How The Free Market Economy Works

Hot Air posted an article today about job losses at the Boeing Aircraft plant in Washington State. The company announced this week that 1,800 unionized employees at the Seattle facility will be losing their jobs.

The article further reports:

Nearly three-quarters of eligible production workers at Boeing’s South Carolina plant voted Wednesday not to join the International Association of Machinists in a major setback for organized labor.

The Post & Courier newspaper reported that 2,097 of 2,828 voting workers — 74.2 percent — cast ballots against unionization.

Under NLRB rules, workers must wait a year before another union vote. In a statement, Machinists organizer Mike Evans said the union was disappointed with the vote but vowed to stay in close touch with Boeing workers to figure out next steps.

The article concludes by explaining exactly what is happening:

So 1800 workers in Washington are finding themselves unemployed. At the same time, more than 3000 people in the Palmetto State have gone to work, begun training and started pumping new life into the economy. So why aren’t the two unions in Washington who are making this doleful announcement talking about that story? I’m just taking a shot in the dark here, but it might be because South Carolina is a right to work state and the union has already been roundly rejected by the workers there who want to see the business grow and not kill the new goose which is suddenly laying a considerable quantity of golden eggs.

Boeing is not crashing and burning, nor is the economy collapsing. What we’re seeing is a rebalancing of resources where employers are going to places where there is an available pool of skilled labor and they can simultaneously keep labor costs under control to remain competitive in a challenging global market. Much like everything else in our capitalist system, such transitions produce winners and losers. Unfortunately for the employees of Boeing, their unions have opened the door to the “loser” side of the equation hitting the folks in Washington state while the benefits accrue to the citizens of South Carolina.

And that, folks, is how the free market works. In the end, more people gained jobs than lost them, and Boeing will be more competitive in world markets. That is a win-win. Unions are a useful tool, but they need to remember that if their contracts produce an unworkable business model for the company they work for, everyone loses.

Hoisted On Their Own Petard?

Yesterday the Los Angeles Times reported that Los Angeles labor leaders, who recently supported a minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are now asking for changes in the law that would exempt companies whose workforces are unionized.

The article reports:

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.

“With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them,” Hicks said in a statement. “This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is a good thing.”

Laws for thee, but not for me. If a unionized company can be exempt in order to stay in business, why can’t a non-unionized restaurant be exempt?

The Council voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. The increase in the minimum wage will be a problem for both restaurants and fast food places. The increase will also pose a problem for other small businesses.

But I Didn’t Think That Law Would Apply To Me!

Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon reported that Media Matters is forcing its employees to make the vote to unionize under the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) a secret ballot. This is amazingly ironic. Media Matters is a liberal organization headed by David Brock, a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton.

The article reports:

It is unclear why Media Matters did not opt to allow its employees to organize through a card check campaign, in which a union submits signed petitions from employees expressing their interest to join the union. MMFA, its attorneys, and the SEIU did not return requests for comment.

Media Matters has a long record of slamming Republicans and conservatives who want to protect secret ballot union elections.

The organization published multiple pieces celebrating the Democrat’s so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize through card check campaigns and prevent employers from forcing a secret ballot election.

Media Matters researcher Meagan Hatcher-Mays took to the organization’s blog to criticize “a wave of Republican anti-union legislation [that] has placed obstacles between workers and union representatives and disrupted opportunities for workplace productivity.”

It is becoming very obvious that the best way to illustrate the problems with the liberal agenda is to ask liberals to abide by their own laws.

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The Consequences Of Stacking The National Labor Relations Board

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about the National Labor Relations Board‘s (NLRB) decision to allow Northwestern University football players to unionize.

The article reports:

NLRB regional director Peter Sung Ohr cited the players’ time commitment to their sport and the fact their scholarships were tied directly to their performance as reasons for granting them union rights…

CAPA attorneys argued that college football is, for all practical purposes, a commercial enterprise that relies on players’ labor to generate billions of dollars in profits. That, they contend, makes the relationship of schools to players one of employers to employees.

In its endeavor to have college football players be recognized as essential workers, CAPA likened scholarships to employment pay — too little pay from its point of view. Northwestern balked at that claim, describing scholarship as grants.

    Giving college athletes employee status and allowing them to unionize, critics have argued, could hurt college sports in numerous ways — including by raising the prospects of strikes by disgruntled players or lockouts by athletic departments.

This raises some interesting questions. Are their scholarships income? Does that mean that all scholarships are income? Does everyone who has a scholarship of any kind get a 1099 at the end of the year? If they form a union, can they go on strike? Can they demand lower academic standards or less practice time?

This is one of the dumbest decisions the NLRB has made. It will add confusion to college sports rather than solve any current problems. The only thing it will actually accomplish will to collect unions dues from the players. This is turn would help the unions shore up their underfunded pension programs. This is a really bad idea.

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This List May Be A Surprise To Some People

Open Secrets has posted a list of the top donors to Republicans and Democrats from 1989 to 2014. It is not really a surprise to me that you have to go down to number 17 to find a donor who donated more to the Republicans than Democrats. Koch Industries, the organization liberals love to cite as the buyer of elections, is number 59 on the list.

There is too much money in American politics, but it is ironic that most of the people who have traditionally complained about that fact do not realize that it’s not the rich Republicans contributing the money–it’s unions who support Democrats. Keep in mind that the union membership does not always have a say in how their dues are spent. At least in industry, a CEO is accountable to either stockholders or executive board members. Of the top fifteen organizations giving the most money, 12 are unions. Of the top fifteen organizations giving the most money, there are four organizations that gave to both parties fairly equally, and none that gave a majority of their money to Republicans.

Yes, there probably is too much money in politics, but it isn’t coming from rich Republicans.

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Unions And Crony Capitalism

Townhall.com posted an article today about some of the scandals that have been occurring in America’s Public Sector Unions. Remember, the members of the Public Sector Unions are people whose benefits and salaries are paid by the taxpayer.

The article lists several recent scandals. Here are a few:

A Chicago union leader takes a leave of absence in 1989 from the city’s sanitation department, where he earned $40,000, to work for a union. He is then allowed to “retire” from the city at age 56 with $108,000 pension. (The rules say that the individual should waive a union pension to do this. In this case, the official reportedly does not waive the union pension. The city knows this, but grants the city pension anyway.)

16 psychiatrists working for California are paid $400,000 or more. One of them, with a degree from an Afghan medical school, takes home $822,302

More than half the lifeguards working for Newport Beach, CA earn more than $150,000 in 2010. One earns $203,481. A lifeguard labor union spokesman comments: “We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries. . . . Lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.”

There are many more examples listed in the article. This might be the reason many of our towns, cities and states are on the verge of bankruptcy.

The article reminds us of the relationship between union dues and political contributions:

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) collects $211 million in dues in 2010; the National Education Association (NEA) $397 million. With state affiliates included, the total approaches $1 billion. The AFT president makes nearly half a million, and almost 600 officials at the two unions earn over $100,000. $297 million is donated to political campaigns over a decade—with total political spending much higher. It is hard to say how high the spending really is because members do not receive complete information.

…For the fifty states as a whole, unfunded public employee benefit liabilities are at least $1.26 trillion, according to the PEW Center on the states.

This information comes from a book entitled, Crony Capitalism in America 2008-2012, Chapter 19, Public Sector Union Scandals Begin to Leak by Hunter Lewis. The book is available at Amazon.com.

There might be a few clues in the above examples of union abuse of taxpayer money as to how America might begin to trim its state, local and federal budgets.

 

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Did You Know About The Belly Button Tax?

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal posted an article about the debate over the Belly-Button Tax in Obamacare. Yes, you read that right. There is a tax on every person covered by an insurance plan–policy holder, spouses, and children. This has become known as the belly-button tax.

The article reports:

It’s paid by every company that provides insurance — big businesses, organized labor, and insurance carriers. The likely beneficiaries of the compensation fund, though, are just the traditional insurance carriers, who will become required to sell coverage to everyone, regardless of their medical history.

Large employers and unions have fought hard to get an exemption, saying the levy is unfair because they don’t directly benefit from the fund. Insurers say it’s an important fee they need to keep.

If you are going to require insurance companies to insure everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, you need to find a way to keep them from going bankrupt. We need to remember that companies are in businesses to make money. If they are not able to make money, why should they stay in business? The International Economic Development website reports that the profit margins for health insurance companies is about 3 percent. They rank about 88 among 215 industries as far as profit margins go. That profit margin is not overly large–these companies don’t have a lot of wiggle room to accommodate the federal government seriously impacting their profits. I don’t support ObamaCare, but if you are going to have ObamaCare, you need a belly-button tax.

ObamaCare does not make sense economically or otherwise. It will eventually collapse under its own weight. We just need to make sure it collapses before it totally destroys healthcare in America.

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About That Unequal Distribution of Wealth Thing

When Occupy Wall Street was protesting, one of its claims was that the ‘fat cats’ on Wall Street were getting richer while everyone else was getting poorer. They claimed to be fighting for a more equitable distribution of wealth. Of course, corporations have always been charged with overpaying their executives while underpaying those in the lower levels of the work force. However, in these protests, one area of ‘unequal distribution of wealth’ has been overlooked.

Today’s Washington Examiner posted an article about the increases in the pay for union leaders that is occurring as union membership decreases.

The article reports:

The only thing keeping Big Labor from becoming an incidental factor in the American workplace is that government employees are five times more likely to be unionized than those in the private sector.

The article further states:

A total of 428 private sector union leaders were paid at least $250,000 annually, and the top 100 of those made more than $350,000, according to a study of Department of Labor data by Media Trackers, a conservative, nonprofit investigative watchdog group. The highest-paid union leaders work for organized professional athletes, with G. William Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, who received $3.2 million. The only government employee union leader in the top 10 is Gerald McEntee, international president of the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, whose $1.2 million compensation put him fourth on the list.

I have no problem with people being compensated for what they do, but if you are going to complain about what corporate executives earn, you need to also look at what union leaders are paid.

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Balancing The Money In Political Campaigns

Unfortunately, political campaigns in America have an awful lot to do with money. The Citizen’s United case in the Supreme Court balanced out the money to some extent, but an unbelievable amount of money still goes directly from union dues to Democrat campaign coffers.
John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about some changes that may be coming to the political landscape because of legal challenges to the role of unions. The article includes the following chart from Open Secrets:

The chart shows the overwhelming disparity between union contributions to Democrat campaigns versus Republican campaigns. Some recent events in Wisconsin may be the beginning steps toward leveling the playing field.

A website called Right Wisconsin explains:

Now that Wisconsin’s educators have been given the right to choose whether or not to belong to a labor union, the unions are struggling to attract enough members to stay afloat. Proving all along that the union leaders didn’t really represent their members, as much as sponge off of them.

Under a provision of Act 10, public employee unions are required to file for annual re-certification by August 30 if they wish to remain a recognized bargaining unit. Thursday Afternoon, Mark Belling broke the news that only 37 percent of the teachers in the Kenosha Unified School District voted to reauthorize the union in a recent vote.
 
Now, given Brey’s (Christina Brey, speaking for the Wisconsin Education Association Council) comments in the Journal Sentinel, Kenosha is a trend setter, not an outlier.

So what does this mean? Most of Wisconsin’s public employee unions have lost between 30% and 60% of their members in the past two years. Obviously this seriously limits the amount of money they will be donating to political campaigns.

The article at Power Line reports:

The time has come, I think, to end the preferential treatment under which unions have long operated. Under the law, unions get a special deal: Section 7 of the Clayton Act exempts them from the antitrust laws. Absent that exemption, labor unions would be subject to the Sherman Act’s ban on combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade. Repealing Section 7 would have one of two consequences: either unions would be deemed illegal per se as price-fixing conspiracies, or they would be subject to the Sherman Act’s Rule of Reason, under which they would have to prove that their net effect is pro-competitive rather than anti-competitive. Either way, unions would be fighting for their lives and would be in no position to dominate the political landscape.

Let’s truly level the playing field.

Unions And Obamacare

There have been a lot of problems with Obamacare that have recently come to light–increased veterinarian bills, more part-time workers, not being able to keep your current health insurance, higher health insurance premiums, etc, and the Republicans have put repealing Obamacare into their latest budget proposal. However, the one thing that may actually cause a problem for Obamacare is the lack of support from unions as they realize the negative impact it will have on them and their members.

The March 25th Weekly Standard contains an article by Mark Hemingway that reports on some of the criticism of Obamacare coming from union leaders.

The article reports:

“I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts about the law.” Besides Wilhelm, some of the nation’s largest union bosses have taken to publicly criticizing the Affordable Care Act.

In actuality, current figures estimate that approximately 7 million Americans will lose their current health care policies by 2022.because of Obamacare. When the law was passed, the unions, because they are such a powerful political force, were supposed to be exempt from much of Obamacare. They are now finding out that those exemptions may have an expiration date.

The article points out:

The Obama administration has thus far issued waivers from Obama-care’s onerous requirements to unions representing 543,812 workers. By contrast, the administration has issued waivers for only 69,813 nonunion workers. While these waivers are a significant benefit, they accrue to a small fraction of the nation’s 14 million union workers. Further, many of the waivers have been granted on an annual basis, and no waiver has been granted for longer than two-and-a-half years. Eventually even union health plans are going to have to comply with Obama-care regulations.

The article also reports that the tax Obamacare places on what the law refers to as Cadillac health plans may begin to affect even average plans–another unforeseen problem.

The article concludes:

Beyond the specifics, what union leaders are really saying is that they have no confidence Obama-care will live up to its central promise​—​that the government can provide millions of uninsured Americans with health care coverage that both is affordable and meets their needs.

Surely organized labor must realize that Obama-care has only begun to be implemented. If the Democrats’ most ardent constituency and most prolific fundraisers are already having second thoughts about Obama-care​—​fearful that besides being expensive and unworkable, the law will make unions less attractive to workers and undermine collective bargaining​—​the law may be less secure than its apologists assume.

Obamacare is bad law and needs to be repealed. It will be interesting to see what happens as the politically powerful special interest groups in the Democrat Party begin to realize this.

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Under The Radar At The National Labor Relations Board

President Obama stacked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with pro-union people early in his administration. The lone Republican‘s term ended December 16th. At this time there are three Democrats remaining on the board, two were appointed by ‘recess’ appointments which were made while Congress was in session.

Breitbart.com  reported yesterday on some of the NLRB’s recent actions.

The article reports:

The NLRB now allows that unions no longer are required to provide proof, through audits of their finances, to so-called “Beck objectors” that their money is not spent on union politics.

In addition to saving unions from mandatory financial audits, the NLRB also decided that lobbying expenses are now “chargeable to [Beck] objectors, to the extent that they are germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment.”

These new rules mean that workers who are forced to join unions and pay union dues have less control than ever over how their money is spent by union leaders. Labor bosses can now spend those funds on just about any lobbying expense whatsoever and never have to justify it.

The NLRB also declared that a corporation is required to collect union dues during the time between contracts between the corporation and the union. In other words, if the union is on strike against the corporation, the corporation will collect union dues for them. Wow.

This is ultimately about money. The unions are the major fund source for democrat politicians. Union membership has been dropping over recent years. If the unions lose their power, the Democrat party loses a large percentage of its campaign funds.Enhanced by Zemanta

The Battle For Union Reform Moves To Virginia

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about the next battle in reforming unions. In Virginia, the Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee has passed a bill to guarantee voter privacy in union elections. This is a preemptive strike in case the Obama Administration passes card check–a union election procedure that takes away the secret ballot.

The article reports:

Held over from the 2012 General Assembly session, the bill is expected to come to the Senate floor in the session that opens Jan. 9.

“This amendment is essential if we are going to preserve voter integrity and privacy,” said Sen. Bryce Reeves (R-Spotsylvania), who introduced the measure. “No citizen should be forced to reveal how they voted in any election, be it a federal, state, local or a union election.”

Unions have a place in the American workforce. Ideally they protect the rights of the individual worker and provide a way for grievances to be resolved. However, unions have become a cash cow for the Democrat party, and an excuse for their leaders to live in luxury at the expense of the average worker. Union leaders are no better than the corporate fat cats they condemn. It is time for the unions to remember their original purpose–protecting workers–and begin to focus on that.

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Numbers Can Be So Inconvenient

Yesterday Investors.com posted the chart below:

President Obama has stated,

“These so-called right to work laws, they don’t have anything to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money,”

That is simply not true. The numbers on earnings in right-to-work states simply don’t agree with what the President and labor leaders are saying.

The article reports:

According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, right-to-work states (excluding Indiana, which passed a RTW law in early 2012) “were responsible for 72% of all net household job growth across the U.S. from June 2009 through September 2012.”

…The president who fought Boeing’s expansion in RTW South Carolina knows it’s all about his keeping union dues flowing into Democratic coffers and maintaining the plush lifestyles of the union leaders who support him.

The article concludes:

If unions satisfied workers, one would expect their membership to at least remain constant. But between 2000 and 2010, union membership declined by 9.5% in non-RTW states and 9.2% in RTW states. The only growth was in government unions.

Michigan‘s right-to-work law is a positive blow for worker freedom and economic growth and an example, as in Wisconsin and Indiana, of how conservatives can win and are winning in states led by GOP governors.

At its core, this is about campaign money. When the Supreme Court ruled in the  Citizens United case that corporations could make campaign donations, the unions had a problem–someone else was throwing tons of money into political campaigns. When the Democrats were not successful in changing that ruling, they desperately needed to hang on to union money. The ruling in Michigan is a direct threat to the Democrat party’s major source of funds–union money. Workers will no longer be forced to join a union or contribute dues to a union they are not a member of. That is a step forward for workers.

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A Whole New Meaning To Thanksgiving Turkey

Breitbart.com reported yesterday that the Los Angeleslabor unions have decided to hold a protest at Lost Angeles Airport on Wednesday, the biggest travel day of the year. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is leading the charge.

The article reports:

What exactly is SEIU protesting for? They say that an airport contract is breaking the city law on living wages – which, of course, is nonsense, since that would be prosecutable. They also say that the contractor has eliminated “affordable healthcare” for over 400 workers. Which is, again, bull. After all, can’t the SEIU just rely on Obamacare?

Sometimes I truly wonder what the SEIU actually wants.

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Thug Tactics In Recruiting Union Members

This story is based on two sources–a Washington Free Beacon article on Thursday, and a MyCentralJersey.com article on Wednesday.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

HealthBridge and CareOne, two nursing home companies, are suing the New England Health Care Employees Union (Service Employees International Union Chapter 1199 New England), accusing the labor leaders of using political threats and dangerous workplace sabotage to force several non-union shops into their ranks.

The explosive charges stem from a July labor walkout in which identification badges were removed from elderly patients’ doors, including from some who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s, and medical records were mixed up. The lawsuit alleges that such tactics constitute the same sort of intimidation that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) were designed to prevent.

MyCentralJersey.com reports:

Among the prestrike acts of sabotage alleged in the court filing: Workers removed patient ID wristbands, dietary stickers and name plates from doors; tampered with medication records; and hid or damaged blood pressure cuffs and stethoscopes — acts designed to leave “patients and replacement workers to fend for themselves.”

…The lawsuit alleges that the unions are resorting to desperate measures because their pensions are underfunded and the groups need the union dues to sustain their operations.The New England affiliate, which represents 29,000 workers, contributed $3.5 million in dues to SEIU in 2010. The New York affiliate represents 350,000 members and contributed $40 million in dues. SEIU comprises 2.1 million workers nationally.

On June 13, 2010, I reported (rightwinggranny.com):

The reference for this story is a May 25 article in the Washington Examiner.  The article deals with the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC).  Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), introduced S. 3157 in late March.  According to Thomas.gov, the bill is currently in committee.  The bill is called “Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010.”

The bill would back union pension funds with federal tax dollars.  The article in the Washington Examiner points out that in 2006, before the recession, only six percent of these union pension funds were doing well.  In a column in the Washington Examiner in April, Mark Hemingway pointed out that the average union pension plan had only enough money to cover 62 percent of its financial obligations.  Pension plans that are below 80 percent funding are considered “endangered” by the government; below 65 percent is considered “critical.”  Union membership is declining, which means that less people are paying into these funds.

The union pensions are essentially a Ponzi scheme. The only way that union members will receive their pensions is if the membership of the unions increases to cover those expenses. Meanwhile, the unions are spending millions of dollars to support political candidates that will be sympathetic to their cause.

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Unionization of Home Based Family Care Providers In Massachusetts

The following letter is reprinted with the permission of the writer. It originally appeared in the Community Advocate which covers Hudson, Marlboro, Northboro, Southboro, Westboro, and Shrewsbury.

Dear Editor,

I’m writing to set the record straight about the recently passed legislation forcing family care providers into a state employee union if they accept one child on a state voucher.

Rep. Carolyn Dykema has claimed that is untrue. As a family care provider who is living with the situation, Dykema is wrong. We are home based businesses that care for children. We are the ultimate small business.

For the past eight years, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has tried to recruit us into their union. No one joined. That should be an indication that we don’t want to be part of a union. Unfortunately, the legislature did not pay attention to what we wanted and they passed the bill anyways.

Dykema will say there were hearings and testimony. The people who testified were connected to the SEIU. The rest of us were working managing our small business. How were we supposed to know about this legislation being forced upon us?

Unlike the big corporate centers which are exempt from being forced into a union, we don’t have a lobbyist. We are just normal people trying to run a home based business. We expect that our legislators will protect us not betray us for a big powerful labor union.

Dykema will also say that this legislation was passed to help us providers get an increase in our reimbursement rates from the state. That’s untruthful as well. The legislature can increase those rates without forcing us into the union. The Senate took a vote on increased rate in July and it was rejected.

If this can happen to home-based family care providers like us, then it can happen to your business. I urge voters to hold Rep. Dykema accountable for this very anti-small business vote.

Kathy D’Agostino
Kathy’s House Family Child Care and PreSchool
Watertown

Just for the record, Marty Lamb is opposing Carolyn Dykema in the 2012 House of Representatives election in Massachusetts. He does not support this legislation.

 

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Do You Want Your Child Care Providers Unionized ?

Hot Air reported recently that Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has issued an executive order that calls for a vote to unionize child care providers. However, the only people who will be able to vote on the unionization are those providers that are state-licensed and state-subsidized. Not all providers are eligible to vote on the measure. However, if the vote is to unionize, all providers will quite likely have to join the union and pay union dues. Somehow, that seems like taxation without representation–they don’t get to vote on it, but they have to pay for it!

The article at Hot Air reports:

A well-documented detrimental product of unionization is less flexibility. Union contracts do not allow for flexibility (without lavish benefits). Families have ever-changing schedules that will conflict with union contracts. A likely outcome: an increase of unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices will lead to increased litigation, escalating child care costs.

A number of families can only afford child care through subsides awarded by the state. Gov. Dayton’s E.O. not only restricts availability of child care to families in need, it forces the taxpayer to bear the added expenses from unionized child care.

If Minnesota’s desired outcome is to provide affordable child care, Gov. Dayton must rescind his executive order. Unionization requires forced dues payment, loss of worker rights, and restricts entry into markets. Reducing providers and making child care a less attractive industry for potential entrepreneurs are steps in the wrong direction. Maintaining worker rights and freedom to choose will afford Minnesotans ample quality child care. Unfortunately, Gov. Dayton’s choice will deny widespread access to affordable child care in Minnesota in order to line the pockets of Big Labor.

That pretty much sums it up. Paying back the unions at the voters expense tends to discourage private enterprise and slow the economy. It is where we are nationally right now. Governor Dayton will create more financial problems for families in his state with this executive order.

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This Is Simply Disturbing

Boeing 747-400 displaying the post-1997 Speedm...

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted a story yesterday about comments Representative Nancy Pelosi made about the Boeing plant that is attempting to open in South Carolina.

The article reports:

In an interview late last week, House Minority Leaeder Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told CNBC that Boeing should either unionize its production facilities in South Carolina, or shut them down entirely.

“Do you think it’s right that Boeing has to close down that plant in South Carolina because it’s non union?” asked host Maria Bartiromo. Pelosi’s reply: “Yes.”

The minority leader quickly added that she would rather it simply unionize and stay open. But barring unionization, by Pelosi’s reasoning, it should simply shut down.

Mr. Morrissey also points out:

Pelosi may or may not know that workers at the South Carolina plant in question voted resoundingly (199-68) to decertify their union two years ago. Government policies that would close the plant for being a non-union shop would simply be punishing those workers for exercising their right to determine union representation for themselves.

As long as the Democrat leadership is in the pockets of the unions, it will be very hard to shrink the size of government and turn the economy around. The workers in South Carolina voted not to unionize. That should have been the end of the story. It is unfortunate that the union-bought Obama Administration chose to get involved through the National Labor Relations Board. We need to understand that even if the plant in South Carolina eventually opens, the amount of time and money spent on the legal battle to open the plant will be a lesson to other companies seeking to open plants in right-to-work states. Again, we need to take a good look at where political money is coming from and vote out anyone being heavily funded by unions.

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Union Leaders — The New Fat Cats

Ed Morrissey at Hot Airposted a story today about two high-ranking union officials who took advantage of a legal loophole in the Illinois pension law to collect a $100,000 per year pension for teaching one day in school. A bill was passed recently that:

…enabled union officials to get into the state teachers pension fund and count their previous years as union employees after quickly obtaining teaching certificates and working in a classroom. They just had to do it before the bill was signed into law.

The article at Hot Air Reports:

Although the bill received bipartisan support, the benefit to union officials was sponsored by Springfield Democrats showered by IFT campaign contributions during the 2006 elections.

“The people that are on the inside and understand the process are going to be able to make the system work for their advantage,” said Kent Redfield, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. “That this legislation got a hearing and got considered and passed is a reflection of that close relationship between the IFT and the Democratic leadership.

“It feeds into the cynicism about all the deals, that it’s an insider’s game and that the system is rigged.”

Meanwhile, Illinois residents have been hit with tax increases because the spending by the state is out of control. Overspending by government is both a local and national problem. Until the unions and the democrat politicians stop working toward taking as much money as possible from working people while blaming the rich for the state of the economy, our country’s financial problems will continue.

 

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Lack Of Transparency At The National Labor Relations Board

Today’s Daily Caller reported on recent activity at the National Labor Relations Board NLRB) in regard to unionizing companies. Current law requires that union elections be held within six weeks of the time that organizers meet the petition requirements for an election. The NLRB is moving to shorten that time to 7–10 days.

The article points out:

Another red flag that (former NLRB board member Peter) Schaumber notices with the Board’s handling of its “quickie election” proposal is the lack of transparency in the NLRB’s deliberations. Schaumber says it appears as though the Board’s members evaded the Sunshine Act, either by meeting only two at a time or by using staffers to relay information among themselves.

The unions have a reason for wanting to change this rule quickly. Right now the NLRB is totally controlled by pro-labor forces, after 2012, that may not be the case. The other reason for the urgency is the state of union pensions. As previously reported at rightwinggranny:

One of the reasons the unions are so desperate to grow membership is that their pension funds are unfunded.  I ran an article at rightwinggranny in April of 2010 based on a Big Government article which stated:

The worst part of the Obama executive order is the real reason for it.  According to a September, 2009 report by Moody’s Investor Services, construction union pensions in 2008 were just 54% funded.  Just like Social Security, the promised union pensions were too fat.  They were built on the similar demographic flaw of social security.  The system would pay full benefits to the earliest retirees, but would only be able to continue to do that if the ratio of workers to retirees is sustainable.  So what does it mean when the ratio fails?  How do you restore the footing on a plan so underfunded when the ration of worker to retiree continues to get worse?”

The crunch point of this ponzi scheme is about to be reached.  That is why the unions are desperately trying to change to rules of unionization–to save face on their pension funds.  If more members do not join quickly, the whole pension scheme will collapse.

Workers need more than ten days to decide if they want to join a union. They need a chance to hear both sides of the story. The recent action of the NLRB does nothing to improve the process.

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