With this week’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of American Airlines, we again see the results of unions having a hand in destroying American businesses. We also saw GM laid low by union demands costing Americans billions in bailouts. But despite these lessons of the recalcitrance of Big Labor forcing even worse calamities on our jobs climate in this dismal economy, Obama is about to make matters worse by using his powers to regulate to further harm both our business sector and our economy.

Obama likes to stand before the American people and claim that he wants to “help” the business sector. He claims that his crony capitalism is meant to “save” those businesses that are “too big to fail.” But while he stands before the microphones and pretends at being interested in capitalism, he wields his powers to regulate like a club with which to beat down the business sector.

Obama’s latest move — among dozens in the last three years — is to have a regulatory board he controls to issue new rules which would make it harder on business owners to prepare themselves and inform their employees on what it might mean to unionize their workplace.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is supposed to be an arbiter between business and labor. It is supposed to be a non-partisan watchdog standing between the two groups as an impartial judge. But since Obama took office the NLRB has been swung solidly on the side of the far left, union bosses — Obama’s biggest campaign fund donors. Obama has taken the NLRB from a non-partisan judge to a fully partisan actor for unions.

This time the NLRB is mulling changes in labor laws that would take away the time that business owners have to respond to unions that want to unionize workers. Currently that response time is up to six weeks, but Obama wants that cut down to ten days. As proposed by NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce, the changes to current practice are:

(1) a shortened time period between the filing of the initial election petition and election date
(2) post-election NLRB review of contested issues previously resolved prior to the election
(3) increased disclosure requirements for employers.

“If adopted as currently proposed, the most significant loss to employers will be time — time to design an appropriate campaign message and a legal strategy to protect their interests and ensure the workforce can cast fully informed votes,” notes Bob Quackenboss, partner at Hunton & Williams LLP in Washington, DC.

“The solution is for employers to work with legal counsel and labor consultants to plan for elections ahead of time, leaving only ‘fine tuning’ for the shortened campaign period. Organized Labor has been perfecting its campaign message for years; early preparation by employers will ensure they do not get caught flat-footed once a petition is filed,” adds Quackenboss.

Another change that Obama wants to force on America’s business sector is something called “micro unions.” He wants to allow as few as three workers to be able to start a union. This could cause employers to have to deal with innumerable small groupings of their employees starting mini unions throughout their businesses. Imagine the confusion, disruption and cost this will incur.

There is a bill being considered in the House today that will curtail some of Obama’s partisan moves to attack the business sector and further dampen our economy. The Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act introduced by John Kline (R, Minn.) seeks to head off the NLRB’s new rules.

“It’s very clear to me that we’re seeing the rights of employers and employees under attack,” said Mr. Kline, adding, “I expect overwhelming support from my side of the aisle.”

Mr. Kline’s bill addresses this sharp cut in the days leading up to unionization. He would require at least 14 days before a pre-election hearing is held, giving employers more time to find a legal team and build their case. He would also require a minimum of 35 days — about the current average — before a vote can be taken.

We need to stop Obama’s attack on the business sector. Call your House members today and tell them you support Kline’s bill.

Also, feel free to sign the petition below to send a message to Congress and the President.

Since Obama began his run for the White House he has been Big Labor’s best friend. And they loved him for it, too. As Obama ran and as soon as he got into office the unions had stars in their eyes. They thought that with a bought and paid for president in their hip pocket, every long dreamed of union wish was about to be fulfilled.

You can’t really blame them, of course. Obama did nothing but work to let them believe he’d do everything they wanted once safely in the White House. They gave him millions of dollars and he gave them rosy promises. But they are starting to feel duped.

To be sure Obama has done more for Big Labor than any other president in American history. He’s stocked his entire regulatory edifice with union hacks, he’s issued executive orders to force federal contractors to pay union dues, wages, pensions and to work under union rules even when said companies aren’t unionized, and he’s used his powers to regulate to attack companies that dare to cross swords with Big Labor.

That seems like quite a lot of chips being cashed in, doesn’t it? It sure seems like Big Labor is riding high in the era of Obama, right?

While from the outside we can look at all the favors that Obama has doled out to Big Labor and imagine that unions have been given so very much, one has only to read what Big Labor itself has said about the Obama administration and you’ll find that all is not honey and roses in the land of Big Labor.

Take for instance the recent piece written by union author Randy Shaw. After scolding Big Labor for not putting any effort into fighting Obama’s signing of the debt deal, union writer Shaw lamented that the unions are so sold to the Democrat Party that they wont activate their members when the Democrats are pursuing policies bad for unions.

Shaw correctly notes that Big Labor has “lost” the big agenda that it went into the age of Obama expecting to see to fruition, namely the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Lamented Shaw, “EFCA died in 2009, immigration reform is off the political radar screen, and passage of job-killing free-trade deals candidate Obama once criticized will soon be the President’s next priority.”

Shaw also grumbles about Obama’s promotion of cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and his support of extending the Bush tax cuts, all issues that Big Labor generally opposed.

Because of these major failures, Shaw pointedly notes that if Big Labor began to note that the Democrats were failing them, it would begin a far reaching debate on whether labor should continue to support the Democrat Party.

So, why are labor’s most powerful leaders desperate to quash any dissent against the Democrats?

Labor stays loyal to Obama and Senate Democrats out of fear that what happened in Wisconsin could occur nationally if unions stay on the electoral sidelines and Republicans seize control of all three branches of government. Further, the Obama White House gives union leaders like Andy Stern and Richard Trumka “access,” which these officials confuse with actual power (to this end, Obama met with leaders of the AFL-CIO Executive Board on August 2 to reassure them that he is “the workers’ president.” The union leaders did not attack Obama’s anti-worker stances at the meeting).

Somewhat like a battered wife, unions come back again and again to the Democrats, smiling and asking for more.

This policy of sticking with Democrats no matter what is a “failed” strategy, Shaw says. Shaw urges Big Labor to abandon the Democrats-or-die policy and advises labor to campaign on issues and concentrate on organizing and growing their mightily depleted ranks.

Shaw is not alone in his feeling that Big Labor has lost its way. Long-time socialist and black activist Bill Fletcher has also been heard to slam the labor movement’s failings. During the height of the Service Employees International Union’s internal strife in California, Fletcher was unsparing in his criticism of SEIU leadership.

Shaw and Fletcher aren’t the only voices of complaint though. Despite his claim that Big Labor has refused to criticize Obama and the Democrats, some labor complaints have indeed reached the Old Media and some labor unions have acted on their displeasure.

In 2010 in North Carolina, for instance, the SEIU tried to start its own political party because it was upset at the failure of the Democrats to toe the union line. Also in 2010 The New York Times noted that labor was having major problems getting members out to rally for Democrats.

Not long ago, Bloomberg reported that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said that his ardor for Obama’s re-election was fading. Trumka was also reported as pleading for unions to support Democrats in the late 2010 midterm elections knowing all along that it was a tough sell. And Trumka hasn’t been the only top labor leader decrying the failures under Obama and the Democrats.

So, despite all that Obama has done for labor, there are quite a lot of unhappy workers over on the far left. Quite a lot, indeed. Of course, it all tends to show another thing, too. It tends to show how voracious, how insatiable, and how ungrateful Big Labor really is.

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 bringing 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.

You might recall that with great fanfare and the slobberingly positive coverage by the Old Media, President Obama made Reagan-like and claimed that he thought it was time to get rid of the regulations strangling American business. Since that time he’s met with businesses and pretended to suddenly be a pro-business, pro-economic growth president. His actions, however, give the lie to his sudden turn around from anti-business to pro-business man. Thankfully the GOP is making to help the president become what he’s selling himself as, despite his best intentions.

One of those ways that the GOP is assisting Obama to become business friendly — no matter how much Obama hates the idea — was announced last week by John Kline and the Republicans of the Education and the Workforce Committee of the House of Representatives.

Subcommittee Chairman Phil Roe, M.D. (R-TN) announced the closer scrutiny that the GOP intends to level upon the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal entity that is supposed to act as a mediator for disputes between labor. That closer scrutiny is a result of Obama’s appointees moving the NLRB from mediator between business and labor to outright advocate in favor of Big Labor.

Showing what he truly thinks of the business sector, Obama’s NLRB has been punishing businesses as much as possible and attacking worker’s rights in the process. By making labor friendly rules changes and using the office as an activist tool to take business to court to force them to accede to labor demands, all things that has never been done on such a scale before.

Obama’s NLRB has made several key rules changes that the GOP members of the committee say shows that it is, “eager to tilt the playing field in favor of powerful special interests against the interests of rank-and-file workers.”

Here are just a few of the things that the NLRB has done since Obama stocked the office full of former Big Labor employees and their lawyers.

• Essentially ended the decades old ban on “secondary boycotts” by allowing banners to be placed in front of businesses not involved in any labor dispute. A secondary boycott is when union agitators picket and attack the business of someone for whom they do not work but who does business with their employer. The goal here is for the union attackers to make associates of their own employer want to cease doing business with the union member’s place of employment to pressure their employer to accede to their demands. Sort of a guilt by association attack on the innocent, unconnected business. This used to be illegal until Obama’s labor hacks infested the NLRB.
• The NLRB decided that it now controls the child care centers of churches and religious institutions. No law change or act of Congress needed. They just decided out of hand that they now control all the kids in Churches.
• The NLRB wants to allow unions to try to organize a business not just by company but by job type. Instead of having to convince an entire company to unionize or not, the NLRB wants to allow unions to come in and unionize as few as 3 employees who happen to have the same job title and/or duties. This will allow unions to piecemeal a business to death and will make it far easier to organize when you don’t have to convince hundreds of employees to vote yes, but only need 2 or 3 to say yes and the place is automatically unionized.
• Changed rules to force employers to act as a union information outlet by making employers inform employees all about the union options they have.
• The NLRB wants to change rules to force “card check” on workers, a rule that will take away their right to a secret ballot while voting for or against unions. This is the very law that Congress rejected because voters are against it. So, since Obama didn’t get his way through legitimate legislation, he’s doing it through his powers to make rules by fiat.
• Changed rules to shorten the election time that unions have so business has less time to mount a defense against unions.
• Just last month the NLRB announced that it intended to sue any state that passed state legislation guaranteeing that workers can have a secret ballot election. So intent is Obama on taking away worker’s rights to a private vote in union elections that he’d even sue whole states to prevent them from guaranteeing the ages-old democratic right.
• The NLRB even wants to make a new rule that would have girl scouts and kid’s sports teams thrown out of businesses all across the country. Obama is demanding that if businesses allow girl scouts to sell cookies on their property, then they will also have to allow unions to flood their business to solicit for members.

When I said above that these are just a few of the Big Labor approved rules changes that Obama’s NLRB have changed or are in the process of changing, I mean that. There are dozens like this all aimed at hurting business and giving paybacks, sweetheart deals, and extra help to Big Labor.

Of course, now Obama and his comrades on the board want to wildly increase the budget of the NLRB. Obama seeks an increase of $71.2 million over the NLRB’s 2001 levels of funding. And yet, the agency has seen a steep drop in its caseload because unions have fallen to less than 7% of the private-sector workforce. Even as Obama wants a 33% increase in NLRB funding the agency has seen a 45% drop in its case load because of falling union numbers.

So why are we spending millions more for an agency that has less on its plate every year? Only so that Obama’s NLRB can have the funding to turn activist in order to increase union membership and create more rules and regulations that could hamper business.

Obama specializes in ladling on the sort of soothing rhetoric that makes it seem as if he desires a tack to the center. He’s the “reasonable” guy. But his actions never, ever reveal the “reasonable.” They always reveal a hard left ideologue that stands ready to use his power to regulate to hurt business and help unions.

Republicans are not powerless here, though. Last week Georgia Congressman Tom Price showed us how we might put a dent in the anti-business plans of Obama’s jobs-crushing NLRB by adding an amendment to the current budget negotiations that would totally defund the NLRB for the rest of 2011.

Price hopes to take away the resources that the NLRB hopes to put to its anti-business climate. His amendment reads, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to pay the salaries and expenses of personnel to carry out and implement the National Labor Relations Act.”

Price needs to be supported in this amendment and many more of its type needs to be (and are being) added to the continuing resolution budget process.

The left has specialized in sending forth blizzards of such changes, amendments and regulatory alterations, so many that it is impossible to stop them all. The GOP should emulate that in these budget cut proposals.

In the end, we all know that the government is spent out. But something as badly misused by Obama as the NLRB is a perfect target for savings.

Last September the Senate refused to reverse a rules change made out of pocket by Obama’s National Mediation Board. The rule change reversed a 75-year-old practice and made it possible to unionize a company even if less than half of its employees wanted to be unionized.

Previous to the rules change, any company in the transportation industry (rail, airlines, etc.) that had employees wanting to unionize had to count 51% or more of its employees voting in favor of the union. It seems only natural, after all, that a union should not be able to force itself on employees unless the majority wills it, right? As it happens the union stacked NMB summarily changed the rules so that a company could become unionized by a majority of those voting at the time instead of a majority of a company’s employees. That means if a company has 100 employees but only forty were present at the vote, then only 21 employees voting yes would force a union on all of them.

This is particularly galling where it concerns, say, airline attendants, for instance. After all, it is practically impossible to get all the attendants in the same room at the same time due to the fact that their jobs take them all across the country. The rules change would take away the vote of large numbers of employees that weren’t able to make a particular vote and would simply assume any employee not present is essentially voting in favor of the union.

“It drastically changes a basic principle that a majority of workers are required to change the work status of a place of employment,” says Katie Gage.

But there is good news. This rule change may about to be overturned by the new GOP controlled House.

But today, there is some reason for hope that common sense will prevail in matters affecting airline and railway workers. The FAA Reauthorization legislation that will be marked up in the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this Wednesday includes a provision to repeal the National Mediation Board enforced and union promoted voting rule change from last year. This revocation will ensure that a majority of a workforce must vote in favor of union representation the way they have for nearly one hundred years. The bill also directs the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation and the U.S. Comptroller General to evaluate the NMB’s activities and programs.

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John L. Mica (R, Fla.) is leading this effort to repeal the rule change under the Railway Labor Act.

In addition, Representative Phil Gingrey from Georgia has introduced H.R. 548 named the Restoring Democracy in the Workplace Act, legislation which would repeal the rule promulgated by the National Mediation Board.

Gage notes that not long ago President Obama claimed that he wanted to get rid of business-killing regulations. She points out that this is the perfect opportunity for him to prove his intentions.

But since he’s the one that stacked the NMB with union hacks in the first place, my guess is that he’ll do his best to torpedo Mica and Gingrey’s efforts. In fact, Obama’s entire administration is geared to increase regulations, not eliminate them. He’s put union hacks in nearly every office of the Department of Labor. It is doubtful that any of them will be much interested in cutting jobs-killing regulations.

Barack Obama has given more payoffs, sweetheart deals, and new favorable regulations to Big Labor than any president in history. They should love him for his incredible largess. Next, in his never ending quest to harm the business community, defy the will of the voters, and give his pals in Big Labor paybacks, Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — a federal labor regulatory agency — is about to sue any state that dares attempt to protect the right of workers to have secret ballots in their workplace elections. The states have made the mistake of sponsoring worker’s ballot protection laws.

Recently the NLRB announced its intentions to sue Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah because those states had the gall to implement constitutional amendments to their state constitutions guaranteeing that workers have a right to a secret ballot in union elections.

With this the Obama administration is moving to deny workers their right to a secret ballot, a right that has been sacrosanct in democracies for hundreds if not thousands of years. Why does Barack Obama want to take away the right to a secret ballot? Because his union pals don’t want workers to feel safe voting against a union.

How can the Obama administration justify its efforts to eliminate the centuries old right to a secret ballot election? Why, because Obama’s regulatory agency wrote a new “rule” that says so, of course.

You see the problem as Obama sees it is that Congress has not passed the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that would take away by law the right to a secret ballot. The reason Congress won’t pass it is because our representatives and senators know that their voters don’t support this idea.

The failure of the EFCA to pass is the one plum that the Obama administration has not been able to give to its funders in Big Labor. So, because Congress won’t act, Obama used his power to simply write new regulations to just take away the secret ballot by presidential fiat. And now his NLRB is about to start suing states to push his anti-democratic ideas.

So what can we lovers of democracy do?

We can call our representatives and tell them to support HR 1176, the Secret Ballot Protection Act. This bill would stop Obama’s NLRB from taking way worker’s right to a secret ballot.

If you want to protect the ages old right to a secret ballot, tell your congressmen to support HR 1176. Don’t Let Obama take away workers’ rights just to give a payoff to greedy, Big Labor thugs.

On Tuesday, President Obama had an op ed published in the Wall Street Journal. In it Obama insisted that our economy has been hurt by “unreasonable burdens on business” and that the regulatory sector had “gotten out of balance.” He promised that he’d make efforts to trim away regulations costly to business. While the sentiment is certainly a good one, it strains credulity to imagine that Barack Obama would be the one to make those cuts especially in light of the huge regulatory state that Obama has spent enlarging at every opportunity over the last two years.

To be sure Obama needs to gain the confidence of the business community. After all, as far as the business sector is concerned Obama has considered them his number one enemy since he began running for president back in 2006. The economy has stalled precisely because everyone is afraid of what punishment via his regulatory powers that Obama will next mete out to them.

But Obama claims he’s going to change all that and just in time for him to ramp up his 2012 reelection campaign, too. He’s signed an Executive Order, he says, in order to “strike the right balance” between regulation and business success.

This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It’s a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

And if you believe that Obama is serious about this I do believe that there is a certain bridge in Brooklyn you might be able purchase.

Many assume that new Chief of Staff Bill Daley had a lot to do with this new direction, but regardless of Daley’s influence Obama has been forced to appear to be driving to the center due to the shellacking he and his party took in November. But whatever his electoral motives it is pretty clear by his actions that he simply isn’t serious about trimming regulations to help business. To get a better idea of his actual desires one has but to look at his use of his power to regulate.

Since he took office President Obama has relied heavily on his powers to create regulations to push his left-wing agenda. In fact, one of his very first actions was to sign an Executive Order that forced all federal construction projects to suffer under union rules, union pay scales, and union benefit whether the companies involved in the projects were unionized or not — the order forced called Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on all federal contracts.

In fact, just looking over the regulatory changes and the threats to do so implemented by the Obama Dept. of Labor alone reveals quite the opposite direction that Obama claimed he’d undertake with regulations in his Wall Street Journal op ed. In two short years Obama has signed orders to force PLAs (as mentioned above), put limits on what business owners can say to employees about union elections, made it harder to fire incompetent government employees belonging to unions, forced business to hand out union information to employees, nullified union financial reporting rules to allow unions to more easily hide fraudulent expenditures, and just recently has insisted that the Dept. of Labor can sue any state that makes laws protecting the right of workers to have a secret ballot in union elections.

But we don’t have to restrict ourselves to Obama’s Dept. of Labor. Obama has used his powers to regulate, to rewrite financial rules, banking regulations, forced General Motors into bankruptcy then imposed pennies-on-the-dollar settlements on its creditors while giving preference to the UAW, has used the Federal Communications Commission to take over the Internet, has used his Federal Drug Administration to eliminate certain drugs, and has pushed his Environmental Protection Agency to implement extreme environmental rules to emulate the sort of Cap and Trade laws he couldn’t get Congress to pass. And this is not to mention the 150 new federal regulatory agencies he created out of whole cloth with Obamacare.

Yet, with this extremely high volume of new regulations constantly churning out of the Obama administration — something that commentator David Limbaugh has called an administrative tyranny — we are now expected to believe that he intends to cut back on them?

Of course, the idea in and of itself is a good one. For years pro-growth, business friendly advocates have been saying that our regulatory scheme is oppressive and is destroying our ability to compete internationally. Senator Mark Warner has added his voice to approval for this idea though Senator Warner insists we can go further.

“I spent 20 years in the business world, and I know that any company that does not periodically review its operations or look for ways to improve its procedures will not survive very long. Efforts to apply more common-sense to our regulatory approach can go a long way toward addressing the uncertainty that has kept the U.S. business community from participating more fully in our nation’s economic recovery,” Senator Warner said.

“The regulatory framework announced by the White House today is a promising first step to adopt a more rational approach to government oversight, but we can and should go even further. I have spoken with OMB Director Jack Lew about these proposals, and he shares my view that existing regulations must be reviewed from time-to-time to determine if they are still necessary and crafted effectively. If they are not, they should be changed or repealed.

William O’Keefe agrees and offers a first step toward progress.

As a first step, the President could direct the Department of Interior to expedite issuance of permits for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and to remove the recently issued ban on offshore drilling off of the East Coast. That action would have a big impact on unemployment in Gulf coast states and would send a signal that the U.S. plans to exercise more control over its energy future. Although the White House is a big proponent of “green” energy, it needs to acknowledge that since these fuels are a long way from being commercially viable, fossil energy will continue to provide the main source of power for our economy for decades to come.

While all agencies need to do a better job of avoiding regulatory overkill, EPA currently threatens to have the biggest impact on our economic recovery and job creation. Its proposed rules on boilers, stationary sources, and ambient air quality standards offer compelling evidence that it is out of control and pursuing an ideological agenda without regard to economic consequences. Those proposals are already having a chilling effect on investments. President Obama should direct EPA to suspend all pending actions to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including plans to issue another set of CAFE regulations to mandate a fleet average of 45-62 miles per gallon.

These moves and others should be taken but no one should go into this deal assuming that President Obama has good intentions. It is far more likely that his only real goal is to get reelected. It is highly doubtful that Obama has any real desire to help the business sector. After all, his entire history has been as an enemy to business. From his earliest days until Monday, Barack Obama has been the antitheses of a business friendly politician.

Everyone loves Girl Scout cookies, right? What could be more American? It’s a right of passage for many young girls to set up a folding table in front of a local business and sell their little cookies and what American doesn’t get a warm feeling in their heart when they see those peppy little ones chirping out, “would you like to buy some cookies?” Who could be against that? Who would want to set up a situation where Girl Scouts would be turned away from their traditional cookie-selling outposts?

Apparently the Obama administration.

At least one sector of America isn’t so fond of the ability of Girl Scouts to sell their wares unhindered, it seems. When the Obama administration’s Department of Labor and his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) look at Girl Scouts, they don’t see cute little children taking their first steps toward adulthood, they see opportunity for a union powergrab.

Obama’s NLRB is trying to push a new rule that would force any business that allows Girl Scouts or any other local groups like baseball or football teams, school bands, charity groups etc. to sell their fundraiser items or solicit donations in front of or inside of their businesses to also allow unions into their businesses to cajole employees to organize.

Even when the purpose of many union actions are meant to drive customers away from the business in order to force the employer to accede to union demands, this rule would prevent a business owner from turning disruptive union activists away from their businesses.

A broad coalition of business owners have filed a brief with the NLRB in protest.

Today, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) filed an amicus brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on the crucial question of whether the federal government will demand that a business allow organized labor union representatives to trespass at the workplace in order to harass customers and employees and otherwise harm an employer’s business.

The case before the NLRB is Roundy’s vs. Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades (Case No. 30-CA-17185). At issue is whether the government can force any employer that allows charitable, well-meaning groups onto the premises to also allow union organizers whose purpose in many cases is to turn away customers through boycotts and similar actions. Such activity is often part of a larger strategy to pressure employers to accede to demands such as the nationally unpopular “card check” scheme that bypasses federally supervised private ballot votes.

The decision also would allow unions to go on the business owner’s property with the intent of running the company out of business – a real threat to many small businesses and entrepreneurs. Should the NLRB curtail employers’ property rights, the result could be a significant disincentive for employers to allow charities and community groups onto their premises, as well as subjecting customers and employees to harassment and labor strife. CDW’s brief argues strongly in favor of protecting customers, employees, and employers and advocates that the Board “should allow employers to refuse non-employee union access to private property, particularly where such labor organizations seek to engage in harmful boycott activities.”

Imagine. If a business allows the Girl Scouts to sell cookies, then the owner would also be forced to allow union thugs to harass employees and customers.

If this rule is passed by the NLRB the result will not be that businesses will open themselves up to union harassment. No, what will happen instead is that businesses will be forced to tell the Girl Scouts that they aren’t welcome any more. Businesses will stop allowing charities to solicit donations. Businesses will cease the practice of having schools sell candy at their doorstep.

It’s just one more example of the Obama administration giving unions a payoff. Little girls and charities hardest hit.

Resources:

Halt The Assault

Coalition for a Democratic Workplace

Union Bosses Scheme to Be Girl Scouts’ Next ‘Tagalong’

Is card check dead? Not completely, but if the recent votes on various state ballot initiatives of four states is any indication it sure seems to be on its last legs.

Little noticed by the Old Media, the ballot initiatives of these four states is an important bellwether of how little support Big Labor’s favorite law will have going forward. On November 2 four states voted by great margins to protect the secret ballot and these reasserted protections would tend to deliver a blow to one of the Democrat’s important provisions of card check, a provision that would eliminate the secret ballot for prospective union members.

Card check is one of the main parts of Big Labor’s Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The provision would eliminate a secret ballot for prospective union members as they decide on representation. Under the EFCA, votes for union representation would be an open issue. Every employee’s vote would be clearly known by all involved. This open voting (or the public checking of a vote card or ballot) would clearly leave employees open for harassment by union officials who would be fully aware of each employees individual votes, if they voted for or against the union. For that matter, even the employer would have knowledge of who voted for what under the EFCA.

But these ballot initiatives seem to bode ill will for card check. The Wall Street Journal reports the lopsided support for secret ballot protections (Subscription required).

Four states — Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah — voted on “save our secret ballot” measures that would require secret elections and effectively outlaw card check as a means to certify a union. In Arizona and Utah the measures passed with 60% of the vote. In South Dakota the margin of victory was 79% and in South Carolina it was 86%.

Democrats are still telling Big Labor that they intend to push the EFCA to the floor for a vote and are promising that they’ll do so in the upcoming lame duck (or zombie) session of congress. But if they do, they seem destined to lose the issue. The prevailing winds among the voters is running against the EFCA.

This won’t stop President Obama from trying to push through a stealth card check by altering federal labor regulations, though. Members of his administration have already made noises that they would like to do this.

Still, as each month passes the EFCA looks like it has less support all the time.

Leave it to an Obama appointee to the National Labor Rights Board (NLRB) to want to push votes to install unions in the workplace on an accelerated schedule. I guess all the payoffs and special favors that Obama and his cohorts have given to labor unions in these two of the longest years any president ever had have not been enough.

On Oct. 21, NLRB Member Mark Gaston Pearce said that the time period between filing and the holding of elections for new union representation in a company should be “as brief as possible.”

Of course, this shortened election period is nothing but a sop to Big Labor and intended to hurt businesses that might try to put up a fight against the encroachment of unions. As “>Jay Summer of the Labor Relations Counsel website says:

Regardless of Pearce’s stated rationale for interest in a shortened election period, if implemented, the shorter the election period, the less opportunity an employer has to exercise free speech rights and educate employees. The result would be a workforce making a decision whether or not to unionize relying only on what facts the union organizing them chooses to disclose, even if misleading or incomplete. Combined with electronic voting which would almost certainly depress voter participation, the almost certain result is a dramatic increase in unionization. This, of course, was the primary goal of EFCA’s card check proposal.

Naturally it’s all just a piece with Obama’s campaign to give unions paybacks, payoffs, and special favors to pay them back for the millions that they gave to him to run for president. It is also another example of Obama’s essential anti-business ideology.

Pearce was a recess appointment made by President Obama in March of 2010. His appointment expires in 2013.

Meanwhile, in yet another example of Obama’s war against business (and subsequent helping hand to jobs-killing unions), Obama’s Dept. of Labor announced that the Bush “culture of noncompliance” is over and Obama plans to crack down on those evil businesses that have gotten away with things for so long.

Obama Labor Solicitor Patricia Smith told attendees of a conference at Suffolk University Law School that the Labor Department would launch a new era of tougher enforcement of labor laws.

Smith heaped scorn on the pro-business Bush practices.

They relied on trickle-down enforcement; it doesn’t work any better than trickle-down economics. [As a result of reduced enforcement] many employers developed a “catch-me-if-you-can” attitude. Our challenge is to change that attitude.

You can just hear the left-wing ideology underpinning her rhetoric, can’t you?

Smith said that the Obama Labor Dept. intended to increase criminal prosecutions of businesses for perceived violations of labor law.

As we can see Obama’s anti-business crusade continues a pace with his other left-wing policies.