(
WSJ) Â Detroit was once AmericaÂs fourth largest city, though today large sections of its inner core are abandoned to the elements, and monuments like Michigan Central Station are returning to dust. Another emblem of civic decline is a plan to desert nearly half of DetroitÂs public schools so that it can afford to fulfill its teachers union contract.
The school district is facing a $327 million deficit and has already closed 59 schools over the last two years to avoid paying maintenance, utility and operating costs. Under a worst-case scenario released this week by Robert Bobb, an emergency financial manager appointed by the state to resolve the Detroit education fisc, the district will close another 70 of its remaining 142 schools to save $31.3 million through 2013.
ÂAdditional savings of approximately $12.4 million can be achieved from school closures if the District simply abandons the closed buildings, the proposal explains, purging costs like boarding up buildings, storage and security patrols.
Steven Wasko, a spokesman for Mr. Bobb, said that urban property sales have been difficult, in part because until recently the state board of education banned transactions with Âcompeting educational institutions like charter schools. Once buildings are deserted, even if the doors and windows are welded shut with protective metal covers, scavengers break in and dismantle them for copper wire, pipes and so on.
Under the emergency plan, consolidated high-school class sizes would increase to 62 by 2014, Âconsistent with what students would expect in large university settings. Yet under the terms of the Detroit Federation of Teachers contract, the district must pay bonuses for class enrollment over 35, thus imposing some $11.1 million in new costs through 2014.
Note that this dispensation carries about the same price tag as the school abandonment windfall: In other words, Detroit may end up destroying serviceable capital assets so it can pay its public workers more over the short term.
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OMG, I was telling someone the other day people who work for Grocery Stores and Fast Food need to organize. Auto workers did it and those auto companies had to pay profit sharing, fair wages, healthcare and even pensions. Now I'm not asking McD to give pensions or even 401K matching but they could pay better or give profit sharing when they make a profit. Sick days, vacation days, maternaty leave. It would be great if MCD and Walmart jobs turned out to be good paying jobs for blue collar workers. That would be a dream.
But, this is another example of why us voters are fucking idiots for voting Republican. We allowed Bush and Trump to pack the courts with right wing nut jobs.
The Trump Labor Board Is Making It Harder For Fast-Food Workers To Unionize | HuffPost
And what have we seen over the past few decades? We've seen a court that favors corporations over We the People every time.
The National Labor Relations Board is releasing a long-awaited rule that will make it harder for workers in fast food and other industries to bargain collectively, delivering another win for employers and a setback to worker groups.
The regulation will limit the scenarios under which corporations are considered âjoint employersâ alongside other companies they have a relationship with. For example, McDonaldâs would likely not qualify as a joint employer with its franchisees, making it tougher for workers at different franchised restaurants to join together as employees of McDonaldâs.
The new rule reverses a
determination made five years ago, when the board had a majority of
Democrats and tended to rule in favor of workers.
The previous, looser definition of joint employment had infuriated the fast-food industry because it put companies like McDonaldâs and Burger King potentially on the hook for labor violations in franchised restaurants. It also opened the door to workers across entire brands coming together to improve their working conditions and possibly unionize.
See folks, Republicans are anti worker. This is just one way they've held wages down. And they've been attacking unions hard since 2000. Just watch all the anti union Republicans that will chime in next.
For example, McDonaldâs would likely not qualify as a joint employer with its franchisees, making it tougher for workers at different franchised restaurants to join together as employees of McDonaldâs.
Wow!
A common sense rule.
It's not common sense. It's bullshit. McD workers should be able to organize collectively against McD. HQ and Franchise owners. This just hurt workers. But of course you love that. You don't really want workers making more. We remember you hated Big 3 auto workers for how much they were being paid.
You, and the Supreme Court, will always side with corporations over workers. You love it that the corporations own the Supremes and that means labor is fucked.
No coincidence as union numbers went from 35% of the American workforce down to 10%,
In 2013 there were 14.5 million members in the U.S., compared with 17.7 million in 1983. In 2013,
the percentage of workers belonging to a
union was 11.3%, compared to 20.1% in 1983. The rate for the private sector was 6.4%
Today only 10% of American workers are in unions. And ever since this attack on unions, wages have gone down. The middle class is not as well off today as they were when unions were strong. So don't blame Democrats for the struggling middle class when Republicans are anti labor and when corporations own Republicans.
They should be so pissed they go out and get a real job!!!
If they could then those companies would be forced to pay better. But the truth is probably that those are the best jobs available. Back when I was growing up you could go get a good paying union job with a high school degree. Those jobs are gone. MAGA? We were great when a guy like my dad (high school drop out foreigner) could go to Ford, get paid great, great benefits, pension, a union to protect him from being fired. Unions built the biggest and best middle class the world has ever seen. You trickle down Republicans have never created a middle class like we did. Also add in the GI Bill, social security and medicare. WE created the time when America was great for the masses. America was great before the new deal but the middle class and poor struggled. After the New Deal and unions the middle class boomed. Of course the top 1% didn't like it and they took back all those gains starting in the late 60's.
Are Wages Rising or Flat?
To hear politicians tell it, wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade, are the same as they were 45 years ago and are at a 60-year low. And all three claims could be correct, depending on what measure is used to justify it.
âThereâs not necessarily one way [to look at wages] and thatâs why you can get all the conflicting claims
The bottom line, as shown in the graph below
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is that real wages over the long-term peaked in the early 1970s, before generally falling over the next few decades and then beginning to climb back up starting in the mid-1990s.
President Donald Trump
said that âwages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade.â
During Obamaâs last four years in office the average weekly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers went up 4.9%. Over Obamaâs entire two-term tenure, wages were up 4.2%.
Over President George W. Bushâs eight years in office, wages also increased by 4.2%, and under President Bill Clinton, they went up by 6.4%. Those figures are up 2.3% under Trump, 3.9% under Obamaâs second term and 4% over his eight years in office.) HE WAS DEALING WITH THE GREAT RECESSION!!!
Now, letâs turn to Trumpâs second claim: âWages are rising at the fastest rate in many decades.â Thatâs not correct, but itâs close â itâs the fastest rate in about
one decade, when looking at nominal hourly wages year-to-year.
Last fall,
newspaper headlines touted this news. At the time the 12-month percentage change in
nominal average hourly earnings for all workers and
the rank-and-file topped 3% in August 2018 and has remained above 3% since, according to BLS. Thatâs the highest rate since it topped 3% in late 2008 and early 2009.
But this 3% nominal growth was significant. In recent years, as the economy recovered from the 2007-2009 Great Recession, economists have been bemoaning
slower wage growth than would be expected as other measures, such as employment, improved. âWage growth is definitively accelerating. Employers are now struggling to fill open positions and have no choice but to raise wages quickly.â
But 3% isnât the fastest nominal rate âin many decades,â as Trump said. In fact, the 12-month growth topped 4% for most of 2007, 2001 and 1998. The current growth, Shambaugh said, is âstill a little below ⌠what you think a roaring economy might get you.â The growth is âgood,â he said, but ânot unprecedented, not historically great.â
Thereâs also support for the presidentâs claim that wages are ârising the fastest for the lowest income Americans.â
The EPI report, however, noted the sizable percentage gains at the upper percentiles over a longer period of time, such as since the Great Recession, and it found greater 2017-2018 gains among low-wage workers in states that had increased the minimum wage.
workers are getting a smaller share of the economic pie than they used to.â
If we want to know if wages are higher or lower than they used to be or how theyâve grown, weâd look at the inflation-adjusted figures, as we did above. Itâs a reminder to voters that these talking points about wages can be more complicated than they appear, and they donât always tell the whole story.
