David Carr looks at James O’Shea’s new book on Sam Zell’s Tribune Company fiasco and zooms in on O’Shea’s reporting on how Wall Street helped create it:
What Mr. O’Shea focused on was how the bankers — who he said should have known the deal would render the company insolvent — seemed to be too busy counting their fees to care. Here’s a note he found buried deep in court records from Jieun Choi, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Company, that demonstrated a breathtaking level of cynicism and self-dealing:
“There is wide speculation that [Tribune] might have so much debt that all of its assets aren’t gonna cover the debt in case of (knock-knock) you know what,” she wrote to a colleague, in a not very veiled reference to bankruptcy. “Well that’s what we are saying, too. But we’re doing this ‘cause it’s enough to cover our bank debt. So, lesson learned from this deal: our (here I mean JPM’s) business strategy for TRB but probably not only limited to TRB is ‘hit and run.’ ”
She then went on to explain just how far a bank will go to “suck $$$ out of the (dying or dead?) client’s pocket” in terms that are too graphic to be repeated here or most anywhere else.
That analyst no longer works for JPMorgan, naturally.
— Kevin Drum of Mother Jones looks at a proposed National Labor Relations Board move to shorten union elections and gives us some numbers on unions you don’t see much in the mainstream press.
There’s this:
Survey research a few years ago by Harvard’s Richard Freeman suggests that “if workers were provided the union representation they desired in 2005, then the unionization rate would be about 58%” — almost eight times higher than the actual private sector rate of 7.4%.
And then there’s Drum’s chart, which shows polling results since 1984 showing a dramatic increase in the number of respondents who would vote to join a union. Where in 1984, the ratio was roughly 65-30 against unions, it’s now something like 55-40 in favor of unions.
Despite that, unionization continues to plunge:
It’s true that in 2009 unions won 66% of all NLRB elections compared to 51% in 1997, but that’s 66% of 1,304 elections compared to 51% of 3,261 elections. Contra Kirsanow, organizing a new workplace has gotten so hard in recent years thanks to corporate-friendly NLRB rule changes and increasingly aggressive union avoidance campaigns, that unions simply don’t bother waging all that many recognition elections anymore. They know that most of them are hopeless. The result is that the net number of election wins has dropped nearly in half in just the last decade alone.
— In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on the Wal-Mart sexual-discrimination case, author Nelson Lichtenstein writes an interesting op-ed for The New York Times on what he calls “Wal-Mart’s Authoritarian Culture”:
In other words, the patriarchy of old has been reconfigured into a more systematically authoritarian structure, one that deploys a communitarian ethos to sustain a high degree of corporate loyalty even as wages and working conditions are put under continual downward pressure — especially in recent years, as Wal-Mart’s same-store sales have declined. Workers of both sexes pay the price, but women, who constitute more than 70 percent of hourly employees, pay more.There are tens of thousands of experienced Wal-Mart women who would like to be promoted to the first managerial rung, salaried assistant store manager. But Wal-Mart makes it impossible for many of them to take that post, because its ruthless management style structures the job itself as one that most women, and especially those with young children or a relative to care for, would find difficult to accept.
Why? Because, for all the change that has swept over the company, at the store level there is still a fair amount of the old communal sociability. Recognizing that workers steeped in that culture make poor candidates for assistant managers, who are the front lines in enforcing labor discipline, Wal-Mart insists that almost all workers promoted to the managerial ranks move to a new store, often hundreds of miles away.
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In your title, you failed to put quotes around the word Authoritarian. (You are directly quoting the title of Lichtenstein's piece.) But that's a minor detail. Here's the major reason CJR and its fellow proved-wrongheaded ideologues have failed: WalMart, its workers, its consumers, and free enterprise won!
'The news of the Supreme Court decision on Wal-Mart – declining to approve a massive lawsuit against an amazing company – was reported as if it amounted to some devastating blow to American life. Nonsense: the decision actually permits normalcy in economic development to proceed without a new round of destruction of wealth. Some lawyers might be sad, but it is great for the rest of us.
'The lawsuit grouped the interests of 1.6 million women who had worked for 3,400 stores since 1998. One can only imagine the looting that would have commenced had the decision gone the other way. It would have been catastrophic. What the Supreme Court did was narrowly decline to wreck even more American labor markets and the gears of free enterprise. It is a small favor, but thank goodness for it. . . .
'One reinvention of Marxist theory is the idea that the gains of whites come at the expense of blacks, or that the gains of men come at the expense of women, or that the gains of abled people come at the expense of the disabled, or that the gains of people in general come at the expense of the environment. They all assume that there is something like a class of people whose interests and outlook are homogeneous in every sense that matters.
'This is obviously not the case with the people who joined – or who were joined without their permission, in the usual way – the "class action lawsuit" against Wal-Mart. First, there is no such thing as the interests of women – or of men, or blacks, or disabled people or the environment. Interests are always radically heterogeneous because the world is filled with unique individuals with subjective perspectives, ideas, and experiences.
'Second, there was no class "acting" in this case. It was a bunch of lawyers using some former Wal-Mart employees – let’s just say that these people were being exploited by attorneys – in the attempt to pick the deepest pockets around. Had the lawsuit been won, the women would have received settlements that would pay a day of parking meter fees. The lawyers would have looted it all.'
How does it feel to be on the LOSING side of the govt jackboots and their slimy lawyers?
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 23 Jun 2011 at 09:12 PM
Of course there is also the definition of class which comes out of science in which a group of objects is differentiated by another group based on a selected factor.
Now if walmart was using a classification system to discriminate against a group of people based on a factor they had no control over (sex) and without regard to the factors they do have control over (job performance) than this is both anti-competitive and illegal.
http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html
Lew Rockwell can get stuffed.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 24 Jun 2011 at 03:05 AM
Re: "Workers of both sexes pay the price, but women, who constitute more than 70 percent of hourly employees, pay more."
To see how this sounds, reword it: Workers of both sexes pay the price, but men, who constitute more than 70 percent of hourly employees, pay more.
What goes unremarked upon, on both sides of the case, is that about 70 percent of the hourly jobs in Walmart's retail stores have all along been held by women — which is discrimination FOR women, or, worded differently, discrimination against men.
Suppose 70 percent of the company's hourly employees were men and most of the managers were women. Since women's advocates now ignore Walmart's current, real hiring discrimination against men, doesn't this mean the advocates would ignore women's dominance in Walmart's management and claim that a 70-percent male hourly staff proves hiring discrimination against women, especially unskilled minority women who most need these entry-level jobs? Wouldn't this hiring discrimination in fact now be the basis for the class-action lawsuit against Walmart?
For a primary reason Walmart has more male managers than female, see:
"Taking Apart the Sex-Bias Class-Action Lawsuit Against Wal-Mart" at http://tinyurl.com/lnn3xn or at http://malemattersusa.com/2011/06/21/taking-apart-the-walmart-sex-bias-class-action-lawsuit/
#3 Posted by MaleMatters, CJR on Fri 24 Jun 2011 at 09:44 AM
"Now if walmart was using a classification system to discriminate against a group of people based on a factor they had no control over (sex) and without regard to the factors they do have control over (job performance) than this is both anti-competitive and illegal."
But they weren't. And it wasn't. You can site all the govt sources you want, and make all the anti-capitalist arguments under the sun, all for naught. WalMart and American consumers — including WalMart employees and the communities they serve — won, while another class-exploiting, shakedown racket lost. A rare instance of justice for market freedom and private enterprise. Thank God.
#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Sat 25 Jun 2011 at 07:14 PM
Dude, you know what's anti capitalist? A company that pays such substandard salaries and gives such substandard hours that it creates a state subsidized work force that requires food stamps and Medicaid to get by.
And in order to create that kind of work force, it needs to create a wall between management and labor, lest managers start acting based on basic human empathy and treating walmart labor decently.
And if that means capable women are passed over, that's great. Women shouldn't expect to rise above a certain station since their bodies are rigged to take them offline for 6 to 9 months. Plus, women tend to be too feely to run a good bare minimum labor force.
So if you believe walmart should use state programs to supplement it's labor costs and that walmart should reward individuals based on their ability to exploit labor and not on their ability to run a store and that walmart should base this estimate if ability based on gender bias, then I guess you're a libertarian who believes in free competition or something.
*shrug*
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 25 Jun 2011 at 09:10 PM
WalMart does not force anyone to work for WalMart; nor does WalMart force its employees to apply for food stamps. Can you prove otherwise? Do you believe that WalMart employees would be better off unemployed?
#6 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Sat 25 Jun 2011 at 10:29 PM
No, walmart doesn't force anyone to work for walmart, the economy that walmart creates compels a lot of people though. Nor does walmart force anyone to apply for food stamps or medicaid, but they are well aware that they compensate their workers at a low enough level to qualify and managers have been said to counsel their employs to take the benefits the state offers.
Therefore walmart uses sub-living wage-standards and advantages wrung from state taxpayers to gain a competitive advantage over other retail competitors that would have given better jobs with higher wages and benefits.
Not exactly fair competition nor free market.
There's a good chance that "WalMart employees would be better off unemployed" by walmart because they'd likely be employed by someone else paying decent wages and benefits.
But nevermind all that. Do you think a company should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex, religion, political preference, race etc... as an employer or as a servicer of customers? Do you believe it should accord preferential treatment on those basis? Is that where you're beliefs lead you as a libertarian? Because your beliefs as an American should be leading you in the opposite direction.
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 26 Jun 2011 at 01:07 PM
"Therefore walmart uses sub-living wage-standards and advantages wrung from state taxpayers to gain a competitive advantage over other retail competitors that would have given better jobs with higher wages and benefits."
About that living wage: How many manufacturing or retail jobs these days will get you by on only one income? Very few? None? Why single out WalMart? Why should WalMart be responsible for its employees' lifestyle choices? WalMart pays above the federal minimum wage, and it's not like WalMart has much of a choice of whether to enroll its employees in those programs. You should instead be wondering what the govt and its central planning have done to our money, our economy, our freedoms. WalMart, unlike the govt and the FED, does not directly and intentionally devalue your wealth or force you to buy or sell something against your will. And unlike companies from Wall Street and Detroit, WalMart does not supplicate the govt for bailouts or protection from the consequences of its business practices (e.g., discrimination).
"Do you think a company should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex, religion, political preference, race etc... as an employer or as a servicer of customers?"
Yes. And many do it and do well for it, while others do it and suffer for it. But it should be a free choice, and the consequences should be absorbed by the discriminator, with neither help nor hindrance from the govt. If WalMart is intentionally discriminating against a certain group of individuals, then WalMart deserves the natural economic effects resulting therefrom. Apparently, WalMart has NOT been systematically or wrongfully discriminating against any particular group of individuals.
#8 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Mon 27 Jun 2011 at 05:11 PM
Lichtenstein wrote: But Wal-Mart makes it impossible for many of them to take that post, because its ruthless management style structures the job itself as one that most women, and especially those with young children or a relative to care for, would find difficult to accept.
padikiller asks: So where is the modern Walmart woman supposed to be?...
Slogging it out with her equals in the competitive management scheme? Or dutifully home tending to the house, kids and kin? She can't be in two places at once, after all.
Are women supposed to be workers or homebodies, in the liberal of feminist worldview?
Why do women "find it difficult to accept" forsaking care of children for a career? Because they're different than men? Not equal? Naturally inclined to forgo a career for the sake of childrearing?
If a Republican male suggested such a thing, the feminists would be out with pitchforks.
There's nothing (except human nature) keeping a woman from giving up a family to work at Walmart.
And you can't blame Walmart for human nature (at least not credibly, anyway).
#9 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 27 Jun 2011 at 09:07 PM
"Apparently, WalMart has NOT been systematically or wrongfully discriminating against any particular group of individuals."
Wrong, the evidence existed but the conservative wing of the supreme court upped the requirements for accepted evidence from ratios of surveyed populations and a wealth of personal incidents to
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/10-277.ZS.html
"“[s]ignificant proof that an employer operated under a general policy of discrimination,” id., at 159, n. 15. Such proof is absent here. Wal-Mart’s announced policy forbids sex discrimination, and the company has penalties for denials of equal opportunity. Respondents’ only evidence of a general discrimination policy was a sociologist’s analysis asserting that Wal-Mart’s corporate culture made it vulnerable to gender bias. But because he could not estimate what percent of Wal-Mart employment decisions might be determined by stereotypical thinking, his testimony was worlds away from “significant proof” that Wal-Mart “operated under a general policy of discrimination.”"
In other words, unless the discrimination is overt enough, like in the employee hand book, we're going to treat every discrimination case as if they are individual incidents and not a symptoms of a corporate unwritten rule. Not a bad take for a judge who's son is co-chairman of the labor and employment practice at the law firm representing Walmart.
As Ginsberg put it in her dissent:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/10-277.ZX.html
"Women fill 70 percent of the hourly jobs in the retailer’s stores but make up only “33 percent of management employees.” 222 F. R. D., at 146. “[T]he higher one looks in the organization the lower the percentage of women.” Id ., at 155. The plaintiffs’ “largely uncontested descriptive statistics” also show that women working in the company’s stores “are paid less than men in every region” and “that the salary gap widens over time even for men and women hired into the same jobs at the same time.”...
The plaintiffs’ evidence, including class members’ tales of their own experiences, 4 suggests that gender bias suffused Wal-Mart’s company culture. Among illustrations, senior management often refer to female associates as “little Janie Qs.” Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification in No. 3:01–cv–02252–CRB (ND Cal.), Doc. 99, p. 13 (internal quotation marks omitted). One manager told an employee that “[m]en are here to make a career and women aren’t.” 222 F. R. D., at 166 (internal quotation marks omitted). A committee of female Wal-Mart executives concluded that “[s]tereotypes limit the opportunities offered to women.” Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification in No. 3:01–cv–02252–CRB (ND Cal.), Doc. 99, at 16 (internal quotation marks omitted)."
Whatever, I guess the judicial system respects the rights of corporations over citizens and the only way to correct corporate behavior is to use my discretion as a customer.
I won't be shopping at Walmart. Costco treats its employees decently and fairly and doesn't need Judge Daddy to help them win sex discrimination lawsuits.
#10 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 05:35 AM
Thimbles posted an allegation from a court pleading: "One manager told an employee that “[m]en are here to make a career and women aren’t.”
Lichtenstein wrote: But Wal-Mart makes it impossible for many of them to take that post, because its ruthless management style structures the job itself as one that most women, and especially those with young children or a relative to care for, would find difficult to accept.
padikiller asks: Assuming, solely for the sake of argument, that it is fair to impute the statement of a single manager to the global policy of a huge corporation... The question remains... Aren't these two statements essentially identical? Acknowledgements by both Walmart and one of its critics that women are naturally different then men when it comes to prioritizing careers and family obligations?
If so, then why should Walmart pay for human nature? If not, then how so, given the evidence to the contrary?
#11 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 10:18 AM
Why should I care what Lichtenstein wrote? Hint. I don't.
Judge Ginsberg made that argument and made it better:
"Further alleged barriers to the advancement of female employees include the company’s requirement, “as a condition of promotion to management jobs, that employees be willing to relocate.” Id ., at 56a. Absent instruction otherwise, there is a risk that managers will act on the familiar assumption that women, because of their services to husband and children, are less mobile than men. See Dept. of Labor, Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation’s Human Capital 151 (1995)."
Ideally, if you are making discriminatory assumptions then you should pay for them when they cause damages to the person the assumption has mischaracterized.
Walmart will, when I refuse to do business with them.
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 12:10 PM
So...
Walmart is supposed to promote women into jobs to compete with men... Then make the men work hard for the money, but let the women stay home and take care of the kids?
This is what should happen?
Seriously?
#13 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 01:59 PM
Promotions and salary should be offered based on performance.
if a woman refuses a promotion because of her family, attempt to promote the next best qualified man or woman.
If the man refuses a promotion because of his family, attempt to promote the next best qualified man or woman.
You don't promote based on the assumption that no woman is worth promoting, you don't pay based on the assumption that every woman of equivalent experience and ability is worth less than a man.
I don't think I can make this more clear. If you continue to misunderstand, then mere words cannot help you.
#14 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 02:14 PM
It would seem that the Supreme Court has agreed with your take, Thimbles..
Certainly, any woman denied a promotion unfairly maintains a cause of action against Walmart.
The problem lies in the certification of a class action for women. Should Walmart be compelled to promote equal numbers of any class of people who are less dedicated than classes of people?
If women really are naturally less dedicated to their jobs, and more focused on family, then it doesn't make sense to expect them to rise to the top of the corporate ranks anywhere, does it?
#15 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 03:26 PM
"Should Walmart be compelled to promote equal numbers of any class of people"
No, Walmart should be compelled to promote the best qualified people. That they aren't is bad for business, pr, and morale.
"If women really are naturally less dedicated to their jobs, and more focused on family"
That's an assumption that is untrue of individuals even if it were true for a majority of the group... which it isn't. The only difference between a man earner and a woman earner family-wise is that one might have to account for 6 months to a year time off because of pregnancy. A company the size of Walmart should not have to struggle with this demand.
"It would seem that the Supreme Court has agreed with your take, Thimbles.."
If only. They agree on the issue, since discrimination is a matter of labor law and there's no judicial wiggle room there, but they raised the standard of what constitutes proof to the benefit of employers. If a company has a written policy that discrimination is sanctioned, then the employer will be shielded from acts of individual discrimination no matter the evidence that indicates that discrimination was a part of the corporate culture.
Class action suits have been effectively neutralized as a tool for sanctioning discriminatory businesses who have a pretend written policy.
Thanks Justice Powell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr.#The_Powell_Memorandum
#16 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 08:39 PM
Thimbles wrote: The only difference between a man earner and a woman earner family-wise is that one might have to account for 6 months to a year time off because of pregnancy. A company the size of Walmart should not have to struggle with this demand.
padikiller: Oh.. Just that.. Just 6 months or year off (per child, I assume).. That's all...
It's nice of you Thimbles to decide which "struggles" Walmart should be compelled to endure. Saves the courts all the trouble!
Finally!.. We get to where we always get when we scrutinize liberalism sufficiently.. Forcing someone deemed unworthy to give money or property to someone else deemed worthy. Government sponsored redistribution of wealth.
Liberals want it both ways.. They want women to be able to forgo (or delay) a career in order to assume the traditional role of child rearing at their employer's expense, but they also want the employer to hire, promote and retain women without regard to this lack of dedication to their careers.
Employer or business mandates are the favored method of direct transfer of property - these laws keep the money flowing to the desired classes "off the books" and off the political radar.
#17 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 29 Jun 2011 at 01:36 PM
Scalia strikes again against class action.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/30/ap/politics/main20075670.shtml
This time on behalf of cigarette companies. He's always thinking of the little guys, that one.
#18 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 30 Jun 2011 at 11:37 PM