Labor Chief Eager to Use Retirement Money to Boost Big Labor
Big Labor abuse of worker pension and benefit funds as a means of advancing union bosses’ self-aggrandizing policy objectives is a familiar phenomenon.
Roughly four decades ago, the National Right to Work Committee widely distributed a study exposing union trustees’ “social investment” of pension funds to promote compulsory unionization rather than earn a good safe return for future retirees.
Later, during anti-Right to Work President Bill Clinton’s first term, the Committee jousted over so-called “social investing” with Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a cheerleader for empowering Big Labor to, in his words, “strap” unionized workers “to the mast” and hold their “feet to the fire.”
‘Funds Will Encourage Their Portfolio Companies’ Not to Resist Monopolistic Unionism
In June 1994 congressional testimony, Mr. Reich declared that pension fund managers, who then oversaw a total of roughly $4.8 trillion in current-dollar investments, ought to “be concerned about the larger economic picture,” and not just the “risk-adjusted rate of return.”
Effectively, this meant that pension managers should often favor investments that sustain Big Labor-controlled jobs over those that create union-free jobs.
A few years later, early in the 21st Century, the AFL-CIO hierarchy began perfecting the art of using outright intimidation to enlist pension managers as partisan allies.
Now, thanks to Joe Biden, who often refers to himself as “the most pro-union President” in U.S. history, Big Labor bullies have an acting labor secretary who is eager to help them push private and government pension funds to pressure the companies in which they invest to sell out employees’ Right to Work.
This April 23, Department of Labor (DOL) chief Julie Su, whose advocacy of special privileges for union bosses is so extreme that even the Big Labor Democrat-controlled Senate still hasn’t confirmed her 16 months after Mr. Biden nominated her, convened pension fund trustees at the White House.
Together with National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard and a host of government and private-sector union bosses, Ms. Su exhorted managers who are responsible for safely and profitably investing a large share of the over $38 trillion now in U.S. retirement funds to leverage that money to help Big Labor.
In a press statement, the Biden Administration bluntly acknowledged that, if Ms. Su and Co. get their way, “funds will encourage their portfolio companies to remain neutral” rather than offer any resistance when union organizers attempt to seize monopoly-bargaining privileges over their employees.
Cards-Only Unionization ‘Inferior’ Way to Ascertain Employees’ Wishes
The release even specified that, “when appropriate,” portfolio companies should acquiesce to recognizing union officials as employees’ monopoly-bargaining agent solely on the basis of cards signed by employees while under union organizers’ observation, rather than allow employees to vote in secret.
“While the Biden Administration’s enlistment of pension funds to browbeat American businesses into handing over their employees to union monopolists is not surprising, based on the President’s track record, it is nevertheless outrageous,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee.
“As the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed 55 years ago in NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., and as federal court majorities composed of appointees from both major political parties have repeatedly since acknowledged, cards-only unionization is an ‘inferior’ way to ascertain employees’ wishes, compared to secret-ballot elections.
“Yet Julie Su, an unconfirmed appointee of a President who has openly stated union bosses ‘own’ him, now arrogantly insists that businesses must pledge NOT to allow their employees a secret-ballot vote before they are corralled into a union, or potentially risk being denied access to equity investors.
“As a May 6 Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out, private-sector fiduciaries who agreed to comply with Ms. Su’s wishes will be violating their duty under ERISA [the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act] to ‘manage investments in the best financial interests of beneficiaries.’
“Unfortunately, some fiduciaries may decide that, as long as the current Administration remains in office, violating ERISA is less dangerous than incurring the wrath of Julie Su!”
This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.
To support our cause and help end forced unionism, go here to donate.