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Capitol Hill's 'Lame Ducks' Are Dangerous

Capitol Hill's 'Lame Ducks' Are Dangerous

(Source: September 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Since forced-unionism cheerleader Barack Obama became President in January 2009, Big Labor bosses and their yes-men in the U.S. Congress have helped him inflict a lot of damage on employees, businesses, and taxpayers across America. To take just the latest example, last month union puppet politicians in the Senate and House rubber-stamped a special-interest measure (H.R.1586) that will ultimately extract an additional $10 billion from beleaguered private-sector employees and businesses to maintain and expand wasteful unionized government payrolls. From 1998 to 2007, the number of instructional employees at K-12 public schools nationwide soared by 15.9% -- an increase 3.5 times greater than the 4.5% growth in school enrollment over the same period. The rapid-fire expansion of school payrolls, roughly 70% of which are unionized, produced no measurable improvement in educational outcomes, but cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. And the terms on which H.R.1586 piles on another $10 billion are expressly designed to ensure that currently strapped states do not pare back the past decade of teacher union boss-driven growth in K-12 payrolls in order to avoid increasing the burden on taxpaying individuals and businesses. On August 11, just one day after the House had okayed H.R.1586, President Obama signed it into law. Big Labor Bosses Still Far From Satisfied
AFL-CIO Blinks

AFL-CIO Blinks

During the health care debate, the union bosses of the AFl-CIO made bold threats to House Democrats -- vote against ObamaCare and we will sit on our hands during your re-election battle.  As Miss Emily Letella on Saturday Night Live used to say, "Nevermind." With many of their congressional water carriers struggling for their political lives, the AFL-CIO backed of their threat putting power before principle. The Hill reports: The AFL-CIO released its first round of mailers in support of endangered Democrats this week. In it, the union sought to bolster Rep. Zack Space’s (D-Ohio) campaign with literature attacking his Republican opponent. Space was the lone Democrat from Ohio’s congressional delegation to vote against the healthcare bill, and his position enraged labor groups. But he’s not the only lawmaker who voted against the legislation to see union support trickle back his way.
White House Deference to Big Labor Impedes Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Efforts

White House Deference to Big Labor Impedes Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Efforts

(Source: July 2010 Forced-Unionism Abuses Exposed) Roughly three months after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded, killing 11 workers and instigating the biggest offshore oil spill ever to occur during peacetime, the Obama Administration faces mounting charges that, in order to avoid offending politically powerful union officials, it has obstructed operations to clean up the spill. A wide range of critics are focusing on the White House’s refusal, in the days after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the sunken rig, to suspend the 90-year-old Jones Act.  The Jones Act requires all shipping between U.S. ports or in U.S. coastal waters to be carried in U.S.-flagged ships that are owned and crewed by U.S. citizens. But presidential administrations can grant blanket waivers of the Jones Act during national emergencies.  In recent years, the George W. Bush Administration temporarily suspended the Jones Act to assist recovery efforts after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. However, top bosses of the AFL-CIO-affiliated Seafarers International Union (SIU), with the backing of the entire AFL-CIO hierarchy, oppose a blanket waiver.  Rather than cross Big Labor, and thus potentially risk losing some of its massive, forced dues-funded political support, the Obama Administration has required all foreign vessels that wish to participate in the cleanup and believe they may need a waiver to apply for one individually.