From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The attorneys general of nine right-to-work states, where workers cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment, have issued a statement condemning a wrong-headed ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that prevents Boeing from building its Dreamliner 787 in South Carolina. The states are South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Alan Wilson, the Attorney General of South Carolina, wrote: “The only justification for the NLRB’s unprecedented retaliatory action is to aid union survival.” We could not agree more.

As we recently reported, Boeing chose to open a manufacturing facility in South Carolina because several strikes in Washington had not only significantly delayed the company’s production goals by many months, but had also cost the company tens of millions of dollars. South Carolina provides a more business friendly environment than does the state or Washington.

As a corporation operating in a free-market economy, Boeing has the right to operate a manufacturing facility wherever it wants, especially as it contributes to the welfare of its employees and to a profitable bottom line. It is an essential element of our capitalistic heritage. And we support the right of all corporations to do business wherever they want, not someplace chosen by the NLRB, catering to the demands of unions, such as the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which has applauded the NLRB’s decision.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Angela Greiling Keane reported on Bloomberg News that the U. S. Postal Service negotiated a 4 ½ year contract with the American Postal Workers, which has 202,000 members. She quotes Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, as stating: “We have deep concerns that some of the provisions of the contract may in fact be the wrong direction, to less flexibility, less ability to trim the workforce and less ability to in the future make the kinds of investments we need to make.”

The new contract will not stem the tide of enormous losses; and it will certainly not lead to a renaissance of profitability for the postal service, which has suffered losses for the last five quarters. Its labor costs are a whopping 80% of its total budget, while labor costs for UPS are 69% of its operating budget, and 43% for the operating budget of FedEx, which is staffed by a combination of employees and independent contractors.

Until the postal service can bring its labor costs in line with private sector employers such as UPS and FedEx, it will continue to run huge billion-dollar deficits. The sorry state of the U. S. Postal Service is just another example of how public-sector unions drive companies into the ground. The goals of the governors of Ohio and Wisconsin should become the goals of a fiscally responsible federal government.

American Postal Workers · Angela Keane · Bloomberg · Bloomberg News · Darrell Issa · employees · employers · federal government · fedex · fiscal responsiblity · labor costs · Labor Relations · Ohio · operating budgets · postal service · public-sector unions · Republican · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · U. S. Postal Service · union · Unions · ups · Wisconsin · workers

From Stephen Cabot’s desk in Philadelphia:

In a recent decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has opened its back door ever wider for unions to enact a de facto Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), also known as card checks.
The NLRB decided that an important auto supply company, Dana, in Michigan, can permit the further establishment of unionization amongst its employees through card checks. The UAW already represents workers at a number of Dana facilities. And the union wanted to organize the remaining workers. In an effort to win union concessions without resorting to collective bargaining, Dana agreed to permit the UAW to use card checks to organize those workers who were not represented by a union. No longer will there be secret ballot elections at Dana. Instead, union organizers can now pressure or even intimidate workers into signing card cards.
Dana agreed to the use of card checks and the abolition of secret ballot elections in exchange for the UAW agreeing to maintain the company’s plans to reduce employee benefits and permit mandatory overtime. The UAW further agreed not to call for a strike. And the NLRB gave this unusual deal its stamp of approval!
It may seem like a good deal for Dana, but if labor disputes arise in the future, the UAW can resort to a full assortment of union tactics to win concessions, and it will have the added leverage of representing all of Dana’s workers. In the meantime, the UAW will significantly increase revenues from the union dues of many new members.
Both the NLRB and the UAW have found a clever way to impose card checks on Corporate America and enlist millions of workers into the ranks of unions. It is a bad portent for Corporate America, the American economy, and every American industrial city from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, from Houston to Chicago, from Atlanta to Seattle.

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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:

While the private sector has lost 8-million jobs since 2008, the public sector has added 590,000 jobs during that same period. In addition, federal employees, on average, receive twice the salary and benefits that comparable private sector employees receive.

Public sector unions and congress are the keys that unlocked this Pandora’s box of economic irrationality. Imagine a circle comprising public sector unions, public sector employees, and Democratic members of congress. Each benefits the other. Democratic representatives vote to increase the wages and benefits of public sector employees, and their unions provide the necessary funds for re-election campaigns. Once re-elected, those representatives vote for higher wages and increased benefits for the union members who contributed to their election victories. And so it goes, on and on.

The result, of course, is ever higher deficits, spiraling into the stratosphere of economic irrationality.

And the disaster is not just confined to the federal deficit. The disease has infected state and municipal budgets across the country as well. According to recent estimates, state and city governments have inflated employee benefit liabilities in excess of $3-trillon!

Now with the NLRB firmly in the hands of pro-union ideologues, an agenda is coming into focus of an effort to increase the wages and benefits of private sector employees to match those of government employees. And the NLRB will attempt to do so by making private sector unions, such as the AFL-CIO and SEIU, as powerful as their public sector counterparts. It isn’t enough that public sector unions have egregiously contributed to the possible bankruptcy of governments, their private sector counterparts now want to inject that same virus into the body of Corporate America.

afl-cio · bankruptcy · cabot institute · cities · corporate america · debts · defaults · deficits · employees · employers · ideologues · Labor Relations · managment · municipalities · NLRB. pro-union · private sector · public sector · SEIU · states · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · Unions

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

For several months, I have been writing that the NLRB has been looking for ways to do an end run around the mis-named Employee Free Choice Act. Ideologically disposed to providing whatever support it can to unions, the NLRB’s latest intention is to endorse quickie elections to hasten union representation.
The time from petition to election usually takes 38 days. However, Mark Pearce, a Board member, would like to shorten that period of time to between five and ten days, which is what exists in Canada.
In order for employers to present their side of the unionization story, to educate their employees to what they will be losing if they vote for union representation, they need sufficient time to communicate facts and concepts to employees. And because union organizers usually operate in secret, employers will not know that their employees have been the targets of union propaganda until a petition has been filed. Five to ten days will hardly be adequate time for management to present its case. After all, the union organizers may have been propagandizing workers for weeks, if not months.
A quickie election is indeed an end round around the dormant Employee Free Choice Act. Instead of card checks, union authorization cards will lead to petitions which will lead to quickie elections. Five days later, a union will be in place. Say hello to the Employee Free Choice Act in disguise. It is, therefore, essential that Corporate America pro-actively develop strategies for defeating such scenarios. And the time for doing so is Now!

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is weighing the advantages to workers of reversing a rule that provided for a 45-day window to file election or decertification petitions, so that workers may not be influenced in their decisions by their employers. It’s obvious that the NLRB wants to increase the number of unionized workers by limiting the amount of time that employers will have to educate workers about the disadvantages of unionization.
Craig Becker, a dyed-in-the-wool union advocate, says that he has not reached a final decision. Yet, for a man who has vociferously promoted unionization, it’s difficult to believe that he will not shorten the 45-day window of opportunity. Craig Becker has labored diligently to ensure that employers’ abilities to influence union elections be minimized, if not eliminated.
In the spirit of the question, “Do you want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?” Craig Becker had told a senate hearing that he would recuse himself from decisions that would benefit his former employers, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO. And now that Republican-appointed, NLRB member Peter Schaumber’s term has expired, the Craig Becker pro-union agenda is about to shift into high gear and speed up decisions that will benefit big labor. If there is any governmental institution whose actions will further drive manufacturers to foreign countries, it is the NLRB.

afl-cio · big labor · cabot institute · craig becker · employee · employees · employers · Labor Relations · National Labor Relations Board · nlrb · SEIU · Service Employees International Union · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · union · unionization · Unions

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

According to a front page article in The Wall Street Journal, “the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant on its current picket line.” The union is picketing an office building for not using unionized workers. It’s apparently all right for the union to use non-union picketers, but it’s not all right for the building management to use non-union workers. Consistency has never been a trademark of union practices.

The union, according to the article, hires unemployed people and pays them a minimum wage, $8.25 an hour.

Yet, unions across the country loudly complain that no one should have to accept the minimum wage because it’s not “a living wage.”

With low labor costs, the Carpenters’ union is able to fund 150 picket lines in Washington, DC, where neither the pro-union NLRB nor the union-friendly White House has murmured a word of disapproval. As the picketers chant, “Low Pay! Go Away!” one can only wonder if the picketers and their low-paying unions are even aware of the inherent irony.

Will a renegade union come along and attempt to organize the non-union picketers? How would the NLRB rule on such a case? One can only hope and smile.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is seeking new ways to help unions increase their ability to organize workers. It is doing so by investigating and promoting the possibility of permitting employees to vote via home-based computers and other offsite computers in union representation elections. Electronic voting would clearly hamper goals of management, while significantly broadening the opportunities for organized labor. Here are four problems of electronic voting:

1. Electronic voting would replace paper ballot voting, which is monitored in the workplace. Paper ballot voting has proven successful in eliminating fraud and in preventing union organizers from coercing and intimidating workers.

2. Electronic voting would be a boon to unions, for it would accelerate election procedures and truncate the time during which employers could inform employees of the disadvantages of union membership.

3. If remote electronic voting were to replace paper ballot voting, there would be enormous opportunities for union organizers to coerce and intimidate workers. Furthermore, it would be impossible to determine if people, other than legitimate employees, were doing the actual voting.

4. Votes that have been electronically registered could be altered by hackers, resulting in stolen elections.
The introduction of electronic voting may be the NLRB’s first of several steps to sneak elements of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) into the National Labor Relations Act. Such administrative action is a clever way of helping organized labor achieve its goals, two of which are to increase the number of unionized workers and put more money in union coffers.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Citizens of Chula Vista and Oceanside in California are sick of having to pay for sky rocketing union costs for publicly financed building projects. While those citizens overwhelmingly voted for President Obama in 2008, they have overwhelming rejected his support of unions, such as his Executive Order in support of project labor agreements, which imposes union-favorable rules on federal building projects that will cost more than $25 million.

In Chula Vista, voters supported Proposition G, 56% to 43%, which bans project labor agreements, because such agreements result in union-generated high cost overruns that increase taxes. Voters in Oceanside supported Proposition G by 53%.

In those cities, unions will no longer be able to set terms for municipal construction projects. No longer will unions dictate wage and benefit levels for construction workers on municipal projects, thus limiting the likelihood of enormous cost overruns, such as those that plagued the Big Dig in Boston.

Proposition G will be an inspiration for municipalities across the country, where tax revenues have receded and debt financing has increased. What has happened in Chula Vista and Oceanside is just another example of how savvy citizens are no longer willing to support the greedy demands of unions.

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