From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Now that President Obama has lost his Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, he will only be able to satisfy the demands of his union backers by resorting to pro-labor executive orders.

To begin, the Labor Office of the Solicitor has issued an aggressive operating plan to increase pressure on employers. The plan includes a proposal to send strong warnings to employers that the Department of Labor will increase litigation efforts to bring about the results it seeks. It also intends to use the public arena to shame employers.

To further pressure and disrupt the operation of companies, the DOL intends to engage in “enterprise-wide enforcement,” which means that it will target multiple work sites with multiple enforcers, so that officials from the wage and hour division and OSHA, for example, will arrive at workplaces in tandem. And is if that would not be sufficiently problematic, the required remediation period will be significantly truncated.

Rather than just using fines to force compliance, the DOL now intends to utilize court injunctions to bring about immediate resolutions. And if necessary, it will also seek out companies that can serve as test cases. Such test cases are meant to serve as warnings to Corporate America.

To coincide with the DOL’s new aggressive policy, the Administration has established a passive policy regarding unions, for it has cut funding for the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), so that there will be fewer officials to investigate union malfeasance, such as defalcations and kickbacks. Along with cutbacks, the DOL has rescinded an order which had required unions to report transparently about its bank accounts, especially its strike funds.

While union transparency that existed during the last Bush Administration will now be cloaked in governmental darkness, an intense beam of abuse will be focused on Corporate America, which will serve to reduce productivity and profitability.

Bush Administration · cabot institute · court injunctions · democratic · Department of Labor · DOL · employers · House of Representatives · Labor Office of Solicitor · Labor Relations · Office of Labor Management Stanards · OLMS · organized labor · OSHA · President Obama · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · Unions · wage and hour

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

UNITE HERE, the union for service workers, wants the Democratic National Committee to choose a city for its 2012 convention that has mostly unionized hotels. Neither Cleveland nor Charlotte, North Carolina meets that criterion. Thus, UNITE HERE has demanded that those two cities be removed from consideration.
As the biggest funders of the Democratic Party, unions have the power to decide where the party’s national convention will be held. In 2010, organized labor reportedly spent more than $171 million to help the party elect Democrats to both houses of Congress. While that is certainly a large sum of money, it didn’t serve to convince most voters to vote Democratic; however, it did give the unions more than a mere voice in Democratic political decisions. In other words, the Democratic Party owes unions big time.
And though North Carolina is a political swing state that the Democrats hope to win in 2012, it is also a right-to-work state. The Democrats must decide whether to put North Carolina’s electoral votes in jeopardy, or whether to alienate UNITE HERE.
Such a dilemma is predictable when a political party sells itself to a single special interest group rather than considering the overall good of the county. The Democrats are locked in a deadly embrace with organized labor, one that the majority of Americas find repugnant and economically destructive.

cabot institute · Charlotte · Cleveland · convention · Democrat · democratic · Democrats · hotel · hotels · Labor Relations · North Carolina · organized labor · political party · politics · Right to Work · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · unionization · Unions · UNITED HERE · workers

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The fight to pass card check legislation has stalled in congress, much to the anger and dismay of organized labor. It, therefore, turned its efforts to individual states, such as Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Oregon, which have passed card check legislation, permitting union organizers to bypass secret ballot elections and increase union membership. More than ten states have now passed legislation permitting the use of card checks. The use of card checks invites union intimidation, harassment, and coercion, not just to employees, but also to their families.

In response to the actions taken by those ten states, four other states have proposed legislation to maintain secret ballot elections. The four states are Arizona, South Carolina, Utah, and South Dakota. To ensure that workers cannot be coerced by union organizers into signing cards declaring they want to be represented by unions, North Dakota, for example, is proposing an amendment to its state constitution that in union elections “the fundamental right of the individual to vote by secret ballot election be protected.”

Unions and their pro-union political allies fail to admit that unionization has been a disaster for their states. Over the last ten years, pro-union governors have witnessed their states’ employment decrease by 2.8%. Right-to-work states, however, have enjoyed a 3.7% increase in employment over the same period!

card check · card checks · congress · democratic · Democrats · governors · labor legislation · law · legislation · organized labor · organizers · pro-union · states · states rights · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · Unions

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com) by Melanie Trottman, presidents of the AFL-CIO and SEIU (Richard Trumpka and Mary Kay Henry, respectively) have agreed to spend at least $88 million to elect pro-union representatives to the House and Senate this fall. That is an astounding amount of money which could certainly affect the outcomes in such states as Ohio, California, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Though the money will be generously spent in closely contested races in those states, the two unions plan on spending members’ dollars in more than 20 other states as well.

Both unions are significantly increasing their budgets from previous years, for they believe that in order to effect pro-union legislation they must have pro-union majorities in both houses of congress. Most of the pro-union candidates are Democrats.

The unions’ aggressive campaign, targetting millions of union households, will employ an army of campaign workers, each of whom will call upon union members and their families. They will ring doorbells, send out e-mails, repeatedly telephone their constituencies, and send out millions of direct mail pieces. The success of their efforts will be measured and then tweaked following the revelations of weekly polling data. According to the Wall Street Journal, 23% of the electorate are union members. That’s a sufficiently large enough number to determine the outcomes of elections in the most hotly contested states.

It is essential for those who oppose the Democratic leadership’s pro-union agenda to organize their own campaigns to defeat those who will be injurious to the American economy. America is at a turning point, and it is essential that it point to a future of economic growth free of union restrictions.

$88 million · 88 million dollars · afl-cio · big labor · cabot institute · corporate america · democratic · Democrats · fall elections · Labor Relations · members · SEIU · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · Unions · wall street journal · workers

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

According to an article on the website of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce (www.chamberpost.com), the Chamber noted that the implementation of an Executive Order will gag contractors when doing business with the federal government. They will be restricted from exercising their rights of free speech when it comes to union organizing efforts.

President Obama’s Executive Order will prohibit contractors from using funds to persuade employees “to exercise or not to exercise, or concerning the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of the employees’ own choosing.”
In other words, federal contractors will be bound by an Executive Order to gag themselves financially so that they cannot influence the outcome of a union organizing attempt of their employees. Not only will employees be hurt by not being permitted to hear both management and union’s sides of an argument, but so will employers who will be left helpless when confronting organizing efforts. In addition, a basic right, guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution, will be foully and flagrantly flouted as will the basic concepts of debate ensured in the National Labor Relations Act.
This is an outrageous attack on democratic institutions and traditions, one that will
damage our economy and make a mockery of free speech.

cabot institute · Chamber of Commerce · Constitution · contractors · democratic · emplooyees · employers · executive order · federal contractors · free speech · Labor Relations · national labor relations act · organizers · President Obama · stephen cabot · Unions