Card Check Now

With the Employee Free Choice Act gaining some legislative steam and Dick Cheney promising business that Bush has their back on this issue, it's natural that the anti-union talking points are getting out there. Kevin Drum does a nice job with this ditty in the LA Times, but the assertion that "the sad irony of unions is that they can only improve the lot of their members at the expense of other workers."

One tends to see a lot of this sort of thing from people overinvested in their formal economic models. It's worth wonders why owners and managers are willing to invest so much in keeping it easy to deny workers their ability to organize and bargain collectively if this is the case. All just some giant screw-up, or is it possible that corporate managers are perfectly aware that their share of the overall economic pie is partially on the table in these disputes? Or are we supposed to believe that the Chamber of Commerce is acting out of deep concern for low-skilled workers rather than the managers whose interests it represents?

UPDATE: We should do this too.