Unionsweep:AfterbecomingRTWstate,Michiganincomes

Unions weep: After becoming RTW state, Michigan incomes rise

posted at 12:31 pm on July 27, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

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Hey, do you remember when Michigan shocked the nation and became a right to work state in 2012? That was supposed to usher in the end of the world, at least in the view of union leaders and their Democrat water carriers. As Thomas Lifson reminds us at The American Thinker, the predictions were nigh on to apocalyptic.

“There will be blood, there will be repercussions,” State Democratic Rep. Douglas Geiss, speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, warned ahead of the votes.

And of course, there were predictions of disaster for the “little guy” as ruthless bosses would exploit the defenseless workers.

Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said that right-to-work legislation would lower employee wages.

Those poor, poor Michigan workers. One can only imagine how they must be struggling two years later after the nasty, wingnut conservatives threw them to the corporate wolves. So… how’s that working out?

Michigan’s per-capita personal income increased from $38,291 in 2012 (before right-to-work became law) to $39,215 in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. That increase was the ninth highest in the country. (snip)

“The dire predictions of right-to-work detractors have not come true — Michigan has been a leader in income growth since passage,” said James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

A study released this week by Richard Vedder, a distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute as well as with the Mackinac Center, found that “incomes rise following the passage of RTW laws, even after adjusting for substantial population growth that those laws also induce. RTW states tend to be vibrant and growing; non-RTW states tend to be stagnant and aging.”

I agree with Lifson that this isn’t a straight forward, apples to apples comparison. In an open, capitalist system there are a wide variety of factors which go into determining wages. These can include outside factors beyond the control of both industry and the state government, particularly in an interconnected, global marketplace. The study estimates that average wages might be $3K per year higher today had the unions not had their thumb on the scale, but that figure may be off a bit, either higher or lower. But overall, the trend still tends to bend in one direction or the other, and in Michigan’s case the trend is toward more competition and higher wages.

But the workers (and the voters) should be able to take one central theme from this information and other states can take notice of it. The unions have been taking a piece of their wages for decades – sometimes against their will – and applying it to political campaign coffers and advertising campaigns rather than spending it to better the working conditions and lives of the workers. And in exchange for this pound of flesh they received… less pay.

Go forth and prosper.

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Tags: Michigan, right to work, unions

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UAWdecidestoskipelectionandformunion

UAW decides to skip election and form union at VW anyway

posted at 1:01 pm on July 12, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

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I just returned from another trip to Tennessee where I was able to catch up with a few folks from the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga and see how things were developing. The conversations there had shifted quite a bit from earlier in the year when the vote regarding UAW unionization was raging, and recent reports make it clear that the big auto union isn’t going to be content with licking their wounds from their recent loss. As Ed reported back in April, the UAW had withdrawn their request for a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board, which some saw as a sign that the fight was pretty much over.

But from what I was hearing, union organizers weren’t looking at things that way at all. There was talk of going ahead and forming an “informal” bargaining unit anyway. And now it looks like they are making it officially unofficial.

Five months after the United Auto Workers (UAW) failed in its bid to unionize Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tenn., manufacturing plant, the union is giving it another go. But this time, they’re not bothering with the traditional election route.

Instead of calling on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to administer an election, the UAW has decided to form a voluntary association called Local 42. At least initially, the group will not collectively bargain on behalf of the plant’s whole workforce, and it will not collect dues. Yet if a majority of the plant’s employees agree to join Local 42, there is a chance that Volkswagen will recognize it as the workers’ exclusive bargaining agent, granting it full union privileges without the need for an election.

“We’ve had ongoing discussions with Volkswagen and have arrived at a consensus with the company,” said UAW secretary-treasurer Gary Casteel in a statement. “Upon Local 42 signing up a meaningful portion of Volkswagen’s Chattanooga workforce, we’re confident the company will recognize Local 42 by dealing with it as a members’ union that represents those employees who join the local.”

The phrase “Local 42″ sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie where the aliens move into a local landfill, but the opinion of the UAW secretary-treasurer may be a bit on the overly optimistic side. For their part, VW simply stated that they ”have no contract or other formal agreement with UAW on this matter.” There is also no formal definition of what the UAW means when they say “a meaningful portion” of the workers there. But some of the workers, speaking to the local paper, were a bit more clear.

Mike Burton, a VW worker who opposes the union, said the UAW is wasting its time and money again.

“It’s like buying a car and leaving it at a dealership for a couple of years until you’re able to drive it,” he said, calling the UAW’s action grandstanding and “a show.”…

Mark Cunningham, of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, said the UAW will “no doubt use this camel’s nose under the tent to pressure members to join its ranks.”

“All this comes despite workers having clearly rejected the union at the ballot box in a legally binding election,” he said.

I didn’t get to speak with the VW management directly this month, but it’s not inconceivable that they might strike up some sort of agreement for talks with the new, unofficial organization. All along, VW has taken an attitude of just wanting to get some sort of “works council” in place, such as the ones established in Europe. They have no interest in having a union become an anchor around their necks and drive them into financial ruin, but they do want to establish a mechanism where workers can communicate directly with management, being able to voice concerns – particularly about worker safety and operating conditions – and provide feedback on ways to improve their processes. Of course, if they officially get in bed with the UAW, they’ll probably wind up getting a lot more than they bargained for.

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Tags: Tennessee, unions, United Auto Workers, Volkswagon

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Bad news: Hillary deeply disturbed that Supreme Court upheld statute signed into law by her husband

Badnews:HillarydeeplydisturbedthatSupremeCourt

Reid:Billionaires?Wedon’thavenostinkingbillionaires,

Reid: Billionaires? We don’t have no stinking billionaires, or something

posted at 12:41 pm on June 19, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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Aaaaaaaaa-hem. Today’s two-minute hate on Emmanuel Goldstein, er, the Koch brothers from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offers up this fact-check bait on the poverty of the Democratic Party. We need to amend the First Amendment, Reid argues, to address the Billionaire-Balance of Power. Call this Cowboy B-BOP instead of cowboy poetry, if you will:

Well, every cowboy sings a sad, sad song, but not usually one as laughably false as this. (Okay, El Paso might qualify.) Let’s not forget that Reid essentially rented out the Senate for an evening to billionaire activist Tom Steyer to promote action on global warming that Democrats weren’t taking anyway. They’ve lined up deep pockets in Hollywood for decades, plus tons of money from the unions, which occupy the top slots for outside-money in election cycle after election cycle. Crying poverty now on the Senate floor is Reid’s version of Hillary Clinton’s claim to have been “dead broke” in 2001.

Coincidentally, Matt Bai wrote a pre-emptive takedown of this very argument earlier today:

So you’re a liberal member of the 1 percent, and you’ve decided to wrest control of the Democratic agenda from change-averse insiders. You want to free the capital from the grip of powerful interest groups. You want to inspire a new set of policies to help America meet the challenges of a fast-transforming economy. Where do you turn for leadership and innovation?

To the teachers union, of course!

At least that’s how it seems to have played out at the Democracy Alliance, the group of superrich Democrats who have funneled more than half a billion dollars into liberal groups over the past decade. Earlier this month, the alliance announced that John Stocks, executive director of the National Education Association, would become the chairman of its board. …

The Silicon Valley and Wall Street contributors who were most focused on modernization started to drift away, exhausted by the endless conference calls and the knee-jerk resistance to any rethinking of the liberal agenda. The remaining “partners,” as the alliance calls them, were overwhelmingly aging boomers who clung to 1960s orthodoxies.

Eventually, the alliance became, essentially, a convener and funder of the party establishment. It welcomed several big unions to the table and took up side collections for candidates. And now it’s formalized that role by electing Stocks as its chairman, replacing Rob McKay, heir to the Taco Bell fortune.

Be sure to read it all, as Bai criticizes both the hypocrisy of currying favor with One Percenters in the midst of Kochsteria, but also the betrayal of innovation by the decision to suck up to the unions rather than outside-the-box thinkers. Reid is making his bid for the most hypocritical and dishonest demagogue in Washington history, and that’s really an ambitious bid indeed.

Update: Harry Reid, your PAC is on the red emergency line:

In April, billionaire liberal mega-donor Tom Steyer dumped $5 million into Harry Reid’s Senate Majority PAC. The PAC reported receipts of $5.7 million from April 17 to April 30 — almost all of which came from the liberal mega-donor. This donation was twice as large as the one given to the PAC by fellow billionaire Michael Bloomberg earlier this year.

Other notable billionaires who back Democrats include: George Soros, Warren Buffet, Stephen Spielberg, Haim Saban, etc.

“Your winnings, sir!”

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Tags: demagoguery, George Soros, Harry Reid, Koch Brothers, Kochsteria, Thomas Steyer, unions

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London,Paris,Madrid:Taxidriversaroundtheworld

London, Paris, Madrid: Taxi drivers around the world are protesting innovation, competition

posted at 8:51 pm on June 11, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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If innovative and wildly successful ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft — which ingeniously allow customers to hail and pay for a GPS-traceable taxi cab through a smartphone app — have been facing regulatory hurdles and legal challenges in Washington, D.C. and New York City, they’re practically nothing compared to the veritable war European taxi drivers and unions are waging to thwart them.

With even larger bureaucracies, more under-the-table corruption and cronyism, farther-reaching regulations and the accompanying capture, more expensive taxes, and more inflexible labor laws, the good ol’ fashioned free-market competition that these new businesses are dishing out is an excellent and rapidly unfolding test of Europe’s willingness to either accept partial creative destruction as the growth-positive force that it is — or else allow their economy/economies to continue to languish in stagnation mode.

But the entrenched taxi businesses will not be going gently into that good night. Via Reuters:

Taxi drivers sowed traffic chaos in Europe’s top cities on Wednesday by mounting one of the biggest ever protests against Uber, a U.S. car service which allows people to summon rides at the touch of a button.

Drivers of hundreds of London’s black taxis snarled traffic in the streets around Trafalgar Square, hooting their horns as they passed Downing Street, the home of Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Houses of Parliament.

In Paris, taxi drivers slowed traffic on major arteries into the city centre during the morning commute. In Berlin hundreds choked the main road to the city’s historic centre while commuters juggled buses and trains, or simply walked, to get to work in Madrid and Barcelona. …

“This about an all out assault on our profession, our livelihoods,” said Max Small, a driver of one of London’s black taxis for 34 years. “These big companies are coming in, not playing by the rules.”

Taxi drivers across Europe level a variety of charges against Uber: that its applications break local taxi rules; that its drivers fail to comply with local insurance rules; and that it is therefore in breach of licensing and safety regulations.

You know, there might very well be something to the argument that new enterprises like Uber have an unfair advantage because they are managing to work outside of many European countries’ innovation-killing Procrustean bed of antiquated, prohibitive regulations, while traditional taxi drivers have to pay for expensive leases and medallions and training certifications and whatever other barriers to entry they’ve come up with over the years. Perhaps what they should be protesting, then, are those prohibitive regulations themselves, because their attempt to disparage new enterprises today… kind of backfired. Oops.

Taxi-hailing app Uber saw sign-ups jump to record levels on Wednesday, following a rush of publicity as cab drivers across Europe went on strike to protest against the company.

Marketing experts described the strike as an “own goal”, after Uber said there had been an 850 percent increase in sign-ups compared to last Wednesday. …

Andre Spicer, professor of organisational behavior at Cass Business School, described the strike as “PR gold” for Uber.

“It’s an own goal. Uber is top of everyone’s minds. Lots of people who have never heard of the app before now know what Uber is,” he told CNBC.

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Tags: big government, Europe, innovation, jobs, labor, regulations, taxi, technology, unions

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Wow: California judge strikes down tenure for public-school teachers as violating students’ right to quality education

Wow:Californiajudgestrikesdowntenureforpublic-school

TheVirginiaDMVjustissuedacease-and-desistto

The Virginia DMV just issued a cease-and-desist to ostensibly illegal taxi companies, a.k.a. Uber, Lyft

posted at 6:41 pm on June 5, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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I’ve always liked living in Virginia because it’s a state that, in my humble opinion, generally has its head screwed on at least relatively straight in terms of taxes, regulations, budgets, and overall business climate. It has its flaws (and its unfortunately growing purplishness, ugh), of course, but in matters both state and municipal it typically displays plenty of good common sense.

Until now, evidently. I never imagined that we would descend to the progressive depths of France, or London, or New York City, or Washington, D.C. because of a bunch of bass-ackwards regulations that protect established businesses from good ol’ fashioned free-market competition, but here we are. This is an embarrassment.

Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles sent cease and desist orders today to Lyft and Uber, telling the two ride services that they must stop operating in violation of state law or face fines against their part-time drivers.

The DMV had already issued civil penalties against the companies in April — $26,000 for Uber and $9,000 for Lyft — for trips that their drivers provided in Virginia despite warnings by the state agency that Virginia law does not allow their business model. …

The DMV is studying Virginia’s motor carrier laws with an eye toward legislative changes next year that could allow Lyft and Uber to legally operate in the state. Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne said last week that he liked the companies’ business models, but until the law is changed, they are violating it. …

In the cease and desist letters, DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb told representatives for both companies that he is “once again making clear” that they must stop operating in Virginia until they get the proper authority.

What, exactly, are “passenger carrier laws” — or, for that matter, any gratuitous professional licensing requirements — good for? …Not much, except imposing prohibitive regulatory burdens on entrepreneurs and innovative newcomers and thereby protecting entrenched rent-seekers as well as their higher prices. In the long run, everybody loses, and in the meantime, the DMV is trying to deprive smartphone-wielding Virginians of an excellent, efficient, and explosively popular service that allows them to avoid having to wait out on dark street corners, hastily calculate cash tips, or fight over the proffered credit card machines with shady cab drivers.

I’m disappointed in you, Virginia.

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Tags: business, regulations, taxi, unions, Virginia

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TheVirginiaDMVjustissuedacease-and-desistto

The Virginia DMV just issued a cease-and-desist to ostensibly illegal taxi companies,” a.k.a. Uber, Lyft

posted at 6:41 pm on June 5, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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I’ve always liked living in Virginia because it’s a state that, in my humble opinion, generally has its head screwed on at least relatively straight in terms of taxes, regulations, budgets, and overall business climate. It has its flaws (and its unfortunately growing purplishness), of course, but in matters both state and municipal it typically displays plenty of good common sense.

Until now, evidently. I never imagined that we would descend to the progressive depths of France, or London, New York City, or Washington, D.C. because of a bunch of bass-ackwards regulations that protect established businesses from good ol’ fashioned free-market competition, but here we are. This is an embarrassment.

Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles sent cease and desist orders today to Lyft and Uber, telling the two ride services that they must stop operating in violation of state law or face fines against their part-time drivers.

The DMV had already issued civil penalties against the companies in April — $26,000 for Uber and $9,000 for Lyft — for trips that their drivers provided in Virginia despite warnings by the state agency that Virginia law does not allow their business model. …

The DMV is studying Virginia’s motor carrier laws with an eye toward legislative changes next year that could allow Lyft and Uber to legally operate in the state. Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne said last week that he liked the companies’ business models, but until the law is changed, they are violating it. …

In the cease and desist letters, DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb told representatives for both companies that he is “once again making clear” that they must stop operating in Virginia until they get the proper authority.

What, exactly, are “passenger carrier laws” — or, for that matter, any gratuitous professional licensing requirements — good for? …Not much, except imposing prohibitive regulatory burdens on entrepreneurs and innovative newcomers and thereby protecting entrenched rent-seekers as well as their higher prices. In the long run, everybody loses, and in the meantime, the DMV is trying to deprive smartphone-wielding Virginians of an excellent, efficient, and explosively popular service that allows them to avoid having to wait out on dark street corners, hastily calculate cash tips, or fight over the proffered credit card machines with shady cab drivers.

I’m disappointed in you, Virginia.

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LaborunionsnonetoohappywiththeObama

Labor unions none too happy with the Obama administration’s new emissions regulations

posted at 8:01 pm on June 2, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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The Obama administration knew that it wasn’t going to get applause from all of its fellow Democrats on the regulations released by the Environmental Protection Agency this morning — and not only did officials not expect any, they even gave Congressional Democrats their implicit blessing on the issue. Via Reuters:

Democrats in Republican-leaning states have a simple strategy for dealing with President Barack Obama’s upcoming power plant restrictions before the mid-term elections: Fight them, with the White House’s blessing.

The new rules, popular with the Democratic Party’s base, are one of Obama’s highest domestic priorities for his second term. …

So, the White House is turning a blind eye to attacks from within the party, despite the importance of the regulations to Obama’s agenda and post-presidential legacy.

“We understand that there are going to be Democrats in these states that oppose it and are perfectly prepared that that’s going to happen,” one White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We don’t agree, but we don’t have a problem with it.”

The White House’s apparent political nonchalance about the divisive regulations don’t make them any more welcome for the not-so-merry band of vulnerable Congressional Democrats, several of whom tried to convince the EPA to delay them for a few more cltuch months — and less welcome still, I imagine, are the monetary losses they might sustain from some of their biggest traditional campaign donors. Via the WFB:

United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) president Cecil Roberts blasted the proposal, saying it would leave tens of thousands of the union’s members unemployed.

“The proposed rule … will lead to long-term and irreversible job losses for thousands of coal miners, electrical workers, utility workers, boilermakers, railroad workers and others without achieving any significant reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions,” Roberts said in a statement.

According to a UMWA analysis, Roberts said, the rule will cause 75,000 job losses in the coal sector by 2020, rising to 152,000 by 2035.

“When a U.S. government economic multiplier used to calculate the impact of job losses is applied to the entire economy, we estimate that the total impact will be about 485,000 permanent jobs lost,” Roberts said. …

The regulations also drew fire on Monday from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which warned they “focus solely on the environmental aspect of public policy at the expense of balancing our nation’s economic and energy needs.”

Perhaps the White House is hoping that the major demonstration of Climate Change Seriousness they can now offer to the environmentalist lobby will make the juice worth the squeeze, and perhaps individual Democrats are hoping that they can demonstrate enough anti-Obama/regulations sentiments that they’ll still get their donations from labor unions, but it’s no wonder these guys are upset. As the EPA states in their own language, the goal of these regulations is to completely do away with at least a handful of the country’s coal-fired power plants — which means a forced and accelerated market transition that will definitely result in job losses.

Here’s a key paragraph from the agency’s regulatory analysis released Monday alongside the rule: “Relative to the base case, about 30 to 49 GW of coal-fired capacity is projected to be uneconomic to maintain (about 12 percent to 19 percent of all coal-fired capacity projected to be in service in the base case) by 2020 under the range of scenarios analyzed.”

And here’s a key forecast in the rule itself: “EPA projects coal production for use by the power sector, a large component of total coal production, will decline by roughly 25 to 27 percent in 2020 from base case levels. The use of coal by the power sector will decrease roughly 30 to 32 percent in 2030.”

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Tags: Big Labor, coal, Democrats, Obama administration, regulations, unions, White House

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Walker’sgubernatorialopponentinWisconsinnotevenbothering

Walker’s gubernatorial opponent in Wisconsin not even bothering to campaign on restoring union benefits

posted at 9:31 pm on April 30, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

It’s certainly no secret that Big Labor has slowly but surely been losing what was once its unassailable clout in various regions across the country: Union membership has been on the decline for decades; Michigan became the country’s 24th right-to-work state in 2012 despite some fierce resistance; and in Wisconsin, even state Democrats aren’t even remotely looking to reprise the gigantic Labor tussle that boosted incumbent Gov. Scott Walker to national fame in 2011 as a potential strategy for unseating him this fall. Via the WSJ:

Ms. [Mary] Burke sticks to a bread-and-butter argument that job growth has faltered under Mr. Walker. She talks up her business credentials as a former executive at her family’s business, Trek Bicycle Corp. But Ms. Burke largely steers clear of the 2011 law championed by Mr. Walker that drew tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol in Madison while coming to define the governor’s tenure.

As Democrats see it, there is no realistic path to victory over Mr. Walker in November by building a campaign around restoring Wisconsin’s public-employee unions to their former status. That fight has been fought—and lost, many Democrats said. …

Underscoring the new political calculus in Wisconsin, Ms. Burke is waging a campaign that parts ways in important respects from one of the most reliable pieces of the Democratic coalition: organized labor. She doesn’t say she would repeal the law, called Act 10. Nor does she favor lifting the requirements that many public employees contribute more to health and pension benefits.

“I think it’s only reasonable,” said Ms. Burke, 54 years old, the leading candidate in the Democratic field. Instead, she said she would work to reinstate collective-bargaining rights that were rolled back.

Unions are still some of the biggest campaign contributors in the country, but Americans in general are increasingly looking at Big Labor as just another special-interest group out to get theirs — often at the expense of not only the overall economy but even their own workers.

Tags: Big Labor, Democrats, Scott Walker, unions, Wisconsin

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Oh,snap:UnionchiefcallsObama’sKeystoneXL

Oh, snap: Union chief calls Obama’s Keystone XL delay “gutless,” “no example of profiles in courage”

posted at 1:21 pm on April 21, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Sure, approving the Keystone XL pipeline would alienate a small but deep-pocketed sect of the Democratic base, leaving President Obama and his party without that particular battalion of influential donors and infuriating its activists into a probably well-publicized frenzy — but not approving the pipeline is liable to have the some of the same effects with a different heavily-donating wing of the party.

When the Obama administration announced yet another through-the-upcoming-election delay of the embattled project on Friday, using the legal holdup on the ground in Nebraska as their entirely lame excuse, Big Labor was evidently none too amused. Via the WFB:

Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers International Union of America (LIUNA), called the move “gutless” and a “low blow to the working men and women of our country.” …

“The administration is delaying a finding on whether the pipeline is in the national interest based on months-old litigation in Nebraska regarding a state level challenge to a state process—and which has nothing to with the national interest,” he said in a Friday statement.

O’Sullivan’s union represents many workers who would be employed in the construction phases of the project.

“It’s not the oil that’s dirty, it’s the politics,” he wrote.

“Once again, the administration is making a political calculation instead of doing what is right for the country. This certainly is no example of profiles in courage. It’s clear the administration needs to grow a set of antlers, or perhaps take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach.”

Not mincing words there, eh? I don’t know if this means that Big Labor will actually pull any money from the sort of vulnerable red-state Democrats who have come out swinging in favor of the pipeline or not, but I doubt it bodes well for any donations to bluer, anti-pipeline Dems — although it might not even matter. The eco-radical contingent of the party was pretty jazzed with President Obama’s non-decision, and billionaire Tom Steyer and his like-minded minions might have enough cash to make up any differences of their own accord:

The Koch brothers may get the media attention, but the billionaire getting the most political bang for his buck is Tom Steyer. The hedge-fund politico has pledged to raise $100 million to help Democrats keep the Senate, and on Friday he received a major return on his investment when the State Department again delayed its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. …

So Senate Democrats get to have it both ways. They can benefit this year from the riches of Mr. Steyer, who pronounced himself well pleased by the delay. But they can also run in support of the XL pipeline and the thousands of new jobs it would create. Then President Obama can formally nix it next year.

Tags: Barack Obama, Big Labor, energy, Keystone XL Pipeline, Obama administration, politics, unions

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MediaMattersnotsuper-keenonSEIUunionizingits

Media Matters not super-keen on SEIU unionizing its employees

posted at 10:01 pm on April 17, 2014 by Mary Katharine Ham

One for the hypocrisy hall of fame:

Media Matters for America is apparently resisting an effort by Service Employees International Union Local 500 to unionize its staff.

Last week, the union filed a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board, indicating that the nonprofit media watchdog organization rejected an effort by the union to organize MMFA’s staff through a Card Check election.

A filing with the NLRB does not necessarily mean that the union and management are in direct confrontation. For example, although Volkswagen tacitly backed the United Auto Workers’ recent effort to organize its Chattanooga, Tenn., plant, the company still insisted on an NLRB-monitored election.

Media Matters has retained a law firm whose focus is representing management in labor disputes. It’s forcing its employees into a secret-ballot election, which is the kind of vote card-check proponents like the good folks at Media Matters decry whenever Republicans insist it’s important to maintain.

It is unclear why Media Matters did not opt to allow its employees to organize through a card check campaign, in which a union submits signed petitions from employees expressing their interest to join the union. MMFA, its attorneys, and the SEIU did not return requests for comment.

Media Matters has a long record of slamming Republicans and conservatives who want to protect secret ballot union elections.

The organization published multiple pieces celebrating the Democrat’s so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize through card check campaigns and prevent employers from forcing a secret ballot election.

Media Matters researcher Meagan Hatcher-Mays took to the organization’s blog to criticize “a wave of Republican anti-union legislation [that] has placed obstacles between workers and union representatives and disrupted opportunities for workplace productivity.”

The “obstacles” Media Matters is more than happy to employ when its own employees start exercising the rights Media Matters advocates. We can all hope maybe someone over there will go on strike.

Tags: David Brock, media matters, seiu, unions

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UnioncampaigncashmayfundYee’sdefense

Union campaign cash may fund Yee’s defense

posted at 2:01 pm on April 1, 2014 by Mike Antonucci

I don’t know if the FBI got back the envelope of cash it used to bribe California state senator Leland Yee, but hundreds of people and organizations won’t get back the money they donated to Yee’s campaign for Secretary of State. The law allows such contributions to be used for a legal defense fund. This is bad news for a whole lot of California unions, such as:

California Federation of Teachers

California School Employees Association

California Faculty Association

United Domestic Workers of America

California Nurses Association

AFSCME Local 3299

International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 16

Teamsters Local 665

Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 467

District Council of Iron Workers

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 6

Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake Counties Building Construction Trades Council

San Francisco Fire Fighters

International Union of Painters and Allied Trades

Operating Engineers Local 3

Amalgamated Transit Union

But unions aren’t the only ones who will see their money paying for Yee’s lawyers. He also received contributions from Facebook and the Hustler Casino.

Tags: California, Leland Yee, unions

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NorthwesternUniversityfootballplayerstoreceivematernitycoverage

Northwestern University football players to receive maternity coverage under Obamacare

posted at 3:31 pm on March 30, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

Some weekends, the stories just seem to write themselves. You probably heard by now that the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB), in their infinite wisdom, put the stamp of approval on college football players being treated as full time employees with the right to unionize. Well, I suppose everything comes with a few unintended consequences, as reported by Rare.

Northwestern University became the first school in the nation to deem its football players full-time employees, thus making them eligible for union representation and health insurance benefits including maternity coverage.

On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 13 director Peter Sung Ohr approved the players as employees of the school based on four prerequisite clauses. The team will now have the opportunity to vote on whether they want to unionize and join the College Athletes Players Association, according to Sports Blog Nation.

The kicker is that under Obamacare, the Evanston, Ill.-based team, comprised of more than 50 “employees,” is considered a “large employer” and Northwestern must provide pregnancy-related health care for the all-male team.

This is just fabulous. Of course, we probably should have anticipated that things like this would begin cropping up the moment we decided to take college students and transfer their status to that of employee because the college might be profiting from their activities. Sally Jenkins approaches the question from the 10,000 foot level.

Colter and his peers aren’t laborers due compensation; they are highly privileged scholarship winners who get a lot of valuable stuff for free. This includes first-rate training in the habits of high achievement, cool gear, unlimited academic tutoring for gratis and world-class medical care that no one else has access to. All of which was put into perspective by Michigan State basketball Coach Tim Izzo when he was asked about the ruling at the NCAA tournament East Region semifinals in New York.

“I think sometimes we take rights to a whole new level,” Izzo said. “ . . . I think there’s a process in rights. And you earn that. We always try to speed the process up. I said to my guys, ‘There’s a reason you have to be 35 to be president.’ That’s the way I look at it.”

Other questions remain to be answered. If the field hockey team has less than fifty players, does that make them a small business? If so, they may already qualify for some sort of exemption or mandate delay from Barack Obama. (Or, if not, one should be coming along shortly.) But the field hockey team doesn’t generate any money, so maybe that makes them a non-profit corporation. In that case, the IRS should be checking into their status shortly and denying them a needed classification. And what of the cheerleaders? They’re probably as much a part of the “team” as anyone else out there, and they are almost entirely women. Sure, they might be able to use the Obamacare maternity services a bit more, but now we have to discuss the unpleasant fact that cheerleaders are making WAY less than 77 cents on the dollar compared to the male players when they both reach the NFL.

The NLRB has certainly woven a tangled web here. None of it, however, can possibly explain how the Jets wound up signing Michael Vick. But that’s a subject for Ed and I to debate next September.

Tags: NCAA football, NLRB, ObamaCare, unions

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Source from: hotair

Quinn:A$10/hourminimumwageisaprinciple

Quinn: A $10/hour minimum wage is a principle as old as the Bible

posted at 6:41 pm on March 21, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Despite his clumsy expression, I’m going to go ahead and venture that, yes, most Republicans would probably agree with Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn that a person that works a solid forty hours per week at an honest, productive job should not have to live in poverty. That’s precisely why it would be nice if hiking the minimum wage was actually a constructive way to boost employment, median incomes, and economic growth, instead of an counterproductive and intellectually cheap populist band-aid. Via NRO:

Taking up the Democrats’ national strategy, it looks like Quinn is hoping to make the minimum wage a central issue in his own reelection campaign and is hoping to get the state measure passed — an especially popular issue with Big Labor, and Quinn is going to need all of their support he can get. He has some of the lowest approval ratings of any governor in the country, and it looks like the newly nominated Republican businessman Bruce Rauner is going to give him quite the run for his money and perhaps some Scott-Walker-ish competition, via Eliana Johnson:

Rauner set unions on edge during the primary campaign, criticizing their leaders and pledging to reform the state’s bankrupt pension system. “The government-union bosses are at the core of our spending problem in Illinois,” he said in a primary debate, arguing public unions create a “conflict of interest for the taxpayers” and have made a mess of the state fisc.

Rauner’s targets didn’t take it lying down: The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and the Democratic Governors Association spent north of $3 million attacking him and trying to divert votes to one of Rauner’s primary opponents, state senator Kirk Dillard.

That’s far more than Democrats spent — $1.2 million — trying to steer Republican votes to Todd Akin in the 2012 Senate primary in Missouri, where Akin was viewed as the weakest candidate to take on vulnerable Democrat Claire McCaskill.

Tags: Democrats, employment, Illinois, minimum wage, Pat Quinn, poverty, unions

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Source from: hotair