The rollback of child labor protections is well underway

The hunt for profits is driving ever more despicable labor laws and practices.  A case in point: the sharp rise in the number of states seeking to rollback restrictions on the use of child labor.  We need to fight this trend and if we are to succeed we must be clear on who we are fighting. Advocates for the relaxation of child labor protections are not some fringe wackos; they include some of the most powerful rightwing foundations and profitable corporations in the United States. 

Social Security: The attacks keep coming but the system remains strong

President Biden is winning praise for his State of the Union defense of social security.  But while he correctly called out Republicans for their machinations, it was not so long ago that Democratic Party leaders—for example, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—appeared willing to support plans for weakening the program.  Thus, we need to be vigilant and always prepared to defend the program, especially since, as the economist Paul Krugman commented:

I’ve seen numerous declarations from mainstream media that of course Medicare and Social Security can’t be sustained in their present form. And not just in the opinion pages: There’s been at least some reversion to the early 2010s practice of including anti-social-insurance editorializing in what are supposed to be straight news reports, with highly disputable claims about these programs’ futures presented as simple facts.

Don’t let the critics fool you. Our Social Security system remains sound.  Moreover, there are simple steps we can take to expand its benefits.

U.S. Economic Planning in the Second World War and the Planetary Crisis

The February 2023 issue of Monthly Review includes an article of mine, “U.S. Economic Planning in the Second World War and the Planetary Crisis,” which is a revised version of a past blog post.  

The following is from the article’s introduction:

Not surprisingly, the consensus from those studying the wartime conversion experience is that a rapid and successful transformation requires aggressive state planning and direction of economic activity. This is indeed an important lesson for our movement to learn. But there is another lesson to be learned from that period, one that deserves more attention than it currently receives. It is that in a capitalist economy, capital’s ownership position greatly enhances its ability to mold state structures and their policies in ways favorable to its interests and to the detriment of workers. In other words, the planning process is a contested terrain, and one not usually favorable to working people.

I will show that, during the war years, corporate leaders were able to rebuff Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) planning proposals and successfully marginalize the participation of unions in the mobilization agencies that were formed, ensuring that labor would be forced into a defensive and ever weaker position relative to capital as the war progressed. Thus, if our aim is not simply a transformation to a somewhat less carbon consuming economy, but a complete and just transformation, we must prepare ourselves, and the movement that we hope to build, for an ongoing and complex struggle to overcome capital’s structural advantages. It is my hope that this article, which focuses on the class dynamics shaping the Second World War mobilization process, can help that preparation. The history it describes offers a useful primer on how the other side conducts its class war.

In the US you can be fired for any or no reason—it doesn’t have to be this way

The United States is an employment “at-will” country.  That means, absent a union contract, a boss can fire a worker for almost any, or even no reason, and without advance notice.  Well—with the exception of Montana.  As the state’s employment division explains: “Montana is not an ‘at-will’ state. . . generally, once an employee has completed the established probationary period, the employer needs to have good cause for termination.”  

While Montana is the exception in the United States, the United States is the exception among developed capitalist economies.  In those other countries, most workers can only be dismissed for “just cause,” with just cause statutorily or judicially defined.  For example, German workers employed for more than six months by a company with more than ten workers cannot simply be dismissed.  The company must have a valid business or personal conduct reason.  Moreover, the company is also required to notify the employee in advance, and in writing, of their termination.  Many employees also receive severance pay proportional to their length of employment.

So, how big a deal is employment at-will in the United States? According to the results of a recent survey by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), carried out by YouGov, more than two out of three workers who have been discharged received no reason or an unfair reason for their termination. Almost three out of four received no warning before discharge.

Recession alert: we need a new unemployment insurance system

With the Federal Reserve pushing up interest rates, we appear headed for a new recession.  Sadly, our unemployment insurance system remains broken: too few unemployed receive benefits and the benefits are far too low.  As a result, the next recession, when it comes, will again bring unnecessary suffering to millions of workers and their families.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Federal action during the recent pandemic crisis shows how our unemployment system can be dramatically improved. The problem is that many business and political leaders are content with the system as it is now.  That means it is up to us to start agitating for reform, and the sooner the better.

The Supreme Court: working hard to make a business-friendly America

President Calvin Coolidge, in a January 1925 speech to newspaper editors, asserted that “the chief business of the American people is business.”  The claim, although far from true, did capture the short-lived success of business leaders in structuring the country’s social institutions for the benefit of the wealthy.

Tragically, we appear well into another period when business needs and desires are promoted as consistent with American values and enshrined into law.  The pro-business orientation of the current Roberts Supreme Court highlights this reality. As Lee Epstein and Mitu Gulati show in their paper “A Century of Business in the Supreme Court, 1920-2020”:

the Roberts Court may be the most pro-business Court in a century. The win rate for business in the Roberts Court, 63.4 percent, is 15 percentage points higher than the next highest rate of business wins over the past century.

Slip slidin’ away—the disappearing practice of overtime pay

Slip slidin’ away—that is what tends to happen to pro-worker reforms in our economic system.  Things are structured so that without constant vigilance and struggle on our part, gains are gradually undone.  A case in point: overtime pay.

It wasn’t that long ago that most workers in the US were eligible for time and half pay for every hour worked beyond a 40-hour work week.  Employers didn’t agree to overtime pay out of the goodness of their hearts.  They did it because worker organizing and activism pressured Congress to pass a labor law requiring, although with some important exceptions, the payment of overtime wages.  Now, a significant number of workers no longer have the right to overtime pay. For example, in 1975 more than 60 percent of salaried workers automatically qualified for time and half pay.  That share fell to a low of 4 percent in 2000 before slowly rising to 15 percent in 2020.

It’s past time for a $15 federal minimum wage

President Biden’s 2022 State of the Union Address included a call for a $15 federal minimum wage.  According to an Economic Policy Institute study, a phased increase to a $15 federal minimum wage by 2025 would raise the earnings of 32 million workers—21 percent of the workforce, no small thing. 

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25.  The federal minimum wage was established in 1938, as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Congress has voted to raise it 9 times since then, the last time in 2007.  That last vote included a mandated three step increase that brought it to its current level in July 2009. 

It has been 13 years since the last increase in the federal minimum wage, the longest period since its establishment without an increase.  Taking inflation into account, workers paid the federal minimum wage in 2021 earned 21 percent less than what their counterparts earned in 2009, and prices keep rising.  Outrageously, this eroding federal minimum wage continues to set the wage floor in 20 states. Where is the justice in that?

Don’t believe the hype, big finance continues to threaten our survival

According to defenders of the status quo, the best response to our most serious problems is to let markets work their magic; government regulation of private business activity only makes things worse.  That is certainly the line that big finance is pushing when it comes to our ever-worsening climate crisis.

A case in point is the growing popularity of ESG investing, which stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance responsive investing.  You want to save the world, put your money in ESG funds which, according to money managers, will guarantee that your money rewards those companies that value sustainability as well as human and worker rights.  What could be simpler. 

One problem with this strategy is that ESG investing is largely a fraud, one that allows leading asset management companies to dramatically boost their profits, and the rest of the business community to continue on with their destructive business practices without fear of bad publicity or public action.  The end result—the planetary crisis continues unabated and the investing public gets fleeced.

Making the Green New Deal real: lessons from the World War II conversion experience

The Green New Deal has become a rallying cry for activists seeking to build a mass movement capable of addressing our ever worsening, and increasingly interrelated, climate and social crises.  Building such a movement is no simple task, but I believe that our organizing efforts can greatly benefit from a careful study of the rapid transformation of the US economy from civilian to military production during World War II. 

In two recent publications, with links below, I describe and evaluate the planning process responsible for the wartime transformation and offer my thoughts on some of the key lessons to be learned. In what follows I highlight some of the reasons why I believe Green New Deal advocates would benefit from careful study of the wartime experience.