Wisconsin Labor Stand off

Since I work for the International Labor Organisation, I feel somewhat obliged to write about the recent labor discord in Wisconsin. I'll first let William B. Gould speak for me:

"As the United States has argued for South Africa, Poland and now Egypt, unions are a basic part of democratic society. Yet that is the principle under attack by Governor Walker in Wisconsin now."


It's important to eradicate certain myths about this war on unions.

Myth 1.
The Unions are out of control, the governor cannot negotiate in good faith with them.

The reality is the unions have not been given any seat at the negotiating table. Public sector workers have been willing over the last two years to accept huge pay cuts.

Myth 2:
Governor Walker is acting altruistically to save the state of Wisconsin, he has no alterior motives.

As one reader commeted on the new york times room for debate, "Firefighter and police unions were spared this draconian demand. Why? They tend to vote Republican. They supported Walker's campaign. Teacher's unions typically support Democratic candidates. This is an effort to stifle the opposition, to subvert the very principles of democracy."

Myth 3
Government workers should not have the right to unionize because they are workers trying to make a profit, but servants: They work at the behest of the public.

This comment is repeated time and again. To me, it is a real head scratcher. Yes, it is true that tax payer dollars pay for public sector salaries, but tax payers don't decide individual salaries, they don't oversee the safety standards for workers. These decisions are always made by a small group of people in the state capital. The goal of the Union is to make sure that this small group of deciders, provides decent working conditions to public servants. Is there anything wrong with that?


Myth 4,

High public sector salaries and good working conditions are bad/unfair for the private sector.

Often times people make it sound that the public sector should follow exactly the same rules as the private sector. Since the private sector doesn't get to unionize ( mostly because firms have been so effective at squashing union mobilization), than the public sector shouldn't get to either. Of course everyone should have the great working conditions allowed through collective bargaining! I might add that high wages often add important demand into the economy so there is another reason to support collective bargaining.


Lastly Barack Obama's State of the Union.

"Some countries don’t have to (negotiate on anything). If the central government wants a railroad, they get a railroad. If they don’t want a bad story in the newspaper, it doesn’t get written. And yet, a I know there isn’t a person here who would trade places with any other nation on Earth."

Collective Bargaining can also be messy. Banning them is certainly efficient in the short run. But if anything, the robustness of the American democracy shows that when you give people freedom, you end up in a more decent society. When you decide to curb freedom out of expediency (in the case of Egypt for example) you almost always end up with oppression.

Friedman on Egypt

Tom Friedman an interesting column today on the role of the military and the direction of the protests. Like me Friedman shares some of the same concerns about the role of the military that is protecting both Mubarak and the crowds. He also says that Iranian revolution is not a good parallel. I agree. I think that the closest analogy to the current demonstrations would be the 1968 student demonstrations throughout Europe. Just as in North Africa there was a contagion affect as protests spread from one country to another country: US to Czechoslovakia to France. Also the North African countries share a similar demographic with the countries in 1968 in that they both have a high percentage of young with a different vision of the world than their parents.

Well here is the article:

Just when you think the Egyptian uprising is dying down, more Egyptians than ever waited in long lines on Tuesday to get into Tahrir Square to ask President Hosni Mubarak’s regime to go. One reason the lines get so long is that everyone has to funnel through a single makeshift Egyptian Army checkpoint, which consists of an American-made tank on one side and barbed wire on the other. I can never tell whether that tank is there to protect the protesters or to limit the protesters. And that may be the most important question in Egypt today: Whose side is the army on?

Right now Egypt’s respected army is staying neutral — protecting both Mubarak’s palace and the Tahrir revolutionaries — but it can’t last. This is a people’s army. The generals have to heed where the public is going — and today so many Egyptians voted with their feet to go into Tahrir Square that a friend of mine said: “It was like being on the hajj in Mecca.”

The army could stick by Mubarak, whose only strategy seems to be to buy time and hope that the revolt splinters or peters out. Or the army could realize that what is happening in Tahrir Square is the wave of the future. And, therefore, if it wants to preserve the army’s extensive privileges, it will force Mubarak to go on vacation and establish the army as the guarantor of a peaceful transition to democracy — which would include forming a national unity cabinet that writes a new constitution and eventually holds new elections, once new parties have formed.

I hope it is the latter, and I hope President Obama is pressing the Egyptian Army in this direction — as do many people here. For that to unfold, both the Egyptian Army and the Obama team will have to read what is happening in Tahrir Square through a new lens. Mubarak wants everyone to believe this is Iran 1979 all over, but it just does not feel that way. This uprising feels post-ideological.

The Tahrir Square uprising “has nothing to do with left or right,” said Dina Shehata, a researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “It is about young people rebelling against a regime that has stifled all channels for their upward mobility. They want to shape their own destiny, and they want social justice” from a system in which a few people have gotten fantastically rich, in giant villas, and everyone else has stagnated. Any ideological group that tries to hijack these young people today will lose.

One of the best insights into what is happening here is provided by a 2009 book called “Generation in Waiting,” edited by Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef, which examined how young people are coming of age in eight Arab countries. It contends that the great game that is unfolding in the Arab world today is not related to political Islam but is a “generational game” in which more than 100 million young Arabs are pressing against stifling economic and political structures that have stripped all their freedoms and given them in return one of the poorest education systems in the world, highest unemployment rates and biggest income gaps. China deprives its people of political rights, but at least it gives them a rising standard of living. Egypt deprived its people of political rights and gave them a declining standard of living.

That is why this revolt is primarily about a people fed up with being left behind in a world where they can so clearly see how far others have vaulted ahead. The good news is that many Egyptians know where they are, and they don’t want to waste another day. The sad news is how hard catching up will be.

The Arab world today, Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian opposition leader and Nobel laureate, remarked to me, is now “a collection of failed states who add nothing to humanity or science” because “people were taught not to think or to act, and were consistently given an inferior education. That will change with democracy.” It will unlock all the talent of this remarkable civilization.

Indeed, it is no surprise that the emerging spokesman for this uprising is Wael Ghonim — a Google marketing executive who is Egyptian. He opened a Facebook page called “We are all Khaled Said,” named for an activist who was allegedly beaten to death by police in Alexandria. And that page helped spark the first protests here. Ghonim was abducted by Egyptian security officials on Jan. 28, and he was released on Monday. On Monday night, he gave an emotional TV interview that inspired many more people to come into the square on Tuesday. And when he spoke there in the afternoon, he expressed the true essence of this uprising.

“This country, I have said for a long time, this country is our country, and everyone has a right to this country,” Ghonim declared. “You have a voice in this country. This is not the time for conflicting ideas, or factions, or ideologies. This is the time for us to say one thing only, ‘Egypt is above all else.’ ”

That is what makes this revolt so interesting. Egyptians are not asking for Palestine or for Allah. They are asking for the keys to their own future, which this regime took away from them. They are not inspired by “down with” America or Israel. They are inspired by “Up with Egypt” and “Up with me.”

Frank Rich on the Egyptian Revolution

A great article by Frank Rich on the poor media coverage in the arab world: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/opinion/06rich.html

Egyptian surprises

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me, and certainly the thing that I got most wrong was how the protesters would initially see the military. I assumed that the protesters would see the military the same way that they saw the police. This seemed logical because because the regime was as much a military state as it was a police state. I thought that the decisive moment would occur when the military took over. The inevitable confrontation would end with a decisive victory for Mubarak because there are too many forces internally and externally backing the military because they are scared to death of a coup. Egypt would not end in a coup as in Tunisia.

The arrival of the military did not lead to confrontation. Instead the soldiers were initially treated like liberators, the military not wanting to create another confrontation let the protesters continue their protests while still tacitly backing Mubarak. Bizarre images of protesters and soldiers intermingled were broadcast across the world.

There are signs that this truce might be beginning to end. The military has asked that the protesters go home, a demand completely unacceptable to the protesters who want to see Mubarak ousted. We will see in the next couple of days how this stand off ends.

Here is the best article on the role of the military in Egypt:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/world/middleeast/29forces.html?scp=3&sq=egypt%20army&st=cse

What next?

We now know that Mubarak is going to step down one way or another. The question remains whether it will be a quick relatively bloodless coup as in Tunisia. Or whether the regime will try to stagger into the fall election. I definitely think that while both cases poses risks, the second one may well be more dangerous. If he stays in power as a figurehead, you know that conspiracy theories are going to abound about everything from western manipulation, to voter tampering, and intimidation, sectarian violence might explode which could have extremely deleterious effect on US security.

It seems clear that the US needs to change course: continuing to demand reforms was stupid a week ago, now it is completely irrelevant. Mubarak has agreed to leave before the next election, today's Mubarak is completely powerless and is completely at the mercy of the military, who have basically taken over the country. Surprisingly, the emergence of El Baradei has given the US something of an outlet. He is a moderate politicians who seems well respected by all sides. The US now can make the case (as they did in Tunisia) that Mubarak immediately step down and leave Egypt. This would do two things, it would put the US clearly on the side of the protesters and might give slightly better odds that the new regime will have some similar interests as the US.

U.S. Foreign Policy and Egypt

Here is Ed Kenney's take on Egypt:

Hosni Mubarak is on his way out as President of Egypt. The protests have reached the critical tipping point: labor strikes are on schedule for Tuesday along with a million man march. The Egyptian military, which ultimately will decide the fate of the embattled president, has already shown an inability or unwillingness to control the streets. Soon its desire to preserve its reputation in post-Mubarak Egypt will force it to act against the president. For the Americans two questions remain: how will this unrest affect U.S. interests and what can be done policy-wise to manage the situation.

Before addressing these questions, it makes sense to debunk some of the myths that have pervaded the conversation up to this point, especially with regards to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Myth #1: The U.S. is in a position to dictate the future of Egypt.

This myth takes a variety of forms. Some argue that the U.S. has the ability to push Mubarak out of power. Undoubtedly, once he leaves conspiracy theories involving nefarious U.S. involvement will proliferate. In reality, the U.S. has relatively few policy levers to influence events in Egypt which will determined by protesters and the military. What can the U.S. do? We can issue public statements in support or defense of the current regime, we can withhold or continue to supply military aid—or use military aid as a bargaining chip. We can use our close relationship with the military to gather intelligence, and we can work with other countries in the region (Israel, perhaps?) to diffuse the international element. The U.S. cannot dictate Egypt future; we cannot force Mubarak to leave.

Myth #2 (Corollary to Myth #1): The events in Egypt prove the U.S. should have pushed stronger for reforms.

Those who argue that the U.S. should have pushed more aggressively for reforms make two mistakes. They ignore the trade-offs regarding other national interests and the overestimate our ability to create change. The U.S. has a close relationship with Egypt for a number of reasons. Mubarak’s predecessor Anwar Sadat broke with the Soviet Union and recognized Israel, and since the 1990s, Egypt has also collaborated in the battle against Muslim extremists. If the U.S. were to focus on political reforms this would divert resources from these other critical areas of national security. Even if you believe democracy is more important than anti-terror or the security of Israel, you have to also believe that the U.S. can successfully achieve political change simply by asking for it. Given that undemocratic regimes seldom survive the reform process and have every incentive to resist this process, this is a highly dubious assertion.

Myth #3: Mubarak has been a “reliable partner for the U.S.”

Events in Egypt prove that Mubarak has not been a reliable partner to the US. As a general rule of thumb, reliable partners do not get overthrown in popular uprisings. The reason Washington is holding its breath is that the there is no guarantee that the current Egyptian policy towards either Israel or anti-terror will be adopted by the next regime, particularly if the Muslim Brotherhood takes power. Mubarak has lost his legitimacy, it remains to be seen whether his government’s policies have as well.

There is a reason the U.S. prefers to do business with democracies quite apart from the “democracy is good everyone deserves liberty” rhetoric. Under a democracy the transition of power is relatively predictable. We can be relatively sure that U.S.-Japanese relations will not change wholesale, even if a new government comes in opposing the Okinawa base, for instance. Under a dictatorship the transition from power is usually messy, and the dictator is almost always wholly discredited.

What can be done?

While the U.S. cannot dictate Egypt’s future, there are actions that can be taken to improve the likelihood that the next government is pro-American. We can work the backchannels to improve the likelihood that the transition is smooth. Secretary of Defense reportedly talked to military counterparts in Egypt, yesterday. He is undoubtedly assuring them that U.S. military aid will continue even if Mubarak is removed. The U.S. should also be talking to Israel, diffusing the tension that our most important Middle Eastern ally feels at this moment in time. If Israel feels threatened and takes action, even defensive action, this could be interpreted in Egypt the wrong way, lending support to the radical parties’ anti-Semitic agenda.

By all accounts the Obama administration is working behind the scenes and around the clock using private channels. But public diplomacy is equally important in this situation and thus far the administration’s policy of public hedging is counter-productive. The U.S. needs to recognize the political realities on the ground, ask Mubarak to step down, and demand new fair elections. This is not a question of “being on the right side of history” in the traditional sense. Democracy, unfortunately, does not always triumph as the green revolution in Iran proved in 2009. In Egypt however, democratic forces will triumph, so it makes no sense for the U.S. to continue to back a losing horse. By refusing to openly side with the protesters in the street, we risk having the democrats turn against us and reduce the probability that the next government will be more amenable to our interests.

There are two risks to publicly supporting the democrats, which I will briefly outline, neither of which is compelling. First, some argue that public pronouncements will impede our ability to manage the situation. This argument seems to fall under myth #1. The U.S. cannot dictate events in Cairo; a bold statement cannot undermine a power the U.S. does not have to begin with. The second argument is that by “pulling the rug” out from under Mubarak, we send a message to other autocrats that our support is unreliable. I don’t see this as that big a problem. Our support for autocrats should not be unconditional. Sending a message that we look out for our own interests and will back democratic forces if they look like they have a chance of winning seems entirely reasonable. A public statement in support of free elections does not dramatically change the strategic calculation of our other allies in the war on terror or the defense of Israel and it might even encourage some of our less savory allies to preemptively begin reforms. For all of these reasons, and to re-establish out moral authority, the U.S. needs to take a bold public stand for democracy in Egypt.