Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 02-05-2010
Category : Random Musings
Tags: CanadaCare, Danny Williams, Obamacare
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After touting the beauty of single-payer (read: socialist) health care in Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams has secreted himself off to locations unknown in the United States to undergo a heart procedure, reportedly open-heart surgery.
Some reports claim the procedure was not available in Williams's home province; others aren't sure. However, clearly someone in Canada performs heart procedures for those who can't afford to go south of the border and are stuck with Canada's version of Obamacare. However, quality and waiting time are always huge factors in our northern neighbor's delivery system.
A few things shade this whole episode in gray if not downright darkness. First, Williams tried to hide the fact of his trip south for surgery. Second, it seems blatantly hypocritical for a staunch defender of CanadaCare to secretly opt for the obviously "lesser quality" (according to pro-Canada people like Williams) health care system in America. Third, it's not even clear if Williams is the payer or if the Canadian public is.
Which is why I've said all along, should Obamacare pass, the nation will face a two-tiered medical system: one for the public that's as awful as Canada's, and one for Obama and his cronies that retains all the glory and qualify of the privatized system we all currently enjoy.
Craig Becker, subject of a few posts here lately because of his views (since semi-renounced for confirmation's purposes) regarding legislating labor law from the bench of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), saw his nomination affirmed today by a party-line vote of 13-10 in the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
It was the Democrats' goal to rush through all controversial appointments before newly elected Massachusetts GOP Senator Scott Brown could be seated (set for Nov. 11 originally), but Brown has now moved up his seating to today at 5 p.m., affording Republicans a 41-vote front to stop the Senate in its tracks through filibuster.
Does this mean Becker will be filibustered out of his appointment?
In three words: "I hope so."
Rejected procedurally by the full Senate on Christmas Eve, Craig Becker had his day in court yesterday (Feb. 2, 2010) as he was grilled by the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which in 2009 voted 15-8 to send his name to the full Senate for confirmation but was blocked by Senator John McCain (R.-Arizona), who used Senatorial prerogative to place a hold on the vote.
Becker is controversial for suggesting that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), to which he has been nominated by President Obama twice now, can issue a gag order on employers during union organization drives and can also green light the use of card authorization rather than secret ballot elections for unionization.
Yesterday, he backed down, saying:
"The law is clear that the decision…(of) an alternative route to certification rests with Congress and not the board," Becker said, adding that the writings were "intended to be provocative and to ask fundamental questions in order for scholars and others to re-evaluate."
The writings to which he referred were the documents in which he made his suggestions about the NLRB's acting alone to take pro-labor positions.
Becker is a union lawyer and academic who was served as counsel for both the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO.
From what I've read, however, no one bothered to ask Becker if he would favor minority unions–in other words, forcing employers to bargain with unions that are formed by a minority of the total represented workers voting as a majority (of a minority).
That could be a big worry.
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 01-29-2010
Category : Federal Labor Law
The central conceit of the New Deal was that government could force companies to pay high wages and in the process create nationwide wealth. However, FDR and his crew of daydreaming socialists overlooked the fact that, for every high-paid wage-earner, two or three other would-be workers must be sacrificed on the altar of unemployment. Thus the Great Depression endured with double-digit unemployment until Hitler forced us to put everyone to work.
Much the same is currently transpiring in the Obama administration, which seeks to unionize the economic underbelly of the country, and thus create a high-wage-earning middle class to sustain the national wealth.
How goes it?
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 01-27-2010
Category : Random Musings
Tags: health care reform
A USA Today/Gallup poll released after the election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts shows that a majority of Americans believes Congress should start over on health care reform and abandon the current House and Senate bills.
(Public sentiment has finally caught up with what I've been saying for the past year–the status quo is better than the Democrats' Taxachusetts-based reform.)
The poll shows 55 percent of Americans favoring a redo and 39 percent favoring a go-ahead on current legislation. Those favoring the start-over are largely Republicans and Independents, as two-thirds of Democrats are fine with the current reform measures.
In addition, 46 percent said that other issues were more important than health care reform while 32 percent still consider it a priority.
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 01-26-2010
Category : Federal Labor Law
Tags: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Obamacare
Word is going around that, despite all the talk about paring back health care reform and involving Republicans, the Democrats are secretly hatching a deal for the House to pass the Senate version and then for the Senate, using the reconciliation process that precludes filibusters, to approve amendments to overcome House objections–to wit, restore the public option and gut any abortion restrictions.
Voila, the Scott Brown 41st vote against health care reform is thereby nullified.
The only question remaining about this deal between Politburo Chief Nancy Pelosi and Communist Party Chief Harry Reid is one of timing.
That is, will they wait until Brown is seated, or will they strike now?
My question: If they're going to do it, does it matter when? Probably the quicker, the better, if the Dems want to survive in power come November.
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 01-22-2010
Category : Random Musings
Tags: AFL-CIO, EFCA, Scott Brown
A Hart Research Associates poll, conducted for the AFL-CIO, found that 49 percent of union members in Massachusetts voted this past Tuesday for Republican Scott Brown. Union-backed Democrat Martha Coakley garnered 46 percent of the union vote.
AFL-CIO spokespersons quickly attributed the result to weakness in the Democratic candidate, not to any referendum on Obama or the Democratic agenda in Washington, D.C.
Uh, huh….
Further polling of union members, this time regarding the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), showed a similar disconnect between union leaders and union members.
This month new polling showed that 66 percent of union households oppose changing the bargaining process in unionization, which EFCA would do; 51 percent of union households oppose changing the way unions are formed, which EFCA would do; and 77 percent of all voters, as well as 77 percent of union households oppose a government arbitrator having the final say in determining contract terms, which EFCA would do.
Still, union leaders are predicting passage of the EFCA sometime this year, loss of the Democratic super-majority in the Senate not withstanding.
Uh, huh….
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 01-21-2010
Category : Federal Labor Law
Tags: Craig Becker, EFCA
Dubya had no problem using recess appointments to put people into positions of power whom the Democrats, post-2006, would never approve.
Barack Obama faces a similar challenge with his nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He could've made a recess appointment this month after the Senate returned Becker's nomination to him. Instead, it is rumored that he will reappoint his man in hopes that he can get a full appointment. Obama must know, deep down, that both the House and the Senate will no longer be Bush-whacked after the 2010 elections (see Massachusetts, Tuesday's election results) and figures this is his only chance to get a full appointment.
If he does get a full appointment, Becker and his cronies on the Democratic side (the NLRB is normally split 3-2 in favor of the ruling party) can outdo the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) via bureaucratic fiat–with nary a vote by any elected representative. It would then take a lengthy trail of court challenges, ultimately leading to the Supreme Court, to undo the NLRB ukazes. By then, the Dems will no doubt have long faded into the haze of their own excesses and the Repubs will be back in power. In the meantime, all hell could/would break loose on the labor front, with (among other NLRB-issued decrees):
- The time-frame for union elections drastically reduced to a week or 10 days;
- The silencing of employers during the unionization process;
- Increased (and onerous) fines for interfering in the organization process;
- A mandate to provide organizers with names, addresses and phone numbers of all employees and free access to company facilities to speak to employees about unionization:
- Or, the final trump card–organization by card check with signatures certified by a "neutral" third-party examiner.
EFCA, who needs it when you have Craig Becker and company?
The unions cried foul, and the Caver-in-Chief caved in to his cronies once again.
Big Labor hated the Big Government plan to tax their "Cadillac" health care plans in the name of health care reform (which is just a health insurance mandate designed to bankrupt the system so a government takeover is the only option left on the table).
So what do the Obamacrats do? Simple, they exempt the unions from the tax on Cadillac plans until, gee, let's see what's reasonable…until 2018.
The unions argued that these rich health care plans were negotiated in lieu of wage increases and they need time to renegotiate the contracts to swap wages for Cadillacs.
I doubt any union on the face of Planet America has a contract that runs for the next eight years, so this is obviously just another example of political favoritism emanating from the stench in the White House.
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 01-11-2010
Category : Random Musings
Tags: unemployment
No need to comment on Obama's plan to save or create 3 million (or was it 5 million?) jobs through his stimulus plan of pork, pork and more union and government pork, but Shadow Stats has once again unearthed the reality behind U.S. unemployment, which now stands at an FDR-like 22 percent:
Meanwhile, Seeking Alpha chronicles the meteoric descent in the ratio of jobholders to the overall U.S. population:
