Thomas Frank hates Republicans, Conservatives, and workplace democracy

Frank is beginning to improve his game here. I look to him for principled criticisms of my side, and this time he's got one - the indifference (or complicity) of the federal Labor Department towards unsafe and illegal working conditions.

That's a legitimate hit, and I thank Mr. Frank for drawing my attention to it. I'll return the favor by pointing to the multiple ways he weakens his own case:

1. Unions in Mexico are so strong - far stronger than in the US - that they stifle Mexican job creation, fueling illegal immigration. In his one-sided praise of all unions everywhere, Frank doesn't acknowledge this.

2. Iowa has a labor department too, and they are much closer to this problem and have a primary responsibility for addressing it - why are they spared criticism? Is it because Iowa has a Democratic governor, and has been ruled by Democrats since 1999? Frank's silence is profound. Perhaps Frank thinks state labor departments should be abolished or subsumed within the federal organization.

3. "Card check" legislation isn't about freeing workers to unionize, it's about subjecting them to workplace intimidation and union-boss thuggery. Frank's mincing steps around this are shameful in anyone with a commitment to respect for liberty and freedom from coercion.

4. Through artful wording, Frank implies that AgriProcessors has only been fined once before - untrue. The Des Moines Register reports that "In the past, Agriprocessors has had potential fines for workplace safety violations reduced substantially through negotiations with Iowa labor officials." Furthermore, "...those cases were handled as administrative matters, not as criminal cases. Any fines imposed as a result of the alleged child-labor violations will be through a court order, since the matter is now being treated as a criminal matter."

So the supposed lax oversight maybe wasn't so lax, and the reductions in fines that Frank so craftily puts in the passive voice, "The fines levied against AgriProcessors, however, were eventually reduced...", were reduced by the DEMOCRATIC administrations Vilsack and Culver.

All in all, Frank's sweeping language and over-broad conclusions are masks for a weak argument where the facts undercut his case. I think he's right about the federal Labor department needing to be more active around workplace safety and child labor law enforcement. He's not right about very much else, and his conclusion, that "conservatism" is the root of his catalog of ills, is unsupported.