written by/for The Cato institute. Walter Olson is senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of a book on labor and employment law. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
This is a bit like "...in rats" or "... in vitro" -yes, we try to be neutral and talk to the content, but the Cato institute is a libertarian, Koch brothers funded body. Its really material.
Americans are not endogenously anti-union. Nobody is. They have to be taken there. Fear is a worse motivator than others but it is still a strong motivation, and I believe Amazon played to latent fear in the workforce at Bessamer, about short and longterm job security, if they voted yes.
The vote is not really contestable. This is the outcome everyone has have to live with, pro or anti union, getting side tracked into "we wuz robbed" is not going to help. I think unpacking why the workforce thought the value proposition wasn't good is worth unpacking. This is one point of view. But it's a very specific one, funded by a libertarian thinktank associated with the Koch industries.
Do you have a counter argument to the argument posed in the article? Or are you just dismissing all of it (not even worth discussing) because of who wrote it?
I’d say, Mother Jones, wrote about article decrying the failed vote as a major set back for workers would you also dismiss the entire article because of who wrote it?
No. I don't think I have the information or competence to discuss what he says in detail, or a hypothesised mother Jones article. I do think, the failure to get over the line is a massive setback for organised labour, and workers as a matter of principle. I am in favour of unions. The failure to win the vote is bad, for my side in politics.
The only point I wanted to make is the relationship of the author to a school of thought. If you think there is some morally neutral point these things are written from (I don't) then even in that imagined world, the cato institute is not it. The author comes from a very specific view of capital and labour. It's inherently opposed to unions.
This is a bit like "...in rats" or "... in vitro" -yes, we try to be neutral and talk to the content, but the Cato institute is a libertarian, Koch brothers funded body. Its really material.
Americans are not endogenously anti-union. Nobody is. They have to be taken there. Fear is a worse motivator than others but it is still a strong motivation, and I believe Amazon played to latent fear in the workforce at Bessamer, about short and longterm job security, if they voted yes.
The vote is not really contestable. This is the outcome everyone has have to live with, pro or anti union, getting side tracked into "we wuz robbed" is not going to help. I think unpacking why the workforce thought the value proposition wasn't good is worth unpacking. This is one point of view. But it's a very specific one, funded by a libertarian thinktank associated with the Koch industries.