NOVEMBER 20, 2009

What Next for "Tea Party" Activists?

Following the recent "Taxpayers March on Harrisburg," as well as recent health care protests in Washington DC and elsewhere, a grassroots organizer posed the question, "what should we do now?" Here are a few thoughts for the tea party movement.

Protest is not enough. Repeated protests and rallies can simply be ignored, and wear out activists who want to attend. Furthermore, events with unclear or mixed messages fail to advance the effort. And "Obama is Hitler" comparisons (even when they come from 7-time Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche), make the entire movement look bad. Here are some suggestions for tea party and 9/12 activists.

• Strategic involvement in elections. Politicians tend to react only when their electoral prospects are at stake. While protests can strike fear into elected officials, they will only be successful when the movement shows it can influence election outcomes. Strategic involvement includes recruiting candidates for office; getting involved in primaries, particularly in districts where Democrats or Republicans dominate; supporting third-party candidates when neither major party offers a viable alternative; putting candidates on the record for what they support; and researching and exposing incumbents' voting records.

• Focus on state and local issues. Sure national health care, federal deficit spending, Cap & Trade, Card Check, and countless other national issues remain important, but state and local issues should not be ignored. State budget battles, corruption in state and local government, local property tax hikes, and eminent domain abuses by local authorities have largely been ignored at tea parties. State and local governments spent about $3 trillion last year, nearly matching the federal government. State and local governments have almost 15 million full-time employees - about six times the federal civilian payroll. State and local policymakers have vast powers, and yet activists can have greater influence on local issues.
  

• Push a policy agenda. Opposing higher taxes and bigger government is needed, but you can't beat something with nothing. Simply saying "no" to bad ideas, or even championing "following the constitution" is not adequate without tangible ideas average citizens can get their heads around. The movement needs to do a better job of identifying and championing policy alternatives. Some ideas I think most can support include:
  
  
  1. Spending Limits - The first step to stopping out-of-control government spending is to limit the growth of government. Strict limits on the growth of government spending or taxes - such as tying it to inflation and population - would protect taxpayers, focus lawmakers on eliminating waste and pork, and also trigger economic prosperity. There have been proposals to limit federal spending, but tax and expenditure limits can, and have been, implemented at the state and local level, via voter referendum.
  
  
  2. Spending Transparency - Many states have enacted online databases of state spending, and even some local governments and school districts have done the same. Pennsylvania lags behind on this front, though legislation is moving in the state House. Transparency databases allow taxpayer to see where their money is being spent; help to eliminate waste, fraud and corruption; promote greater competition for government grants; and cost little to build. Of course, even with greater access to information, activists still need to be vigilant, taking opportunities to read and report on state and local government spending and corruption at places like SunshineReview.org.
  
  
  3. State Constitutional Convention and/or Initiative and Referendum - Given the rampant corruption in state and local government in Pennsylvania, there is a clear need for government reform. Term limits, a part-time legislature, redistricting reform, and numerous other reforms - both good and bad - have been proposed, but it is clear that few of these reforms will happen if we rely on lawmaker to reform themselves. A state constitutional convention and allowing Initiative and Referendum in Pennsylvania are ways to return power to the people, creating additional checks on the abuses of elected officials.
     
  
  
  4. Interstate Competition in Health Care - While we have outlined many policy recommendations in health care as an alternative to national takeover, allowing interstate competition is one that has started to catch on among lawmakers and pundits. One estimate suggests interstate competition would reduce the number of uninsured by 25 to 33%.

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD | 00:51 PM | 1 comment

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Is "Card Check" Racist?

A new study on the Employee Free Choice Act finds that the ill-named legislation would deliberately harm minorities (HT: The Union Label)

This proposal would likely expand labor hierarchy, labor market cartelization and diminish the employment prospects of racial minorities.

The full study, authored by Harry Hutchinson of the George Mason School of Law, also highlights Pennsylvania's prevailing wage law (citing, among others, Chris Dodd's commentary on that subject):

Consider one contemporary example illustrating this point. Since construction began on the Philadelphia Convention Center, the city's black construction workers have protested the lack of opportunity for minority workers on public construction projects. Unwilling to risk losing political support from unions by challenging their discriminatory hiring practices, Mayor Nutter chose instead to issue a report on minority hiring goals.

Fashioned after the federal Davis-Bacon Act, Pennsylvania's prevailing wage law passed in 1961, is currently the root cause behind the limited number of black workers on cityfunded projects. Pennsylvania prevailing wage law honors the legacy of Robert Bacon, co-author of the Davis-Bacon Act, who denied anti-African American animus, but made clear his discomfort with "defective" workers taking jobs that "belonged" to white union men.

Pennsylvania's statute was initially designed to limit opportunities for out-of-state black workers, but this process has now been inverted. Instead of preventing black workers in other states from taking construction jobs in Philadelphia, this law allows unions to ship mostly white workers from other states to the city in order to prevent Pennsylvania's black laborers from working on prevailing wage projects. Because this paradigm conceives of blacks as "undeserving" workers who "wrongly" lower the wages and employment prospects of members of racially superior groups, this type of intentional or collateral damage is a grotesque form of discrimination.

But even if a trustworthy judge could strip the prevailing wage policy of its racist heritage, its exclusionary effects remain intact. As Reformists have already shown, the degree of blameworthiness does not necessarily limit the capacity of a policy to stifle the rate of black progress. Pennsylvania's prevailing wage enhances the economic returns and social status that accrue to white workers and vitiates the returns and contributes to the dislocation of African Americans. Perhaps unwilling to risk sustained opposition from politically powerful trade unionists, the Mayor might attempt to shelter the city's inaction by asserting that the statute, at issue, is neutral and progressive. Whether the prevailing wage law can be protected as a neutral enactment and whether the local building trades union, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, can be seen as a progressive instrument for societal transformation, Critical Race Reformist analysis finds racism and exclusion already there. 

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD | 03:12 PM | 0 comment

JULY 24, 2009

Employee Free Choice Act: Still Not Free, Still No Choice

Democrats recently announced they will drop card check from their ironically titled “Employee Free Choice Act�. Even after this compromise, the EFCA is still bad news for workers everywhere. Unfortunately, Big Labor and it’s congressional allies have repackaged their same brand of nostrum and are determined to force it upon Americans.

Still alive and well is a proposal to cut the time for an organizing vote from an average 38 days to only five or ten, if 30% of workers request a union. 

Worst of all, the Employee Free Choice Act includes binding arbitration. That is to say, if the union and employer do not reach an agreement in a set time, a third party government arbitrator will determine salaries and benefits. Compulsory interest arbitration has slowly destroyed sensible fiscal management and efficiency.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy found that in Michigan, average time for a third party arbitrator case lasted 15 months, defeating the whole purpose of outside arbitration. The failures of binding arbitration have been recognized in Michigan and Massachusetts where, consequently, citizens have voted to repeal these measures.

The Employee Free Choice Act is still just as wretched as it was when it included Card Check. It offers no freedom or choice to either the employee or the employers. Rather, this legislation essentially forces employers to turn over their corporations to greedy union organizers and an unceasingly growing omnipotent federal government.

posted at 02:02 PM | 0 comment

JUNE 16, 2009

State Agency Forces Private Sector to Pay Prevailing Wage

Due to a standing order by the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), all public universities are required to pay prevailing wage rates on construction projects funded by private organizations. Pennsylvania’s prevailing wage law only applies to public construction projects, but the PASSHE felt, “the foundations can help ensure that the workers earn a living wage and that the construction jobs go to local residents.� – unless, of course, those residents are black.

The Department of Labor and Industry and the Prevailing Wage Appeals Board both ruled against Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) when they attempted to pay workers the federal prevailing wage rates for residential construction (Pennsylvania has no residential prevailing wage rates). Organized labor filed a complaint that federal rates should not be used since the project did not receive federal funding.

However, the project also did not receive any state funding, being funded instead by the university's nonprofit foundation, yet IUP must now pay the more expensive commercial state prevailing wage rates to construct residential buildings. In Indiana County, Pennsylvania’s prevailing wage law increases the cost for publicly funded construction projects (and apparently some privately funded projects) by approximately 11 percent.

posted by CHRISTOPHER DODDS | 08:47 AM | 0 comment

MAY 7, 2009

McGovern on Card Check

Former Senator and Presidential nominee George McGovern - and though I hate the cheap labels used by the media, they would probably call him an "ultra-liberal" - writes in today's Wall Street Journal about the misnomer of the the Employee "Free Choice" Act (aka Card Check):

[T]he bill has an additional feature that isn't often mentioned but that is just as troublesome -- compulsory arbitration.


This feature would give the government the power to step into labor disputes where employers and labor leaders cannot reach an agreement and compel both sides to accept a contract. Compulsory arbitration is bound to trigger the law of unintended consequences.

Currently, labor law maintains a careful balance between the rights of businesses, unions and individual employees. While bargaining power differs depending on individual circumstances, the rights of the parties are well balanced. When a union and a business enter negotiations, current law requires that both sides bargain "in good faith."

In a contract negotiation, each party typically perceives the other as too demanding. But no one loses their right to contract willingly or suffers being forced to agree to anything. Employees can strike if they feel that they have been dealt with unfairly, but it is a costly option. Employers are free to reject labor demands they find to be too difficult to accept, but running a business without experienced employees is itself difficult. Both sides have an incentive to press their demands, but they also have compelling reasons not to press their demands too far. EFCA would disrupt that balance by enabling government-appointed lawyers to decide what they believe is fair or reasonable.

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD | 00:10 PM | 0 comment

APRIL 15, 2009

PA Businesses Feeling the Affects of Recession

posted by MICHAEL TOGUCHI | 07:18 AM | 0 comment

APRIL 1, 2009

Union Bosses Dupe "Unlicensed" Blogger

In his blog today, John Micek makes a couple of jokes about "Joe the Plumber" - probably to avoid being called "Rat Rat Rat" by union bosses (who promise not to intimidate workers if card check passes), as Joe the Plumber was, a at rally against card check in Harrisburg.

His jokes only illustrate the myths that union bosses continue to perpetuate:

[Joe the Plumber] who, you'd think, would be a big fan of unions, being a plumber and all.

Why would I think that? Only 30% of pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamlayers are union members - more than 2 out of 3 choose not to join or form a union. And opposing card-check has nothing to do with being anti-union, but opposing legislation that would take away workers' rights. In fact 74% of union households oppose card check.

Oh ... wait ... he's not really a plumber.

Micek is fooled into thinking that the definition of a plumber is someone who got a plumber's license from government, rather than noting that occupational licensing in merely another tool unions and special interest groups use to intimidate their competitors.

For instance, as a case in point, does anyone really believe Micek's reporting would improve if he obtained a Reporter's License from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? Or better yet, his Blogger's License?

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD | 10:11 AM | 0 comment

MARCH 31, 2009

Union Intimidation in Action

Unions claim they won't use intimidation as one of their tactics if the Employee Free Choice Act, a.k.a. "Card Check" is passed, eliminating the secret ballot in union elections. But their behavior at a rally held by those opposed to card check, as described by the Post-Gazette, illustrate exactly what workers should fear when these organizers show up at their homes.

As Mr. Wurzelbacher ["Joe the Plumber"] characterized the labor measure as a threat to democracy, many members of the crowd of more than 100 cheered enthusiastically. But their approbation competed with calls of "liar," "pay your taxes," and a few more colorful words from the sizable union contingent that had migrated from a demonstration outside to infiltrate the audience in the Green Tree Radisson.

The saga of Joe the Plumber is one of constant intimidation by unions and their political allies. Officials with the state of Ohio illegally released private information about Wurzelbacher after he asked Obama a tough question, revealing he owed back taxes - putting him in a category with about two-thirds of Obama's cabinet appointees.

The unions then went after the fact the Joe "the Plumber" didn't have a plumber's license from the local government. But professional licensing is just another tool used by unions, business cartels, and special interest groups to undermine their competition. Innocuous professions like plumber, eBay sellers, drivers for the Amish, hair braiders, tour guides, and the like are subject to harassment under the guise of occupational licensing - frequently having their right to earn a living in their chosen profession revoked.

The long history of union intimidation is just one reason why the secret ballot must be preserved.

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD | 09:16 AM | 0 comment

MARCH 25, 2009

Sen. Specter's Comments on "Card Check"

Senator Arlen Specter made news yesterday by saying he would not vote for "card check" because of both the elimination of the secret ballot and the bind arbitration provisions. Here is Specter's statement, along with his recommendations for changes to the National Labor Relations Act.

A couple things trouble me in Specter's remarks - the first being that "middle class needs to be strengthened through more power to unions in their negotiations with business" and that unions "have suffered greatly from outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries and losses in pension and health benefits."   The notion that the middle class is suffering is a fallacy  and if the middle class is "disappearing", it is because they are becoming richer (also see ReasonTV's Drew Carey on this topic).  And jobs haven't been lost to foreign countries so much as other states - specifically states with greater worker freedom and right-to-work laws. 

Second, Specter states that "I would be willing to reconsider Employees’ Free Choice legislation when the economy returns to normalcy."  This is troubling, given that he accepts that card check would cost jobs and hurt the economy - I don't understand why such bad economic policy is acceptable in non-recessions.

Brad Vasoli also has an article on the economics of card check in the Bulletin - I will quote him quoting me:

Mr. Benefield also said policymakers should be mindful of the downward pressures unionization can exert on employment. But he does not believe unionization is uniformly bad. He said labor organizations should be allowed to represent any private-sector staff that wishes to be represented, but only if no one is forced into membership and workers can choose a union without coercion.

More info on card check

posted at 09:48 AM | 0 comment