Day Five

In the course of a discussion with his "editor" (think Good Gollum arguing with Bad Gollum in "Lord of the Rings") about the deleterious effects of illegal immigration on unskilled wages, Mickey drops some knowledge:

The UAW's members negotiated above-market wages, demanded lots of legalistic work rules, and now want taxes on people like $10/hour agricultural laborers to bail them out when their firms go under (while deferring modest wage adjustments until 2011). Seems like a different case!

The way I understand it, wages fairly negotiated between two parties constitute the "market" wage, and it's presumptive evidence of some sort of improper manipulation when the price is "above" or "below" market. Mickey here seems to be arbitrarily defining non-union wages as "market" (rather than, you know, "lower"), which leads us to infer some unseemly violation on the part of the unions to command "above-market" ("higher") wages.

It raises the question: if you're the Chamber of Commerce, why do you even need lobbyists when ideologues like Mickey are more than willing to argue that basic union representation is a form of unsavory market manipulation? The best part is that Mickey and his ilk work below-market. Or, you know, "cheap".

[Of course, it's also possible that Mickey is using the Republican definition of "market", which means "the price I think they're worth." And since Republicans consider only four kinds of workers deserving of money -- hedge fund managers, investment bankers, corporate executives, and industry lobbyists; everybody else who is able to live comfortably is basically stealing -- autoworkers are paid de facto above-market wages.]

But maybe your point is that restricting the flow of illegal immigrant labor can raise the wages at the bottom of the ladder, for the "least among us," while protecting the UAW protects the $50/hour "aristocracy" of the labor movement. That must be it. I wonder which course the Democratic party dogma prefers.

Kausfiles! Protecting workers from Democrats since 1999!

See, he's not anti-labor, he's anti-Labor. He's totally with the unskilled workers of the world! Until they unionize. Or turn into Mexicans.

[Can they do that? -- ed. Quiet, my preciousss ...]