Dear Commons Community,

Nicholas Kristof in his New York Times column yesterday fesses up that he used to be opposed to unions. He has now changed his mind because he has come to believe that a good deal of the income inequality in this country can be traced to the weakening of unions and collective bargaining.

“I disdained unions as bringing corruption, nepotism and rigid work rules to the labor market, impeding the economic growth that ultimately makes a country strong.

I was wrong.

The abuses are real. But, as unions wane in American life, it’s also increasingly clear that they were doing a lot of good in sustaining middle class life — especially the private-sector unions that are now dwindling.

Most studies suggest that about one-fifth of the increase in economic inequality in America among men in recent decades is the result of the decline in unions. It may be more: A study in the American Sociological Review, using the broadest methodology, estimates that the decline of unions may account for one-third of the rise of inequality among men.

“To understand the rising inequality, you have to understand the devastation in the labor movement,” says Jake Rosenfeld, a labor expert at the University of Washington and the author of “What Unions No Longer Do.”

Take construction workers. A full-time construction worker earns about $10,000 less per year now than in 1973, in today’s dollars, according to Rosenfeld. One reason is probably that the proportion who are unionized has fallen in that period from more than 40 percent to just 14 percent.

“All the focus on labor’s flaws can distract us from the bigger picture,” Rosenfeld writes. “For generations now the labor movement has stood as the most prominent and effective voice for economic justice.”

I’m as appalled as anyone by silly work rules and $400,000 stagehands, or teachers’ unions shielding the incompetent. But unions also lobby for programs like universal prekindergarten that help create broad-based prosperity. They are pushing for a higher national minimum wage, even though that would directly benefit mostly nonunionized workers.

I’ve also changed my mind because, in recent years, the worst abuses by far haven’t been in the union shop but in the corporate suite. One of the things you learn as a journalist is that when there’s no accountability, we humans are capable of tremendous avarice and venality. That’s true of union bosses — and of corporate tycoons. Unions, even flawed ones, can provide checks and balances for flawed corporations.”

Kristof’s conclusion:

“This isn’t something you often hear a columnist say, but I’ll say it again: I was wrong…we should strengthen unions, not try to eviscerate them.”

Amen!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

An advisory panel of the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors has recommended closing three academic centers, including a poverty center and one dedicated to social change, inciting outrage among liberals who believe that conservatives in control of state government are targeting ideological opponents in academia. As reported in the New York Times:

“Conservatives are cheering the move, seeing it as a corrective to a higher education system they believe has lent its imprimatur to groups that engage in partisan activism.

“They’re moving in the right direction, though I don’t think they went far enough,” said Francis X. De Luca, president of the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh. “A lot of these centers were started up with a specific advocacy role in mind, as opposed to an educational role.”

But critics say the moves by a panel whose members were appointed by a Republican-dominated Legislature reflect the rightward tilt of state government.

“It’s clearly not about cost-saving; it’s about political philosophy and the right-wing takeover of North Carolina state government,” said Chris Fitzsimon, director of NC Policy Watch, a liberal group. “And this is one of the biggest remaining pieces that they’re trying to exert their control over.”

The impassioned response is the latest manifestation of a deep ideological rift in North Carolina that was exacerbated by the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of both houses of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. They soon enacted an ambitious conservative agenda in what had been one of the South’s more moderate states.

The fate of the 17-campus public university system was bound to be affected: While many here take pride in its carefully cultivated rise to the top tier of American public education, conservatives have long groused about some campuses, particularly the flagship school at Chapel Hill, as out-of-touch havens of liberalism.

Since the recession began, the state government has also subjected the system to budget cuts leading to the loss of hundreds of positions.
Twenty-nine of the 32 university board members were appointed by the Legislature after the Republicans’ 2010 gains. Last year, lawmakers instructed the board to consider redirecting some of the funding that goes to the system’s 240 centers and institutes, which focus on topics ranging from child development to African studies.

The advisory group’s report, which is likely to be considered by the full Board of Governors next Friday, recommends closing the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at Chapel Hill; North Carolina Central University’s Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change; and East Carolina University’s Center for Biodiversity.”

It is sad commentary that one of the truly great public university systems in our country is being forced to submit to the whims of ideologues.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Various media including the Associated Press are reporting that University of California President Janet Napolitano is postponing a proposed tuition increase as a good faith gesture stemming from her ongoing negotiations with Gov. Jerry Brown to resolve their standoff over higher education funding.

 
Speaking at the University of Southern California, Napolitano said she was also hopeful the university system will be able to forestall any tuition increase for the next academic year.

 
Napolitano and Brown have been working in private to consider some of the proposals the governor believes will allow the university to serve more students without increasing tuition or receiving a significant budget hike.

 
The Board of Regents approved raising tuition to up to 5 percent each of the next five years at Napolitano’s urging in November unless the state gave the university more money.

Tony