An interesting point of view from the founder of big box store Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, explaining how enforcing labor law will lead to the ruin of America....I'm not sure how many houses Bernie owns, but in my neighborhood America is already in economic ruin, despite the long decline of unions.
I think the path to economic ruin was caused by the declining wages from Americans competing globally against workers in the third world. Big boxers like Walmart and Home Depot also helped kill a lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs, with their unfair advantage in beating down employees by abusing labor law. Beating down suppliers is okay, but keeping your labor costs low through illegal means isn't. Plus the bulk of the customers for small biz are the middle class. They need fair wages.
Would enforcing labor rights help America back track from the path to Economic Ruin? Maybe. When unions were the strongest in the late 1950's the middle class was thriving. CEO's like Bernie only made about 20 times the average workers salary back then, so maybe not so much from his perspective. Today CEO's rake in 200x the average salary!
I'm amazed at the amount of negative press in the Wall Street Journal and other pro-business rags against the Employee Free Choice Act. Yesterday it was Bernie's opinion. A couple of weeks ago big boxer Wal-Mart raised the alarm and started holding mandatory meetings for all managers and supervisors warning about the EFCA, which will add penalties for violating the 71 year old National Labor Relations Act.
One thing Wal-Mart and Home Depot have in common is that they have utilized their humongous size to run Mom and Pop stores out of business. In addition to beating down suppliers on price, they also have an unfair advantage in beating down employees who might otherwise seek better wages and benefits. Mom and Pop don't worry about Federal Labor Law, because they don't have sufficient employees to fall under the National Labor Relations Act.
more at my diary yesterday http://www.dailykos.com/...
Bad Labor Law Is a Path to Economic Ruin
By BERNIE MARCUS
August 26, 2008; Page A19
I recently said that America "would become France" if a certain bill now in Congress -- which would virtually guarantee that every company becomes unionized -- ever became law. Deceptively named the Employee Free Choice Act, this bill would in most cases take away an employee's right to a secret ballot in a union election and give unions the option to have federal arbitrators set the wages, benefits, hours and all other terms and conditions of employment.