Now you've lost me. Central management is a way to coordinate a large network where people simply cannot all come to sit down on a table and have a coffee and decide what everybody is going to do. Large cooperatives also have central management, so what is your point? — ssu
Oh it does! Bernie has a long list on what he plans to meddle in the decisions of corporations.What's wrong with letting the shareholders with the largest stake to deal with profits and maintaining their positions from making decisions from within the company?
At no point does the government have to intervene or make decisions for individuals from within the company... — Shawn
In order to strengthen America’s middle class, a Bernie Sanders administration will make it a priority to restore workers’ rights to bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. That is what the Workplace Democracy plan is all about.
Bernie’s pro-union plan would:
Provide unions the ability to organize through a majority sign up process, allowing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to certify a union if it receives the consent of the majority of eligible workers. Under Bernie’s plan, when a majority of workers in a bargaining unit sign valid authorization cards to join a union, they will have a union. If employers refuse to negotiate in good faith, we will impose strong penalties on those companies.
Enact “first contract” provisions to ensure companies cannot prevent a union from forming by denying a first contract. Employers would be required to begin negotiating within 10 days of receiving a request from a new union. If no agreement is reached after 90 days of negotiation, the parties can request to enter a compulsory mediation process. If no first contract is reached after 30 more days of mediation, the parties would have a contract settlement through binding arbitration.
Eliminate the “Right to Work for Less.” Bernie’s plan would repeal Section 14(b) of the Taft Hartley Act, which has allowed 28 states to pass legislation that eliminates the ability of unions to collect dues from those who benefit from union contracts and activities, undermining the unions’ representation of workers.
Under Bernie’s plan, companies will no longer be able to ruthlessly exploit workers by misclassifying them as independent contractors or deny them overtime by falsely calling them a “supervisor.” When Bernie is president, his administration will end the ability of corporations to misclassify workers as “independent contractors” or label them as a “supervisor.”
Make sure that employers can no longer use franchisee or contractor arrangements to avoid responsibility and liability for workers by codifying the Browning-Ferris joint-employer standard into law. When Bernie is president, his administration will make clear that a worker can have more than one employer. If a company can decide who to hire and who to fire and how much to pay an employee at a franchise, that company will be considered a joint employer along with the owner of a particular franchise — and both employers must engage in collective bargaining over the terms and conditions of employment.
Give federal workers the right to strike. In December, Trump shutdown the federal government for 35 days — the longest in history — depriving over 800,000 workers of their paychecks. Adding insult to injury, hundreds of thousands of TSA agents, air traffic controllers, IRS employees, members of the Coast Guard, and other federal government employees were forced to work without pay and without recourse. Under current law, federal employees are not guaranteed the same labor rights as workers in the private sector. While they have the ability to unionize, they are prohibited from going on strike. Under this plan, federal workers would have the right to strike.
Make sure every public sector union in America has the freedom to negotiate. When Bernie is president he will sign the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act of 2019 to guarantee the right of public employees to organize and bargain collectively for better wages, benefits and working conditions in states like Iowa that currently do not offer these fundamental protections.
Require companies that merge to honor existing union contracts. In February, Wabtec completed a merger with General Electric Transportation in Pennsylvania. Instead of honoring the existing union contract with its workforce, Wabtec tried to impose substantial cuts to benefits employees have earned, while rewarding executives with over $120 million in bonuses. Under this plan, companies would no longer be able to abrogate union contracts through mergers.
Deny federal contracts to employers that pay poverty wages, outsource jobs overseas, engage in union busting, deny good benefits and pay CEOs outrageous compensation packages. When Bernie is president he will issue an executive order to prevent companies from receiving federal contracts that outsource jobs overseas, pay workers less than $15 an hour without benefits, refuse to remain neutral in union organizing efforts, pay executives over 150 times more than average workers, hire workers to replace striking workers, or close businesses after workers vote to unionize.
Ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. This plan will outlaw, once and for all, the permanent replacement of workers who go on strike.
Protect the pensions of workers. As President, Bernie will protect and expand pension benefits of employees in both the public and the private sector. Because of a 2014 change in law instituted in the dead of night and against the strong opposition of Senator Sanders, it is now legal to cut the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million workers and retirees in multi-employer pension plans. As president, Bernie will sign an executive order to impose a moratorium on future pension cuts and would reverse the cuts to retirement benefits that have already been made.
In addition, President Sanders will fight to implement the Keep Our Pension Promises Act he first introduced in 2015 to prevent the pensions of up to 10 million Americans from being cut. Instead of asking retirees to take a massive cut in their pension benefits, Bernie will make multi-employer plans solvent by closing egregious loopholes that allow the wealthiest Americans in this country to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. If Congress could provide a multi-trillion bailout to Wall Street and foreign banks in 2008, we can and we must protect the pensions that were promised to millions of Americans.
Stops corporations from forcing workers to attend mandatory anti-union meetings as a condition of continued employment. Under this plan, companies would be barred from requiring workers to attend anti-union meetings as a condition of employment.
Establish federal protections against the firing of workers for any reason other than “just cause.” When Bernie is president he will fight to make sure workers cannot be fired “at will” and will sign a “just cause” law to protect workers and their constitutional right to speak out and organize in their workplaces.
Create a sectoral collective bargaining system with wage boards to set minimum standards across industries. When Bernie is president he will work with the trade union movement to establish a sectoral collective bargaining system that will work to set wages, benefits and hours across entire industries, not just employer-by-employer. In addition, under this plan all cities, counties, and other local jurisdictions would have the freedom to establish their own minimum wage laws and guarantee other minimum standards for workers.
Guarantee the right to unionize for all workers. Bernie will ensure farm workers and domestic workers, historically excluded from labor protections, are afforded the same standards as all workers, including the right to overtime pay and to join a union. He will enact a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to secure safe working conditions, collective bargaining, and a living wage for domestic workers.
Allow for secondary boycotts. This plan reinstates a union’s freedom of speech to take action to pressure clients and suppliers of companies opposing unions.
Allow states and cities to pass even stronger labor standards than the expanded National Labor Relations Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. We will establish the expanded NLRA and ERISA as the floor for labor rights in this country, not the ceiling. We will not allow the federal government to preempt state and local laws that expand workers’ rights. Period.
Expand and update the persuader rule. This plan would require companies to disclose anti-union information they disseminate to workers and provide for equal time for organizing agents. This would include the funding of third party anti-union campaigns. This plan will also ensure that whatever contact information (email, phone, mailing addresses) the employer uses is disseminated to the organizing agent. Monetary penalties would be enacted for failures to disclose.
A fair transition to Medicare for All: Bernie will require that resulting healthcare savings from union-negotiated plans result in wage increases and additional benefits for workers during the transition to Medicare for All. When Medicare for All is signed into law, companies with union negotiated health care plans would be required to enter into new contract negotiations overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Under this plan, all company savings that result from reduced health care contributions from Medicare for All will accrue equitably to workers in the form of increased wages or other benefits. Furthermore, the plan will ensure that union-sponsored clinics and other providers are integrated within the Medicare for All system, and kept available for members. Unions will still be able to negotiate for and provide wrap-around services and other coverage not duplicative of the benefits established under Medicare for All.
What's wrong with letting the shareholders with the largest stake to deal with profits and maintaining their positions from making decisions from within the company? — Shawn
Strong unions built the great American middle class. Everything that defines what it means to live a good life and know you can take care of your family – the 40 hour work week, paid leave, health care protections, a voice in your workplace – is because of workers who organized unions and fought for worker protections. Because of organizing and collective bargaining, there used to be a basic bargain between workers and their employers in this country that when you work hard, you share in the prosperity your work created.
Today, however, there’s a war on organizing, collective bargaining, unions, and workers. It’s been raging for decades, and it’s getting worse with Donald Trump in the White House. Republican governors and state legislatures across the country have advanced anti-worker legislation to undercut the labor movement and collective bargaining. States have decimated the rights of public sector workers who, unlike private sector workers, do not have federal protections ensuring their freedom to organize and collectively bargain. In the private sector, corporations are using profits to buy back their own shares and increase CEOs’ compensation instead of investing in their workers and creating more good-quality jobs. The results have been predictable: rising income inequality, stagnant real wages, the loss of pensions, exploitation of workers, and a weakening of workers’ voices in our society.
You really ought to get your priorities straight. Talk about GPD or debt or stocks or anything else is completely useless if we're heading towards disaster. If you don't believe me, take a look at how something like the coronavirus is effecting the markets. That's peanuts compared to the upcoming wildfires, floods, sea rise, mass migrations, and food and water shortages.
— Xtrix
What effects? You think that market going down is a source of trouble? Perhaps you should read what you write yourself. — ssu
Climate change? How wouldn't the climate change discussion be something else than talking about the economy, if it's fossil fuel you want to replace? — ssu
So the real issue would be how to get there. That's where you have to do something with the economy. — ssu
You got that, Shawn? — ssu
Remember -- we share the burden when things fail. We do not, however, share in the profits. This isn't hard to see or understand. — Xtrix
But also there is a point in having free markets too. — ssu
What the fuck is that? The markets are manipulated to the extreme by all sorts of people in all sorts of ways. There is no such thing as a free market. — creativesoul
No.That looks like a great plan to empower the everyday worker... a bit of freedom and liberty for working Americans. A reversal of so many policies that have resulted in so many Americans no longer being able to find a good place to work for their entire lives...
Oh, I know... what a horrible idea huh? — creativesoul
Do you know who Robert Reich is? — creativesoul
A thing that even Sweden has it's economy based upon. A free market is one where voluntary exchange and the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system. Yet for that to work, there have to be institutions and rules that are enforced by a legal system, a government. And with that comes the fact that some issues aren't so well taken care of by free markets. Things aren't a juxtaposition between free market capitalism and non-capitalist socialism, but this simplistic position is how things are portrayed.Free markets?
What the fuck is that? — creativesoul
A thing that even Sweden has it's economy based upon. A free market is one where voluntary exchange and the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system. Yet for that to work, there have to be institutions and rules that are enforced by a legal system, a government. And with that comes the fact that some issues aren't so well taken care of by free markets. Things aren't a juxtaposition between free market capitalism and non-capitalist socialism, but this simplistic position is how things are portrayed. — ssu
?But prior to more or less 1860 (and some exemptions of course, such as the East India Company!): — Benkei
Things aren't a juxtaposition between free market capitalism and non-capitalist socialism, but this simplistic position is how things are portrayed. — ssu
...there's a fine line between Biden's and Sanders' proposals. — ssu
Have you seen American Factory? — ssu
Adam Smith being against mercantilism and the last vestiges of feudalism in his country — ssu
Sorry, but we do use the definition and the word "free market" / "free market system" to describe a present system. — ssu
Let's try to agree on the definitions.The point being that corporations are a structural effect on markets, just like monetary policy and what not. There isn't "just" demand and supply so talking about "free markets" is just an ideological term with no real content. — Benkei
Campaign promises are indeed one thing. But one should notice what even Biden says about labor unions in his campaign.I don't think so. Biden's aren't Biden's. Bernie's are Bernie's. — creativesoul
It's a great example of just how much the American workplace differs from others in this issue. And do notice that China naturally has it's one labour union, which is part of the government.What's the point of the mention? — creativesoul
Well so is Marx for others. Yet both should be taken for what they truly say and meant, not what people just think they stand for as icons.He's more of an imaginary God for those who peddle capitalism. — creativesoul
I would disagree.Good employers do not have nor need unions. Bad ones do. That's the whole point of them. They emerged for very good reason, and those reasons are now actual again. — creativesoul
And the term "fascist" is used as a similar derogative for right wing politicians. Yet I've tried to explain that there is a definition in economics to free markets, which I explained to Benkei above.And people use "Communist" to describe Sanders. Does not make it either true, nor sensible. Makes it propaganda. — creativesoul
Yes, and for many others it isn't. They work very hard and are still screwed. To highlight and rail on one and not the other, particularly when there's far more evidence to support the latter, exposes your own prejudices.
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