There Is No Labor Shortage!!!

Accomplices Reporters keep labeling shitty-paying jobs, that are supposedly going unfilled, as a labor shortage. Labor Shortage Transforming State Workforce

There is no labor shortage. This is about a living wage, health care, and a pension (retirement). Respectable pay for an honest day's work - the mantra America has been shoveling and selling for generations. 

Unions were the answer to the disparity between the Haves and the Have-Nots. Yet, for decades, Republicans have attacked government and the public sector, in general, along with unions. It's no coincidence that as unionization has declined so have the wages and benefits of workers. 

Business news bloviators talk about how CEOs have earned and must be paid millions - that's just the market working. At the same time, Republicans, along with the business news crowd, tell us how these same millionaires shouldn't pay taxes - that would be a disincentive to their genius.

But when everyday workers decide certain jobs (and the lack of pay and benefits associated with such) aren't worth it - you know, the market - Republicans and the business crowd declare these workers to be lazy and ungrateful. Workers don't deserve good pay and incentives will only make them lazier.

I guess when CEOs get to make policy and write the rules, there is a set of rules for them and a set of rules for workers. The market rules for millionaires are very different from the market rules for workers. 

So is it really a surprise that as workers have had to work harder for lower pay and less benefits, the workers have turned away from these lowest-paid and worst jobs? It's not a labor shortage, it's a pay shortage. The labor is here and willing to do the work, they just need to be paid a fair market wage.

Skills To Pay The Bills

More proof there is no skills gap or skills shortage. 

6 of the top 10 most in demand jobs in Wisconsin through 2026 require a high school diploma, or job-specific training, at most.

[source]

Sunday Reading

Popularity Of CBD Oil Vexes Regulators & Researchers
The Great Dismantling Of America's National Parks Is Under Way
Trump's Economy Is An Absolute Disaster For People And The Planet
Is Venture Capital Worth The Risk?
Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?
Innovation, At University And In Industry
Union Density: Yet Another Low
Tax Incentives: The Losing Gamble States And Cities Keep Making
'Skills Gap' Arguments Overlook Collective Bargaining And Low Minimum Wages
Making Excuses For Unemployment: The Myth Of A "Skills Gap"
5 Companies Make Up 18% Of The S&P 500. Should Investors Care?
Bitcoin Is The Greatest Scam In History
The Wile E. Coyote Of Stadium Consulting Takes On Brewers' Stadium, Gets Crushed By Anvil
About That Miller Park Economic Impact

Unions Decline, Inequality Increases

[source]

We Need Less Policing

The Milwaukee Police Department takes up a disproportionately large portion of the City budget.  In the latest budget proposal, the mayor is proposing not filling about 60 positions to help close the budget gap and to use some of the savings to pay pension commitments going forward.

Milwaukee Police Chief Warns Loss Of 60 Positions Could Mean Cutting An Entire Shift

The police department seems to have endlessly increasing costs.  Their budget can never be large enough and the number of officers is never large enough.  More, more, more.  Whether it's their general budget or lawsuits brought against the department, their costs seem to be exponentially rising.  (Scott Walker exempting the police from Act 10 also allowed the police to not have to pay pension contributions and to continue to "bargain" for pay increases every year.)

One glaring omission from the article, there's no comparison or benchmarking.  How many officers should there be for every 10,000 citizens?  What is the typical department size for similarly sized cities?  Does Milwaukee already have more than enough police officers?

Note to journalists - put your topic in context.  Decisions, policies, correct understanding of any issue needs context.  Otherwise, you're just operating in a meaningless vacuum.

Luckily, I previously looked into some of the numbers.  As I discovered, Milwaukee has 42 police employees for every 10,000 people in the City of Milwaukee.  Ranking Milwaukee 14th in the U.S.  The average in the U.S. for cities with a population over 500,000 is 24 police employees for every 10,000 people.  The population of the City of Milwaukee ranks 30th among the 100 largest cities in America.

Milwaukee has almost twice as many police employees as other similar-sized cities.

According to the average of 24 police employees for every 10,000 people, the Milwaukee Police Department should be able to function with roughly 1,440 police employees.

Seems like reducing 60 positions would be a good start.  The City should look at reducing even more in the future.  The costs associated with the police department are not sustainable.  We need to find more cost-effective ways.

And, as Alex S. Vitale, Professor of Sociology, has found:

As Alex S. Vitale proclaims, We Need Less Policing. His research into the issue concludes: 

Any real agenda for police reform should not look to make the police friendlier and more professional. Instead, it must reduce their role and replace it with empowered communities working to solve their own problems. We don’t need community control of the police. We need community control of services that will create safer, more stable neighborhoods and cities. 

In We Don't Just Need Nicer Cops. We Need Fewer Cops Vitale continues: 

We have to take steps to dial back our reliance on the police as the primary tool of resolving neighborhood crime and disorder problems.

Just as almost everyone else has had to, it's time for the police department to start figuring out how to do more with less.

The 5 Biggest Corporate Lies About Unions

Scott Walker Is A Creep

Koch Brothers Group Applauds Walker On Welfare Bills
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Signs New Limits On Welfare Programs Into Law
Walker Signs Bill Sought By Landlords
Walker Signs Restrictions On Pro-Worker Rules

Weekend Reading

Wisconsin's Unprecedented Welfare Reform Could Inspire Conservative Changes Elsewhere [And That's Not Good]
Wisconsin Is Shifting Up To $90 Million In Local Road Funding To Foxconn-Related Projects
The Metamorphosis Of Scott Walker
David Brooks Radical Dishonesty
Wisconsin Labor Unions File Lawsuit Over Act 10, Saying It Violates Free Speech
As Manufacturers Get Tax Reductions, Wisconsin Homeowners Pay More
The Supreme Court's Latest Union Case Is Designed To Kneecap The Democratic Party
Could The Supreme Court Really Bust Public Sector Unions?
Trump's Tax Cuts In Hand, Companies Spend More On Themselves Than On Wages
A Wave Of Corporate Propaganda Is Boosting Trump's Tax Cuts
Mueller And Trump: Born To Wealth, Raised To Lead. Then, Sharply Different Choices

The So-Called "Skills Gap" Is Complete Bullshit

Another "skills gap" crusader:

LaSalle Network CEO Says There's a Huge 'Skills Gap'

Such a good little soldier for the privileged.

Too bad reality doesn't comport with that tripe.

The Myth of the Skills Gap

The problem is, when we look closely at the data, this story doesn’t match the facts. What’s more, this view of the nation’s economic challenges distracts us from more productive ways of thinking about skills and economic growth while promoting unproductive hand-wringing and a blinkered focus on only the supply side of the labor market—that is, the workers.

A Recession-Era Economic Myth Goes Up In Smoke

Throughout the slow recovery, journalists from major papers made a cottage industry of finding CEOs complaining that their hiring searches were coming up empty. Conservative commentators chalked up high unemployment to a so-called “skills gap”: companies needed more qualified workers, they insisted, than were currently on offer. 

But something wasn’t right. If companies really needed qualified workers, why weren’t they raising wages to attract them? Or why weren’t they lowering their qualification standards or offering training to less experienced new hires? If companies really did have jobs that desperately required filling, they would have been working harder to fill them.

Don’t Blame A ‘Skills Gap’ For Lack Of Hiring In Manufacturing

This “skills mismatch” theory is a favorite of corporate executives and the think tanks they fund. But it is based on scant evidence. Individual companies may be struggling to fill specific jobs, but the data shows little sign of an industrywide shortage of skilled workers. In fact, it’s not clear that companies are really trying hard to fill many of these jobs at all.

Talk of a skills gap in the labor market is 'an incredible cop out'

But is there really a skills shortage? If so, why have median wages been stuck in a rut for so long? Why aren’t companies investing more in training and labor-saving equipment? Why aren’t they asking workers to work longer hours? It doesn’t add up, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank in Washington.

The persistent myth of the “skills gap”

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman calls the skills gap a “zombie idea” that won’t go away despite being routinely debunked. The reason has less to do with ignorance than with power. After decades of rising inequality and an eroding labour share of income, the skills gap mythology downloads blame onto workers and costs onto government. Jim Stanford, writing in the pages of Academic Matters, puts it well: “According to this worldview, the biggest challenge facing our labour market is adjusting the attitudes, capabilities and mobility of jobless workers…The problem is with the unemployed.” The skills gap takes the onus off employers to pay decent wages and train workers, blaming labour market failings on workers instead.

For Further Reading:

The Mythological Skills Gap

The Zombie Skills Gap Meme That Won't Die

It's About Job Shortage, Not Skills Crisis
It's Not Structural Unemployment
Manufacturing
Structural Unemployment: The Data Doesn't Match
Varieties of Unemployment

Skills Shortage Sham

More Skills Gap Crap

Is There Really a Skills Gap?

The Skills Gap Is a Myth

Midweek Reading

Solidarity's End. Neil Gorsuch is giving conservatives the chance to virtually destroy American unions.
More people were arrested last year over pot than for murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery - combined.
Republicans propose tax cut plan to give more money to wealthy contributors.
Yellen's masterful bond-market puppet show.
Washington Post news article argues it is better to tax work than vacant property in London.
Three important points about the Republican tax plan.
I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: tax cuts don't equal growth.
How to make 500-year storms happen every year.
Supply-siders still push what doesn't work.
Why American workers pay twice as much in taxes as wealthy investors.

Decline of Unions Has Hurt All Workers

Decline of unions has hurt all workers

The steep decline in union membership in recent decades has had an outsize effect on the American workforce, tamping down wage increases for nonunion workers, a new study says. 

Average weekly earnings for nonunion private-sector male workers would have been 5%, or $52, higher in 2013 if the share of union workers had remained at 1979 levels, according to the study out Tuesday from the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute ahead of Labor Day. That’s tantamount to a loss of $2,704 annually for the average nonunion worker. 

The paper was authored by Washington University sociologists Jake Rosenfeld and Patrick Denice, and Jennifer Laird, a research scientist at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy. 

The earnings loss is smaller for women because they were not as unionized as men in 1979. Weekly wages would be about 2% to 3% higher for women if union membership had stayed at 1979 levels, the report says. 

About 10% of male private-sector workers were union members in 2013, down from 34% in 1979. In that period, the share of women who belong to unions fell to 6% from 16%. 

The report argues the dwindling influence of unions is a significant but often ignored reason for wage stagnation, along with globalization, technological change and the slowdown in educational achievement gains. 

The prevalence of unions affects the pay of nonunion workers in various ways, the study says. Nonunion employers often raise their workers’ pay to foster loyalty and head off an organizing drive. Kodak deployed that strategy in highly organized New York State, the study says. 

The fatter paychecks of union workers also creates a more competitive labor market that forces nonunion companies to lift wages to prevent employees from jumping ship. And unions often establish labor-friendly policies that generally promote fairness in pay, benefits and worker treatment, according to the report. 

The gains of yesteryear were not limited to nonunion workers at risk of joining unions, the study says. When those workers received raises, their higher-level supervisors who couldn't join unions also saw sharper pay increases to maintain salary hierarchies, the paper says. 

But the losses engendered by shrinking union participation are most pronounced for nonunion private-sector male workers who lack a Bachelor's degree. Wages for that group would be 8% higher in 2013 if union membership had stayed at 1979 levels, translating into an annual wage loss of $3,016.

Weekend Walker Reading

How Do You Like Unions Now, Gov Walker?
Scott Walker Back GOP Plan To Overhaul Civil Service System
Board Delays Decision On Land Sale To Walker Donor
Scott Walker Can't Be President, So He's Back Ruining Wisconsin
Irrelevant Scott Walker Hits New Low
GOP Presidential Candidate Scott Walker To Propose Vast Union Restrictions
Scott Walker Proposes National Right-To-Work Law and No Bargaining For Federal Workers
Scott Walker's Exaggerated Claims Of Employment Trends In Wisconsin
Wisconsin: Where Has The Labor Force Gone?
Wisconsin Still Has High Poverty

Poor Scotty

"Scott Walker is still a disgrace, just no longer national," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a one-line statement as news outlets began reporting Walker's exit from the campaign.

Representation, Dues & Taxes

Two Journal Sentinel readers responses to the right-to-work travesty make great points and are well worth the read.


Sunday March 1, 2015

Make taxes optional

What does it really mean when our state's Republican legislators think an individual should not be required to pay union administrative dues for representation by their union? 

The representatives of union members receive a wage to help achieve improvements to wages, benefits and working conditions for employees of contractors and companies. When members vote on their representatives' compensation within each union, it is often with the knowledge that union rep positions are demanding and often stressful jobs. 

I ask people to consider if there is a difference between a union representative and a legislative representative. Both are there to represent our individual interests in a collective manner. 

I believe if Republican legislators believe so firmly that paying for union representation should be an option, then it is time for taxpayers such as myself to have the same opportunity to decline payment for my representation as a citizen. 

I no longer want to pay taxes that support the wages, per diems, benefits, perks, travel expenses and office costs of state legislators and their staff. I no longer want to pay toward the governor's salary while he is campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, traveling to Europe or conducting other "representation" responsibilities on my behalf. I want to be given the same option as a state citizen to withhold my financial support for the costs of my representation. 

I look forward to fast-track legislation from one of our Republican legislators that gives me the same right-not-to-pay as those granted to other individuals in our state under the right-to-work legislation. Let's call it Representation-Without-Taxation. 

Brent D. Emons
Jefferson

Sunday March 8, 2015

Dues and taxes

In John Breest's letter of March 3, he says he doesn't want his union dues going to liberal causes ("Unions and politics," Letters). 

As an atheist and taxpayer, I don't want my taxes going to private religious schools. Will I be afforded the same "right" to opt out of taxes that go to superstitious organizations such as churches? 

For some reason, I can't see that happening. 

Steve Burek
Trevor

More Bad News In The Continuing Sad Saga Of Scott Walker

The Pay-To-Play Allegation Walker's Watchdog Isn't Defending
Secret $1.5 Million Donation Uncovered In Walker Dark-Money Probe
State Of The Union Buster
Walker Ends Freedom Of Contract In Wisconsin
Right-To-Work Laws: Designed To Hurt Unions & Lower Wages
Lawmakers' Priorities For Property Tax Cuts Favor Wealthy
Wisconsin Economy Is Nowhere Near The 'Head Of The Class'
Wisconsin's Middle Class Shrinking Faster Than Any Other State
Wisconsin's Shrinking Middle Class
Walker's Wisconsin Still Lags Nation For Job Growth

Wisconsin Could Be Right-To-Work In A Matter Of Days

Wisconsin Could Be Right-To-Work In A Matter Of Days

Paul Secunda, a labor law professor at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, said the situation in Wisconsin is so dire for organized labor that unions have only one choice: a general strike by the state's unionized workers. Though they garnered national attention, the 2011 protests didn't manage to stop Act 10 or Walker, he noted. 

"I think they should shut it down," Secunda said. "Public-sector workers in solidarity with private-sector workers should walk out next week. I think if the union movement has any strength left it's in the power of withholding labor. If it's not willing to do that, there's very little power they have."

One From The Vault

Bargaining Isn't To Blame

How does eliminating collective bargaining reduce deficits?

"States with no collective bargaining rights for any public employees saw an average budget shortfall of 24.8 percent in 2010 while states (including the District of Columbia) with collective bargaining for all public employees had an average budget shortfall of 24.1 percent."

For Further Reading:

The Relationship Between Union Membership & State Budget Deficits

Right To Work For Less

Mr. Excuses

Come on!

Scott Walker, just admit it ... you're a bought-and-sold hack, a corporate shill, a know-nothing.  Your incompetence has been showcased by anemic job creation.

But, of course, that's not your fault.

Walker attributes slow job growth to uncertainty created by recall election

It was your anti- collective bargaining rampage, refusing millions for rail upgrades, and the rest of your crony-inspired agenda that has kept Wisconsin's economy in neutral.

You're the governor; act like it! Take some responsibility for your ineffective policies. Stop trying to place the blame anywhere other than where it belongs - with you!

Scott Walker Is FDR: F'ing Dumbass Redneck

It was all I could do to keep from falling out of my chair when I read Scott Walker's latest bullshit self-congratulatory rhetoric, Wisconsin A Model For Country, Scott Walker Says. [This despite the fact that the budget Governor Walker just signed also created a structural deficit of $505 million in the next biennium.]

"The position I pushed is not unlike the principle that Franklin Delano Roosevelt — not exactly a conservative — pushed as well when it came to public sector collective bargaining," Walker remarked at the annual Governmental Research Association policy conference.

FDR's opposition to collective bargaining, per se, was more against public workers striking or using quasi- militant tactics as a means to an end. He supported the public workers' voice in attempts at fair treatment. Roosevelt said, "It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions."

As the Library of Congress details:

Although the future of labor unions looked grim in 1933, their fortunes would soon change. The tremendous gains labor unions experienced in the 1930s resulted, in part, from the pro-union stance of the Roosevelt administration and from legislation enacted by Congress during the early New Deal. The National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) provided for collective bargaining. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) required businesses to bargain in good faith with any union supported by the majority of their employees.

Public works and unions became kind of a big thing specifically during FDR's time in office. For Walker to claim a parallel between himself and Roosevelt for doing the exact opposite during his reign as Wisconsin governor is batshit crazy.

[Above: FDR visiting the Allis-Chalmers factory near Milwaukee, Wisconsin during an inspection trip. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 19, 1942.]

Walker goes on to claim one of his major policy innovations was pension reform. Yet, Walker himself, in the Journal article, even states, "Our pension system is the only one in the country that's fully funded." As a Pew report, A Widening Gap In Cities, documents:

At the end of fiscal year 2009, the largest city in Wisconsin had the best-funded system among 61 American cities, with 113 percent of the money.

The report also found the State of Wisconsin, at the end of fiscal year 2009, had 100 percent of needed funding.

More great Scott Walker logic - reform the program (our pension system) that is performing better than any similar program in the country. So, if you're doing something better than anyone else, that's the thing you want to change, and for this, you should be heralded as a model for the country?

Correcting The Right-Wing Myths About Detroit

Don’t buy the right-wing myth about Detroit

In the wake of Detroit’s bankruptcy, you may be wondering: How could anyone be surprised that a city so tied to manufacturing faces crippling problems in an era that has seen such an intense public policy assault on domestic American manufacturing? You may also be wondering: How could Michigan officials possibly talk about cutting the average $19,000-a-year pension benefit for municipal workers while reaffirming their pledge of $283 million in taxpayer money to a professional hockey stadium? ...

It’s a straightforward conservative formula: the right blames state and municipal budget problems exclusively on public employees’ retirement benefits, often underfunding those public pensions for years. The money raided from those pension funds is then used to enact expensive tax cuts and corporate welfare programs. After years of robbing those pension funds to pay for such giveaways, a crisis inevitably hits, and workers’ pension benefits are blamed — and then slashed. Meanwhile, the massive tax cuts and corporate subsidies are preserved, because we are led to believe they had nothing to do with the crisis. Ultimately, the extra monies taken from retirees are then often plowed into even more tax cuts and more corporate subsidies.

Just How Generous Are Detroit's Worker Pensions for Retirees?

"My basic takeaway was that [Detroit's] pension system itself was not overly generous," said Jean-Pierre Aubry, assistant director of State and Local Research at Boston College's Center for Retirement Research... 

Retired general city workers, such as librarians or sanitation workers, received average payments of $18,275 a year in 2011, according to the Detroit General Retirement System... 

While retired Detroit firefighters and police officers receive more generous pension checks than auto workers -- checks averaged almost $30,000 a year in 2011 -- they often don't receive the added bonus of Social Security payments.

We Need A Federal Bailout for Detroit's Pensions

Does $1,500 a month after hauling garbage cans your whole adult life really sound like a fortune? ...

Retired Detroit employees didn't cause the financial crisis of 2008, which hit the pension plan's investment fund hard. Yet they're being handled as if they were morally equivalent to the Wall Street creditors who did. As the New York Times reports, the unelected city manager's plan would "treat bondholders the same as retirees" and ask them both to sacrifice... 

The average Detroit city pension is slightly less than $19,000 per year. For police and firefighters, pensions are their only source of retirement income. (They don't have Social Security.)

Five myths about Detroit

The real culprit in the city’s decline has been federal policies that put corporate health ahead of community health, such as free-trade agreements that sacrifice U.S. jobs for foreign trade...

Detroit’s major financial problem is that its shrinking tax base has meant years of declining revenue. Remember, the city has lost more than 1 million residents since its population peaked in the 1950s. Those who blame pensions confuse cause and effect — like blaming a personal bankruptcy on a pesky car loan after one’s salary was cut in half. The difference, of course, is that getting rid of a car you can no longer afford isn’t the same as reneging on a promise to 21,000 retirees.