INK: June 30, 2011

The Obama Administration threw two power punches for Big Labor last week with back-to-back announcements from the DOL and the NLRB that propose punishing new anti-business reporting requirements and election procedures.  And with the economy sputtering into yet another jobless summer, there can be only one plausible rationale for further demonizing job creators – to placate disenthralled union bosses as we round the bend into 2012. Last Tuesday the Labor Department proposed intrusive new reporting requirements for any advice, counsel or product the DOL might somehow someday hypothesize was used, even in small part, to maintain a union free workplace.  Then on Wednesday the NLRB delivered the left hook – proposed rule changes that could potentially narrow the timeframe for union elections to as few as ten days.  Taken together the proposed changes seem designed specifically to address the great bane of the labor movement – employers who dare to challenge with facts and reason the union organizer’s head games and hot air.  Of course, union officials (including those now enjoying appointments within the Obama Administration) have never been particularly excited about protecting informed free choice. (Let alone private sector job creation!)  Just ask Boeing workers in South Carolina whose union decertification vote two years ago could now cost them their jobs. On to the good news – it’s still possible to keep these changes from going into effect, but only if concerned parties make their case.  LRI has set up dedicated web pages with links to recorded webinars on both the NLRB election and DOL reporting changes.  These webinars offer rare in-depth expert analysis of the proposed changes including potential repercussions for all employers should these proposals become law.  You only have until 4PM Friday July 1 to register for the July 18 NLRB open meeting on proposed “speedy election” changes. Written comments on both DOL and NLRB changes are being accepted until August 22.  Along with the webinars, you can find links, breaking news, detailed info and help with commenting on the proposals. Click HERE for the OLMS “Advice” rule proposal, and HERE for the NLRB streamlined elections proposal.

Last week the AFL-CIO launched a campaign to shame Congress out of passing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, or so it would seem.   According to their website “Colombia remains the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists struggling for economic freedom and the fundamental human right to organize.” And as recently as May, the AFL-CIO said it would “continue to vigorously oppose the proposed free trade agreement with Colombia so long as the ‘horrifying levels of labor and human rights violations in the country’ continue.”  To better illustrate their horror the labor federation took out two full-page ads in Capitol Hill publications last week  showing the funeral procession of a Colombian union organizer – who died thirteen years ago. As it turns out the federation might also be using old data, at least according to the Latin Business Chronicle. “Today, homicide rates are higher in the United States (5.0 per 100,000) than among Colombia’s labor union members (3.4 per 100,000). A resident of the District of Columbia is seven times more likely to be murdered than a Colombian labor union member. The allegation that labor union members are being targeted for assassination today comes from U.S. labor unions, not Colombians.”  And far from being persecuted, labor unions have grown significantly in Columbia since 2009 with membership up by 75%. Who to believe?  That’s about to become a moot point.  Progressives who’ve fallen for the “Killer Colombia” flim flam could be embarrassed next week when Trumka and Crew suddenly lose interest in the horrors of Colombian life.  Rumor has it a deal has been brokeredwith key Republicans to deliver a billion or so worth of Trade Agreement Assistance gravy to the unions in return for unions allowing Democrats to support the trade agreements without too much union flack back home.  (As we reported in the last issue of INK, extended TAA funds go primarily to union training centers, VEBAs and union benefit providers.)  The cost of the 2011 TAA plan has not been revealed although the White House had initially requested $2.1B for the program. ********** Virtually Fasting for California Card Check Fails On Tuesday, United Farm Workers leaders sadly wrapped up a12 day “rotating fast” on the steps of the California state capitol. The union had followed through with its promise to have someone on the capitol steps not eating in 24-hour shifts until Gov. Jerry Brown signs SB104 into law.  The bill, which applies only to California farm workers, would have replaced secret ballot union elections with mandatory “card check” and been the first law of its kind in the country.  Brown, clearly conflicted, vetoed the bill in dramatic fashion on Tuesday night, just an hour short of the midnight deadline. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry earlier declared all 1.9 million SEIU members would be participating in a “symbolic fast” in solidarity with the UFW while 2500 Netroot Nation bloggers signed on to an on-line “virtual fast” last weekend.  Van Johnson, Valerie Jarrett, Senator Al Franken and other progressive luminaries also refrained from eating, at least while having their pictures taken next UFW activists holding paintings of Cesar Chavez. Had it passed, the measure would have allowed the union to use petitions or signature cards as proof of union support with zero oversight or restriction on how those signatures were collected.  An organizer could also fill out the entire card for a farm worker except the signature itself, even though it’s safe to assume those who cannot write out the card most likely cannot read it. In another odd bit of street theatrics, UFW activists carried Cesar Chavez’s rocking chair overhead to the capitol in a procession from the Chavez family compound to the capitol steps last week in the hopes that Governor Brown would sign the legislation while sitting in the sacred labor relic.  Chavez was frequently photographed in the rocker while on two 24-day non-rotating non-symbolic not at all virtual hunger strikes during his fight for the right of farm workers to, ironically, vote in secret ballot union elections. And it was then first term governor Jerry Brown (often accused of being off his own rocker) who signed secret ballot farm worker bill into law in 1975.  Brown went on to remain close friends with Chavez and has since been considered a premier giver and receiver of California labor love.  In this week’s veto message Brown wrote he was “not yet convinced” of the need for sweeping change to the bill he signed into law thirty-six years ago but critics contend his only objection was to how the bill might offend business leaders.  Brown has often referred to such centrism as “the canoe theory” of governing: paddling a little on the left, a little on the right and rocking in the middle.   ********** The Economic Blessing of Union Decline Ramesh Ponnuru has an interesting piece titled, Real Union Enemy Isn’t Boeing, It’s Competition, on Bloomberg.com. Ponnuru contends that competition alone is killing private sector unionism and nothing the NLRB does will change that, nor should we wish upon ourselves the kind of less competitive more restrictive economy needed to support higher union density. According to the author, the steepest declines in private sector unionism have been within industries where less competitive unionized employers lost workers while more competitive non-union employers gained them. Death by competition also explains the exponential growth of unions in the public sector where no competition exists short of privatization.  And historically, when the government discouraged competition, as it did during the Great Depression and WWII, unions flourish. “If we want to reverse the unions’ decline, the kind of labor-law changes that the Obama administration’s appointees to the NLRB have in mind — such as speeding up elections — are unlikely to do the trick. We would have to reduce competition among companies, too, domestically and internationally. The economy would have to be far more regulated than anyone in the mainstream of American politics has advocated. And we would almost certainly have to be willing to be a poorer country. We shouldn’t want any of that. Our country has plenty of economic problems. But we also have blessings, and the continued decline of labor unions is one of them.” ********** Top Proxy Advisory Firm Shills for Big Labor According to the DOL Inspector General, without additional transparency and tighter enforcement of proxy-voting requirements, publicly held companies could be pressured into accommodating political agendas that are detached from the economic interests of shareholders.  Investors expect proxy advisors to make financially sound recommendations, but it now seems that ISS, the country’s largest proxy firm, is far too often putting the interests of Big Labor ahead of investors’ gains or security. Unions have increasingly turned to shareholder activism and proxy vote strategies for political and organizing leverage.  And according to some financial blogs, ISS has the ability to sway 30 percent of the vote in any proxy battle and is very adept and skilled at getting “whatever it wants.”   The Inspector General’s report found that economic benefit was not documented in 77% of the proxy votes studied. According to Bill Wilson of Americans for Limited Government, the Labor Department’s failure to act on the Inspector General’s study and basic recommendations shows “the Obama Administration is more interested in shilling for their political bosses at the AFL-CIO than protecting workers.” *********** Unionized Conservatives Organizing, Speaking Out According to Paul Kersey of the Mackinac Center, the decisive moment for Terry Bowman came when his union, UAW Local 898, ran an article in its newsletter arguing that Jesus would have supported Obamacare.  Bowman’s frustration with the union’s use of his dues to push a big government liberal agenda led Bowman to form an organization called Union Conservatives. According to Bowman, unions claim “Solidarity” but then marginalize and exclude conservative members.  One goal of Union Conservatives is “reorienting the Marxist and Socialist mindset of the union organization” and getting unions to acknowledge that the U.S. is based on a free-market economic system where businesses have not only the right but the obligation to survive and make a profit.  Unfortunately for Bowman, the idea of a true fiscal Conservative Unionist is as conceivable as an Atheist Christian – philosophically, the two cannot coexist within the same body! (Unless of course the union member is one by force, not by choice.) Bowman says he’s tired of the non-productive adversarial relationship between unions and management and he feels nothing will change until more conservatives hold high union office. (Good luck with that, Terry, by the way.) Bowman recently wrote an op ed piece for the Detroit News where he called for Right to Work legislation as the only way to refocus union leaders on serving their members, a plucky move for a UAW member in Michigan. ********** Only in a Union: Retire In Scandal, Score a Sweet Ride! The vice president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, implicated in an ongoing FBI investigation into shady pension dealings and lawyered up by his union, suddenly retired recently in the middle of his term and during high stakes contract negotiations and theunion’s executive board responded by voting to give him a fully loaded 2010 Jeep Grand Cherokee as a parting gift worth approximately $50,000. His fellow police officers were surprised to find out that Paul Stewart wasn’t the first departing union official allowed to keep his sweet union ride.  Apparently that’s been the common practice for at least the past eight years.  And many of Stewart’s brothers in blue didn’t even know their union was providing luxury company cars for top union brass until now.  A previous TV news investigation also found Stewart and DPOA president Marty Bandemere spend most of their union workdays in Sinbad’s, a popular riverfront watering hole, while the taxpayers of the destitute city cough up $50,000 a piece for their base salaries with the union contributing the balance of their six figure incomes. Stewart’s colleagues were reluctant to complain about him on camera but John Bennett, an outspoken cop campaigning to replace Stewart, wasn’t. “Most people who retire get a ring. I think giving him a fifty thousand dollar vehicle is a little bit extreme,” said Bennett. “If we’re going to call out the city for waste and abuse, we certainly have to call out our own leadership.” ********** Social Media Spotlight: Union Money Talks, Neutrality Walks As we reported in the last issue of INK, the Netroot Nation held its convention in Minneapolis last week and for the first time ever help for the ailing labor movement topped the progressive bloggers’ agenda.  According to attendees one couldn’t throw a rock without hitting something union this year, as union speakers, slogans, freebies and themes dominated the dais, workshops, strategy sessions and even the social hours. On the surface, many Netroot activists are tickled with the infusion of cash and sophisticated confetti cannon razzle-dazzle only union dollars can buy.  But other progressive bloggers are deeply concerned for the loss of independence and “outsiderness” that comes with having wealthy friends with control issues. “I’ve been to every Netroots since the beginning, and it’s changed quite a bit. It used to be a sort of loose but energetic gathering of outsiders, and now it seems more like a rally for the Democratic Party institutions that the outsiders used to take aim at,” said Free Press Campaign Director Tim Karr. The first casualty of Big Labor’s wholesale takeover of the progressive blogosphere might well be the sacred cow of progressive wiki nerds everywhere – net neutrality.  One major sponsor of last week’s festivities, the CWA, has long supported AT&T and its position on net neutrality, best described as the polar opposite of the Daily Kos.   And once the dominant theme of every Netroot convention, this year the topic was tacitly taboo. “It’s not just disappointing—it feels like a betrayal of the spirit of the event.” Karr said.  Wow.  That didn’t take long! And finally, it hasn’t gone unnoticed, at least by In These Times, that when Big Labor brings the bat, the mitt and the ball you better start sucking up to the pitcher.  “While SEIU President Mary Kay Henry was featured as a keynote speaker and SEIU Secretary Treasurer Eliseo Medina was given an award during the conference, labor journalist Steve Early, author of the book Civil Wars in U.S. Labor … was denied the opportunity to speak at the conference. While there were many panels on organized labor, there were no speakers on those panels who were critical of organized labor’s leadership in any way, shape or form.” Welcome to the labor movement, Netroots. ********** SEIU Watch Members of SEIU’s largest and most powerful public employee local in California, local 1000, aregathering signatures to end their affiliation with SEIU and become the California Professional Public Employees Association.  Over 28,000 of the local’s 98,000 members have already filed paperwork to become ‘non-germane objectors’ a move that retains their collective bargaining rights while preventing SEIU from charging an individual more than the proven cost of bargaining and maintaining the contract.  Disgruntled members are also now collecting signatures on a decertification petition. Dissidents question how the local spends $63M a year in dues when their representation is so poor.   They also object to their dues being spent to further SEIU’s political and social agenda. SEIU refused an interview with CBS instead sending the following statement. “We see potential for great abuse and danger for individuals who sign these documents and have taken the steps to alert our members of the potential abuse. CPPEA has no standing with the state and is recruiting state employees based on a pure falsehood. People should view representation claims by CPPEA with the same skepticism as the Nigerian money schemes we receive in our email box each month.” This certainly spells more big California trouble for SEIU and looking over the CPPEA site the organization appears anything but “grassroots.” Given all that has gone down in California for SEIU in recent past – multi-million dollar embezzlement scandals, union warfare andinternal upheaval of epic proportions –  one really has to wonder…   Sticky Fingers