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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
Permit me to take a moment away from our usual coverage of union activities to have a word about this upcoming presidential contest…
This essay by Mark Alexander of The Patriot Post is an important resource upon the subject of presidential character and how John McCain and Barack Obama measure up in that respect. It is full of great insight and important links to the candidate’s respective records. Please be sure and have your friends who may be on the fence read this essay. It may help convince them of which way to go.
Presidential Character, By Mark Alexander
“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” –Samuel Adams
In his Inaugural Address on 20 January, 1961, President John F. Kennedy closed his remarks with these famous words: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
With those words, JFK, considered by many to be the most exemplary leader of the Democrat Party in the 20th Century, asked Americans to put country first, a bedrock principle of the Party until the last few decades.
However today, the current slate of Democrats have turned Jack Kennedy’s national challenge on end, essentially proclaiming, “ask what your country can do for you, not what you can do for your country.”
In 1963, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said for all to hear, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Has his dream been realized, or have Democrat leaders divided us up into constituency groups, where we are judged by all manner of ethnicity and special interests rather than the individual and national character King envisioned?
USA Today is well known for having a liberal editorial page, but even they can’t stomach the anti-democratic debacle that is the inaptly named “Employee Free Choice Act.” Of course, it’s because of the unAmerican “card check” provision in this bill.
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Our view on labor laws: No way to form a union
Workers deserve to hear both sides, vote in private.
When citizens go to the polls on Nov. 4, they will be free to vote their conscience — regardless of pressure from relatives, friends or co-workers — after having had a chance to weigh the alternatives. Campaigns and secret ballots are sacrosanct elements of American democracy.
So it’s surprising and disturbing that organized labor wants to do away with both these elements when workers decide whether to form a union.
Under the current system, once 30% of a company’s workers sign union authorization cards, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administers a confidential vote, typically 39 days after it receives the cards. The union and employer campaign for votes.
Under a major rewrite of U.S. labor law being promoted by unions, when more than 50% of employees sign authorization cards, the NLRB would have to recognize the new union. No campaign. No secret ballot.
This misguided measure passed the House shortly after Democrats took the majority in 2007. But it needs several more votes in the Senate and a president who will sign it. Barack Obama supports it; John McCain does not. It’s no surprise, then, that the AFL-CIO plans to spend an eye-popping $200 million this election cycle to support Obama and Democratic candidates for Congress. A win for Obama and big gains for Senate Democrats could remove the remaining obstacles to the euphemistically named “Employee Free Choice Act.”
Cajoled choice is more like it. The proposed change would give unions and pro-union employees more incentive to use peer pressure, or worse, to persuade reluctant workers to sign their cards. And without elections, workers who weren’t contacted by union organizers would have no say in the final outcome.
Labor leaders, such as AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in the space below, argue that the proposed law wouldn’t prohibit private balloting. This is accurate but misleading. Union organizers would have no reason to seek an election if they had union cards signed by more than 50% of workers. And if they had less than a majority, they’d be unlikely to call for a vote they’d probably lose.
The legislation has other questionable provisions as well. For example, once a union is formed, if labor and management can’t agree on a contract, a federal arbitration board would be called on to go beyond the normal role of facilitating talks and actually dictate terms.
Labor has seen its role decline since the 1950s, when about a third of all private sector employees belonged to unions, compared with about 7.5% today. So it’s understandably eager to find ways to expand membership, particularly at a time when workers are feeling economically vulnerable. But undermining democratic principles is not the answer.
As I was live blogging the third debate, I noted that Obama was not telling the truth about the union organizers being assassinated in Colombia. I did not elaborate too far except to say that such murders were down %80 since Uribe came to office and that it was not legitimate for the Democrats to continue to hold past assassinations against him in light of his fantastic efforts to stop it.
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal also noted this Obama lie and noted that it was a lie pushed by unions in the USA.
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Obama Makes It Up
Repeating union distortions.
In Wednesday night’s debate with John McCain, Barack Obama defended his opposition to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement this way: “The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination, on a fairly consistent basis, and there have not been any prosecutions.” Among the many falsehoods in this Presidential campaign, this is one of the worst.
It is true that Colombia has a history of violence. But since President Ãlvaro Uribe took office in 2002, that violence has been substantially reduced. The homicide rate through the end of 2007 was down by 40.4% and the rate among union members was down almost 87%. There is nothing “consistent” about a drop to 26 union member murders in 2007 from 155 in 2000.
As for prosecutions: In union-member killings, there were zero convictions from 1991-2000 and one in 2001. But from 2002-2007, there were 80. According to the Colombian attorney general’s office, 29% of those murders were “found to have been results of theft, petty crime and random violence unrelated to union activity.” Mr. Uribe has nonetheless created a special investigative unit for crimes against union members, and he expanded a special government protection program for unions.
More broadly, in 2004 Mr. Uribe pushed through congress a judicial reform that has reduced the average time needed to issue an indictment for a homicide to 50 days from 493. He also increased the budget for the attorney general’s office to $598 million in 2008, from $346 million in 2002 — a 73% increase.
If Colombia hopes to keep spending on judicial improvements and better law enforcement, it needs an expanding economy. In addition to misrepresenting the country’s progress on reducing violence, Mr. Obama has never explained how denying Colombians the FTA will help the country reduce violence. Maybe this is because he knows he’s merely repeating union distortions.
The folks at WorkerFreedom.org have a great little flyer comparing McCain and Obama on the issues. (Download pdf at this page)
MarketWatch discussed the effort and gave us some of the points:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) has released a matrix comparing Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain’s positions on issues concerning worker freedom. A fifteen category version is available on their website, www.workerfreedom.org. Executive Director Brian Johnson said, “We will be releasing short facts from the full version every day until the election to educate the voters on the two candidates and their different positions.”
Policy Issue Obama McCain
------------ ----- ------
Right to Wants to force workers to Supports giving workers the
Work([1]) join a union and pay right to choose whether or
dues as a condition of not to join a union.
employment.
------------
Card Supports forcing workers Supports the current law of
Check([2]) to vote on union holding union elections
membership using a using a private ballot
public ballot so just like other democratic
everyone, including processes.
union bosses, can see
how they voted.
--------
Minimum Supports forcing states Voted to balance any minimum
Wage([3]) to raise their minimum wage increase with
wage leaving less money offsetting small business
to hire additional tax credits, thus
staff, increasing alleviating the burden of
unemployment. any wage increases without
increasing the cost of
goods/services.
-----------
Competitive Voted against legislation Supports allowing private
Sourcing([4]) that would have sector competition for
increased competition government jobs to lower
and efficiency in the cost to taxpayers,
government contracting increase efficiency, and
by allowing the private provide opportunities for
sector to compete. new employment in the
private sector.
---------------
Union Obama promised the Voted to increase Office of
Financial Teamsters he would end Labor Management Standards
Transparency([5]) federal oversight funding, providing the
imposed to root out necessary resources to
widespread corruption enforce existing union
and mob ties in the financial disclosure laws
union. and protect union members.
---------
Continue reading »
The Associated Press is reporting that the California Teachers Union has spent $1 MILLION dollars on gay marriage advocacy! This is outrageous in the extreme.
The issue of gay marriage has absolutely nothing to do with the school workplace or education. It is a social issue that is outside the purview of a labor union, ANY labor union.
California’s largest teacher’s union has given another $1 million to defeat a Nov. 4 ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.
The contribution recorded Tuesday makes the California Teachers Association the largest institutional donor to the No on 8 campaign. CTA also gave $250,000 in August to Equality for All, a coalition of gay advocacy and civil rights groups opposing Proposition 8.
Union spokeswoman Sandra Jackson says CTA’s 800-member policy body voted overwhelmingly to oppose the gay marriage ban. Jackson says the issue concerns educators because “teachers teach the importance of equal rights for all.”
This is a perfect example of how out of control unions are in America. In the case of the CTA, for instance, they have no place involving themselves as a union in social issues outside of education. As individuals they certainly have every right to agitate to destroy the institution of marriage, but as an organization the CTA’s expenditure of such an amazing amount of its member’s money — money that is supposed to be spent on work related issues — constitutes an amazing unethical lapse.
But, there we have it nonetheless. Shame on the CTA.
Mark Warner wants your vote. Yet, it seems he steadfastly refuses to say where he stands on at least one issue of great import: Card Check.
For any Virginians out there check this editorial out…
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Warner On Card Check?
He Won’t Say ‘Yes’ Or ‘No’
As the polls repeatedly tell us, former Gov. Mark Warner makes an appealing candidate for U.S. Senate. But a recent refusal to commit, up or down, on an issue critical to many Virginia voters, in our mind, diminishes this appeal.
The issue to which we refer is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which would, in essence, replace the secret ballot in the decision to organize a union with a “card check†system. The system would allow union organizers to place pressure — at times, undue pressure — on individual workers to “check†that “card†to organize a union. A secret ballot affords each and every worker, well, the secrecy of their vote on this matter. It affords them protection. So in a state such as Virginia, which cherishes a right-to-work tradition that for decades has been a foundation stone of state prosperity, Mr. Warner’s position, or lack thereof, should be political dynamite for the business community and its employees.
Asked no less than three times this past Friday during a question-and-answer session at The Winchester Star whether he would vote “yes†or “no†on this undemocratic bill, Mr. Warner admirably imitated a crawfish. He wiggled and danced, and gave explanations for his wiggling and dancing, but never did answer the question. Continue reading »
