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OCTOBER 5, 2023
On the Prospect website
*
**Jarod Facundo** writes on notorious "union avoidance" law firm Littler
Mendelson
and U.S. labor law
*
**David Michaels, Adam Dean & Jamie K. McCallum** offer a solution to
the proliferation of workplace injuries
*
**Gabrielle Gurley** tracks legislation to allow legal cannabis
businesses full access
to
the banking system
*
**Mark Kreidler** reports on Kaiser Permanente's striking health care
workers
and the decline of the nation's largest nonprofit HMO
Meyerson on TAP
Invading Mexico to Destroy the Drug Cartels? Here's How!
Mexico (among others) might object, but I have a solution for that.
The Republican candidates for president,
**The New York Times**reports
,
have united around a common solution for the scourge of fentanyl and
other drugs coming across the border: invading Mexico. Almost to a
person, they are calling for sending our armed forces-chiefly, special
operations troops-into Mexico "to annihilate the Mexican drug
cartels," as Vivek Ramaswamy recently put it.
More than 20 Republican House members are co-sponsoring a bill that
would authorize the deployment of U.S. forces against nine of those
cartels. And a Reuters/Ipsos poll
from September shows considerable public support for such action: By a
2-to-1 margin (52 percent to 26 percent), respondents favored sending
troops there to take on the cartels. Even Democrats were narrowly
divided: While 47 percent opposed such action, 44 percent backed it.
Given the polarization of our politics, that's a pretty high level of
support. I mean, who, other than the occasional Mexican, would really
oppose it?
That objecting Mexican, of course, is the rub. When asked if we should
send in the troops without the consent of the Mexican government, that
2-to-1 ratio stayed constant, but this time, it flipped into opposition
to such action (59 percent opposed; 29 percent supported). Even 51
percent of Republicans came out against going in without Mexico's
consent.
Their lily-livered base notwithstanding, the Republican presidential
candidates seem determined to plow ahead, come what may. The one
dissident voice in the Republican field, former Arkansas governor and
DEA chief Asa Hutchinson, has put his finger on what some may think a
rather fine distinction: Unlike, say, Iraq 20 years ago, Mexico is
actually our ally. Then again, Hutchinson's level of GOP support is so
low he didn't make it into the party's second presidential debate.
The Mexican government, of course, is furious at these threats, and
President López Obrador has actually condemned our Republicans by name.
But I am writing this column because I believe I have a solution that
will satisfy everyone.
For years, Mexico has complained that most of the thousands of assault
weapons that their gangs routinely use against their fellow Mexicans are
made in the USA. Last year, Mexico sued
a number of our nation's leading gun manufacturers (including Smith &
Wesson, Beretta, and Colt) for $10 billion for the damages their
products had inflicted on Mexico's citizenry and civic life. Mexico
argued that an average of 597,000 guns are trafficked into their country
from ours every year, and that 68 percent of those guns were
manufactured by the companies they were suing. Thirteen U.S. states and
the District of Columbia joined Mexico's suit, citing a study
by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms that found that 70
percent of the guns recovered in Mexico from 2014 to 2018 had come from
the U.S.
Despite that, a federal judge dismissed the case in September of last
year. Mexico is appealing that ruling, but it's hard to imagine that
our current Supreme Court, should the appeal eventually reach them, will
overturn the judge's ruling.
So: We can't get the Mexican government to allow us to go after their
gangs, and they can't get our courts to allow them to go after our
guns. What's a civic-minded North American to do?
Here's my solution: If we send our soldiers into Mexico to destroy
their gangs, we must allow Mexico to send its soldiers into the U.S. to
blow up our gun factories (calling ahead, of course, so no workers are
injured). Both policies will have supporters and opponents on each side
of the border, but that's just part of the symmetry that makes this,
if I say so myself, a much-needed breakthrough in cross-border
relations.
I'd call it Mutual Assured Destruction if the name weren't already
taken.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter
[link removed]
Lawyers, Not Persuaders
The anti-labor law firm Littler Mendelson's reputation is a premier
example of the limitations in existing labor law. BY JAROD FACUNDO
Want a Safer Workplace? Join a Union.
Non-union businesses tend not to publicly report workplace injuries and
illnesses. Unionized businesses generally do. BY DAVID MICHAELS, ADAM
DEAN & JAMIE K. McCALLUM
Kaiser Workers Say They Want the Old Kaiser Back
Once known for strong employee-management relations, its workers now say
staffing and pay need to rise to attract and retain the staff Kaiser
needs. BY MARK KREIDLER
The SAFER Option for Cannabis?
What looked like a knotty but possible way forward promises to be undone
by congressional chaos agents. BY GABRIELLE GURLEY
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