Stephen, J. Cabot blog

October 23, 2009

SENATOR McCAIN TAKES A STAND

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:26 pm

 

As we reported last week, President Obama continues to pack the NLRB with pro-union advocates. We cited the recent example of Craig Becker, a union lawyer, as well as numerous others. Now Senator John McCain has announced on the floor of the Senate that he will block Mr. Becker’s appointment to the NLRB.

 

Senator McCain has reiterated what we have claimed that Mr. Becker will support unions at the expense of Corporate America and will likely curtail its free speech.  Mr. Becker’s articles indicate that he would restrict the rights of employers to present pro-management arguments to their employees during union organizing drives. As an associate general counsel for the Service Employees Union, one of the most aggressive unions in the country, Mr. Becker has been a dedicated advocate of the union’s agenda.

 

In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, Mr. Becker argued that “employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives. Employers should have no right to raise questions concerning voter eligibility or campaign conduct. 

“Because employers lack the formal status either of candidates vying to represent employees or of voters, they should not be entitled to charge that unions disobeyed the rules governing voter eligibility or campaign conduct.”

 

Such arguments obviously favor unions over corporations; yet, the NLRB should be an unbiased, objective body that rules on existing laws and regulations. 

 

We agree with the point of view expressed in a letter that Jay Timmons, Executive Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers, sent to Senator Tom Harkin. To wit: “Mr. Becker has espoused extreme positions far outside mainstream thought on how our nation’s labor laws should be interpreted.”

It is imperative that the senate votes to maintain the integrity of the NLRB by maintaining a level playing field for both management and workers. We believe that is what Senator McCain is attempting to accomplish, and we applaud his effort.

September 25, 2009

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO UNION PENSIONS?

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:27 pm

According to an editorial in a recent edition of The Wall Street Journal, a number of union pensions are in the red. That bad news must be causing unionized workers a great deal of anxiety, especially during the current economic recession, when so many workers are losing their jobs.

 

The SEIU’s National Industry Pension Fund, covering more than 100,000 members, is now in  “critical status,” which means that it lacks the necessary capital to pay 100% of benefits. Federal government officials have stated that the Fund has only 74.4% of the necessary assets to meet its obligation to pay those benefits.

 

And the list goes on: Thirteen plans operated by the Teamsters have a mere 59.3%. The Journal states that seven locals at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters …are at 67%.

 

While all of that is bad news for rank and file members of those and other similarly afflicted unions, union officers have nothing to worry about. The pension plan for officers and employees at the SEIU, for example, was funded at 102.2% as of 2007. In addition, the officers and employees get an annual 3% cost of living increase, while its members do not. There are many such disparities.

 

The dramatic reduction in union pension funds is just one reason why unions are aggressively attempting to organize new members and collect their dues.  And it is why the unions are putting pressure on congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act as soon as possible.

 

Increased union membership will mean increased labor costs, increased unemployment, and a worsening recession. But the pensions for union officers will, no doubt, remain intact.

August 28, 2009

Toyota’s One Unionized Factory to Close

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 3:50 pm

If there was ever any doubt that unions are injurious to workers and management, one need only look at what will happen to Toyota’s one unionized factory in Fremont, California, where the company makes the popular Corolla.

 

Toyota’s management voted yesterday to close its Fremont facility, which employees 4,700 workers. Atsushi Nimi, Toyota’s VP for North America, reported that “it would not be economically viable” to keep the factory operating. In other words, during the current economic slump, which has had a devastating effect on the auto industry, Toyota finds it far more profitable to operate its numerous non-union facilities in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, and West Virginia, where the UAW has not been able to organize pro-management employees.

 

Toyota will import Corollas manufactured in Canada and Japan. Economists believe that the closing of the Fremont facility will ultimately cost 40,000 jobs in the state.

 

Gary N. Chaison, a professor at Clark University, where he teaches labor relations, stated that factory’s unionized status probably sealed its fate, according to a report in The New York Times.

 

Once again, unions are proving to be a major obstacle to our economic recovery, especially for manufacturers who operate in heavily unionized states.

 

 

 

August 7, 2009

The Ongoing Saga of Union Corruption

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 4:37 pm

 

The New York District Council of Carpenters and Joiners of America has had a sordid history. In 1990, federal officials attempted to remove mob influence within the union. In 1994, their efforts resulted in a consent decree that was followed by a court appointed corruption monitor. The New York Times has now reported that “federal authorities…announced new corruption charges on Wednesday against the union’s leader and nine other union officials and contractors. The charges include racketeering, bribery, fraud and perjury.”

A twenty-nine count indictment was issued, following a lengthy investigation by the FBI, the Department of Labor, and Manhattan prosecutors. It alleges that union officials accepted $1 million in bribes to permit contractors to pay below union scale benefits and hire non-union and illegal alien workers, and to forego payments to union benefit funds.

We were further reminded of union corruption this week when we learned of the death of Budd Schulberg, who wrote one of the greatest screenplays ever filmed about union corruption, On The Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando and Karl Malden, who also recently died.

With a pro-union administration in Washington and with the likely passage of the Employee Free Choice Act on the horizon, unions will again be in a position where they can take advantage of workers and corporations. It will be a lose-lose situation for everyone, except – of course – for the unions and their political enablers.

 

July 31, 2009

EFCA’s Binding Arbitration: Down the Road to Ruin

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 3:58 pm

As we recently reported, the congress may remove card check from the Employee Free Choice Act, but it will still keep binding arbitration. With pro-union arbitrators making final decisions on union contracts, Corporate America will be facing one the most destructive challenges to collective bargaining.

If a company and union cannot come to an agreement, then a government appointed arbitrator will step in and make a decision for a first contract. In effect, someone who has little or no knowledge or experience about how a particular company is run will make a decision that will have far reaching financial consequences. This may have been exactly what organized labor wanted all along; in other words, card checks was a red herring, for binding arbitration will deliver precisely the results that unions want to obtain.

Binding arbitration may be used by a company and union to settle a specific individual dispute, but when it is used to determine an entire contract, the effects can be devastating. Salaries, wage and hour issues, medical insurance, length of paid vacations, seniority, could all be decided by a single arbitrator!

If Corporate America hopes to defeat the provision for binding arbitration in the Employee Free Choice Act, it must continue lobbying congress. If the unions succeed in making binding arbitration the focal point of the ACT, they will have set many companies on a fast-paced trip down a road to ruination.

June 19, 2009

Congress Keeps On Truckin’

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 12:42 pm

Congress is determined to promote the unionization of FedEx Express drivers by passing a bill that would change the labor status of those drivers. Rather than operating under the Railway Labor Act, FedEx Express would have to operate under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Under the rules of the Railway Labor Act, drivers can only join a union if there is national vote. Under the rules of the NLRA, however, drivers could vote to join unions in individual geographical areas.

Once the bill is passed by the Senate, union organizers will encourage drivers to vote for union representation, and it is likely that the majority of workers will do so. Should that occur, the labor costs for FedEx (where many drivers are independent contractors who own their routes) would skyrocket. In addition, the competitive edge that FedEx enjoys vis-à-vis UPS would vanish, for all UPS drivers operate under the NLRA.

It’s not surprising that UPS has been lobbying Congress to get FedEx Express classified under the NLRA.

FedEx is fighting back by accusing UPS on its website BrownBailout.com, that the federal government, in effect, is giving UPS a government bailout by supporting a change of rules for FedEx drivers. U.P.S. and the Teamsters union, however, have denied the accusations of FedEx and are planning a PR campaign to the present their point of view. The Teamsters represent about 240,000 UPS workers.

 

This is just another example of a Democratic congress doing the bidding of organized labor, and it portends bad times for Corporate America.