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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wisen't thal, Joe. I

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Speaker 1: feel like it's been a while since we've talked about

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Speaker 1: the labor market. Yeah, that's right. I mean, so you know,

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Speaker 1: for years, look, my favorite day of the year for

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Speaker 1: the month was always the Non Farm Perils Report. But

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Speaker 1: even you know, and it has political significance as economic significance,

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Speaker 1: it has market significance. But of course, like this year,

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Speaker 1: like inflation Day is the news. You know, that's the

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Speaker 1: day that everyone cares about when the CPI report comes out.

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Speaker 1: So I think it sort of speaks to how, yes,

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Speaker 1: unemployment rate is really low, but the centrality of like

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Speaker 1: certain labor market indicators at least has sort of declined

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Speaker 1: a little bit, you would seem. Yeah, but you could

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Speaker 1: make an argument that inflation Day is kind of jobs

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Speaker 1: and wages Day, right, because there's all this focus on

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Speaker 1: inflation at the moment, and clearly central banks don't want

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Speaker 1: inflation to become entrenched. One of the ways it becomes

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Speaker 1: entrenched is when everyone starts asking for a pay rise

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Speaker 1: to offset the higher cost of living. Wages start to

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Speaker 1: go up, and then you get that self reinforcing cycle.

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Speaker 1: It's this really strange thing because obviously, why do we

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Speaker 1: worry about high inflation. Well, because it's like it worsens

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Speaker 1: buying power. Yeah, but then everyone wants to raise and yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: but then also it's like people sometimes express relief at

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Speaker 1: wages not accelerating too much, right, or people express relief

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Speaker 1: that maybe the labor market is cooling down a little bit.

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Speaker 1: It's like, wait, but I thought the whole reason we

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Speaker 1: were worried about inflation is because we were worried about

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Speaker 1: what it means for households. It's it creates all kinds

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Speaker 1: of tricky things. But yes, of course you point out

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Speaker 1: inflation is eating into people's incomes. Yeah, so that's definitely

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Speaker 1: one reason to care about what's going on in the

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Speaker 1: labor market and with wages. The other reason to be

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Speaker 1: talking about it is because after the pandemic, and this

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Speaker 1: is where our previous episodes on this topic came in,

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Speaker 1: there was, I don't want to say an expectation, but

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Speaker 1: there was a thought developing that maybe this would mark

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Speaker 1: some sort of moment, some sort of change in the

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Speaker 1: relationship between workers and bosses or their corporate employers, like

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Speaker 1: the balance of power would swing back to the average

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Speaker 1: wage earner and we'd finally see salaries start to go

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Speaker 1: up in a way that they hadn't really for most

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Speaker 1: of the time after the financial crisis. Right, So that

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Speaker 1: was the story of the tens. The sluggish labor market,

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Speaker 1: poor wage growth, just sort of general like seeming like

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Speaker 1: a decline and working worker bargaining power, an acceleration of

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Speaker 1: a very long term trend of measures of labor share

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Speaker 1: of the national income declining. And then in the middle

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Speaker 1: of when we started getting all the early one really

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Speaker 1: when we started getting all the is like stories about

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Speaker 1: like companies having trouble hiring, and that was like the

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Speaker 1: first real theme. There's like something that's different. It's like, wait,

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Speaker 1: are we gonna have a trend change here? Could we

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Speaker 1: have like a meaningful reversal of decades of declining labor share?

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Speaker 1: And I think, you know, there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: optimism right somewhere. I think we had a lot of

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Speaker 1: like optimistic guests who are like, this is going to

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Speaker 1: be the start of something different. Of course, the market

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Speaker 1: was going up, and then with inflation eating into those

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Speaker 1: wage games, and then the FED basically saying we were

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Speaker 1: wrong about transitory inflation. We're going to hike fast. I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of that optimism has gone away about him,

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Speaker 1: and so the question is where do we stand. I'm

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Speaker 1: just thinking, like, what counts for optimism nowadays? Is someone

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Speaker 1: coming on and saying this is like the great plague

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Speaker 1: of the Middle Ages, and we're going to see a

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Speaker 1: similar shift in the counts of power towards people. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: all right, this is all good context. We're going to

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Speaker 1: be going back to the labor market question, the wages question,

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Speaker 1: which it and feeds into issues over inflation and things

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Speaker 1: like that. We're going to be speaking with Anna Stansbury.

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Speaker 1: She's an economist who specializes in labor and macro economics

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Speaker 1: and also an assistant professor at m I T. Sloan

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Speaker 1: whose work is basically all about this. Anna, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for coming on our thoughts. Thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for having me. So your research is all about labor

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Speaker 1: market forces and the sort of balance of power between

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Speaker 1: the employee and the employer. How do we actually go

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Speaker 1: about measuring worker power? What do you look at? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's a bit of an amorphous concepts and I think

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Speaker 1: different people define it different ways. What we do to

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Speaker 1: look at work of power is we say work of power.

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Speaker 1: The result of work of power is the ability of

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Speaker 1: workers to share in the profits of the firm that

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Speaker 1: they work at, above and beyond what would happen in

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Speaker 1: some kind of market where their wages were just determined

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Speaker 1: by the market or their compensation was just determined by

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Speaker 1: the market. So in my work, when I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: measure worker power, I'm trying to say, what would a

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Speaker 1: given worker be paid in a kind of market situation

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Speaker 1: without that power, And then how do different factors give

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Speaker 1: that work of the ability to share in the profits

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Speaker 1: of the firm. So one very obvious, very salient driver

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Speaker 1: of worker power is unions. You know, being a member

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Speaker 1: of a union that bargains over your compensation enables you

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Speaker 1: to share, to some extent more in the profits of

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Speaker 1: your firm. But there are other, less salient, harder to

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Speaker 1: measure ways that worker power can exist. It can be

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Speaker 1: things like norms around pay bargaining and around fairness. It

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Speaker 1: can be things like how managers are incentivized to divide

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Speaker 1: up the pie that the company creates between shareholders and workers.

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Speaker 1: So there are very deferious different aspects that feed in.

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Speaker 1: But I think that sharing in the profits of the

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Speaker 1: firm above and beyond what would happen without that power

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Speaker 1: is the is the ultimate indicator. So, you know, I

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Speaker 1: mentioned that we had a number of sort of I

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Speaker 1: would say, more optimistic sounding conversations last summer, like a

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Speaker 1: year ago, and this hope that okay, this could be

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Speaker 1: like a new day for or burgaining power and strength.

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Speaker 1: And crucially, it wasn't really based on you know, there

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Speaker 1: was no like fundamental change and unionization or unionization policy.

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Speaker 1: There wasn't any like real major policy change. I think

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Speaker 1: the optimism was simply labor market tightness, and that after

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Speaker 1: the Great Financial Crisis and then a decade maybe or

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Speaker 1: close to a decade of clearly the unemployment rate being

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Speaker 1: over what it could have been, being over something that

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Speaker 1: anyone would call unemployment, how much just just sort of

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Speaker 1: like the cycle itself and the sustenance sustaining a strong

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Speaker 1: economy or a strong labor market, how much of a

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Speaker 1: role does that play potentially in shifting the balance of power.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's important, And um, I was someone

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Speaker 1: that was saying, you know, for for a long time

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Speaker 1: in the pre pandemic era, as I was getting into

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Speaker 1: this profession that it doesn't look like labor markets aren't

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Speaker 1: tight enough, and they should be tight end they can

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Speaker 1: be tight to And we saw that by February twenty

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Speaker 1: they had got tight. The unemployment rate was down to

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Speaker 1: the lowest level in its post war period, and even

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Speaker 1: then there wasn't much evidence of inflation. So I think

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Speaker 1: we might have been able to go tied to steal.

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Speaker 1: So I think I think it does matter. It does

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Speaker 1: matter a lot. The question as to whether it's on

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Speaker 1: its own, is a sufficient driver of worker power to

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Speaker 1: reverse some of the trends we've seen in the last

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Speaker 1: forty fifty years, I'm less a strong believer in that hypothesis.

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Speaker 1: I think tight labor markets are a necessary but not

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Speaker 1: a sufficient factor. So just real quickly, in those months

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Speaker 1: like nineteen when we had sub four unemployment, were we

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Speaker 1: seeing evidence I mean, you say it's necessary but not sufficient.

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Speaker 1: Were we seeing evidence pre pandemic of a tilt happening?

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Speaker 1: Or was it too early to see the effects of

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Speaker 1: those tightening labor markets in other measures of labor bargaining power.

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Speaker 1: So in terms of the direct effect on things like ages,

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Speaker 1: you did start to see the the tilt of wage

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Speaker 1: growth switch. So when labor markets become tighter, typically that's

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Speaker 1: disproportionately affecting lower income individuals who tend to have higher

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Speaker 1: unemployment rates. Typically that's disproportionately infecting people from racial ethnic minorities.

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Speaker 1: And you did start to see as the tilt of

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Speaker 1: unemployment became less steep, the tilt of wage growth improved

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Speaker 1: to benefit those groups. So you saw that effect directly

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Speaker 1: happening already. The question I think you're asking is is

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Speaker 1: it also feeding into other secondary factors of labor market power.

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Speaker 1: Something like tight labor markets enable more worker activism and

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Speaker 1: more unions because people are less worried about retaliation or

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Speaker 1: losing their jobs. In the pre pandemic era, my senses,

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Speaker 1: we didn't see a huge amount of a huge amount

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Speaker 1: of change there. There was there were some in some

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Speaker 1: waves of organizing in the summer of twenty nineteen. We

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Speaker 1: can talk a bit more about what's been happening since

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, but my sense was that the period probably

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Speaker 1: hadn't been long enough and sustained enough at a very

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Speaker 1: tight level for that to have really taken effect. So

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Speaker 1: maybe before we dive into that, we could step back

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Speaker 1: for a second, because the issue of stagnant wages, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this has been going on for decades really, so even

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Speaker 1: as productivity increases, workers seem to see less of a

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Speaker 1: share of that of the benefits of that increased productivity. So,

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Speaker 1: based on your research, you know, what's the explanation for that?

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Speaker 1: Why have wages been stagnating for so long? So this

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Speaker 1: is one of these questions in economics which is in

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Speaker 1: some sense overdetermined. If you added up everyone's different explanations,

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Speaker 1: you'd get more than of the of this gap. So

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Speaker 1: different people will have different views as to what's important.

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Speaker 1: The big three sets of factors that people think about

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Speaker 1: largely fall into the buckets of technology, globalization, and institutions

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Speaker 1: and norms, and so technology clearly plays a role in

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Speaker 1: determining an important role in determining labor market outcomes and

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Speaker 1: who's paid what. Part of the big part of this

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Speaker 1: divergence to in pain productivity has been the fact that

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Speaker 1: the incomes of lower middle income people haven't kept up

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Speaker 1: with the incomes of high income people. Right, So there's

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Speaker 1: a question about did the demand for skills change in

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Speaker 1: a way that education didn't keep up with it? The

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Speaker 1: race between education and technology. Almost surely that was a

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Speaker 1: part of it. Almost surely for some workers, globalization was

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Speaker 1: a part of it, increased competition from offshoring and manufacturing,

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Speaker 1: although that the magnitude of that, I would I would

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Speaker 1: put it relatively small. And then I think the big

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Speaker 1: question is how much did institutions and norms and policies

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Speaker 1: play a role. And this is where some of my

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Speaker 1: work comes in to think about the role of the

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Speaker 1: decline and worker power. In my work, including in a

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Speaker 1: paper that I that I wrote with Larry sum Is

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, we argued that the role

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Speaker 1: of the decline and worker power was actually quite big

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Speaker 1: in explaining this part of this divergence, That the declining unions,

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Speaker 1: the decline in informal worker power and norms about fairness

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Speaker 1: within firms, the rising sharehold of value maximization ideology and

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Speaker 1: it's sort of attendant capital markets practices and corporate structures,

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Speaker 1: that all of these played a role in e roading

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Speaker 1: work of power in a way that actually does explain

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Speaker 1: a large share of that gap. Alongside your more impersonal,

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Speaker 1: large scale market forces of technology and globalization. When you

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Speaker 1: talk about informal sources of worker power within firms and

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Speaker 1: so called norms, What is it, what does that mean?

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Speaker 1: What are we actually talking about, and how do you

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Speaker 1: edit those factors? So I think it can be a

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Speaker 1: few things. But we know that anyone who's ever you know,

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Speaker 1: talk to HR or been in HR will know that

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Speaker 1: there are lots of factors that determine how how pay

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Speaker 1: is set for different people within a company. And some

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Speaker 1: of them are to do with obviously what the person

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Speaker 1: would earn elsewhere, whether they're likely to leave, how much

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Speaker 1: you need to offer to to make them stay or

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Speaker 1: to hire them. Of course, market forces matter, but there's

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Speaker 1: often quite a lot of wiggle room within that, and

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Speaker 1: that's where these norms can play a role. And in

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Speaker 1: particular it can be things like a norm of how

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Speaker 1: much the top executives and the CEO in particular should

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Speaker 1: be paid relative to front and workers. You've seen the

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Speaker 1: CEO to worker pay ratio absolutely explode in the last

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Speaker 1: forty to fifty years, and if you look back at

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Speaker 1: say the eighties, this was actually quite controversial in many

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Speaker 1: circles in a way that it's not now. And I

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Speaker 1: think things like whether or not it is perceived to

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Speaker 1: be fair and okay, to have these big paid differentials

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Speaker 1: within a firm actually does affect people's pay behavior. But

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Speaker 1: more broadly, I think sometimes the the norms and the

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Speaker 1: I guess what all might call ideology, but not in

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Speaker 1: not in a critical way, just as a as a

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Speaker 1: way of describing a school of thought around how how

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Speaker 1: things should be structured. So that the rise of shareholder

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Speaker 1: value maximization. Ideology was a school of thought that really,

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Speaker 1: you know, it is in society's best interest for businesses

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Speaker 1: to maximize shareholder value. That led to not only changes

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Speaker 1: in norms, but also changes in the way companies structured themselves,

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Speaker 1: things like fissuring of the workplace and outsourcing of employment,

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Speaker 1: things like incentive structures from executives, things like leverage, buyouts,

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Speaker 1: private equity, various capital markets structures that incent that incentivized

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Speaker 1: management to follow shareholders interests. So I think there was

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Speaker 1: a role in which these more informal, intangible things like

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Speaker 1: norms and ideology also crystallized into formal physical structures and changes.

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Speaker 1: So this is one of the reasons why your research

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Speaker 1: is so interesting, because if you kind of follow it

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Speaker 1: to its logical and extreme conclusion, you seem to be

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Speaker 1: asking a question about whether or not capitalism is working

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Speaker 1: for society, right, like companies being motivated by short term

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Speaker 1: considerations and basically answering to their shareholders, which is something

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Speaker 1: that is often at odds with the needs and requirements

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Speaker 1: and happiness of their workforce. How are you thinking about that? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a big question, isn't it. I'm sorry, easy one

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Speaker 1: for a for an afternoon. Okay, So yes, I mean

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Speaker 1: I think you're right. That is at the heart of

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Speaker 1: these questions. And I tend to shy away from using

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Speaker 1: the word capitalism just because I think it means such

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Speaker 1: different things to different people. Yeah, to what extent? To

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Speaker 1: what extent does um the current structure of ownership and

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Speaker 1: incentives and the determination of value, including the value of

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Speaker 1: labor pay, How does that play out? And is this

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Speaker 1: playing out in a socially beneficial way? That's that's what

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Speaker 1: we're asking. And I think what what I tend to believe,

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Speaker 1: and what I tend to believe based on the the

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Speaker 1: research is that whether you think it's working depends a

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Speaker 1: lot on what you think the baseline workings of an

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Speaker 1: economy are, and in particular, how close do you think

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Speaker 1: they would be to approximate the economists perfectly competitive ideal,

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Speaker 1: So if you just bear would be for a second

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Speaker 1: on that, So that would be perfectly competitive. Ideal would

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Speaker 1: be in a world of perfect markets, the government would,

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Speaker 1: you know, set the rules of the game. There would

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Speaker 1: be property rights, transactions and contracts would be uniforced. Transactions

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Speaker 1: could take place, and individual companies and workers will be

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Speaker 1: competing with each other, and that the best, sorry, the

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Speaker 1: worst products would be competed out of the market. The

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Speaker 1: best products would survive. Prices would be low. Workers would

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Speaker 1: always be competed for by companies, and so they would

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Speaker 1: be paid the very highest possible value that companies can

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Speaker 1: afford to pay for their skills and talents. And you've

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Speaker 1: got this this market working in a very efficient way.

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Speaker 1: And this is the kind of market that you start

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Speaker 1: with an eCOM one oh one. And if that's the

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Speaker 1: world that you think you're in, then a system where

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Speaker 1: ownership of capital is what determines the allocation of economic activity.

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Speaker 1: You know who's producing what, who is hired by whom.

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Speaker 1: That system is going to be efficient. And you might

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Speaker 1: not think it's going to result in an equitable distribution

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Speaker 1: of income, but then you should redistribute afterwards, this classic

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Speaker 1: separation of let the market do its work and then

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Speaker 1: tax and transfer afterwards. If you think that the underlying

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Speaker 1: market is actually not going to be very close to

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Speaker 1: that perfectly competitive ideal, if you think it's going to

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Speaker 1: be um, there's actually very difficult to search for a

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Speaker 1: new job and find a new job, and these labor

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Speaker 1: market frictions mean that once you're at a job, you're

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Speaker 1: kind of at the mercy of your employer and they're

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Speaker 1: not going to be paying you as much as they could.

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Speaker 1: And if you think that actually the tendency in some

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Speaker 1: markets is towards large companies and consolidation, and so there's

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Speaker 1: not going to be this inherent drive towards the survival

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Speaker 1: of the fittest and better, better products and an increased competition.

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Speaker 1: If you think that's the sort of natural state of markets,

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Speaker 1: then I think you're much more predisposed to ask about, well,

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Speaker 1: is the allocation of economic activity that's created by these

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Speaker 1: markets actually optimal or is there an imbalance of power

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Speaker 1: that needs to be corrected. And that's where this question

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Speaker 1: of lack of power for me comes in so obviously,

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Speaker 1: and you mentioned it, and it's a really important part

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Speaker 1: of your thesis. Part of the decline in work or

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Speaker 1: power has been the major decrease over the last several

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Speaker 1: decades in union density, and very different theories for why

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Speaker 1: that is. But I mean, what is your story, why

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Speaker 1: has union density gone down? And are there policies that

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Speaker 1: could reverse it. So the way I like to look

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Speaker 1: at this and a lot of kind of big economic

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Speaker 1: data stories, is so just look over time and across

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Speaker 1: countries as the very first pass. And if you do that,

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Speaker 1: I think you can distinguish quite effectively between different stories

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Speaker 1: of union decline straightaway. So the big story of union

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Speaker 1: decline across industrialized countries in the last fifty years is

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Speaker 1: basically all countries have seen some decline in union coverage

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Speaker 1: the share of workers that are covered by a collective

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Speaker 1: bargaining agreement. Basically all countries have seen some declining union membership.

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Speaker 1: By the US in particular, the UK, which is where

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Speaker 1: I'm from, to a lesser extent, have been at the

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Speaker 1: extreme end. They've seen much sharper declines than almost anywhere else.

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Speaker 1: So I think at that first past, then you say, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: some portion of the decline and unionization is common to

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Speaker 1: all countries, and maybe that makes it more likely to

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Speaker 1: be some combination of these globalization and technology explanations. It's

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Speaker 1: harder to maintain a unionized manufacturing sector when there's low

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Speaker 1: wage competition from other countries, for example. But the portion

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Speaker 1: that is unique to the U S and maybe the

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Speaker 1: UK and a few other countries, that seems much more

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Speaker 1: likely to be specific and therefore much more likely to

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Speaker 1: be a function of policy and a function of norms.

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Speaker 1: And in the US you can point to a lot

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Speaker 1: of factors that led to a massive shift in the

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Speaker 1: policy environment and in the public attitude towards unionization. And

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Speaker 1: people always point to firing of the striking air traffic

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Speaker 1: controllers by Reagan, for example, as a sort of water

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Speaker 1: shared moment in setting the tone for what's acceptable in

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Speaker 1: terms of corporate behavior towards people who are who are

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Speaker 1: active in unions. So my view, my view is that

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Speaker 1: a big portion, not all, but a big portion of

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Speaker 1: the decline in unionization in the US has been a

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Speaker 1: result of active hostility from business many businesses, obviously not

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Speaker 1: from many businesses towards union organizing, and that this creates

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Speaker 1: a kind of race to the bottom equilibrium where if

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Speaker 1: you know that all your competitors are not going to

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Speaker 1: be unionized. It becomes very very difficult for you as

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Speaker 1: a business to be unionized because your cost are higher

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Speaker 1: than everyone else's. And so then you get this race

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Speaker 1: to the bottom dynamic where even if not all businesses

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Speaker 1: want to be hostile towards union organizing and union activity,

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Speaker 1: there becomes a competitive imperative to have to be. So

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Speaker 1: that's where I think we've got to right now in

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Speaker 1: terms of policies to change that. I think there's a

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Speaker 1: lot that could be done, and you can think about

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Speaker 1: it in two buckets. One bucket is within the current

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Speaker 1: conception of what work of power is and what unions

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Speaker 1: look like in the US. What could be done and

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Speaker 1: what I mean there is unions typically bargain at the

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Speaker 1: level of an establishment like a plant or a unit

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Speaker 1: or a firm, and they typically bargain over pay and

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Speaker 1: other job related attributes. And there there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: reforms that could be done to increase penalties on firms

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Speaker 1: for for cracking down on union organizing. There could be

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Speaker 1: ways to make it easier for unions to share information

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Speaker 1: with workers. So a lot of the reforms that were

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Speaker 1: proposed in the Proact, for example, were things that we're

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Speaker 1: trying to change how and when the firm versus the

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Speaker 1: union can share information with workers about the union or

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Speaker 1: persuade people to vote for or against the union. But

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Speaker 1: in some ways, I think the more exciting portion is,

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Speaker 1: and the more promising portion, if you want to see

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Speaker 1: a big change, is trying to rethink the structure. And

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Speaker 1: I'm very in favor of, or at least interested by

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Speaker 1: changing the structure of worker power so that bargaining is

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Speaker 1: done to a larger extent at a broader level, on

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Speaker 1: a sectoral level, like I said, in much of continental Europe,

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Speaker 1: which sets a kind of baseline wage floor, compensation benefits

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Speaker 1: flow for a whole sector or occupation in a particular region,

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Speaker 1: as well as with bargaining at the firm level. Could

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Speaker 1: you talk a little bit more about the europe system

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Speaker 1: versus the US system, because I'm not familiar with that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course, So just to take there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: different variations on themes in different continental European country. So

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Speaker 1: I'll take Germany as one example. So the German system

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Speaker 1: um they call it codetermination, has worker power at essentially

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Speaker 1: three different levels within within within companies and industries. One

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Speaker 1: level is bargaining over largely pay, and this bargaining is

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Speaker 1: done between the unions and confederation of employers at the

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Speaker 1: level of the whole industry in a region. So there

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Speaker 1: will be a bargain for the whole of the metal

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Speaker 1: working industry in a certain region in Germany, and that

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Speaker 1: will set a wage floor for the different types of

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Speaker 1: workers in metalworking, so that that agreement will look quite

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Speaker 1: like an agreement would look like at the level of

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Speaker 1: a firm in the US, but instead it will apply

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Speaker 1: to the whole sector. Then you've got at the level

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Speaker 1: of the firm in Germany a works council, which is

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Speaker 1: worker representatives who are elected and have different rights over

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Speaker 1: front topics. So they have joint decision making rights with

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Speaker 1: the firm over things like UM, leave policies, hoursum to

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Speaker 1: some extent redundancies. And then they have information and consultative

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Speaker 1: rights on various other things that go a lot deeper

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Speaker 1: than a lot of the rights that unions have in

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Speaker 1: the US. So they have information rights and consultative rights

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Speaker 1: on things like what kinds of technology is the firm

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Speaker 1: is going to implement UM, So it's a lot more

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Speaker 1: into the managerial decisions. And then the third level is

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Speaker 1: at the very top, which is that of large firms,

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Speaker 1: supervisory boards are elected by workers and the other by shareholders,

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Speaker 1: and then the deciding vote as a shareholder elected director.

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Speaker 1: So and practice it slightly less than a majority of

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Speaker 1: the board is worker representatives. So you have these three

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Speaker 1: different tiers, all of which have different types of powers

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Speaker 1: over different questions. Essentially, Yeah, I mean it seems to

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Speaker 1: me listening to this that like part of the question

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Speaker 1: or the tension is like, well, you know, and you

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Speaker 1: mentioned this, like maybe like people have this like very

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Speaker 1: like sort of like strict view of like what the

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Speaker 1: market system is, Like the board represents the shareholders and

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Speaker 1: that's the boards job, and then the board negotiates with employees, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And the idea of wait, why can't employees have an

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Speaker 1: actual role on the board or be represented on the board.

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Speaker 1: It feels like, you know, it's very foreign to the

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Speaker 1: sort of American way of capitalism. Whether we want to

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Speaker 1: use that term or not, it's feel it's very foreign

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Speaker 1: to the American way of business. But I guess, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of like one takeaway from you're saying, it's like

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Speaker 1: why not do it a different way. Yeah, exactly exactly,

434
00:23:39,359 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 1: And as you said, it goes down to what you

435
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:46,119
Speaker 1: think will just create good, betteral west incentives, and Milton

436
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 1: Friedman would say, well, this is just going to distract

437
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,679
Speaker 1: from the corporation's most efficient task of maximizing profits, and

438
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: it's going to let managers off the hook who are

439
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:55,600
Speaker 1: inefficient because they'll say, well, I was just trying to

440
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 1: meet all of these different competing goals and so you

441
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: can never really hold them accountable. So there are arguments

442
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: to think that this adding other more representatives of different

443
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 1: types of stakeholders is going to dilute accountability, and it's

444
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: going to dilute incentives and make things work less well.

445
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I think if you're going to

446
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:18,400
Speaker 1: add any stakeholders into the mix, workers are the obvious

447
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: one in some ways because they are whole lives and

448
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: fortunes are so tied up with what happens to the company.

449
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: So if you're thinking about long term best interests, obviously

450
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: the shareholders interests or for the firm to do well.

451
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:32,360
Speaker 1: Obviously the workers interests in many ways for the firm

452
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:34,640
Speaker 1: to do well. And obviously there are areas in which

453
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: their interests conflict, which is, given that the firm is

454
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,640
Speaker 1: doing well, how do you split the proceeds. So if

455
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: you have that kind of a view of the company

456
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: as a set of different stakeholders who have some aligned

457
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: interests in some conflicting interests, it becomes a little bit

458
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: more natural to think about what we should actually give

459
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: all of them a voice, because they are all invested

460
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: in a long term way, in a very meaningful way

461
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: in this organization. M just to play Double's advocate, and

462
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: I want to make it really really clear that this

463
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:08,360
Speaker 1: is not my personal view, but I love Devil's advocate. Clearly,

464
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:13,440
Speaker 1: there there is some resistance to unions in the States,

465
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 1: and I mean I think there was a gallop Pole

466
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 1: recently that said actually overwhelmingly if you ask people what

467
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: they think about unions, I think it came in at

468
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: like sixty percent in favor something like that. But that said,

469
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: there is a subset of the American population that think

470
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 1: unions and they think this is, you know, something I

471
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: can to communism. Basically, it's a way for people to

472
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,959
Speaker 1: eat as much out of the system by doing as

473
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: little work as possible. In some cases, like I think

474
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 1: there's a sense that in some way it might be

475
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 1: unfair to people who work really hard and it's a

476
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: way for others to basically get a free ride. How

477
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: do you deal with those types of criticisms and how

478
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: much are those criticisms or that sense an impediment to

479
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 1: stronger worker power in the US. So I think there's

480
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 1: a lot of fairness in these critiques, and and a

481
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: reinvigorated work of power system would want to be would

482
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: want to be careful about a number of things. I

483
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: think one thing that will want to be careful about

484
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: is that concentrations of power tend to breed abuses of power.

485
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 1: I think anywhere in society, and and a union would

486
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: be no different than that. And we've seen lots of

487
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: very good examples in unions in recent years of you know,

488
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:36,880
Speaker 1: the famous Jimmy Hoffer and the Teamsters, a lleged association

489
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: with organized crime. We've seen corruption cases from from certain

490
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: union bosses, you know, convictions of corruption and this management

491
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: of money. So obviously there are legitimate reasons to be

492
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 1: concerned on that front. Right, It's like, is this organization

493
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: that is a sensibly representing workers really representing me as

494
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: as a member of this of this big union, and

495
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 1: I think the issue there is, as with any concentration

496
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: of our there needs to be really serious accountability structures

497
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,919
Speaker 1: and mechanisms in place. So that's that's one that I

498
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: think the point you raised, Tracy, which is is more

499
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: about within the union are their free riders? Are some

500
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: people going to be bouncing off the labor of everyone

501
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: else essentially, And I think that there is a real

502
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 1: concern of that as well, and one of the biggest

503
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,880
Speaker 1: worries that often plays out with unions, I think in

504
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: in people's people's lives in the world at the moment,

505
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: given who is union member at the moment, it is

506
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: mostly in the public sector. Is are police unions or

507
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 1: teachers unions preventing society from holding bad police or bad

508
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: teachers accountable because there are a lot of rules about

509
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: how and when people can be disciplined and how and

510
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 1: when they can be fired. So I think that's another

511
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 1: another issue where if there are people that have behaved badly,

512
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: if there are mismanas, you know, how do you ensure

513
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: that the balance of power is such that the right

514
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 1: social outcome happens. On the other hand, you've got a

515
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: lot of situations where in non union workplaces, people are

516
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: fired or disciplined for things that they really shouldn't be

517
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: and there's no one to fight their side of the case.

518
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: And that's where the union would come in. So I

519
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,160
Speaker 1: think it's about what I would say is these are

520
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 1: all thorny issues. It's about figuring out the right balance

521
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: of power and the right accountability mechanisms. But if you think,

522
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: and this goes to a broader question than just the

523
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: economic question, I think, which is the concept of of

524
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: workplace democracy is something that is not central to most workplaces,

525
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people have become more

526
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: interested in since the pandemic, which is the concept of

527
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: if I'm spending forty hours a week or whatever it is,

528
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: for several years of my life in a given place,

529
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: with the given set of people, why is it run

530
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: like a like a dictatorship in some sense? You know,

531
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: a workplace is run largely from above, with no formal

532
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: rights for anyone else to disagree. You simply leave if

533
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: you disagree. And I think another another way of organizing

534
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: workplaces is to have workplace with some democratic elements, where

535
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: people have a say over what the health and safety policies,

536
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: or have a say, over what the remote work policy is.

537
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: And once you start to see that as a good

538
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: in and of itself, it becomes something that how do

539
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: we think about how to structure these organizations, such should

540
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: the accountability mechanisms work rather than you know, is it

541
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: a yes or no? Should we have no no workplace

542
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: voice at all? Because of these risks of abuses of power.

543
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: So there's another thing that's been talked about quite a

544
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: lot recently, which is transparency on pay and the idea

545
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 1: that maybe you can have a system where you could

546
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: see how much all of your co workers are making

547
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 1: and then you could I guess internalized whether or not

548
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 1: you think they deserve that, or if you should demand

549
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: a bigger raise because you know someone else is getting money.

550
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: Is that something that you've considered in your research or

551
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: something that maybe could be helpful when it comes to

552
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: raising wages. And also there's I think there's a new

553
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: law in New York that like job opening too, So

554
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that. Yeah, so this is a hot

555
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: topic and I think it's an interesting one. Broadly, I

556
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: think it is likely to go in the direction of

557
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:07,479
Speaker 1: making pay more equitable between between groups of the same

558
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: job level. Roughly speaking, so you know, reducing the gender

559
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: pay gap for the same type of job, reducing racial

560
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: pay gaps for the same type of job, because it

561
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: becomes much more it becomes much more obvious and salient

562
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: if individuals pay is transparent that some people are making

563
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 1: less money than others, and that's embarrassing for firms, and

564
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: it also provides grounds for workers too to lobby for

565
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: higher pay for themselves if they're on the lower end

566
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: of that scale. I think that's also true with the

567
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: New York vacancy page on Sparency Law, in that you

568
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 1: can see what other kinds of jobs like yours are

569
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: being paid, and then you can use that as a

570
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: negotiating tool with your own employer. I think on on

571
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: net it is likely to be a somewhat positive thing.

572
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: I doubt that it has huge potential for impact, and

573
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: part of my reason for saying that is also for impact.

574
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: More broadly than that, I think closing gender and racial

575
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: pay gaps within job types is still a very worthy

576
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: goal and we should do it. But in terms of

577
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: rectifying the broader increase in income in equality that we've seen,

578
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: and I think that's because largely people kind of know

579
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: how different jobs are paid on the grand scale. It's

580
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: is a software engineer making X or y, that kind

581
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: of information will be revealed by this, But a software

582
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: engineer versus a dishwasher, we all know the difference is

583
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 1: astronomical already, and transparency isn't going to change that, so

584
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: we'll affect some types of inequality. The other The other

585
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: hesitation I have is there have been certain patients sparency

586
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: reforms introduced different types of patientsparency reforms in different countries recently. So,

587
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: for example, the UK m and dating a gender pay

588
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: gap disclosure for companies which is an average and a

589
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: median rather than for specific jobs. And what some of

590
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 1: the early academic studies have seen is that these do

591
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: seem to reduce gender pay gaps, but it's not clear

592
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: if they do so by boosting the pay of the

593
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: women versus lowering the pay of the men. And so

594
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: if you don't rectify more broadly the balance of power

595
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: between workers and shareholders, it's not clear that this is

596
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: giving all workers more power versus just rectifying power imbalances

597
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: between sort of within the group of workers, it between groups.

598
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 1: I want to go back to the sectoral bargaining question

599
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: in Germany. You mentioned Germany because it sort of relates

600
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: to like big structural changes in the economy. You know,

601
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: if we're going to have like this, like sort of

602
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: like an the nobility for workers across multiple firms to

603
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: negotiate with employers across multiple multiple firms within an industry.

604
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: It feels like that kind of thing makes sense in

605
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: a sort of old industrial style economy where it's like,

606
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: you know, Detroit, you have three big carmakers and literally

607
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: no other carmakers, or it's you know, German chemical companies

608
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: or something like that, or like, you know, in journalism,

609
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: if there were just Bloomberg and the walshare journal in

610
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: the New York Times, then you could like imagine you know,

611
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: a sort of like a journalist journalist pay standard. But

612
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: that a that many industries are not like that. And

613
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: in media there's like startups all the time, and in

614
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: autos we've seen a proliferation of new car companies, And

615
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: so I'm curious, like, is there a minimum level of

616
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:31,239
Speaker 1: corporate concentration that needs to exist in order for an

617
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: arrangement like that to work? And then more broadly, how

618
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: much of the decline in unionization across Rich countries. Does

619
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: have to do with the like the fact that a

620
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:46,239
Speaker 1: sort of like industrial industry or big industry is just

621
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: a smaller and smaller part of the overall economy. Yeah,

622
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: great questions. So on the overall corporate concentration. I think

623
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: in some ways that it reminds me of Galbraith's work

624
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:00,479
Speaker 1: when he was basically in the Galbraithian vision of an

625
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: economy was one where there were a handful of very

626
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: big companies and then very strong unions that were bargaining

627
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 1: with those companies. And that was, you know, what he

628
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: was talking about in his book American Capitalism. And I think, yes,

629
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: it's it's certainly going to be easier for that kind

630
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 1: of bargaining to work if there are a handful of

631
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: lead large companies. So even in the US auto industry

632
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:23,399
Speaker 1: in the fifties, it was you know, the big three automakers,

633
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: and then the other small auto parts manufacturers and other

634
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: supply chain players would follow what that what that agreement

635
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: with the Big three and the U a W said,

636
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: It's not clear to me that this is not that

637
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: there's not this critical mass of large companies or large

638
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: umbrella brands in different industries. I mean look at something

639
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,840
Speaker 1: like fast food, which is very fragmented in terms of

640
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: lots of franchise e s owning individual stores, but there's

641
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: a handful of brand organizations that own basically all of

642
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: the brands. So you can imagine different industries have slightly

643
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: different corporate structures. But in most industries there are there

644
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: are a handful of big players, and I think you

645
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: might be able to get around the table, and they

646
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 1: do in in um in the industry boggains. In some

647
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: continental European countries, you have caught outs for smaller employees.

648
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: You have ways that startups or that small companies wouldn't

649
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: necessarily be found by these agreements and wouldn't be at

650
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 1: the table with them, and you would have to strike

651
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: that kind of a balance. You know. Something else related

652
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: to this, and I believe you talk about it specifically

653
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: in your work, is like you know, in the old days,

654
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: and maybe it was like apocryphal, but in the old

655
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: days you would hear stories like, oh, someone started in

656
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: the mail room at X and then thirty days and

657
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:38,720
Speaker 1: thirty years later they became the CEO. And these days

658
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that the person who works in

659
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,439
Speaker 1: the mail room at a given company doesn't actually work

660
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: for the company, like they're on premises, but maybe they

661
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 1: work for a sub contractor and they have different color

662
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 1: badges or something like that. There's like they're not really

663
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: there talk to us about like this sort of like

664
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:55,839
Speaker 1: and I guess this is sort of like a it's

665
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,760
Speaker 1: part of the shareholder revolution, is part of like norms

666
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: and structure that like company is like we're just gonna

667
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 1: do our one thing. We're gonna have our search engine business,

668
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: and then everyone else, like you know, the people work

669
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: in the cafeteria that are don't actually work for our company. Yes,

670
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 1: this is this is a hugely important trend and as

671
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: you say, I think it's a big part a part

672
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: of these broader forces that have been happening over the

673
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: last fifty years. It's very prevalent, as you said, in

674
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: dining services, in security services and cleaning services. That is

675
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: also increasingly prevalent in warehousing, staffing, in transportation and logistics.

676
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: That the people that are doing the work, usually mostly

677
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: or entirely working for one company, are not working are

678
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: not employees of that company. And it comes out of

679
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: this drive to to focus on call composite competencies. But

680
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,439
Speaker 1: it creates a whole lot of problems, including when we're

681
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 1: thinking about bargaining. So if you're cleaning worker for a bank,

682
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: say and you're can to unionize, Okay, what happens You

683
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: unionize your fellow cleaning workers. You're then unionizing the cleaning

684
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: services company. The bank then simply does not renew the

685
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: contract and gets a different, cheaper cleaning services company. So

686
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: once you are outside the boundaries of the firm, and

687
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: if we're in a world where unions are organized at

688
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: the level of the firm, which they are, then the

689
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: ability to exert work of power disappears because the bank

690
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:25,280
Speaker 1: is where the profits are, not the cleaning services company.

691
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: But you can only organize the cleaning services company. So

692
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: this is also the kind of thing where I think

693
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:33,320
Speaker 1: a sectoral well, really, I think an occupation level bargaining

694
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: structure would help because you'd say, well, it doesn't matter

695
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 1: the corporate structure should be irrelevant. If we're thinking about

696
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: setting a minimum wage for cleaners in New England, that

697
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 1: minimum wage will be set across corporate structures and whether

698
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: or not they're employed by the cleaning services company or

699
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 1: by the bank. So I want to go back to

700
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 1: our framing at the beginning of this conversation, which is

701
00:37:56,480 --> 00:38:00,359
Speaker 1: what does the labor market mean for inflation? And one

702
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: thing that you see a lot of nowadays is people

703
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 1: reaching for the historic parallel of the nineteen seventies. You know,

704
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: we have high inflation, we have an energy crisis. Are

705
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: we going to basically see a repeat of the high

706
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: inflation that we saw in the nineteen seventies which didn't

707
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 1: really end until the early nineteen eighties, either because Reagan

708
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: busted some of the unions or because Paul Vulker came

709
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: in and raised interest rates massively. How do you view

710
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: the current labor market versus the nineteen seventies and what

711
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: is the broader impact of the structure of what we

712
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:37,399
Speaker 1: have now on the rate of inflation. It's yeah, it's

713
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 1: a million dollar question, and I don't know that. There

714
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: are so many different possibilities that I don't think I

715
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: would stand by any specific answer I give, you know,

716
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 1: in the face of fire, because I think we really

717
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: don't know. And when you look across many very very

718
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: knowledgeable macro economists on these topics, there's a very wide

719
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: divergence of opinions because we don't know. Having said that

720
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: I would say there are aspects that look similar to

721
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: the late sixties early seventies. You know, we've had a

722
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:07,399
Speaker 1: series of unfortunate supply shocks one after the other, which

723
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: for US has been COVID happening several times as different

724
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: supply chains are disrupted in different places. Um and then

725
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine and in the sixties and seventies

726
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,839
Speaker 1: were obviously well in the early seventies with the oil

727
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: price shocks, and then we've also had some to some

728
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: degree at least a big demand shock in the US

729
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: with the pandemic government spending slash fiscal stimulus packages. But

730
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: I don't think we've seen the kind of massive sustained

731
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: government spending that we saw in the late sixties, particularly

732
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: with the Vietnam War and the Great Society. And so

733
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 1: there's a there's an extent to which the demand impetus

734
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 1: might have been smaller that now than it well at

735
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,399
Speaker 1: least less sustained than it was then. And the big

736
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: question really is if if inflation is coming from a

737
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 1: combination of things, but it's coming from a demand side,

738
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 1: a supply side, too much money chasing too few goods,

739
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: but also then it gets entrenched if expectations get in trench,

740
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:05,240
Speaker 1: so if it ratchets, the big question is what's happening

741
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: now with the ratchet effect, and is what's happening now

742
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: what was happening in the seventies. And that's where I think,

743
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: as I think you're getting towards this work of power

744
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: question comes in, which is is a wage price spiral

745
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: less likely in a world with less work of power?

746
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: And I would think almost certainly that answer is yes,

747
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:26,439
Speaker 1: just because in a world with union contracts with cost

748
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: of living clauses plus x percent built in, that makes

749
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: a wage price spiral that much more likely. In a

750
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: world where private sector union membership is six percent in

751
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: the US and the tight labor market is present right

752
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: now but may not last forever as as interest rates

753
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: continue to rise, it doesn't seem that likely to me

754
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: that we're going to get stuck in one of those

755
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: ratcheting labor to product market spirals. There are other ways

756
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:53,799
Speaker 1: inflation could stick, but I doubt that would be the

757
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 1: one that it sticks as a result of I mean,

758
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: this gets to like the sort of like perversity of

759
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,280
Speaker 1: what Tracy and I were talking about in the beginning,

760
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: which is like, Okay, why do we care about inflation. Well,

761
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 1: one of the reasons at least is because that erodes

762
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 1: worker bargaining power and leads to declining standard of living.

763
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: But then there's like this sort of weird thing where

764
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: people like then take relief at lower wages because I

765
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,800
Speaker 1: guess that in theory means that inflation won't get entrenched.

766
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: But lower wages are the thing we want to avoid

767
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: in the first place, because that's another way of declining

768
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: or sort of like staminating worker buying power. But it

769
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 1: does seem that it's like frequently framed, and maybe it's

770
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,919
Speaker 1: because of this memory of it definitely feels like it's

771
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,439
Speaker 1: often framed implicitly in the conversation that we can't have

772
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: sustained wage growth because that just means a spiral and

773
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 1: workers ultimately running and place. Yeah, I I agree with

774
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: you that it feels like a paradox. And I guess

775
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,959
Speaker 1: the the easy but not easy to achieve on st

776
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:00,839
Speaker 1: is we need sustained productivity growth and then you can

777
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: have sustained wage growth. But you get worried if nominal

778
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 1: wage growth is systematically outstripping productivity, because that's going to

779
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 1: mean one of two things. Either it's going to mean

780
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: that there's this big redistribution happening from capital to labor.

781
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:16,879
Speaker 1: That's one way that nominal wage growth can grow faster

782
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 1: than productivity. Or it's because there's inflation and that's going

783
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: to generate and stimulate more inflation in prices, and that

784
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:25,760
Speaker 1: means that, as you said, you're running to stand still.

785
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: Which maybe that means no one on net is worse

786
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: off on average, but some groups are going to lose

787
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: out more than others, and inflations difficult in terms of planning,

788
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: and there are worries about spirals and getting out of

789
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: control and all these other sort of second order costs.

790
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 1: So I mean, I would say it creates a problem

791
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: in that if you want to redistribute, you're going to

792
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: need nominal wage growth. It's faster than productivity growth, but

793
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 1: you need to make sure that it's coming from an

794
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: impetus that is about either productivity growth or redistribution, and

795
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 1: not an impetus that seems driven by this demand demand cycle.

796
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 1: So just finally to wrap up and looking forward a

797
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 1: little bit more, and you sort of make the case

798
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,880
Speaker 1: why this is not likely to be the nineteen seventies.

799
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 1: Nonetheless avoiding the nineteen seventies is a far cry from

800
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: the sort of hopes of last of a year ago,

801
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: when it's like, oh, maybe we're going to get a

802
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 1: change in trajectory, and we have seen maybe a pickup

803
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: in union activity, and of course I'm thinking about some

804
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:23,839
Speaker 1: of the stuff we're seeing it Amazon and Starbucks, which

805
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: feels very organic, and you know, we still do have

806
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: tight labor markets which may contribute some role. Do you

807
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: see a potential for some sort of trajectory change. Are

808
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: we in a position where we could affect that with

809
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,359
Speaker 1: right policy choices or is it still are we all?

810
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:44,319
Speaker 1: You know, still a lot of work to do in

811
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 1: order to turn some of these trends around. So I'm

812
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: both optimistic and pessimistic in the sense that it's always

813
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: easy to take refuge in that, isn't it so optimistic

814
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 1: in the sense that this does feel like an inflection point.

815
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: If you compare this year last year to some extent,

816
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,919
Speaker 1: the union activity with the union activity in the US

817
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: in you know, almost all of the last few decades,

818
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of energy, and there's been a

819
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:15,720
Speaker 1: lot of new organizing and places that we don't typically

820
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: see its successful organizing as you mentioned Amazon and Starbucks

821
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 1: being prime examples. We're also seeing up swells of organizing

822
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:24,720
Speaker 1: and things like care the care sector, which is another

823
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: sector which is a which is very low paid and

824
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 1: has had typically very difficult conditions. So in that sense,

825
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 1: I think it feels like there's an inflection point. The

826
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 1: ongoing type labor market creates conditions for that that, you know,

827
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 1: the quit the high quick rates as people move to

828
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 1: find better jobs or jobs that suit them better. And

829
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:46,360
Speaker 1: I think it shouldn't be underestimated that we have this

830
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: ground swell of awareness and I think popular support from

831
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 1: the pandemic which really laid bare how appalling conditions are

832
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 1: for many people. You know, when it was when it

833
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 1: was seen that people who were making going to be

834
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: low wages and providing completely essential services to the economy

835
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: were essentially being asked to risk death for themselves or

836
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: their families without even the ability to have a certain

837
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: amount of protective equipment or paid leave. I think people

838
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: seeing that has has has generated some popular ups well

839
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: and popular support for a rebalancing of power. So I

840
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: think there is this is an unusual moment, This is

841
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: a unique moment. We're also in a moment where the

842
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 1: administration is very supportive of unions and strengthening unions. But

843
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 1: the reason for pessimism is just that there's such a

844
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: long way to go if you believe that that work

845
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 1: of power is an important ingredient of of of change.

846
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 1: Private sector unionization in the US is at six percent

847
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: at its peak. It was one in three in the

848
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:50,320
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and over time there's a natural attrition anyway

849
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,000
Speaker 1: of unionization. You have to have a certain amount of

850
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: union organizing activity just to keep the membership rate constant

851
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: because you know, people retire, firms close, You've got to

852
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: have that that rate organizing just to keep the rate

853
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: flat at six percent. So the rates of organizing that

854
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:07,879
Speaker 1: would be needed successfully to reach the levels of unionization

855
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:10,399
Speaker 1: necessary to actually make a meaningful DNT in how pay

856
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: is set in the economy is astronomically high. And that's

857
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: where I think a lot more of a change really

858
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: in the organizing environment, really underscored by policy, is necessary

859
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: or would be necessary if that was the goal to achieve.

860
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: All right, well, Anna, I'm glad we could end with

861
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 1: like some optimism tempered by quite a bit of pessimism.

862
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all we can hope for it nowadays,

863
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,800
Speaker 1: I think, um Anna Standsbury, thank you so much for

864
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: joining us that so much so, Joe. I think this

865
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: is a fascinating topic, and there's clearly a lot of

866
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 1: interest at the moment. But I guess I come away

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Speaker 1: from that conversation thinking about how it feels like almost

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00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: everything is geared towards like the structure of the of

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Speaker 1: capitalism basically I know, and I didn't want to use

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00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 1: that word, but it feels like the structure of capitalism

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00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 1: is basically geared towards diverting benefits away from workers, unsurprisingly perhaps.

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Speaker 1: And the other thing I would say, it's like there

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00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: is a real effort underway. And I don't mean this

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Speaker 1: in a good or bad way per se, but look,

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Speaker 1: the goal of kind of everyone in power right is

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00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: more or less it's like, let's get back to the economy, right,

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00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: Like that would be I think a lot of people

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00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: in power, particularly at the FED, would see that like

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00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,319
Speaker 1: as a pretty pretty huge wind to just get back

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00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: there and sort of like all these trends, all these

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00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: things we like, you know, the sort of the Pandora's

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00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: box that was opened during the pandemic with could this

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00:47:55,760 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: being era of universal basic income and checks as a

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00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 1: sort of automatic response to every downturn you see like

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00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: the sort of white blood cells of the existing system,

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00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: like attacking all the innovations and trying to like go

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00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 1: back to the pre pandemic status quo. Yeah. But also

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00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: it's weird, as you pointed out, this idea that inflation

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00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:19,479
Speaker 1: is bad, but wage increases to offset inflation are also

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00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: bad because in theory that increases inflation, and so you

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00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 1: almost have like a collective action problem. Yeah, And like

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00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the messages is like, well,

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00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: increasing labor share is actually impossible, is the implicit message?

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00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: Like that makes no sense because labor share changes. But

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00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 1: the implicit messages you can't if if higher wages I

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00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: mean higher inflation, then why you achieve higher wages and

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00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: you just you don't get anywhere with workers. There's like

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00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: this like core con contradiction much of the discourse. I

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Speaker 1: would say, yeah, I think that's right. Shall we leave

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Speaker 1: it that? Let's leave it there. Okay. This has been

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Speaker 1: another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

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Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy allow and

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00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wi isn't thal. You can follow me on

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00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:06,400
Speaker 1: Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our guest Anna Stansbury on Twitter.

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Speaker 1: She's at Anna Stansbury. Follow our producer Carmen Rodriguez at

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00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: Carmen Armann, and check out all of our podcasts at

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00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 1: Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening,