Labor unions, who seem to have an increasingly firm hold on Obama’s testicular area, might just get out of that tax on cadillac health plans, and leave the taxes to all us non-union people.
Because OF COURSE they will.
If someone could please explain to me why in the holy hell this is remotely fair, or why the rest of the non-union nation should tolerate this for one freaking second, I’d greatly appreciate it. Is it because the AFL-CIO president looks like this?
Come on, Obama. No reason to be scared of a pathetic bully with a terrible rug. GROW A PAIR, for crying out loud.
Better yet, scrap this whole health plan, because it blows.
In it, the author tells a personal story about the unionization of her family’s business. She writes, “My mother’s family owned a small furniture manufacturing company in a rural southern-Missouri town. When union organizers appeared on the scene, the employees were told if they chose to vote for the union, the business would close down, and they’d all be out of jobs. Unfortunately, no one believed the owners would really lock the doors so they voted in favor of the Union. The next day when the employees arrived to work, the doors were locked … never to re-open again.”
And now as a small business owner herself, she knows if she were faced with unionization of her own company, she’d make the same choice to simply shut the doors. She explains that after union leaders spent $450 million on getting Obama elected, they are pretty much expecting payback in the form of the Employee Free Choice Act. And once EFCA is in place, any small business faced with unionizing will automatically see higher operations costs, a skyrocketing of their legal fees, total loss of freedom over the selection and discipline of their own employees, and higher costs for salaries/benefits.
If you’re wondering if that isn’t sort of counter-productive, when Obama keeps saying how important jobs are and holding “job summits,” then you’re right. He’s basically doing everything in the world one can possibly do to ensure that we don’t get more jobs, and that small businesses in private industry are destroyed.
Nick Gillespie had an interesting take on this. He says, “Do you want to spend your life (and have your kids spend their lives) to pay ever-increasing taxes for teacher, cop, and bureaucrat retirements at early ages? Especially while you’re expected to fully fund your own? This is a social contract that needs to be redrawn ASAP.”
Well, maybe they didn’t quite put it that way. But the point is, they voted against unionization, and for that I applaud them.
Let’s review. Home health care workers in Illinois, who are paid by the state to care for severely disabled people in their homes, were being targeted for unionization by the SEIU (who else?) and AFSCME. And, because the Employee Free Choice Act has thus far not been passed, these workers were allowed a secret ballot vote, which is AS IT SHOULD BE. And, out of the 3000 workers who voted, over half voted to remain non-union. Because can you imagine if they were unionized?
A mother with an Actual Brain, who has a disabled son, said this: “Union contracts talk about suspension, probation, training, days off? It’s ridiculous, to draw a line from a Union to my own efforts to provide a meaningful life for my child.”
Amen, sister.
If you read Dave Bego’s book (which you can get at a discount by using the code at the top right corner of our main page), you’ll see the depths to which unions will sink to force their will on people who want nothing to do with them. I would not be the least bit surprised if false claims of abuse start being waged against home health workers in Illinois. That’s how mob-like the SEIU is.
Hey – remember when I told you guys about meeting Dave Bego, author of Devil At My Doorstep? Well, have I got a deal for you! Dave is offering Chicks On The Right readers a discount on his book! Over on the top right corner of the page, you’ll see a picture of his book cover, and if you click on that to get to the ordering site, and use promo code devil9, you’ll get a copy of his book at a discount, just for being a Chicsk On The Right reader.
And I’m here to tell you, the book is kickass.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know how well a book on union organizing would be able to hold my interest. But you guys – it’s REALLY GOOD. It’s all about Dave’s personal experience owning a successful business and fighting off a really aggressive attack by union thugs, and you just won’t BELIEVE the depths that those thugs sink to in order to get his company into their fold. There were times, when I was reading it, when I actually was aware of my own jaw dropping. THAT is how ruthless and shameless the unions are.
Anyway, the book is awesome, and you should read it, especially since you’re getting a discount.
BEHOLD: Here’s how Democrats and unions like to play now. This is the brainchild of The Department of Human Services, UAW, and AFSCME. Pretty neat little trick they used to divert nearly $4 million into union coffers.
Now, if they can do this to in-home childcare providers, just imagine who’s next. And then remind yourself why unions are such big proponents of Obamacare.
So just recently, I got a crash course on the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s an issue near and dear to my new pal Prada’s heart, but one, admittedly, I didn’t know much about. Happily, my entire professional career has been union-free, and I hope it always will be. Unions, like affirmative action, have TOTALLY outlived their usefulness.
Anyway, I recently met David Bego, author of The Devil At My Doorstep and CEO of EMS, a cleaning and maintenance company, which fought off a brutal unionization attempt for YEARS. I’m hoping that we’ll get a chance to interview David at a later date, but in the meantime, check out his book! I’m going to send him a link to this post as well, and if we’re reeeeeally nice and reeeeeally lucky, he might even post a comment or two to answer questions or provide more detail. So be sure to give nice shout-outs to Dave Bego in the comments!
After my brief meet/greet with David Bego, and after hearing about some of Prada’s efforts to bring more public attention to the EFCA issue, I asked our good pal J if she could break it down for me in regular person terms. She told me that the Employee Free Choice Act has absolutely nothing to do with Freedom OR Choice. It’s more commonly referred to as “card check” and if passed, this legislation will make it nearly impossible for businesses to stay union-free.
So I said to J, “I don’t get it. How would Card Check work?” And here’s what she said:
“For the purpose of iillustrating how Card Check works, (and just for fun) let’s use the fictitious company, Chicks’ FABULOUS Shoes, a chicks-on-the-right-owned business that designs and produces absolutely to-die-for footwear and accessories.”
Naturally, I was instantly intrigued.
She went on to say, “So – the way your fabulous shoe company might get unionized NOW looks something like this:
1. Union targets Chicks’ FABULOUS Shoes for unionization, and sends paid union employees known as ‘agitators’ to directly contact the employees of the business.
2. Union agitators gain access to employees by getting someone hired on at Chicks’ FABULOUS Shoes, or by identifying a key employee who becomes their inside contact. Since they can’t openly conduct these recruitment campaigns during work hours, agitators will follow employees home from work, or go to employee’s homes—often repeatedly—to get the necessary number of signatures on the union cards. There are often complaints of harassment, intimidation and repeated contact by agitiators as they work to gain the signatures of at least 30% of employees of Chicks’ FABULOUS Shoes. There are no restrictions on what the agitators can or can not say or do, and employees often report later that they were given misinformation.
3. Once they have the required number of signatures, the union can petition the NLRB to hold a secret ballot vote within a pre-determined period of time (current law – within 42 days).
4. Prior to the vote, the company is allowed to conduct an information campaign to educate employees on the realities of unionization. Employees have the opportunity to change their minds about unionization, and cast a NO ballot during the vote. If there is a YES vote when the secret ballots are cast, and a majority of employees express their desire to enter into collective bargaining, the company can no longer negotiate with its employees—all negotiations are conducted through the union. This includes everything from salary and benefits, to work hours, vacation days, or job assignments.
5. Chicks’ FABULOUS Shoes management and union officials begin negotiations to determine a contractual agreement.”
So I said, “That sounds totally sucky as it is.” And J said, “If you think THAT’S sucky, compare that with how unionization would work if the EFCA legislation gets passed:
1. Agitators contact employees of Chicks’ FABULOUS Shoes (following them home from work, showing up at the employees’ homes) to get the necessary number of signatures on the union cards.
2. Once agitators have the signatures of at least 50% + 1 of employees of Chicks’ FABULOUS Shoes, the business must enter into negotiations with the union. After the company is notified of this, they are prohibited from talking with their employees about anything concerning unionization, labor contacts, or benefits.
3. There is no election. Employees do not have the opportunity to change their minds.
4. If an agreement is not reached between the union and the company, a government appointed arbitrator (who most likely won’t know the company’s industry) determines the contract and the company AND EMPLOYEES are forced to comply for a period of 2 years. Employees could even come out worse on the other side. At least under current law, employees could vote against the current contract.”
So I said, “Yeah – that sounds SUPER sucky.”
“You have no idea,” J said. “The full effect of EFCA is hard to imagine as businesses up and down the supply chain are slammed with rising costs. Add to that, the increased costs of this administration’s other proposals, such as Health-Care Reform, and Cap and Trade, and you soon realize that our economy can not sustain these ‘reforms.’ Clever wording makes this sound like something good and creates a positive spin on this legislation…’Free Choice’….sounds great, right? Kind of like ‘Hope’ and ‘Change?’ It’s yet another example of ‘what you see, is not what you get’, as this legislation takes away choice and freedom from the individual.”
“So,” I asked J, “what does that mean for other chicks on the right who just want to buy a new pair of awesome fabulous shoes?”
And J said, “The cost of all goods will increase dramatically. They have to. Businesses have to make a profit to survive, and as the cost of doing business soars in this county, it is not difficult to imagine a mass exodus of jobs to countries around the globe. You don’t need to look any further than the auto industry to compare a unionized and non-unionized business model. While American auto makers were going to bankruptcy proceedings this summer, Honda, Subaru and Toyota have sustained sales and profits.”
J is very wise about this stuff, as you can tell. And EFCA got some attention from the WSJ this week. And now I’m bringing it to YOUR attention, because we all need to be fighting this legislation every bit as hard as we’re fighting Cap and Tax and Obamacare. You can learn lots more about EFCA at this awesome site, too.
In conclusion, unionization is sucky. And EFCA makes unionization super sucky. Tell all your friends!
UPDATE: David Bego gave me some more information on the phone, and I’ve updated this post to reflect that as well as this video he shared with me – which is a FABULOUS display of the thug tactics used by unions to get what they want. It’s also a great example of SEIU’s relationship with ACORN.
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