Stephen, J. Cabot blog

February 5, 2010

HIGHER TAXES BENEFIT UNIONS

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 2:28 pm

According to a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com), while union membership amongst private industry workers is declining, union membership for government employees is dramatically increasing.  While 7.2% of private industry workers belong to unions, more than 37% of government workers belong to unions.

Since government has become the primary employer of unionized workers, it is understandable why Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, are such frequent visitors to the White House. And since the Democrats reliably do the bidding of unions, it also explains why unions earmark tens of millions of dollars to elect Democrats to Congress.

It also explains why unions want higher taxes, for higher taxes mean additional revenue to pay unionized government workers’ salaries. And ever increasing salaries mean greater amounts of money available for union dues. In other words, millions of American workers, who do not belong to unions, will be paying for ever higher, ever increasing union wages for government workers!

Should the demands of government workers not be met, they can always bite the hands that feed them by going on strike. Striking public service workers was once outlawed; but self-destructive Democrats will never put road blocks on the highway that leads to union goals. So if the workers don’t get what they want, one could witness government grinding to a halt. So much for the welfare of the tax-paying public!

January 29, 2010

STICKS & STONES CAN BREAK YOUR BONES, BUT CARELESS EPITHETS ARE SELF-DEFEATING

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen Cabot @ 2:00 pm

 

In politics, there is a great deal of name calling, disparagement of one’s opponents, and assorted calumnies spread through rumor mills. There is also a maxim that “it is easier to attract flies with honey than with vinegar.”

 

Attempting to defame one’s political enemies is a sure sign of desperation that will have a contrary effect to one’s intentions. Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is his latest broadside has accused Senators Joe Leiberman and Ben Nelson of being “terrorists” for their opposition to the bill that would create “card checks” under the union-endorsed Employee Free Choice Act.

 

From Osama bin Laden to the Christmas Day bomber, America has been targeted by one terrorist after another. To place Senators Lieberman and Nelson in that same criminal category as those who are motivated to kill Americans is not merely absurd, but it is a form of defamation that will generate considerable skepticism about Andy Stern’s values and methods of cogitation.

 

If one’ mission as head of a union is to convince as many Americans as possible that  union membership is desirable outcome for all, Andy Stern has a peculiar tactic for convincing them of his project. How many pro-union entomological subjects has he attracted by spritzing vinegar on the reputations of others? No wonder why most Americans perceive unions as creating obstacles to national prosperity.

 

 

January 22, 2010

AN OVERLOOKED ELEMENT IN THE GREAT MASS UPSET

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen Cabot @ 1:41 pm

 

According to various polls, most Americans believe that unions have often been an obstacle, standing in the way of American companies being able to compete with foreign-based and non-union companies. One need only look at the sorry state of GM.

 

In addition, Americans have not voiced approval for President Obama’s pro-union activities, such as attempting to staff the NLRB with pro-union advocates and cozying up to the leaders of the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO. Leaders of both unions have been frequent visitors to the White House.

 

Though many commentators noted Senate candidate Martha Coakley’s gaff about the Boston Red Sox, there was also another element responsible for her loss to Senator Scott Brown.  Seemingly unaware of public sentiment about unions, Ms. Coakley announced during her campaign that she supported the Teamsters’ efforts to organize the workers of FedEx. She stated that she supported the Express Carrier Employee Protection Act.  “As someone deeply committed to ensuring a level playing field for our workforce, I am pleased to support this legislation that will end FedEx’s unfair ability to deny workers’ rights,” stated Ms. Coakley. She didn’t, of course, state that consumers are pleased with the services that they get from FedEx. Furthermore, she did not state that many FedEx drivers prefer the opportunity to own their own routes, be their own bosses, buy additional routes, and enjoy the opportunity of earning as much money as their ambitions and energies permit. By accepting union support and not balancing that with the sentiments of the electorate, she self-destructively hammered another nail into her own political coffin.

 

Driving around during the campaign in his pick-up truck, Scott Brown seemed to voters as independent and as free of union influence as FedEx drivers. It’s just another reason why Massachusetts voters went to the polls to express their own independence. Being a union stooge is no way to run for political office.

January 15, 2010

RESPECT FOR WHOM?

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 4:56 pm

In the current political climate, Corporate America (to borrow a phrase from Rodney Dangerfield) “gets no respect.” Unions are rallying again for what they cleverly call RESPECT for supervisory personnel. At issue is the Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers (RESPECT), which had originally been introduced in 2007 by Senator Dodd, but which may be taken up by a new congress.

 

The National Labor Relations Act defines a supervisor as an employee with the authority to “hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or to responsibly direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action.” In other words, supervisors are part of a company’s management, and management cannot be organized by unions. To do so would create divided loyalties.

 

The Respect Act would eliminate the responsibility of supervisors from assigning and responsibly directing non-supervisory personnel. The effect would be that all supervisors would become like all other employees and be eligible to join unions. The ensuing value to union coffers is estimated to be in the many millions of dollars. In this Alice in Wonderland world proposed by unions to the NLRB, there would be no line separating supervisors from workers. Where would the allegiance of supervisors be if they are on the picket lines, cheek by jowl, with those they had once supervised? And should card checks become law, one can easily imagine supervisors pressuring employees to sign those cards! In such a situation, it would be impossible for supervisors to carry out the goals of management.

 

This proposed Act is obviously no respecter of logic or common sense. It is, instead, part of our brave new world where union leaders not only frequently visit the White House whose occupant’s political campaign enjoyed the benefits of tens of millions of dollars raised by unions, but where unions are visiting upon the country an ongoing assault on economic well being and growth. Corporate America does – indeed - get no respect.

 

 

 

January 8, 2010

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION?

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act, stephen cabot — Tags: , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 1:01 pm

 

People are often judged by the company they keep. That is why probation officers direct ex-convicts not to associate with other criminals.

 

Should Corporate America judge President Obama by the company that he keeps?

 

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Anna Burger, Secretary-Treasurer, have visited the White House 60 times. Ms. Burger also serves on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. There have also been numerous visits by other union leaders, such as Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO and Lou Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers.

Big labor had ensured such entrée by the amount of money it spent on the 2008 election: approximately $450 million; of that sum, $85 million was spent by SEIU.

What do these cozy relationships portend for Corporate America? To begin, there will be the Employee Free Choice Act, which will be introduced this year. Card checks and government administered binding arbitration will not be the only bad news for corporations. Unions would also like Congress to pass a tax-payer funded union pension bailout. Unions want President Bush’s union reporting requirements about union finances watered down, so that unions would no longer have to reveal how they spend their political dollars. Unions also want more stimulus money to be devoted to preserving unionized government jobs as well as preferential treatment for union contractors. And finally, unions want to make sure that the National Labor Relations Board is staffed by pro-union advocates.

Mothers throughout America warn their impressionable children that they will be judged by who their friends are. Corporate America needs no such warning: the writing is on the walls of union halls and the White House.

December 30, 2009

AN OMINOUS ATTEMPT TO GAG CORPORATE AMERICA

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Stephen J. Cabot @ 1:44 pm

While we all know that the proposed Employee Free Choice Act will mandate restrictions on the free speech of employers, the state of Oregon has leapt into the vanguard by passing a new law that eliminates an employer’s right to discuss unionization with employees.

Imagine having union organizers working day and night to get workers to sign card checks while employers are prohibited from offering counter arguments. It is the kind of law that one would expect to be enacted by a totalitarian dictatorship, not by the oldest, uninterrupted democracy in the world.

Now, corporations in Oregon have brought a law suit in federal court claiming that employers have the right to present its views of unionization to employees. They rightly claim that the new law is unconstitutional, a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. In addition, it is a violation of provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. They are asking for a preliminary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect.

Corporate America should take notice that Oregon may be a bellwether of labor relations in the new year. While we wish all of our readers a happy and prosperous 2010, the future state of labor relations in President Obama’s America will become increasingly pro-union and anti-employers.

December 18, 2009

UNION MEMBERS REVOLT

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 4:19 pm

 

Municipal employees in Portland Maine have decided to show their unhappiness with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Many local union members (Local 1373) feel that they pay expensive dues and are not receiving sufficient job protections. More than ninety of their members were laid off from their city jobs.

 

Now 450 members of the union have received ballots, giving them the opportunity to decertify the union.  The local AFSCME sends the national office $130,000 a year, and feels that it’s not getting its money’s worth.

 

Local leaders had filed a petition in October with 200 signatures that asked for decertification ballots. As a result, those leaders were suspended from their leadership positions, and the Local’s assets were seized. In addition, the National office has been running local ads critical of the Local.

 

As we reported last week in our report about SEIU, a union that is in a war with a break-away union, this is another example of intense dissension within the ranks of organized labor. As unions become increasingly more superfluous, their internecine battles increase in ferocity. Organized labor, unable to connect with workers, are fighting with each other for the ever diminishing number of workers who still find what is chimerical value in being union members.

December 11, 2009

ORGANIZED LABOR’S CIVIL WAR

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:50 pm

One of the most aggressive unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will now face a challenge to its dominant role representing healthcare workers in California. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has called for an election to determine if SEIU or the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) will represent 2,300 Kaiser healthcare workers in California.

 

The decision of the NLRB came as a blow to SEIU in its ongoing battle with the breakaway healthcare union, NUHW. SEIU had hoped to stop NUHW’s ongoing march to win the allegiance of thousands of healthcare workers in a wide array of states. As part of its PR war, the two sides have exchanged charges of various acts of wrong doing, including financial mismanagement. Perhaps the most hilarious charge leveled by the unions is union-busting. It’s usually the paladins of Corporate America who are accused of being union busters. If the labor movement has ever evidenced its true agenda, the bitter battle between these two unions indicates that power and money are as important to unions as they are to other institutions.

Determined to preserve its power, the SEIU says it will appeal the NLRB decision. If, however, the SEIU appeal fails, balloting is expected to take place in January.

The fight between SEIU and NUHW amounts to a civil war within the labor movement. The unintended victor will be Corporate America, and the millions of workers who will regard unionization with a richly deserved sense of skepticism, if not disgust.  



December 4, 2009

ANOTHER BLOW TO DEMOCRACY

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:20 pm

According to a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration has delivered a body blow to Corporate America, specifically the airline and railway industries, which do not need any further impediments to their respective economic woes.

Both of those industries have their labor relations policies governed by The National Mediation Board (NMB), and the Board has maintained a consistent policy for the last seventy-five years.  

Now, however, under a proposed new rule, the board plans to tilt the playing field in favor of organized labor. To wit: In order to obtain certification, a union will no longer need to win the approval of a majority of workers. Rather than obtain a majority of workers, a union will only have to win a majority of workers who choose to vote in a union election. That works well for unions, because only a minority of workers usually votes. Getting a majority of that minority to vote for a union will be easy. Imagine, if only 100 workers out of a total workforce of 1,000 agree to vote: the union would need only 51 votes to unionize 1,000 workers! The winning team will always be the union.

This dramatic change has been the result of President Obama appointing the former president of a pilots’ union and the former president of the Association of Flight Attendants to the NMB. It is comparable to a single football team using its own players as the sole referees in all of its games. Would such a team ever lose a game?

This change will invite numerous strikes, which will cripple the nation’s transportation system. We are now light years away from the time when President Reagan fired air traffic controllers, members of The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) for going on strike. Their strike was against the national interest. President Reagan’s actions led to the demise of PATCO and to a robust airline industry that benefitted all travellers. It was a milestone in the history of labor relations, a milestone that will not  - unfortunately –  be repeated anytime soon.

 

 

November 20, 2009

THE UNION AS CULT

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:44 pm

 

While the New York Times is generally thought of as being union friendly in its reporting, it recently reported on a union situation so egregious that the Times could not avoid it.

 

According to a report by Steven Greenhouse, the hotel and restaurant workers’ union, Unite Here, pressures it organizers to reveal the most embarrassing and distressing personal information to their superiors. Such information may include stories of childhood or spousal abuse, family members who were alcoholic or drug addicted, sexual abuse, phobias, etc.

 

Once that information is obtained by the union, it is then used as leverage against the organizers who had revealed that information.

 

According the Times article, “…several Unite Here organizers described high-pressure meetings where they were brought to tears as supervisors pushed them, sometimes in front of a dozen colleagues, to divulge personal information in what several organizers said was an effort to beak their will and ensure obedience.”

 

Such tactics smack of those used by cults to control members. And those tactics are nothing short of being highly manipulative and cynical.

 

If this is what organized labor has devolved to, then Corporate America must be on heightened alert to the efforts of organizers who have been turned into aggressive automatons whose sole purpose is to capture the hearts and minds of workers who will follow orders and pay their dues, no questions asked.

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