My final reply on card check on Thoma

BG Feng,
Doubling the minimum wage would cause all of 2 1/2% increase in the cost of GDP output -- and presumably to direct inflation (not counting other wages going up) -- but would give 40% of American workers a raise to $500/wk. Such a small added cost to products and services compared to the (relatively) huge boost in income makes it a overall winner for the 40%. Worried? Fine, prudent; add a dollar an hour every six months and when the smoke clears add another: virtually no risk at all. We had $10/hr (adjusted) under LBJ, so the extreme is likely where we are now, not where we should go.

The next 50%-up can begin the process of "chain-shifting" back the 15% of overall income lost to the top 3% by instituting sector-wide labor agreements, etc. 90% win. 7% stay the same. 3% lose what they never should have gotten.

Since low wage workers tend to serve low wage customers (e.g., fast food), low wage business might actually benefit. My neighborhood Mac had an uptick in business -- all seemingly from the third world immigrant end -- when the Illinois minimum wage jumped from $5.15/hr to $8/hr -- and fast food uses by far the greatest ratio of labor and minimum wage labor.
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Brian G.,
Under the Employee Free Choice Act workers retain the right to a secret ballot to DECERTIFY as well as certify their union. No record anywhere of an employer making it virtually impossible to decertify.

The current so-called "secret ballot" setup is setup to allow ownership to blockade a secret ballot so automatically that it is arguable that the whole set up violates the First Amendment right to (economic?) freedom of assembly -- by government forcing the (economic) assembly process through such a narrow strainer (should the opposite interest choose to make it so) that it is impossible to negotiate (no pun). If political assembly could be as easily blocked by gov specified conditions as easily placed in the path by the opposing interest, the First Amendment infringement would be too obvious.
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Icarus,
The WE who say they don't any longer need the US middle class are outnumbered at the polls by the US middle class who can use their political leverage to keep you from flooding OUR labor market with cheap competition. WE can also raise YOUR marginal tax rate if we don't like YOUR attitude. :-)--

Posted by: Denis Drew | Link to comment | March 02, 2009 at 10:01 AM