The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Are You Willing To Trade Your Mother For An Illegal Immigrant?

By

The House is now on a mad dash to health care reform.  And when the House rushes anything, as has been the behavior of all of Congress during this administration, you can bet your mama’s last remaining years that they’ll go bye-bye as surely as your hard-earned tax dollars are disappearing under the cloaks of stimuli and bailouts.  And when what Congress is rushing is health care, your mama’s last remaining years will probably disappear even faster.

The Hill reports that House Democrats are hastily patching together what they are going to euphemistically call a bill that can be voted on in committees next week.  And they intend to set a new world land record by voting on the whole, bloody mess by July 31st.  They’re propping up the major players (Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman, House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, and Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel) to put on dog & pony shows starting today, complete with smoke & mirror meetings with rank-and-file members broken out by region, ostensibly to solicit their input and concerns.

Of course there will be no real determinations on how to pay for it all, including their pet “public option” and coverage for illegal immigrants.

A large portion is expected to come from reductions in Medicare and Medicaid.  But that won’t pay for the full overhaul.  As for raising money, ideas have included a national sales tax, taxing soda and a “surtax” on people making more than $250,000.

I fully anticipate thousands of pages that will go unread, with a “conservative CBO” estimate well in the trillions of non-existent dollars to implement.  But the larger costs will come from the trashing of yet another private sector, an area that is a personal, individual responsibility and one in which the government has no place. 

 

No Choice With Health Care “Reform”

By

The big buzz word being used to sell America on the idea of socialized medicine is “choice”.  But – surprise, surprise – the Senate’s release today of certain components of its plans to “reform” health care for Americans doesn’t include it.

How do I force thee?  Let me count the ways:

  1. Americans who make the personal choice to not purchase “affordable” medical coverage
    1. Could be hit with fines of more than $1,000
    2. Employees must buy medical coverage from their employer (if offered)
    3.  Families would be financially penalized more than individuals (that’s called “shared responsibility”)
    4. The IRS would be responsible for collecting the fines
    5. Hardship exemptions would be allowed
  2. Employers must provide health insurance
    1. Must cover 60% of the total cost per employee
    2. Will be fined $750 for each employee not covered
    3. Exempt if employing less than 25 people
    4. Eligible for a government subsidy to provide employee health insurance

All of this is bad enough, but of course the devil’s in the details and it’s in those details we begin to see how the administration is going to twist the screws to secure their ultimately fascist aims.  A health insurance premium that costs an employee more than 12.5 percent of his or her adjusted gross income would be considered unaffordable.  The bill would then let these employees drop their employer coverage to seek cheaper alternatives elsewhere. 

I’ll give you three guesses where that “cheaper alternative” will be found and the first two guesses don’t count.

Workforce.com reports:

A majority of employees already work for employers that pay 50 percent or more of their health care premium costs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2008 survey on health benefits. In 2008, the average covered worker paid 16 percent of the premium and families paid 27 percent, though those numbers vary sharply according to an employer’s size, employee salary and whether an employee is part of a labor union.

The latest draft from the Senate health committee does not specify what minimum employer coverage must look like, except that mini-medical plans would not qualify nor would plans with high out-of-pocket maximums. The out-of-pocket limit would be defined by Section 223 of the Internal Revenue Code used to determine what qualifies as a high-deductible plan.

That code specifies that, for 2010, a health plan’s out-of-pocket maximums (including deductibles, co-payments and other costs other than premiums) could not exceed of $5,950 for individuals or $11,900 for families.

The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services would add more details to the kinds of health coverage that meet the proposed employer mandate.

This doesn’t even begin to address the costs to American taxpayers or how we’ll be expected to pay for it (but talk abounds about reductions to  Medicare and Medicaid and taxing all types of insurance policies).  The finance committees in both the House and the Senate are working on their own (more expensive) versions but the initial numbers aren’t at all encouraging.  Estimates right now from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for the Senate health committee’s version alone stand at $611.4 billion over 10 years; that’s just a few Starbucks lattes shy of $51,000 for each of the 12 million who will gain coverage.  Senator Dodd says he’s only counting legal residents but tack on the secret that Senator Menendez and La Raza don’t want you to know about adding 22+ million illegal immigrants and at that conservative CBO estimate per person, we’re looking at more like $1,120,900,000,000 right out the gate (yes, Virgina, that’s over a trillion dollars).

Right now, I don’t know what the answer is to “health care for everyone” except a strong, free market economy where people are working and removing the 22+ million drain on health care services provided to illegal immigrants (criminals).  But I do know that what is being planned – taking away Americans freedom to choose – ain’t it.

Health Reform La Raza Style – Giving Health Care To Non-Citizens

By

As surely as that the wolf of socialized medicine wearing sheep’s clothing of health care reform means death to the elderly and others deemed not “cost effective” to treat, the legislation now brewing is going to be chock-full of pork and served with an enormous helping of spin, smoke and mirrors.  And of serious concern is the once-covert push to cover illegal immigrants.

At the forefront of this nastiness, prelude to adding 22+ million people to what is already a bloated and broken system, is the infamous La Raza.  It bills itself as “The largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, the NCLR works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans.”

Nice.  But in the land where equal opportunity is law, not necessarily necessary.  It’s just another way to draw attention to differences and establish a subculture of permanent victims instead of simply living the fact that we’re all Americans looking to create a good life for ourselves and our children.

But I digress.

La Raza is apparently in bed with Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), one of the key people involved in drafting the Senate’s version of a “health care reform bill”.  Mark Levin had a caller on his show recently who attended a La Raza conference and here are their words:

…they started the conference out by saying “America does not need health care reform, but Latino immigrants need health care reform.”And they also said that 75% of the children who will be picked up in this will be non-citizens and that 44% of the uninsured are non-citizens and they can’t possibly allow the American people to know this.”

And someone from Menendez’ office promised that he would make sure that “the useless barriers of citizenship would not be in this bill” and that he would make sure that they would use keywords like “streamline”…

It was La Raza, the Childrens Defense Fund and Senator Menendez from New Jersey, a representative from his office…

They actually got up and said “Latino children need health care more than whites“. And then they would say things like “you must go out into your communities, use words like ‘streamline’, use phrases like ‘all workers’ and ‘all families’,” because they said — and I quote — “If the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it.”

…One of the quotes they said was, “We want to make sure we take care of barriers like verification, but we can streamline programs to the more affluent” and, quote, “Useless treatments for the elderly can be gone because we don’t need to spend money for people who are going to die anyway.”

That’s a direct quote from that meeting. They also said, “We are very concerned there will be an effort to include “the illegal immigrants in this argument, so “we must make sure that we focus this” to the American people that it’s looking like we want “health care for everyone”.

 Menendez’ office said that he’s going to make sure that “a family of four that makes $66,000 a year or less will pay nothing at all for the new health care. And he was the one who said he was going to get rid of specifics like “citizenship status” and focus on, quote, “equity for all workers”.

And he said he’s going to make sure that the Latino immigrants are the focus of the health care reform.

And La Raza said if they get this, they don’t even care about amnesty, because they’ve fixed it so that one family member can apply for all extended family members.

It’s time to let our Senators and Representatives know that we know what they’re up to here and tell them in no uncertain terms that including illegal immigrants – criminals – in anything paid for with our tax monies is wrong.

When Does It End? Part 2 of 2

By

After posting Part 1 of this piece, I went about my day’s business.  Finally sitting down to watch the evening news I saw that 2 more people had gone on murderous rampages at opposite ends of the country.  One, a father who murdered his 5 children in Graham, Washington, the other a man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who set up an ambush for the local police department, leaving 3 of them dead.

And a nation still reeling from the senseless slaughter of dreams of a better life in America in Binghamton, New York casts about clumsily trying to understand.

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer.  As noted in Part 1, what we are reaping are the consequences of a collective swing of the moral compass.  Once pointing figuratively to a rigid north and its iron-clad roles based on both gender and race, over the last 40 years it turned south and is now lodged there firmly.  But as we shed not only our clothes during that “summer of love” along with ideas about roles we knew weren’t in synch with the equality upon which this country was founded, we also tossed what I call the basics.  We grabbed our individuality like some brass ring on a merry-go-round but at the same time we let go of our personal responsibilities with regards to the expression of them.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  This is a basic law of physics and in terms of a human life it means that every action we take has a consequence.  Sometimes the consequence is intended, sometimes it is unexpected and then for better or for worse.  But just as we own our actions, we also own their consequences.  For example, if we work hard, we expect the result, the consequences, to be a comfortable retirement.  But if we choose to take some easy way out, to try to cheat the system, so to speak, then there is a chance the results, the consequences, will not be in our favor.  That’s called a risk, and as we’ve watched events unfold with the housing and banking industry and “toxic assets”, sometimes we lose.  And lose a lot.

But we still own it.  And we own the ripple effects of our choices as they impact others, creating situations like Binghamton and Graham and Pittsburgh and so many others.

I said that this Part 2 would address “how” we can save ourselves from the despair now gripping our nation.  So let us begin.

Step 1:  We must all, as individuals, accept that we, the people, own this whole, stinkin’ mess.  Understand that it is both our actions and our inactions, most of them the sum total of incalculable small ones, that put this country where it is today.  Today’s problems aren’t the banks’ fault, they aren’t “big bad” business’ fault, they aren’t the government’s fault.  They are our fault.  You.  Me.  Every single one of us.  We are the banks, we are “big bad” business, we are the government.  WE OWN THIS.

Step 2:  Take a good hard look at our assumptions.  It’s obvious that they, just like some 15% of Americans, aren’t working.  The biggest and most deadly assumption that I hear when talking to people is the faith put in our elected representatives.  The majority of the time it’s a blind faith since most couldn’t tell you who represents them in Congress if you dangled a hundred-dollar bill in front of them.  Most people have no idea what Congress does all day, unless they happen to catch a mainstream-media news story about it.  And even then they don’t understand the implications, nor how often other insidious amendments are buried in a particular bill.  They get it when it’s explained to them, however, and, interestingly, often don’t agree.

Step 3:  The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights are required reading.  It’s a fact of life that you can’t play any game if you don’t know the rules.  Like Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, said to Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”, “You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back….”  I can’t emphasize this enough.  These 2 documents are our power and they are the means by which we can right today’s wrongs.  They are, however, under unbelieveable assault every single day.  Proposed amendments to the Constitution are introduced in Congress on a regular basis but do nothing except chip away at our rights.  The truth is it ain’t broke, folks, and it don’t need any fixing.  Especially the kind of “fixes” currently on the table in Congress. 

What does need to change is our understanding of what these documents mean and that we, the people, actively exercise the rights given to us by them.  A look at these documents as they originated can be seen here; another good site is here.  To understand the intentions of the Founding Fathers when drafting the Constitution, it is also important to read what are called the “Federalist Papers“.  Despite all our technology, the basics of life today aren’t very different than they were 223 years ago; we must listen to these wise men as much today as did the early colonists.  Listen to them as if our very lives depended upon it because…they do.

Step 4:  We must all take the time to review the work our elected representatives – our employees – are doing.  Go to websites like thomas.gov and opencongress.org and look around.  Sure, bills are sometimes awkward to read, but I promise that you can get the gist of them.  See what your elected representatives – your employees – are introducing as legislation, what they are signing on to cosponsor (support), and how they are voting. 

Step 5:  Let your elected representatives – your employees – know what you think of their work.  Congress operates on the theory that no news from their constituents is good news.  They don’t want to hear they are going against the wishes of those who sent them to what they see as a cushy, power-tripped job but if we, the people, expect things to change, communicating with our elected representatives – our employees – is critical.  They must come to understand that they are being watched and that when they fail to protect this country and its citizens there are consequences.  This will only happen if we, the people, take the time to contact them.  You don’t have to write a novel, just a few short sentences about the issue will suffice.  When an issue is critical and time is of the essence, call their office and leave them a message. 

Step 6:  President Obama has promised the “most open and accessible administration in American history”, promised transparency, and says he wants to know what we, the people, are thinking.  TELL HIM.  If you are disgusted with his inability to select cabinet position nominees that are honest taxpayers or if you agree with his warnings to North Korea, let him know.  If you think his ideas about the national budget are wacked, if you think goverment shouldn’t be in the car business, tell him.  While it may come as a surprise to some, Barack Obama is no one special and he is certainly not some Messiah.  He is just another American (giving him the benefit of the doubt for purposes of this example) who was selected to do a job in much the same way that you and I are interviewed and hired for a position.  Like our Congress critters, the President of the United States works for us and he is responsible for upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States.  (Remember Step 3?)  He is rather like the CEO of our corporation and as such is subject to review and given direction by the board of directors – we, the people.

Step 7:  Vote.  Vote in every election and learn to vote with your dollars.  Support ethical companies, whether they are media outlets or manufacturers.  Demand honesty from every business, from the worker bees to the boards of directors, and when it is not forthcoming, take your business elsewhere.  You are a stakeholder in every business and have a responsibility to hold them accountable so let them know why you choose to do your business with them or why you choose to do your business elsewhere. 

Step 8:  Understand how your money is being used or abused.  This is closely related to Step 7, but bears addressing on its own.  Most of us have investments, be it mutual funds, 401ks, or a retirement plan, and I venture to guess that most of us have no idea how those funds are invested.  We hand over our money and let someone else decide what’s going to make our nest egg grow.  Yet there are often companies in the mix who do not operate ethically or honestly and, personally, I do not want to support them and neither should you.  Let me give you an example. Your neighbor, someone who has become a very good friend over the years, someone you consider “family”, is let go from their job after 20-odd years.  They are a good person, a responsible person, living within their means and often working on salary more than 40 hours a week because they believe in their employer and believe it’s the right thing to do.  You’d be upset right along with them, wouldn’t you?  You’d be even more upset when you discover that the company made almost $2 billion in net profit that quarter, and your friend’s firing is solely to make the numbers “look good” for the next quarter, wouldn’t you?  How about if you learned that the company’s CEO and other top executives are due five-figure bonuses at the end of the year if they make those nefarious “numbers” but the workers, the people who do the “grunt work” that creates the company’s ability to sell goods and services and thereby be profitable, won’t see a penny?  And what if you learn those “grunt workers” take a pay cut along the way, too, and there is no intention by the CEO or executives to give any of it back?

It’s a disgusting scenario but it happens more than you think.  And the reason it happens is so that those dividend checks can have one more penny per share.  This is where the problems with our moral compass are most clear, at least to me, so I have to ask:  is it worth it?  Would you willingly destroy the lives of others, some of those people your neighbors and your friends, just to get one more penny in dividends?

I’ve posed this question to numerous people and the answer is always “no”.  So what is the answer?

Step 8:  Exercise your rights as a shareholder.  Read the annual reports of the companies where your money is invested and read them with an eye towards honesty and fairness.  (You can get the list of your mix from your brokerage firm.)  Certainly, those who take the most risk are entitled to reap the most reward, however, every business has both shareholders and stakeholders.  Employees, whether or not they own stock, are stakeholders, and as such must be taken care of the same as shareholders who get dividends because the reality is that it is the good employees, the “best and brightest”, who make a company successful.  The role of the CEO and executives is to be the “public face” of a company and in big companies they have very little knowledge – if any, since the job of CEO isn’t necessarily industry-specific any more – about what it takes to do the work required on a daily basis to successfully meet the company’s contracts.  Executive compensation, whether excessive or not, is set down in black and white and if you disagree with the way a company is run, especially those taking money out of the pockets of some employees simply in order to line the pockets of other employees, tell the board of directors.  It is their job to set things like executive compensation and they will do whatever they think is best – which is most often decided inside some kind of bubble because they never hear from individual shareholders.

When you get a proxy statement from a company in which you’ve invested, read it carefully and don’t let someone else cast it for you.  Take some time to learn about who is on the board of directors, who is being proposed to serve on it, understand any issues being presented, and send the proxy back by the deadline.  This is your ability to have a say in how the company is being run, a right given to you when you bought stock, so in the same way you must vote for representation and vote with your dollars, so, too, must you exercise your right as a shareholder and take care of your employees.  It is perhaps the simplest way to put honesty back in big business and negates the need to lose money through unionization.

Step 9:  Talk to people.  Discuss issues like responsibility and honesty and ethics, and encourage others to see they do hold the power to effect change.  Your awareness of our rights and the issues we face, your willingness to do what is right every day, to accept your responsibilities both personal and civic, are a lesson, an example. 

In the end, problems like the despair that is setting off murderous rampages aren’t about anyone versus anyone else, they aren’t about lunatics or guns, they are about us being in this mess together.  Together we must find our way out of them by each of us, as individuals, going back to basics.  That is where we will find real change and it is the only source of real hope.

When Does It End? Part 1 of 2

By

The news yesterday was filled with up-to-the-minute reports about the tragic shooting in Binghamton, New York that ended with 14 people shot to death, including the apparent suicide of the gunman.  Certainly, this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened; the list includes 3 senseless “killing sprees” last month alone.

Such actions by those who, for all intents and purposes, look like a regular person, just like our friends, neighbors – just like us – becomes fodder for tabloid speculation.  What causes someone to open the door to that secret, inner place that would allow fellow humans to be hated so much that they become expendable things?  Just what kind of pain do such actions attempt to assuage?

The truth is that we will never know.  There have always been those whom we would define as mentally ill, there have always been those who become addicted to things that alter the brain’s chemistry and allow for the loosening of behavioral regulators.  And the truth is that each of us is closer to this kind of “snapping” than we would ever admit.

Despair always plays a large part in the course of human events.  For to reach the point of feeling utterly hopeless and unable to alter one’s circumstances can be met with only resignation or anger.  I will argue that neither one is, in and of itself, a bad thing.  There are times in our lives when we must meet our circumstances with resignation for there are things we cannot change, such as the death of a loved one.  There are also times when we must become angry.  A deep and righteous anger against tyranny is what founded this country.

In a news conference about the Binghamton shootings, New York Governor David Patterson voiced despair when he said, “When are we going to be able to curb the kind of violence that is so fraught and so rapid that we can’t even keep track of the incidents?”

The answer, Governor Patterson, is never.  As long as there are humans living in groups, in the same way that there will always be prayer in schools as long as there are tests, there will always be sporadic outbreaks of violence.  It is the nature of the beast, and as such, something over which we – the collective – really have no control.  We must resign ourselves to the fact that we are one with Nature, a part of the circle of life, and subject to the same overriding rule of the survival of the fittest.  The only difference between humans and other species is that we have tools that make inflicting deadly harm on one another much easier.

But that doesn’t put the anger of despair out of the picture.  It is possible to address the circumstances that breed this kind of tragic action in response to despair, however, anger used simply in retaliation has never worked to solve anything.  Knee-jerk reactions like banning guns, banning immigrants, or banning bonuses for that matter, is not the answer for the roots of the problem go much, much deeper, reaching right down into the collective mindset of American society.

It is this mindset that must be addressed but it can only be addressed at the level of the individual.  It requires a collective awakening to the loss of basic values then those values must be recouped by individual action.  You simply cannot legislate morality, despite the administration’s misguided attempts to do so as evidenced by the recent passing of legislation enhancing the “opportunity for “national service”.  Personal goodness and actions consistent with the definitions of morals and ethics in behaviors all begin at home.  They are learned from our parents, from our extended families, from our neighbors.  They are reinforced by ethical and moral teachers, business owners, and others with whom we interact.  Religion plays a part, but the ability to recite chapter and verse from some ancient book is not necessary to know that treating others fairly creates a world that contains more harmony than discord.

Life is all about choices, and I believe that too many people forget that regardless what happens, they always have a choice.  We may choose to hand over our power to another person, but we can always make the choice to take it back.  There are rules of engagement for everything we do, and though sometimes they may not seem very clear, they are there and we have the ability to learn them and to use them.  If we so choose.

I’ve noticed, for whatever it may be worth, that many of the people “snapping” are those who were raised during or after that pendulum swing to “anything goes” that took hold in the late 1960s.  Manifestation of the 60s ideologies of equality and sharing were long overdue, to be sure, but in the giddy aftermath of reaching them what can be termed blind liberalism resulted in a generations that have been raised with few, if any, real ethical or moral boundaries.  Too much indulgence awarding a shameless materialistic mentality is now manifesting in an entitlement mentality as the reality, the natural law, if you will, that equal opportunity does not guarantee equal results continues to hold sway.

Without a strong moral compass, as it has been lately labeled, without an understanding of what it really means to live freely, we find ourselves staring at these blood-spattered messes, looking for someone to save us from ourselves.  There are those, like the President and so many in Congress, who are more than happy to take our individual power and the rights inherent in them and use them for their own purposes.  And they are doing just that – enslaving multiple future generations to a life beholden to paying off debts we cannot afford.  They are willing to sell off America and her sovereignty to the rest of the world as an apology for the success of the truths upon which this country was founded, willing to extinguish the beacon of the light of Liberty to pacify some false, unnatural belief in entitlement.

This is wrong.  No one can save us from ourselves but us.  I grant you that the results of our placing our power and our faith in the hands of those who fail to see the beautiful truths contained in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and who refuse to uphold them is cause for despair.  But I say that we can no longer afford to indulge in the resignation of despair.  We must move to tightly grasp and then to act with the same righteous anger that moved the Founding Fathers to throw off the shackles of European monarchal slavery.

How?  We have many choices.  We will explore them in Part 2.

*** EFCA Updates ***

By

7/19/09:  Unions and Democrats are now starting to follow through on their planned smoke & mirrors strategy by “showing” willingness to drop the “card check” provision of the EFCA.  But the most harmful part of this legislation, government arbitration, is still intact and it is having bureaucrats telling business owners how to run their business that remains the real danger.

7/2/09:  California, anyone?  “…having a job that is protected by a contract is priceless.”  This is the latest mantra from the Teamsters, who are now optimistically kicking off a campaign this month to actively recruiting union organizers to begin strongarming working Americans once EFCA, “this commonsense legislation”, is passed.  I think they are forgetting that “priceless” also can be read as “price less“, aka zero.  As in ZERO jobs when more and more businesses close or fold as a result of the high and wasteful, unsustainable costs of unionized labor.  Unlike the UAW payoffs with Chrysler and GM, the government can’t step in with bailouts and then hand over all of them to the unions. 

5/24/09:  “EFCA in drag” is the latest result of Senator Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democrats.  Specter and Senator Tom Harkin are beating feet to find some sort of “compromise” that will allow the bill to pass and thereby secure union backing for Democrats during the 2010 elections.  Of particular “concern” are those “conservative” Democrats, who stand to (rightly) lose to true conservatives should they vote for EFCA.

5/15/09:  Do you know Craig Becker?  You should.  He’s President Obama’s latest nominee to the National Labor Relations Board and, in the same vein as all of President Obama’s choices for key positions, Becker’s views about unionization are a full-frontal assault on American freedoms.  If he has his way, “card check” won’t even need to hit the voting table in Congress.

5/13/09:  In a test of the theory that with age comes wisdom, two old politicians find themselves in the spotlight over their views of the fundamental (lack of) ethics of the EFCA.  George McGovern is being blasted by both labor unions and his fellow Democrats for coming out against the EFCA.  Despite his long support of workers, he is now voicing his concern over the principles involved in secret ballot elections, as well as government involvement in negotiations.  As early as last summer, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

“Voting is an immense privilege. “

“We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election. We are the party that has always defended the rights of the working class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always championed.”

More recently, he again put his views in writing and drives home an important point:

“Compulsory arbitration is, in one sense, government dictating to employees what they will win or lose in the deal, with no opportunity to approve the “agreement.” Why should employees pay union dues to get such a contract?”

“George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO for nearly 30 years before retiring in 1979, had it right in condemning mandatory arbitration as “an abrogation of freedom.” “

On the flip side, Republican defector Specter is now getting another taste of the nasty syrup inevitably poured over political waffles.  An ad running in Pennsylvania, paid for by American Rights at Work, a labor-union-backed group, is pressuring him to change his mind and back the EFCA, telling people, “Call and tell Specter Pennsylvania’s for him…..As long as he’s for the Employee Free Choice Act.”

May the highest principles win.

3/25/09:  Apparently the labor unions have been feeling a little cocky about the pending “card check” legislation currently in the House and Senate.  Foxnews has a little report today about the struggles going on in Albion, Indiana, where the UAW is using almost every trick in the book to get a majority of the 50-odd employees at the Dana Corporation Auto Parts plant to sign a card saying they want UAW representation.

And Mitt Romney documented some of the problems inherent with the EFCA, based on his experience as governor of Massachusetts.  A cautionary tale, indeed.

3/24/09:  Chalk one up for American freedoms!  Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has said that he will oppose legislation aimed at allowing unions easier access to control over American businesses.  Despite reports last week that labor was pulling out all the stops, pressuring him, and even trying to bargain with voter registrations by promising to force a support switch from the Democratic to the Republican party, Senator Specter has done the right thing. 

This Conservative thanks him for defending the right to vote in secret and for preserving the right to work and the free market.

You may thank him, too, by sending him an email through his website.

Oh Come, All Ye Sheeple (The Truth About “Card Checks”)

By

Do you believe that in this life you get what you give?  Do you believe in the individual power of your Constitutionally-defined-as-inalienable rights?  Do you appreciate the opportunity to reap the rewards of your own efforts?  Do you want to be able to choose where you work and choose among opportunities provided by your employer?

Or do you believe that you give only as much as you get?  Do you feel that just because you were born the world owes you a living?  Do you feel that those who are smarter or are willing to work harder have the responsibility to take care of you?  Do you think that anyone who’s done well must automatically share, must give you everything you want?  And give it without question?

If you are of the latter mindset, the administration is working very hard to prepare a place in a gulag called Hope & Change just for you.  But if you are of the former, then it is important you understand just what is happening with the “Employee Free Choice Act”, aka “card check”.

There are some who would like you to think this is just some silly little fight between the unions and the government’s favorite whipping boy, Big Bad Business.  But that’s because they stand to profit from your ignorance.  The reality is that, unbelievably and shamefully, this is one very big fight for the freedoms upon which this country was founded.

What’s the “card check” all about?  Well, in a nutshell, it boils down to this:

  • A majority of employees sign “cards” in public that say they want union representation
  • Government arbitration can be called in by either the union or the business owner to define the new union agreement after 90 days of negotiations (with binding arbitration after 120 days)

Let’s look at both of these more closely.  Doesn’t sound like a big deal to just sign your name to a card in public, does it?  In fact, in today’s business climate, I’d venture to guess that maybe some of you are picturing yourself as some kind of blinged-out Norma Rae, eh?  But what if you think your employer is a fair one and treats you well and you don’t want to sign a card?  Or what if you aren’t sure if you should sign a card and then find yourself being pulled aside at work and being called at home by coworkers asking you to go along with them and sign the card?  What if you find flyers in your home mailbox telling you that you need to sign the card?  What if you find flyers on your desk or in your locker at work telling you that you should sign the card?  What if you get emails at work or to your personal email address telling you that you should sign the card?  What if your spouse or children are asked about you signing the card?  What if someone from the union pulls you aside at work every day to talk to you about your decision?  What if someone from the union calls you at home every day to talk to you about your decision?  What if someone from the union threatens you or your family or even your family’s pet(s) if you don’t sign the card?  Even worse, what if those threats become reality?

This is the ace the unions are hiding up their sleeve.  They understand that public humiliation – and personal threats or even criminal acts if they deem them necessary – go a lot farther than appealing to people’s reasoning and intellect.  Particularly when their choice is not readily embraced.  They are counting on you – yes, YOU – to be a nice little sheep and go quietly along with the herd if you work for any profitable company upon which they’ve set their sights.  No matter how big or how small the company, no matter how equitably you, the employee, the worker, may think you are treated by your employer, the union organizers – like the government with all its bailouts – will insist they can take better care of you.  But what they won’t tell you is that more union members means more dues – which are mandatory, by the way, even if you choose to not join a union in states that do not have “right to work” laws.  And those dues pouring into the union coffers means more money for those who run the organizations (Jimmy Hoffa and his pals didn’t amass their personal fortunes by doing hands-on skilled trades work).  What they don’t want you to see is that unions are really no better in terms of wasting your money than is the government.

Today, if 30% or more employees sign a card indicating they want union representation, the National Labor Relations Board is called in to verify and then conduct a secret ballot election.  This allows people to vote their conscience, which is not always readily voiced in front of coworkers or their employer.  Such privacy of choice is considered a long-standing, fundamental right, dating back to 1892 here yet originating in ancient Greece and Rome.

Arbitration is a whole ‘nother game and the part of the proposed legislation that contains the most real potential for damage to American businesses.  When employees come to a majority decision to unionize, they must work out a contract with their employer.  This spells out everything, including the types of jobs, how much each one pays, the hours each one works, the amount of time off to which each one is entitled, how and when overtime is scheduled and paid, etc.  The union is going to hold out for the most pay for the least amount of time spent working, the business owner is going to want to spend as little as possible.  There will be times when a business owner who is already treating their employees fairly is going to be told by the union that they aren’t giving their employees enough.  And the business owner, who understands the community in which they and their employees live and the climate for the future of their business, is going to stand firm.

At the first possible opportunity, here is where our bailout buddies, the government, will be called to step in.  And without any insight into the distinct and unique reasons a particular business does well in a particular environment, bureaucrats (being paid by your tax dollars, mind you) are going to settle things.  More often than not, they will “split the difference” and it will end up costing the business owner a great deal of money.  In some cases, so much money that they will have no choice but to close down.

And all those “wonderful” union jobs will go bye-bye.

Can’t say as how I would blame the business owner.  Would you?

It’s difficult enough to make a profit these days, but it will be even more so when a business owner – seeing the Big Picture – no longer has the freedom to assign its employees to roles that they know are appropriate, both for the growth of the business and the individual growth of that employee.  That’s because unions have this little thing called “seniority”, so it’s no longer a matter of the best person for the job getting the job.  Instead the job goes to the person who’s next in line for a promotion.  Even if they’re a bumbling idiot.  This practice is extremely discouraging to morale and it is one of the biggest reasons that the smartest and most fair-minded individuals vote against unionization.  “People see this as a huge power shift in labor-management relations,” said Steven Law, a chief of staff for the Department of Labor under President George W. Bush who runs the chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative, which expects to spend $20 million fighting EFCA this year. “This is a complete and radical rewriting of labor laws to effectively remove any employer control over the workplace and put it in the hands of the unions.”

And what about labor union corruption?  Hmmmm…let me count the ways.

  • How about Communication Workers of America union bosses posting nonunion AT&T employees’ social security numbers on a public bulletin board?
  • How about a federal complaint that impeached Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s chief of staff, John Harris, had suggested to a service employees official that the union should help make Blagojevich the president of Change to Win, a federation of seven unions that broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O.?
  • How about when the Democrats took a majority in Congress in 2007, the only office they wanted to cut back on was the one engaged in union oversight?  An office, by the way, that helped get convictions for 775 corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to union members of over $70 million in dues.
  • How about the director of the Laborers’ New England Region Organizing Fund awaiting trial on one count of labor conspiracy for allegedly accepting cash, liquor, rental cars and gift certificates from an undercover FBI agent posing as a contractor looking for business in Rhode Island?  Two others were also indicted.
  • How about the UAW losing $23 million in the past five years as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis because they continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course?  (The UAW, of course, being the union representing American auto workers at GM, Chrysler, and Ford and therefore, in the case of GM and Chrysler, the indirect recipients of bailout money – our hard-earned tax dollars – in the form of continued union dues from its members.)

I could spend days documenting problems like these, but the point should be clear.  Unions no longer serve anyone except themselves.  If you still have doubts, ponder these hypocrisies:

  • On March 10, 2009, James P. Hoffa, the current president of the Teamsters, asked, “Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?”  After having been elected by members of the Teamsters Union 3 times – by secret ballot.  And just 3 days before the 20th anniversary of the settlement of the Justice Department’s racketeering lawsuit against the Teamsters, filed in response to what the judge in the case called a “sordid career of corruption and involvement with criminal elements and corrupt practices.”  A settlement that included direct election of union officials – by secret ballot.
  • The constitution of the Teamsters Union calls for its convention delegates, elections of officers (and candidates may not appear at the polls), committees, and even the president’s concerns about an issue,  to all be voted on by secret ballot.  Strikes and acceptance of offers by employers are also voted on by secret ballot.
  • The constitution of the UAW (United Auto Workers) requires election of local officers by secret ballot, and uses it during trials of members for violations.
  • The constitution of the Service Employees International Union uses secret ballots, too.

Now ask yourself the million-dollar question:  if unions recognize the necessity and the validity of secret ballots, why do they want to deny it to you?

Like most things in life these days, it’s not about fairness for workers any more, it’s only about money.  For them.  Money they feel they are now owed by the government for having spent the union dues of their members to elect President Obama and many Congress critters.  And power.  A chance to garner more power than they have been given to date.

In other words, it’s payback time, folks.  A quick search reveals that the Obama campaign received $8.1 million in contributions from union PACs through July 2008.  The SEIU had given $13.53 million by October 2008 and spent some $3.16 million opposing Senator John McCain.  Some of the backdoor tactics to solicit union donations to help fund the Democratic National Convention were reported by the LA Times in August 2008.  And union endorsements of his candidacy did not come without strings.  The unions expected something in return and they are reeling back in the fishing line and asking for it now.  That something is your freedom to vote by secret ballot and the right of the free market to operate freely.

The unfortunate reality for the Congress critters and President Obama can be found in a recent Rasmussen survey which shows a majority of Americans, regardless political party affiliation, still believe voting in private (secret ballots) are the best way to determine unionization.  And the unfortunate reality for labor is that only 9% of non-union workers are at all interested in joining a union, and a clearly large majority of union members believe secret ballots are fair.  But the unions aren’t going down without a fight and are already starting their strong-arm tactics against Congress critters who do or may oppose their efforts.

Even President Obama’s beloved lapdog, the United Nations…or is it the other way around?  Sorry, I digress….  Even the U.N. International Labor Office continues to advocate the secret ballot as being the best measure of workers’ wishes for union representation, stating “Secret and direct voting is certainly a democratic process and cannot be criticized as such.”

If ever there was a time to stand up and voice our wishes for freedom to those we have elected to represent us in government, it is now.  It is imperative that this time “we the people” make ourselves heard loud and clear in defense of our freedom to vote in secret and our right of free association.

The alternative is to go quietly to the slaughter.