CARROLL: A reckless gamble

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size

Rima Barakat Sinclair

More Opinion Columns & Blogs

More stories »

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union is the best thing to come along since Santa Claus. Its latest bright idea is a ballot measure guaranteeing that "all employers shall provide to their employees an annual wage or salary increase to account for an increase in the cost of living, as measured by the Consumer Price Index used for Colorado."

I know what you're thinking: That's sure nice of them, but what about a periodic promotion? Shouldn't that be guaranteed by state law, too? How can employees feel good about themselves without a boost up the ladder at least once, say, every five years?

And shouldn't vacation be set by statute, for that matter? Five weeks for all would be fine. Six would be better. Seven would be bliss.

When will the union gear up to tackle these equally urgent affronts to worker rights and happiness?

It's possible, to be sure, that the United Food and Commercial Workers Union was merely having an early April Fool's joke at our expense when it filed its cost-of-living ballot initiative Monday. After all, the measure is so inflexible that it explicitly prohibits employers from reducing wages even when the Consumer Price Index drops. Can they be serious?

Well, feel free to console yourself with that naive thought if you like, or with the perhaps more credible hope that the measure is merely a union bargaining chip in an effort to get those backing a right-to-work initiative to abandon their campaign. Whatever you do, though, don't discount the possibility that Coloradans, in their collective wisdom, might support a reckless gamble of putting the state's entire wage structure on automatic pilot and thus driving every marginal operation into the ground.

Ours is an electorate, after all, that put school funding on auto pilot in 2000 (no less than the cost-of-living plus 1 percent for 10 years, and then a COLA) and, as recently as 2006, defied economic prudence by sticking a COLA on the minimum wage.

What better way to combat "corporate greed," voters might conclude, than to set a floor under all wages?

Aren't the laws of economics just for chumps?

Centrist?

Rima Barakat Sinclair, her campaign Web site assures us, "continues to work for better understanding among peoples of different backgrounds" and "has regularly participated in interfaith dialogue." No doubt this enduring interest in "understanding" and "dialogue" is what prompted this Republican candidate for House District 6 in Denver to craft the following words two years ago regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

"Soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces have murdered children for throwing stones at army tanks. Israeli soldiers have claimed that the children represented a 'security' threat to them. . . . The systematic indiscriminate murder of civilians and the illegal collective imprisonment of a whole nation have been slowly suffocating the life out of the Palestinians. The brutal act of imprisoning 1.4 million people in an attempt to bring a whole nation to its knees is evidence of depraved Israeli policy. The sadistic conduct of preventing medical help from reaching the injured while Israeli soldiers watch is in violation of laws of man and of God."

And so on.

Sinclair submitted this rant to the Rocky under the byline Rima Barakat, which we published as a Speakout column. You might wonder about our judgment, but you cannot doubt where Barakat Sinclair stands on the Israeli-Palestinian debate: with the hard-edged anti-Israel fringe. She has made too many similar claims regarding the Israelis' alleged policies of "systematic indiscriminate murder" to brush them off as an aberration.

"Sinclair describes herself as a centrist," her campaign Web site tells us.

Except on the one issue she cares most about, it seems.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News

Comments

April 3, 2008

12:36 a.m.

Suggest removal

peterpi writes:

Let's see, companies do well, CEO salaries go up. Companies do poorly, CEO salaries go up. Comapnies go bankrupt, CEOs get megabucks (literally) to assuage their hurt feelings. Vincent says little.
Colorado voters want a decent minimum wage standard, and Vincent says we're defying the immutable laws of economics.
The labor movement is apparently trying to put 5 measures on the ballot. That will look greedy to the voters and is a good way of losing all five.
But, to Vincent, it is OK for pampered CEOs with an enormous sense of privilege (who are rapidly becoming the nobility in this country) to thumb their nose at economic common sense, but workers need to know their place.
April 3, 2008

7:14 a.m.

Suggest removal

VVVV writes:

So CEOs getting more money no matter what their performance is you consider to be a bad thing, so why not spread a bad idea to all workers? I just think you might have the right stuff to be elected to office. That kind of fatally flawed logic seems to run rampant in the capitol building.

It's almost as fatally flawed as the logic that since the Holocaust created Israel, the Israelis must be incapable of committing any kind of atrocity. Not that Palestinians are guiltless, but condoning violence on one side while condemning it on the other, regardless of motive or ideology is illogical, no matter what side you fall on. The only logical response is Ghandi's - "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." It also might have been logical for Carroll to offer evidence to rebut Sinclair's claims, but he'd rather just the word 'alleged' once and expect the reader to conclude that anything Sinclair says is false. I suppose Carroll must be practicing his argument spinning to run for office too.
April 3, 2008

9:33 a.m.

Suggest removal

Cwillyrun1 writes:

Force employers to raise salaries or wages annually, even if they financially aren't able to, and the cost of everything will go up with it. Then that salary or wage increase will kick in again, and the cost of products go up again. Simple economics... and a vicious cycle is what we get. If you think that fuel cost increases and the cost of corn products going up because of the very, very flawed ehtanol mandate are the only things affecting your wallet, this will only add to it. If someone doesn't like the pay rate they receive, they can turn down the job offer or find another job. Nobody is forcing anyone to work somewhere if they don't like the work or pay conditions. While I don't like CEO's making big money like some do, it's up to the investors or board members opf those companies to keep it in line. There is no ceiling on what a person legally can receive in compensation.

Sinclair surely doesn't represent very many people with her views on Israel. History has shown Palestinians will do whatever they have to in destroying Israel..... "wiping it off the face of the earth" is a quote I've read many times. Too bad the small country constantly has to defend itself from neighboring arab states that wish for it's existence to end. Not that Israel is without any blame, but the majority of the blame falls on Palestine. By the way, VVVV, if you don't read anything else but Carroll's opinion piece and form your thoughts from it, shame on you for not being informed on a much higher level.
April 3, 2008

11:16 a.m.

Suggest removal

drumman writes:

VVVV, you've missed the point. It's not that Vincent Carroll is implying everything Rima Sinclair says is false, it's that she's claiming to be a "centrist" when she obviously is not. Personally though, I do find Rima Sinclair to lack credibility. She won her House District 6 nomination in the first place by claiming to be pro-life, even though she's quoted in a 2004 Rocky Mountain News article as saying, "I would like a pro-choice president."
April 3, 2008

12:36 p.m.

Suggest removal

momoftwo writes:

What an insult to the residents of this state! The people, not the Corporations, vote. What matters to them, whether it is education or cost of living increases, should be the priority - not what greedy corporations tell the people to do.
April 3, 2008

1 p.m.

Suggest removal

bassman writes:

I've got another idea. Let's make it illegal to fire an employee. Move On.org could monitor the greedy corporations' compliance and The Great Workers' Paradise will be within our grasp. No more rich fat cats and no more exploited masses. George Soros for President. Okay, put me in my white coat and haul me off. I've had my say.
April 3, 2008

1:12 p.m.

Suggest removal

peterpi writes:

VVVV,
I'm going to turn your argument around. If it is bad economics for employees to always get a raise, no matter the condition of the company, why doesn't that standard apply to CEOs of big companies? If Vincent Carroll doesn't like unions, doesn't like the idea of organized labor, and thinks these 5 initiatives stink, he's got a right to that opinion. But he doesn't apply his logic beyond the rank and file worker. If a company does well, everyone should do well. If a company is struggling, everyone should sacrifice. One example: ATA Airlines fired virtually all of its workers, and filed for bankruptcy. Want to bet the top management still got every last penny of pay and perks, while the mechanics, flight attendants, and office workers will be lucky to receive their final paycheck? There's been too many stories of poorly performing companies firing rank and file workers, giving their top management a raise or a helluva large bonus, and Wall Street cheers. Workers aren't immune from basic economics, but CEOs seem to be, and that doesn't ruffle Vincent's feathers.
April 3, 2008

2:15 p.m.

Suggest removal

oneworker writes:

Employers could adopt everyone of these measures on their own and workers would have no more complaints. They won't. Workers are denied the most basic improvements in wages and benefits so corporations have money to spend on bonuses, bad decisions, and short-sidedness and any other thing they want. These initiatives simply require the employers to give a little to workers before using the money the way they have all along.
April 3, 2008

2:18 p.m.

Suggest removal

Konyok writes:

Peterpi:

I don't understand the fixation with executive pay and perks. It might be aesthetically displeasing, but is a really minor economic factor.
Executive pay and perks are a small fraction of the payroll of the average large company. A bonus of one million is equal to a ten cent an hour raise for 10,000 employees.
Minimum wages imposed by the government apply to all workers. Wages above the minimum are offered by companies at their own discretion - the government has no role. Are then suggesting that there should be a maximum wage set by the government?
April 3, 2008

2:33 p.m.

Suggest removal

dskiraider writes:

A lot comments criticizing the unions' proposals miss the point. The Right to Work (for less) initiative will have a devastating impact on Colorado's economy. Costs that extend beyond the loss of union membership. The unions' proposals will balance those losses.

The bigger picture is this lie that holding businesses to stricter standards of operating will hurt the economy. It is deregulation which allows businesses the flexibility they whine they need that has led us to the point we are in the economy. Who gets hurt? The people. The costs that all businesses choose to fiddle are labor costs and the benefits associated with them. Never executive compensation, which is obscene, but the little person's nickels and dimes.

It's a proven fact that Right to Work (for less) states are in the lower-tier of per capita earnings. It's a proven fact that places where workers are taken care of have stronger economies.

Inflation is already here and a reality. What's missing is a rise in wages and salaries. Inflation is inevitable in a capitalistic society where there is little regulation. This creates a gap. The solution is to allow people's earnings to rise to meet the inflation. You won't see a spike in prices that will price the increased earnings out of affordability. That's a distraction argument.

We need to combat these kinds of "The Sky Is Falling" on businesses propoganda with real facts that support the counter-argument.
April 3, 2008

2:41 p.m.

Suggest removal

courtneym writes:

the compaines dont care about what people want because they dont have to leave your lives or be in your shoes because no matter what they will always have a great paycheck and health coverage when they want it. and all of you guys should have great money and health coverage as well.
April 3, 2008

3:02 p.m.

Suggest removal

Konyok writes:

Yes, Dskiraider
It IS a proven fact that social democrat economies are stronger.
Just like it is a proven fact that the world is 8,000 years old.
You just gotta have faith ...
April 3, 2008

3:14 p.m.

Suggest removal

stuckiniowa writes:

dskiraider --- which of these states where "workers are taken care of have strong economies" are you talking about?

California -- nope
Michigan -- nope
Pennsylvania -- nope

I could keep naming states - but I get bored easily.
April 3, 2008

4:16 p.m.

Suggest removal

middleclass writes:

The corporate special interest pushing Right to Work for Less started this attck on the Middle class!

I applaud UFCW for making a departing gift to the workers of Colorado, if the right to work for less initiative passes. It's about time there was a ballot initiative for the average worker. I think Colorado workers will vote for these initiatives big time.

Labor and corporations should start talking, or just fight it out at the polls. The struggling middle class may opt for anything that would make their lives better. Corporations have been screwing the middle class for far too long.
April 3, 2008

4:18 p.m.

Suggest removal

middleclass writes:

Martin Luther King Jr. said, "In our glorious fight for civil rights we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'Right to Work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped."
April 3, 2008

5:51 p.m.

Suggest removal

jjez writes:

"The struggling middle class may opt for anything that would make their lives better." Or that they THINK will make it better. Because most people don't bother to research what "right to work" would actually do to them. They'll vote according to who has the better propaganda. Just like they'll vote for which ever candidate looks best. Or is more charismatic. Or whoever they're spouse/friends/parents vote for.

It's is a viscous circle. Union workers make more money, which contributes to the cost of what ever it is they make (cuz you KNOW the bigwigs have to make even more than that!), which in turn makes the cost of living higher. If you don't have a union to protect you, you don't have enough money to make ends meet. Which just continues the cycle. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful to have a union represent me, because if I didn't, I'd be much worse off. So would all of my co-workers and fellow union members. Yes, unions protect those who should, by all rights, not have a job but there are those same types in non-union jobs, they just move from job-to-job more frequently. And to Cwillyrun1---"If someone doesn't like the pay rate they receive, they can turn down the job offer or find another job. Nobody is forcing anyone to work somewhere if they don't like the work or pay conditions"--have YOU tried to find a job right now? Good luck, with unemployment going up. Of course, you're probably upper middle management at a company that has a union and so are very anti-union. Do you not realize that YOU wouldn't be in as good a position if there was no union. Unions don't only benefit the bargained-for employees. Management also benefits.
April 3, 2008

6:05 p.m.

Suggest removal

erod writes:

UFCW is a non-profit organization that fights for the right of the every day American, who does not have the time or the money to make laws in their favor. Workers don't have the money because we make pennies; we don't have the time because we work two jobs to keep food on the table. Give American workers the chance to live the American Dream.
April 5, 2008

11:07 a.m.

Suggest removal

km2141 writes:

I have been very disappointed by the one-sided coverage on the Rima Barakat Sinclair candidacy. Her campaign maintains a web site at www.sinclairdenver.com that provides a more comprehensive picture of the candidate.
April 5, 2008

12:42 p.m.

Suggest removal

drumman writes:

I have been very disappointed so many people take Rima Sinclair at face value and assume she's being sincere. Her views prior to her current campaign are not in line with those of the republican party, and she misrepresented herself as a pro-life candidate to win the nomination at the county assembly. She needs to run as a democrat so she can be honest about her views.

Home › Opinion › Opinion Columns & Blogs

CARROLL: A reckless gamble

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

More Opinion Columns & Blogs

Share

Comments

Featured

Columns & Blogs