. . . so are the months of our unemployment

In my first two weeks of working full-time, I measured my tenure in days. After that, I started thinking of it in terms of weeks; the days just became too numerous to count. Now I think of it in terms of months. Eight, to be exact. It’s something you’ll find yourself doing whenever you’ve been doing something long enough. For example, do you feel like jobs reports come so often that they don’t indicate trends the way they did? Because nobody in politics seem to feel that way. What a surprise.

March’s report yielded a gain of 120,000 jobs and the unemployment rate falling to 8.2 percent. Original projections promised a gain of 203,000 jobs and the rate holding steady at 8.3 percent. Reasons cited include people leaving the labor force after giving up on finding work (how exactly do they find those people?), plus unseasonably warm weather. Monetary policy hawks fear another round of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve; Republicans just see an opportunity to bash President Obama’s economic policy, despite the fact that unemployment was at 9 percent this time last year.

If you go to Google’s helpful unemployment rate chart, you will note that the unemployment rate was rising rather steeply from January 2009 to October 2009. Since then, it has been fluctuating, but downward. If you wanted to back up former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) contention that this report proved that “the president’s excuses have ran out,” you would have to demonstrate that he had a) nothing to do with the general drop over the past several months and b) everything to do with this month’s numbers. Or just explain this chart.

I don’t mean this column to be a ringing endorsement of Obama’s approach to the economy, although it’s preferable to the New Deal approach he took in his first two years. My point is that federal policy, especially the kind that’s drafted, passed and enacted in a month – in short, the kind that doesn’t exist – is not the only factor that allows jobs to be created, and it never has been.

In a one-month span, any number of events could come up that simply do not a trend make. Wouldn’t it make more sense to stop paying attention to the monthlies? Stop seizing on them for political purposes as if they mean what they used to, when we had only been paying attention for a few months? I don’t expect candidates to ignore an opportunity, however meaninglessly, but the rest of us should think bigger.

I will note one thing about this report: Factory jobs have increased, especially in the auto industry, which provides a political opportunity for anyone but Romney. Who would he like to blame for that?

If only they had these conversations about primaries

To the best of my knowledge, none of whatever is deducted from my paycheck goes to a union, which makes me very happy. I don’t need to be represented by one, for a number of reasons that none of you really care to know about. However, a few economic sectors do need a strong union presence, as other bodies designed to protect workers have dropped the ball on enforcement of their own regulations. But certain members of Congress don’t want to make that too easy.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is set to vote on a regulatory change that would make it easier for unions to organize. On average, it takes 38 days between a proposed union election and the election itself. The NLRB wants to cut that to 10 days for the sake of expediency. The House Education and Workforce Committee, chaired by Rep. John Kline (R-MN), wants to set it at 35 days for the sake of giving workers all the information they’ll need.

This could be as simple as taking these two numbers and splitting them down the middle. 22 days would be enough for the employer and the union to make their cases, while at the same time drastically reducing the length of the decision-making process. While I personally don’t think 35 days is particularly excessive, it would be interesting to see how the employer’s contingency planning would be squeezed. On the other hand, if you don’t have a unionization plan already, you should write one up soon. Because, really, you never know.

On the other hand, one of the NLRB’s concerns is that anything above 10 days would be plenty of time for employers to exact revenge on subordinates who are about to sign a union card. Before they actually did that, they wouldn’t have many people to whom to turn for help, unless they already had a solid lawyer. And when everybody is, or should be, tightening belts, picking off a few disloyal employees can be pretty tempting, more so than cutting bonuses.

I have to admit, I’m pretty torn between siding with the NLRB and siding with the committee. I will say, however, that there is an insidious level of fear-mongering on both their parts. One says workers are going to be manipulated by their employers; the other says they’re going to be manipulated by their unions. Is this really the time to be treating American workers like malleable idiots?

The likelihood of workers joining a union is directly proportional to the number of workplace-specific reasons for them to do it. Instead of fighting off the NLRB, larger employers might want to take a look at their existing labor practices and fix them before somebody else does.

Boeing’s got a brand-new state

At the request of tipster Allan Gates, who sent his tip in before I thought to ask for the sender’s location, we’ll be covering some legislation that will probably remain off the radar until next week. The House Education and Workforce Committee has voted to “prohibit the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from closing, relocating or transferring a business.” While we could call this “Boeing v. NLRB,” the two haven’t met within the judiciary since 1973, so that’ll be our shorthand.

Having witnessed four labor stoppages since 1989 (as long as I’ve been alive), Boeing, headquartered in Washington state, wants to set up a production line for 30 percent of its Dreamliner jets in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, where workers cannot be compelled to join a union. The NLRB believes this is the company’s way of retaliating against unionized workers, an “illegal transfer of work,” and is trying to force them to keep production in Washington.

It would be foolish for anyone to claim that South Carolina’s right-to-work status wasn’t at least a factor in Boeing’s decision. Certainly it would be easier for them to avoid ceding too much to unions there. My father likes to point out that in these states, unions are essentially stripped of their power to bargain effectively for the entire workforce, although this may not matter if employees have the right not to join but do so anyway.

However, the NLRB is an agency of the federal government, and any court in the land would find their efforts unconstitutional. That such efforts needed legislation before they were considered worthy of prohibition is, to put it mildly, surprising. While I would not personally support moving factories around and possibly spurring employees to uproot their lives for the sake of their jobs, there’s nothing illegal about it.

It would be fair for the NLRB to get involved to this extent if Boeing were actually violating employees’ rights. But since they are not, the board might instead take on the role of consultant, as opposed to arbitrator. An average of one work stoppage every five-and-a-half years merits a revision of Boeing’s relationship with the Machinists Union. Even then, with the South Carolina line already set up, no good can come of bringing it to Washington and spurring those employees to uproot their lives.

I should point out that Boeing has donated $5,250 to Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), the bill’s chief sponsor, in case you think he’s the selfless savior of South Carolina.

Take two placards and call me in the morning

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by any doctor in Wisconsin who provided sick notes for public workers wanting to go out and protest Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) union-busting legislation. 22 of them in particular have been under investigation by the state Department of Regulation and Licensing, facing the possibility of ”reprimands, pay loss and demotion” for doing this. A lot of people I know would call that an act of bravery. I call it blatantly political and damaging to the integrity of their profession.

Those who have read previous columns on the issue know that while I am not a fan of public sector unions, I believe their members should have the final say over whether or not they want to keep them. I’ve also written that both Walker and Wisconsin Senate Democrats were at fault for their initial refusals to have a rational discussion with each other. Neither one is off the hook, least of all Walker, who has admitted that ensuing cost savings would be minimal at best but is pushing for the legislation anyway.

Now we have a new group of people to add to the list of those who acted wrongly in this debacle. One wonders if these doctors would do the same thing if, for example, the governor were a Democrat and public-sector workers sympathetic to the Republicans wanted to go out and protest a tax hike. I would not suggest that their political preferences bleed into the actual practice of medicine. But its administrative requirements count for something.

Furthermore, they were aiding and abetting the removal of human resources from public-sector offices on false grounds. It’s not unheard of for individual doctors to be persuaded into writing sick notes for spurious reasons. But these were 22 doctors, and you can’t call the “need” to protest an acceptable medical excuse – especially when you consider that no true progress on this front could be made outside the Senate.

I think we can all agree that when one works in a position of trust such as this, they should not use the resources of that profession for political action. Unions get flak for this all the time when they should be paying attention to their workers. Let’s not let the workers themselves fall into that trap.

Manufacturing’s descent and the limits of green jobs

If you’ve read my posts on job creation before, you’ll know that one of my favored strategies is investment and green technology and energy. The one flaw in the plan is that many jobs created in that sector, in its current state, will lack permanence. If Mona Charen’s column on the subject is to be believed, green energy is also far less labor-intensive than its fossil fuel-based predecessors, already translating into losses.

Keep in mind that her sources are Hot Air and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), neither of which has ever been particularly friendly to any of the Obama administration’s ideas – and only AEI has any reputation for serious policy research. So take everything the column says with a teaspoon of salt. Her central point is this: Government spending on green jobs has not made energy cheaper and is excessive when compared to the return on investment.

This should come as no surprise, considering that green energy is far from the point of market saturation. High prices in the early stages of any business cycle are natural. But you can bet that many voters will disregard this in favor of attacking the White House for perceived inaction on jobs. In any event, hiring required for putting up wind turbines, solar panels and other such infrastructure can only last so long.

The goal, then, of the administration’s job agenda should be to spur a resurgence of the general manufacturing sector. Large-scale green technology for trade purposes is not the only thing they can do toward this end. The development of smaller-scale renewable energy apparati, for use by individual residences and businesses, is another, as is installing the larger variety on American soil.

Even with those in the pipeline (no pun intended), there should be additional prongs to a comprehensive manufacturing strategy. A more incentive-based approach to moving plants back to America, as opposed to punitive taxation, would be one of the most significant. These incentives should be targeted to the newest sectors, including medical and mobile technology, with smaller breaks for older industries that have been growing at a slower pace or not at all.

I wish American corporations felt a moral imperative to keep jobs here, but not all do. Any federal effort at creating this imperative should be limited, especially if pressure from customers and shareholders were powerful enough to make it unnecessary. This alone may be the closest thing to a silver bullet for rebuilding the job market in the U.S.

Labor’s love’s lost

As much as we’d like it better if they were more concerned with individual donations, the worst fate for any major political party is to lose one of their single largest funders. Such is the problem looming before the Democratic Party. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka is threatening to limit the union’s campaign support for Democratic candidates, as revenge for their perceived absence in fights against union-busting legislation. Cut to millions of non-Democrats laughing their asses off at Richard Trumka.

. . . labor probably would spend more time and money combating union-busting efforts by state officials. . . . Trumka called for “an independent labor movement” and said unions were not responsible for building the power of any political party, but for improving the lives of working families.

Gee, YA THINK?! Trumka has been president of the AFL-CIO since 2009, and was its Secretary-Treasurer for 14 years before that. If it had hit him at any point during the last 16 years that a union’s responsibility is to its members, and not a middleman in the form of the Democrats, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. They would have started pouring money into more impactful local campaigns long ago.

The AFL-CIO is not alone in this sentiment. The International Association of Fire Fighters halted all political donations last year after getting a minor return on their investment. The Service Employees International Union, on the other hand, is staying involved in federal politics. They shouldn’t expect to be there long, considering local and state governments have more influence over labor legislation. Has anyone figured that out?

Would you like to know how much money the AFL-CIO spent on donations during last year’s midterm elections? $50 million. That could have bought a hell of a lot of health benefits in Wisconsin and Ohio, where they’re currently involved in recall campaigns. Correct me if I’m wrong, but lobbying should be secondary to directly protecting workers’ interests, shouldn’t it? I would like to know how many rank-and-file members of the largest U.S. unions are losing any sleep over Trumka’s tactics.

If the Supreme Court is going to allow unlimited campaign spending by unions and corporations, it’ll be up to their own insiders to decide some limits. Member locals and shareholders should have authorization by vote over donations. As it stands, there is too much power over donations in the hands of the people at the very top; if the general public can’t decide, their own publics should.

What are you rebelling against?

As much as Mark McKinnon hasn’t seen anything yet when it comes to the influence of unions, especially those in the public sector, he has a lot of interesting insights into the situation in the United States. His criticisms can be best summed up as such: “Public-sector unions are too close to the government to adequately reflect the values they claim to espouse.”

In a lot of ways, that’s true. He opens by presenting some easily accessible figures that prove these unions are at least as capable as any corporation of looking like “big money.” He follows that up by pointing out that these unions collect dues off wages earned by workers that are paid by the government, meaning taxpayers, of course, and their constant pushes for higher wages ultimately mean more money out of everyone else’s pockets. Finally, he reminds us that government workers already have their interests protected by various statutes.

McKinnon’s article has a bit of a sinister overtone, as if he’s picturing a bunch of suits laughing over their brandy as they plot how to take more taxpayer money. But he brings up a lot of interesting questions. For example, where is the outrage from the pro-union lobby when, say, the Teamsters spend $334,117 on elections in a single state? And when so many laws exist solely for the benefit of government employees, what do they need to be protected from?

His third paragraph identifies the real culprit: “In 28 states, state and local employees must pay full union dues or be fired.” And they claim to be working for the benefit of these employees? No doubt someone will tell me that they need the cash to do their job, but considering how many dues are redistributed as donations, it’s hard to tell exactly where the job begins.

This is one reason I hope to avoid working in the public sector and any unionized environment for all eternity, the other reason being that I don’t like other people deciding my financial needs for me. Unions have their purpose in industries and businesses that have yet to give a damn about any aspect of their employees’ well-being. Any member of a union outside one of those industries should take a good long look at what they’re paying for and ask if it’s worth it.

This article was of course written in the context of the Wisconsin showdown, and I’m not siding with Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) on that. If anyone’s going to decide the fate of a union, it should be the dues-paying members, not their handlers.

Federal workers got no respect

You may recall that during the fictional 2006 presidential election on The West Wing, Republican candidate Sen. Arnold Vinick (R-CA – yes, I provide codes for nonexistent politicians as well) said he would not create any new jobs, which is the mandate of entrepreneurs and not the government. That’s the kind of balls-out campaign line that can win votes with anyone. Unfortunately, the government does require other people to carry out its duties. This year’s real omnibus spending bill will freeze those people’s pay for two years.

The pay freeze will allow the government to spend more on Pell Grants for low-income college students, federal benefits for veterans “a program that helps low-income families pay their heating bills.” (Do utilities really charge that much? I hope that program provides tax credits for the purchase of Snuggies.) None of these are unworthy expenditures. But it goes to show how much federal spending reform is really needed.

This is the sort of thing that happens when governments don’t realize, or realize too late, what they can or should use to create an environment for job creation outside of themselves. They put up their own “NOW HIRING” signs for two reasons: one, to provide a few people with reasonably steady paychecks; two, to do the jobs they could have finished years ago (infrastructure, etc.). The lack of sustainability in such behavior is revealed when the rest of the economy needs to get back up at a faster pace.

What do voters, especially the ones coming of age in the Tea Party era, hear when there is talk of a federal pay freeze? Fiscal restraint, coming to grips with the government’s size, perhaps poking the unions (always fun). I can’t help but notice that only said unions seem to realize that jobs are being affected. They are treated as lesser simply because the federal government signs their checks.

When any politician attempts to score points by talking about scaling back the federal workforce, they must remember that the workforce comprises some two million Americans. These are people with families, mortgages, car payments, college loans, medical bills and grocery shopping like everyone else. As much as these people should feel lucky that they still have jobs at all, they should, at the very least, demand to be spoken of as people and not price tags.

Bottom line: The pay freeze is a necessary evil, especially considering it will protect $4.3 billion in fee reductions on small-business loans. The people who will be directly impacted by that freeze may not be necessary, but they’re not evil. Candidates might use their stories to justify spending replacements, instead of ignore them.

Bosses just don’t understand

Having no intention of ever having children, I will have no personal stake in any “family-friendly” policies put in place by an employer. But if executed properly, they can be a vital element of a workplace’s good reputation, and at times its productivity. That’s what President Obama told the attendees of Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women Summit yesterday.

I have no doubt he was there partly to improve his political prospects among women in the corporate world. Perhaps another reason was to float a test balloon for First Lady Michelle Obama, work-family balance being a centerpiece of her plans. Still, somebody needs to give workplaces the impetus to retool their operations (slightly) around the needs of parents.

Of course, every example of these you can think of has its pros and cons, but they also have compromises. Here are a few:

1. Parental leave. Pros: Besides the obvious being-there-for-the-kids-and-all, it promotes goodwill toward the company and, in effect, loyalty. Cons: Temporary replacements might not understand the position as well as the person on leave. Solution: Proper succession training. The manager must look at all their subordinates and choose the person best befitting the position, based on their current qualifications and how easy they’d be to train.

2. On-site or nearby day care. Pros: Eliminates having to leave the office in case of emergencies and saves on babysitting costs. Cons: The start-up costs; the need for dedicated space; the need for a licensed supervisor. Solution: Have the employees needing day care be the ones to pay for it, either in the form of direct payment or payroll deductions; allow the parents in the workforce to form a board to oversee the hiring of the supervisor.

3. Flexible hours. Pros: Allows employees to set own schedules, within certain parameters (get projects done by this date, be present this amount of hours), thereby making them more productive on their own terms. Cons: The need for oversight; the possibility of privilege abuse; it’s not always viable, especially during critical coverage hours. Solution: Determine those hours and tell as many people as you need to be present then; develop a method for employees to check in, such that you can measure how long they were there; withdraw privileges in case of missed deadlines.

President Obama’s role in all this, if he assumes any, will be to offer incentives for companies to implement these initiatives. Hopefully they will be able to see how the benefits outweigh the costs. Yes, that includes the cost of having an endless stream of baby pictures being shoved in your face, but we all have to deal with that once.

Why? Because DEY TOOK ER JERBZ!!!

If Senate Republicans want to maintain their status as the party of job creation, they’re not having a particularly good go of it this week. They just blocked yet another vote, this time on a bill that would penalize companies for moving their operations overseas and reward them for hiring American workers. I know these sorts of occurrences are expected when one party lacks a supermajority, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

I support free trade in principle, as regular readers well know, and I oppose protectionist policies. We must accept that we are living in a globalized economy and, for that reason, must take our trading partners into consideration when it comes to manufacturing policy. But this isn’t a protectionist effort so much as a carrot-and-stick strategy. Protectionism normally refers to duties or quotas on imports. I don’t include jobs under the generous umbrella of “imports”; this is why I don’t support unfettered free trade.

Unfortunately for me, neither does Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who calls himself a Socialist and has come out in support of the bill. I certainly don’t want to be associated with that word. But in this case, he’s not wrong. If the intention is to create American jobs, opening up the existing ones to Americans will do more than keeping taxes low and hoping the companies will inevitably use the savings to create jobs.

If the Republicans want to make sure of that, they might suggest that whatever tax savings result from this bill’s failure be somehow mandated to be used for job creation. For now, they’re dealing too much in what-ifs. In the case of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), they’re dealing in willful ignorance; he is convinced that overseas subsidiaries are primarily intended to “serve foreign markets,” not “make products for Americans.” I’m sure that’s great comfort to anyone who used to make cheap crap for Wal-Mart, and the people who make it now and can’t afford to buy it themselves.

I’ve already covered companies who defer income earned abroad, so we won’t need to discuss that part of the bill in great depth. (Refresher: You’re a company headquarted in the U.S. Pay U.S. taxes or ship out.) The main argument for its passage is this: Why would you take a chance on job creation instead of pursuing a measure you know would make it happen? Either the Republicans have too much faith in free trade for their own good, or they just don’t want the Democrats to win.

By the way, for those who don’t get the title, watch the “Goobacks” episode of South Park. In fact, watch all the episodes. Sometimes they can be smarter than Congress.