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
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
Obama Labor Bureaucrats to Bypass Congress?

Obama Labor Bureaucrats to Bypass Congress?

'Electronic' Voting Would Facilitate 'Card Check'-Style Abuses Three of the four current NLRB members who were appointed or reappointed by President Obama are veteran union lawyers. All three are expected to vote in lock-step to expand Big Labor's forced-unionism privileges. (Source: July 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Since the beginning of 2009, Big Labor has had a cheerleader in the Oval Office. At the same time, ample majorities of both chambers of the U.S. Congress have been willing to vote for virtually any power grab sought by union officials, as long as they could do so without running into intense, across-the-board constituent opposition. Consequently, top union bosses have expected to see enacted in the current Congress legislation that would help them sharply increase the share of all private-sector workers who are under union monopoly-bargaining control. Their original vehicle for achieving this objective was S.560/H.R.1409, the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act." Sponsored by union-label Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.), S.560/H.R.1409 would grease the skids for Big Labor workplace takeovers in several ways. Most famously, it would effectively end secret-ballot elections in union organizing drives, replacing them with so-called "card checks." That means, if S.560/H.R.1409 became law, union organizers would have far more
Forced-Unionism Expansion, by Hook or Crook

Forced-Unionism Expansion, by Hook or Crook

Big Labor 'Organizing' Strategy Reliant on Washington, D.C. (Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Nationwide unemployment hovers near 10%.  (U.S. DOL reports unemployment rate of 9.9% for April 2010) Across America today, there is widespread hardship resulting from most businesses' lingering inability to hire more workers profitably even as the country emerges from the 2008-2009 recession. What is the response of Big Labor politicians in Washington, D.C.? Sadly, they appear determined to make matters worse. Last month, union-label U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) admitted to the Hill, a D.C. Beltway publication, that she and other members of her chamber's Democratic majority were working behind the scenes to concoct an "alternative" version of the mislabeled "Employee Free Choice Act" for floor action this year. In its current form, this legislation (S.560/H.R.1409) is designed to help union bosses sharply increase the share of all private-sector workers who are under union monopoly control by effectively ending secret-ballot elections in union organizing campaigns. However, the National Right to Work Committee and its allies have mobilized massive public opposition to the measure, greatly lowering its prospects for passage in its current form. Monopoly Unionism Negatively Correlated With Private-Sector Job Growth In response, as Ms. McCaskill recently acknowledged, Big Labor politicians and union lobbyists are now concocting new legislation designed to accomplish the same objective through somewhat different means.

‘Nowhere to Flee’ For Young Job Seekers?

 Forced-Unionism Expansion Bill Would Kill Prospects For Millions (Source: March 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) According to a scientific poll conducted by the respected Research 2000 firm, 81% of Americans who regularly vote in statewide elections believe workers in unionized workplaces who don’t want a union should “have the right to bargain for themselves.” Unfortunately, for three-quarters of a century, federal labor law has actively promoted what Americans, according to the Research 2000 poll and many others, overwhelmingly oppose. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the 1934 Railway Labor Act (RLA) amendments hand union officials the power to force millions of workers, union members and nonmembers alike, to accept a union as their “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agent in their dealings with their employer. Attack on Secret Ballot Only One Trick in Union Monopolists’ Playbook And this year Congress is very likely to bring up for floor votes legislation that would help Big Labor corral millions of additional workers into unions. Until recently, union strategists’ primary vehicle for expanding private-sector union monopoly bargaining in the current Congress was S.560/H.R.1409, the cynically mislabeled “Employee Free Choice Act.” This legislation is designed to help union bosses sharply increase the share of all workers who are under union monopoly control by effectively ending secret-ballot elections in union organizing campaigns.

‘Get the “Card-Check” Bill Passed -- or Else’

Big Labor Reminds Majority Leader Reid He Must Deliver on S.560 (Source: January 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Neither the “Card-Check” Forced Unionism Bill’s extreme unpopularity with the public nor the obvious reluctance of several members of his own caucus on Capitol Hill to vote for this legislation can excuse Majority Leader Harry Reid from his obligation to ram it through the U.S. Senate.  That’s the message Big Labor is sending to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as the second session of the 111th U.S. Congress gets underway this month. Last year, Mr. Reid tried early in the session to move the “card-check” bill, but, after Americans opposed to the measure inundated Senate offices with phone calls and mail, he backed off. Mr. Reid then vowed the Senate would take up the “card-check” bill, S.560, as soon as it had fulfilled President Obama’s request of adopting legislation reworking America’s $2.5 trillion-a-year health-care system. And on Christmas Eve, the Senate rubber-stamped H.R. 3590, Mr. Reid’s version of ObamaCare, in a straight party-line vote. Furthermore, Mr. Reid’s U.S. House counterpart, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has made it clear she expects the Senate to act on S.560 before the House votes on H.R.1409, the lower chamber’s version of the “card-check” scheme.
Obama Team: More Forced Unionism ‘Needed’

Obama Team: More Forced Unionism ‘Needed’

Massive Union Job Losses Make Case For ‘Card-Check’ Legislation? (Source: February 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) On January 22, the U.S. Labor Department issued a report providing a snapshot, in numbers, of some of the latest damage wrought to employees, employers, and the economy as a whole by government-imposed union monopoly bargaining. The report shows that, in one major business sector after another, the jobs of workers who labor under forced unionism were far more likely to be destroyed during the 2008-2009 recession than were the jobs of union-free workers. In the hard-hit telecommunications sector, for example, the number of jobs subject to union monopoly bargaining plummeted by 20.7% last year, over four times the decline for union-free jobs. Unionized construction jobs plunged by 20.0%. Over the same period, union-free construction jobs fell by 12.4%. 'These Numbers Show a Need For Congress to Pass’ S.560/H.R.1409 The number of Big Labor-controlled manufacturing jobs declined by 14.3%, nearly four percentage points more than the decline for union-free jobs in manufacturing. Overall, unionized private-sector employment sank by 9.4% last year, a decline more than double the total private-sector job loss of 4.4%.