NYT's Nate Cohn: Trump won by trading places with Obama -- trade (union) back

Trump won by trading places with Obama.

NYT's Nate Cohn: "Just as Mr. Obama’s team caricatured Mr. Romney, Mr. Trump caricatured Mrs. Clinton as a tool of Wall Street" ... "At every point of the race, Mr. Trump was doing better among white voters without a college degree than Mitt Romney did in 2012 — by a wide margin."

"[Mr. Obama] would have won Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin each time even if Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee had been severed from their states and cast adrift into the Great Lakes."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html

  * * * * * * * * * * * *

America should feel perfectly free to rebuild labor union density one state at at time -- making union busting a felony.  Republicans will have no place to hide.

Suppose the 1935 Congress passed the NLRA(a) intending to leave any criminal sanctions for obstructing union organizing to the states.  Might have been because NLRB(b) conducted union elections take place local by local (not nationwide) and Congress could have opined states would deal more efficiently with home conditions -- or whatever.  What extra words might Congress have needed to add to today's actual bill?  Actually, today's identical NLRA wording would have sufficed perfectly.

Suppose, again, that under the RLA (Railroad Labor Act -- covers railroads and airlines, FedEx) -- wherein elections are conducted nationally -- that Congress desired to forbid states criminalizing the firing of organizers -- how could Congress have worded such a preemption (assuming it was constitutionally valid)?  Shouldn't matter to us.  Congress did not!  :-)

Note well: it is not mostly the organizer's job loss to be punished; it is much more the interference with all employees' bargaining power -- working them for less.

For more musings on what and how else to dump the Trump boys by banging loudly and everywhere on the labor union drum, see here (work permanently in progress): http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2016/12/wet-backs-and-narrow-backs-irish.html

Re: The people mostly likely to care about who uses women’s restrooms aren’t women

Re:  The people mostly likely to care about who uses women’s restrooms aren’t women
By Danielle Paquette December 21
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/21/the-people-mostly-likely-to-care-about-who-uses-womens-restrooms-arent-women/?utm_term=.386204a64ef8#comments


Women are afraid to get on the elevator with a man they don't know.  The commenter with the bad co-ed bathroom experience is more like the real experience.  Ditto for the Time Magazine story of a entire swimming team and coaches forever afraid to use the female locker room once a man has been discovered there -- jamming a single shower instead.  Male looking men are going to be much more visible than (often invisible) trans women.
http://time.com/4324687/even-in-liberal-communities-transgender-bathroom-laws-worry-parents/ 

It doesn't matter if half the women don't care about a trans female in the ladies -- it matters if half do.  The matter is decided completely on the basis of the subjective experience of women -- just like it is when male officers frisk females with the warped idea that they are only doing their job (almost all trained it's alright I believe -- criminal law makes no such exception).
http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2012/08/taking-male-leo-hands-of-females-late.html

I am not barred from the female bathroom for fear of crime.  It is a matter of intimate privacy before anything else.

Surprised to seem almost universal approval comments on WaPo -- mostly resentful and snobby.  Opposite experience on Yahoo News where first 100 out of 4,000 regularly over 90% opposed, mostly vehemently and at length.  ???

Wish you guys wouldn't tear up the fabric of the world from one end when the next president of the US threatens to tear it up from the other.  The specter of Obama supporting trans female boy (cannot have the op under 18) in the high school girls locker room (!!!) may have been the last straw for a lot of Trump voters.  The reaction there (vehement and unyielding) may be much more like what to expect if they try to really push this far and wide.  DNA, DNA, DNA.

ADDENDUM
What I call the 12-16-18, male-to-females are like radically altered eight year old boys.  Near puberty their little peanut sized testes are carefully watched (testosterone is a one-way street and changes irreversible).  When they double in size the child is hit with puberty suppressing drugs.  At 16 they start female hormones.  At 18 they get the operation -- which constructs a vagina and saves some sexual nerves so they can get aroused.  

Suppressing puberty keeps the males from getting as tall or as big boned as well.  These are rare enough and they don't want to be noticed -- they want to live like women.  

The 12-16-18s are what most free use bathroom advocates imagine we will find in the ladies, I imagine.  Harmless enough if that were it.  But Bruce would never have been welcome -- and neither big boned, big muscled, facial hair (?) and deep voice Caitlyn.

FWIW, according to the book (I'm still at the beginning) When The Opposite Sex Isn't: Sexual Orientation In Male-to-Female Transgender People, Oct 15, 2008, by Sandra L. Samons, the typical M-T-F (still with male parts) is repulsed by male on male sex -- but desires men the way women do (and desires to get a vagina). 

For adults, of course, we want the female-to-males in the men's room -- where else?  But for school children it should be completely subjective.  If the high school boys cannot handle an f-t-m in the boy's room that's the way it has to be.  

I'm not looking for rights in favor or laws against right away.  I'm for letting common sense try to work it through where possible -- it's a new situation.  I fear Obama's and Bernie's and Hillary's blithe willingness to intrude boys (can't have operation until 18) into girl's high school locker rooms may have been the last straw for many a Trump turning voter (keep it up and I might go Repub).

"(A) group of 324 Swedish transsexuals for an average of more than 10 years after gender reassignment with controls and found that transsexuals had 19 times the rate of suicide ... "
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/opinion/sunday/richard-a-friedman-how-changeable-is-gender.html?_r=0  They break your heart - reports of transgenders going to sleep praying they wake up in a different body.  But you can't tear up the most delicate part of everybody else's social fabric for one out of three hundred.  (Or is it much less -- same Times article: " ... transsexualism [defined as those who want to change or do change their body] is very rare — a recent meta-analysis estimated the prevalence at about 5 per 100,000 ... " ???)

First read should probably be: Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family, Paperback – June 7, 2016
by Amy Ellis Nutt, a Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post science writer.  The Samons book is a $50 used paperback by a therapist for therapists (why I'm going slow -- very dense).

Wet backs and narrow backs (Irish immingrants' native born kiddies)

We already covered that farm workers are exempted from federal protection of labor organizing -- therefore may be legally covered by state labor laws -- IOW state not subject to assertion of federal preemption.

Fears of a Trump loaded NLRB revoking recently recognized employee status of college student research and teaching assistants may be tempered by the opportunity that would create to cover same with state labor law instead (including conducting certification elections).

Wet backs and narrow backs -- complementary legislative and public support capturing: heavy (nay, desperate) determination on the part of wet; heavy education and full middle class expectations on the part of narrow who may demand nothing less than full state/federal parallel labor law, like California's (35 pp pdf).  Wet appeals to blue collar supporters; narrow appeals to academic liberals (who mostly empathize less with low skilled labor).

Upshot: even in a state as progressive as Oregon farm, farm workers missed out of state organizing protection by one vote in the legislature in 1989 and as far as I know it never came up again.  Put wet and narrow together: no repeat defeat.

Mmm.  Next category: any category at all left out of fed organizing coverage -- e.g., Uber and Lyft drivers, etc.  Teamsters -- who are great -- working for them through some regular channels on West Coast now.

Brainstorm!  "FedEx Express – unlike those other companies – is not covered by the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) ...  the RLA – like the NLRA – protects the right of employees to form, join, and be represented by a union, it is far more difficult for employees to organize under the RLA than it is under the NLRA. As a result, only a small segment of the FedEx Express workforce – some 5,000 pilots – is unionized; almost 100,000 truck drivers, package handlers, dispatchers, and other FedEx Express ground transportation employees are not (94% union free)."
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/fedex-rla-loophole/introduction-the-fedex-loophole.html 

Dream of Fedex employees in protected states carrying on modern day "correspondence societies" via social media, working up to organizing national certification, someday -- national election required by RLA: a never ending media story.  Freedom of speech as well as of association at stake in protecting "correspondence societies."  (650 planes, 45,000 trucks; 550 planes, 60,000 trucks -- Fedex, UPS respectively.)

Hey, Fedex folks could be the clearest example for the general public of how completely non-workable fed labor law can be.  94% non-unionized in private economy means the rest of us cannot be much better off.  

Of course, wet/narrow accomplished state organizing protection would not be as lacking in enforcement power (toothless!) as fed so-called protection.  Otherwise, why bother?  Just two quick aspects.  Mandating certification elections upon a finding of union busting, seems to me the most common sense, almost seamless way to safeguard organizing -- once we get control of Congress back.  The fed cannot preempt a workable state certification setup with a nonenforceable certification setup -- not with a First Amendment right to commercial association at stake -- making a possible opening for states to pass mirror state union certification processes for all workers (like California's farm workers law)? 

Suppose states do a mirror of the fed setup -- then, suppose Congress gets around to actually establishing actual enforcement.  Pretty ticklish having state setups whose moment-to-moment (preemption) legitimacy depends on the latest judicial reading of latest federal effectiveness/in-effectiveness).  No deep reason not to have parallel state laws (er, uh, presumably of the enforceable species). 

Agenda for less progressive states: Imagine if a state government prohibited certain businesses from bargaining with labor unions.  Couldn't constitutionally of course: First Amendment.  Freedom of association does not just protect the right to freely associate commercially, but to to bargain.

20 states prohibit their governments from collectively bargaining with some of most employees.  Constitutionally plausible -- and courts approved -- excuses: govs not disciplined by free markets, gov unions include payers of taxes, etc.  Okay; but there is a bargaining process specifically tailored to fairly re-balance gov-union firepower: compulsory arbitration.  And a First Amendment right is at stake.  Time for union supporters to start banging on courtroom doors over this.

For more progressive states: Suppose the 1935 Congress passed the NLRA(a) intending to leave any criminal sanctions for obstructing union organizing to the states.  Might have been because NLRB(b) conducted union elections take place local by local (not nationwide) and Congress could have opined states would deal more efficiently with home conditions -- or whatever.  What extra words might Congress have needed to add to today's actual bill?  Actually, today's identical NLRA wording would have sufficed perfectly.

Suppose, again, that under the RLA (Railroad Labor Act -- covers railroads and airlines, FedEx) -- wherein elections are conducted nationally -- that Congress desired to forbid states criminalizing the firing of organizers -- how could Congress have worded such a preemption (assuming it was constitutionally valid)?  Shouldn't matter to us.  Congress did not!  :-)

 Note well: it is not mostly the organizer's job loss to be punished; it is much more the interference with all employees' bargaining power -- working them for less.

THE MONEY IS THERE SOMEWHERE

You can't get something from nothing but, believe it or not, the money is there, somewhere to make $10 jobs into $20. Bottom 45% of earners take 10% of overall income; down from 20% since 1980 (roughly -- worst be from 1973 but nobody seems to use that); top 1% take 20%; double the 10% from 1980.

Top 1% share doubled -- of 50% larger pie!

One of many remedies: majority run politics wont hesitate to transfer a lot of that lately added 10% from the 1% back to the 54% who now take 70% -- who can transfer it on down to the 45% by paying higher retail prices -- with Eisenhower level income tax. In any case per capita income grows more than 10% over one decade to cover 55%-to-45% income shifting.

Not to mention other ways -- multiple efficiencies -- to get multiple-10%'s back:
squeezing out financialization;
sniffing out things like for-profit edus (unions providing the personnel quantity necessary to keep up with society's many schemers;
snuffing out $100,000 Hep C treatments that cost $150 to make (unions supplying the necessary volume of lobbying and political financing;
less (mostly gone) poverty = mostly gone crime and its criminal justice expenses.

IOW, labor unions = a normal country.

"Third gear" doctrine of state labor law?

Asserting that a state labor law setups (replicating) conducting union certification elections and (uniquely) forcing employers to actually bargain with the union -- do not violate federal preemption on the theory that you cannot preempt something (enforceable) labor law with nothing (unenforceable) ...

... (assuming this holds up in court) this sets up a very tricky future for the courts. Every time federal labor law morphs -- the enforceability and practicability of fed law might need to be judged all over again to decide whether state setups may continue to operate (not be preempted).  Pretty wacky state of things.

Given that states may add enforceablity to current federal law (e.g., by making union busting a felony);
Given that states may add to their current separate certification setups (today, for farm workers) any classification that the NLRB combs out of federal definition of employees (tomorrow, graduate student instructors and college athletes -- NOW THAT IT OCCURS TO US THAT WE CAN DO THIS);
Given that states can replicate the entire federal setup as long as the federal setup remains a road to nowhere ...

... it seems state and federal labor laws could be approaching pretty closely meshed.

For the sake of workability it might make sense for courts to allow, for instance, states to set a 7 day election requirement to for an election after card check -- to supplement a (theoretical here) 30 day federal requirement.

Could call this a "third-gear" doctrine.

At this point there might not be much light showing between state and federal labor law jurisdiction.  Maybe courts could bring on the final meshing by, say, not allowing states to overrule a finding in favor of certification -- but allowing states to overrule a finding against certification: a relative of can't preempt something with nothing.

Not perfectly clear doctrine, but we have to do something.

ANY CATEGORY OF WORKERS SUPPOSEDLY LEFT OUTSIDE THE FED SETUP BECOMES ELIGIBLE FOR STATE SETUP!

FLASH:
Just read that Trump stacked NLRB could walk back teaching and research assistants category as employees.  Hey; we know states may conduct their own union certification setups for farm workers because farm workers were left off FDR's ship.
https://onlabor.org/2016/12/09/what-will-a-trump-nlrb-mean-for-graduate-teaching-and-research-assistants/

HEY! THAT MEANS THAT ANY CATEGORY OF WORKERS DEFINED OUTSIDE THE FED SETUP IS ELIGIBLE FOR SEPARATE STATE LABOR ORGANIZING SETUP!!!!!!!!!!!!

State labor setup could add something oh, so every day practicable.  State NLRB substitute could MANDATE certification elections upon a finding of union busting.  States should also take union busting as seriously in criminal law as fed takes taking a movie in the movies -- that FBI warning on your DVD comes alive and you are gone for couple of years if caught.

But mandating certification elections has so much more an everyday, natural businesslike feel that it could sail relatively smoothly through state legislatures.  Nota bene: Wisconsin mandates re-certification of public employees unions annually (51% of membership required; not just voters) -- nothing too alien about mandating union elections.

State set up might ACTUALLY go the last practical mile and actually force employers to actually bargain with certified unions -- which refusal to bargain remains the last impassable barrier associated with the fed no-enforcement mechanism.  See Donald Trump in Vegas.

When I was in San Francisco a decade or so ago a union demonstration was going on in front of a hotel on Fourth Street all day, every day: "San Francisco should beware (chanted the leader); Hotel Marriot is unfair (membership responded) -- Hotel Marriot, you're no good; sign that contract like you should."

A concierge I was taxicabing to work one morning, later, told me that part of the deal to allow the Marriot build was to allow a union. Good luck.

State setups to conduct union organizing can illustrate for the rest of the country the shape of real labor market protection.  Limit federal definition of employee: wonderful state and local opportunity.

ADDENDUM: TO BUTTRESS MY ASSERTION STATES MAY FILL IN FOR MISSING FED UNION BUSTING PROTECTION

CLIPPED FROM A WASHPOST STEVEN PEARLSTEIN COLUMN:
Under Trump, red states are finally going to be able to turn themselves into poor, unhealthy paradise
By Steven Pearlstein December 4 at 9:34 AM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/04/democrats-can-look-forward-to-the-coming-republican-era-being-a-disaster-for-republican-voters/


TO BUTTRESS MY ASSERTION THAT STATES CAN FILL IN FOR MISSING FEDERAL SANCTIONS AGAINST UNION BUSTING:
"If the Trump administration makes good on its promise to pull back on environmental regulation, states can step up their own regulation of power plant emissions and oil and gas drilling.  To combat climate change, they could impose a refundable carbon tax or, as California has done, create a cap and trade system for carbon emissions.

"If Republicans repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, many of those same regulations could be written into state law, either by legislatures or by state banking, securities and insurance regulators and consumer protection agencies. Taking a page from Louis Brandeis and the Progressive era, states could also provide incentives for the creation of state-chartered mutual banks, insurance and investment companies, financial institutions that are owned by their customers.  The few mutuals that still exist offer competitive products and superior service at lower cost, all of it with less risk that the Wall Street mega-firms have turned finance into a head-I-win, tails-you-lose casino.

"Nobody expects a Republican Congress and White House will move to increase the federal minimum wage but there is nothing to prevent states from raising theirs. Nor is there anything preventing states from restoring within their borders many of the workers rights that the Republican Congress and President-elect Donald Trump are poised to eliminate.

"And if the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission give the all-clear signal for corporate mega-mergers, as you can expect they will, attorney generals from blue states can ban together to file federal and state antitrust suits to block them. The attorney generals could also take a page from the playbook of the Chamber of Commerce and other conservative activists and use of the federal courts to try endlessly delay or block regulatory actions or repeals proposed by the Trump administration."


Our US labor market is the only market where market muscle can be used with impunity to squeeze the other side in the bargaining even though such is officially recognized in law as illegal (NLRB lacks enforcement power). Our US labor market is the only modern, first world labor market where union busting happens -- doesn't exist over there or over there as far as I know -- just not in the culture (scabs; what's that?).

Life satisfaction = paycheck satisfaction = life satisfaction -- or is it the other way around?

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