If you are a corporation and you pay non-unionized labor so
little that they can’t live on their salary without government benefits such as
food-stamps, WIC, and TANF, then you are a predator corporation. You are taking
profits from the labor of others, and not paying for it. Instead, the
government is paying for it, and passing the bill along to the taxpayers. Some
might say it is highly immoral to “wring[ your] bread from the sweat of other
men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.”
Anyway, it isn’t illegal.
Now, just about any solution to this problem will
undoubtedly be condemned as “income redistribution” or, worse, “socialism.”
Never mind that anytime you go into Walmart and pay 25 cents for a trinket that
they got from China for 10 cents, your income is being redistributed to the
Waltons and the Chinese.
But the Republican fetish for free markets regards the
Waltons as geniuses who are simply playing by the rules and making money. Ain’t
that what capitalism is supposed to be?
Here’s an idea which is so crazy, it just may work.
Supposed you passed a law that said that anybody who works
for a non-union shop with more than 500 employees is ineligible for government
benefits unless they are paid $15.00/hr.
The Republican anti-government crowd would have to at least acknowledge
that it is not an expansion of the social safety net.
They might even welcome
it as a dismantling of what they see as a “welfare state.” Since, by its terms
the law would enable some employers to pay union workers less than non-union
workers it might be seen as a blow to the unions.
Most states and localities will see a savings from the
reduction of need for social services. They can pass the savings along in
reduced taxes. Or they can do a little infrastructure building, producing jobs
and higher quality of life. Or they can undo some of the cuts to education that
been necessitated by the recent reign of austerity.
But you know who isn’t going to like it? That would be the
Walton family. You see, their business model doesn’t work without getting
someone else to pay for their workers. What will they do when people refuse to work for them unless they are paid enough to live on? And by “paid enough to live on,” I mean, paid by their employers enough to live on. You see, it is just not worth it to work for the Waltons, without subsidies from the government.
Maybe they will decide that unions aren’t
such a bad thing after all. I doubt it, but as they say, it’s hard to predict
the future. After all, unions have the power of numbers with which to negotiate a living wage. Maybe the Walton family will have to tighten their belts, though it
is hard to imagine what they will have to do without. Maybe the CEO of McDonalds will have to scrape
by 4.1 million a year (as he did in 2011) rather than the $13.8 million he was
given this year. I think we can all agree that this is a bummer for him but it
is not as bad as working for 30 hours a week and making $217.50.
It may be that prices at Walmart and fast food places have
to go up. That’s not so bad, either. According to the laws of supply and
demand, people may eat less Mickey D. You got a problem with that? It may be
that the trinket that Walmart purchased in China for 10 cents to sell to you,
may cost you 27 cents instead of two bits. Think of the two cent difference as
the amount your locality saved on costs, and if you didn’t get it back on your
tax bill, enjoy your new road, or your kid’s music class. By the way, if you
would like to manufacture trinkets in American, to sell in your own trinket
boutique, you are two cents closer to being able to compete with Chinese
imports.
Talk this over with the next economist you meet,
“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”
