Big Labor Facing Bigger Blows Next Year

Washington DC is getting serious about stopping Big Labor.

Here's a record of what the Washington Examiner had to record about what Washington DC has done

Republican-led Washington is mulling the most far-reaching changes to federal labor policy in seven decades in ways that could strengthen businesses and individual workers while weakening unions' labor power as well as political strength.

I am listening, and I love what I am reading. Big Labor reforms are essential for making America great again. We need to get this going!

The effort goes beyond rewriting parts of workplace law. The Supreme Court, the White House, leaders in Congress, and even state legislatures are all fundamentally rethinking its underlying principles: who it is meant to protect, and how and what the government's role in that should be.

Men and women have a right to form associations as they see fit. They also have a right not to join a union or a syndicate if they so choose. The major issue right now with unions rests on two problems:

1. Forced membership

2. Coerced dues

These two policies are inimical to individual liberty and must be curtailed.

Public sector unions should not exist, since they rely on taxpayer dollars entirely, and the assembly line of public works and responsibilities should never cease.

The move to reshift the balance of power is being led by conservatives and libertarians and has been building for years ... The push includes measures such as expanding the principle of right-to-work, which allows workers to refuse to join or otherwise financially support a union. Other changes would ensure all workplace organizing elections use a secret ballot and requiring unions to periodically be subject to recertification votes to ensure they still have their members' backing.

These are the reforms which Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker helped enact in 2011. Michigan and other states followed soon after with their own right-to-work reforms to ensure that workers retained their rights as individual citizens.

Who are the leaders in Congress seeking to keep unions accountable and make sure that they serve their working members, rather than the other way around?

"This is about giving individual workers a voice. If a union is doing a good job, it shouldn't have to worry about getting recertified. It should be easy," said Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., author of the Employee Rights Act, one of the main bills congressional Republicans are backing. "Nothing about what we are talking about would make it harder for workers to organize, if that is what they want to do."

The reforms are crucial for bringing balance and parity to elections, especially at the state and local level, since the Democratic Party relies excessively on Big Labor money--through forced, legal thievery, since members are forced to join and/or pay the dues.

But it would make it harder for unions to raise funds. Organized labor is a major source of campaign funding for the Democratic Party, giving more than $59 million in the 2016 election cycle alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Conservative groups put the total unions give to Democrats, liberal activist groups, and political action committees between 2012 and 2016 at $765 million.

That's too much money stolen from workers promoting candidates and causes which are hurting workers. This is wrong, and we cannot allow this perversion of our American labor community to be so abused.

The justices took up a similar case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, last year and split 4-4, leaving the Abood precedent in place. It is widely believed that Justice Antonin Scalia's death prevented the court from having a majority to overturn Abood. Janus represents a second chance for the court to do that now that Justice Neil Gorsuch has replaced him.

What are some other legislative accomplishments taking place in Congress to rein in Big Labor abuses?

On Capitol Hill, the Employee Rights Act has 111 co-sponsors in the House and 21 in the Senate, and Roe expects they will top last year's number, 137 co-sponsors. 

Other bills, such as the Save Local Business Act, by Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., would rein in the National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, by prohibiting it from pursuing cases based on an expanded definition of "joint employer." 

What has President Trump been able to accomplish in the way of labor reform since taking office?

The White House, meanwhile, is steadily rolling back changes to the workplace rules instituted by Obama. Most notably, the Labor Department has reopened a rule that would vastly expand the number of workers covered by overtime, delayed implementation of the so-called "fiduciary" rule-making retirement investment brokers legally required to put their customers' interests ahead of their own, and rolled back the department adoption of the NLRB's joint employer rule. Trump also has given the NLRB is first GOP majority since President George. W. Bush's administration.

What about blue states? Is there any chance of reform taking hold for good in places like California or Connecticut?

What about ... Illinois?

Liberal Republican Governor Bruce Rauner has been picking a long-standing and somewhat winning fight against the Democratic machine eating the state out of its life and livelihood. There are so many residents leaving that other Rust Belt states are about to overtake the Land of Lincoln in terms of population.

George F. Will writes:

Its importance derives from this fact: Self-government has failed in the nation's currently fifth-most populous state (Pennsylvania soon will pass it). Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner will seek re-election with a stark warning: The state is approaching a death spiral — departing people and businesses suppress growth; the legislature responds by raising taxes; the exodus accelerates.

Illinois has basically turned into California, except with bad weather and good hot dogs.

The strangeness of the contest between Rauner and the likely Democratic nominee (J.B. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune) is that Rauner's real opponent is a Democrat who has been in the state assembly since Richard Nixon's first term (1971) and has been speaker all but two years since Ronald Reagan's first term (1983). Michael Madigan from Chicago is the "blue model" of government incarnate. This model is the iron alliance of the Democratic Party and government workers' unions. Madigan supports Pritzker, who is committed to the alliance. This is the state of the state under it:

The corrupt Democratic Party and Big Labor, the public sector unions in general, and the SEIU in particular, and bleeding the state into a coma, and then the state will likely fold into itself and go bankrupt.

The unfunded pension and benefits liabilities are astronomical and untenable. The state is losing revenue faster than they can take it in. One tax increase passed--over Governor Rauner's veto--but already another budget-busting deficit has emerged.

The one Democrat who did not vote for Madigan for speaker this year says he's since been bullied. Another Democratic legislator — an African-American from Chicago's South Side, a supporter of school choice — broke ranks to give Rauner a victory on legislation requiring arbitration of an impasse with a 30,000-member union.

Bruce Rauner

These two independent votes are nothing short of a miracle in a state so blue that it will suffocate on itself. 

 Madigan enlisted Barack Obama to campaign against the heretic, who was purged. These were warnings to judges, who must face retention elections. They — including the one who refused to trigger arbitration by declaring a negotiation impasse — are, Rauner says, "part of the machine" in this "very collectivist state."

Judges are corrupt, elected by the same people drawing massive checks from the state coffers. This whole mess has to be cleared up any way possible.

Thuggishness has been normalized: Because Rauner favors allowing municipalities to pass right-to-work laws that prohibit requiring workers to join a union, Madigan's automatons passed a law (Rauner's veto stood) stipulating up to a year in jail for local lawmakers who enact them.

So much bullying, so little time.

In 2018, Rauner will try to enlist voters in the constructive demolition of the "blue model." It is based on Madigan's docile herd of incumbent legislators, who are entrenched by campaign funds from government unions. Through them government, sitting on both sides of the table, negotiates with itself to expand itself. Term limits for legislators, which a large majority of Illinoisans favor, would dismantle the wall.

One can only hope ... term limits have not been successful in California, as the growth of government has continued to skyrocket, and Republican opposition has diminished, even though Republicans still sit in the legislature.

Will neglects one major problem created by Rauner, actually quite a few. While running in 2014 determined to work as much as possible with conservatives and spare their views, he has consistently voted against their best interests. He signed off on sanctuary state legislation! He also signed off on bills which require medical personnel to perform abortions, even if they are morally opposed to such an evil practice.

Does Rauner really think that he is going to pull in any kind of support to ensure that the state does not go bankrupt? Republicans are burned by the betrayals on these moral issues, especially protecting illegal aliens within the state by shutting down communication between statewide law enforcement and ICE.

The base will not turn out for him the way it had catapulted him into victory in 2014. For all his efforts to destroy the power of the public sector union cabal, Illinois will be facing off against a corrupt liberal Governor in 2019, and the state will be done.

Pennsylvania

George Will mentioned that the population growth in the Keystone is soon to exceed Illinois.

Yet that state has not gone right-to-work ... yet. That could change next year, though, especially if voters get rid of liberal Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, who is entirely out of touch with the conservative voters in the state.

Here's a statement from this pro-free market activist:

Suppose you care for an elderly parent or grandparent at home. Should you be compelled to pay dues to a health care workers' union?

The idea may seem ridiculous, but Gov. Tom Wolf is trying hard to make it a reality.

He signed an executive order in 2015 creating a "direct care worker representative" for home care workers who receive state subsidies, a position promptly filled by a union-created group.

More forced unionism. But Pennsylvanians are waking up to this unjust program.

Whatever the courts decide, Pennsylvania lawmakers should pass right-to-work legislation, which ensures that employees are never required to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.

The previous governor, Tom Corbett, should have done this when he had the chance. He had strong Republican majorities in both houses, and they were ready for all kinds of reforms. Corbett failed to enact free market and liberalization. Not only that, but the capital city Harrisburg went bankrupt, and then the governor wanted to raise taxes rather than cut costs.

In doing so, Pennsylvania would join the 28 states that already have right-to-work laws on the books - including our neighbor West Virginia, which adopted it just last year.

When a union has to earn its dues, rather than simply confiscate them, it is forced to prove its value to workers. So it should come as no surprise that from 2005 through 2015, union membership grew in right-to-work states but fell in non-right-to-work states.

Yes.

States with right-to-work laws have enjoyed stronger job growth. According to the Heritage Foundation, jobs in right-to-work states grew by 46 percent between 1990 and 2014, compared to just 20 percent in forced-union states.

Many companies won't even consider moving operations to a state without right-to-work.

Why we see more businesses fleeing California and other overwhelmingly blue states.

"About 35-to-40 percent of manufacturing enterprises in the automotive industry insist on operating in a right-to-work state," estimates David Brandon, president of The Pathfinders, a Dallas-based consulting firm. "Another 20-to-25 percent say it is a very important factor and will be used as a second or third-tier factor in site selection."

Pennsylvania has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation - only seven states are worse off - and our lack of worker freedom is one likely culprit. A study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute found that right-to-work laws increased economic growth rates by 11.5 percentage points between 1977 and 2012.

Yes indeed, right-to-work policies are pro-worker.

If state lawmakers won't act, then counties should consider passing right-to-work bills of their own. It wouldn't be the first time that counties have seized the initiative from state legislators.

This is the trend which Illinois is considering. They want to allow local and county jurisdictions to do as they see fit to end forced membership and coerced dues. Right-to-work zones turn into economic growth zones.

Even before Kentucky passed right-to-work legislation earlier this year, 12 of the state's counties had already approved it on their own. These counties won an important legal battle last year when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld local right-to-work laws.

There is one catch for other jurisdictions throughout the country. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals only covers a handful of states, and the federal rulings only apply to those states. The Ninth Circuit, for example, is notoriously liberal, with no interest in furthering a pro-freedom agenda

Counties fought to defend worker freedom because it brought proven economic benefits. Within six months of passing right-to-work laws, Kentucky's Warren County had received inquiries from 47 economic development projects representing at least 4,785 new jobs.

BAM!

That's exactly the sort of economic bump that's needed in a place like Erie County, which has lost almost 2,000 manufacturing jobs over the last three years. Passing right-to-work legislation would send a clear signal to employers and workers that the county is open for business.

Erie County, PA is a crucial political bellwether. As goes Erie, so goes the rest of the state in political contests. For the first time in decades, Republicans won that country--and Republicans carried the state. It was YUGE!

No one should be forced to support political causes or policies they disagree with. But that is what the ballot box is for.

It's all about principles and ideas. It's all about allowing individuals the freedom, the opportunity to choose their own path and their own representation. This country is founded on this fundamental freedom. No one should take it away.

Delaware

Another blue state, Delaware, wants to enact right-to-work, but the state legislature is still under Democratic control. Despite Republican chances at electing another state senator and thus taking back the upper chamber in Dover for the first time in 40 years, their efforts fell short.

Sussex County, Delaware enacted their own right-to-work ordinance, and immediately the Democratic Attorney General stepped in:

The Delaware Attorney General’s office has ruled against a Right to Work bill that claims to promote job growth in Sussex county. The Legislation proposed by the county council would have enacted a form of the controversial legislation.  The attorney general’s office has ruled that county government does not have the legal authority to enact such a bill.

There are growing precedents in the federal court systems which are permitting these local and county right-to-work zones. More efforts are proceeding to allow more federal circuit courts to rule, and rule in favor of, allowing local jurisdictions to expand freedom-to-work provisions despite opposition from state legislatures.

Proposed by Sussex County Councilman Rob Arlett, also state chair for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, the bill would have seen practices best suited for state-wide use implemented into a single county.

“If the state legislature is not even going to consider a Right to Work law for all of Delaware,” says Arlett. “It is my responsibility to find a path at the county level to pursue job opportunities for my constituents.”

Absolutely!

Arlett’s motion to create a Right to Work county is the latest effort of many spanning several years. In 2013, the then-Republican controlled General Assembly pushed to create Right to Work zones in hopes of boosting the state’s manufacturing industry. Legislators believed this would attract new companies who are looking to operate free of union interference. The bill failed to make it out of committee.

Right-to-work legislation faces a tough fight on many levels, even among Republicans as well as Democrats, who by and large are bought by labor unions. To the county's credit, however, we should be glad that someone with political power wanted to put forward a proposal which is pro-business and pro-worker.

Final Reflection

The Right-to-work fight is going full-steam ahead. Free markets and free enterprise, combined with better trade deals and an America First work ethic are all undermining the communistic impulse which has animated labor unions for the last 30 years. Cities, counties, and state governments are going bankrupt because they cannot afford the excessive pensions and benefits offered to public employees, including public safety officials as well as other government workers. Taxpayers have had enough with being raked over the coals to pay for perks which they cannot enjoy, and the private sector is weighed down by the government bullying.

Unions are not bad when they serve their workers. When unions force employees to join however, they are inherently bad, violating the independence of the employees and undermining the basic principles on which this country was founded.