Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 10-03-2010
Category : Federal Labor Law
Tags: EFCA, Paycheck Fairness Act
One of the promises Barack Obama made in his State of the Union address was to "crack down on violations of equal pay laws," and the House has rushed to fulfill his vision by passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.
The bill will have a hearing before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee tomorrow (March 11, 2010).
The Paycheck Fairness Act will make it harder for employers to defend themselves against charges of gender bias by shifting the burden of disproving the allegations to the defendants rather than requiring plaintiffs to prove discrimination. It will also uncap punitive damages, so someone could be rewarded $22,000 in back wages–and $17.5 million in punitive damages! A stretch, but anything is possible if there's a jury (or wacko judge) involved.
Once this and Obamacare become the law of the land (cross your fingers that they don't), what's next?
The Employee Forced Free Choice Act (EFCA), no less.
Egads!
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 19-02-2010
Category : Federal Labor Law
Tags: health care reform, Obamacare, public option
The administration has announced that Barack Obama will issue his own health care reform plan on Monday, Feb. 22.
However, since Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius said Obama's "one proposal" will feature "some of the best ideas" from the House and Senate plans, this can only mean his proposal will be a blank piece of paper.
There were zero "best ideas" in either the House or Senate measures. In fact, there weren't even any "faintly good" ideas in either plan. Just more government, more government control, and less individual choice or freedom.
However, what this announcement really means is the re-emergence of the so-called socialist public option and a rush to reconciliation after trying to shame the Republican opposition at the Feb. 25 health care summit.
Whether we want it or not, and 60-plus percent of us don't, one way or the other we'll have Obamacare shoved down our throats.
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 17-02-2010
Category : Federal Labor Law
Tags: Social Security, Social Security Trust Fund
After you've paid into the Social Security slush trust fund for 40-some years, you'd think you should get something in return.
Wrong.
The Social Security Act of 1935 reserves the right for Congress to "alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this Act" at any time, for any reason, specified or not. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1960 ruled in Fleming v. Nestor that Americans have no "contractual right" to Social Security payments.
Keep this in mind as we race toward the year 2016 when Social Security taxes paid by those working will no longer be enough to cover payments to those retired and relying on Social Security.
The Social Security trust fund, set up in 1983 as part of a reform of the system, is nonexistent. When taxes were raised to feed the trust feed, feed they did–to the tune of $2.7 trillion, enough to cover Social Security through 2037.
One problem: Congress spent every penny of that $2.7 trillion on other causes (read: their own reelection), so the fund is penniless. (Where is Al Gore's mythical "lockbox" now that we need it?)
What this means is that, starting in 2016, Congress will have to raise taxes, reduce payments and/or raise the age of retirement–or any combination thereof. The last thing it can or will do is repay the $2.5 trillion since the government is already $12 trillion in debt.
Bottom line: Don't expect anything from Social Security when you retire. I imagine most of us will just have to find a way to work until we die at our jobs.
Oh, happy retirement.
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 11-02-2010
Category : Federal Labor Law
Tags: Barack Obama, Craig Becker, James Hoffa, NLRB
Even a couple of Democrats from states that generally vote Republican joined the GOP in keeping alive a Senate filibuster on the nomination vote for Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Now, with our hard-working Senators set to take next week off for a Presidents' Day recess (how many of you have the week off?), Barack Obama has hinted at some recess appointments. Trouble with those, however, is that they're only good until the next election, which just happens to be later this year.
Anyway, we'll find out soon enough. In the meantime, though, I got a good chuckle out of reading a hypocrisy-laden critique of the Senate's filibuster by International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) President James Hoffa,to wit:
“The President ought to be able to appoint who he wants to sit on the NLRB. Politics should not stand in the way of a well qualified [sic] appointee. "
Substitute Robert Bork as the rejected appointee and the Supreme Count for the NLRB, and do you think Hoff would ever utter such a concept?
Posted by Labor Law Guy | Posted on 04-02-2010
Category : Collective Bargaining/Unions, Federal Labor Law
Tags: Craig Becker, Scott Brown
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 29-01-2010
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 26-01-2010
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 21-01-2010
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.
