Card check

Internecine battles that go public always tell you more about how an organization operates. For example, a court battle after a Democratic primary in East Chicago, Indiana led to both sides testifying against each other in court about how they stole votes and 32 convictions on voter fraud. Whenever reporters and liberals claim that voter fraud doesn't happen, just refer them to the court testimony. By the way, these are absentee ballot fraud, the same sort of at-home coercion that occurs in "card-check" union organizing drives.

A similar battle is going on California. last year, the San Francisco-based SEIU-UHW (United Healthcare Workers West) had been under attack by the SEIU national organization and the Los Angeles-based local whose head Tyrone Freeman, an Andy Stern protege, was forced to step down after charges of embezzling local funds. Eventually, Sal Roselli, the head of the San Francisco organization was kicked out. He is now counter-attacking as National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

There have long-been allegations that ACORN and SEIU are closely related and that ACORN runs training programs for SEIU. In this case, SEIU-UHW is claiming that the NUHW is playing dirty. Check out this blog post from their site in which union members claim to have been lied to and coerced:

Examples of the tactics used by NUHW, which home care workers share on video and can be viewed here, include:

Asya Tilman, was told to sign "a petition to protect our rights," and it was not until "a few months ago that I realized that, through their lies, they try to move me to a different union." After Asya signed, she was then asked whether her daughter, also a home care worker, was at home, "and he said that I could sign under her name. And that is what I did."

Yuk Wan Leung was overwhelmed when two workers from the hotel union knocked at her door pressuring her to sign a petition. They told her the petition was for their voting freedom and it would not affect her union. Then they refused to leave until she signed.

Mei Fong Tsoi was approached while walking to work and was told to sign the petition to support the union, "I am a working member and I know my union. I even signed for my husband because he is also a homecare provider." 

While one local is claiming thuggery in San Francisco, at first under the direction of a criminal and now by a dissident organization, the national organization is claiming that coercion doesn't happen in union battles. Curious, eh?

 Note: The first version of this post misunderstand the relationships between the various California locals. I thank a union official for a correction. However, the core messaging problem still stands, and in some way is strengthened. An SEIU is claiming union thuggery, while the national denies it. After a several-year-long campaign of thuggery against a dissident. As in East Chicago, this is just how union infighting looks.

This week you can probably expect a big push in the media for the cynically misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check), which I've written on before. One element of that push which will be getting coverage is an article by Seth Michaels on the AFL-CIO Now blog which heralds the fact that:

"A coalition of major investors who oversee more than $750 billion in assets is joining the fight for workers’ freedom to form unions by asking major corporations what they’re doing to protect and enhance the ability of workers to form unions."

Wow, that sounds pretty serious. That's a lot of investment money. It must mean that stockholders and important players on Wall Street are really concerned about making sure that unions can bully workers into joining by taking away their right to a secret ballot.

In fact, stockholders and major investment groups have not actually taken leave of their senses and decided it would be great to further burden businesses with rapacious union interference in our current harsh economy. What you actually have here is a classic example of how propagandists can use legtimate seeming sources to support their positions and create the impression of a popular movement or widespread support where it does not actually exist.

In the article there is a link to a press release from Domini Social Investments which further heralds this letter which has been sent to various Fortune 100 companies in support of EFCA by a group of "major institutional investors" controlling $757 billion in assets.

The effort here is to create an impression of widespread support in the financial community for Card Check. The core deception in this propaganda effort is that the letter is actually signed by a very limited group dominated by investors controlled by or closely associated with the unions promoting the legislation. The major signers on the letter are actually mostly international union pension funds or organizations representing union pension fund managers. Also signing the letter are a variety of specialty investment groups which invest in "socially responsible" businesses (unionized businesses), but they control only a small fraction of that $757 billion in assets and they are on the list mainly as a smokescreen for the union-controlled investment groups who hold the vast majority of the assets referred to.

In fact, the top signer on the list and the one with the largest assets is the AFL-CIO Employees Staff Retirement Fund, so the AFL-CIO is using their blog to promote this letter from "a coalition of major investors" without bothering to point out that they themselves are the major investors in question. Everything in the article is true as written, but the appearance that the unions have found major allies in the investment community for Card Check is entirely deceptive. The progressive angels of Wall Street who have joined them in their fight turn out just to be the unions themselves in a not very clever disguise.

What's more, the letter itself is hardly the clarion cry for EFCA which the AFL-CIO would have you believe. The letter actually makes an effort to look like it originates with the UNPRI a United Nations labor practices workgroup. The letter also does not actually endorse EFCA in any way as the AFL-CIO website suggests, but actually just solicits companies for their input on various labor issues. The letter says clearly:

"Please note that, although individual investors represented in this letter may have taken a view on the legislation, the group as a whole has itself not formulated an official position."

In reality the UNPRI and perhaps even many of the signers on the letter don't actually support Card Check at all. The letter also describes what policy towards unions and workers rights ought to be:

“The freedom to form or join a union of one’s choice or not, and to bargain collectively for the terms of one’s employment, are fundamental human rights that we as global investors recognize and respect.”

Who could disagree with that statement? It's broad enough that almost anyone would sign off on it, and would apply to the position of those who oppose the EFCA as well as those who support it. In fact, the main argument against Card Check is that it limits worker freedom to join unions by taking away the secret ballot which protects their free choice. So it could very well be that many of the signatories oppose the EFCA and it's certainly true that the group as a whole has not take a position on it and the letter is not an endorsement of it.

The letter actually seems to originate with a company called Boston Common Asset Management which like many of those signing the letter is a strange amalgem of investment firm and advocacy group. They're a worker owned collective which manages "socially responsible" investments, but seems to devote more of their time to lobbying for and promoting various left-wing causes. This business model raises all sorts of questions, like where they get the money to fund their advocacy work and how much of their customer base and revenue comes from union sources. Adding to my suspicions is that what appears to be the draft version of a similar letter to selected congressmen clearly originated on the AFL-CIO site, suggesting that these letters are being written by the union and passed on to these other groups for publication. Further research may turn up more evidence, but looking at the websites of these "social investing" groups I find it hard to believe that they could attract a great deal of money from legitimate private investors. My suspicious nature makes me wonder whether any of the groups signing the letter represent anyone other than domestic and international union interests.

What this example shows us is that when you have enough money and resources you can effectively generate your own news. Your shills issue a letter, you then hail that letter in your own publicity as a newsworthy event, you misrepresent it to make it seem more significant than it is, and then with any luck the compliant media picks up on it. With the letter released on Thursday, we'll see if that happens this coming week.

Meanwhile, in contrast with the score of shills advocating Card Check in this letter, 3100 businesses have sent their own letter to Congress opposing the passage of EFCA.

Sometimes, election years get focused on certain races to tell the story of the cycle. It is too early to tell what the stories of the next cycle will be, but here are two possibilities.

In Pennsylvania, recently re-minted Democrat Arlen Specter has said that he is not shifting his position on card-check, aka the Employee Forced (nee Free) Choice Act. SEIU and AFL-CIO are already pressuring Specter to cave by, among other things, encouraging Rep. Joe Sestak to run against him, in a race in which card-check would be a central debate.

Ironically, the 200,000 people that became Democrats, making Specter's GOP primary impossible, are likely Specter voters in a Democratic primary. As the Democrats have become more affluent, moderate tolerant, and less labor-dependent, the power of organized labor may not be so large.

What if the Democratic primary became a referendum on card-check for Democrats?  How important -- really -- is card check to Democrats? With Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel, etc., all weighing in on the anti-card-check side. Wouldn't that be funny. Wouldn't a Specter/card-check victory be a decisive defeat for the unions? This race could become nationalized in much the way that the Lieberman race was in 2006.

Similarly, I can see a fight in New Hampshire over gay marriage in the general. The legislature has passed easily reconcilable bills that legalize gay marriage legislatively. It is likely that the governor will neither sign nor veto them, bringing the law into effect.

But New Hampshire is different than Massachussets and Iowa, where gay marriage has been created by judicial fiat and seems unlikely to be reconsidered due to the ballot initiative processes. It is also different than neighboring Vermont, which just legalized gay marriage by legislative action. This is a dead issue in Vermont.

But you could imagine a battle in the general election in New Hampshire over gay marriage. Democrats had not controlled the state legislature since 1874, and some of these seats could swing back. After all, in 2006, we lost, as Time put it,  "91 state legislature seats, six of [our] 16 state senate seats and both [our] congressional seats". And gay marriage would undoubtedly play a role in a number of swing seats around the state and be a nationalized campaign. Money would flood in from around the country for both sides.

My gut is that gay marriage will not be a compelling issue in New Hampshire, but this will be the only serious opportunity for pro-traditional marriage forces to defend their position at the ballot box. They probably cannot afford to pass it up.

Aside from all the questions about the ability of the GOP to comeback and the future of the redistricting process, 2010 could be quite fascinating.

Newt Gingrich asked me to Chair a national effort to protect workers rights and support “Freedom Not Fear” in the workplace.

In a closed-door meeting Tuesday, President Obama told over 100 top union officials that “we will pass the Employee Free Choice Act.” It’s now clear that President Obama, Big Labor, and their left-wing allies in Congress, will attempt an unprecedented power grab that is a mortal threat to our economy and our democratic values.

This is being done in a stealth manner because its backers know that this bill will not pass if the American people understand its destructive nature.

To expose and stop this effort, I’ve joined American Solutions as National Chairman of our “Freedom Not Fear” campaign, and you can join us by signing our petition here.

The Employee Free Choice Act, or “Card Check,” would eliminate the right to vote by private ballot when deciding whether to join a union, and it would undermine the right to freely negotiate contracts.

We can’t tolerate this. We must stand for freedom, not fear in the workplace. We cannot afford to be intimidated. Please stand with us now. This is about protecting our fundamental right to vote privately without coercion. It’s about protecting the right of employers and employees to negotiate freely. It’s about allowing businessmen and women, not bureaucrats and union bosses, to run our businesses. And in the end, it’s about saving and protecting American jobs.

Please sign the petition now.

Americans for Job Security has launched a petition to urge Senators to oppose the confirmation of Rep. Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor. Rep. Solis is a staunch opponent of the right to a secret ballot in organizing elections.  In 2007 Rep. Solis was a co-sponsor of the “Employee Free Choice Act,” sometimes referred to as Card Check, which would eliminate a workers right to a secret ballot in organizing elections.

Besides being an opponent of the Secret Ballot, Rep. Solis has also violated several campaign finance laws and the House’s own rules of Ethics.  Rep. Solis is a member of the board, and treasurer, of American Rights at Work (ARW) a pro-union advocacy organization.  In that capacity, she had fiduciary oversight on over $220,000 that ARW spent to lobby Congress on legislation she has sponsored a clear violation of House ethics rules and until recently Rep. Solis had not reported her position at ARW as she is required to do under House rules.

In addition to alleged violations of House ethics regulations others have charged that a more serious legal issue has arisen; whether or not Rep. Solis and ARW violated the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 by sponsoring television advertisements which the group classified as "electioneering communications” in a report to the Federal Election Commission.

Join Americans for Job Security in standing up and saying NO! to Rep. Hilda Solis for Secretary of Labor. Visit our website and sign our petition today.

One reason I am a pretty firm conservative is my sense that deep down, liberals just aren't very practical. (This may also be why I often find both libertarians and neo-conservatives off target). Instead of worrying first and foremost about the practical concerns of citizens, liberals conjure up dystopias of quasi-fascist police states; platenary environmental degradation; and workplaces all being beyond the world of Charles Dickens.  And in order to prevent anyone's rights being trampled upon, a limitless series of public hearings, impact studies, administrative appeals and lawsuits must be negotiated before things get built, properties get sold or criminals sent to jail.  And of course, honest public servants are on the receiving end of this, and often conclude clock watching never got one's career ruined.

So, unlike many posters on conservative sites, I do have some admiration for FDR and his works.  But I also know well enough that the 21st century thicket of legal requirements makes the good of the New Deal very hard to implement.

Thanks in part to FDR's capital, Robert Moses, was the exemplar of "shovel ready"....he had shovels going in all five boroughs of NYC.  But now, projects of lasting utility like Moses's bridges and tunnels take decades to build, if they can be built at all. So one reason so many contemporary public works projects seem lame may be; well, that's what you are able to build in this environment.

Let's assume we are in need of massive Keynesian stimulus, and restoring American employment and productivity are the absolute most important things we must do.  So what would we do---besides finding things to spend money on ? 

We would look at what could render this expenditure ineffective and suspend it, remove it, or at the very least not add to it.

That's NOT the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda. Instead---it's just liberals in a candy store.

At a  point when businesses are finding it hard to make payroll, it's probably not a good time to write more strigent laws governing alleged gender discrimination , including terms which   "allows workers, for the first time, to collect limitless punitive and compensatory damages." 

Put aside whether federal judges or bureaucrats ought to decide you need to pay your receptionsist more than your fork lift operators, (because men drive fork lifts) irrespective of the marketplace;  more lawsuits mean fewer jobs.

And I think the negative impact of card check on job creation is self-evident to all but the most dedicated liberal.

And when the American manufacturing sector is hurting badly, maybe this is not the year to embark on a crusade against global warming  considering much of the multitrillion dollar price tag will no doubt be borne by energy consumers. Bloomberg news says  "There is no consensus on how the government and consumers would finance the needed investments in renewable energy and other projects to trim greenhouse-gas emissions during a recession" Well, as Nic Sarkozy would  say non merde.....there isn;t going to be $500B/year for this as long we are throwing that mind of dough at the banks.....unless, of course, someone thinks higher electric rates are going to stimulate the economy.  

Even if we delay a full bore green offensive, Francis Cionfrocco persuasively argues the massive proposed federal investment will be way off target.  Perhaps a year or so ought to be taken to determine if trying to force everyone to use electric cars is simply going to exchange blackouts for oil price spikes. (since generators and transmission lines get NIMBYed and BANANAed to death by politicians of both parties)

One also might wonder why we would be spending billions to increase the quantity of "affordable housing" when housing values are dropping like a rock   and one major city has a huge glut of abandoned firetraps.  Perhaps we need to get work to all the underemployed carpenters and roofers out there; building added housing and depressing prices further is a problematic way to do it.

The UAW's diffidence about a rational labor deal with the in extremis domestic auto makers is also going to stall our recovery. Domo Arigato Mr. Gettlefinger

Now one thing that might reduce unemployment of American workers would be to effectively control illegal immigration, which would also act to prop up wages for the less-skilled sectors of the American labor force. So, the Obama Administration plans to hire more border patrol and ICE agents to stop illegal crossings and deport illegals faster? (and, hmm, hiring more Border Patrol and ICE agents, might, hmm, lower unemployment?)

well, in a word, No.

Unless he's gonna throw his DHS pick "under the bus"  

In an 83-page policy questionnaire, Napolitano said she would consider "a broad range of changes" to Bush immigration policies, whose focus on raids, criminal prosecutions and expedited deportation of immigrants has been criticized by immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups as unduly harsh.

Ironically, Hispanic Americans list the economy far ahead of immigration as a pressing concern.  Guess their lobbyist didn;t get the memo to wise up the Obama team.

In the New Deal, the parts that worked (and stuff like the National Recovery Administration didn;t) were focused on simply getting things built and putting people to work. Like Robert Moses's bridges.

The Obama Administration says these are extraordinary times demanding extraordinary federal expenditures. But instead of telling the usual suspects in the liberal coalition to stand down while they go to work to restore our economy, they simply bring all them all along for the ride.

I might well still find much of the Obama spending spree objectionable , if for no other reason the unbelievable scale and manufactered urgency virtually insures inordinate waste and corruption. But had the Obama team made sure that the usual liberal barnacles on the economy were put on hold, I'd give them huge marks for sincerity.

But if this is simply going to be the world's biggest gift to one's political supporters in human hsitory, instead of a real recovery package, well , then I think John Boehner has it right. As Power Line  put it, it's the      Biggest Boondoggle in American History

I want the American economy to succeed no matter who is President. But this car is not going to go very far forward if we are flooring the accelerator with trillion dollar deficits and pulling the "parking break "of liberal special interest laws, taxes and regulations at the same time.  

I hope the "transmission" in the American economy does not "drop"......there's no AAA to call if Obama and company wreck the car not knowing how to drive it. .

Promoted.  This is an interesting approach to stopping card check, preserving the secret ballot and expanding the authority of States to set their own policy.  - Jon Henke

The misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will take away the secret ballot for potential union members and force them to openly declare their preferences for or against a union, causing that worker to be easily open to intimidation by union thugs. This is a law currently in the table in Congress, one that Barack Obama has pledged to push through regardless of how it eliminates one of the oldest democratic rights there is.

But, now Missouri is trying to head off the possible federal enactment of "card check" (the provision that eliminates the secret ballot) by legislating that a secret ballot is protected by state law.

So, the question remains, can a state law supersede a federal law?

There seems to be a problem with military absentee votes in Fairfax, Virginia. From A Soldier's Perspective:

The Fairfax County Registrar—and possibly other Registrars in Virginia—is rejecting most Federal Write-in Absentee Ballots (FWAB) cast by our men and women in uniform.

The FWAB is a federally mandated write-in ballot that allows military servicemembers and their dependents to cast an absentee ballot when they have not received a ballot before the election. It is a safety net that allows a servicemember to vote even if the mail truck hasn't reached his or her remote base in Iraq or Afghanistan in time to cast a regular absentee ballot.

I have talked to several people involved in this process. They are not in fact, yet, rejecting the absentee ballots. They have not been counted and are picking a procedure for doing it. And the current procedure would result in rejecting military absentees.

The basic idea is that if military voters do not get their absentee ballots in time, they can fill out a "Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot" that all election officials are required by federal law to accept. Virgina's instructions are here. The ballot is here.

The position of the Fairfax Registrar is that the sealed (outside) envelope has to be witnessed. The thing is that there is no location to witness, and the instructions are unclear.

Furthermore, this is in violation of the US law, which pre-empts in this case. ASP continues:

Federal law does not allow this type of disparate treatment of servicemembers. The Uniform and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act (UOCAVA), 42 U.S.C. § 1973ff-2, requires states to process FWABs "in the manner provided by law for absentee ballots in the State involved." (emphasis added). In other words, the FWAB must be treated like any other absentee ballot under state law and may not be subject to more restrictive requirements. Yet that is precisely what is being done here.

No other kind of absentee ballots are required to be witnessed in Virginia. So the county registrar is improperly implementing federal law and "suppressing" the military vote.

Two final points:

First, I look forward to the squealing from the lefty groups. Somehow, I predict silence.

Second, there was a solution to these problems proposed earlier. Rep. Kevin McCarthy introduced HR 5673 to expedite the delivery of military absentee ballots. The unions opposed. Here was the operative bit, where they complain about the private sector:

NAPUS is deeply concerned about HR 5673, particularly the provision that sanctions private contractor conveyance of overseas and military ballots.

When the unions opposed the measure, all actions stopped in the House. Nancy Pelosi and Chairman Robert Brady (also chairman of that pristine Philadelphia Democratic Party, whose Secretary has been convicted multiple times of violating election laws) didn't seem to care about preserving voting rights. Somehow, putting unions ahead of voting rights will be a pattern in the Democratic House.

There will be many sad and deplorable stories to come out of this bailout farce. One of them has been the brazen opportunism of the Labor Unions. The magnanimous bailout proposal from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was, in fact, just a rent-seeking wish list.   Take this proposal, for instance:

An Economy That Works for Everyone

Following the longest period of wage stagnation in American history, we are in an era of historic income inequality. Between 1980 and 2004 CEO pay went up 700% -- but American workers’ wages saw little change.

By enacting The Employee Free Choice Act at no cost to taxpayers, government has the opportunity to set a framework for the private sector to ensure we have an economy that works for everyone—not just those at the top. American workers should have the chance to freely choose whether to join together in a union at their workplace so they gain a voice on the job, wages that support a family, and better benefits.

Never mind that the "wage stagnation" is largely a myth (among many other things, wages are only one part of total compensation). The Employee Free Choice Act (aka: Card Check) isn't about "free choice", it is about lower barriers for Union organizers. It is far easier for them to pressure people, on the spot, to sign a card than it is to persuade workers to sign a secret ballot.

You might expect that the SEIU would lobby to tilt the playing field to their advantage, but the really shocking thing is this: the SEIU claimed removing the secret ballot would cost $0.00.

Of course, we know what they really mean: it won’t cost the government anything; the costs of this regulation would come out of someone else’s hide.

That is a bailout alright, but it had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage problem. It was a cynical ploy to get the government to bail out the increasingly desperate unions.

One month ago today, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece pointing out that the ironically-named Employee Free Choice Act actually makes it “more difficult for [Americans] not to join a union,” while states that resist this kind of regulation have higher growth in per-capita income, higher rates of job creation and lower unemployment.

This is far from an exception for the Unions.  Their ongoing lobbying for "green collar jobs" - which are generally just existing jobs that have been reclassified to benefit Unions - is a farce, as well;  the Texas Workforce Commission pointed out the many ways that is a charade in a recent report.

Unfortunately, Unions see their opportunity to conscript Americans workers and manipulate jobs into Union hands.  They know the stakes in 2008; that is why they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to elect their stooges.  The cost of this will not be $0.00.

The logic of interest groups sometimes escapes reason. They often issue endorsements based on scored votes. They have to do that. But they shoot themselves in the foot. Jon has written about this with Don Young and Americans for Tax Reform. Certainly ATR has redeemed itself with the "rats head in a Coke bottle". But still, in a 150 vote House race, which AK-AL turned in to, that ATR award might have made the difference, giving us a venal Democrat over a good reformist Republican.

Well, the Chamber of Commerce is doing it too. In Louisana, they endorsed Mary Landreiu over proven vote-winner State Treasurer John Kennedy. She empowers union thugs. She voted for card-check, the "Employee Free Choice Act." But get this. According to the Chamber's CEO, defeating card-check is their highest priority:

"The main thing is that we want to keep enough people in the Senate to maintain the filibuster," he said.

They want 40 people. But they endorse someone for it who is running against someone against it. John Kennedy can actually win this race, if he gets some support.

But righty groups play defense for his corrupt opponent.  Corrupt? Where did that come from. Today, CREW, an unimpeachably lefty organization, declared Mary Landreiu one of the "most corrupt members of Congress". Why?

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is a second-term senator from Louisiana.  Her ethics issues stem from inserting an earmark into an appropriations bill to benefit a large campaign donor.

Just like ATR, acting totally rationally, may have delivered us a venal Alaskan Democrat, the Chamber may have delivered us an economy-crippling card-check bill by backing a corrupt politician who votes against them when it counts.

Thanks guys.