Final

Question 1

Describe George Lakey’s theory of “flexicurity” – describe the FLEX and the SECURITY parts

Answer 1

Flexicurity Denmark borrowed from Netherlands; flex part = spread to rest of Scandinavia’ employers have a lot of freedom to hire and fire; if company is not doing well, they can let ppl off, more easily than in Germany or France; security part = that workers are guaranteed training, job counseling– not necessarily same job, but strong supports; win for employers and employees

Question 2

How was social movement mobilization portrayed in Lakey?

Answer 2

Norway and Sweden were deeply polarized, intensely conflictual societies in 1920s and 30s until compromise was reached

Question 3

Describe what led to job-security councils (from article, “What If Getting Laid Off Wasn’t Something to Be Afraid Of?”, Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, October 25, 2017)

Answer 3

Job-security councils arose out of conflict

• early days of the 20th century, unions in Sweden were very militant, frequent strike and labor disturbances.
• companies enter into collective bargaining agreements with unions
• 70s: employers started to lay off workers and outsource jobs
• Unions demand employers do something in exchange for laying off workers–> job-security councils
• “For unions to accept the idea that people get laid off from work, they need to know that people who are laid off get good support”

Question 4

Could the US adopt measures like job security councils?

Answer 4

It’s unlikely, even if doing so would make the economy healthier. employers don’t have pressure from workers’ organizations that companies in Sweden have

Question 5

Describe how Sweden feels a/b automation

Answer 5

“In Sweden, if you ask a union leader, ‘Are you afraid of new technology?’ they will answer, ‘No, I’m afraid of old technology,’ The jobs disappear, and then we train people for new jobs. We won’t protect jobs. But we will protect workers.”

Question 6

Nordic model emergence, 1920s, 30s

Answer 6

Sweden and Norway were intensely polarized in 20s and 30s; communists and Nazis; Nordic model came about because of creative responses to that polarization

• polarization led to progress in Norway and Sweden
• One thing about Nordic movements got significant reform cuz they understood importance of struggle for power; instead of focusing on reforms through parliament, they prioritized building strong labor movement in reliance of other forces and then being able to get candidates elected to Parliament; what preceded this was grassroots nonviolent organization
• Once power was claimed, then it was possible to set up basic institutions of Nordic model

Question 7

Germany and Sweden in 20s were both racially homogenous, white and Christian; suffered in Great Depression; why did Sweden go social democratic and Germany went Nazi?

Answer 7

• Argument that German left was divided; opened the door for Hitler to come to power; Norway, unified left fought against fascists, included workers and middle class, farmers; focus was not on symptoms but on the cause of the mass, which was the dominance of the economic elite

Question 8

Describe the working poor (Ehrenreich)

Answer 8

• Job is NOT a ticket out of low-income standing; all dead-end jobs, pretty unusual for ppl to use these jobs as a launching pad
• Culture of the working poor, ppl who work but are still poor; culture is invisible but out there, and ppl get stuck in it
• Housing struggle; she had to find housing and discovered that wages didn’t follow supply and demand, but housing prices went up, and low-wage ppl had to pay high rents

Question 9

How does the American South drive the low-wage economy?

Answer 9

• through hatred of unions and voter suppression, Northern Republicans are adopting Southern norms, and wages are falling
• legacy of slavery and racial segregation

Question 10

What are the two employer tactics to block union recognition?

Answer 10

CARROT strategies: identifying with the boss (maybe you’ll be one some day)
STICK strategies: drug testing or purse searches (intimidation), union mentioning gets jumped on

Question 11

What has been the manufacturing trend in the US from the 80s?

Answer 11

Manufacturing has continued to move to the South, and factory workers’ wages have gone south as well. decline of Northern wages to Southern levels i.e. Walmart, auto industry; right to work laws in northern Republican states

Question 12

What aspects of the Deep South are causing wages to fall despite all the new jobs?

Answer 12

the region’s distinctive absence of legislation and institutions that protect workers’ interests i.e. no state minimum wage laws and very low union rates

Question 13

What two things will lead to labor movement renewal?

Answer 13

Partnership–> Expansive Integration (labor is not in position of weakness)
Mobilization–> Activist Integration (Nordic model)

Question 14

What is Justice for Janitors?

Answer 14

a model for low-wage worker organizing; nat’l strategy developed by Service Employees International Union; focus on urban targets and local mobilization; coalition-building

Question 15

How did Justice for Janitors work?

Answer 15

Latino and African-American workforces; mobile jobs that couldn’t be outsourced; borrowed from civil rights model–> Public support is built through coalition building and social justice framing; Broad range of tactics: Legal strategies i.e. suing companies, demonstrations, civil disobedience

Question 16

Explain the concept of “coalition spillover” in the context of Justice for Janitors

Answer 16

Once janitors were organized, coalition spilled over into other campaigns like living wage campaigns; catalyst for urban labor revitalization; Janitors in LA were predominately Latino, which contributed to community mobilization as a whole

Question 17

What Justice for Janitors and campaigns like them did is that through ___ ___, ____ ___, etc. was to build ____ labor movements; activist presence in cities

Answer 17

coalition building, grassroots mobilizing; urban

Question 18

What is alt-labor?

Answer 18

Broad range of other groups advocating for workers
Jobs with Justice, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Fight for $15, National Day Laborers Network (NDLON), United We Dream, worker centers for those not represented by unions, etc. now these are working together with unions; natural alliance, some ppl can’t join unions

Question 19

What is LA County Federation of Labor? industry organizing examples

Answer 19

Central labor council; Coordinated new, coalition-based union strategies in LA; health care, hotels, building services; leaders came from United Farm Workers/Cesar Chavez w/social movement unionism strategy

Question 20

central labor councils

Answer 20

local body of AFL-CIO; most of vitality were in central labor councils in major urban centers that most local unions belong to and play a role in supporting organizing efforts, along with coalition partners

Question 21

List examples of coalition partners

Answer 21

religious, immigrant rights, community organizations, worker centers, local political groups, LGBT, students

Question 22

What are employer tactics to block union recognition

Answer 22

1) firing discharges = illegal; management consulting say that though it is illegal, it will produce a chilling effect on organizing; it’s worth it; “we don’t advise it, but here’s what will happen” and 2) captive audience meetings = when employer calls meeting for all employees; purpose is to convince you that unions are a bad things and will disrupt family environment of firm; take money out of your paycheck in union dues; business will fail if you unionize; problem unions face is that companies have control over employees; testimonies from previous employees; LEGAL!

Question 23

What is something new with groups focused on labor/social justice issues?

Answer 23

they are integrating climate change into their work

Question 24

NYS Climate Jobs Program: “In building a strong, fair economy based on clean energy, New York State should give special attention” to whom?

Answer 24

workers and communities negatively impacted by the transition away
from high-carbon industries and sectors

Question 25

What benefits does the NYS Climate Jobs Program suggest?

Answer 25

wage and health benefit replacements, “bridge to retirement” funding for workers near retirement age, re-training and education
support for workers who would like to shift to other sectors

Question 26

What 3 sectors does the NYS Climate Jobs Program target?

Answer 26

1. Building Sector (retrofitting buildings)
2. Transportation Sector (high-speed rail lines, bus routes)
3. Energy Sector (solar and wind)

Question 27

What is “educationism?”

Answer 27

both poverty and rising inequality are consequences of America’s failing education system; As public-school systems foundered, so did the earning power of middle class; if we improved our schools, Graduation rates and wages would increase, poverty and inequality would decrease

Question 28

What debunks educationism?

Answer 28

while the American people have never been more highly educated, only the wealthiest have seen large gains in real wages; only ~20% of student outcomes can be attributed to schooling, whereas a/b 60 % are explained by family circumstances—most significantly, income.

Question 29

Hanauer: “We have confused a symptom—___ ___—with the underlying disease: ___ ___

Answer 29

educational inequality; economic inequality

Question 30

What is the trend for minimum-wage activism?

Answer 30

in the absence of chance to change federal minimum wage, sector-specific efforts are underway for certain industries

Question 31

Who benefit from sector-specific wages?

Answer 31

middle-income workers

Question 32

What is the Win-Win Fallacy?

Answer 32

In Silicon Valley, you can make something lucrative and good for the world; social justice and the concentration of power would somehow increase in tandem; suggests that capitalists are more capable than any gov’t of solving the underdogs’ problems

Question 33

What is missing form the Win-Win Fallacy?

Answer 33

the reality of social classes, of conflicting interests, of economic and political inequality, gov’t role and gov’t policies in creating social programs, public education, progressive taxation, minimum wages, that offer solutions; rather than wealthy entrepreneurs kidding themselves that they can use their own self-interest as a vehicle for solving major social problems

Question 34

What could help solve wage stagnation (“Win-Win Fallacy”) by preventing the capture of the gains from growing productivity?

Answer 34

tighter regulations on trading, higher taxes on financiers, stronger labor protections to protect workers from layoffs and pension raiding by private equity owners, and incentives favoring job-creating investment over mere speculation

Question 35

What is the meritocracy trap?

Answer 35

• far from solving economic inequality, higher education drives class divide.
• meritocracy seems fair, but what we call merit is “a pretense, constructed to rationalize an unjust distribution of advantage.” If you know what you’re doing and if you have enough money to spend on expensive tutors and prep schools, the meritocracy is easily gamed — which basically ensures that people who are rich because they went to a fancy school will have kids who will also go to fancy schools and thus also become rich

Question 36

meritocracy is a mechanism for the ___ ___ _____ ____ of wealth, privilege and caste across generations.”

Answer 36

concentration and dynastic transmission

Question 37

What does Reich see as the problem with a lack of countervailing power?

Answer 37

it’s ok that corporations are powerful and lobby congress, but the problem is lack of countervailing power to balance out; Essential challenge then is political, not economic, leading to erosion of public trust in gov’t

Question 38

What are some examples when there was strong countervailing power in the US?

Answer 38

American legion mobilized support for 1944 GI Bill

Question 39

T/F Republicans are the party of corporate concentration of power; examples?

Answer 39

FALSE i.e. Clinton pushing NAFTA at expense of workers, Repeal of Glass-Steagall was bipartisan; under Obama, corporate profits surge, bank bailout

Question 40

What 4 things would a countervailing power do?

Answer 40

1. Reform system of campaign finance
2. Ban gerrymandering districts
3. Ban revolving door between gov’t, finance, big business
4. Mandate that experts who testify have declare sources of their research funding i.e. no climate crisis

Question 41

Why millenials/Gen Z should lead labor movement revitalization?

Answer 41

• memories of stability w/parents union jobs
• borne the brunt of the country’s recent decline in employment quality, with lower wages, diminishing benefits and the presence of noncompete clauses that hurt even entry-level employees from finding subsequent jobs; many entered the work force during the last recession
• We show higher support for unions than previous generations

Question 42

What is NLLI?

Answer 42

National Labor Leadership Initiative. Cornell’s contribution to the revitalization of the labor movement. Develops action plans and provides a platform for coalition building for labor rights movements/unions.

Question 43

Discuss social justice framing

Answer 43

Working poor, deserve rights and good wages; Why shouldn’t they have rights and representation and better wages? builds public support; AFL-CIO had policy breakthrough in 2000; In the 90s, perspective on immigrants was, why should we organize them esp if undocumented? They can take away our jobs, weaken our bargaining power, etc. changed around 2000 b/c hotel and restaurant workers unions had come to see that large percentage of hotel housekeepers were immigrants, many undocumented, and found that they were eager to join unions despite that they would be afraid of being deported, which ended up not being true ; wait, we’re a labor party and it’s not our job to enforce immigration;

Question 44

Compare CMEs and LMEs w/employment hours and income inequality

Answer 44

in liberal market economies, the adult population tends to be engaged more extensively in paid employment and levels of income inequality are high. In coordinated market economies, working hours tend to be shorter for more of the population and incomes more equal.

Question 45

Describe patient capital and its significance

Answer 45

The financial system or in coordinated market economies typically provides companies w/ access to finance that is not entirely dependent on publicly available financial data or current returns; Access makes it possible for firms to retain a skilled workforce through economic downturns and to invest in projects generating returns only in the long run

Question 46

The financial system or in coordinated market economies typically provides companies w/ access to finance (patient capital) that is not entirely dependent on what two things?

Answer 46

publicly available financial data or current returns

Question 47

What is the problem with patient capital?

Answer 47

• if finance is not to be dependent on balance-sheet criteria, investors must have other ways of monitoring the performance of companies in order to ensure the value of their investments.
• In general, that means they must have access to what would normally be considered ‘private’ or ‘inside’ information about the operation of the company.

Question 48

How does the problem w/patient capital get resolved?

Answer 48

the presence of dense networks linking the managers and technical personnel inside a company to their counterparts in other firms on terms that provide for the sharing of reliable information about the progress of the firm.

Question 49

Where does patient capital tend to come from?

Answer 49

comes from banks than stock markets b/c banks can have longer-term view

Question 50

Describe 4 traits of CME

Answer 50

1) high wages- producing at high end of the market; emphasis on skills training; if you’re gonna pay people a lot, you have to get a lot out of them
2) dense networks- information sharing between institutions and actors
3) capital markets w/long term horizons
4) incremental innovation
5) relative equality

Question 51

Describe 5 traits of LMEs

Answer 51

1) firms are dominant, gov’t and unions are secondary
2) firms have more choice; don’t have to produce at the high end like Germany
3) short-term horizons, quarterly returns, dividends, can’t think as much as 10 years from now (like Germany)
4) radical innovation as opposed to incremental; more open i.e. Bill Gates starting off in his garage would be much less likely than in Germany
5) higher inequality

Question 52

What are the 2 main differences between CMEs and LMEs?

Answer 52

radical innovation and relative equality

Question 53

Describe job-security councils (from article, “What If Getting Laid Off Wasn’t Something to Be Afraid Of?”, Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, October 25, 2017)

Answer 53

a private organization unique to Sweden that helps laid-off workers. Employers pay into these job-security councils, and if they lay employees off, those workers receive financial support and job counseling from the council to help get them back into the workforce as soon as possible.

Question 54

In the NLRB election process in which it is standard practice for workers to be subjected to __ , __ , ___ , ___ , and ___ for union activity.”

Answer 54

threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, retaliation

Question 55

Who are involved in codetermination? Where does it occur? Who does it affect?

Answer 55

 between firms and elected works councils (democratic body)
 at the firm and plant level
 works councils elected by entire workforce
 rights to information and participation
 labor representatives on supervisory boards

Question 56

What is r > g?

Answer 56

When the rate of return on when capital is greater than economic growth, wealth gets concentrated and passed down

Equation is that when r > g ,there is increasing inequality; tendency in capitalism for this to be the case

Question 57

What is patrimonial capitalism?

Answer 57

Piketty argues that r (the return on capital) is historically greater than g (the economic growth rate). When R > G, inequality grows. Since the rich own most of the capital, this means that the rich accumulate wealth faster than everyone else, patrimonial capitalism, which in turn means that rising income inequality is inevitable and government policies are required to correct this imbalance. The more perfect the market, the bigger the problem. Picketty contends that there is no natural, spontaneous process to prevent destabilizing, unequal forces from prevailing permanently.

Question 58

Discuss climate change and labor movement

Answer 58

he important lesson of these examples is that organized labor can in fact be changed, but that it takes a concerted effort to challenge the status quo. Climate activists need to become an organized force within organized labor.

What happens to ppl whose jobs disappear? Just transition, like flexicurity

The labor movement’s most essential value is solidarity. Summed up in the hallowed adage “An injury to one is an injury to all,” it’s the recognition that “looking out for number one” doesn’t work, that we will survive and prosper only if we look out for one another. Climate protection is the new solidarity: protecting our brothers and sisters as well as ourselves from destruction.

Question 59

Who is the NYS Climate Jobs program led by?

Answer 59

Worker institute project; coalition to support plan, endorsement of governor
Coalition took ownership of this; led by AFL-CIO

Question 60

Discuss what happened after the 80s in Sweden and Norway with banks (not the effects)

Answer 60

1980s Norway and Sweden de-regulated finance; were following Reagan and Thatcher neoliberalism, thought in global context if other countries were doing it, we had to do it too; got housing bubbles and crisis by early 1990s; how did they deal? In Sweden, nationalized 2 of the large banks, sheltered the survivors, and let others go bankrupt; they did not bail them out; reimposed regulations; strengthened safety net so ppls deposits and homes were safe; tough love towards the banks. as a result 2008 crash saw minimal disruptions; safety net was strong and protected people who suffered, job training;
- Similar story in Norway crash in 1991 when commercial banking collapsed

Question 61

In both Norway and Sweden, was the effect of their actions post 2000s? Who were the winners and losers?

Answer 61

shareholders were the losers, the owners of the banks went bankrupt; surviving banks did get public bailouts but including this included control, public ownership of future profits

Question 62

What characterized postwar unionism?

Answer 62

collective bargaining, contract enforcement; then a subsequent employer offensive in the 70s

Question 63

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue that high levels of economic inequality in developed countries lead to relatively poor social and health outcomes. Give two examples of poor social or health outcomes that they trace to inequality and note the causal linkage that W and P suggest

Answer 63

1) anxiety- status anxiety, class
2) trust

gathered data from the 50 states and European countries

proved causal relationship by running analysis on average incomes in countries/state, and there was no relationship

Question 64

What is one conclusion from Richard Wilkinson’s Ted Talk?

Answer 64

Stressful tasks study, and social element: threats to self-esteem or social status, most reliably raised cortisol

Question 65

What are the implications of r ? g for inherited wealth?

Answer 65

When the rate of return on capital significantly exceeds the growth rate of the economy, then it logically follows that inherited wealth grows faster than output and income. People with inherited wealth need save only a portion of their income from capital to see that capital grow more quickly than the economy as a w hole. Under such conditions, it is almost inevitable that inherited wealth will dominate wealth amassed from a lifetime’s labor by a wide margin, and the concentration of capital will attain extremely high levels—levels potentially incompatible with the meritocratic values and principles of social justice fundamental to modern democratic societies.

Question 66

What gives people in Norway the freedom to fail? (Lakey)

Answer 66

The government offers free vocational counseling, education, and job-training resources for people seeking a career change, and entrepreneurialism is encouraged through free health care and a public pension for

Question 67

What is the relationship the IMF found between unions and inequality?

Answer 67

decline of union power has increased inequality

Question 68

The IMF’s analysis undermines the accepted wisdom that lower union membership affects chiefly low- and moderate-income workers. It finds instead that the impact of declining unionization is felt —-?

Answer 68

across the entire income spectrum; The trend not only reduces the welfare of the lower income worker, they find; it makes the rich richer: “The decline in unionization,” they write, “appears to be a key contributor to the rise of top income shares.”

Question 69

Indeed, the IMF paper says that roughly half the increase in income inequality in advanced economies is “driven by _____ .”

Answer 69

deunionization

Question 70

Among other remedial steps, the IMF points to what as a solution?

Answer 70

“corporate governance reforms that give all stakeholders—workers, managers, and shareholders—a say in executive pay decisions; … and reaffirmation of labor standards that allow willing workers to bargain collectively.”

Question 71

an important part of the IMF paper is its analysis of, how does deunionization promote inequality?

Answer 71

By weakening earnings for middle- and low-income workers by reducing their bargaining power, deunionization “necessarily increases the income share of corporate managers’ pay and shareholder returns….Moreover, weaker unions can reduce workers’ influence on corporate decisions that benefit top earners, such as the size and structure of top executive compensation.”