Special Report
Taking Care of Big Labor
The union perks hidden inside health care reform.
Labor bosses remain committed to coercive measures that could be used to reinvigorate flagging membership and underfunded benefit plans, despite inaction on Capitol Hill. But the idea now is to secure legislation by way of subterfuge and misdirection.
The National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) has identified a
number of schemes buried within House and Senate versions of the
proposed government-run health care program that would open the
way to forced unionization.
These obscure provisions have been largely overlooked in the
midst of an intense national debate over the merits of a public
option. But the “employer mandates” and “cooperative health care
associations” that would be used to implement a government-run
system includes language that allows for union bureaucrats to
take charge of health care decisions for millions of Americans.
Moreover, the expensive mandates that would flow from a new public option will not apply to union-negotiated health packages, providing them with a decisive advantage, the NRTWC points out in a new study. This political favoritism has been performed on the sly because Democrats are reluctant to advance overt paybacks to their union benefactors, even with expanded majorities.
Free market advocacy groups have successfully (and accurately) branded the card check and compulsory arbitration components of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) as being anti-democratic and overly burdensome to business.
Card check would effectively eliminate the use of secret ballots in union organization elections, while binding arbitration would make way for federal arbitrators to impose economically unsound packages on businesses. To the consternation of Democratic strategists, polls show that the public has become attuned to these dangers.
Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, has invoked EFCA’s radioactive elements with great effect in his race. His opponent, who has been heavily funded by organized labor, has understandably avoided the conversation. Virginia is one of 22 “Right to Work” states, where there is little appetite for an expansion of union power.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), EFCA’s lead sponsor, has discussed the possibility of a compromise that would involve dropping card check, as a way to placate moderate Senate Democrats. But some labor bosses have already signaled this would be unacceptable. Union leaders operating in concert with congressional allies will no doubt attempt to repackage EFCA, but its trajectory between now and the end of the year looks less than promising.
Small wonder then that the push for health care “reform” has assumed a heightened importance, as it would provide union bosses with new privileges and authority that have escaped media attention and public scrutiny.
Consider the language contained in section 2531 submerged deep within the House version. Here the bill stipulates that any participating health care employer “provides wages and benefits to its nurses that are competitive for its market or that have been collectively bargained with a labor organization.”
“This phrase ‘competitive for its market’ is not defined,” said Greg Mourad, the main author of the NRTWC study. “This means the Obama administration will be free to define the phrase using Davis-Bacon standards and this would make it almost impossible for non-union employees to qualify.”
The approach is similar to what has been done with apprentice programs in federal construction work, Stefan Gleason, vice-president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, explained.
“This is a scheme that is used to fund union organizations that are supposedly doing job training but are often doing other activities,” he said. “The scenario that is set up essentially black-balls non-union contractors from even being eligible to work on federal contracts at all. There is a similar strategy at work here with health care.”
Section 2531 also provides for state training partnership programs that include “even more explicit unionization requirements,” according to the NRTWC study.
“The state training partnership flows in one direction and it does not have a provision for a non-union employee organization,” Mourad said. “It has to be a labor organization.”
In the 2008 election cycle, unions spent almost $80 million on independent broadcast advertising, mai,l and advocacy to either elect or defeat candidates for federal office, according to OpenSecrets.org. Federal records also show that labor union political action committees (PACs) contributed over $66 million to federal candidates in 2008, with 92 percent of this total going to Democrats.
About the Author
Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter with free market think tanks associated with the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. He has also written for the Daily Caller, the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, NetRightDaily.com and NewsBusters.
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Pingback| 11.2.09 @ 8:11AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Taking Care of Big Labor [spectator. links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.2.09 @ 12:24PM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Taking Care of Big Labor [spectator. links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Joe| 11.2.09 @ 1:47PM
Unions have long out live there usefulness to society and should go the way of the dinasour. They are more a road block to productivity then and benefit.
Daniel| 11.2.09 @ 10:49PM
The runaway Unions have destroyed a number of industries in America. They have destroyed Mining, Steel, Auto, Garment etc. They have depleted and placed whole communities into jobless Poverty. Currently, they are forcing Boeing to relocate from the Non Right to Work of Washington State to other States in order to survive and compete with Air Bus(EAD), Brazil, Canada, Japan and China. Yes, runaway Unions combined with their cohorts of runaway Big Government are proving that they are more than enough to destroy America.
Sir Guido Cabrone, LC| 11.3.09 @ 1:48PM
In my own opinion, while the concept of union representation may still have some relevence in the modern labor market, the actuality of the modern union structure does not.
Current unions as structured have created a privileged class of professional union managers, who have do not now, and have never in their lives, done the jobs that the union members they supposedly represent perform on a daily basis. How many rivets has the President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers bucked?
How many miles has Jim Hoffa of the Teamsters Union logged in an 18 wheeler?
Unions SHOULD exist to deal with labor/management problems that lie between the levels of "things management/workers do that just irritate each other, but that can be solved with a little heart to heart talk, and "actions on the part of one or the other that are legally actionable from a criminal or civil standpoint."
When that very same union becomes involved in the day to day operation of the corporation from the standpoint being an actual shareholder in the company, then a conflict of interest comes into play. The "rank and file" of the union can no longer be confident that the "union management" can have their best interests at heart, since that self-same union management is in a position to profit directly from the company, as well as having the ability to directly pluck money from the members paychecks to fund their own lavish lifestyles.
The only way to combat this is for the union membership to return the system to it's original foundations.
1) The union leadership should be promoted from the shop floor, for a limited term, and then returned to the same position previously occupied, with no loss of job seniority.
2) Union leadership should be compensated to no greater extent than the highest paid member of the work force.
3) All expenses incurred by the leadership of the union should be listed and explained, in detail, to every member of the union, in writing, on a monthly basis.
4) Any action taken by any member of a union against an individual who leaves a union or acts in a manner contrary to the wishes of that union should be actionable against the entirety of the union.
Until these steps, (particularly the first three), or ones similar, are taken, then unions will continue to become less and less the representatives of their members, and more and more the representatives of their leadership, and, as such, mere non-beneficial parasites on the working people they are supposed to be helping.
(disclosure: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of a union or other similar organization, nor have participated in, or worked in opposition to, a strike or other union organized work stoppage.)
Chris Mosquera | 11.3.09 @ 8:09PM
In rely to Sir Guido Cabrone, LC:
You are absolutely correct!!
Organized labor is NOT about helping the workers whom they legally represent.
Organized labor is all about MONEY and POLITICAL POWER.
Collectively, labor unions derive over $10 billion per year income from dues from their membership, who are essentially their 'clients.'
This income has been heavily invested in political power. Very little actually goes to directly helping the union membership.
Labor unions have failed to evolve as the economic forces have changed. The internet, technology, outsourcing, downsizing are some of the factors that unions are not able to address.
Organized labor has spent close to a BILLION dollars during this election cycle. The Employee Free Choice Act, when passed, is organized labors reward for electing officials who will support the union agenda. Unions are about politics, power and money. The union membership is just their meal ticket to pay for all this.
Organized Labor is the only legal cartel we have in the United States! Ponder that thought....
As an interesting note, the UAW is part owner of the new and improved auto industry. This is like having the fox guarding the chicken coop!
It was the UAW and related unions, that created wage rates vastly above economic reality, and made American made cars,so expensive and inferior to foreign cars. Union work rules are archiac and designed to protect jobs, and decrease productivity. They are NOT designed to be competitive with the rest of the world.
Yes, "Organized Labor IS A Decaying Business Model," and will soon go the way of the dinosaurs or dodo birds!
Theses animals failed to change with the climatic conditions of the world, just as unions have failed to become vaule added partners to businessess. The labor - versus - management mentality will not work in the information society.
Their time has past, and history will record unions as the one century wonders!
For more information on organized labor, please read: "Is Organized Labor A Decaying Business Model?" available from: http://www.outskirtspress.com/chrismosquera or on line from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
(Note: Chris Mosquera is a Labor Union Expert, who has spent many years on the inside of various labor unions, and authored: "Is Organized Labor A Decaying Business Model?")
Let's keep the conversation flowing....
Thank you,
Chris Mosquera
email: chrismosquera@gmail.com
http://www.outskirtspress.com/chrismosquera
Barbara Davis| 11.5.09 @ 10:58AM
Is there any way that someone on your staff can find out in the stimilus package ($787 Billion) where a billion is set up to form a 13 member committee-rumored to already be in force-that will be connected to medical records and will be able to respond to doctors as they decide which treatment to prescribe and if they don't follow the advice given by this committee, they will be fined.? I listened to a surgeon on a news program last night who's researched the bill and has found this hidden that we don't know about concerning the new health care legislation..It is all about control and probably union...Please respond.
Pingback| 11.6.09 @ 4:03PM
Right to Work Blog » Blog Archive » Health Care Bill’s Unionization Threat links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Pingback| 4.6.10 @ 11:03AM
Obama Administration hands the unions another gift, this time erasing 75 years of la links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: