Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been aggressively reinterpreting the law to foist unions on workers—whether they want them or not. The Board famously filed charges against Boeing for creating jobs at a nonunion plant in South Carolina. Today the Board announced its most aggressive move yet: snap elections. Currently the NLRB takes between five and six weeks to conduct unionizing elections. Under the procedures the Board just proposed that time would fall to between 10 and 21 days.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) wants the National Labor Relations Board to turn over all documents related to its recent complaint against The Boeing Co. The NLRB, already facing a backlash for its meddling in a private company’s business decision, is now under fire for the secretive process it used to reach that conclusion. DeMint’s wide-ranging Freedom of Information Act request suggests that politically connected special interests influenced the NLRB’s complaint against the company. The federal agency has asked an administrative law judge to halt expansion of Boeing’s operations in South …
When President Barack Obama signed the latest bailout for spendthrift states and government unions, he claimed the $10 billion earmarked for education spending would save the jobs of 160,000 teachers. But as we pointed out before the bill was signed, this number was completely made up. Since local governments always exaggerate the number of government workers they will lay off, only a tiny fraction of teacher jobs was ever in real jeopardy. And even then, layoffs could have been avoided if teachers unions would have just agreed to pay freezes …
Throughout the next two weeks, the Foundry will be highlighting some testimonials of General Motors bondholders. When President Obama describes bondholders, you get the distinct impression of pinstripe-suit-wearing bankers with scotch in one hand and cigars in the other. However, that is far from the case. In fact, GM bondholders are retirees, parents, civic organizations, even union workers. But since the main aim of the Obama Administration is to pay as much taxpayer money to Big Labor Unions as possible, they neeed to create a bad impression of bondholders. Meet …
Words can’t describe what occurred at yesterday’s hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. After encouraging the audience to applaud his remarks on the Employee Free Choice Act, Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) was forced to scold union members when they become belligerent — hissing, booing and even throwing things at Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnmpD1fwnw[/youtube]
Liberals are introducing the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act today on Capitol Hill. The legislation would effectively eliminate workers’ rights to a secret ballot vote on joining a union. Heritage’s James Sherk has done extensive research on card check, including a new paper that outlines why the bill would create government-run workplaces. Last month at a Heritage event, former UFCW Local 700 Organizing Director Rian Wathen described how unions will creatively manipulate workers into signing union cards if EFCA takes away their right to a secret vote. Click here to see …
Fears that pro-Teamster protectionists in Congress would seek to kill the U.S. Department of Transportation’s “Cross Border Demonstration Project”, that has allowed a carefully selected group of Mexican trucking operators full access to the U.S. road network have been realized. The Supplemental FY 2009 Omnibus spending bill (aka “Porkulus II”) that is currently being rushed through Congress by the Democrats contains sections (SEC. 135) that impose onerous new safety inspection requirements on the Mexican carriers as well as (Sec. 136) directly barring new funding for the USDOT pilot program. Since it is …
The news of another auto bailout was met with a whimper last week. Surely, the little noticed request for an additional $22 billion was partly overlooked because $22 billion just doesn’t seem like a large amount of money after President Obama spent $787 billion of your borrowed dollars the week before. But the fact remains that many questions remain unanswered by Detroit, and unasked by Capitol Hill. For example: How much money is the Federal Government committing to GM and Chrysler? With the $39.4 billion in loans to GM and …
DENVER — The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank. We are not experts on what the left wants. But after four full days spent listening to panels of progressive leaders describe what direction they want Barack Obama to take the country, we have to conclude that the left will, after careful reexamination, eventually be disappointed in Obama’s speech last night. Sure, the rhetoric was great, and the progressives here in Denver are genuinely excited about the Democratic ticket. But when it came to policy specifics on the issues progressives …
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is famous for striking to prevent docks from using technologies that reduce the need for union labor. The last time the ILWU went on strike it cost the economy $2 billion a day. But for the union’s efforts, it negotiated an average wage-and-benefit package of $150,000, with American consumers footing the inflated wage bill through higher costs. Not bad for jobs that do not require a high school degree. Good luck trying to get hired as a Longshoreman without union connections, though. Now …
