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Midwest Unions’ Desperate Last Stand
June 18, 2012 | 23 comments
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Compulsory ‘Free’ Speech
April 19, 2012 | 26 comments
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The Non-Union for Restaurant Workers
January 11, 2012 | 10 comments
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Behind the UAW’s Aw Shucks Smile
December 21, 2011 | 21 comments
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Ambush Election Prevention
November 30, 2011 | 34 comments
The Public Policy
Keystone and the Unions
Killing the first is killing jobs for the latter.
President Barack Obama placated one wing of his liberal base, environmentalists, with his decision to kill the Keystone Pipeline, but he’s angered another — labor unions. Some of them, anyway.
Terry O’Sullivan, head of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA ), has called Obama’s action “politics at its worst,” saying that “once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers.” O’Sullivan angrily vowed that “workers across the U.S. will not forget this.”
The Keystone project has long pitted the two key Obama constituencies against one another. Green groups agitated against the pipeline over worries of water contamination and other (largely baseless) environmental fears, while many building and trade unions lusted after the thousands of construction jobs the pipeline would create in the United States.
Mark H. Ayers, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO has publicly hammered the jobs issue. In a January 18th press release, Ayers voiced the frustration of many union workers, saying “…with a national unemployment rate in construction at 16 percent nationally, it is beyond disappointing that President Obama placed a higher priority on politics rather than our nation’s number one challenge: jobs.”
James T. Callahan, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers, agrees, complaining to the Washington Post that Obama’s decision was “…a blow to America’s construction workers,” who are struggling in “the sector hardest hit by the recession.”
In his rejection of the pipeline, Obama blamed Republicans for forcing him to meet what the While House deemed an arbitrary deadline. This despite the fact that the State Department has had the application for Keystone since 2008, held 20 meetings on the subject, and produced a gargantuan 1,000 page Environmental Study to assess the possible consequences of the pipeline, which would bring oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast of the United States. As Rep. Joe Barton of Texas ruefully noted, the U.S. “fought and won World War II” in a shorter amount of time.
Besides causing a fissure between the President and some of his key union allies, the Keystone issue has also ruptured the once-strong Green/Labor alliance between environmental and union organizations, and has even pitted union against union. LUINA announced on January 20 that it left the so called “BlueGreen Alliance,” citing “Job-killing attacks on the Keystone XL pipeline by some of the alliance’s labor and environmentalist members.”
The Alliance describes itself as “a national, strategic partnership between labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy.”
While LIUNA has left the Alliance, many unions remain committed to the partnership between the Democratic Party’s two most powerful special interests and staunchly oppose the pipeline. O’Sullivan has called this emerging divide “as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon.”
To these unions, the LIUNA President said he was “repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women.”
Obama made the choice to kill Keystone as a sop to environmentalists, gambling that labor leaders, enticed by the promise of continued political favors, will eventually forgive and forget. Maybe they will, but will the thousands of rank-and-file union workers who are unemployed or underemployed forget the decision that has cost an estimated 20,000 jobs?
Not likely.
c. j. acworth| 2.7.12 @ 6:25AM
What's 20k engineers and pipefitters compared to the hordes of NEA and AFSCME drones? Obama can count, and he knows as well as anyone that the private-sector unions are yesterdays political power. As long as he can keep the votes of the public sector unions, he can throw working folks under the bus.
Kenny| 2.7.12 @ 7:10AM
You're exactly right here, C.J.
Gary B| 2.7.12 @ 7:55AM
Yup, spot on...
Pecos Pete| 2.7.12 @ 8:27AM
Agreed.
VonMisesJr| 2.7.12 @ 10:32AM
My friend c.j.,
You are correct on a tactical level. But Soros, Obama and both political establishments are playing chess while the MSM is telling us that they are playing checkers.
The union bosses are communist. They do not give a crap about 20,000 jobs; or more likely over 100,000 jobs. They are for socialism, with them being the ruling class, and the rank-and-file joining us as serfs, or perhaps more like the socialist guilds of the pre-industrial revolution.
One must ask questions back to apriori givens, or in other words take no premise for granted unless it cannot be reduced further. So here is the big question people should ask themselves:
Are America and European socialist the only socialist in the world that hate carbon based fuels?
Of course not.
China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela all have state owned oil companies that finance their dictatorial regimes. They don't even give a crap how much they spill as they extract it like banshees.
So it is safe t assume, that if the American and European elitist rulers could nationalize XOM, COP, CVX, BP and other privately owned oil companies; they would drill like banshees too.
Only a few companies in Western countries privately extract some quarter of the world's oil supply. Three-quarters is state owned. So here is the answer to the riddle. Our American and European socialist are just like all the rest of the world's socialist. They hate capitalism, free markets and liberty.
So they will be damned if they will let the oil flow unless they get it for their totalitarian dream.
PolishKnight| 2.7.12 @ 11:39AM
A leftist even wrote an article about the paradigm: throwing Archie and Edith Bunker under the bus. Such working class whites were the core of the old socialist revolution. It's the hammer and sickle in the Soviet flag. Yet... today such workers are now irrelevant to them, yes? Government workers and bureaucrats are the only "real" workers and elites while the left secretly is happy to see young women in China working 20 hours a day making their Ipads and 10 H1B's living in a single Bay Area apartment programming them.
It's makes the old Soviet Union seem better by comparison.
And sadly, the right has gone along with much of this selling out their electorate. So just as these poor roughnecks are getting thrown under the bus, I hope someday the Bill Gates of the world join the Romanovs in the basement...
Wild Bill| 2.7.12 @ 1:44PM
Your comment makes me sad because its true.
oldfart| 2.7.12 @ 6:40AM
All you died in the wool Obama lovers - who gets put against the wall next if they happen to get in the way of the 'agenda'?
ggoblue, uaw and afl member| 2.7.12 @ 6:41AM
so the opportunity to drive a wedge through the democratic party presents itself?
the republicans, and conservatives in general, have blown this opportunity several times before. they are too busy, in ignorance, HATING on union members to court their votes. they will just drive the membership back into the arms of the demonrats....like they did after nafta...like they did after anwar...like they did after cafe limits [repeatedly] destroyed the US auto makers...like they will when the next round of cafe limits rises to the unattainable level of 50+ mpg....
the leadership is dominated by a cabal of democrats but the membership is certainly not. we conservatives dominate discussion on the shop floor...quit the hate speech and start pointing out where the enemy of jobs resides...in the EPA!
ps none of this has anything to do with the parasites known as 'public employee unions'...they need to be broken, without mercy.
Le Cracquere| 2.7.12 @ 9:39AM
"We parasites aren't the problem; THOSE parasites are." Got it.
ggoblue| 2.7.12 @ 7:55PM
you honestly don't know the difference between private and public employees?
le stupid, eh?
Le Cracquere| 2.7.12 @ 9:40PM
Well, we can't all be such intellectual prodigies as your own badself.
Nonetheless, it's a distinction without a difference where their chartered purpose is concerned.
Gary B| 2.7.12 @ 7:06AM
:...but will the thousands of rank-and-file union workers who are unemployed or underemployed forget the decision that has cost an estimated 20,000 jobs?"
Of course they will. What are they going to do, vote for a Republican? They're dealing with the lesser of evils - temporarily. Conservatives have been forced into the same situation for decades and, with Romney, we're facing it yet again. Only with us, it's virtually permanent.
PolishKnight| 2.7.12 @ 11:34AM
Gary, how are Republicans "evil" towards the oil industry?
Gary B| 2.7.12 @ 7:09AM
You are 100% correct.
Petronius| 2.7.12 @ 8:50AM
Both parties have worked hand in glove for years to prevent Conservative working class Americans ever having anyone to represent us at any level.
squalis| 2.7.12 @ 9:51AM
Of course union members will vote Democrat. They are the true dittoheads.
Timothy L. Pennell| 2.7.12 @ 11:03AM
The Unions are the Democrat Sequel to the Black Community. They keep getting Promised the Moon, by their Liberal Masters, seemingly unaware that, only their LEADERS in the Black Caucus and the Heads of the Unions, are enjoying the Fruits of their Labour.
Does that Fat PIG - Trumka look like he's worried? That's a nice Suit he's got on. You, over there. Joe Blonski, from the Rust Belt. Do you have a nice suit like Trumka? Are you at the White House ALL THE TIME, eating the Finest Cuisine, and Drinking the Best Vintages?
Let's see who's taking it up the A** for Obama, these days.
Truckers. Welders. Machinists. Pipe Fitters. Pipe Makers. Drill Operators. Carpenters. Oilers. Mechanics. Machine Operators. Refiners. And, all of their FAMILIES.
What about all of the Ancillary Jobs that spring up, along Oil Drilling Areas?
Hotels. Restaurants. Diners. Movie Theatres. Bars. Bowling alleys. On and on and on and on.
You and your Families and your Friends are being asked to GO WITHOUT, so one men can curry favour with a Special Interest Group for the 1%.
Don't worry. You're gonna get a PITTANCE from your Union and from this Benevolent Dictator. Just enough to get bye. You'll be fine.
You just won't have a Nice Suit, or a Nice House, or a Nice Car, or go out to Nice Restaurants, like your UNION LEADERSHIP does.
But then, look at yourself. You're nobody. You're NOTHING to these people. You're Pawns on a Chess Board, easily sacrificed.
It could be worse. You could be like Black America, warehoused in Inner City SLUMS, shut off from the American Dream, by a 50 Year DEPENDENCE on the Government for everything. Stuck in a never ending Cycle of Hopelessness.
You're not there, yet. He's got more to do. He's gonna need 4 More Years to accomplish his Goals.
THEN, you'll be there.
Think for YOURSELF. Take care of YOURSELF and your FAMILIES. That's what Trumka's doing. That's what Obama is doing.
That's why they have everything, and you have NOTHING.
Wake Up. Before it's too late.
Oldefarte| 2.7.12 @ 11:05AM
I love it! Obama has got the wacko environmetalists pullinf on one of his legs, while the labor union are yanking the other [wish bone style]. %%%%HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN.....%%%%
Oldefarte| 2.7.12 @ 11:33AM
FYI: In a related article, TAS's Ross Kamisky opined that possibly the BSL's recent unemployment numbers were legit. Respectfully, many of us diagreed with him and the following tends to back our opinion up:
'...Unemployment Tricks: Jobs Claim Made by 'Shrinking' Workforce
Monday, February 6, 2012 10:11 PM
By: Andrew Henry
Last week, the White House claimed that unemployment dropped for the fifth consecutive month to 8.3 percent — the lowest it has been in nearly three years — after adding 243,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But financial experts are saying the figures may have been manipulated — and that the significant drop in employment was because of the fact that the federal agency charged with computing key economic data has significantly decreased the number of Americans in the workforce.
“If you hold the workforce participation rate constant over the past year, unemployment would be about 8.9 percent instead of 8.3 percent,” GOP economist Matt McDonald of Hamilton Place Strategies said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box. "So it is a weird number that is out there, and I think people have to be looking at that carefully.”
The same Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that showed unemployment dropping to 8.3 percent showed total workforce participation — the number of people either working or looking for work — declining by 1.2 million people in one month.
The unemployment rate is determined by dividing the number of unemployed job-seekers by the total labor force. By reducing the number of workers in the overall workforce, the Obama administration can show actual unemployment dropping, when, in fact, improvement has been marginal at best.
Many economists feel the official statistics seriously underestimate how bad the unemployment situation really is. They maintain that the key measure is the number of people who would like to have a job, but can’t find one.
When people retire from the workforce because of the aging of the nation’s population or give up looking for work because of prolonged unemployment, the BLS declares the unemployed person a “discouraged worker.”
At that point, the BLS lists them as “marginally attached to the workforce,” and they no longer are considered to be part of the nation’s working population.
Dropping them off the employment calculations keeps the unemployment rate substantially lower than it would be otherwise and has been key to the improvements in the unemployment numbers during the past year.
Tyler Durden of Zerohedge.com writes: “It appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million.”
In fact, Zerohedge notes that BLS is breaking records in claims about the shrinking workforce. The most recent unemployment number was based on the assertion that the entire U.S. workforce has shrunk to a 30-year low.
An analysis by Joseph Curl of the Washington Times shows the labor force as a percentage of the available population hit 66 percent in October 1988, and remained there throughout the presidency of George H.W. Bush. It then reached 67 percent or better for 40 straight months during President Bill Clinton’s presidency, and was above 66 percent for virtually all of President George W. Bush’s presidency.
But by the end of President Obama’s first year in office, it had dipped to 64.6 percent, before dipping to just 63.7 percent last month — its lowest point in almost three decades.
One analyst who is stridently critical of the BLS numbers is TrimTabs.com CEO Charles Biderman. His firm uses what he considers a more modern and timely measurement, actual tax receipts to the IRS, to calculate employment.
By his firm’s calculations, the economy added only 44,000 jobs in January, not even enough to keep the unemployment rate from growing.
The BLS numbers "are just guesses,” Biderman tells Newsmax. “I don’t know whether they’re politically motivated or not."
The White House is doing "cartwheels" over the positive jobs numbers being promulgated from the BLS, the Christian Science Monitor says.
"These numbers will go up and down in the coming months, and there's still far too many Americans who need a job or need a job that pays better than the one they have now,” President Obama said. “But the economy is growing stronger.”
BLS spokesman Gary Steinberg tells Newsmax that the bureau publishes its methodologies for calculating the unemployment rate online. While its tweaks its various formulas to keep them up to date, he states there has been no major change in how the rate is calculated in over a decade.
“The definitions have not changed . . . if someone is not actively looking for work for the four weeks preceding the reference week, they’re not in the labor force,” he says. “That was true years ago, and it’s true today.”.....'
Timothy L. Pennell| 2.7.12 @ 5:01PM
Ross Kaminsky is a PUNK.
Period.
bobloblaw| 2.7.12 @ 5:34PM
Legit or not the BLS number show improvement and that is what counts. Conservatives arguing the numbers are fake sound like Mike Dukakis in 1988 who argued that the entire Reagan economic boom of 1983-88 was fake. The voters didnt listen to Dukakis then and they wont listen to conservatives with the same message in 2012.
Franco| 2.7.12 @ 11:24AM
I say, hire the union workers to build thatched huts for the greenies to live in. Everybody wins!
Bruce| 2.7.12 @ 12:07PM
Franco;
What's the cost for one of those thatched huts once they meet all the regulatory guidelines and are built using union labor?
Bill| 2.7.12 @ 12:30PM
Screw all those union-thugs!
cicero| 2.7.12 @ 2:24PM
As an old UAW member, back in the days of my youth - I worked midnights in the auto plants so I could pay my way through school during the day - I have a basis for my opinion. Back in the day - pre 1972 - the laboring man was a Democrat, and a conservative. Look at the Dem Party platforms from the 40s and 50s. All that changed after 1972, when the Dem Party was taken over by the groupies. The laboring man is still conservative. The Dem party now represents the special interest groups, the government workers, and to a large extent, the leaders of the labor unions. They all profit handsomely from being tied to the Democrat party. The laboring class now is not unionized to any great extent. The Dem Party is moving the country towards an aristocracy - the aristocracy of the beaurocracy. Obama has to choose where to cast his lot. It will not be the laboring man and woman. He has already chosen the environmental lobby over them, because they will contirbute heavily to his campaign. The govt. unions will also contribute to his next run. The UAW already has more members from the state, federal, and municipal unions than in the industrial trades. He doesn't care what really happens to the working class, as long as he and his cabal can maintain their hold on the Treasury.
The proof is in the pudding. Can anyone really argue that trillian dollar deficits are even remotely good for the laboring class? Yet he spends with no end in sight, and his party has such contempt for the laboring class that they don't even tell the folks where the money is going - no budgets.
This time around, it is strictly a calculated play. Who will provide the most money, and produce the most votes? Does he really need the laboring class? I see his real problem as having thrown the Catholic Church under the bus this time. They always vote, and they vote in huge numbers. Once the bishops get their heads out twixt the cheeks of their derrieres, they will be issuing pastoral leters round about September that will call for a real crusade. The current polls don't reflect any of this.
KennesawJack| 2.7.12 @ 2:29PM
Sorry, ya'll (especially Von Mises, Jr. who almost always gets it right). I don't think any of you has this right. This little minute is as Machiavellian as it gets. Try this: Obamarx cancels Keystone and the environmentalist,let's all live in the stone age, I hate capitalism wackjobs lock up their votes for Obamarx while the union rank-and-file go berserk. Boehner, playing into Obamarx's hand once again, forces an approval of Keystone from Obamarx via budgetary blackmail. The environmentalist, let's-all-live-in-the-stone-age, I hate capitalism wackjobs go bersek while Obamarx convinces them this attack on prairie dogs in Nebraska is all the Republicans' fault and he is powerless to stop them (this time following the Constitution suits his purposes). The union rank-and-file, their attention spans being what they are, are no longer angry at Obamarx and now lock up their votes for him. The MSM takes turns gesticulating (or whatever it is they do on their knees before him) to the messiah and sings his praises as the great conciliator. Ta Dah! Republicans outmaneuvered once again. This, my friends, is what's going on. I know, I know. Truly cynical and festooned with paranoia but oh, so true.
KennesawJack| 2.7.12 @ 2:30PM
Sorry, "minute" was supposed to be "minuet".
bingogringo| 2.7.12 @ 9:49PM
You are right Kennesaw. This is just a posture for Pres Obama. The pump houses from Canada all the way to Texas have already been built! The pipeline will go through.
jstwndring| 2.7.12 @ 4:11PM
This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Why? Because these morons on the left have to be punished by their own side before they realize what a disaster their policies are. Even then, most of the lesson flies too far over their heads for them to fully comprehend it.
Hope and Change! I love it!
bobloblaw| 2.7.12 @ 5:27PM
Hello!!!
UNIONS dont care about jobs. They care about getting Dems elected and having more power and money shifted from the private tro public secotor.
bobloblaw| 2.7.12 @ 5:31PM
""throwing Archie and Edith Bunker under the bus. Such working class whites were the core of the old socialist revolution. It's the hammer and sickle in the Soviet flag. Yet... today such workers are now irrelevant ""
As the white population declines in the USA, look for the Dems to essentially throw every white under the bus, regardless of income level or whether or not they are in a union
Fact is by 2020 the Dem party wil lbe a majority non-white party and the Dukakis coalition of 1988, which won 45% of the vote and 10 states will make up a firm majority of the electorate. Meanwhile the Nixon/Wallace/Reagan/Perot coalition which won the popular vote in every election but one from 1968 through andf including 1992. is an ever shriking part of the electorate. By mid century the Dem party will be industinguishable from the ANC, with more radical Dems like Van Jones' children singing "kill the boer" in American streets.
WestHoustonGeo| 2.7.12 @ 7:05PM
Hey Editor! Where were you when this went out?
"Killing the first is killing jobs for the latter."
First and last.
Former and latter
Bob K.| 2.7.12 @ 8:32PM
Meanwhile Canada, which will be building and paying for this pipeline, has already contracted most of this oil to be sold to the far east.