Union of Interests - A Different Way Forward

Better than the common platitude, "United we stand, divided we fall", is Benjamin Franklin's more powerful statement, "We must hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately". And as the public service unions of Wisconsin attempt to hang together, it's worth considering the alternatives, should Governor Scott Walker and his fellow conservatives win their way.

Growing up, I had a rather negative attitude towards unions. India, in the eighties, was in the thrall of the unions and they ably demonstrated everything that was worst about unions with too much power. Yet, looking back, the problem was not so much the unions, though they were no angels, but the byzantine mix of laws that rewarded lack of initiative and thwarted any spark of entrepreneurship. The unions and their leaders were willing collaborators, but they did not set up the massive state-run companies that had no incentive to turn a profit, that were treated as a way to buy political support. As I embarked on my journey across the world, I began to see unions in a new light.

The recently beatified former President Reagan won great acclaim for breaking the unions, and since then, his disciples have built on his victories to roll back the power of unions, and more importantly changed the public perception of unions and their members. In America today, unions are victims of their own successes in the past century. The inhuman working conditions and powerless position of the workers in early twentieth century America is now little more than a bad dream and generations raised to regard basic health-care and forty hour weeks as the norm forget that none of these luxuries were gifted to us by the magnanimity of our employers, but were won by furious, often bloody, battle by the much maligned unions. Yet today, they are reviled and distrusted as agents of a socialist Dystopia, somehow alienated from their neighbors, their fellow citizens. It's easy to see the battle over unions in simplistic black and white terms - the liberals want them, the conservatives hate them, the Democrats support them, the GOP wants to eliminate them.

But reality is rarely if ever that simple. I'm greatly conflicted over unions, in part because of the poor example they've set, in part because the anti-unionists have sold a seductive counter argument, and in part because I can't join one any more. The "right to work" is a slick piece of marketing, of a piece with "pro-life" - it sounds really great and reasonable and would work great, except that it doesn't. The pro-life brigade is busy imposing their moral view upon everyone else using a reasonable sounding term - who's anti-life after all? - to deny people the right to believe differently from them. In much the same way, the "right to work" has absolutely nothing objectionable at first blush. To be honest, I always thought that the idea that everyone who joined a unionized workforce had to join the union seemed unfair. Of course, on reflection it's obvious that once non-union labor is introduced, it becomes fairly easy for the management to weaken the union and destroy it. Likewise, seeing a portion of my payroll sucked away as union dues didn't seem too attractive an option either, which was a large part of why I opposed the unionization of the graduate students who were teaching assistants while at school. In the end the unions have to recognize that the world has changed over the last half century and they can no longer rest on their past laurels. Their time has passed and now has come the moment for a new idea.

Unions, at the their best, represent the most important part of a company. Let's be honest, if a company could survive without its labor, they would do it in a heartbeat. But the fact is, the workers are what makes or breaks a company. It is a common theme that the owner brought in the capital that made the company possible, which is a fair enough idea. But capital without workers is as meaningless as workers without an employer. Labor and capital need each other, no matter how much the pretend otherwise. It's time for both sides to forge a new relationship and it will need a lot of adjustments from both sides. Let's start by dropping the term "union' with all it's negative connotations - I propose that alternate terms like "Workers' Guild" (a shout out to the World of Warcraft) or "Workers' League' be adopted. But more importantly, all workers not invested in the company be made a part of this new association. The old distinctions between blue collar and white collar made sense, when the white collar workers were few and were usually treated as part of the company management. Today, when the line between the two has blurred and vast numbers of white collar workers struggle with less rights than their blur collar fellows, it's just another idea whose time has passed. And if  the professional players in the NFL can band together to bargain with their employees, why not the rest of us? Obviously, shareholders in the company cannot be a part of the association, since their interests are nominally at odds with those of the workers, but all others can and should be free to join this association. Of course, I see no role for "outsiders" in this association - only workers in the company can be in the association. And of course the positions would carry no additional salary - if the janitor won the job, he'd sit on the board of directors as a representative of his fellow workers, but he'd still draw a janitor's paycheck. And he'd still have to fulfill his janitorial duties.

However, it's critical to note that in fact, labor and owners are not on opposite sides of a zero sum game. And that is where the greatest adjustment is required in thinking. The worker's association, as partners of the capitalists need to have a role in company policy, not during wage negotiations only, but at all times. We live in an era of short term gains and myopic worldviews, when the CEO and his fellow Board of Directors earn a hundred times more than the average employee, and where those decisions on company policy and CEO compensation are never discussed with the people they impact most and who contribute every bit as much as the CEO or owner. In fact, for an established company that raises money largely on the stock market, the capital is so diffused that there is hardly a single person contributing overwhelmingly to the company's coffers and the workers are probably far more important. Ownership is the great American Dream, so let's make the workers equal partners in the company.

Now such an idea could be dismissed as socialism. So be it; if this is socialism, I embrace the concept, Comrades! But it's worth remembering that Margret Thatcher executed something fairly similar in Britain during her initial terms when she sold off state-owned corporations, often to the workers. I've heard of small company founders selling their company's to their employees when they wish to retire, so it's neither a revolutionary or ground breaking idea, really. I just suggest that this be implemented on a wider, near universal scale, and that the workers have a voice in all company policy. That would include the association having access to the company books, and all the same information as the rest of the Board. It will not end bad decisions - Hummers would probably have been built even under this system - but it will make the labor part of the solution. There are many other problems that would definitely remain, but workers invested in the long term health of the company would probably make reasonable accommodations on salaries and benefits and assume a fair share of the pain during the bad times, so long as they also reaped the profits during the good. Naturally workers who choose not to join the association would have that right and would still enjoy the benefits of any labor agreements negotiated by the association, but only association members would share in the decisions of the Board and in the profits - or losses - that flow therefrom.

Time to Negotiate Tough - Send for Shatner or The Rock

For the past week, the biggest issue relating to the killing of Osama bin Laden has been the one no one wants to confront directly: did the Pakistani government know of bin Laden's hideout and what do we do next? It's an issue that is likely being furiously debated at the highest levels of the US government and every other level besides, including the very inefficient waiter at the pizzeria by my office who told us he was a cousin of Leon Panetta. It is equally clear that Pakistan must be pondering the same question and wondering what the fallout for them will be.

Pakistan would have us believe that they had no idea that bin Laden was hiding just a short journey from their capital, a neighbor almost to their military academy. In a nation that has suffered multiple vicious and bloody attacks by terrorists committed to destroying the status quo and Pakistani state, it certainly stretches credulity that a large compound could be maintained so openly without the slightest knowledge of the government. Now, it is likely that the Pakistani intelligence service is no KGB or secret police service, that they are far from omnipotent, no matter what the Indians and Afghans may claim, and they may not have had the ability or even the mandate to investigate that mysterious complex. But one thing that makes hiding in south Asia so difficult is the pervasive corruption. I do know that the local police would have known there was something strange about that compound and would have suspected that it was either a mujaheddin commander, either Pakistani or Afghan, or a drug dealer. In  either scenario, they would have expected to be bribed to stay silent.  And the most troubling question is whether they could be bribed or coerced into silence regarding the world's most wanted man, that never once did they allow the news to slip out, say in hope of snagging that American reward. If the local security forces were willing to keep secret of this magnitude from the federal government in Islamabad, that may be far scarier than the possibility that the government was sheltering bin Laden. It suggests that even in a seemingly peaceful oasis, the government writ has ceased to run and from greed or fear, the local authorities answer to a different power. For the safety and survival of the Pakistani state, we must hope that is not so.

For the same reason, it is time for India and Afghanistan to face the truth they would rather not: fun as it is to crow over Pakistan's discredited government, we all need that government to remain stable and survive for none of us want to see a failed state with nucleur weapons in the hands of the boldest rather than the sanest claimant. There is but a small window of opportunity now and it will take the greatest act of statecraft since Disraeli bought the Suez canal, but the US must seek to  bring Pakistan, Afghanistan and India to the table together. India has till now resisted all attempts to engage with Pakistan on the larger issues of the region, retreating into a shell of Cold War hostility and knee jerk reactions, opposing even having Special Envoy Holbrook's title mention them at all. But India is deluding themselves, as much as the US does. The three countries, linked by common heritage that predates even the Mughal invasion of the Indian subcontinent, cannot address their issues bilaterally, when the issues go way beyond bilateral interests.

India likes to see all issues with Pakistan through the prism of their conflict over Kashmir. Afghanistan sees Pakistan interference in the Pushtun areas as a mischievous precursor to annexing the southern provinces. And so India plays Afghanistan against Pakistan, cultivating the Tajik and Uzbeks against the Pushtun south, while Pakistan supports a pushtun based insurgency against the Afghan government to remain relevant in Afghanistan. Back in 2001, the US offered Pakistan a stark choice, to join our war on the Taliban or become our enemy. We forced them to drop their tool against India, the strategic depth they desired and then were surprised when they kept their back channels open to their erstwhile clients. We offered the Pakistani government military aid in return, but in doing so we robbed them of all legitimacy in the eyes of their people. And with each drone strike, we further emasculate their government, even as we destroy common enemies. It is this failure to appreciate the nuances of the south Asian imbroglio that has most hampered US interests. We asked Pakistan to act against their own perceived strategic interests to further our own needs and never stopped to ask what the cost for them would be, And equally strangely, we pretended that a dictator ruling by proclamation represented the will of Pakistan when he paid lip service to our demands.

The only way to solve this problem is by ending the three way struggle between India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. By now, even Pakistan's most chauvinistic leaders must know that they will never gain all of Kashmir, just as the most bloody minded Indian knows that no matter what they call the northern part of Kashmir under Pakistani rule, it's never becoming a part of India. And no matter how much they harp on the UN mandated plebiscite, at this stage India knows that no Kashmiri north of the Line of Control is going to vote to join India. Since neither nation is going to give up territory to the other, much less allow an independent Kashmiri nation, it's time for them to quit pretending and convert the Line of Control into a permanent border. Once they drop claims on each other's territory, it will be a lot easier to stop supporting insurgencies in the opponent, and the need to fight a proxy war in Afghanistan will also decrease. If Pakistan accepts that they no longer need the strategic depth to the north, and India no longer seeks to encircle Pakistan, it will become a more straightforward battle in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, there are deeply entrenched attitudes that will make such a bargain difficult to achieve. Pakistan has since its inception worked on the assumption that India seeks to destroy them; the claim on Kashmir is as old. Changing that mindset is only part of the challenge, since even an elected government must now fear the reactions of the fundamentalists as well as the military whose very raison d'etre is based on the existential threat of India. A bargain would have to involve the government as well as most of the centrist opposition. Winning over the military is best achieved by clearly showing them the cold hard facts and their own interests rather than trying to bribe them as we've done over and over in the past. India is no easier to deal with, stuck in some ways in Cold war prickliness to any American "interference". But in reality, few Indians want the rest of Kashmir as part of India - the last thing they want is more Muslims, much less a group that has no wish to be in India. Strategic needs have long since receded - after all, India has managed without Kashmir for most of its life as an independent nation and the current generation do not even know a time when Kashmir was not a bomb wracked battleground. The diplomatic equivalent of a hard shake and a presentation of harsh reality may actually be so unusual an experience for India that it just might work. And secretly, both India and Pakistan know that their continued conflict helps no one and costs both of them enormously in lost economic possibilities. It's not going to be easy, but if we want to ever get out of Afghanistan and not see another bin Laden rise, we're going to have to engage all the players, even those, like India, who want to pretend that they aren't playing.

Playing the Wet Blanket....As Usual

It is the unfortunate but vital task of killjoys to shine at moments when most people would like them to fade away and hide. This week, as Osama bin Laden was executed in a scene that came straight out of a Tom Clancy novel, it was obvious that it was time to get out the old water hose and reprise the familiar wet blanket impersonation.

When I saw the first headlines, I thrilled and exulted as much as anyone around. While bin Laden never threatened me personally and I didn't lose any relatives to his terror, nor risked that loss, he has declared a war on the West in general, and the USA in particular and having chose to make my domicile in these more temperate climes, I consider his declaration of war a threat to my personal comfort at the very least. I never believed he could win, unless his intended opponents allowed him to win through fear; there were moments when I feared that America would hand the man greater success than his achievements ever warranted. Fear was what bin Laden dealt in, and America increased his stock and infamy every time they reacted in fear to the actions of his minions. America striped herself of freedom and dignity in a vain attempt to guard themselves against a terrorist who actually posed almost no threat whatsoever, and for that I help bin Laden responsible. He did not cancel our rights against government eavesdropping or spirit us away to secret prisons, but he inspired a fear in the population at large that condoned such actions in a false search for safety. He was the boogieman, the monster under the bed at night, and missteps had built him to a level that only defeat or capture could ever change that mindset. My one fear, greater than any fear of another terrorist attack, was that he would die quietly in hiding and we would never vanquish our fear of him.

And so when I heard that a US commando raid had invested him in a few pound of parabellum and stamped his exit visa, as I said, I was happy. Bin Laden finally got to personally experience the martyrdom he craved for others and that alone was cause for happiness.  Not flag waving, chest thumping happy - for one thing thumping my chest leads only to a dull cottony sound, and I leave that atavistic form of behavior to our great ape cousins, while  descending into the streets waving the flag to which I nominally owe allegiance would likely get me shot, something I fear I may be allergic to. As the news spread and scenes of tumultuous celebrations poured in, I began to feel a sense of disquiet. This was not the mature closure I hoped for, this was Rome watching Vercingetorix in chains and screaming for blood. To be sure there was plenty of restraint on display, but on every forum they were jostled equally by jingoistic posts claiming exceptionalism, and damning bin Laden to the innermost circles of hell.

President Obama spoke, as always, in measured terms, striking a great balance between triumph and somber realism, but his words were largely drowned out in the din from the population in general and the talking heads of television and politicians fighting for a share of the reflected glory. Two issues struck me above all. Firstly, this was almost universally declared an act of justice and it fell to a lone writer at Slate.com to point out that this was anything but. Amazingly, for a man declared our most wanted terrorist, bin Laden was never charged with the attack on the World Trade Center, much less tried and sentenced for his crimes. To be sure, he claimed personal responsibility, but so do terrorists often for the acts of others. And that omission by our arm of justice troubles me of many levels. If we intended to capture bin Laden, as George Bush promised immediately after the Towers fell, what would we do to him? Were we so afraid of a single man that we were going to lock him away in a secret prison to never see the light of day again? What does that say for us as  a nation and a people that a scruffy old man, with little charisma and no towering intellect, terrifies us to the point that we would not dare try him for the crimes we accuse him of committing? Do we accept the concept of two levels of justice, one for citizens and another one for people who scare us? Today that person is bin Laden, but it could be expanded to include others, as it has in the past. We were too scared to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and forced the Obama administration to drop their plans to finally try the one terrorist we had from the WTC attack. We locked away dozens if not hundreds of suspected al Qaida supporters - not all terrorists mind, just supporters - and took years to determine if they were even threats to us. Sixty years ago, we locked up thousands of Americans of Japanese descent in an action that was eventually acknowledged to be wrong, yet we've not learned from Roosevelt's admonition that there is nothing to fear than fear itself. We tried Slobodan Milosevic for his crimes in Kosovo on the reasoning that shining a light on his barbaric actions would rob them of the power to terrorize and would bring liberation and closure to his victims. But in the end, for all our brashness and chants of "USA" and braggadocio, we were as scared of bin Laden as the puniest kid confronted by a bully in a dark street. Killing bin Laden exorcised our fears for a day, but the near hysteria in our reaction is a pointer to the deeper fears that will only be buried and never confronted.

The other troubling factor was the return of the supporters of torture. They still dance around the term and hide behind the fig leaf of "enhanced interrogation techniques" but I fear very much that the day when America accepts torture as a legitimate police action has just become so much closer. When the debate first began, torture was justified in vague terms about the need to collect urgent actionable information that would save American lives. It was easy to blast aside traditionalists by invoking the safety of these imaginary victims; who would shed tears for a few dirty terrorists when their hours of pain would save lives? It was impossible to prove that torture was not needed, because the debate was argued within the framework defined by the supporters of Torquemada. But till now they shied away from calling torture by its true name and cited it only as a final resort to be used in direst need. Last week, they were emboldened to claim that the execution of bin Laden was justification for torture in wider circumstances. If torture of al Qaida operatives in 2007 led the SEAL team to his lair four long years later, that alone should suggest that it was never needed in first place. that there was never the urgency that was used to justify it in first place. Add in the  fact the actual actionable intelligence was collected not under torture, but months later by regular interrogation and one would imagine that the case for torture would be weaker than before. Yet in a bizarre reflection of the world we live in,  just the fact that the men who gave up information on bin Laden had been tortured at some point previously is now justification that torture works. It doesn't, and this should prove it. More importantly, we should be rejecting torture as a method, irrespective of its efficacy. Today it's a technique talked about in the abstract, to be used against unknown others, who are mostly Muslim, Arab and non-American citizens, but when we legitimize the idea we open the door for all of us to share that fate in future. And by then it will be too late to object.