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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
-By Warner Todd Huston
One of the first things that President Obama did when he walked into the White House was to authorize an Executive Order as a payback to his buddies in Big Labor by implementing project labor agreements (PLAs) for all federal construction projects. That this was his very first action upon taking office shows that he is definitely the president that unions bought and paid for.
A PLA is a set of rules that forces every contractor that works for the federal government to pay union wages, pay union dues, pay into union pensions and operate under union rules even if the company is not a unionized company. PLAs end competitive bidding and cost the government more on every project. These rules are nothing but a freebie, a sop to Obama’s Big Labor pals at the expense of taxpayers and lost jobs.
As the Wall Street Journal says, “PLAs are a form of political bid-rigging that robs taxpayers even in good economic times. Amid today’s limited fiscal resources, PLAs steal money from the likes of education and law enforcement to reward politically connected companies and their unions. They deserve to be outlawed.”
Only about 13% of construction workers belong to unions, and PLAs are a union invention to use their political muscle to organize more companies. Proponents argue that PLAs ensure the speed and quality of construction plans. But PLAs are one of the reasons that Boston’s Big Dig was estimated at $2.8 billion but eventually cost $22 billion. Studies show that projects under PLA contracts on average cost 12% to 18% more than projects awarded by open, competitive bidding. Taxpayers pick up much of this tab.
Fortunately, the states are taking this situation into their own hands and passing various laws and rules to limit or outright outlaw PLAs.
As the Journal notes, several states are “pulling away” from project labor agreements.
Louisiana passed a law this month that prohibits state entities from mandating the use of PLAs. Tennessee, Arizona and Idaho passed similar legislation earlier this year, and Iowa’s Governor Terry Branstad, in one of his first acts after inauguration, signed an executive order ending a state PLA requirement. Legislatures in Maine and Michigan recently passed bills along these lines that governors are expected to sign. These states are joining Utah, Montana, Missouri and Arkansas, which enacted bans in recent years.
Even officials in several heavily Democrat states are realizing that, in this day of deeply in the red budgets, PLAs cost too much and are inherently unfair and un-American.
In Michigan, for instance, Gov. Rick Snyder recently signed Michigan’s historic anti-government-mandated PLA legislation and already reports have emerged that SB165 killed a PLA on a Michigan transit project. Additionally, Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) signed similar legislation (L.D. 1257).
As The Truth About PLAS recently wrote, “PLAs are bad for taxpayers and the construction industry workforce still struggling to come back from more than 15 percent unemployment.”
It is a good thing that the states are taking their own jobs situation in hand and saving their taxpayers money. But we also need to be rid of PLAs on a federal level. Let’s hope this is a grassroots groundswell that will reach Washington D.C.
-By Warner Todd Huston
We’ve been talking for the better part of the year about how the Obama administration is using its powers to regulate labor and business relations to attack Boeing aircraft manufacturer for attempting to open a new manufacturing plant in North Carolina. Fortunately, there is one proposed law floating around in congress that would stop some of the abuse of power that Obama is indulging at the behest of big labor unions. It is called the Secret Ballot Protection Act. We need to urge congress to pass it.
To briefly recap, Obama has been trying to punish Boeing — and by extension sending a warning to all American businesses — for having the gall to want to build a new manufacturing plant in North Carolina. Even though Boeing would be brining thousands of jobs to North Carolina, Obama wants Boeing to be prevented from doing so and he wants to punish the southern states, as well.
This may sound incongruous, an American president trying to destroy jobs and business alike, but when the reason is discovered it reveals many things, this most especially: Obama has gotten his marching orders from unions and he is misusing his powers to regulate to fulfill the desires of Big Labor.
You see, Boeing is closing a plant in Washington State because unions there have launched so many strikes, have sabotaged manufacturing, and made the cost of business so expensive that Boeing wanted to give North Carolina, a right-to-work state, a shot at the business.
But then comes Big Labor’s bought and paid for president who decided that he could use his powers to regulate labor to prevent an American business from opening a new branch of its business in one of our own states.
Because Big Labor would lose a handful of jobs in Washington State (only to gain some in North Carolina), Obama decided that an American business wasn’t “allowed” to open a new plant at any location in this country that it wants to open a business. This assumed power is unprecedented and certainly quite un-American.
This isn’t the only illicit use of labor regulations that Obama is perpetrating. He is also using his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to prevent business and employees alike from having enough time to fully explore the offerings of unions and business when employees are considering whether or not they wish to unionize their workplace.
The NLRB wants to severely shorten the time period between when a union confronts employees and they have to vote upon whether or not they will accept unionization. It currently takes up to 38 days for unions and employers to have the time to inform employees about what they are offering before the employees have to vote. Obama’s NLRB wants to slash that to 21 days.
Such a short period of time hurts business, union and employee alike as less time until a called vote prevents more informed employees.
One other thing that Big Labor wants Obama to install on our work force is something called Card Check (The Employee Free Choice Act, or EFCA). This card check provision would take away from employees the centuries old right to a secret election when they are voting for unionization of their workplace.
Taking away the secret ballot means that employees have to vote in a form that allows everyone to see how they voted. This leaves employees open for harassment from union thugs and employers alike.
One way to prevent the loss of the secret election is to get congress to vote in the Secret Ballot Protection Act [H.R. 972 and S. 217].
There needs to be a slight change to this bill, though. LaborUnionReport talks about that change.
Introduced in the Senate back in January by Jim DeMint [R-SC] and the House in March by Rep. Phil Roe [R-TN], the Secret Ballot Protection Act would ensure that employees have a right to decide on the question of unionization through a secret ballot. More importantly, it would end, once and for all, the deceptive practice of card check which gives union organizers the ability to trick workers into signing their rights over to a union.
Given the current debate over the NLRB’s proposed rules to hold ambush elections, a simple sentence can be added to the bill that states: No election shall take place within 35 days following the filing of a petition, nor on a date to exceed 56 days following the filing of a petition.
By inserting a sentence into the Secret Ballot Protection Act that establishes specific timetables, this would negate management’s alleged stalling during certification elections, as well as negate union stalling during decertification elections.
Things like this can stymie Obama’s misuse of his power to regulate business and labor and prevent his payback to the unions that paid for him to win election.
In this horrid economy, in a day when job loss is endemic, these common sense limits of the jobs-killing effects of unions is something this country sorely needs.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Imagine the gall of Gordon L. Wray Jr. to die without first getting Obama’s permission! I mean, it takes a real yutz to die before The One waves his royal hand in forbearance, ya know? So, to punish the dead, Obama sent his National Labor Relations Board goosetepping to threaten the man… the, the dead man.
“Every week the NLRB publishes a summary of NLRB decisions,” LaborUnionReport informs us. “In the Board’s latest weekly summary, there was one decision summary that seemed rather unique…”
As it happens the “unique” decision that the NLRB made was that dying wasn’t enough of an excuse to get out of answering to Obama and his union-bought-and-paid-for regulatory agency.
The Board granted the Acting General Counsel’s Motion for Default Judgment based on the Respondent’s failure to file an answer to the complaint. The Board found that the death of BLSI, LLC’s owner and the insolvency of his estate did not constitute good cause for the Respondent’s failure to answer the complaint.
Got that. The death of the business owner “did not constitute good cause” for his not kowtowing to Obama’s NLRB. So a default judgement was levied upon him. Yeah. The dead guy was just told he better answer to Obama’s little board.
Wray dared die before answering to the NLRB. Who does he think he is, anyway?
So, how did this all happen? Well, Mr. Wray’s business, BLSI Construction Services & Grounds Care, found its employees attempting to get the International Union of Operating Engineers to unionize them. Pursuant to that desire, the AFL-CIO and the Operating Engineers sent the company a request to begin the process of unionization.
The company never replied. As it happens, Mr. Wray died before the union was ever certified and his estate was mired in financial troubles, even being ruled insolvent. So, it’s no wonder that he never replied to the union’s demands.
The NLRB insists this dead man is engaging in “unfair labor practices.”
Having found that the Respondent has engaged in certain unfair labor practices, we shall order it to cease and desist and to take certain affirmative action designed to effectuate the policies of the Act. Specifically, having found that the Respondent has violated Section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the Act by failing and refusing to bargain with the Union, we shall order it to cease and desist therefrom and to bargain on request with the Union, and, if an understanding is reached, to embody the understanding in a signed agreement. To ensure that the employees are ac-corded the services of their selected bargaining agent for the period provided by law, we shall construe the initial period of the certification as beginning the date the Respondent begins to bargain in good faith with the Union.
I wonder how the NLRB plans to enforce their little judgment?
I think the NLRB and its enforcers better plan their next action for a full moon on Halloween so that Mr. Wray can rise up from the grave and shuffle his ol’ desiccating corpse self into their offices to answer for his apostasy. I think that is about the only way they will get satisfaction for their little “judgment,” anyway.
Still, all funnin’ aside, this incident really does show the arrogance of Obama’s administration and his union-favoring NLRB. They even favor unions over death! This incident is quite instructive, really.
-By Nina Easton
How many ways are there to sidestep Congress’ refusal to make it easier for unions to organize? Let us count them. No, better than that, let’s add yet another example — this one involving Delta Airlines — to the growing pile of end-runs around Congress to reward a constituency this White House badly needs at its side in next year’s presidential election.
Labor leaders bet big on an Obama victory in 2008, hoping Congress would enact, and the Democratic president would sign, “card-check” — legislation designed to turn around labor’s sagging membership rolls by ending secret-ballot elections in organizing drives. But card-check has never been able to pass the Senate — not even when Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Instead, presidential appointees friendly to labor are deploying agency muscle.
The latest example is taking place largely out of sight — at the National Mediation Board, a little known agency that oversees union elections for railroads and airlines. Late in 2010, flight attendants for the nonunion Delta and its unionized Northwest Airlines (acquired in a 2008 merger) voted thumbs down on joining the Association of Flight Attendants. The board — where two of the three members are former top union officials — reacted by investigating Delta for “interference” in the election, prompted by union claims that the company circulated too much literature…
See the rest at CNNMoney.com.
Last week, the union extremists controlling the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board conducted a coordinated attack on America’s job creators. The first punch, a 160-page rule-making proposal by the Department of Labor was issued on Monday for public comments. However, it was quickly drowned out by the second punch: Tuesday’s NLRB rule-making proposal to modify election procedures, which are intended to fast track union elections giving unions greater ability to unionize employees.
It is important to note that both rule-making proposals are intended to work together and, like an axe in an executioner’s hand, they are intended to make an employer’s resistance to unionization futile.
On the one hand, the NLRB’s proposal to ‘streamline’ union elections is meant to make it easier for unions to unionize employers in the least amount of time with the least amount of resistance, while giving union organizers access to employee telephone numbers and e-mail addresses and drastically curtailing employers’ ability to appeal NLRB decisions…
Read the rest at >LaborUnionReport.com.
When Barack Obama threw millions of our tax dollars at General Motors to “save it,” the administration claimed that it would not involve itself in the “day-to-day management” of the venerable car company. New emails obtained by The Daily Caller, however, casts doubt on this claim.
In fact, as Matthew Boyle reports, the emails “reveal that Treasury officials were involved in decision-making that led to more than 20,000 non-union workers losing their pensions.”
It turns out that Treasurer Secretary Timothy Geithner pressured GM, widely derided as Government Motors, to cut the pensions for the salaried, non-union employees at Delphi, a company owned by GM.
You read that right. Obama and his cabinet members are responsible for stealing away the retirement benefits of employees.
Now, just think of this for a second. Isn’t it the Democrats led by Obama that claim they are the champions of the workingman? Aren’t they constantly claiming that they want to help workers get good benefits, good salaries, and good pensions?
Yet, here we have Obama and his minions slashing people’s earned benefits? Here we have Obama eliminating people’s retirement funds? What happened to all that “we care about the workers” business?
Ah, but we see… the workers in question weren’t union workers. So, in truth Democrats don’t care about workers. They only care about unions.
Eric Odom (Media Director)
Vanguard of Freedom
Warner Todd Huston