Union Bailout Update

The National Mediation Board has just launched an “Expedited Mediation Project,” a move thought consistent with Big Labor’s ongoing push for accelerated bargaining.  The program may allow unions to exert new pressure to speed up the bargaining process, either through direct use of the project or through the threat an employer could seem unreasonable to the NMB for not agreeing to it.  Details to come. The NMB also announced that, as predicted, it will broadened its investigation of Delta to include interference allegations by the IAM from last winter’s failed attempt to organize ramp and gate agents.   As we reported in the last issue of INK, the NMB is investigating the Delta flight attendant election based in large part on the AFA-CWA contention that election turnout was unreasonably high.  For their part, the Machinists claim Delta “inundated employees with anti-union propaganda,” so much so, apparently, that 70% of them voted “no” to the IAM. This latest questionable decision adds more substance to the House Committee investigation of union bias at the NMB where two of the three Board members are former union officials. Meanwhile, the NLRB just can’t seem to stop ruling on religion.    Last week the Board denied a religious exemption for the second time in six months, this time to Saint Xavier University and on the same grounds – that the university is not “sufficiently religious”.  In conjunction, the Board approved a petition from the Illinois Education Association for the school’s adjunct instructors that left the rest of  Big Labor drooling over the prospect of organizing a long list of once exempt religious employers. In its decision the Board cited the lack of any religious requirements or constraints on Xavier faculty and the university’s mission to educate students irrespective of their religious beliefs.  But University president Christine Wiseman is having none of that.  “The issue is whether the Catholic Church and the bishops get to determine our Catholic identity – or whether the NLRB gets to determine our Catholic identity,” she said.  Twice federal appeals courts have warned the Board it has no constitutional business ruling on standards of religiousness. And up on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans have again asked President Obama to send over for legislative approval long awaited free-trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama, and without expensive strings attached by Big Labor.  The agreements are expected to be significant American job creators, especially given the roaring South Korean economy.  But Obama is refusing to move forward on the agreements until Congress agrees to renew and expand Trade-Adjustment Assistance. TAA benefits are paid to workers “displaced” by free trade agreements and include wage subsidies, retraining (typically through a union owned jobs center)  and tax credits for COBRA payments (often for union administered health care plans).  Even the current scaled back program costs taxpayers $1B per year while covering less than 1% of the unemployed, with almost all TAA benefits going to highly paid union members in manufacturing.  At least four economic studies have found TAA recipients rarely secure better-paying jobs. The 2009 stimulus package expanded TAA to include healthcare tax credits to VEBAs, the benefits associations created to administer retiree healthcare benefits when a company enters bankruptcy.  Since companies with the highest legacy costs are most often unionized, this expansion was a clear give-away to unions and their retirees.  Since Congress eliminated the VEBA tax credits in February, union bosses have told Obama they intend to fight any new free trade agreements if those agreements don’t have another TAA/VEBA bailout attached.  In 2008, Obama collected 122 electoral votes from the top ten states to receive TAA funds.