opinion

How Democrats' coziness with business hurts workers

The Republicans have a real opportunity to connect with voters and win big in 2016. But to do so, they'll have to get over their traditional love for Big Business. Will they be smart enough to do that? The prospects don't look especially bright.

But the fact is that many big businesses are unpopular with the public, aligned with the Democrats, and wide open for attack. And after eight years of the Obama administration's naked cronyism and support of Wall Street even as the middle class has suffered, the opportunities are there.

One of the most appealing targets would be the tech industry's wage-suppressing hiring habits. Not only have tech giants like Apple and Google engaged in what a federal court called an "overarching conspiracy" to prevent wage competition, but Silicon Valley firms also abuse H-1B visas to bring in immigrant competition at lower wages, a practice that's now spreading to other industries. (In Los Angeles, Southern California Edison is firing workers and replacing them with immigrants now).

How can the GOP take advantage?

First, a much stricter prevailing wage law for H-1B visas, with big damages against violators designed to make plaintiffs' attorneys zero in on this area. You can import foreign help if you want, but you have to pay those Indian or Chinese software engineers the prevailing wage for American software engineers in Silicon Valley, rather than paying the pittance most companies pay now. (In one case, a Silicon Valley firm was paying $1.21 an hour.) There has been a lot of cheating on H-1B visas, and this should help. The tech companies' excuse for hiring immigrants is that they can't find enough qualified Americans, not that they just want to pay sweatshop wages, though that excuse is bogus. Companies also draw out the H-1B application process to keep workers under their thumbs and away from competitors, something called "handcuffing." Maybe shortening the fuse on the application process there would be a good idea, too, or – again – creating damages that trial lawyers can exploit. (Most GOP types reflexively hate trial lawyers, but, like Kurt Schlichter, I think it's better to have them working for you than against you). For more fun, make CEO's and HR heads personally responsible for violations, a la Sarbanes-Oxley.

Tech companies will hate this, but I don't see any downside for Republicans in siding with employees against the super-wealthy of Silicon Valley. It might even split off some tech-industry support, dividing the Silicon Valley worker bees from the oligarchs. I have Democratic friends who work there and this is a really big issue among them. And who could be against paying a "living wage?" For added fun, have some hearings where fat-cat Silicon Valley oligarchs are grilled about worker exploitation.

Another big Democratic industry is entertainment, and here too there are lots of opportunities. The motion picture industry has been abusing intellectual property laws for years. Hollywood accounting makes even big money-makers look unprofitable. The recording industry is notorious for ripping off artists.

America could use much more in the way of legislation and oversight to remedy these abuses – which, frankly, have been permitted mostly because the entertainment industry and Silicon Valley have been big donors to the Democratic Party for years. The GOP could change all that, and if it's smart, the Republican-dominated Congress will be passing bills to protect American workers and consumers from the depredations of these industries between now and 2016.

But I'm not too optimistic. That's because the GOP seems unwilling to criticize Big Business, even those parts of Big Business that hate the GOP and want to destroy it.

Some see this unwillingness as a support for free markets, but there's a big difference between support for Big Business and support for free markets. Big businesses tend to support heavy regulation, taxes, antitrust violations, and other things that reduce competition. They have enough political clout – like Apple, Google, or Sony Pictures – to get favorable government treatment. Small businesses and middle class Americans do not.

If you really support free markets – in which competition is based on price and quality, not government preference – then you're going to find yourself opposing Big Business fairly often. If you never find yourself opposing Big Business, then maybe you don't really support free markets.

That's something for Republican politicians – and for voters – to keep in mind.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.