Well, there you have it. There aren't many communist countries left around, but in a matter of moments, Congressman Davis used examples from two of them (remember yesterday's blog mentioned Cuba's offshore drilling) to lower the bar for American fairness and achievement. And the subject provided the opportunity to decry the fact that Jim Webb cosponsored the bill in the Senate.
I recalled a feature I watched on CNN International some months ago. It concerned WalMart's implementation of a new employee management system that would determine the number of work hours necessary at which times of the day (based upon, I would imagine, store traffic and sales volume). The CNN perspective seemed to be that this was a new American innovation that would improve business efficiency by organizing workers' hours. My perspective centered on how the employees would enjoy getting not only their schedules jerked around but also assuming some of the capital venture's risk with no potential reward. You see, if sales were slow, labor would be just another easily controlled variable cost. The employees would sacrifice income to ensure the venture's profitability. Risk is shifted to the employees and away from the investors with simply no potential reward for the employees (only a potential downside) and all the upside for the investors. This is an innovation that could make every service worker in America a part-time employee with no reliable expectation of consistent earnings. That is a definition of underemployment everywhere except among socialists (some in France actually embraced the notion of job sharing to reduce unemployment some years ago). How do you imagine an employee or two would fare objecting to this compensation scheme going by themselves to face WalMart management?
Unionization of the TSA? What I have experienced is that unions bring an enhanced level of professionalism and safety to the workplace. Anyone who traveled in the early days, months, and years of TSA knows full well that the implementation of that initiative was a disaster. Anyone who has worked in a union environment understands that unions can police the workforce in a positive way that government and even private sector employers cannot. Maybe the ridiculous near strip searches of blue haired grandmas could be avoided with a little input from a more professionally represented and professional workforce. Maybe a full discussion of profiling could have heightened awareness of the concerns with profiling to the benefit of our nation as a whole.
Let pass the attempt at hyperbole in the remark about unionization of the TSA being the Democrats' national security initiative. But, one can be left with no doubt that Representative Davis believes that management ought to hold all the cards and that "common laborers" must accept their place in society like the members of the compliant Chinese collective. I do wonder what other vestiges of some totalitarian paradigm he and his fellow Republicans embrace as measures for American social progress.
VBDems.org - Blogging our way to Democratic wins in Virginia Beach! Go RK!