After a hard week in the House. It was back to the babies this morning, and there was not a sandwich in sight.

The PM at the annual Welcoming The Babies event in her local community.

Unions decline and corporate profits rise. Perhaps workers should think again about not joining a trade union. A paper published this week in the American Sociological Review suggests that the decline of labour unions, partly as a result of computerisation, is the main reason why US corporate profits have surged as a share of national income while workers’ wages and other compensation have declined.

In the article The Capitalist Machine: Computerization, Workers’ Power, and the Decline in Labor’s Share within U.S. Industries, Tali Kristal, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Haifa in Israel, writes that a 6% a decline in labour’s share of national income and a rise in capitalists’ profits share since the late 1970s was the result of waning unionisation, which led to the erosion of rank-and file workers’ bargaining power.

The study itself is behind a paywall, but a press summary describes its findings as follows:

“Kristal found that from 1979 through 2007, labor’s share of national income in the U.S. private sector decreased by six percentage points. This means that if labor’s share had stayed at its 1979 level (about 64 percent of national income), the 120 million American workers employed in the private sector in 2007 would have received as a group an additional $600 billion, or an average of more than $5,000 per worker, Kristal said …

“‘It was highly unionized industries — construction, manufacturing, and transportation — that saw a large decline in labor’s share of income,’ Kristal said. ‘By contrast, in the lightly unionized industries of trade, finance, and services, workers’ share stayed relatively constant or even increased. So, what we have is a large decrease in labor’s share of income and a significant increase in capitalists’ share in industries where unionization declined, and hardly any change in industries where unions never had much of a presence. This suggests that waning unionization, which led to the erosion of rank-and file workers’ bargaining power, was the main force behind the decline in labor’s share of national income.”

“In addition to the erosion of labor unions, Kristal found that rising unemployment as well as increasing imports from less-developed countries contributed to the decline in labor’s share.

“‘All of these factors placed U.S. workers in a disadvantageous bargaining position versus their employers,’said Kristal, who also demonstrated that while employers gained most of the benefits from computerization, much of computer technology’s effect on the decline in labor’s share of national income was indirect, and channeled through its role in reducing unionization. The direct effect of computerization on the decline in labor’s share was relatively modest, Kristal said.

“‘In short, my study shows that capitalists have rarely had it as good as they did from 1979 through 2007,’ said Kristal. ‘The empirical analysis of this study ends at 2007, but updated data reveal that although the great economic recession reduced corporate profits as a share of national income, it was only a short-run effect (of about 2 years) and the golden age of corporate profits has continued well into 2010 and beyond.'”

A little bit of mayoral hanky-panky. In Britain of late there’s been a degree of media tut-tutting about the ethics of London’s lord mayor, Boris Johnson, as the speculation continues that he is considering a move to replace the incumbent Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron

On the evidence so far it seems the lord mayor retains considerable public support, with a poll in The Independent showing 76% of voters disagree with the suggestion that the latest revelation about him fathering a child outside his marriage would make it less likely that they voted for him in a general election.

No crack in the approval rating. Over the Atlantic in Canada, another mayor is embroiled in a little controversy. Toronto’s Rob Ford has been in the political spotlight for a couple of weeks after allegations surfaced that he was caught smoking crack cocaine on video, something he staunchly denies. The local media have had a field day since  the Toronto Star and Gawker reported on May 16 they had seen a video that purports to show the mayor using illegal drugs.

Reuters reports that Ford issued a denial last Friday after several city councilors and allies encouraged him to confront the issue directly. “There has been a serious accusation from the Toronto Star that I use crack cocaine. I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine,” he told a news conference.

The mysterious video has not yet surfaced for public consumption, leading Reuters to this conclusion:

“In the end, as long as the city continues to function, some voters may not care much about the drug use allegations. Ford’s poll numbers have not changed since before the scandal broke, according to Forum Research Inc, though he does risk losing the 2014 election to a left-leaning candidate.

“Marion Barry, the Washington D.C. mayor, was arrested on drug charges after he was videotaped smoking crack cocaine in 1990. He served six months in jail and then went on to be re-elected as mayor and continues to serve as a popular city councilor in the U.S. capital.”

No interest change expected. The market expects the Reserve Bank board to keep interest rates on hold when it meets on Tuesday.

None of those pesky minor parties and independents here. They are going to the polls in Bhutan today for a preliminary vote to determine which two political parties can actually contest the election proper. There are four groups on today’s ballot paper, and the two with the lowest votes will be eliminated from the election. At the poll proper in July the winner will form the government, and the runner-up will become the opposition. A sensible system?

Peace in our time. The disaster that was the invasion of Iraq becomes more apparent every day. A wave of bombings in Iraq’s capital of Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul Thursday killed at least 16 people, bringing the death toll for May to over 500 people. Officials in Iraq, reports The Washington Post, are growing increasingly concerned over an unabated spike in violence that is reviving fears of a return to widespread sectarian fighting.

News and views noted along the way.