US Treasury Trove?

US Treasury Trove?

[media-credit id=7 align="alignleft" width="300"][/media-credit]President Barack Obama’s former auto industry adviser and two former Treasury Department officials cracked at the last minute before a House oversight committee subcommittee hearing and agreed to stop stonewalling an investigation into alleged union favoritism during the administration’s General Motors bailout, the Daily Caller reports. Observers expect the documents to be a treasure trove of information on how the administration used the bailout to reward their big labor buddies at the expense of taxpayers and workers. The Caller continues: Ron Bloom, Obama’s former auto czar, and former Treasury officials Matt Feldman and Harry Wilson have refused to give interviews to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) about their roles in topping up pensions for union workers while non-union workers lost nearly their entire pensions. The Treasury Department’s actions during the auto bailout caused 20,000 non-union workers from Delphi to lose most of their pensions. Delphi, a GM company, is one of the largest automotive parts manufacturers in the world. Its workers lost their pensions when the government bailed out GM. While those non-union Delphi workers lost nearly their entire pensions, United Auto Workers union members’ pensions were topped off and made whole. While Feldman, Bloom and Wilson have maintained they think no preferential treatment was given to the unions during the bailout, emails The Daily Caller obtained in June 2011 show senior officials corresponding with senior GM officials on how to make certain decisions regarding who was going to win and who was going to lose.
Union Bosses And Senate Democrats Try to Stop Worker Pay Raises

Union Bosses And Senate Democrats Try to Stop Worker Pay Raises

Sen. Marco Rubio writes on the pages of National Review about the RAISE Act, legislation that would permit an employer to award individual employees with financial incentives beyond the pay or compensation level specified in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA): The basis of the American Dream is that one can work hard, play by the rules, and realize one’s potential. But big-government policies deny this freedom to millions of Americans. One of these policies can be fixed when the Senate votes on the RAISE Act later today. Under federal law, private-sector union contracts do not just set the minimum wage employers pay, they also set the maximum wage. Businesses may not pay more than the union rate without negotiating it. Unfortunately, unions often say “No” when employers propose rewarding productive workers. Unions prefer contracts that, to quote Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, “create uniform standards for all employees” — no matter how hard they work. Only about one in five union contracts permit performance pay.
Why Illinois is Going Broke

Why Illinois is Going Broke

The Chicago Tribune has published a remarkable editorial about the depth of coercive unionization has taken hold among government employees in the state: Across the country, union membership has plunged during the last few decades. Just 6.9 percent of the private-sector workforce is in a labor union today. Organized labor is stronger in the public sector, with unions representing 37 percent of the government workforce. And then there is Illinois. Try to find a state worker who isn't in a union. It's almost impossible. Nearly 96 percent of the state government workforce is unionized. Yes, almost everybody. Bosses, middle managers, front-line workers. Gov. Pat Quinn exacerbated the situation by cutting an election-year deal in 2010 with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The deal guaranteed union workers would not be laid off through June 2012. That meant nonunion workers got stuck with forced furlough days, layoffs and no pay raises. In some cases, they watched the union employees who worked beneath them pass them up on the pay scale. (Recall that, as the ink was drying on this agreement, AFSCME rewarded Quinn with its election endorsement. Don't you love coincidences? Those moments when like-minded people find one another?)
Big Labor Wall Crumbling in California?

Big Labor Wall Crumbling in California?

California is a long ways off from becoming a Right to Work state as the union bosses hold incredible sway over elected officials throughout the state. But Forbes' Joel Kotkin argues a new reform wind is blowing that threatens the old way of doing business: As with the old party bosses in Russia, [Jerry] Brown’s distinct lack of courage has only worsened California’s lurch toward fiscal and economic disaster. Yet as the budget woes worsen, other Californians, including some Democrats, are beginning to recognize the need for perestroika in the Golden State. This was most evident in the overwhelming vote last week in two key cities, San Diego and San Jose, to reform public employee pensions, a huge reversal after decades of ever more expansive public union power in the state. California’s “progressive” approach has been enshrined in what is essentially a one-party state that is almost Soviet in its rigidity and inability to adapt to changing conditions. With conservatives, most businesses and taxpayer advocates marginalized, California politics has become the plaything of three powerful interest groups: public-sector unions, the Bay Area/Silicon Valley elite and the greens. Their agendas, largely unrestrained by serious opposition, have brought this great state to its knees. California’s ruling troika has been melded by a combination of self-interest and a common ideology. Their ruling tenets center on support for an ever more intrusive, and expensive, state apparatus; the need to turn California into an Ecotopian green state; and a shared belief that the “genius” of Silicon Valley can pay for all of this. Now this world view is foundering on the rocks of economic reality. Californians suffer from a combination of high taxes and intrusive regulation coupled with a miserable education system — the state’s students now rank 47th in science achievement — and a rapidly deteriorating infrastructure.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's Union Only PLA Squashed

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's Union Only PLA Squashed

From Virginia State Senator Mark D. Obenshain: Big Labor must be reeling after the one-two punch they just received-first they were pummeled in Wisconsin and now organized labor has beat a major retreat here in Virginia. On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) finally took Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) off the table for the Dulles Rail project, voting 11-1 to scrap PLA incentives for bidders. But let's not mince words: these weren't just run-of-the mill "incentives"; they were a bid scoring bonus that would have effectively made the project union-only, locking out Virginia's non-unionized contractors. Virginia is a Right to Work state with a 96% non-union workforce. The Project Labor Agreement that MWAA wanted would have run up costs and limited competition, to the great disadvantage of Virginia companies and Virginia workers. Earlier this year, I patroned SB 242, legislation prohibiting state agencies and recipients of state assistance from mandating PLAs for Virginia and Virginia-assisted construction projects. The bill passed both chambers and has been signed by Governor McDonnell.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's Union Only PLA Squashed

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority's Union Only PLA Squashed

From Virginia State Senator Mark D. Obenshain: Big Labor must be reeling after the one-two punch they just received-first they were pummeled in Wisconsin and now organized labor has beat a major retreat here in Virginia. On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) finally took Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) off the table for the Dulles Rail project, voting 11-1 to scrap PLA incentives for bidders. But let's not mince words: these weren't just run-of-the mill "incentives"; they were a bid scoring bonus that would have effectively made the project union-only, locking out Virginia's non-unionized contractors. Virginia is a Right to Work state with a 96% non-union workforce. The Project Labor Agreement that MWAA wanted would have run up costs and limited competition, to the great disadvantage of Virginia companies and Virginia workers. Earlier this year, I patroned SB 242, legislation prohibiting state agencies and recipients of state assistance from mandating PLAs for Virginia and Virginia-assisted construction projects. The bill passed both chambers and has been signed by Governor McDonnell.
Big Labor Flying Too Close to the Sun

Big Labor Flying Too Close to the Sun

Fox All Star and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer discusses the meaning of the Wisconsin recall election and how taxpayers have finally had enough of Big Labor's power and pocketbook grabs while union bosses claimed mythical societal benefits arose from forced-dues: Tuesday, June 5, 2012, will be remembered as the beginning of the long decline of the public-sector union. It will follow, and parallel, the shrinking of private-sector unions, now down to less than 7 percent of American workers. The abject failure of the unions to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) — the first such failure in U.S. history — marks the Icarus moment of government-union power. Wax wings melted, there’s nowhere to go but down. The ultimate significance of Walker’s union reforms has been largely misunderstood. At first, the issue was curtailing outrageous union benefits, far beyond those of the ordinary Wisconsin taxpayer. That became a nonissue when the unions quickly realized that trying to defend the indefensible would render them toxic for the real fight to come. But as the recall campaign progressed, the Democrats stopped talking about bargaining rights. It was a losing issue. Walker was able to make the case that years of corrupt union-politician back-scratching had been bankrupting the state. The real threat behind all this, however, was that the new law ended automatic government collection of union dues. That was the unexpressed and politically inexpressible issue. That was the reason the unions finally decided to gamble on a high-risk recall. Without the thumb of the state tilting the scale by coerced collection, union membership became truly voluntary. Result? Newly freed members rushed for the exits. In less than one year, -AFSCME, the second-largest public-sector union in Wisconsin, has lost more than 50 percent of its membership.