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In The News

Next on the agenda . . .
Don’t look now, but card check is back
By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

January 2, 2010

GOSH, IT sure is easier to get things done in Washington when one party controls most of the government, isn’t it? The White House and the executive office? Check. The House of Representatives? Check. A firm 60 seats in the United States Senate when independents break the right way? Check.

Unless the Democrats get into an intra-party fight over the public option—and we wouldn’t put it past them—health care “reform” seems to be on the way. Like a train. And some of us feel like we’re tied to the tracks. Why bother with tort reform and taking down those barriers to competition we call state borders, which might actually lower the cost of health care? We’re the federal government and we’re here to help. And we’re going to (1) extend health care coverage to millions of Americans who don’t have it and might not even want it, and (b) lower the cost. Just look at Medicare. What a success! Until about seven years from now, when it’s supposed to go bankrupt.

Yes, things are much easier to accomplish in Washington when the theory of bipartisanship remains only a theory. Voters won’t have a say again on the makeup of Congress until late next year, giving this president and the firm of Nancy, Pelosi, Harry & Reid 10-someodd months to pass what they want.

Next on the agenda: that card-check bill again.

We hear tell that the card-check part of the card-check bill was scrapped because it couldn’t get enough support in the Senate. No longer would Rocko and Lenny visit each employee and “explain” how signing a card to form a union would be better for all involved, including said employee’s knees, and there’d be no need for a secret-ballot election once youse just signed dis here card. Not that unions have ever used intimidation or unseemly tactics when trying to organize a shop. But taking the card-check proposal out of the cardcheck bill might have taken away any such temptation. (Thank you, Blanch Lincoln. But later let’s talk about your vote on the health care bill again.)

The labor unions, however, still want their taste of the pie. Why should the greens and the health-care reformers get all the goodies?

The bill that unions are pushing would still call for binding arbitration if companies fail to reach a contract with a new union.

Such a clause would, of course, stiffen both the union’s demands and management’s resistance to them. Why negotiate in good faith when the government is going to write the contract anyway? Why not just run the clock out and hope the arbitrator will come down on your side? (Nor is he likely to side with management; he’s not the one who’ll have to pay the higher wages and therefore have to charge the customers a higher price. If the company survives.)

Oh, and one more thing: Under binding arbitration, would the workers lose their right to approve or disapprove the final terms of the new contract? Gosh, just when you thought the unions were pro-free choice, there it goes again, thanks to something they’re still calling the Employee Free Choice Act.

Word comes that the unions also want to cut the time that companies can campaign against unions in their own plants. Instead of trying to talk employees out of unionizing over a 2-month period, unions would like to see that cut to, oh, about a week.

Hurry up and vote on something without getting all the facts? That seems to be going around lately.

STEVEN Rosenthal, a Democratic consultant and former political director at the AFL-CIO, said get ready, America, new rules for forming unions might be incorporated into jobs legislation in the next few months.

“Going into the 2010 election, when unions are critical to turnout, the Democrats need to do this to energize the labor movement and kick it into high gear,” he said. “Something’s going to pass.”

Something’s going to pass.

And why shouldn’t it? The unions spent a record $450 million in 2008 to get the Democrats in control of the White House and Congress. You don’t spend $450 million and not expect a little sumpin-sumpin in return.

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (with 2.1 million members at last count) isn’t exactly trying to keep all this secret. He told the press that he expects Congress to take up a union bill in the first quarter of this year.

Dispatches say that a one Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, was the most frequent visitor to President Obama’s White House in the first six months of the president’s term. We’d bet both Andy Sterns who are both president of the SEIU are the same person. Get ready America.

Something’s going to pass.

Which is why we all need to keep an eye on Congress, union bills, and who’s visiting the White House so very often.