DetN Squirms Over "Labor Law Rewrite"

by Robert Farago

Published: March 11th, 2009

Manny Lopez is Motown’s head cheerleader. So when the Managing Ed of The Detroit News‘ auto section sits down to pen an opinion piece on the Employee Free Choice Act—the Orwellian federal legislation eliminating secret ballots for unionization—you know you’re in for a good time. As Stevie Ray Vaughan was wont to croon, who do you love? “Michigan’s business environment can’t afford the Employee Free Choice Act.” So that’s it, then. I’m not quite sure how Manny can square his opposition to the legislation with his support for the United Auto Workers. But I’m all ears.

For sure, the UAW helped make workplaces safer and increased wages and benefits. But we have to carefully examine the economic impact this special interest legislation would have on Michigan.

“This could have tremendous consequences for the auto industry,” Paul Kersey, director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told me Tuesday. “And the costs could be very substantial.”

Costs. Got it. But what are they?

Kersey says Michigan is particularly at risk because union membership and the payment of dues or “fees” is mandatory, since this is not a right-to-work state.

And given the history of big labor here, there’s likely to be a heavier hand in organizing and pressuring workers at auto suppliers and smaller shops.

Gone is the secret ballot that’s used in every democratic election in America. And then, if a contract can’t be reached, binding arbitration is required. Want to know how serious that can get? Turn back to the 1970s when Detroit lost a case to the police union that resulted in mass layoffs in the city.

That won’t bode well with small businesses. One supplier told me Tuesday he’d have to reconsider staying open if the legislation passed.

Strange that the DetN is happy to perpetuate an exact figure to the cost of not bailing out Chrysler and GM, yet won’t put a number to this fundamentally anti-democratic (small d) bill. Still, I guess you can’t have it both ways, right? Anti-“Employee Free Choice” (a.k.a. card check) AND pro-UAW Big 2.8. Wrong.

With the nation’s highest unemployment rate, an industry that needs government loans to stay afloat and little hope of a turnaround, there’s no justification for scaring away or shutting down auto companies that still exist in this state.

Unions already have the right to organize. It should stay that way.

Robert Farago

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Landcrusher on Mar 12, 2009

slush, Obscure analogies without logical connection? That is obscure itself. If I thought what I was saying was obscure and illogical, would I have said it? I have heard a lot of talk about why you shouldn't use homogenous societies as comparisons because it's almost impossible to control for. Britainn would be a much better comparison so it's better you brought it up. I can of course walk over to the medical center and start interviewing Brits who came here for medical help. They are all over. You should avoid most other european countries, especially scandinavian ones, due to extensive eugenics programs that lasted more than a single generation. It's an ugly bit of history, and many official records have been altered to hide it after the fact. Here is the thing, how much less do the Brits spend? Do they count private spending, and spending here in the states (Houston's second largest industry is healthcare, and we import patients from all over the world). Medicare really isn't as efficient as the studies say it is. First, if we reduced everyone to the medicare rate, many of the doctors would simply quit and I am not making that up, I know plenty of doctors socially. Medicare is skimming off the rest of the payors in many cases, and overpaying in a few. Look at all the stories about private hospitals and how there are moves to outlaw them because they skim only the profitable patients. I knew a nurse whose job it was to ensure that the most effective codes and comments were put on the charts to maximize the medicare pay. She stopped seeing patients, and got a raise to do it. That was a 300 bed hospital for Pete's sake. Also, medicare is rationed care already. If you are a medicare patient, a doctor cannot legally provide you with for cash services. IOW, if medicare won't pay, the doctor has to do it for free. At least mine does. I don't want to be on medicare, and expanding it will simply lead to them having to raise the spending while care gets worse. I won't support the existing system of private insurance either. It's almost as bad, if not worse than nationalization. The government has it's hands all over it, and it's ugly. If nothing else, the laws protecting the insurer from late pay and interest fees simply raise the rates for everything. However, the worst part is that it's tied to employment, not portable, and the insured generally has no choice or choices. The people closest to the healthcare decisions are the farthest removed from the monetary transaction and it's plain stupid. What needs to be done is to put the cost decisions back into the room with the doctor and the patient. We need a system where the patient is incentivised to keep down costs, the doctors are free to practice, and the insurance guy is beholden to both of them. I recommend we switch to a broker service where you pay a broker to get you healthcare. He recommends providers, and if you are not happy with them, you blame HIM, and fire him. This means the doctors are trying to keep you and him happy. He is trying to keep both of you happy and the cost down, and really so is the doctor. The reason for the third party is that individual patients have little way to track overall quality and outcome of providers, but the brokers would. Of course, this means scrapping the work connection, which would be good. Government could then subsidize the broker/insurance fee for people we think ought to get that. Lastly, healthcare is not a right in this country, and it should not be. It cannot be. We need to seperate emergency care from the rest, and go back to charity, debt, or whatever so that people realize that it's not free and must be budgeted and paid for like anything else. QWERTY, Failure to be able to pay is not rationing. Words mean things. Get over it. Also, define adequate. I got to talk to some of the top docs in western Canada. They ALL admit there is rationing, and that it's really not good for the folks who can't afford to hop the border. How many years of your life should you give up because your hip replacement or bypass isn't an emergency? Under capitalism, it's up to the individual, not some bureaucrat, to decide who gets what care. If you have never been ground beneath the wheel of state, you simply do not understand. I can tell you that there will be people killed over the kind of rationing that goes on in Canada and the UK if they try it here. It simply will not work, so the money will not be saved.

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Geeber on Mar 12, 2009
AG:Union coercion is an old wives’ tale. Sorry, but no. You've obviously never been to Philadelphia. no_slushbox: About 3% of the money that goes through Medicare goes to overhead; for private insurers it is much higher, usually 15-25%. Medicare is much more “efficient” and “cost effective”. Medicare serves a limited audience - the elderly - compared to private insurers, who usually cover a broad spectrum of people. Also note that one reason Medicare is "more efficient" is because the reimbursements to health providers are capped by the government. Most physicians prefer to serve patients with private insurance, versus those covered by Medicare and Medicaid, because the reimbursements are more generous. Unless that steady stream of doctors and hospital officials through my office urging my boss to support higher reimbursement rates under Medicare (and Medicaid) is just a figment of my imagination. no_slushbox: National health insurance greatly reduces the bureaucracy and overhead of private health insurance, and it also reduces the need for malpractice suits since much (half according this this site) of the compensation from malpractice suits simply goes to future care, which will be covered with national health insurance. Switching to a single-payer system does not mean that the tort system (which has historically been handled by each invididual state) will also be reformed. But I wouldn't expect a group called Physicians for a National Health Program to note that fact, as it basically means their point is worthless. (You might take note that this group is hardly an unbiased source of information.) There is no guarantee that malpractice costs will fall unless the tort system is also revamped. One reason costs are lower in Great Britain, for example, is because losers in civil cases pay for court costs. The "British rule" has lessened the number of lawsuits, and thus the paranoia about lawsuits from which American medical services suffer. But note that this has NOTHING to do with the adoption of a national health system. Do you really believe that the American Bar Association will stand by while THAT rule is adopted in all 50 states? And here is the story of an American living in London who used the British system when his wife suffered a stroke: Having praised the caregivers, I'm forced to return to the inefficiencies of a health system devoid of incentives. One can tell that the edge has disappeared in treatment in Britain. For example, when we returned to the U.S. we discovered that treatment exists for thwarting the effects of blood clots in the brain if administered shortly after a stroke. Such treatment was never mentioned, even after we were admitted to the neurology hospital. Indeed, the only medication my wife was given for a severe stroke was a daily dose of aspirin. Now, treating stroke victims is tricky business. My wife had a low hemoglobin count, so with all the medications in the world, she still might have been better off with just aspirin. But consultations with doctors never brought up the possibilities of alternative drug therapies. (Of course, U.S. doctors tend to be pill pushers, but that's a different discussion.) Then there was the condition of Queen's Square (an NHS facility) compared with the physical plant of the New York hospitals. As I mentioned, the cleanliness of U.S. hospitals is immediately apparent to all the senses. But Cornell and New York University hospitals (both of which my wife has been using since we returned) have ready access to technical equipment that is either hard to find or nonexistent in Britain. This includes both diagnostic equipment and state-of-the-art equipment used for physical therapy. We did have one brief encounter with a more comprehensive type of British medical treatment--a day trip to one of the few remaining private hospitals in London. Before she could travel back home, my wife needed to have the weak wall in her heart fortified with a metal clamp. The procedure is minimally invasive (a catheter is passed up to the heart from a small incision made in the groin), but it requires enormous skill. The cardiologist responsible for the procedure, Seamus Cullen, worked in both the public system and as a private clinician. He informed us that the waiting line to perform the procedure in a public hospital would take days if not weeks, but we could have the procedure done in a private hospital almost immediately. Since we'd already been separated from our 12-year-old daughter for almost a month, we opted to have the procedure done (with enormous assistance from my employer) at a private hospital. Checking into the private hospital was like going from a rickety Third World hovel into a five-star hotel. There was clean carpeting, more than enough help, a private room (and a private bath!) in which to recover from the procedure, even a choice of wines offered with a wide variety of entrees. As we were feasting on our fancy new digs, Dr. Cullen came by, took my wife's hand, and quietly told us in detail about the procedure. He actually paused to ask us whether we understood him completely and had any questions. Only one, we both thought to ask: Is this a dream? I'll take his word for it, as his wife suffered a major illness (the other accounts I've read from Americans who have experienced care under the British system are those who have suffered broken limbs or relatively minor illnesses) and was treated by the British National Health Service. Will we change our system? More than likely, but please note that the majority of Americans with private insurance who have had to use it are quite satisfied with their coverage - well over 80 percent give it to top ratings. It's the same phenomenon that colors Americans' views of the education system, or Congress. Americans say that they are unhappy with the big, impersonal institution ("health care," "the education system," "Congress") but are actually satisfied with that particular part of the system they contact on a regular basis (their insurance plan, their local school district, their Congressman or Congresswoman). I also find it amusing that private insurance is demonized, when virtually every country with nationalized care also permits citizens to subsidize their government-provided care with private insurance. And virtually everyone who can afford to do so takes advantage of that option. In Canada, residents of Quebec SUED for the right to purchase private insurance (the Canadian national health plan had forbidden this), and won. Indeed, if nationalized care is so efficient and superior to private health care, then why has the UAW never permitted the car companies to shift retirees completely to Medicare? Health care for retirees is a big expense for GM, Ford and Chrysler. Shifting retirees to Medicare would result in huge cost savings for these companies. The UAW wouldn't hear of it. Why? Because the level of coverage provided by the private plan enjoyed by UAW members is far more generous than that provided by Medicare. And the UAW knows it.

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