The New Blacklist

I think this sort of behavior, when done by folks on the political right, used to be called "blacklisting."

New Deal Dinosaur

The National Labor Relations Board is one of those Depression-era dinosaurs that still roams the Earth, long after it ought to have gone extinct, but which has suddenly burst back into the news, with Jurassic Park-like ferocity, thanks to a union-friendly White House that likes to use surrogates to do its dirty work.

The NLRB's first iteration, hatched in 1933, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court -- a blow against socialism that helped prompt FDR's infamous court-packing scheme. The second iteration, created in 1934, somehow survives to this day, though most Americans don't even know it exists or understand what it does.

That's something current board members obviously intend to change through increasingly-provocative actions like last week's demand that Boeing shelve plans for a new plant in South Carolina, because it will be a less union-friendly workplace than the company's other facilities in Washington State. Reported the New York Times:

"In what may be the strongest signal yet of the new pro-labor orientation of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama, the agency filed a complaint Wednesday seeking to force Boeing to bring an airplane production line back to its unionized facilities in Washington State instead of moving the work to a nonunion plant in South Carolina.

In its complaint, the labor board said that Boeing’s decision to transfer a second production line for its new 787 Dreamliner passenger plane to South Carolina was motivated by an unlawful desire to retaliate against union workers for their past strikes in Washington and to discourage future strikes. The agency’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, said it was illegal for companies to take actions in retaliation against workers for exercising the right to strike...

...Boeing said it would “vigorously contest” the labor board’s complaint. “This claim is legally frivolous and represents a radical departure from both N.L.R.B. and Supreme Court precedent,” said J. Michael Luttig, a Boeing executive vice president and its general counsel. “Boeing has every right under both federal law and its collective bargaining agreement to build additional U.S. production capacity outside of the Puget Sound region.”

It is highly unusual for the federal government to seek to reverse a corporate decision as important as the location of plant. But ever since a Democratic majority took control of the five-member board after Mr. Obama’s election, the board has signaled that it would seek to adopt a more liberal, pro-union tilt after years of pro-employer decisions under President Bush."

An unelected board dictating to a private company where it can or can't locate an assembly line -- that sounds like an edict out of Stalin-era Russia, or Maoist China, not the United States of America in the 21st century. And so it is. But it's not altogether shocking with this union-friendly president in the White House -- a president who enjoys using surrogates to advance agendas he knows Congress won't codify (his use of the EPA to push for carbon controls being another prominent example).

How Congress will respond to this outrageous act of overreach remains to be seen. House Republicans ought to place the defunding and disbanding of this arrogant little anachronism, this embarrassing New Deal relic, high on their list of priorities. The only fitting home left for the NLRB is in a display case at The Smithsonian.

Are We There Yet?

Conservative politicos and pundits keep warning that the president wants to impose "European-style socialism" right here in the good old US of A. But he needn't bother. Signs point to the fact that it's already here.

The backlash France has seen from the entitled classes created by European-style socialism is already being witnessed here, albeit on a small scale, in the attacks by public employee unions on any politician or proposal that threatens their spot on the government gravy train. We see the entitlement mentality at work in Wisconsin. We see it at work in every other state where governors are trying to achieve fiscal sustainability by seeking concessions from unions or rolling-back collective bargaining rights. And the backlash is getting angry and ugly.

Mass demonstrations and riots of the sort we sometimes see in Europe haven't been seen in the United States, yet. But that's because printed money and massive borrowing are delaying the day of reckoning, when entitlements and unsustainable pay and pension plans actually have to be pruned back. Europe got there sooner only because it had a head start. We're catching-up fast, however -- and actually accelerating toward the inevitable train wreck under President Obama.

European-style socialism isn't something that's coming. It's something that's already here.

Blocking the Exits

The Airport Advisory Board, in a memo responding to my questions about exploring a private option for handling passenger screenings at Colorado Springs Airport, recently recommended against replacing TSA. The costs and complications of making the change far outweigh any tangible benefits, in terms of improved service, according to the board. Relatively few passenger complaints have been heard at COS. And relations between TSA and airport managers have been good, according to the memo.

Fair enough. That no doubt will please those on council who do everything possible to not rock the boat. I still think the question was worth asking. I fear the situation will deteriorate once TSA screeners gain collective bargaining rights and the union ethos -- which I know first-hand thanks to nearly two years as a card-carrying member of the United Auto Workers -- seeps deep into the bureaucracy's pores. Airports should at least have an option regarding TSA, in my opinion, even if they don't take it, this being a free country and all.

Such discussions just became completely irrelevant, however, because Moscow .. . . sorry, I meant Washington . . . last week slammed the door on the option, by declaring that no more airports will be allowed to go private. That doesn't sit well with certain members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, who say Congress wrote an opt-out clause into the original legislation for a reason, so the last word on this has not been heard. Maybe a sharp reduction in TSA funding will lead to a change of heart. But the move drew loud cheers from the National Treasury Employees Union, which hates private sector competition and wants to turn every airport screening station in America into a union shop. Just think of the efficiency and improvement in work ethic and service that will bring.

There's no evidence that private screeners are less competent than federal screeners. I'm aware of no security breaches linked to airports opting-out. The 16 airports that contract-out these services (which suggests to me that there must be some benefit) seem perfectly happy with the choice they made. So why wouldn't Moscow . . . . there I go again, sorry . . . permit the expansion of a program that seems to be working well?

That could be the first problem: It's working well. Or this could just be another case of heavy-handed Washington lording it over the peons beyond the beltway. A third possibility suggests itself, however -- that this union-friendly White House fears a stampede of airports to the exits once collective bargaining rights are finally granted TSA workers, which could really put a dent in the union dues collected by organizations that gave (and will give) a lot of campaign money to Barack Obama

Could this administration's motives for slamming the door on the private option really be that base, that tawdry, that self-serving? Could this really be just another way for the White House to throw Big Labor a bone? With no better explanation to offer, that's the one I'm going with for now.

Labor Pains

It's unclear from this Pueblo Chieftain story whether Hilda Solis is the U.S. Secretary of Labor or the U.S. Secretary of Labor Unions. It's obviously the latter, judging from the reference Solis makes to her "brothers and sisters" in the United Auto Workers.

Can't we somehow put an end to the president and senior administration officials traveling around the country on the government's dime, stumping for candidates? They should be forced to fly commercial, at their own expense, and have their salaries docked accordingly, when they do so. The next president, Democrat or Republican, should put an end to this blatant, though somehow tolerated, misuse of office.

America's Only "Growth Industry"

Government is America's only remaining growth industry -- the only sector of the economy that continues to expand even as the private economy (the "competitive sector," as one friend calls it) contracts. It's not very surprising, therefore, that government sector unions have now eclipsed competitive sector counterparts in terms of membership numbers. While overall U.S. union membership continues to fall, tracking the downward trajectory of old line industries (industries that unions helped destroy), the numbers are rising where the growth is -- in government.

The Wall Street Journal makes note of this trend, and explores some of the implications, on today's editorial page.

"In private industries, union workers are subject to the vagaries of the marketplace and economic growth. Thus in 2009 10.1% of private union jobs were eliminated, which was more than twice the 4.4% rate of overall private job losses. On the other hand, government unions offer what is close to lifetime job security and benefits, subject only to gross dereliction of duty.

Once a city or state's workers are organized by a union, the jobs almost never go away.
This means government is the main playing field of modern unionism, which explains why the AFL-CIO and SEIU have become advocates for higher taxes and government expansion in cities, states and Washington. Unions once saw their main task as negotiating a bigger share of an individual firm's profits. Now the movement's main goal is securing a larger share of the overall private economy's wealth, which means pitting government employees against middle-class taxpayers.

And as union membership has grown in government, so has union clout in pushing politicians (especially but not solely Democrats) for higher wages and benefits. This is why labor chiefs Andy Stern (SEIU) and Rich Trumka (AFL-CIO) could order Democrats to exempt unions from ObamaCare's tax increase on high-cost health insurance plans. To the extent Democrats have become the party of government, they have become ever more beholden to public unions.

The problem for democracy is that this creates a self-reinforcing cycle of higher spending and taxes. The unions help elect politicians, who repay the unions with more pay and benefits and dues-paying members, who in turn help to re-elect those politicians."

With American manufacturing down on its knees, brought low by self-inflicted and government-inflicted wounds (as opposed to the usual bogeymen of free trade and globalization), the only fertile ground left for unionism to grow is in the government sector. That not only is turning unions into a major lobby for higher taxes and government growth, as the editorial points out. It also increases the difficulty of reining-in government, and reforming government, when the "taxpayer sector" balks at paying more. That dynamic can be seen not just at the federal level, but at the state and local levels as well.

The Union Connection

Many factors are dragging down the "old media," from falling ad revenues to the free content culture of the Internet. But unions are an often-overlooked part of the equation, as I've noted here before.

The unions that are sucking the productivity and profitability out of The Boston Globe are making last-minute concessions in a bid to forestall the death of another great American newspaper, reports Wednesday's Washington Post. But as with so many other heavily-unionized American industries that have been going the way of the Dodo, it's almost certainly too little, too late.

Note in the story that one of the sticking points in the negotiations was a "lifetime job guarantee" enjoyed by some company employees -- a level of job security that only members of the federal bench and members of Congress can rival. "Nearly 470 employees across six unions have the guarantees, including about 190 Newspaper Guild members," reports the Post. "Most got the promises in a contract ratified in 1994, shortly after the Times Co. bought the Globe for $1.1 billion, in exchange for other concessions at the time. Workers can still be fired for cause, but the newspaper says the guarantees reduce its ability to pare its operational structure."

Let's not forget, when writing the obituary for the American newspaper industry, the significant role that unions played in its demise. Other factors matter, of course. Even non-union papers are struggling and failing, it's true. But it also seems evident that the more heavily-unionized the paper, the faster it is sinking. Yet the union connection rarely gets mentioned when the post mortems are done.

A Federal Holiday -- for as far as the eye can see

Most Americans are living under the shadow of economic storm clouds. But the forecast couldn't be sunnier for federal worker bees, who will see the hive thrive under queen bee Barack Obama.

Washington is recession proof. The government grows even when the economy, and the American standard of living, contract. Maybe there's even a causal connection there.

A recent Washington Post analysis of Obama's first budget found that tens of thousands of federal positions will have to be added to implement his grand design.

"President Obama's budget is so ambitious, with vast new spending on health care, energy independence, education and services for veterans, that experts say he probably will need to hire tens of thousands of new federal government workers to realize his goals.

The $3.6 trillion plan released last week proposes spending billions to begin initiatives and implement existing programs, and given Obama's insistence that he would scale back the use of private-sector contractors, his priorities could reverse a generational decline in the size of the government workforce.

Exactly how many new workers would be needed remains unclear -- one independent estimate was 100,000, while the conservative Heritage Foundation said it is likely to be closer to a quarter-million."

The Post went on to report that many federal agencies are already gearing up for a hiring glut. And while die-hard statists and federal employee unions are gleeful, it marks the reversal of a trend toward more modest government that began under President Ronald Reagan and continued through President Bill Clinton, who famously (though prematurely) declared that "the era of big government is over."

Reports The Post:

Between 1940 and 1970, the federal civilian workforce swelled from 707,000 to 2.1 million . . . . But ever since Ronald Reagan swept into the White House in 1981 with a call to decrease the government's footprint, presidents have limited the size of the workforce. Although President

George W. Bush added tens of thousands of airport baggage screeners and other homeland security jobs, he offset much of that increase by limiting hiring at other agencies. In reversing this trend, Obama would make himself politically vulnerable to charges that he is growing not just the power of government, but also its size. If the outside estimates are realized, Obama could spur a government hiring spree on a scale unseen since President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society agenda in the 1960s.

"What group of socialists got in the room and wrote this budget? Do they have any idea what the implications are?" asked Republican Newt Gingrich, who as House speaker in the 1990s advocated a shrinking of the government. "This is the most aggressive 180-degree turn that we have seen in the American system."

Obama and the Democrats in charge of Congress are making other moves that will grow the federal workforce and empower federal bureaucrats. While private sector unemployment rises, and good paying jobs dry up, federal workers seem poised to get big pay increases.

Obama last week used executive orders to reverse a trend toward outsourcing and privatizing federal jobs, by attempting to redefine, and broaden, the definition of an "inherently government function." Reports GovExec.com:

"President Obama on Wednesday ordered the Office of Management and Budget to undertake an in-depth review of the government's contracting efforts, including the outsourcing of work historically performed by federal employees.

A memorandum Obama issued requires the OMB director to work with the Defense secretary, NASA administrator, General Services Administration chief, Office of Personnel Management director and others to develop guidance on strengthening contract oversight, ending unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus deals and maximizing competition in procurement. Obama said these reforms will save taxpayers $40 billion annually. The guidance, due by Sept. 30, must clarify "when governmental outsourcing for services is and is not appropriate."

The memo stated that OMB Circular A-76, the government's playbook for public-private job competitions, was based on the "reasonable premise" that taxpayers might get a better deal if activities that are not inherently governmental are subject to competitive forces.

"However, the line between inherently governmental activities that should not be outsourced and commercial activities that may be subject to private sector competition has been blurred and inadequately defined," Obama wrote. "As a result, contractors may be performing inherently governmental functions. Agencies and departments must operate under clear rules prescribing when outsourcing is and is not appropriate."

The Bush administration strongly supported competitive sourcing and engaged in a number of legislative skirmishes to push the initiative and defend it from congressional detractors. Lawmakers have continued to fight public-private competitions, however, most recently with a provision in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill that would suspend new Circular A-76 competitions. The provision also would require agencies to review current contracts and issue guidelines for considering if new projects can be performed by federal employees, or if previously outsourced work can be brought back in-house.

The move was hailed by federal employee unions, who have worked with Democrats in Congress to thwart any and all efforts to contract out government services. "We hope this is the end of the era of privatization during which agencies were forced to contract out regardless of cost or quality, and at the expense of integrity and accountability of federal programs," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

And the unions have a strong ally in Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat who now chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee. Lynch's agenda begins with a pay raise for federal workers and grows more ambitious from there -- culminating in winning collective bargaining rights for airport screeners.

If you think traversing the TSA gauntlet is excruciating now, just wait until the "thousands standing around" are fully unionized. It'll make a trip to the post office feel like a breeze.

Union Dues . . . and Don'ts

This news story, indicating that the United Auto Workers plan to go down with the ship, along with today's guest commentary in the Wall Street Journal, sent me rifling through the way back file for a column I wrote at The Colorado Springs Gazette, recounting my own youthful experiences as a card-carrying member of the UAW.

It predates the present crisis, but still stands up, I think, in terms of what it has to say about unions. And since there seems little point in re-writing what's already been written, I thought I would re-run the piece, with the reader's indulgence:

Motor City memories inform opinions on labor unions

October 16, 2005

In a former life I was a rivethead. A factory rat. A grease monkey. A card-carrying member of the United Auto Workers. My attitudes toward labor unions — attitudes that creep into my editorializing on the subject, no doubt — aren’t ivory tower, therefore, but informed by a combined two years on “the line” in Detroit while working my way through college.

I’ve been thinking more about those days lately, when I watch from a distance as the economy of my grungy hometown, the once mighty Motor City, coughs, sputters and stalls out, with no jumper cables in sight. The latest body blow is the bankruptcy of Michiganbased Delphi, the world’s biggest auto parts supplier. As part of restructuring, the company wants its 24,000 UAW workers — who earn $27 dollar an hour plus benefits — to take a pay cut.

Another Detroit icon, General Motors, which spun off Delphi as a separate entity in 1999, last week saw its stock value fall by 10 percent and credit rating reduced by Standard & Poors to BB-, to “junk” bond status in other words. Mounting losses and huge health care costs ($5.6 billion this year alone) have the company reeling.

The city’s epitaph has been written before. But Detroiters are a stubbornly optimistic lot, as they show each fall by predicting a winning season for the ne’er-do-well Lions. But the situation today looks as grim as it ever has. And unions have played a major part in that sad saga, like it or not.

Both companies are hoping to dig themselves out with the help of wage and benefit concessions from the UAW. But they shouldn’t count on it. American labor unions have a history of helping to kill the industries off which they sponge, showing less common sense than parasites in the natural world, which at least know enough not to suck the life out of the host. Symbiosis isn’t a concept unions seem to grasp, at least not until it’s too late to pull a crippled industry back from the brink.

A harsh assessment, perhaps, but one based on personal experience as a lunchbox-lugging member of the UAW. I worked at two different plants in Detroit, both of which were union shops, meaning that joining wasn’t optional. There were significant, and instructive, differences between the two.

Chevrolet Warren, where I spent a year working the second shift, was what might be called a “hard union” shop. Here the UAW, not hated “management,” seemed to run the show. The foreman was only nominally my boss; the real bosses seemed to be the full time union stewards, whose job seemed to be making sure no one was fired, punished for lack of productivity or worked very hard.

I started out as a suburban kid with a work ethic, so the foremen took advantage of it, putting me on the dirtiest and hardest jobs, while guys with more seniority pushed brooms, shuffled around and drank coffee. It wasn’t just because I was a low seniority “kid” that I got tapped for the jobs. Some of the lifers were saboteurs, who monkey-wrenched the machines when asked to produce.

When machines broke down we were sent home with pay. Many days I would clock in only to be paid and let go. Union rules meant I couldn’t be sent to work elsewhere in the plant. It happened once, but my union steward quickly had me taken off that job and sent home, with pay.

Absenteeism was rampant. Everyone knew doctors who would write an excuse for a fee. Within six months, the suburban kid with the work ethic learned the ropes enough to slip into slacker mode, like everybody else. We worked sometimes, but like highly paid sleepwalkers.

The story was different at the “soft union” shop, an independent stamping plant that did piece work for the Big Three. We were all paying UAW dues, but management ran the show, not the union stewards, and productivity was monitored and required. “Making your numbers” for the shift was expected, unless your press broke down. And when that happened, there were other presses waiting. It wasn’t slavery. But it met the definition of manual labor.

Safety systems were in place to keep appendages from being folded, spindled or mutilated when one of the two-story presses cycled inadvertently. But we cranked out a lot of bus bumpers and wheel wells, often at a reckless pace.

Two years on the line taught me a few things about unions. I saw firsthand how union attitudes and tactics, when taken to extreme, undermine productivity, accountability and the work ethic. I saw how unions coerce support for political causes. I saw how a cadre of union honchos, rather than working for a living, sponged off the union dues of those who did work. I saw that unions mirror and mimic the worst traits of the corporate interests they claim to stand against. I watched American heavy industries be shut down or off-shored, even as labor unions refused to give concessions that might have kept them competitive and alive.

This was only part of my education about unions. The disappearance of former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa from a restaurant near where I lived suggested the criminality and corruption percolating away behind the union facade. Later in my career, while working for Citizens Against Government Waste, the longshoreman’s union sent goons to intimidate people at a Capitol Hill press conference at which maritime subsidies were criticized. I had to laugh — my “Uncle” Johnny, a former prize fighter, was an enforcer for the seafarer’s union in Brooklyn

Unions today are different, but the same. With the country’s heavy industries and manufacturing base in sharp decline, most of the growth is in government employee and teachers unions. These are a god-send to a fading union movement, because they are virtually recession proof and well insulated against competition and market pressures. That’s changing somewhat in the realm of public education, thanks to a school choice movement aimed at injecting more competition and accountability into the system. But the union response is the same — to refuse to make concessions, to change, to take the steps that are necessary to keep “host” industries on the cutting edge.

Unions were a historical necessity. At one time, they performed a valuable role. But over time they have morphed into something that crushes productivity, accountability, creativity, innovation and individuality — all the qualities American workers need if the country is to remain an economic powerhouse.