Economic Update: US Labor Unions: Past, Present, Future

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THIS WEEK'S TOPICS (w/timestamps):
00:51 - Announcements, upcoming appearances (Wolff in Los Angeles);
03:24 - United Airlines' flier abuse;
08:08 - College/university as a gamble for students, students are now avoiding the debt often by not getting higher education at all or turning to other exploitative systems to pay for it;
12:37 - Cuomo's flawed "free college" tuition plan;
16:27 - Automation in vehicular transit: self-driving vehicles end millions of jobs;
21:33 - Public-private partnerships: how big investors plan to cash in on Trump infrastructure plans;
30:12 - MAIN TOPIC W/SPECIAL GUEST: Frank R. Annunziato on US Labor Unions today.
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[justgivemethetruth]

This has evolved into an amazingly good podcast/video series. Thanks for your amazing dedication.

[itzenormous]

Great analogy around 26:00 concerning Mr. Fink.

[james]

Professor wolff should talk about workers councils and communes.

[tomjones]

Need to move the microphone up volume....

[ronnyron]

Unions in the USA are on deaths bed because the leadership thinks capitalism is a good thing. Ask yourself this question. What Union leader would help it's members occupy a closing factory and confiscate it so the workers could run it?

[polferiferus]

It's revelatory to know that there are people like Wolff who, though not having all the answers, care deeply enough to devote so much energy to asking thoughtful questions, and discussing and diagnosing our very dire predicaments, those that the greatest majority of us are facing. I don't come here seeking *the solutions*, as solutions are only proved after the fact by their relative success; but rather to grapple with 1. diagnosing _what the problems are, _ and 2. deciding which courses are the best to _try._ Nothing is ever guaranteed.  People like Wolff are approaching this in good faith, and doing what they can to help the society we all have a stake in by identifying what is barbaric and what is humane, and then navigate with us _towards the latter, _ and away from former.

[StephenKuehn]

3:24 United Airlines -- as an example of capitalistic organizations' focus on profit, not service nor well-being
8:08 College/university -- as a gamble for students who may not have better chances in life because of it -- students are now avoiding the debt often by not getting higher education at all or turning to other exploitative systems to pay for it without the debt
12:37 "Free" College -- Gov Chris Cuomo (D-NY)'s new Hillary-Clinton-endorsed "free tuition" college bill and its (deliberate) failings
16:27 Automation in vehicular transit -- millions of taxi/"sharing economy" drivers and transport truckers to lose their jobs in near future; no capitalist plan to do more for people than pocket the profits; automation COULD be liberation
21:33 Public-Private Partnerships buzzwording -- ruling class avoids taxes in every which way, starves government of needed funds, then advocates like Larry Fink (Black Rock) suggest they can partner with government to rebuilt infrastructure, etc. -- but only in exchange for profits from user fees (like tolls)
---- second half interview
30:12 Frank R. Annunziato

[PapaMagnum]

Stay alive and stay well. Knowing what the US government did to Eugene Debs and others like him probably mean that you're being watched.

[ThirdEyeLove]

The only economist who can keep my attention. Thanks Professor, keep up the good work :)

[PoliticalEconomy]

Can you do a video on institutional economics?

[PJVila]

Prof. Wolff: I have great respect for you. Please note that Dr. Dao was of Vietnamese heritage, not Chinese. Also, the two children who wore leggings, were removed b/c of a dress code violation- not b/c of overbooking (this is even more ridiculous considering they were children of employees and the dress code applies to employees themselves) . These details should not detract from your central thesis, however, I thought I would mention them for the sake of clarity.

[thedhdnetwork]

tell the sound guy to turn it up a couple notches

[Nikolay_Grigoryev]

Please adjust the volume of the recording with the intro. Thank you

[OrnluWolfjarl]

Dr. Wolff, the volume is a bit low on this particular video.

[JohnnyBoiProductions]

I support the Justice Democrats. Could you do a segment about them? Would love to know what you think.

[davebass]

At tax time it is depressing to know that so much of our blood sweat and money go to such destructive and dead end gamblers addiction to power and greed. The situation is coming to a tipping point as people come to realize who is feeding the beast.

[jasperbhogal]

I love this series you guys are great. Wolf you've changed my conceptual scheme. But you intro music is dead

[dmike]

Here's my two cents about unions. From my experience of working with them, I think the biggest problem is they do not function democratically. Unions need to be democratized. A lot of the people who dislike unions don't understand that their whole purpose is to advocate on behalf of the workers, but how can they do that if the workers aren't allowed to create their own union contract? All of the provisions in union contracts should be agreed upon by the workers from day one. It's frustrating when you're handed a union contract that was already made for you and you can't have any say in its provisions. Its just the big union bosses negotiating with your employer behind closed doors, and since they aren't even employed by the company, they don't have much incentive not to compromise with the employer. How are we supposed to know the union isn't in cahoots with the employer, or with organized crime? We need to erase the distinction between the workers and the union and make the workers their own representatives.

[kayceebird]

The story not being told here about the labor unions is that they were their own worst enemy. My personal experience with the service workers' union in Chicago left me with a bad taste. My husband was deeply involved in the Teachers' Union so when he tried to leave teaching for the more lucrative HVAC profession, he found himself blacklisted by the pipefitters' union. We had to move to Louisiana so he could find work. The Unions were corrupt and didn't care about the people.

[guillermorivas]

The interviewee's generation was heavily impacted by McCarthyism. Even though he acknowledges that the Communists and the Socialists were instrumental in the 1930s-40s to get people to join unions. It's like Dr. Wolff says about the US, "we've had for 50 years a forbidden approach to question capitalism's structure." Occupy Wall Street was the first political response from the Left to critique Capitalism since the 1930s. Today's youth (18-30 years of age) are pro democratic socialism (social democracy) as we haven't really bought into the bogus propaganda of the past and we're living in uncertain economic times which begs us to question, "can we do better than capitalism?"

The labor movement is pretty much a vestige of the 20th century. Nothing like it was before when it had muscle. There is blame to go around for everyone but the real culprit is that the American people bought into the notion that unions are bad and detrimental to your economic well-being in the long haul. People are slowly embracing the notion of a higher minimum wage, guaranteed paid days off of work for parental leave, tuition free college, socialize medicine, and a basic universal income. etc. We have YET to see people coalesce significantly around unions in a comprehensive manner. You could tell by the interviewee's facial expression that he's lost hope in the labor movement but he will also not fight for it. All he wants to do is live his life in his relative comfort that his pensions allows. Sad to see such people relinquish themselves to just say, "c'est la vie, that's how it is. I am just glad I got mine."

On a side note, the US is not privy to extremism/radicalism from both sides of the aisle. It'll tolerate the right-wing wackos more but won't sell its soul to them. We can see in the last 6 months, big wigs from the far-right have been undermined, fired, or demoted -- i.e., Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulous, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Alex Jones, and Rush Limbaugh. This purge of the extremists is also coming for the far-right.