Doing the Right Thing

 President Obama did the right thing in issuing an executive order to curtail deportation of illegals who have grown up in the United States, graduated high school and have not run afoul of the law.   My disappointment lies in the fact that he did not do it earlier.   The timing rightly taints the act with political opportunism: ensuing discussion has been focused on the politics of the move rather than the benefits to young Hispanic men and women who have grown up in the United States.

It’s about time something was done about this group.  Can you imagine your son or daughter, having graduated from high school and possibly college, not being able to get a job because of something you did fifteen years ago?  Allowing such individuals to remain on a work visa buys them time until the issue is settled by legislation.  It allows them to fully contribute to the American economy by taking jobs commensurate with their qualifications, and frees them from potential exploitation by employers.  It allows them to function legally in society.  In my view it is the least we can do.
The politics are not surprising.  Contrary to the protestations of the right, the Dream Act is not the product of the left, and President Obama’s actions do not constitute an imperial exercise of power.
Lest we forget, the Dream Act – which called for a path to full citizenship for such individuals- was introduced by Republican Senators in the first Bush administration.  To repeat, in 2001 an effort was launched by the Republican Party to deal with individuals who came to the US illegally as children.  Clearly, however, it was not high on President Bush’s legislative agenda, falling to wayside as many bills in Congress typically do.  John McCain was heavily involved in subsequent legislation on the same issue.  President Obama called for its enactment while running for office, and he worked actively to get the bill passed only –not surprisingly- to run into a Republican roadblock.  This, in my view, is when he should have acted unilaterally.
A number of critics have decried his use of executive authority in this matter.  Not being able to move the bill through Congress does not necessarily give the President the right to do his own thing.    However, Presidents have traditionally used, constitutionally, their executive powers to dictate policy in areas not specifically covered by Congressional legislation.  If Congress is displeased with this or any executive order, all it need to is pass legislation to the contrary.  By way of background, President Bush issued almost 300 executive orders while President.
Citizens need to decide on their own, whether America is better off as a result of President Obama’s decision to go easy on those illegals that came to this country in their youth.  Forget the politics of the issue for that is exactly what it is – politics.  Do you want to give such people a break or not?  How would you like your children to be treated?  Would you like to know where presidential candidate Romney stands on the issue?  Are you disappointed that he refuses to give an answer to the question?
In many regards, the hoopla around the immigration issue is reflective of the larger   imbroglio that characterizes the federal government and its leadership.    Even while advancing essentially Republican solutions, President Obama has been cast time and time again as an intransigent socialist who would not work with Congress.   The lack of movement due to Republican-manufactured Congressional gridlock (the same Republican senators who signed on to the grand bargain to fix the debt helped sustain a Senate filibuster that prevented it from happening), has caused many to question his leadership.
Only recently has the President’s frustration with Congress caused him to use his executive powers to move his agenda forward –gays in the military, recess appointments, non-support for the Defense of Marriage Act, immigration reform.   Now the same Republicans who refuse to work with the President in Congress take him to task for being imperial in undertaking unilateral actions in areas where Congress normally has a say. 
At the end of the day, this President has and will continue to be pilloried by Republicans no matter what he does.  As in the case of immigration reform – the news is all about the President’s values and leadership and/or Congressional stonewalling.  There is little discussion about the impact of the issue on the American people and the American way of life.  Voters need to get beyond the political rhetoric and personal political affiliations and focus on the facts.  They need to ask themselves, who is trying to advance solutions that work best for them.

 

 

My Dad Was a Union Man

 My father, a skilled machinist, was a union man.  I can still remember his participating in strikes in the 1950s.  For sure, no one in our family would cross a union picket line to shop in a store that was in the midst of a labor disagreement.  All else equal, we looked for the union label when shopping.

Unions were developed for a purpose – to ensure that workers were treated fairly by their employers and received a fair share in the corporate profits that resulted from their combined contributions.  Owners did not give in easily - increased wages and benefits came at a cost in corporate profits - and   mutual distrust came naturally to labor-management discussions.   Early on – before labor laws- management resorted to scabs and armed resistance to union organization: today their emphasis is on ensuring that state and federal laws are written and enforced to detriment of labor organization.  Tax credits to firms outsourcing manufacturing to lower-wage foreign countries are but one case in point.
Clearly, unions played a major role in leveling the playing field.  Union pressure ensured that the workers on the line received their fair share of corporate profits: the rise in real wages earned by union workers are a major factor behind the rise of an American middle class.  Just as importantly, unions curbed the natural tendency of managers to take advantage of their power to bully workers – unpaid overtime, faster work rates, shorter lunch breaks, poor working conditions and the like.  Unions thus provided workers with a means of self-respect and a guarantee of equitable treatment.
Worker benefits from unionization extended well beyond unionized factories.  Many new manufacturing start-ups have successfully resisted unionization pressures by providing wages, benefits, and working conditions similar to those enjoyed by union members in other factories.  Just as the presence of Wal-Mart lowers prices in all local stores, the possibility of unionization improves the lot of non-union blue collar workers.  Notably, private sector white collar workers, by in large, have not unionized in America.
It is no coincidence that the decline of union power in America has been paralleled by a rising income disparity among Americans.  When unions were strongest – in the1950s- the top ten percent of Americans claimed one-third of all income: todaythat percentage has risen to over half.  Union watchdogs kept a close eye on the distribution of pre-tax profits between management and labor, ensuring that the benefits of a successful corporation were distributed among all workers.
As unionized labor as a share of the workforce as dropped, It has become fashionable to focus on the darker side of unions – archaic work rules, feather bedding, intransigent resistance to modernization, refusal to take ‘necessary’ cuts to pay and benefits at a time when management salaries and golden parachutes were on the rise.  Increasingly, the premise of many Americans is that unions are an unnecessary evil.  (Many of these same individuals, however, have been known to respond to management decisions with statements along the line of ‘this would not have happened if we had a union’.  )
The pressure on Unions has intensified because of the traditional association of Unions with the Democratic Party.  At a time when corporate contributions to political activities have been unchecked by the Supreme Court,  states Republican  administrations have sought to break the back of public sector unions as a way of cutting off financial support to political races.  In Wisconsin, even when public sector unions met demands for cuts in pay and benefits, the governor pushed to eliminate collective bargaining rights for all public sector unions excepting those that had supported his election.  Clearly, there is significant public support for these endeavors.
 The reduced role of unions as a watchdog on the distribution of corporate profits has contributed to a major shift in the acquisition and retention of wealth.   Real wages of most American workers has been in decline for several years while corporate profitability rises and management salaries rise through the roof.  Secondly, the lack of union representation has made and ever increasing share of workers vulnerable to management decisions regarding benefits, working conditions and the like.   Indeed, unions have their ugly side, but so do corporate leaders.    At the end of the day, the key point, often forgotten, is that unions were created to provide the means for exploited workers to gain a measure of respect on the job and a fair share of the fruits of their labor: no one should be surprised to see American workers – union and non-union- suffer as a result of their demise.