Alabama

Birmingham News Takes on Phony Card Check Arguments

On March 12, 2010, By NRTWC Staff

The good news for Alabama union membership is bad news for state and national union leaders.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of union members in Alabama increased fairly significantly from 2008 to 2009. (See story here.) The portion of the state’s work force that is in a union rose from 9.8 percent in 2008 to 10.9 percent in 2009. The same report noted union membership was stable across the nation at 12.3 percent for 2009, essentially the same as 2008.

Alabama is the only state in the Southeast with double-digit union membership. A likely reason this good news for organized labor is being greeted with such surprise is that it works against the storyline unions want Americans to believe right now.

Unions are trying to get the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama to go along with a provision that would make it easier for them to organize a workplace. The so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” still is organized labor’s No.1 priority. It’s such a high priority that the AFL-CIO has dropped its longtime support for U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and is now backing her challenger, Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, in this year’s Arkansas Democratic primary.

Union leaders should reassess their goals. Even with a heavily Democratic Congress, they haven’t been able to convince the honorables to tilt the playing field toward their favor. More than anything, the union leaders want Congress to approve something called “card check,” which would allow a union to organize a workplace by getting more than 50 percent of the workers at a particular company to sign a card asking for representation. That basically gets rid of the longstanding tradition of the secret ballot under current rules.

Right now, it takes only 30 percent of the workers in a company to ask for a union vote, but that vote is by secret ballot, as it should be. That way, neither management nor the union bosses can exert undue pressure. It’s easy to see how the card-check system, where a worker is asked to sign the membership card immediately, in front of colleagues, might be intimidating.

Back to Alabama, where instead of union membership declining, membership is increasing, even as unemployment continues to rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership climbed by 10,000 workers in 2009, to a total of 181,000. The number of state residents represented by unions (they’re covered by union contracts but are not official union members) rose to 212,000, or 12 percent of all state workers.

Alabama’s percentage of union workers is more than double border states Tennessee (5.1 percent), Mississippi (4.8 percent) and Georgia (4.6 percent). Alabama’s story doesn’t help the unions make their case.

With Congress expected to become more Republican after this year’s elections, union leaders know they’re running out of time on this lousy card-check idea.

Posted in: Alabama, Card Check, Union Membership

Courier Press Joins Card Check Opposition

On April 13, 2009, By Linda Staulcup

The Evansville, Indiana Courier Press lends its voice in opposition to the Card Check Scam:

. . . It is a basic standard of democracy, a protection that allows them [workers] the freedom to vote their conscience and their best interests.

But that would change if labor organizations have their way with the Employee Free Choice Act, more commonly known as card check. Indeed, if the bill passes Congress and as expected, is signed into law by President Barack Obama, it would allow anything but “free choice.”

But they certainly are not alone. The Birmingham [AL] News makes the point:

The card-check bill is a horrible idea in a good economy; it’s even worse in the economy we’re living in today.

Tagged with: Card Check
Posted in: Alabama, Card Check, Indiana

Teachers' Union Violates Golden Rule

On February 7, 2009, By Linda Staulcup

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking it to investigate charges made by two Alabama educators who discovered a union scheme to divert their money into the National Education Association’s (NEA) political action committee (PAC).

Claire Waites, the chair of the science department, and Dr. Jeanne Fox, an assistant principal, both work at Daphne Middle School in Bay Minette, Alabama. Waites and Fox are both members of the Baldwin County Education Association (BCEA), Alabama Education Association (AEA), and NEA teacher unions.
In July 2008, Waites and Fox attended the NEA’s annual convention in Washington, DC, as delegates of the BCEA. By telephone, BCEA union president Saadia Hunter informed Waites and Fox that contributions to a “children’s fund” in their names were made from money included in their expense reimbursements for their trip to the convention.

Although Hunter told Waites that these contributions were not political in nature, they actually went to the NEA’s PAC, the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education.

Later, Hunter admitted that the money would be contributed to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Sworn statements by Waites and Fox indicate that the AEA union boss also admitted that the PAC contributions were paid with BCEA members’ dues. However, it is illegal for unions to contribute to political candidates using “dues, fees, or other moneys required as a condition of membership in a labor organization.”

Teacher union officials also violated federal law by encouraging and soliciting contributions under false pretenses and without informing Waites or Fox of their right to refuse to contribute without any reprisal. Federal law also forbids campaign contributions made in the name of another person.

“This union money laundering scheme makes a mockery of federal election law,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which has joined Waites and Fox as a complainant. “We suspect this scheme was widely used by the NEA union hierarchy and could involve hundreds of thousands of dollars. We urge the FEC to take decisive action.”

Tagged with: NEA • NRTWLDF • Teachers
Posted in: Alabama, FEC, Forced-Dues for Politics, NRTWLDF

Teachers Fight Back

On January 24, 2009, By Linda Staulcup

The National Right to Work Foundation announced it will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission, on behalf of two Alabama educators, against the National Education Association teacher union and two NEA affiliates for an illegal political fundraising scheme initiated by the union hierarchy.

According to the complaint, the NEA illegally laundered teachers’ dues into a union political action committee. Adding insult to injury, when confronted by the teachers, union officials tried to dupe them into thinking they were contributing to a “children’s fund.”

You can read the Foundation’s news release here.

You can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast on the NEA scandal here.

Tagged with: NEA
Posted in: Alabama, FEC, Forced-Dues for Politics

Right to Work States and the Card Check Scam Bill

On October 28, 2008, By Linda Staulcup

We have been warning readers for years that enactment of the Card Check Scam Bill — certainly a top agenda item for a Democrat Congress and a Democrat president — will have a negative impact on Right to Work states, and more people are starting to recognize that fact.

The Birmingham Business Journal takes a look at the possible impact the so-called Employee Free Choice Act will have on Alabama employers:

The proposed bill, often referred to as card check legislation, would take away the right of the employer to demand a secret ballot when more than 30 percent of its employees petition in favor of union participation. If the petition is declared valid, the union would then be certified as the exclusive representative of all the company’s employees.

The bill also proposes federal mediation if a unionized company and a union can’t agree upon a collective bargaining contract within 120 days.

The concern for businesses is that unions might use pressure to push employees into union membership and that they won’t understand the ramifications, like the union bargaining exclusively for all employees, said Jay St. Clair of labor and employment law firm Littler Mendelson PC in Birmingham.

“The concern is that there can be coercion and people can’t vote their true feelings,” he said. “It does away with the fundamental process (secret ballot) that has been in law since 1930 and a process we’re all familiar with and have endorsed for 70 years.”

And in Virginia, where former Democrat Gov. Mark Warner is running for the Senate, Warner refuses to say that he will vote against the Card Check Scam Bill — a fact that has the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record rightfully up in arms:

As the polls repeatedly tell us, former Gov. Mark Warner makes an appealing candidate for U.S. Senate. But a recent refusal to commit, up or down, on an issue critical to many Virginia voters, in our mind, diminishes this appeal.

The issue to which we refer is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which would, in essence, replace the secret ballot in the decision to organize a union with a “card check” system. The system would allow union organizers to place pressure — at times, undue pressure — on individual workers to “check” that “card” to organize a union. A secret ballot affords each and every worker, well, the secrecy of their vote on this matter. It affords them protection. So in a state such as Virginia, which cherishes a right-to-work tradition that for decades has been a foundation stone of state prosperity, Mr. Warner’s position, or lack thereof, should be political dynamite for the business community and its employees.

Asked no less than three times this past Friday during a question-and-answer session at The Winchester Star whether he would vote “yes” or “no” on this undemocratic bill, Mr. Warner admirably imitated a crawfish. He wiggled and danced, and gave explanations for his wiggling and dancing, but never did answer the question.

We find that middling odd — and much more when we note that such a committed old liberal as George McGovern has actually made a television commercial opposing this “undemocratic overreach.” Part of the script reads as follows: “Voting is an immense privilege. That is why I am concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans. As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor.”

We wholeheartedly agree with Mr. McGovern, but would lend a bit of nuance to his statement. While it is true that “labor” — and by this we mean individual workers — would see no benefit from this act, “Big Labor,” the unions themselves, could realize substantial succor.

For his part, Mr. Warner pledged fealty to the state’s right-to-work law and tradition, but said the process of union organization was an entirely different matter. He said “reform” of the process was necessary, and that “over the last eight years,” the balance had shifted too much toward management, at the expense of labor. Nonetheless, he did say he had certain “concerns” about provisions of the legislation in question. Bottom line: Mr. Warner said he would not vote for any measure giving an “unfair advantage” to labor or management, yet refused to commit either way on this piece of legislation.

Yet this bill would give an “unfair advantage” to labor leaders by taking away from workers the right to choose without coercion, the same right all Americans exercise in an election. What about this does Mr. Warner not understand — particularly when a liberal like George McGovern sees it so clearly? This is a right-to-work issue.

Tagged with: Card Check
Posted in: Alabama, Card Check, Virginia

Workers' Choice Pays Benefits

On October 13, 2008, By Linda Staulcup

Auto workers in Alabama have the choice to join a union while workers in Michigan do not. If more politicians in Michigan would be willing to stand up to the labor union bosses, the auto industry would be in much better shape — perhaps doing as well as in Alabama. The Birmingham News takes an insightful look:

If organized labor is looking at a shaky economy as an opportunity to elbow into Alabama’s auto manufacturing industry, union bosses must be reading their own propaganda.

A bad economy would be the worst time for workers at Alabama’s three major auto plants – Mercedes in Vance, Honda in Lincoln and Hyundai in Montgomery – to look for the union label.

These are difficult times for auto manufacturers all over the nation, and Alabama is no different. With car building a relatively new industry in the state, this is the first serious economic challenge. But even with the downturn, Alabama’s manufacturing plants are doing better than many others.

Mercedes has cut production to bring the number of vehicles produced more in line with decreased demand.

Honda also has trimmed production, but is bringing new models to the plant in Lincoln.

Hyundai has not announced any cutbacks, but if demand continues to weaken, production cuts at the assembly plant are a good bet.

Yet, none of the companies has laid off any employees in Alabama.

The argument by organized labor that union membership will assure Alabama auto workers job protection is undercut by the layoffs and closings at auto assembly plants elsewhere, especially in the heavily unionized Midwestern rust belt. Those union jobs are hardly secure.

Unions have a better shot at organizing a plant if workers are upset about working conditions, pay or job security. There are no serious complaints about working conditions or pay at the Alabama plants. With the economy limping along, there can be no absolute job guarantees. That would be the situation whether auto manufacturers run union or nonunion shops.

The real risk – to unionizing auto manufacturing plants and many other businesses in Alabama and across the nation – is the misguided and misnamed Employee Free Choice Act being pushed by Democrats in Congress.

Under that bill, which has little chance of passing this year, but will surely be a top priority of the next Congress, workers would be prevented from using a secret-ballot election to certify a union. If a majority of workers sign cards saying they want a union, the union will be certified.

With no secret ballot, union leaders could intimidate workers into signing the card. Just as elsewhere, peer pressure can be powerful in the workplace, too.

Voters shouldn’t have to explain their ballot in the presidential election, a governor’s election or a union election. That’s why in the United States we cherish the secret ballot. People should be allowed to vote their conscience without pressure, as the secret ballot guarantees.

Tagged with: Card Check
Posted in: Alabama, Card Check, Economics, Michigan

If You Love Michigan’s Economy . . .

On October 10, 2008, By Linda Staulcup

Readers know the difficulty Michigan is having creating jobs and economic prosperity. But defenders of Big Labor like to deny that the regulations and costs the United Auto Workers (UAW) and other big unions have imposed on the state have anything to do with the state’s mired economic conditions. Albeit already difficult, it is getting harder to make such an argument.

Phil Gramm and Mike Solon writing in the Wall Street Journalnote:

The Competitiveness Index created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) identifies “16 policy variables that have a proven impact on the migration of capital — both investment capital and human capital — into and out of states.” Its analysis shows that “generally speaking, states that spend less, especially on income transfer programs, and states that tax less, particularly on productive activities such as working or investing, experience higher growth rates than states that tax and spend more.”

Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, ALEC found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful.

The rewards for success were huge. Texas gained 1.7 million net new jobs, Florida gained 1.4 million and Arizona gained 600,000. While the U.S. average job growth percentage was 9.9%, Texas, Florida and Arizona had job growth of 18.5%, 21.4% and 28.9%, respectively.

. . .

There also appears to be a clear difference between union interests and the worker interests. Texas, Florida and Arizona are right-to-work states, while Michigan, Ohio and Illinois are not. Michigan, Ohio and Illinois impose significantly higher minimum wages than Texas, Florida and Arizona. Yet with all the proclaimed benefits of unionism and higher minimum wages, Texas, Florida and Arizona workers saw their real income grow more than twice as fast as workers in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Incredibly, the business climate in Michigan is now so unfavorable that it has overwhelmed the considerable comparative advantage in auto production that Michigan spent a century building up. No one should let Michigan politicians blame their problems solely on the decline of the U.S. auto industry. Yes, Michigan lost 83,000 auto manufacturing jobs during the past decade and a half, but more than 91,000 new auto manufacturing jobs sprung up in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

Gramm and Solon ask whether any of these facts play into the presidential debate and the positions the candidates have on issues like Right to Work?

So what do the state laboratories tell us about the potential success of the economic programs presented by Barack Obama and John McCain?

Mr. McCain will lower taxes. Mr. Obama will raise them, especially on small businesses. To understand why, you need to know something about the “infamous” top 1% of income tax filers: In order to avoid high corporate tax rates and the double taxation of dividends, small business owners have increasingly filed as individuals rather than corporations. When Democrats talk about soaking the rich, it isn’t the Rockefellers they’re talking about; it’s the companies where most Americans work. Three out of four individual income tax filers in the top 1% are, in fact, small businesses.

In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs.

Mr. Obama would spend all the savings from walking out of Iraq to expand the government. Mr. McCain would reserve all the savings from our success in Iraq to shrink the deficit, as part of a credible and internally consistent program to balance the budget by the end of his first term. Mr. Obama’s program offers no hope, or even a promise, of ever achieving a balanced budget.

Mr. Obama would stimulate the economy by increasing federal spending. Mr. McCain would stimulate the economy by cutting the corporate tax rate. Mr. Obama would expand unionism by denying workers the right to a secret ballot on the decision to form a union, and would dramatically increase the minimum wage. Mr. Obama would also expand the role of government in the economy, and stop reforms in areas like tort abuse.

The states have already tested the McCain and Obama programs, and the results are clear. We now face a national choice to determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to spare the nation from a similar fate.

Posted in: Alabama, Arizona, Economics, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia

Crain's Detroit: Enact Right to Work

On July 21, 2008, By Linda Staulcup

Michigan is in the throes of a Big Labor induced economic recession and Crain’s Detroit Business report has weighed in with an idea that is a small step in the right direction.

Crain’s suggests the state enact Right to Work zones. That, of course, is not an equitable solution as some workers would be protected from Big Labor coercion and others would not be, based solely on the location of their place of employment.

What was the cause of their suggestion? Michigan’s loss of a near $1 billion automobile facility to two Right to Work states — Tennessee and Alabama.

Where will Volkswagen build its new U.S. plant? That’s the $788 million question.

By late last week, sister publication Automotive News was reporting the automaker was leading toward Huntsville, Ala., and Chattanooga, Tenn.

Michigan tried hard, with its $18.7 million “Choose Michigan” program of loans and tax credits, but it wasn’t enough.

According to Crain’s:

To many manufacturers, Michigan suffers from the perception that organized labor calls the shots. Labor strikes, including this year’s shutdown at American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc., don’t help that image.

Perception?

In this case, clearly perception is reality.

All workers deserve the same protections from forced unionism. And if Michigan would take that step, the whole state would benefit from new jobs and new economic growth.

The editors of Crain’s have taken a small step in the right direction, but it is still a step indeed.

Posted in: Alabama, Economics, Michigan, Tennessee

Michigan Struggles While Alabama Grows

On June 19, 2008, By Linda Staulcup

Why is Michigan’s car industry struggling but Alabama’s is thriving? How is the “Yellowhammer State” successfully courting companies like Honda, Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz?

Steve Sewell, executive vice president for the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, said availability of an educated work force is the top concern for such companies, but Alabama’s status as a right-to-work state is often touted. In right-to-work states, joining a union cannot be a condition of employment.

“Right-to-work can be an advantage if a company wants to have a direct relationship with its employees, without a third party,” he said.

The difference was profiled in the Detroit News.

Posted in: Alabama, Economics, Michigan

Alabama – A O.K.

On March 12, 2008, By Linda Staulcup

Fred Barnes, in The Weekly Standard, has an insightful take on the comparative economies of Right to Work state Alabama and forced-unionism state Ohio.

. . . When the U.S. Air Force awarded a $40 billion contract for 179 new aerial refueling tankers, Ohio wasn’t in the running as a site where the aircraft might be built. Instead, they’ll be built in Alabama outside Mobile.

Why? The answer is simple: Alabama’s business climate is good and Ohio’s isn’t. When major business projects are looking for the best site, job-hungry Ohio is rarely considered. And NAFTA has little or nothing to do with it. . . .

Ohio was once an economic powerhouse, but now it lags behind Alabama in almost everything that might lure new business to the state. “Ohio has raced past 41 other states and now ranks 5th in state and local taxes measured as a percentage of income,” David Hansen, president of the Buckeye Institute, wrote last year. Alabama, in contrast, ranks 46th in tax burden.

In economic competitiveness, Ohio has fallen to 47th in the nation, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Alabama is 18th. “The cost of doing business makes us very competitive,” says Bob Sisson, vice president of the Mobile Chamber of Commerce. Relative to Ohio, it certainly does. . . .

One more thing. Ohio is a highly unionized state. The Wall Street Journal called this “Ohio’s most crippling handicap” in job creation. Alabama is a right-to-work state in which union organizing is difficult.

This, of course, gives Alabama an important talking point. After all, other things being equal, would a large corporation prefer to locate a new factory in a union state or a right-to-work state? Would it rather hire a union workforce or a non-union one? Those questions answer themselves. . . .

Posted in: Alabama, Economics