Economic-union Books

When Doctors Join Unions, Grace Budrys, Cornell University Press, 177 pages, c. 1997, describes the inexorable forces driving doctors into classical unions as opposed to more traditional medical associations and societies.

Insightfully, Budrys shows that traditional private practice doctors, independent contractors, are joining with their salaried colleagues to sign up with unions even though only the salaried doctors are entitled to classical collective bargaining at this time. The motivation for both groups of doctors is similar. In private practice for-profit HMOs and managed care programs often delay or deny diagnostic studies and treatments prescribed by treating doctors. The doctors, untrained in negotiations, then find they have to challenge their own administrations to provide care. In government programs at the state, county, and federal levels, including Medicare and Medicaid, doctors find that burgeoning rules and regulations also prevent them from doing what patients need. This obstructionism unifies doctors, cuts across financial and remuneration incentives, and drives them toward unionization, especially towards the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD), affiliated with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest union in the AFL-CIO. Budrys states that the UAPD is "a harbinger signaling the emergence of new forms of collective representation" and concludes her book with these words about the UAPD: "I find it hard to imagine another organization that is in a better position to do so."

A reasonable history of the UAPD prior to 1985. Author chose to ignore the Agency Shop agreements with the State of California and other Public jurisdictions as the primary reasons for UAPD's continued existence. Doctors working for those entities must pay agency fees or dues in order to work.

More recently, author did not delve into findings of US Dept of Labor that UAPD was not a Union for purposes of collective bargaining in private sector. In fact, UAPD severed its private sector bargaining units in order to avoid scrutiny of procedures for electing its officers. Findings of DOL suggest violations of NLRA, Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin.

Author also did not choose to include decertification of UAPD as bargaining agent for doctors employed by Contra Costa County in 1995.

The one interesting innovation of UAPD, the UAPD IPA, was remarked upon only in casual passing and not provided any in-depth treatment.

Generally, book seems to be a subject author tired of during research and only published because the amount of time spent in research would otherwise have been wasted.

Peter Cappelli provides a case-study analysis of airline labor in this book. The material is historically relevant and is a good snapshot of labor from multiple perspectives. Unfortunately, the book is not a stand-alone. Readers unfamiliar with airline labor will need a primer before reading this book. The book also does not account for the recent sweeping changes in the airline industry. Despite its shortcomings, this work is a good compliment for collegiate studies in human resources, aviation, and labor unions.

Throughout the book, there is a careful discussion of planned economy versus free market guided economy. It carefully frames the discussion as follows. A partially planned economy may be a good idea say some writers. He shows that if the largely planned economies have consistently failed, how can some one argue that a little bit of planning will be successful. He shows how well known liberal economists that think a little bit of government planning will be good are really lazy thinkers. He refers to the powerful accuracy of the market place in preparing the economy for the future and discusses the place for government regulation. One day someone will write a book explaining how poorly boards of directors and top management forecast the future for planning purposes. But given the greater knowledge on the micro pieces of the economy by corporate officials and investors, their chances of foretelling the future is far greater than government officials. The market place works in amazing ways. He rejects the desire of some economists to see decline as the future of the American economy if governmental planning does not address the bogeyman created in the minds of the liberal views he discusses. He holds fast to the expectation that the impulses and incentives of the private economy assure long term growth. The federal government has a role in monetary policy, fiscal sensitivity to the business cycle and environmental regulation. Partnerships between governmental officials and industry have a record of doing more harm than good.

For the first 200 pages, the book does provide a sleepy review of the American Economy in comparison to Japan, German and Europe for the period of 1947 to 1989. Big picture comparative data does not provide much insight. In a review of the economy since WWII, there is an attempt at comparing the economy under all the presidential administrations. It leaves out what is happening in congress and at the Federal Reserve. An economist should know better than to ascribe excessive economic powers to the respective presidents. The process is drawn out to show Democratic bias for government directed planning for the economy and the Republican commitment to market directed forces. He takes the Clinton administration to task for its heavy handed bias for government planning.

The first printing of the book is 1995 and yet the data in the book stops at 1990. Did the author die or vegetate. What ever the reason potential buyers should have been warned of its dated status at first printing.

The book's subtitle "The Struggle for Supremacy in the 21st Century" appears to be a belated addendum to help sell a book with a very shallow purpose. The chapter on Government-Business Relationship is lifeless particularly in its treatment of research and development and technology. The author is oblivious to the applied technology engine that is drive economic progress in many areas-- thanks to the venture capital community. He reveals a bias that university originated research is what really counts. In the long-run it is the vital raw material, but the venture capital applications that draw on any country (even the former Soviet Union science) are what is so uniquely American.

The book is not well written. It has ponderous sentence and paragraph construction. On many subjects a laundry list of topics are brought up but not dealt with in any depth. There is very little in the book about the struggle for supremacy in the past, current or about the future struggle. There is a message that the American economy keeps on winning due to its free market driven status, but there is little stimulating thought about the future of much of anything.

The author's primary goal is to destroy the myth held by many that the American working class turned to the AFL because it does not regard itself as a class in opposition to the capitalist class. More of the myth is that workers do not find it necessary to participate in politics and they view capitalism kindly.

His means of making his case is to follow the various ups and downs of the shiploaders of Philadelphia and the culinary workers of New York City from 1913 into the 1930s. He clearly shows that when workers are strategically located and can control the relevant labor market that they can extract concessions from employers as long as those advantages remain. In both cases the fortunes of workers rose and fell many times.

A weakness of the book is that it does not explore the ramifications to workers' lives to operate in a direct action mode. What sort of hardships were endured and what were the effects on workers' thinking about capitalistic relations? The claim that in their actions lies class consciousness is not convincing. Obviously some solidarity is needed to effect a strike, but it seems fairly evident that the actions of the workers represented mostly a realistic assessment of their situation and of the best means to achieve economic gains. The actions of the workers could in no sense be termed revolutionary; they are presented in the context of a contest of economic wills within US capitalism.

There is no doubt that class consciousness would have to exist in a capitalistic society for the working class to make permanent headway. In many social democracies, workers have expressed themselves through political parties. That has not occurred in the US. The author does not mention that adverse judicial rulings of that era could be a reason that the political route was not taken by US workers. The IWW viewed direct action as a way of transforming capitalistic relations, but the author demonstrates that workers had little interest in IWW ideology.

Other than a few passing comments, the reader is hard-pressed to determine any applicability to the present era. Industrial relations have been completely transformed in the US with the passage of the NLRA and the rulings of the NLRB and the courts since the era under discussion. Furthermore, working class culture has embraced consumerism as the operant ideology. One wonders whether the author would like to mount an argument for worker class consciousness at this point in history. One suspects that such an argument would be even less convincing than one from the early 1900s. END

The author, a noted labor expert, after three decades of union decline contends that most workers essentially have no need to be represented by unions in today's economy. He maintains that most workers "demand" an "individual representation system." But these claims can been seen as contradicting worker experiences.

US workers were finally able to overcome the array of political and economic forces stacked against them with the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. Unions thereby interjected themselves into the governance of workplaces and forced the substitution of work rules and formal grievance procedures in place of capricious and unilateral employee relations, and in the process gained a measure of industrial justice for employees.

Now, according to Troy, workers don't need those protections. Curiously, the validity and effectiveness of Troy's individual labor relations system is based on the benign and/or self-correcting nature of markets which is a standard argument of laissez-faire capitalists. However, correctly functioning markets require participants who are relatively equal, certainly not subject to coercion like needing a regular paycheck, and can readily obtain adequate information about market workings and opportunities. That requirement is hardly met in US labor markets.

In addition, the rationality and newly found goodwill of managers are supposed to assure workers of fair dealings. Yet the huge consulting industry that guides management efforts in avoiding unionization at nearly all costs goes unmentioned by Troy. Due process in this new world of workplace harmony is the old paternalistic "open door" policy. Here the wise manager aids the employee in solving his personal "problems." This procedure is decidedly not an example of sharing workplace governance. Neutral arbitration is rejected as an unnecessary interference regardless of any enhanced justice possibilities.

Troy seems assured that a firm's investment in employees precludes unfair treatment. He neglects to indicate how wide is the stratum of employees whose value is so great as to be extended that protection. One suspects the coverage would be very narrow.

It should be noted, as the author does not, that the preamble to the Wagner Act states that individual employees are at a decided disadvantage in dealing with employers and in fact do not have actual freedom of contract. In addition a primary argument for the Wagner Act was its redistributive effects in maintaining strong economic demand. To Troy any such redistribution is unsound, whereas a distribution that rewards CEOs at rates hundreds of times greater than for workers is unquestioned as natural.

Troy's contention that workers overwhelming demand individual representation is not consistent with other contemporary literature. A recently published book, "What Workers Want," indicates that a majority of workers want actual representation in dealing with management. While they do not like the adversarialism of union-management dealings, they do not trust management to willingly surrender power in the workplace.

Professor Troy's book accurately notes that all is not well with unions. Beyond the severe decline, many unions exhibit one or more characteristics that are disturbing to workers such as distant and impenetrable bureaucracy, corruption, excessive dues and fees, ineffectiveness, etc. But, however imperfectly, unions have facilitated the voice of workers.

Professor Troy seems to accept the argument that competitiveness in markets supercedes other economic considerations such as workplace fair dealing. But there is nothing sacrosanct about the way markets favor the powerful. The NAFTA and the WTO are mechanisms that alter market balance in favor of investors and corporations. Unions are institutions that attempt to balance power relationships in workplaces as well as various markets.

It is a nineteenth century idea that laissez-faire capitalism is an optimum arrangement. America found out the hard way in the Great Depression just how dubious that idea is. Professor Troy does not make the case for substituting a rather nebulously conceived individual representation system for the collective representation of worker interests. His arguments simply fail to understand the empowerment that unions can bring to workers. Perhaps this book can be read as a reminder as to the fragility of worker rights.

At 109 pages, this book never promises to be more than a quickie overview of Lula da Silva and Brazil's Workers' Party (PT), and it is useful in providing a bit of background for those looking to learn more about Lula, who was elected Brazil's president in October 2002. But it suffers from serious deficiencies.

First, it provides no deep analysis, even of seminal events in the life of Lula and the development of the PT party. Key events are just mentioned in passing, sort of a chronological narrative, but never placed into context. For example, the death of Lula's first wife in childbirth in 1970, considered crucial to his views on public health care is noted in one sentence. His current wife is named, but her key role in Lula's life is never described. Similarly, there is not a single mention of Jose Dirceu, a Sao Paulo revolutionary turned politician who emerged as the PT's savviest politician and is now Lula's most trusted advisor. There is no discussion about the internal debates in the labor movement that led up to the founding of the PT in 1980. The assessment of President Fernando Collor's political problems is head-shakingly weak: "Collor it seemed, had alienated the traditional centers of power and patronage."

The second deficiency is the book's overt leftist agenda. That's fine, we might suppose, nothing wrong with an author having an axe to grind. The problem is that the leftist propaganda here gets in the way of accuracy. Over and over we learn about the perfidious Brazilian right (sometimes emphasized by spelling it "Right") and its links to the press and other forces aligned against the PT good guys. This is especially grating when it comes to the 1994 elections. We read several strange diatribes blaming neoliberalism (and even "USA fashions") for Fernando Henrique Cardoso's come from behind victory over Lula. The author seems to believe that Lula deserved to be elected, but that the sneaky Cardoso used a tricky political strategy to win. Similarly, the Brazilian press ("Few ordinary Brazilian knew what the word 'scruples' meant, and the mass media were not about to enlighten them.") and conservative evangelicals ("[evangelicals] set up self-help networks just as the Muslim fundamentalists do.") come in for a beating because they do not support the PT.

There are a few inaccuracies and oversights that further weaken the text: the map fails to show the state of Tocantins, although it was founded seven years before the book was published; on p.48 we read that the PT was "officially founded in August 1980", when in fact it was founded six months earlier. There is but one photo of Lula, and none of any other PT leaders, even in the six little sections giving profiles of notable PT members. Overall, the research that went into this book appears to be mostly secondary sources, press, and a couple of other, better books. This is not a bad book for those interested in the PT and who only have a few hours to spare, but it is too thin and one-sided for the serious analyst.

This is a great book on Cesar's Chavez's life and achievements for children aged between 8 to 12. It has so many beautiful drawings.I believe it isan appropriate book for 3 to 6 grade students to study on life of this great hero.

This book was originally four lectures delivered by Charles A. Beard at Amherst College in 1916. The fourth lecture was revised when the book originally appeared in 1922, to try to keep up with events. If anything, the relationship between economic interests and the ability of governments to reflect the general will of the governed suffered an agonizing setback after World War One, when constitutions which provided universal suffrage, soon to include women in many countries, were abrogated by fascist forms of totalitarian political control leading up to World War Two. In 1945 a long chapter was added to attempt to relate events to that point to our understanding of the political possibilities which still remain open to those who might support some new constitutions.

Economics used to be much more stable than governments, and the early philosophers who had opinions on the role of the governed in systems of government assumed that the components of the system would represent various economic interests. Aristotle gets credit as ` "the father of political science" because he took it out of the sphere of utopian idealism where Plato left it and placed it on the strong foundation of natural history.' (pp. 4-5). For an ideal society, even then, "A city ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars; and these are generally the middle classes." (p. 20). A father of the United States Constitution, James Madison, wrote in Number Ten of the Federalist, on `the protection of the different and unequal faculties of men for acquiring property. "From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results." ' (pp. 16-17).

There is a lot to be said for systems which can combine representatives of different interests and produce results which would be considered satisfactory to a majority. The form of political theory tending to demand this result most strongly is Rousseau's SOCIAL CONTRACT, which proposed giving a majority the power to impose "the general will." (p. 51). The French Revolution is considered an example of the inability of a vast number of people with no economic interests to run a society.

"Then followed the Revolution of violence and terror in which radical readers inflamed the disenfranchised by appeals to the gospel of Rousseau and to the proclamations of the bourgeois. To save themselves the latter had to resort to that other great source of authority, the sword. This instrument was wielded by Napoleon Bonaparte, a man who understood the relation of property to political power, and who, through his constitutions based on checks and balances, gave stability to bourgeois institutions." (p. 55). We still have some terror and proclamations of the bourgeois, but there seems to be little evidence than anyone is about to write a constitution with the checks and balances that can defeat the gospel that inspires those who are no longer fired up with zeal by the doctrines of Rousseau.

The United States was in a *nice country, if you can get it* category at the time of the American Revolution, with fundamental equality through land ownership available to those who were not involved in productive activities or being enslaved. Jefferson's choice of "the free-and-equal doctrine" (p. 58) was easier to proclaim in America because "There was no established clergy here. There was no titled aristocracy." (p. 57). Those who pictured themselves governing themselves in America had no reason to worry that "Jefferson, while justifying the revolt against George III, in fact challenged the rule of property which was guaranteed by the state constitutions drafted by his fellow revolutionists in that very epoch." (pp. 57-58).

This book is small, but there is some question if the simplicity with which it begins can lead to any enlightenment in the face of the complexity which we face. Chapter IV, The Contradiction and the Outcome (pp. 62-70), only leads to "In other words, there is no rest for mankind, no final solution of eternal contradictions." That idea comes from 1922, shortly before "No less drastic than its consequences has been a transformation in the functions of government, particularly in those which call for wholesale intervention in economic operations." (p. 71). Looking back in the spring of 1945 might have been more comforting than facing the end of 2003 with economic sanctions still in force against some political regimes which displease the global superpower more than any form of economic activity or illegal substance ever will. But the gross distortions of political economics in this book hardly extends beyond the restrictions which communism imposed on itself.

The first page of Chapter V, Economics and Politics in Our Revolutionary Age, mentions Lenin and Trotsky, "the early leaders of the Russian revolution." (p. 71). The problem they faced, representing a party which predated the vanguard of the economic system they intended to run, seems similar to the United States trying to establish a constitution for Iraq, a country in which people have interests which are not economic, the lack of security there now extending beyond the concern for property rights. Beard was even fearful. "But military men have, necessarily, a set of values which differ in many respects from civilian values; and the military interests, enlarged by universal conscription, will constitute a powerful influence in American affairs, with all that may involve amid the domestic and foreign contingencies of coming ages." (pp. 102-103). It is not likely that Beard was then worried about how long it might be before Iraqis act like civilians. Some might be wondering how long it will be before electricity will even allow economic activity.

Finnish economic situation in the world and its economic rank in the worl

This is a nice, clear and rather complete book. Coming from the "patent establishment", it obviously does not address very well the enormous abuses of the patent system, nor the easy and superficial way in which many patents (evergreening or not) are granted.