Not long ago union advocate Stewart Acuff penned a piece for the Huffington website that was filled with soaring rhetoric about unions “creating the middle class” and pleading for voters to pressure Congress to pass the absurdly named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). He claimed that this piece of… legislation would “restore the right to form unions and bargain collectively.”

Despite Acuff’s urgent pleading, however, he misses an elephant in the room. No one has taken anyone’s “right to collectively bargain” away from them. Of course that wasn’t the only thing that Acuff was factually incorrect about.

Why is it that union folks have to lie about everything, anyway?

Acuff starts out with a whopper.

America’s broad, deep Middle Class, indeed, the American Dream was formed in the 20-25 years after the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935 which codified the right of workers in America to freely form unions and bargain collectively.

Unions created the middle class? Unions got some mythical right by the Wagner Act? I’ll let friend to the blog David Denholm answer to this one…

Mr. Acuff must be from some alternative universe. The 1935 Wagner Act – the first National Labor Relations Act – didn’t give workers the right to form unions or to bargain collectively. Those rights existed all along. What it did was to compel employers to bargain with unions and give unions the right to impose representation on workers who didn’t want it.

Denholm notes that the middle class existed before unions ever did. In that he’s 100% correct. After all, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about the extensive and prosperous middle class in America in the 1830s. That was a year or two before the 1935 Wagner Act passed, wouldn’t you say?

Additionally, if unions were so necessary to support an extensive middle class how come we have one of the biggest populations of middle class folks in the world yet unions are down to about 20 some percent of the total U.S. workforce?

Acuff whines that the middle class is disappearing because unions have somehow lost a right they didn’t really lose. Denholm again helps us with that claim. After giving us a link to some economic stats, Denholm writes…

This information is expressed in both current and constant dollars. There’s good news for those who fear a shrinking middle class. In constant 2007 dollars, average household income is up in every quintile. The growth isn’t steady and it isn’t uniform from quintile to quintile, but it is up across the board.

But Acuff doesn’t spare with more whoppers. He claims that the EFCA will fix everything (or is it fix what ain’t broken?).

Most importantly, we are very close to getting the support necessary to pass the Employee Free Choice Act which would simplify and streamline organizing, effectively punish employers who violate workers rights with $20,000 civil fines and triple damage back pay for firing workers, and force the Financial Elite to bargain in good faith with unions by allowing unions to seek arbitration for recalcitrant employers.

Not true at all. What the EFCA would do, however, is take away the right of every prospective union member to have a secret ballot when he casts his vote for or against unionizing, it would open that employee up for union thugs to visit his home to “encourage” him to vote yes, and it would cause government to involve itself to force a contract on union and employer alike. It would also further damage our business community by making it even less competitive than it currently is today.

Sadly, just about every scare word in Acuff’s piece is a lie. No one’s right to organize has been taken away. But unions have been slowly disappearing from the work force, it is true. Of course, it isn’t because of forces outside of unions that are destroying them. It is the over reach, sloth, bad business sense, and mistreatment of their own membership that is causing the downfall of unions, not the lack of passage of the EFCA.

Unions have served their purpose. It’s time to let them fade into history.

(Originally posted at TheUnionLabelBlog.com)

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The Associated Press posted a story lamenting that Big Labor has failed so far to get Obama to heel by their commands. Big Labor has said “jump” and Obama has but skipped. The article is correct, though, that Big Labor has failed in its two biggest goals: socialist healthcare and card check. At least, they’ve failed so far.

A third failure has also been forced upon Big Labor. As a result of newly seated Republican Senator Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, Big Labor was not able to install Craig Becker as the head of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Becker was Big Labor’s back up plan in case Congress didn’t pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or the card check bill. Being a former Big Labor lawyer and activist, labor groups expected that if installed as NLRB chief Becker would change rules, alter processes, and invent systems that would implement card check through the back door instead of through actual legislation.

But Becker has had his nomination stymied so far with even some Democrats finding his past activism a bad fit for a job that is supposed to be held by a fair arbiter between the business community and labor, setting federal rules for both to abide by.

As the AP reports all these brick walls that Big Labor has suddenly found itself blocked by is a hard pill to swallow after they’d spent over $400 million to get Obama elected.

Of course, the story also mentions that unions have been steadily losing members for decades and commands a far, far smaller number of voters than it ever did. This is another reason that, for all its money spent on politicians, Big Labor is losing influence in Washington. After all, a politician might be beholden to the tall cash that unions give them for campaigns, but the less actual votes that unions can deliver undercuts that financial influence.

But this story does show several things that are important to remember where it concerns unions.

#1- Big Labor has no respect for the legislative process
#2- Big Labor has no respect for the voter’s will
#3- Big Labor thinks that they can buy a government

These are important points to remember to put Big Labor’s arrogance and essential un-American philosophy in perspective. Big Labor is a pernicious influence in American life.

(Cross posted at TheUnionLabelBlog.com)

Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius’ Forum. It’s what’s happening NOW!

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Well, CNBC’s Media and Technology Editor, Dennis Kneale, is only the latest to jump on my little “Unions are Antithetical to Good Government” bandwagon. Kneale slams Obama’s “unholy alliance” with Big Labor and proclaims it a danger to the country. He couldn’t be more right.

Here is the article: “Obama’s Unholy Union-With Unions”

Here are a few choice quotes:

• It is an unholy union. It’s bad for business, bad for the economy, bad for our country. Worse, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, this alliance could lead to bigger government at all levels, which will require higher taxes on everyone (not just the top 5 percent of earners, those grossing $155,000 or more, who already pay 60 percent of federal income tax).
• Let’s be blunt about it: Unions hurt profits, and that hurts stock prices. The typical union salary is 20 percent to 30 percent higher than the pay for a comparable job in a non-union shop, BLS data show.
• The unions’ expansion into all levels of government already is having a pernicious impact. Today the average government job pays MORE than the average pay in the private sector.
• On which side of the bargaining table does President Obama sit — with the union workers, in fat government bureaucracies and old ailing industries, who helped him get elected? Or with the Real Majority — the rest of the people he was elected to represent?
• My fear is that the answer is all too obvious, and it isn’t the right one.

Now if only I could get them all to pinpoint me as the mastermind of this mantra! I coulda been a contender. Ha, ha.

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The Politico had a story about Big Labor penned by Jeanne Cummings, the reporter famed for going after Sarah Palin’s Party purchased wardrobe during the 2008 presidential campaign, that was an abject lesson in Old Media bias. Her piece headlined “Labor helps kill its own top priority” is a great example of using language to subtly shade the arguments, in this case those of Big Labor, to elicit a positive view of the ideology contained in the issue. Her piece very subtly shades the goals of Big Labor in a positive light easily giving the reader a feeling that Big Labor’s goals are good and noble and is a perfect example of how the media creates emotional appeal for the left’s actions.

Because it is such masterfully crafted example of subtle bias, it deserves to be studied closely.

Cummings Begins her propping up of Big Labor by saying that Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts is “bad news for health care” and will mean that Republicans can “block the Employee Free Choice Act,” and so she immediately casts the possible actions of the GOP in a negative light at the outset. “Bad news for health care”? It is said as if the GOP was against “health care.” It isn’t. And of course “block” is certainly a negative action. In any case, she started by shrouding the GOP in negativity right away.

Cummings followed that with a quote by Tom Harkin, a Democrat Senator, saying, “I’ll never give up on it.” Immediately we get a positive emotion score awarded to Democrats in Cumming’s report.

Next Cummings paints Big Labor as a noble actor by saying it made a “bargain” in good faith with Democrats to put their EFCA plans on hold while health care is worked on. Score positive points for Big Labor.

Sadly for clarity’s sake, Cummings fails to mention that Big Labor didn’t have a choice on that noble “bargain.” This was the president’s requirement and a happenstance forced on Big Labor through the sheer politics of the matter. Big Labor wasn’t given a choice to be so noble as to put self-interest on the back burner for the good of the nation. Cummings similarly does not report that the EFCA was floated for a vote several times last summer and was found to have too many Democrat voices against it. This was long before Brown won his new Senate seat. But let’s not go worrying about facts, now. Cummings has a political side to pump up here.

From here Cummings notes that many union folks in Massachusetts voted against the Democrat Party and went for Republican Brown. She points out that sending Scott Brown to Washington makes it less likely that the EFCA will be as easy to pass as it may have been before.

Eventually Cummings gets to a short explanation of what the EFCA was supposed to do and boy does she play it fast and loose with the big picture.

As originally, drafted the bill would allow workers to sign cards to show their desire to unionize rather than going through a formal election process. That plank led to the legislation’s nickname: the card check bill.

Notice how this is written in a positive fashion in favor of unions? The EFCA would “allow” workers to sign a card, the card would “show their desire to unionize,” and the card would let them show this desire “rather than going through a formal election process,” as if that whole democratic election thing was such an annoying, unwanted bother to everyone. The whole explanation belies that there could be anything negative about the EFCA.

The truth of the matter is that the card check part of the legislation is not a positive thing for the workers. It is a positive thing for the unions, no question, but for the worker it takes away the right of a secret vote and opens that worker to systematic intimidation from union operatives because it will be made publicly aware if that employee doesn’t want to be unionized. This elimination of the secret vote will surely cause many workers to vote yes out of fear of becoming known as the anti-union worker and to avoid intimidation from union agitators. On the other hand, it could even open the worker up to intimidation by an employer too! It’s a two edged sword and draws blood from the worker with both edges. But Cummings does not report any of that.

Cummings adds another aspect of the bill to her piece:

The legislation also would beef up penalties for companies that retaliated against workers calling for a union and would force companies to negotiate with newly created unions.

Notice how she left out the worst part of the bill — the forced government arbitration. This bill forces both the union and the employer into a very short timetable to arrive at a contract. If that time limit is passed, the bill provides that the federal government will swoop in and force terms on both sides. This eliminates the power of both the employer and the union to arrive at their own terms. In essence, this part of the bill takes even more power away from the worker but Cummings didn’t mention any of this because it is just what Big Labor wants to have happen. After all, they think they control government and can get government to use their terms as the base for arbitration. But what happens when Republicans take over at some point? Will labor still be able to dictate what the government will do? Workers lose out all the way around with this provision and so do employers, with Big Labor itself putting itself in a possible loser situation. Bad all the way around…. Not that Cummings takes note of it all.

Next Cummings mentions that business and the Republicans are “unified in opposition,” but she never really takes any pains to explain why. She just paints them as opposers. Once again the GOP is clothed in negativity without given the benefit of explanation to the reader.

Cummings gives the final word to AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman.

“It’s a critical issue and we intend to keep on fighting for it,” she said. But “I think there has not yet been laid out a clear strategy of how to win on the Employee Free Choice Act.”

As you can see, Cummings ends her piece telling us all that this is a “critical issue” but people are “fighting for it.” She tells us that people are working for a “clear strategy of how to win.” All positively shaded rhetoric meant to convey that the unions are trying hard to help people.

So, to sum up we find a story that uses negatively shaded rhetoric every time Republicans or business is mentioned but positive, happy-talk to drive the discussion every time Big Labor or Democrats are mentioned. The Democrat position is termed “fighting for” things and shows them as looking for a “win,” while the Republicans are “blocking” and creating “bad news for health care.” The EFCA will “allow” workers to do things and helps get them out of that gosh darn complicated and time consuming “formal election process,” while Republicans and business are “unified in opposition.” Cummings uses all positive rhetoric for the Democrats and nothing but negativity for Republicans.

Yes, this is a perfect example of shaded rhetoric meant to shore up good feelings for the left while painting the right as mean and heartless. It is the sort of subtle writing that reveals an underlying support for the left that fills reporting of the “news.” This sort of careful rhetoric doesn’t come right out with an in-your-face support of leftism but leaves the reader with a warm feeling for the reporter’s favorite side and at the same time causes a reader to see the enemy — the right side of the argument — as the meanies, the bad actors, the negative nellies.

Apparently Jeanne Cummings is a master of it.

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Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern said that Senators that vote against his ideas are “terrorists.” That’s right, folks, this union chief is saying that any politician that votes against the politically motivated ideas of Big Labor should be branded a “terrorist.”

This is the sort of gutter rhetoric that union thugs specialize in but regardless Stern should be ashamed of himself for bringing the political debate down into that gutter. Scum. Andy Stern is simply scum for using such idiotic and demagogic rhetoric.

Stern said this line of crap to Bloomberg News (as reported by CNSNews.com)

“There are a lot of terrorists in the Senate who think we are supposed to negotiate with them when they have their particular needs that they want met,” Stern told Bloomberg News. His comments, which appeared in BusinessWeek magazine, apparently were prompted by the senators’ reluctance to support the union-sponsored bill.

All this over a bill in Congress? Really?

And let’s remind everyone what this bill Stern is griping about does. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) or the Card Check bill summarily eliminates the ability of potential union employees to vote their conscience in a secret ballot. That’s right Stern wants to take away a centuries old democratic right from his own members. Not only that but the EFCA wants to impose government arbitration on contract talks that go on longer than the government feels they should. After this all too short negotiation period, this bill gives the federal government the power to come in and impose its own terms on both the employer and the union. That pretty much takes power from the worker and the employer both!

CNSNews also has an excellent point about this outrageous comment: where’s the Media coverage? Imagine if a right leaning politician or activist said that anyone that disagrees with them was a “terrorist.” How do you think the news would have treated that one?

(Cross posted at TheUnionLabelBlog.com)

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With some ups and downs, unions have been steadily losing members for quite a while and 2009 is no exception. According to the Labor Dept., private-sector unions lost 834,000 members last year.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported private-sector unions lost 834,000 members, bringing membership down to 7.2% of the private-sector work force, from 7.6% the year before. The broader drop in U.S. employment and a small gain by public-sector unions helped keep the total share of union membership flat at 12.3% in 2009. In the early 1980s, unions represented 20% of workers.

The Wall Street Journal also notes that it isn’t likely that the union jobs lost will come back as union jobs if they ever come back at all.

But the Journal doesn’t stress the most important union fact nearly enough. Unions that serve government workers is still on the rise and form the largest section of union workers.

Unions may represent only 12% of all American workers, but government unions make up more than 37% of total union jobs, making this the largest percentage of public-sector union members ever. Even The New York Times was shocked that a majority of union members are government workers rather than private-sector employees.

The Journal thinks that the loss by Democrats of their Senate [super]majority will make it more difficult for them to pass their dream bill, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). That remains to be seen, though, because some few Republicans were wavering in their decision not to support the bill. These more liberal Republicans might still vote the Democrats way if we allow them to go unscrutinized.

Additionally, the fact that more and more government workers are unionized is a dangerous fact. We’ve said it over and over here on the blog that unionized government workers is antithetical to good government.

So, falling union numbers is good news for worker’s right to choose but the consequent rise in government union membership is dangerous to our democracy.

(Cross posted at TheUnionLabeBlog.com)

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Some policy decisions are pretty simple

• He will appoint massively far left Progressive judges whose ideas on abortion on demand match his (he has spent little time being The President, but, he did pick very far left David Hamilton to 7th Court of Appeals, and Sotomayor for SCOTUS. Heck, he doesn’t even have everyone in place in Treasury and other offices)
• He will reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine through the FCC, thereby avoiding a rather simplistic lawsuit based on the 1st Amendment (Congress shall pass no law). I have read that some recommend using the 9th and 10th if this occurs (legislation is out there, and many in his admin want it, but, again, Barry is a rock star, not The Decider)
• He will increase the redeployment of troops from Iraq ahead of what is safe (I’m glad I was wrong)
• He’ll send a token force of maybe a couple thousand troops to Afghanistan (actually, I am not glad I am wrong. I don’t agree with the 30,000+ he plans to send)
• He won’t get involved in Iran, because the EU nations who have been negotiating will tell him to piss off (wrong. He has sort of tried to get involved. Of course, Europe is talking tougher than Obama, and are not pleased with his policies)
• He’ll get his basketball court installed (like just about everything else, it took some time, but, finally opened in October)

Other then that, I do not expect him to actually get much of his legislation passed. I doubt much of it will even make it to committee. The Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid led Congress has their own agenda, and if it happens to coincide with President Obama’s, so be it. But, do not expect much legislation to actually get passed. This is a legislative body which couldn’t even pass a resolutionexpressing sympathy for the residents of Greensburg, Ks, after the massive tornado, nor one expressing support of the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day, without first sending simplistic legislation like that to committee. It took them months to pass the Greensburg resolution. The Mother’s Day one never did. So, what do they do in 2009?

• A total repeal of the 2001/2003 tax cuts. The bill that does this will expand the number of people in the lower classes who do not pay any income tax. Barry is forced to sign. This will happen by mid February (looks like they are going to let the tax cuts just lapse)
• Repeal of tax breaks on energy companies, particularly oil companies. By mid February. (damned glad I was wrong)
• Backdoor legislation increasing corporate taxes (they’ve tried, but, hasn’t been able to pass. Yet)
• more bailouts as Democrat policies damage the economy even more (Can anyone say Generational Theft Act?)
• Passing the card check legislation for unions (they have tried, but, too much resistance, even from some Democrats)
• Re-instituting the ban on offshore drilling. Mid February (Congress didn’t do it, Obama did)
• They’ll get around to nationalized health care and/or insurance by summer, but, will not do anything till near the winter holidays, when people aren’t watching (I think I was pretty dead on, except about people not watching)
• massively reducing appropriations for Iraq, Afghanistan, intelligence agencies, and measures for the international portion of the war on terrorism. By June (nope)
• Passing legislation allowing the telecoms to be sued over the “domestic wiretapping” (nope)
• Papercut legislation on handguns will start, then they will wait for a major incident to occur before passing sweeping legislation that restricts all guns (fortunately, wrong. The only big legislation out there still has no co-sponsors (HR 45). There have been some small attempts to put in tiny gun controls in some legislation, though. Nothing of consequence)
• Climate change legislation (They tried. Passed in House, going nowhere in Senate)
• They’ll throw a sop to Obama in the form of passing his Global Poverty Act, but, will fail to fund it, and perhaps pass his $500/$1,000 tax rebate-welfare check idea (Congress did neither. So, where is Obama’s promised “tax cut”?)
• Investigation after investigation into the Bush admin (They have sure tried)
• Legislation closing G’itmo and ending the military trials (didn’t need too, Obama did the Gitmo thing himself, and, while he hasn’t ended the military trials, he is prosecuting the worst, those involved in 9/11, in civilian court)

As far as it goes, I believe the Congress will have about as cozy a relationship with Obama as they did with Bush. They will do what they want to do, not what Obama wants them to do. He may want to appear centrist during his first year, but, what he will look like will be a dupe of Congress. They will be passing legislation that he really wants, but didn’t want to go for so quick.

What do you think will happen?

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SEIU has earned its face time with the POTUS by donating $60 million and 100,000 volunteers to Obama’s campaign. Although Stern has made it clear that every single member of SEIU is to devote time to helping elect Democrats, the union is designated a 527, meaning that it is supposedly apolitical and therefore is not limited in the soft money it can shovel at sleazy politicians, unlike honest institutions.

Given Stern’s radical background, it’s unsurprising that his tactics are thuggish:

Under Stern’s leadership, SEIU commonly bullies and pressures companies into signing agreements to make SEIU the representative of their employees. If a company resists joining the union, Stern and his political, media and activist allies conspire to launch “corporate campaigns” aimed at breaking down that resistance through what they term the “death of a thousand cuts.” In such campaigns, the cabal of attackers harasses and disrupts company activities, sends vicious emails and letters to stockholders, intimidates customers, stalks and frightens employees, files baseless lawsuits, and plants false stories with media allies to smear the company’s reputation.

These pressure tactics are often successful in bringing companies into SEIU’s fold. When this occurs, all of their employees are required to join the union. SEIU prefers this arrangement (which Stern calls “Union Democracy”) because, in times past, a large percentage of workers who were given a choice voted against joining the union.

This is also why Chairman Zero & friends favor card check.

SEIU stands to make out big from healthcare nationalization, so when patriots spoke out against it at town hall meetings, even high-level SEIU thugs turned out to rough them up.

Another favored White House visitor is the radical financier George Soros, who only has to snap his fingers for a sit-down with the Manchurian Teleprompter. Investors.com reports:

Like the sociable Stern, administration records show Soros’ appointments were officially scheduled within hours of his actual visit. It looks like fast service.

Soros not only has made statements critical of free-market capitalism, he’s also a philanthropist whose hobbyhorse MoveOn.org tried to smear Iraq war commander Gen. David Petraeus as “Gen. Betray-us” in a full-page ad in the New York Times.

Both Soros and Stern are prominent partisans in the Shadow Party, a network of ultra-left activist groups working feverishly toward the destruction of liberty in favor of collectivist statism. They have a comrade at the top.

On tips from Milton and Edward. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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National Right to Work President Mark Mix is calling on Newt Gingrich to rescind his endorsement of Dede Scozzafava, the liberal candidate chosen by New York’s GOP powermen for the special election for the 23rd District Congressional seat. The reason? Scozzafava is a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act and Newt has said he isn’t.

Liberal Republican Scozzafava has announced her support of the EFCA and its card check feature, a bill that will give unions a free hand to intimidate workers during the election period for voting on union representation. On the other hand, Newt Gingrich is in such opposition to card check that he once sponsored a petition against the EFCA.

Back in March, Gingrich created a video for American Solutions decrying card check and informing the viewers that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost with card check. Newt strongly supported the American Solution petition drive titled Freedom Not Fear drive.

Yet now Newt is supporting a candidate that supports the very job-killing bill that he was so strongly against only a few months ago?

This is why Mark Mix is saying that Newt’s apostasy “is an outrage.”

“Newt Gingrich has collected signatures and raised funds from supporters of employee freedom, and now he is stabbing them in the back by supporting Big Labor Republican Dede Scozzafava.”

“Gingrich owes these Americans an apology, and he should immediately rescind his endorsement of Scozzafava so that Big Labor doesn’t have bipartisan cover in the House of Representatives to pass the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.”

I can’t say that Mr. Mix’s logic has any flaws in it. After all, how can Newt get all exercised over the evils of card check in March and then in October support a candidate that would vote to put the same bill into place?

So what will it be? Will Newt continue this seemingly hypocritical behavior? Well, Newt was saved from having to make the decision since Scozzafava dropped out of her obviously doomed candidacy on Saturday. In that case, Newt went a head and announced that he’d support Doug Hoffman.

Whatever the case, Newt did himself no favors with this incident.

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