am sure that they could tell from examining my computer that I had not downloaded any child porn, the previous night or at any other time. ... I think they started to realize they had the wrong guy," he said.
Still, when federal agents left the house, they took his computer, two cell phones and an iPad networking device, the man said.
"The agent in charge gave me her name, Karen Wisniewski, and her phone number. They just left with our stuff," the businessman said. "It took me about a day and a half to go from being really scared to being really mad."
In court papers filed Wednesday, Wisniewski said "the subscriber" at the house initially searched by ICE "was not the individual who utilized the user name 'Doldrum.'"
"[The] subscriber maintained a wireless router at his residence that was not password-protected, and could therefore be accessed by others in the vicinity," Wisniewski said in a court statement. Court papers indicate that the agents had a search warrant when they went into the businessman's home.
Why was there no apology?
Gilhooly and Lev J. Kubiak, a supervisor of ICE investigations in Western New York, said they could not comment. Speaking in general terms, Kubiak said agents use extreme caution conducting any raid, regardless of the alleged crime, because they never know what awaits them in any home.
Mattingly and Covert, who represent the businessman, said this case points to the need for investigators to do more research about an individual before raiding his home and accusing him of a crime such as child porn.
"I have represented a lot of these defendants over the past 10 years. The people I have represented are computer geeks, not dangerous people," Covert said. "I can't see the point of going into this house with all kinds of automatic weapons."
In reaction, law enforcement officials pointed out that, in August 2004, a sheriff's deputy was shot to death by a child porn suspect during a raid in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Luchetti, the man agents arrested in Buffalo on Wednesday, made his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott. Luchetti, 25, whose Orton Place apartment is a few hundred feet from the businessman's home, is charged with felony distribution of child porn.
Luchetti, who works at a not-for-profit housing agency, pleaded not guilty and was assigned an attorney from the Federal Public Defender's Office.
"He pleads not guilty," said Luchetti's attorney, Brian P. Comerford.
In court papers, federal agents identified Luchetti's alleged user name: "Doldrum."
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/buffalo/article369032.ece
Libya: Another Unnecessary War Of Choice
Libya: Another Unnecessary War Of Choice
Mar. 14 2011 - 4:53 pm
By DOUG BANDOW
Eight years after invading Iraq, U.S. forces remain on station. Nearly a decade after ousting the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, Washington is more deeply involved than ever. Yet the architects of these interminable wars are lobbying to embark on another military adventure in Libya.
The U.S. government long has been tempted to meddle in other nations' affairs and rarely to good results. It is difficult to transcend history, ethnicity, culture, religion, tradition and geography to "fix" other countries. Iraq dramatically demonstrated that social engineering through war is even harder.
The protests sweeping the Arab world offer hope of liberty for tens of millions of people long subjugated by a variety of kleptocratic autocracies. But revolutions sometimes yield worse repression. Washington also worries about the rise of anti-American radicalism.
Libya appears to be an easy case, since Muammar al-Gadhafi long was hostile to the U.S. Thus, the Washington commentariat, the famed "Sofa Samurai" who cheer on wars in which they do not fight, is now demanding action against Gadhafi.
Although protestors quickly overran most of eastern Libya, the regime rallied in the capital of Tripoli. Better armed than the insurgents, Gadhafi's forces shot down demonstrators and bombed opposition areas. The regime has regained some lost territory, leading to fears of protracted conflict, even civil war.
The Libyan crisis is a tragedy, but is important to America only in the usual Washington game of threat inflation. President Barack Obama claimed the Libyan imbroglio posed "an unusual threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." The former is errant nonsense. Libya always has been peripheral to American security, especially after the Gadhafi regime dropped its terrorist attacks and nuclear program. The latter is irrelevant–much of which goes on around the world conflicts with the "foreign policy of the United States." Neither is cause for war.
The Weekly Standard's Lee Smith complained that a Libyan civil war "would destabilize Africa as well as other Arab states, and cause considerable damage to American prestige and influence." Actually, Africa has been routinely "destabilized" by far larger conflicts with little impact beyond. It is unrest in other Arab states, most notably Libya's neighbors, Tunisia and Egypt, which triggered resistance to the Gadhafi government, not the other way around.
Moreover, the conflict in Libya is irrelevant to "American prestige and influence" unless U.S. policymakers foolishly put that prestige and influence at risk. In fact, Michael Brenner of the University of Pittsburgh makes just such a bootstrap argument in The Huffington Post: "Great powers don't have the privilege of declaring a situation intolerable and then doing nothing to rectify it when they in fact have the power to do so."
Actually, being a great power, indeed, the world's sole superpower, allows Washington to do precisely that. If Americans had to spill blood every time their leaders made intemperate, even stupid statements, the nation never would be at peace.
Finally, there is much demand for "leadership." But real leadership incorporates prudence, and especially a willingness to set priorities.
It doesn't much matter to Americans who rules Libya. That nation is a major oil producer, but whoever runs the Libyan government will want to sell its most important resource. Protracted conflict might disrupt exports, but that would mean higher prices, not economic collapse, in the West. Keeping gas cheap is among the worst reasons to go to war.
Still, the U.S. probably would be better off with someone other than Gadhafi in power. Only probably, however. American policymakers don't know who would dominate among the divided and fractious opposition. It may be unlikely that someone worse than Gadhafi would prevail, but history indicates that it is possible.
The best argument for intervening is humanitarian. Rachel Kleinfeld of the Truman National Security Project declared that " intervention is likely the only moral option." If so, why not intervene elsewhere against the Saudi, Syrian, Iranian or Algerian dictatorships, for instance? And in Ivory Coast, where the outgoing president has stolen an election and killed protestors to stay in power? The demands for action in Libya appear to base foreign policy on CNN, responding to crises which receive the most international media coverage.
The military response du jour is a "no-fly" zone. Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak said, "This is a pretty easy problem, for crying out loud." The U.S. Senate cast a unanimous vote in favor of establishing one. Giles Merritt, an analyst with Security and Defense Agenda, a Belgian think tank, asserted, "There's no reason not to implement a no-fly zone."
A no-fly zone combines compelling visuals with minimal risks, at least when used against a marginal power like Libya. But the tactic has a mixed record: little value in the Balkans, largely ineffectual in southern Iraq, more useful when protecting Kurds who had their own military forces.
Moreover, a no-fly zone would be an act of war. Enforcing it with aircraft would require suppression of Libyan air defenses modest, but perhaps more capable than commonly assumed. Stated Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: "A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya. That's the way you do a no-fly zone."
Libya is a large country, stretching more than 1000 miles east to west and containing a dozen major cities. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said more aircraft would be required than deployed on a single carrier. Washington could rely on ship-to-air and air-to-air missiles, but they would be less effective against low-flying craft. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments figures the cost of a no-fly operation would run up to $300 million a week for the most extensive aerial coverage.
Gadhafi might succeed in downing U.S. aircraft. After all, the bedraggled Bosnian Serbs were able to shoot down an F-16 in 1995 and the Yugoslav Serbs even downed an F-117 stealth fighter during America's 1999 bombing campaign. The destruction of American planes and capture of American pilots would create pressure for deeper involvement.
Gadhafi also might look for other means to retaliate, including terrorism. If Gadhafi succeeded in killing Americans, pressure for airstrikes and even an invasion would soar.
Another problem with a no-fly zone would be its limited utility. For instance, Yugoslavia was able to deploy sub-sonic aircraft and helicopters despite the allied no-fly zone in Bosnia.
Ivo Daadler, America's NATO ambassador, noted: "No-fly zones are more effective against fighters, but they really have a limited effect against … helicopters or the kind of ground operations that we've seen. Which is why a no-fly zone, even if it were to be established, isn't really going to impact what is happening there today."
Indeed, Gadhafi may have enough forces on the ground, a mix of paramilitary and elite army, to prevail, or at least to maintain control of the west and significant oil production. Gen. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, confounded conventional wisdom when he opined that Gadhafi "seems to have staying power" and is likely to "prevail."
Tepid intervention like a no-fly zone might offer just enough aid to prolong a civil war, causing even more casualties and destruction. Then the U.S. would have to decide whether to double down, creating a "no-drive" zone for Gadhafi's tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery, arming the rebels, training insurgent forces, attacking Libyan airfields and air units, inserting Special Forces and/or sending in ground troops. In both the Balkans and Iraq, no-fly zones acted as steps to much more extensive military involvement.
At least Rachel Kleinfeld acknowledges "the likelihood of a long 'occupation' of foreign troops" resulting from any serious intervention. However, getting involved in a civil war with 150,000 U.S. troops still stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq would suggest that American policymakers are as nutty as Gadhafi.
And who to back in Libya? Not every opponent of the regime is a nascent Thomas Jefferson. France has recognized the Transitional National Council , the main opposition group. But there is no guarantee that it will govern Libya if Gadhafi falls. Libya's regional and tribal divisions run deep. Jihadists are active even though they do not predominate. Analyst Alison Pargeter pointed to "the almost complete absence of functioning institutions in Libya," including even a ruling political party.
Thus, Gadhafi's ouster is likely to trigger additional brutal and unpredictable power struggles. Unfortunately, the good guys often lose such post-revolutionary battles. James Hackett of the International Institute for Strategic Studies observed, "You are probably dealing with a range of different tribes and communities that have very different agendas once Gaddafi goes."
If the U.S. backs one or another faction, it will own the outcome. Which will force American policymakers to choose winners and losers, manipulate political actors, and otherwise meddle endlessly in Libya for years to come.
How the Libyan people would respond to U.S. or Western intervention is not clear. Some want a no fly zone or even air strikes, though many insist on UN approval. Others reject any outside intervention, even suggesting that they would oppose foreign troops as well as Gadhafi's minions. American intervention would risk discrediting friendly forces in any succeeding power struggle.
Nor is it clear how U.S. action would be perceived elsewhere. Washington has a well-earned reputation for supporting and ousting regimes to serve its interests and not those of subject peoples. George W. Bush's freedom initiative is not why the Arab street is now rising against its oppressors, mostly governments long backed by Washington.
Daniel Pipes points out in The National Review that so far the U.S. has been "conspicuously absent from the sloganeering" in the Middle East uprisings. Yes, because Washington has not been directly involved. Intervening in Libya would change that dynamic. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasizes the importance of winning international support for military action, preferably from the United Nations, but the latter remains unlikely due to Russian opposition. Relying on NATO or the EU would be correctly seen as mere American fig leafs.
Dov Zakheim complained that the alternative to acting "is to sit back and let events dictate what the United States should do." Stephen Grand of the Brookings Institution claimed "doing nothing is not a viable alternative." Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, opined that the U.S. "should not be on the sidelines."
Actually, that is precisely where Washington should be. Peace should be America's default position. Obviously, there are times when war is tragically necessary. That is not the case in Libya.
Even in better economic times, Washington cannot afford to police the world. With a $1.65 trillion deficit this year, trillions of dollars in red ink expected in coming decades, and over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities piled high, the U.S. government needs to relearn humility in foreign policy, as candidate George W. Bush argued so very long ago.
More fundamentally, the lives and treasure of Americans, especially those in the armed forces, should not be risked without something important at stake for their own society. Military personnel are not gambit pawns to be sacrificed in some global chess game played by ivory tower warriors. For good reason nearly two-thirds of Americans say they want to stay out of Libya.
We should wish the Libyan people well. But their war is not our war. And military intervention risks their future. Wrote Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times: "in the long-run, it would damage the only real chance for lasting peace and stability in the region–the hope that the future of the Middle East will now be determined by ordinary citizens, rather than by local dictators or outside powers."
President Bush's militaristic agenda was never necessary. Democracy is spreading in spite of catastrophic policy failure in Iraq. Andrew Bacevich of Boston University noted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that, "by liberating themselves, [the Muslim masses] will also liberate us. Our misbegotten crusade to determine their destiny will finally end." Americans should reject another war of choice in another Muslim nation about which they know nothing.
http://blogs.forbes.com/dougbandow/2011/03/14/libya-another-unnecessary-war-of-choice/
A History of Labor Unions from Colonial Times to 2009
"Those who tell you of trade-unions bent on raising wages by moral suasion alone are like people who tell you of tigers that live on oranges." -- Henry George, 1891[1]
A History of Labor Unions from Colonial Times to 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
by Morgan Reynolds
Labor unions have been defined as "private combinations of workingmen" that try to increase wages and improve working conditions for members. But how? What means do labor unions use? As Henry George suggests, trade unionists are hardly known for their kindness to strangers and genteel ways.
From colonial times, trade unionists found the going difficult in North America. There was no prevailing ideology of "working-class solidarity," and unions were far from respectable; in fact, they had a well-earned reputation for being antisocial, even criminal. Some unions were secret societies with secret oaths, and unionists engaged in intimidation, threats, vandalism, and violence, especially against uncooperative workers denounced as subhuman "scabs" and "blacklegs." Private property, freedom of contract, competition, and freedom of movement across occupations (slavery and indentured servitude aside) were celebrated concepts, while government-granted monopolies and cartels were not popular at the founding of the American Republic.
Courts of law were not fond of union methods either, and employers, consumers, and workers often resisted "militant" unions. Competition from imported goods made life difficult too. Some workers were intensely anti-union, not just employers. America was an open society, a frontier society, farm-dominated, sprawling, and free, and wages often were double those paid in England because labor was so scarce here. Although no reliable statistics are available, union membership probably remained below one percent of the work force most years from colonial times to the 1870s.
If a union declared and lost a strike, it usually collapsed and disappeared. Most unions failed during business downturns as jobs, union membership, and revenue declined. While wage rates fell elsewhere in response to depressed business conditions, unions stubbornly insisted on maintaining wage rates ("wage rigidity"), intensifying their own failure. As nonunion labor became less expensive (more "affordable") and induced more hiring, production costs fell, thereby reducing unemployment. Such wage-price flexibility shortened business downturns by expanding output and employment, thereby acting as "shock absorbers" in the economy.
In the vast sweep of the early American economy, unions were a curiosity rather than a prominent feature, confined largely to skilled trades in big cities and on the railroads. Not until the late 1870s and prosperous 1880s, when political philosophy began to shift toward collectivism and the "progressive era," did national trade unions gain a real foothold.
Colonial Times
In the early modern era, the European guild system consisted of tightly regulated local occupational and product monopolies, which never really took hold in North America. A few guilds with apprenticeships existed in the major cities during the 18th century (carpenters, printing, shoemaking, tailoring, hat making), and journeymen from these guilds plus workers' "benevolent societies" formed the core of early-19th-century trade unions. Most labor protests, however, were spontaneous actions like that reported in 1763, when, according to the Charleston Gazette, Negro chimney sweeps "had the insolence, by a combination among themselves, to raise the usual prices, and to refuse doing their work."
Before 1800, printers and shoemakers organized in Philadelphia and New York. Philadelphia printers conducted the first recorded strike for higher wages in 1786, opposing a wage cut and demanding a minimum wage of $6 per week.[2] Employers quickly acquiesced, confirming the generalization in industrial relations that unions win short strikes and lose long ones. Because the average daily wage rate for laborers was $0.53 and $1.00 for artisans in the Philadelphia area, it is not clear that the strike boosted wages for a majority of printers, but a cut was thwarted.[3]
City of Brotherly Love?
Philadelphia was a city of labor-union firsts: the first recorded labor strike, first labor newspaper, first city central body of unions, and first labor-union political activity.
Union Tactics
Trade unions in the early Republic sought monopoly control over the local supply of labor with the "closed shop," an arrangement requiring employers to hire union members only. Selective admission to apprenticeships restricted membership, thereby artificially limiting the supply of skilled labor for hire and placing upward pressure on wage rates.
As in England, threats and violence accompanied strikes. The typical strike aimed to force employers to pay more than necessary for labor available on the open market. The silent corollary was that everyone union member or no must "strike" too, that is, withhold his or her labor, willing or not, and refuse employment at pay less than that demanded by strikers. Alternatively, the employer had to be intimidated and decisively discouraged from hiring replacement workers ("strikebreakers"). A union warning from the 1830s suggests how unions discouraged interlopers: "We would caution all strangers and others who profess the art of horseshoeing, that if they go work for any employer under the above prices, they must abide by the consequences."[4]
The stronger a union is, the more it acts like a private state, secure in its power and with little overt need to use violence. Local culture and ideology play a large role because the response of local police, courts, and politicians to union aggression is pivotal. By 1810, union tactics were fully formed: bargain "collectively," demand fixed minimum pay rates, enforce closed shops, stage strikes with picket lines, scab lists, strike funds, and traveling cards, and promote unity among skilled and unskilled workers and solidarity among locals of the same trade.
But how could threatened collective violence and actual violence by adversarial-style unions square with the right of each person to seek his or her best opportunity, free of interference? To strike a bargain for lawful employment, a right firmly entrenched in custom and law? It could not be. Union coercion is incompatible with individual freedom of contract, an ugly truth ignored by most labor writers. But, as Mises wrote, "Actually labor union violence is tolerated within broad limits…the authorities, with the approval of public opinion, condone such acts."[5]
The Law
The courts struggled with the legal status of labor unions from the beginning: were such combinations or labor cartels lawful or not? According to some legal doctrines, unions were "criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade" and illegal combinations to fix prices (for labor services).
These issues were tested in the state courts from 1806 through 1842. In the famous 1806 criminal prosecution of the Philadelphia cordwainers (shoemakers), Commonwealth v. Pullis, a three-day trial led the jury to convict the accused unionists of a criminal conspiracy to fix prices, and eight defendants were each fined $8, slightly more than a week's wages. Only 18 unionists were convicted on conspiracy charges when this doctrine was at its peak.[6] In 1842, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, in the influential decision of Commonwealth v. Hunt, ruled the bootmakers' union a lawful association with a lawful right to organize and collectively withhold labor ("strike"). The courts did not go so far as to authorize threats and violence by unions as legitimate "weapons of labor" during strikes, but, as Mises pointed out, law enforcement was and is lax in many labor disputes. The state thereby fails in its alleged basic purpose, to protect life, property, and individual liberty against (private) aggression.
1850–1900
Nearly everything was tried in some form or other during this era: socialism, syndicalism, anarchism, cooperatives, political unionism, and, the most seductive idea of all, the welding of everybody (barring bartenders and bankers!) into one gigantic union. Some were secret societies with names like the Knights of St. Crispin, the Molly Maguires, and the Knights of Labor. Yet the main adhesive of British and European unions easily aroused class antagonisms was absent in America, and Marxist-style sentiments about the plight of the working class never became the dominant mood, contrary to some historical accounts. More often, American pubic opinion was horrified and disgusted by outbreaks of labor violence and union disruption of production, especially if the outbursts had revolutionary overtones.
Eventually, one form of unionism emerged as a survivor in this unfavorable environment. Experiments with political radicalism gave way to so-called "business unionism," the notion that unions must pursue immediate, material gain for members within the free-enterprise system. The underlying idea was to accept the capitalist wage, price, and political system and achieve marginal gains for members within it. Consequently, the ambitions of social visionaries and leftist radicals who saw unions as a vehicle for radical change gradually fell by the wayside.
The tradition of 20th-century US unionism was largely the work of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and its leader, Samuel Gompers. Founded in 1881, it was a federation of national trade unions, each composed of members of a particular craft such as locomotive engineers or carpenters. Union membership in the early 1890s was barely 200,000, but as the economy expanded after the Panic of 1893 unions found more effective methods of organization, and membership hit 447,000 in 1897. Given the formula for national craft unionism, unions grew to a modest share of the labor force without enormous government intervention, aside from laxity toward union threats and the actual use of violence.
At the end of the century, union membership in the United States was only 500,000, or less than 2% of the labor force. Only a dozen unions claimed more than 10,000 members. The largest union was the Locomotive Engineers with 30,000 members; the Cigarmakers were second with 28,300. Samuel Gompers, the most famous president of the AFL, for example, came from the Cigarmakers, which disappeared in a merger with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union in the 1970s. While unions existed in many trades at the close of the century, they did organize a substantial share of employment in few instances, mainly construction, railroads, printing, and the postal service.
Only the railroad and postal unions were direct beneficiaries of pro-union federal legislation. Although 17 state legislatures passed laws during the 1880s and 1890s prohibiting employers from firing employees for belonging to or joining unions, reflecting an emerging pro-union political climate during this period, a prelude to the "Progressive Era."
20th Century
In the early 20th century, union membership rose to 6% of the labor force. There were 2.7 million members by 1913, and the share stayed around 6–7% until 1917. This was the "Progressive Era" of 1900 through 1918 which
fastened a welfare-warfare state on America which has set the mold for the rest of the twentieth century…because a unique set of conditions had destroyed the Democrats as a laissez-faire party and left a power vacuum for the triumph of the new ideology of compulsory cartelization through a partnership of big government, business, unions, technocrats, and intellectuals. [7]
World War I
Prior to World War I, unionists were still on a relatively short leash. From 1842 onward, unions had the clear legal right to exist, and workers could join such "self-help" organizations, but employers were under no obligation to "bargain" with these unions. The courts also tended (ultimately) to restrict union tactics such as threats of violence, violence itself, mob action, and interference with voluntary trade. Further, the courts tended to make little distinction between business and union "restraints on competition." They ruled, for example, that union actions in a boycott organized by the United Hatters of Danbury, CT, against the products of D. E. Loewe and Company (1908) were in restraint of trade under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, and fined individual union members responsible for the union's acts (unions never incorporated lest they be held liable as an organization for damages they caused). Unionists therefore prominently demanded governmental privilege and mounted persistent and intensive campaigns for favorable legislation.
In 1912, Congress supplied new assistance with the Lloyd-LaFollette Act to compel collective bargaining by the US Post Office and encourage postal-union membership. In 1914, Congress passed the Clayton Act with provisions to exempt unions from the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act, restrict the use of court injunctions in labor disputes and declare picketing and similar union tactics as not unlawful. Samuel Gompers hailed the Clayton Act as labor's Magna Carta, but subsequent court interpretations neutered the prounion provisions.
The "national emergency" of US entry into World War I provided much of the experience and precedent for subsequent intervention on behalf of unionism, as well as for other cartel-like policies. Historian William E. Leuchtenburg, for instance, points out, "The panoply of procedures developed by the War Labor Board and the War Labor Policies Board provided the basis in later years for a series of enactments culminating in the Wagner National Labor Relations Act of 1935."[8] Under pressure of World War I and the government's interventions, union membership skyrocketed, hitting 12% of the labor force.
The War Labor Board and the War Labor Policies Board, the latter led by Felix Frankfurter and modeled on a directive by Franklin D. Roosevelt who represented the United States Navy on the board, proclaimed governmental support of unions and enforced pro-union measures on industry. The boards, for instance, ordered establishment of "work councils" composed of employee representatives and seized defiant enterprises.
The government even created a union, the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, and forced lumbermen to join in its battle against the radical leftist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, known as the "Wobblies"). The Loyal Legion collapsed after the war despite government efforts to keep it alive, while others became so-called company or independent unions, subsequently banned by the 1935 Wagner Act.
Just as the War Industries Board led by Bernard M. Baruch and Army General Hugh S. Johnson was the forerunner for the 1933935 cartelization under the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) administered by Johnson, the War Labor Boards were forerunners to the federal labor boards used to administer Section 7(a) of NIRA and the subsequent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) created by the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935.
1920s
The end of the war ended prounion interventions. By 1924, the union share of the labor force had slipped to 8%, and by 1933 had eroded to the same 6% as thirty years before.
But peacetime help was not far off. The first durable help for "private-sector" unionism was the Railway Labor Act of 1926. The labor disputes that erupted periodically on the railroads were highly visible, violent, unpopular, and politically embarrassing. Although the interstate commerce clause of the United States Constitution, as interpreted then, restricted the ability of the national government to intervene in most economic affairs, Congress had the unchallenged power to regulate interstate commerce. A sequence of federal laws beginning in 1888 regulated railway labor matters, and Congress passed the 1926 law in almost the identical form agreed on by the major railroads and unions. The act, amended in 1934, essentially dictated collective bargaining for all interstate railroads and set up machinery for governmental intervention in labor disputes.
This was an obvious example of monopoly intervention on behalf of an industry. The already unionized railroads found it comfortable to impose compulsory collective bargaining on all interstate railroads, some of which had resisted union pressure better than others. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), in turn, fixed freight rates for railroads based on "costs," which were higher because of unions. Thus railroad wage and price determination was transferred from the marketplace to the political arena.
1930s
During the Great Depression, Congress delivered an amazing sequence of six major pieces of labor legislation favored by unionists, virtually revolutionizing labor markets: Davis-Bacon (1931), Norris-LaGuardia (1932), National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), Wagner National Labor Relations Act (1935), Walsh-Healey (1936), and the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), popularly known as the minimum wage law. This avalanche of legislation to entrench unions was hastened by the prevailing doctrine of 1920s business leaders, that "high and rising wages were necessary to a full flow of purchasing power and, therefore, to good business," which was followed by its corollary, that "'reducing the income of labor is not a remedy for business depression, it is a direct and contributory cause.'"[9] This ignorant blather reverses the true line of causation: high wages are an effect of high productivity and prosperity, not a cause of them. If it were otherwise, rather than producing themselves rich, nations could simply declare all good things cheap and all wages high, and thus abolish poverty with pious hopes.
Davis-Bacon: This bill passed in 1931 following a sharp decline in construction activity at the beginning of the Great Depression. Construction expenditures went from $11 billion annually to $3 billion, with over half of the reduced activity financed by government. Competition for contracts and jobs was fierce and mobile contractors using migrant labor entered the market to underbid some local contractors. Many contractors and building trade unions welcomed the law to protect themselves from the competition of what one congressman called "carpetbagging sharpie contractors."[10]
The law requires that workers on federally financed construction be paid wages at "local prevailing rates" for comparable construction work. The clearly stated intent was to protect local workers and contractors from the competition of outsiders. The ambiguity of prevailing wages gave the United States Department of Labor scope to set minimum wage rates at union wages in about half of its wage determinations. This has cost taxpayers at least a billion dollars per year in higher construction and administrative costs.
Since 1931, Congress has extended the prevailing wage provision to include most federally assisted construction, whether state, local, or national government is the direct purchaser. Additional amendments in 1964 added fringe benefits to prevailing wage calculations. The effect of the Labor Department's administration of the law is not to protect local contractors from competitors but to dish out government work to high-cost contractors and the building-trades unions. Davis-Bacon regulates about 20% of all construction. Construction workers are among the highest paid in America, earning twice the hourly rate of employees in retail trade. Most states passed "little Davis-Bacon" Acts to further unionize the construction industry and "build expensive."
Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act: Signed by President Herbert Hoover on March 23, 1932, this bill passed the House 363-13 and the Senate 75-5. It was the culmination of a 50-year union campaign against "government by injunction."
The threefold purpose of the act was to
- declare nonunion employment agreements ("yellow-dog contracts") unenforceable in federal courts (section 3);
- grant labor organizations immunity from liability for wrongful acts under antitrust law (sections 4 and 5); and
- give unions immunity from private damage suits and nullify the equity powers (injunctive relief) of federal courts in labor disputes (sections 7–12).
The overriding object of the act was to free organized labor from the constraints that bind businessmen and others, allowing unions more scope to use their aggressive and violent tactics. The number of strikes suddenly doubled between 1932 and 1933 to 1,695 and then continued climbing to a 1930s peak of 4,740 in 1937. This outburst of strikes occurred during a period of deep depression and massive unemployment, while previous business downturns had always diminished strike activity and caused many unions to disappear. As Hayek summed it up, "We have now reached a state where [unions] have become uniquely privileged institutions to which the general rules of law do not apply."[11]
NIRA: The National Industrial Recovery Act was among the many Roosevelt interventions to boost prices and wage rates on the mistaken theory that falling wages and prices were causing the depression rather than being market-driven adjustments to re-coordinate the economy and restore production and employment. The NIRA the New Deal fascist system of codes to cartelize both industry and labor markets and push up prices throughout the economy was struck down by the Supreme Court in the famous Schechter Poultry case of 1935 on the grounds that the act delegated virtually unlimited legislative power to the president. Section 7(a) of the NIRA promoted unions and the practices of collective bargaining. Congress then re-packaged similar labor regulations and new interventions piece by piece in surviving legislation like the Wagner, Walsh-Healey, and Fair Labor Standards Acts.
National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): Otherwise known as the Wagner Act, the NLRA was a rewrite of the NIRA's section 7a. The act passed the Senate 63-12 and an unrecorded voice vote in the House, and Roosevelt signed it July 5, 1935.
The NLRA remains the overall labor framework in the United States to this day. It declares that the labor policy of the federal government is encouragement of the practice and procedure of collective bargaining, as well as protection of worker designation of representatives to negotiate terms and conditions of employment. It uses federal coercion to make it easier to unionize enterprises and employees in the private sector who otherwise would not participate in unionization and collective bargaining. The main regulatory features of the act were as follows.
- The creation of a politically appointed board, the National Labor Relations Board, to enforce the act, thereby escaping the too-frequent apolitical ("anti-union") rulings from courts of law.
- The specification of multiple "unfair labor practices" by enterprises to hamper their resistance to organized labor.
- NLRB enforcement of majority elections for union representation.
- NLRB determination of eligibility to vote.
- NLRB enforcement of exclusive (monopoly) bargaining for all employees in a bargaining "unit" by NLRB-certified unionists only.
- NLRB enforcement of union pay rates for all employees represented, whether union members or not.
In April 1937, contrary to the expectations of many in the Congress who had hoped the Supreme Court would overturn their handiwork as unconstitutional, as it had the NIRA, the court declared the Wagner Act constitutional by a 5-4 vote in the midst of Roosevelt's famous threat to pack the court. It is no exaggeration to state that the Wagner decision marked the judiciary's general abandonment of constitutional protection against federal encroachment on economic rights and due process.
Years later, public disgust with adversarial unionism and underworld corruption produced federal legislation to modify the Wagner Act -- principally the Labor-Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act in 1947 and the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure (Landrum-Griffin) Act in 1959 -- that has been less favorable to unions, though this can be exaggerated. Neither law tampered with the basic privileges and immunities previously granted to organized labor. As legal scholar Richard Epstein says, Taft-Hartley was a partial union victory because it maintained the original structure of the statutes, making it more difficult to return to common law.[12]
My favorite section (602A) in Landrum-Griffin, although intended to rein in union officials' abuse of members' rights, highlights the immunities the state grants to unions:
It shall be unlawful to carry on picketing on or about the premises of any employer for the purpose of, or as part of any conspiracy or in furtherance of any plan or purpose for, the personal profit or enrichment of any individual (except a bona fide increase in wages or other employee benefits) by taking or obtaining any money or other thing of value from such employer against his will or without his consent. [Emphasis added.]
The exclusion in parentheses is quite astounding. Such open exceptions (privileges and immunities) for labor unions are necessary in legislation if the object of national labor law since the 1930s is to be promoted and achieved. Namely, this involves an organized labor movement freed from the regular constraints of civilization to extract money from employers against their will with the proviso that the loot be mostly paid to union members in wages and benefits.
Public Contract (Walsh-Healey) Act: Passed in 1936, this act tried to accomplish for unions more generally what Davis-Bacon did for the building-trades unions, but it turned out to be relatively ineffective. Walsh-Healey targeted bureaucratic administration of employment conditions for all government contracts over $10,000. The law allowed the Secretary of Labor to fix minimum wage scales among nearly all businesses contracting with the government. "Responsible" businesses -- that is, unionized employers -- generally urged that standards be imposed in order to discipline "unscrupulous" (low-cost, nonunion) competitors, yet the Department of Labor never could settle on a consistent method of determining the "prevailing wage" for such a bewildering array of jobs, individual skills, and pay systems. Evidence that Walsh-Healey is dead for wage- and hour-fixing purposes can be seen in the fact that the act no longer excites controversy in the business community while Davis-Bacon still does.
The Fair Labor Standards Act: Passed in Congress in 1938, this act set a national minimum wage rate of 25 cents per hour. It applied to an estimated 43% of employees in private, nonagricultural work and gradually grew to cover nearly 90%. State minimum wage laws cover most remaining employees. Effective July 24, 2008, the federal minimum was $6.55 per hour and becomes $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009, a 29-fold increase over the first minimum wage in 1938.[13] A 90-day beginners' minimum of $4.25 per hour applies to workers under age 20. Covered "nonexempt" employees must be paid overtime rates of one-and-a-half times the regular pay rate for any hours over 40 in a seven-day period. Generally, the minimum wage has fluctuated between 35 and 50% of the average hourly wage in manufacturing.
How does the minimum wage help unions? Less than 10% of all wage and salary employees have wage rates low enough to be directly impacted by the minimum wage. Essentially, unions benefit by pricing competitors and potential nonunion entrants out of business. Many young people, women older people, and members of minority groups such as inner-city blacks find it more difficult to find beginners' jobs because minimum-wage and union wage rates price them out of the market. Yet accepting a low-paying job for its on-the-job training is no different in principle from paying to go to school. Economic studies show that about half of the training in the US economy occurs on the job rather than in school.[14] Shrunken work opportunities caused by the minimum-wage law have ruined uncounted careers, most visibly black teens in the ongoing tragedy of our inner cities. Milton Friedman called the minimum wage law the most antiblack law on the books.[15] Some antipoverty device!
World War II
In 1940, Congress passed the first peacetime draft compelling conscripts to serve in the military, a prelude to the command economy of World War II.[16] Of the 16 million who served in the armed forces during the war, 10 million were draftees, and a depression labor glut turned into a wartime shortage. Government policy shifted from promoting artificially high prices for labor services to keeping prices artificially low during wartime. A series of makeshift commissions and boards were charged with planning and coordinating economic mobilization by fixing prices and wages at below-market-clearing levels, among countless other interventions. Wartime socialism, in other words.
In January 1942, Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board, patterned after the War Labor Board of World War I, to resolve labor disputes by mediation or arbitration. The board could and did seize plants in accord with the draft act of 1940. Also in early 1942, the president created the War Manpower Commission, and by late in the war tried to make it into a powerful "work-or-fight" agency of compulsion, though Congress never approved an economy-wide national service law.
If labor rates had been allowed to clear labor markets by rising rapidly, price-controlled businesses would have been caught in a cost-price squeeze and failed financially, so in October 1942 Roosevelt got open-ended authority over all prices and wages. The War Labor Board appeased unions with security arrangements, administrative slack in its wage controls, and other privileges but gained little "labor peace" from unions in return, despite pledges to the contrary, as work stoppages rose to their worst year in 1943.
Post -- World War II
Labor-Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act: This act was passed by a Republican-majority Congress over President Truman's veto in 1947. More Democrats joined Republicans to vote for the bill and the override than voted against. Rather than outright repeal of the prounion Wagner Act, Taft-Hartley unfortunately added a list of prohibited union actions, or "unfair labor practices," to "balance" the NLRA, which had previously only banned "unfair" labor practices for employers. The Taft-Hartley Act outlawed union practices such as jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, political ("solidarity") strikes, secondary boycotts, "common situs" picketing, closed shops, and money donations by unions to federal political campaigns. In the land of the once-free, it also required union officers to sign noncommunist affidavits with the government. Union shops, which compel union membership and/or dues payments as a condition to retain a job, were restricted and states were allowed to pass "right-to-work" laws that outlawed union shops. There are 22 states, all in the south and west, with right-to-work laws. Finally, the executive branch of the federal government could obtain injunctions in the federal courts if an impending or current strike "imperiled the national health or safety," a test that has been interpreted generously by the courts.[17] President George W. Bush invoked the law most recently in connection with the employer lockout of the International Longshoremen's and Warehouse Union during negotiations with west-coast shipping and stevedoring companies in 2002.
Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (or LMRDA): Also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act for its sponsors Democrat Phil Landrum and Republican Robert P. Griffin, the LMRDA regulates labor unions' internal affairs and unions officials' relationships with employers. Enacted in 1959 after well-publicized revelations of corruption and undemocratic practices in the Teamsters, Longshoremen's Association and United Mine Workers, the act requires unions to hold secret elections for local union offices on a regular basis and authorizes review by the Department of Labor of union members' claims of improper election activity.
Other provisions:
- Required unions to submit annual financial reports to the Department of Labor.
- Declared that every union officer must act as a fiduciary in handling the assets and conducting the affairs of the union.
- Limited the power of unions to put subordinate bodies in trusteeship, a temporary suspension of democratic processes within a union.
- Specified minimum standards before a union may expel or take other disciplinary action against a member of the union.
- Barred members of the Communist Party and convicted felons from holding union office.[18]
More on Union Membership
With withdrawal of WWI federal intervention, dues-paying union membership fell throughout the 1920s from a reported peak of 5 million in 1920 to fewer than 3 million by 1933. According to NBER figures, membership then turned around to more than double to 7.2 million by 1940, doubled again to a staggering 13.2 million by 1945, and increased more slowly to 14.8 million by 1950. There was no such postwar slump in membership after World War I because the pro-union legal framework empowering unions remained in place.
Wartime proved prosperous for unions. WWII government labor boards operated, on net, to advance unionization, cementing in place the union gains originally created by the WWI and New Deal interventions. Between 1933 and 1945 the unionized fraction of the civilian labor force rose fourfold from 5.7% to 22.4%. That proportion eroded but remained above 20% during the 1950s.
Since 1960, however, a sharp decline in union density has set in all Western countries. According to OECD data, estimated union density in the United States was 30.9% in 1960, 22.3% in 1980, 12.8% in 2000 and 11.6% in 2007. While the overall rate of decline has recently slowed, the decline in private sector union membership has been partially concealed by union growth in the public sector.
Between 2000 and 2008, for example, BLS data show a decline in unionization among privately employed wage and salary workers from 9.2 million to 8.3 million, and an erosion in union density from 9.0% to 7.6%. Private-sector membership peaked at 17 million in 1970, so in total membership has fallen by over half since 1970. Membership among government-employed wage and salary workers grew modestly from 7.1 million to 7.8 million since 2000, with a stable density of 36.9% in 2000 and 36.8% in 2008.
Union density in the private sector now is not much higher than it was in the early 1900s despite massive federal intervention on behalf of unionism since World War I. The wage-boosting success of private-sector unions has gone hand in hand with their decline in membership (nothing fails like success), as the silent, steady forces of the competitive marketplace continually undermine government-sanctioned labor cartels.
Public-Sector Unions
Public-sector unions are on pace to claim an absolute majority of union members in a traditionally private-sector-dominated labor movement within a few years. Government jobs constitute the "healthy" part of organized labor where external competition provides little or no discipline against union inefficiency, costs, and privilege. From 900,000 union members in 1960, government membership rocketed to 4 million by 1970, nearly 6 million by 1976, and 7 million by 1993, with a growth slowdown to 7.8 million by 2008.
The explanation for the sudden burst of government unionization is another intervention, namely, President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10988 promoting unionism in the federal bureaucracy, which he signed in January 1962. Kennedy had received considerable campaign support from unions and his executive order declared that "the efficient administration of the government and the well-being of employees requires that orderly and constructive relationships be maintained between employee organizations and management." The language does not say "orderly relationships between employees and managers" but "between employee organizations and management." The order set up procedures for determination of collective bargaining units and recognition of unions, compelled agency heads to bargain in good faith, and specified unfair labor practices for unions and management. The order was less generous than the NLRA to unions as it prohibited strikes and established no separate NLRB-type bureaucracy but it was a beginning.
The order triggered collective-bargaining laws in states such as Michigan, New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, all of which had substantial private-sector unionism. Only a half-dozen states in the south and west are completely free of such laws promoting public-sector unionism. The National Education Association (NEA), headquartered in Washington, DC (an unsurprising location), is the largest public-sector labor union in the United States with 3.2 million members, although it is not part of the AFL-CIO federation of unions.[19]
Employer or Employee Opposition?
Unions bitterly complain that uniquely American management resistance, legal as well as illegal, has thwarted employees' desire to unionize. If true, stronger government controls to hamper business opposition and allow open expression of employees' desire to unionize might reverse the decline of private-sector unionism. That is the rationale for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) backed by the AFL-CIO and the Obama administration this year.[20] The bill would amend the National Labor Relations Act to require the NLRB to certify a union as the exclusive (monopoly) bargaining agent for all employees in a "unit appropriate for bargaining" upon a finding that a majority had signed valid authorizations designating a labor organization as their agent. This procedure, often called "card check" recognition, would short-circuit employer (and employee!) resistance to unionization of the business and its employees. A secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, which unions often lose, would no longer be required for NLRB certification, and an employer would be compelled to bargain "in good faith" with the exclusive bargaining agent even though it had failed to win a majority in a secret-ballot election. How far the "industrial democracy" movement has come!
An EFCA law would hardly turn things around for unions, however. They are a relic of the past, subject to competition in the marketplace. Shifts from goods toward services and from the Northeast and upper Midwest to the South and West, a trend toward smaller companies, higher-tech products, and more professional and technical personnel continue to erode the demand for private-union membership. Further, American workers, like the general public, have a low opinion of unions and union leaders, and surveys consistently show that only one in three US employees would vote for union representation in a secret-ballot election. Organizing drives and dramatic confrontations play a small numerical role compared to quiet reductions in the number and size of union establishments and growth in number and size of nonunion establishments.[21]
An Economic Conclusion
While the basic facts of labor history are well known to industrial relations specialists and labor historians, their proper interpretation is not. Most labor historians believe that what is good for unions is good for all labor. This belief underlies prounion statist interventions in markets for labor but is entirely false, as economic reasoning and evidence prove beyond reasonable doubt.
First, when labor combinations or cartels capture monopoly control over whom employers can hire and impose higher wage rates, the number of jobs available in these companies and industries declines. This is the simple result of the law of demand: when unions raise the price of labor, employers purchase less of it. While an increase in labor productivity can partially offset higher labor cost, labor productivity cannot be raised cheaply or it would have been done already. Unions are clearly an anticompetitive force in labor markets.
Second, workers priced out of work by unions remain unemployed or obtain jobs at nonunion companies. A larger labor supply depresses wage rates there, so union wage rates come partially at the expense of lower nonunion wages.
Third, cartels flourish only where rewards are high and organizational costs low. Historically, highly paid craft workers (known as the "aristocrats of labor") organized instead of "downtrodden," low-wage workers because they met two conditions:
- Union wage rates often decreased employment relatively little because demand for skilled workers was "inelastic," that is, employment levels were relatively "insensitive" to changes in wage rates, at least in the short run.
- Craft workers also could organize at low cost because they were few in number, had a common mindset, low turnover, and few or geographically concentrated employers.
Perhaps the most astounding feature revealed by this history of American unionism is that US labor markets continue to work as well as they do. Despite all the union privileges and immunities granted and a never-ending stream of federal labor interventions, the famous flexibility of US labor markets remains a truly remarkable fact. And the vast majority of American workers remain stubbornly nonunion despite the best efforts of labor unions, the federal government, its court intellectuals, and the mass media.
Morgan Reynolds is emeritus professor of economics at Texas A&M University and former chief economist at the US Department of Labor 2001–2002. See his website.
Additional References:
Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement, Volume I From Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor. New York: International, 1947.
Reynolds, Morgan O. Power and Privilege: Labor Unions in America. New York: Universe, 1984.
. Making America Poorer: The Cost of Labor Law. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1987.
. "Labor Unions." The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
A Labor Union Chronology
1684
- New York City government suspends and discharges striking truck men
- Savannah carpenters strike
- Negro chimney sweeps in Charleston, South Carolina, institute a work stoppage to get higher prices.
- New York coopers convicted of conspiracy in restraint of trade by striking for higher rates
- Sailors strike for higher wages in Philadelphia; troops used and some strikers jailed
- New York City shoemakers strike for three weeks
- Philadelphia printers strike successfully for a minimum wage of $6/week
- Labor "mutual aid" and benevolent societies formed
- Philadelphia carpenters fail in strike for 10-hour day and overtime pay
- Shoemakers form first permanent labor union in Philadelphia
- First strike by a permanent union Philadelphia shoemakers in opposition to a wage cut, fails after 10 weeks
- In Commonwealth v. Pullis, jury convicts eight cordwainers of criminal conspiracy to raise rates, fines levied, union disbands
- Financial Panic, most unions pass out of existence
- New York City hatters convicted of conspiracy
- United Tailoresses of New York City conduct first all-female strike
- Workingmen's Party of New York formed
- Attempts to form local unions into national unions fail
- First attempt at a national federation, the National Trades Union, formed in New York City
- Factory Girls' Association at Lowell, Massachusetts, strikes
- Panic ends National Trades Union and most unions
- 10-hour day without reduction in pay for federal government employees
- Massachusetts Supreme Court rules bootmakers' union and its threatened strike are not unlawful
- Connecticut and Massachusetts pass laws prohibiting children from working over 10-hour days
- First teachers' association formed in Massachusetts
- New Hampshire first state to pass a 10-hour workday
- Delegates from 43 unions attend workingmen's convention in New York City
- Depression, many unions fail
- Typographical Union ("printers") founded, become the oldest surviving trade union at its dissolution in 1986
- Successful strike of estimated 20,000 shoemakers in New England; Abraham Lincoln comments, "Thank God we have a system of labor where there can be a strike"
- Civil War, unions expand from 79 to 300
- Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers founded
- Many local trade unions ally into dozen national unions
- Knights of St. Crispin founded as union open to all factory workers in shoe industry
- 8-hour day for blue-collar federal employees
- First state labor bureau founded in Massachusetts
- Formation of Knights of Labor, ultimately superseded by American Federation of Labor (AFL), formed in 1881
- Strikes defeated in textiles and mines
- Panic of 1873; during postwar deflation national unions resist wage cuts and shrink from 30 to fewer than 10; three-quarters of membership lost
- Molly Maguires, a secret Irish terrorist group, scorn conventional unions and commit wave of murders; bosses come to work armed
- Union label first used by Cigar Makers International Union, tells customers product made by white hands
- Forerunner of Socialist Labor party organized
- Four Molly Maguires convicted and hung in Pennsylvania for murder
- First nationwide strike on railroads ("Great Railroad Strike of 1877") in opposition to wage cuts, freight trains obstructed, some state militias side with strikers, federal troops used for first time
- Forerunner of American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed in Pittsburgh
- First Labor Day celebrated in New York City
- Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited citizenship for Chinese immigrants, supported by union leaders, immigration controls reinforced by acts passed in 1884, 1886 and 1888
- Federal Bureau of Labor established within Department of the Interior
- Foran (Alien Contract Labor) Act bans employers from recruiting and paying passage for foreign workers; unions endorse limiting supply of labor, some employed as strikebreakers
- Chicago Haymarket Square riot (May 4), 8 police officers killed and an unknown number of civilians, five convicted and executed, inspires May Day observances for workers
- First federal labor-relations law applied to railroads
- United Mine Workers of America formed
- Homestead strike (Carnegie Steel) in Pennsylvania results in pitched battle between Pinkertons and strikers, 7 die, 2 dozen wounded; Pinkertons lose battle but union loses in long run as Carnegie/US Steel stays nonunion for 45 years
- Business panic and depression eliminates many unions again
- Strike against Pullman Car company led by Eugene Debs spreads to railroads, injunction defied, federal troops called out on grounds of striker interference with mail delivery, 13 strikers killed, widespread property damage
- Erdman Act provides mediation and arbitration for rail disputes, succeeds 1888 law
- US Steel defeats steel union again after 3-month strike
- United Textile Workers founded
- Coal miners agree to arbitration by presidential committee to end 5-month strike
- US Department of Commerce and Labor established
- Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones) leads "March of the Mill Children" to President Theodore Roosevelt's home in New York
- Industrial Workers of the World ("Wobblies") formed in Chicago
- In Lochner v. New York Supreme Court declares a New York maximum-hours law unconstitutional
- Typographical Union successfully strikes for 8-hour day
- Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle exposing sanitary and safety problems in Chicago meat packing
- In Muller v. Oregon Supreme Court rules female maximum-hours laws constitutional due to a woman's "physical structure and…maternal functions"
- United States v. Adair decision declares so-called yellow dog contracts (employment agreement to not join a union) constitutional on interstate railroads, overturning the Erdman Act
- In the "crime of the century," the downtown plant of the Los Angeles Times is bombed, killing 21; the newspaper is a powerful opponent of organized labor, leaders of the Iron Workers Union are convicted of the crime; the union had conducted a nationwide bombing campaign since 1905
- Gompers v. Bucks Stove and Range ruling orders AFL to cease an unlawful boycott
- Massachusetts enacts first minimum-wage law for women and minors
- US Department of Labor established, secretary of labor has power to "act as a mediator and to appoint commissioners of conciliation in labor disputes"
- Clayton Act limits labor injunctions and endorses picketing and related union tactics but court nullifies in 1921
- In Ludlow Massacre in Colorado, day-long battle between strikers and National Guard culminates in Guard attack on tent colony of 1,200 strikers and their families, death toll is 20 including 11 children
- LaFollette Seamen's Act regulates seamens' working conditions
- Adamson Act imposes 8-hour day on railroads to avert rail strike
- Federal child-labor law later declared unconstitutional
- Wartime mediation commission headed by labor secretary
- Federal government seizes railroads
- President Wilson establishes National War Labor Board
- Unions lose nationwide "Great Steel Strike"
- Labor leaders recommend labor clauses to create International Labor Organization in Versailles Treaty
- First police strike occurred in Boston but broken by then-governor Coolidge, bringing him national fame
- Women's suffrage amendment ratified
- Supreme Court nullifies pro-union features of Clayton Act
- In Truax v. Corrigan Supreme Court strikes down Arizona law forbidding labor injunctions and permitting picketing
- Emergency Quota Act restricts southern- and eastern-European immigration
- In "Herrin Massacre" coal strikers in southern Illinois murder 19 strikebreakers and two union members
- Immigration (Johnson-Reed) Act limits number of immigrants to 2% of number of people from that country already living in United States in 1890, aimed especially at limiting Japanese immigration
- William Green succeeds Samuel Gompers as AFL president
- Railway Labor Act enacted as drafted by interstate railroads and unions
- Hayes-Cooper Act restricts interstate shipment of goods produced by prison labor
- October stock market crash "begins" Great Depression
- Supreme Court upholds Railway Labor Act in Texas and NOR v. Brotherhood of Railway Clerks
- President Hoover effectively bans immigration by decree
- Davis-Bacon Act
- Norris-LaGuardia Act
- Wisconsin passes first unemployment insurance program
- NIRA section 7(a) promotes unions and collective bargaining
- Francis Perkins appointed secretary of labor, first female cabinet officer
- Wagner-Peyser establishes US Employment Service at Department of Labor
- Southern mill workers walk off job in "Great Uprising of '34"
- United States joins ILO
- Supreme Court strikes down NIRA in Schechter Poultry v. United States
- Wagner Act (NLRA) passes
- Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) formed within AFL to promote industrial-style unions
- Social Security Act effectively coerces states into adopting unemployment-benefits programs
- United Rubber Workers (CIO) use first large "sit-down strike" to win recognition at Goodyear Tire
- United Automobile Workers use sit-down strike at GM plant
- Byrnes Act prohibits interstate transport of strikebreakers
- Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act
- Railway Labor Act amended to cover airline employees
- NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel, Supreme Court finds NLRA (Wagner) Act constitutional
- GM and US Steel recognize unions as exclusive bargaining agents
- In "Memorial Day Massacre," smaller steel producers refuse to unionize, union protesters in Chicago take to the streets, police block their path and fire on the crowd, killing 10
- AFL expels CIO for "dual unionism"
- Fair Labor Standards Act
- Federal Maritime Labor Board established
- CIO changes name to Congress of Industrial Organizations, John L. Lewis made president
- In NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Supreme Court rules striking employees remain "employees"
- In Apex Hosiery v. Leader Supreme Court rules sit-down strike actually a plant seizure by unionists few of whom were employed at the plant was not an illegal restraint of trade in interstate commerce
- Ford Motor Co. recognizes the UAW, signs a union-shop agreement
- United States enters WWII (December 8), long sought by FDR, and AFL and CIO announce no-strike pledges and then freely violate them
- Executive Order 8802 or Fair Employment Act prohibits racial discrimination in defense industry
- National War Labor Board established, Stabilization Act gives Roosevelt the authority to "stabilize" wages
- Roosevelt issues executive order establishing Committee on Fair Employment Practices to eliminate "employment discrimination" in war industries
- Smith Connally (War Labor Disputes) Act authorizes plant seizures to "avoid interference with the war effort"[23]
- WWII ends
- Largest wave of strikes as wartime controls relaxed
- Taft-Hartley Act (LMRA)
- United States v. John L. Lewis holds that Norris-LaGuardia prohibition against labor injunctions does not apply to the federal government
- GM and UAW agree on first wage-escalator clause based on Consumer Price Index
- United States v. CIO holds that union advocacy that members vote for particular congressional candidates does not violate Federal Corrupt Practices Act as amended
- FSLA amendment directly prohibits child labor
- CIO begins expelling communist-controlled unions
- GM and UAW agree on 5-year deal with pension plan, automatic cost-of-living wage escalators, and quasi-union-shop
- President Harry Truman seizes steel industry after it rejects Wage Stabilization Board recommendations, 8-week strike follows after Supreme Court declares Truman's action unconstitutional
- George Meany (aptly named) becomes president of AFL and Walter Reuther becomes president of CIO
- AFL and CIO reunite with Meany as president
- Ford Motor Co. and UAW agree to a supplementary unemployment compensation financed by the company
- AFL-CIO expels Teamsters, Bakery Workers, and Laundry Workers for corruption
- Landrum-Griffin Act (LMRDA)
- President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 10988 to promote unionism and collective bargaining in federal employment
- Equal Pay Act prohibits wages differences based on sex
- Civil Rights Act Title VII bans employment discrimination
- Immigrant Act eliminates national origin quotas in favor of new criteria of control
- Age Discrimination in Employment Act makes it illegal to hire and fire persons age 40–65 based on age
- UAW leaves AFL-CIO to join Teamsters in new Alliance for Labor Action (ALA)
- Department of Labor intervenes on behalf of minority employment in Philadelphia construction industry
- First nationwide postal strike
- Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)
- Washington first state government to allow union shop for state employees (compulsory membership)
- Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regulates and subsidizes bankrupt pension plans
- AFL establishes public-employee department
- President Reagan fires striking air-traffic controllers for illegal strike
- Immigration and Control Act
- Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers with 100+ employees to provide 60-day notice of plant closings and mass layoffs
- Immigration Act
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is viewed as a civil-rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability, defined as a "physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity"
- Civil Rights Act attempts to overturn Supreme Court restrictions on employees' job "rights" under federal labor law
- Federal Family and Medical Leave Act
- California voters approve Proposition 187 to deny illegal immigrants access to government-subsidized schooling, social services, and medical care; a federal court strikes it down as unconstitutional
- Ludlow Massacre site (ghost town 12 miles northwest of Trinidad, Colorado), owned by United Mine Workers of America, dedicated as a National Historic Landmark (June 28)
- Federal minimum wage increases from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour (July 24)
- Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) gathers political momentum, would substitute union "card checks" for NLRB secret-ballot elections for a union to obtain NLRB certification as exclusive bargaining agent
[1] Henry George, "The Condition of Labor: An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII," The Land Question (New York, NY: Rbt Schalkenbach Foundation, 1982 [1891]), p. 77.
[2] "Strikes in the United States," The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press.
[3] United States Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 1, p. 163.
[4] Quoted by Howard Dickman, Industrial Democracy in America, (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1987), p. 362.
[5] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven: Yale, 1949), p. 772.
[6] Morgan Reynolds, Power and Privilege: Unions in America, (New York, NY: Universe, 1984), p. 101.
[7] Murray Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States, (Auburn, AL: Mises, 2002), p. 179.
[8] Wm. E. Leuchtenburg, "The New Deal and the Analogue of War," in John Braeman, Robert H. Bremmer, and Everett Walters, eds., Change and Continuity in Twentieth Century in America, (Columbus OH: Ohio State University Press, 1964), p. 87.
[9] Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression, (Auburn AL: Mises Institute, 2000), p. 267. [Punctuation flaw is Rothbard's.]
[10] Robert W. Merry, "This Year's Hot Labor Issue," The Wall Street Journal, 24 May 1979, p. 20.
[11] Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 260.
[12] Richard A. Epstein, "A Common Law for Labor Relations: A Critique of the New Deal Labor Legislation," Yale Law Journal 92 (July 1983): 1386.
[13] "History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938–2007," United States Department of Labor Employment Standards Administration.
[14] Jacob Mincer, "On-the-Job Training: Costs, Returns, and Some Implications," Journal of Political Economy, 70 (Part 2, Supplement, October 1962), pp. 50-73; Mincer, "Human capital and the labor market: A review of recent research," Educational Researcher 18 (4): 27-34.
[15] Milton Friedman, An Economist's Protest, Sun Lakes AZ: Horton and Daughters, 1972; for more on the consequences of the minimum wage law cf. Morgan Reynolds, Economics of Labor, (Cincinnati OH: Southwestern, 1995), pp. 86-95.
[16] The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution states, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction," yet organized labor had no problem with a military draft; instead it hysterically declared the Taft-Hartley Act a "slave-labor bill."
[17] " Taft-Hartley Act," Wikipedia.
[18] " Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act," Wikipedia.
[19] " National Education Association," Wikipedia.
[20] " H.R. 1409," Government Printing Office.
[21] S.G. Bronars and D.R. Deere, "Union representation elections and firm profitability," Industrial Relations, 29 (Winter): 15-37.
[22] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven: Yale, 1949), pp. 764-5.
[23] "A Curriculum of United States Labor History for Teachers," Illinois Labor History Society.
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