Help Wanted: Old Master
by digby
I’m watching CNN right now as Ali Velshi and Richard Quest discuss art as an investment. They tell me that it’s not good for the polloi because it’s hard to get in cheaply as living artists are making new art and diluting the value. It’s an investment for the wealthy who are jittery and “uncertain” about the economy and want to own things that have intrinsic value. Oh well.
But in the course of the discussion I learned that these extremely valuable producers and job creators have been very busy:
Sotheby’s today announced results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2010. 2010 brought the best financial results for Sotheby’s in its 267-year history, apart from 2007. Consolidated Sales* were $2.0 billion in the fourth quarter and $4.8 billion in the year, an increase of 57% and 74%, respectively.
If only the government would take its jackboots from the throats of these hardworking entrepreneurs, just think of how much more of this value would be created in our economy.
Instead, the parasites move in, as usual, seeing an opportunity to mooch an unearned share:
Although the recent strike of 45,000 Verizon workers has dominated labor news the last few weeks, at least two other contentious local union fights are now underway in New York, at Central Park’s iconic Boathouse Restaurant and the elite auction house Sotheby’s.
The 43 locked-out art handlers at Sotheby’s, all members of Teamsters Local 814, sent their message loud and clear – negotiate now – to management at a rally on August 26, where their ranks were swelled by hundreds of Teamster women in town from across the country for the annual Teamster Women’s Conference.
Jason Ide, the local’s president and himself a former art handler for the company, painted a picture of a greedy corporation that has refused to bargain fairly with its workers, instead locking them out of work on August 1, in the midst of contract negotiations.
“This company sells art and antiques to some of the richest people in America. This company made $690 million in gross profits last year,” Ide said angrily to the assembled workers, who chanted “Teamster power!” and “No contract! No work, no peace!” “And when we went to the bargaining table, they said that’s for us, not for you.”Among its demands, Sotheby’s, which just had its most profitable year ever in its 267 years of business and whose CEO, Bill Ruprecht, is paid approximately $60,000 a day, wants the art handlers to give up their 401K plan and work a reduced 36-hour week, effectively a 10 percent wage cut. The company also wants to cap workers’ overtime, eliminate certain titles that pay more, and, in initial bargaining, wanted workers to give up their right to sue over charges of discrimination.
These 45 greedy looters need to understand that capitalism is about rewarding creativity and bringing value to the economy. Wealthy patrons paying hundreds of millions of dollars to each other for products that were made centuries ago by people who are no longer living is a perfect example of how this works. How anyone can believe that taxing these collectors and destroying their incentive to “produce” won’t crash our economy is mystifying. And why anyone could think these workers are even remotely entitled to a piece of their hard earned profits(those auctions are very tiring)is bizarre.
After all, dead artists need jobs too.
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