LaborPains.org

Sometime there’s just a great sentence that comes along and captures the essence of what you are trying to say. From Daniel Griswold at CATO in the Washington Times:

“Unions are rapidly becoming an economic anachronism. In recent decades, barriers to international trade and investment have fallen, and domestic markets, including transportation, energy and telecommunications, have been largely deregulated. U.S. industries, on the whole, have accepted and even embraced the more competitive environment. Sectors such as steel, textiles and sugar continue to demand protection from foreign competitors, but they are now the exceptions and not the rule. But leaders of organized labor, on the whole, do not accept the new, more competitive environment.

A return to the era of more closed and regulated markets should be strongly resisted. Although it may be seen by labor leaders as a golden era, it extracted a heavy price on Americans in the form of lost consumer welfare, product innovation and freedom. The preferable policy alternative is to allow competition to work in labor markets just as it has been allowed to work more fully in product markets.”

Out of place, out of good ideas, and out of time, unions are indeed as anachronistic as they come.  At times it seems that unions are the Luddites at the tech convention, imploring everyone to replace their iPhones with a union made CB radios and their iPads with clipboards.

Image courtesy of Kenn Wilson.

William Forbath, professor of law and history at the University of Texas and author of Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement, used his most recent Politico piece to call for Craig Becker‘s appointment by President.  He doesn’t come right out and call the Administration (and the Hill, for that matter) cowards–but he gets pretty close.

His motivation for pushing the Democrats so hard to support labor? To quote the absent minded professor here: “Unions are on the verge of vanishing.” From Politico:

“The Becker nomination offers President Barack Obama a more important opportunity, what he likes to call a teachable moment. […]

But unions are on the verge of vanishing. If the Democrats won’t even go this far to halt the battering unions have been taking, then Democrats and the nation will be the losers. For soon, we won’t have any institutional player to do the heavy lifting, to provide the serious money the Democrats need to campaign for job creation, health care reform and financial regulation. McCain and company have demonized Becker simply because he’s a union lawyer. Obama should stand up to them.”

Did you catch that? Unions are the “institutional player” that do the “heavy lifting” and pays the bills in the house of card check.

Image courtesy of Veebl.

Imagine my slightly-surprised moment when I flipped through the most recent issue of The Economist and noticed that they doppelgangering-ly titled their Lexington article on labor unions “Labour Pains”.  They even had a petite Richard Trumka sitting on President Obama’s shoulder, whispering in his ear.

Here are some highlights:

The lead: “Barack Obama will never satisfy his union backers. Nor should he try.”

After chronicling Obama’s handouts to labor unions, and mentioning that public cash is the unions’ lifeline, the magazine moves onto impact of unions on the American job market…and why the market forces don’t apply to the public sector:

Market forces place a natural check on unionisation at private firms. [...]  Such checks do not apply in the public sector. The government cannot easily go bust. When a company pays over the odds for labour, the money comes straight out of its owners’ pockets. They usually object. But when a politician hikes public servants’ pay, he wins votes. If this year’s budget is tight, he can promise lavish pensions, secure in the knowledge that the bill will come due only in the distant future.

Unfortunately, that distant future is now, which is why so many states are in a fiscal pickle. Per hour worked, state and local government workers enjoy 34% higher wages and 70% more benefits than their private-sector counterparts, calculates Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. [...]

And a hearty warning from the Economist about the November elections:

Organised labour is, of course, organised; and that confers political influence. But union bosses can sound jarringly out of touch. “A job is a good job because workers fight to make it one,” says Mr. Trumka. Many other Americans, however, think a job should pay well if you do it well, and grumble that this rule doesn’t seem to apply to unionised public servants. Taxpayers are angry, and itching to vote in November.

Maybe instead of trying to sit on President Obama’s shoulder, union leaders should be looking over theirs.

When it comes to whether NLRB nominee Craig Becker can “implement the Employee Free Choice Act by administrative fiat,” AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff says “yes”. Senator Harkin justified his pro-Becker vote yesterday by saying “no”.

This comes directly from Senator Tom Harkin’s prepared statement at the HELP Committee Executive Session on Pending Nominations yesterday.  Shout out to LaborUnionReport.com for calling attention to this:

“Critics have also questioned whether Mr. Becker would come to the Board with an agenda, and whether he would try to implement the Employee Free Choice Act by administrative fiat. As you are all aware, I’m a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, and I hope to see it passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.  But I don’t have any illusions that those important changes can somehow be accomplished administratively, and neither does Craig Becker.”

““He has clearly and consistently explained, on numerous occasions, that all three major reforms proposed in EFCA—card check, binding arbitration for first contracts, and treble backpay for illegally fired workers—cannot be accomplished without a change in the statute. And as we all know, statutes can only be amended by those of us elected to Congress, not Executive Branch appointees.”

Bottom line: If Craig Becker couldn’t do so much, the unions wouldn’t fight so hard. It’s what Sen. Harkin was referring to when he begged the HELP committee to approve Becker so he could “start his important work“.  Senator Harkin and Stewart Acuff may not be on the same page publicly, but privately, it’s a whole different story.

Image courtesy of gualtiero.

Update: Senator Harkin justifies vote saying NLRB nomineee “cannot” change the rules

As the Director of Organizing at the AFL-CIO, Stewart Acuff draws a smaller crowd than the SEIU’s Andy Stern or his boss at the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have something laughable to say.

In his poorly timed Huffington Post piece yesterday, Acuff took that opportunity to sing the praises of the Employee Free Forced Choice Act and bemoan it stalling on the Hill.  Acuff decided it would be a great idea to show big labor’s cards on the day before the Craig Becker vote.  He wrote that if the Senate “no longer” has EFCA’s 60 votes, then labor will be able to simply create new regulation through nominees to the NLRB.

Um, that’s exactly what the opposition to Craig Becker is claiming will occur, and they have Acuff to thank for confirming that publicly. From his own post:

“We are very close to the 60 votes we need. It we aren’t able to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, we will work with President Obama and Vice President Biden and their appointees to the National Labor Relations Board to change the rules governing forming a union through administrative action to once again allow workers in America access to one of the most basic freedoms in a democracy–the freedom of speech and assembly and association so that workers can build the collective power to challenge the Financial Elite and Get America Back to Work.”

Acuff may have gotten some much needed attention from his post. But if the Senate doesn’t confirm Becker now, Acuff might get some attention and credit for that too.

Image courtesy of coloradostatesman.com.

We saw this dilemma coming. Labor is frustrated with Democrats, but how should they channel their anger?  Stories about a Brave New World? Mass protests? Fist shaking?

Democratic primary challenges (or just threatening primary challenges) are sounding better and better by the day.  They’ve even got a short list.

The National Journal reports:

“It’s not one big happy family for the Democrats when it comes to some of the brothers and sisters in the house of labor. Frustrations are so great that union chiefs on the AFL-CIO’s executive committee have discussed backing primary election challenges to Democratic senators cool to their agenda. [...] The prospect of encouraging Democratic primary challenges will be raised with the Steelworkers’ executive board when it meets next month, he added. Three senators’ names will be brought up specifically, Gerard said: Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

All told, the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, United Steelworkers, CWA, SEIU, and many others are discussing primary election challenges to demonstrate their seriousness (That is, you know, beyond calling Senators terrorists).

In light of the Supreme Court ruling last week, labor leaders have been up in arms about how it opens the flood gates for corporate monies to flow unfettered into the political arena. But it is quite a bit more complex than that.

On the one hand you have Secretary-Treasurer of the SEIU, Anna Burger, saying this:

“Today the US Supreme Court lifted the floodgates and started dismantling century-old restrictions on corporate electoral activity in the name of the ‘free speech rights’ of corporations—meaning if you are a ‘corporate person’ (aka a CEO or corporate official), you are now free to hit the corporate ATM and spend whatever of your shareholders’ money it takes to elect the candidates of your choice.”

But experts have pushed back. From USA Today:

Analysts said they did not expect to see a flood of corporate spending on ads that call for the election or defeat of an individual candidate. “I don’t see the Cokes and Pepsis of this world writing checks for political campaigns in this economic environment,” said Evan Tracey, who tracks political advertising at Campaign Media Analysis Group. “They have shareholders, boards of directors and customers who come from all sides of the political spectrum.” Experts, such as campaign-finance lawyer Kenneth Gross, said the money is more likely to flow through trade associations and non-profit groups.

They are probably onto something. Even some labor leaders are beginning to muse about what benefit they themselves could gain from the ruling. From the Business Week:

“Karen Ackerman, the political director of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federations of unions, said last week in a conference call with reporters that the Supreme Court’s decision would open “some avenues to spend resources in different ways than we have had in the past.” It is too soon to know how, she said.”

Given the nature of labor union officials’ disregard for the dues of their members and their already creative ways of funneling dues into elections, it is possible that after the Supreme Court ruling the only people using the employees’ ATM more readily will be union officials.

Bloomberg reports:

Union membership in the private sector declined in 2009 to a record low of 7.2 percent, as a recession eroded employment in labor-organized industries such as construction and manufacturing, a U.S. report showed.

The figure compares with 7.6 percent in 2008, according to data released today by the Labor Department. Union membership made up 12.3 percent of the total workforce, down from 12.4 percent in 2008. It increased among government workers to 37.4 percent from 36.8 percent.

While private sector union membership has dropped, public sector union membership has risen slightly in the last year. Perhaps private sector membership is slowly meeting its maker, but unions have found their rainmaker in public sector membership. It’s terribly convenient that the government can never go out of business. They make great bargaining opponents.

And my, you know you are well connected when the Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis (former board member of a union lobbying organization), immediately states that the new statistics demand the passage of EFCA. From her press release:

“When coupled with data showing that union members have access to better health care, retirement and leave benefits, these numbers make it clear that union jobs are good jobs.

“As workers across the country have seen their real and nominal wages decline as a result of the recession, these numbers show a need for Congress to pass legislation to level the playing field to enable more American workers to access the benefits of union membership.  This report makes clear why the administration supports the Employee Free Choice Act.”

It means quite the opposite. Not to toot our own horn, but Bloomberg and the New York Times reports:

“J. Justin Wilson, managing director of a group called the Center for Union Facts that opposes easier unionization, said today’s data shows that union membership is “an outdated concept” and a “relic of depression-era labor-management relations.”