Dear Republican Colleague: The Administration just released their FY 2010 budget proposal, which they eagerly claim saves a total of $17 billion government-wide. While I applaud the effort at trimming unnecessary government programs, I was disappointed that the president’s scalpel wasn’t sharper. This month I introduced the Priorities in Education Spending Act which would repeal 68 ineffective or ... Read more »
The so-called Employee Free Choice Act has come under increasing fire in recent weeks, and those taking aim might not be who you expect. Although card check is often painted in partisan terms, the reality is that an increasing number of Democrats are joining Republicans in speaking out against this anti-worker legislation. It turns out that there are members of both political parties who support b... Read more »
The U.S. Department of Labor this morning reported that the American economy shed 539,000 jobs in April, bringing the unemployment rate to 8.9 percent. Total job losses since the recession began in December 2007 stand at 5.7 million. At the same time, The Washington Post is now reporting that beleaguered U.S. automaker General Motors plans to ship many of the company’s planned new jobs overseas: “... Read more »
With big-spending special interests now scrambling to find support for their widely rejected card check plan, a new focus has emerged on the legislation’s scheme to allow federal arbitrators to dictate how American workplaces are run. Section 3 of the legislation, dubbed “Facilitating Initial Collective Bargaining Agreements,” outlines a radical proposal masked by its rather innocent sounding name... Read more »
Congressional Democrats and their big-spending special interest allies are having a hard time making the case for their anti-worker card check plan. Not only has it been widely rejected by the public – non-union and union members alike – but it has been panned by political leaders and opinion makers from across the political spectrum. Now, new data from the National Labor Relations Board confirms ... Read more »
In the ongoing debate over card check’s forced government contracts – the proposal to let government bureaucrats establish wages, benefits, job duties, and other work rules if unions and management cannot reach agreement within 120 days – a new wrinkle has emerged. It seems that special interest efforts to increase the number of union members at any cost could have a steep cost indeed for an unexp... Read more »
With all the talk recently about a compromise on the anti-worker card check plan, pundits and political observers have been turning their attention to a less well-known provision of the plan, but one that many believe could be equally damaging: the forced government contracts. Over the weekend, Michael Barone speculated on what a card check compromise might look like for workers, small business ow... Read more »
In case there was any doubt left, high-ranking union officials behind the grossly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act have now made it perfectly clear: Card check is all about politics. The Wall Street Journal’s Brody Mullins reports— “So you thought that Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party would be enough to win him the support of Big Labor for his 2010 re-election? Thi... Read more »
In the ongoing battle over the so-called Employee Free Choice Act – a bill better known as card check, because it replaces federally-supervised secret ballot elections with a public card signing process – supporters of this anti-worker plan have argued that the legislation is necessary to strengthen a flailing economy. But a new analysis from Applied Economic Strategies (AES) found that many of th... Read more »
After yesterday’s news that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has switched political parties, talk of a compromise on the anti-worker card check plan has once again taken center stage. Specter – a Senator who announced earlier this year that he opposed card check as a Republican, and repeated yesterday that he still opposes it as a Democrat – has been at the center of speculation about a possible... Read more »
