From ZeroHedge, this summary, in nine charts.
Right click on the image to enlarge it.
The Obama Recovery
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Category Archives: jobs
Walker and Unions
Governor Scott Walker has some plans for unions, if he’s elected President. Walker says he would
eliminate the National Labor Relations Board, prohibit federal employee unions; institute right-to-work laws nationwide; and repeal the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, which requires the payment of local prevailing wages to workers on federal construction projects, often boosting pay and project costs.
There’s much to like here. All of these boost competition and lower costs to American consumers, which in turn will be highly stimulative of our economy.
The only one I disagree with is the elimination of federal employee unions. Unions greatly simplify contract negotiations, and that can lower costs, even for a government employer. However. The right-to-work position applied to federal unions, and as Walker applied to Wisconsin government unions, is a good move. What Walker did in Wisconsin was to take away the unions’ privilege of collecting union dues from non-union members as a condition of working at all. He also took away the privilege of state government unions to direct a portion of member dues to political purposes unless the member agreed to the diversion. He also took away the privilege of state unions to strike. These all are worthy of application at the Federal level.
On his right-to-work proposal as a Federal law: it’s not a blanket right; Walker fully respects the 10th Amendment. Accordingly his proposal is structured to make right-to-work the baseline, but individual states can vote themselves as union shops if they wish.
Of course, if these proposals look like they’re taking off, we can expect very vociferous misbehavior by unions and their Democratic Party pets as they try to intimidate the proposals into defeat. It’s only necessary to review union and Democrats’ thuggery in Wisconsin as Walker worked his will there a few short years ago. Here, for instance. And here. And here.
Most of these are sound ideas, regardless of union fireworks and threats and actions, and they should be supported by whomever gets the Republican nomination for President, and they should be pressed for in Congress should that candidate be elected. That President, too, should go over Congress’ heads to their—and his—boss, us American citizens if Congress hesitates. That President should identify, clearly and by name, those Representatives and Senators who remain in union pockets.
An Illustration
…of an unacceptably bloated bureaucracy.
As most of you know, President Barack Obama is bent on releasing as many terrorists from our Guantanamo detention facility as he can, moving the remainder to US prisons, and closing Gitmo. Whether or not this is a good idea, there is bureaucratic failure involved in the thing.
…officials note that Carter has approved some transfers and is pushing his staff to move quickly to get more to his desk. But many other proposed transfers are slogging through the bureaucracy, under review by a long list of defense, military, intelligence, and other administration offices.
There’s no excuse for this. It’s a simple, yes or no, question. The terrorist can be released or not. There’s no reason for delays.
DoD and the other cabinets and agencies in the Executive Branch (and in the other Branches) badly need personnel downsizing, military and civilian, with the personnel—highly experienced, all—returned to the private sector.
There is no excuse for the slow-walking.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
And to the detriment of our economy and our nation through a population wholly unprepared—by design—for getting down the road in the real world.
Our colleges and universities are, in all ivory tower seriousness, allowing
a wide range of hybrid majors that allow them to pursue off-beat passions, such as pop culture, “peace studies,” even love.
Sure, there are anecdotes of business success. But such isolated instances don’t belie the trend. A trend your tax dollars are supporting via Federal government grants, often in entirely unrelated areas, to secondary “education” institutions that engage in such froo-froo.
More Big Government
And more interference from that Big Government.
President Barack Obama has signed is going to sign—and do his usual bragging about signing—an Executive Order requiring all government contractors to give their employees paid sick leave.
On top of that,
The White House wouldn’t specify the cost to federal contractors to implement the executive order, which Obama was to address at a major union rally and breakfast in Boston. The Labor Department said any costs would be offset by savings that contractors would see as a result of lower attrition rates and increased worker loyalty, but produced nothing to back that up.
Neither Obama nor Labor Secretary Thomas Perez produced any data to support their bald claim because they don’t have any. Their position is based solely on the arrogance of “We’re Big Government. We Know Best.”
There is, too, that Democratic Party ethos. Perez said
The Republican Party is out of step with similar conservative governments around the world.
Yeah. Someone else is doing it; therefore, it’s the right thing to do. The rightness or wrongness of the thing isn’t at all inherent in the thing. Popularity creates right. I’ll ignore the fact that Perez’ “around the world” is Europe, and that there aren’t any conservative governments in Europe.
It’s certainly true that paid sick leave has merit. However, the decision about paid sick leave is best left in the hands of the employer and his employees and prospective employees. What other countries, what other domestic companies are doing, has nothing to do with it.
It’s not at all true that every good idea must be turned into a government edict that everyone must follow. Including when the costs of this or that good idea will vary from time to time, situation to situation, company to company, industry to industry.
Especially since Americans are fully capable of acting on their own choices. We’re not as stupid as Big Government assumes us to be.