January 2012

SEIU Campaigns Against Public Perception

by Trey Kovacs on February 14, 2011 · 2 comments

in Labor

Over the weekend, the SEIU was hard at work preparing for an all-out assault on employers everywhere. The SEIU is preparing for an organizing and public relations campaign called, “Fight for a Fair Economy.” SEIU’s campaign will spend millions of union member dues to fight resentment of public-sector employees and recruit new members. The reported campaign efforts are to “build to strikes where possible” to pressure employers during organizing and bargaining, push the NLRB to cut the time frame for union elections down to 10 days, and recruit new members in non-unionized industries.

If the goal of “Fight for a Fair Economy” is to lessen the resentment toward public sector employees and change the environment of unions, this is not an effective strategy. Taxpayers will not find greater sympathy for overcompensated government workers who will strike to put pressure on negotiations for unsustainable contracts. Furthermore, “Fight for a Fair Economy” is quite a misnomer. Is it fair for employers and employees to have only 10 days to decide their vote to unionize or not? Clearly, union officials do not want potential union members to be well-informed before elections. Taxpayer bitterness toward government workers will only decrease when union officials recognize that their members need to contribute to their retirement and renegotiate their unsustainable contracts.

In their effort to recruit new members, union officials are also on the wrong track. Ideally, future members would want less of their union’s dues to be spent on influencing politics and public relations campaigns. Considering the “Fight for a Fair Economy” will cost union members tens of millions of dollars, this will not happen. Instead, possible union members would be supporting the status quo: their dues going to strike funds and health care benefit funds, which currently are underfunded.

Future members should be wary of the tactics from union officials. Union officials are unwilling to compromise in negotiating new contracts for government workers, even though local and state governments have huge deficits, and their union members have faced layoffs. Would an employee rather take a pay cut and contribute to their retirement or lose their job?

A quote from an SEIU memo on the “Fight for a Fair Economy” campaign,

“We can’t spark an organizing surge without changing the environment, so that workers see unions not as self-interested institutions but as vehicles through which they can collectively stand up for a more fair economy”

The union officials’ strategy to change the perception of unions can only be done through action. So far they have failed on this front. Spending millions of dollars on a public relations campaign will not change the public’s view of unions as “self-interested institutions.”

New York Times Repeatedly Makes False Claims About Supreme Court and Court Rulings

by Hans Bader on February 14, 2011 · 1 comment

in Labor, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

In The Atlantic, former ACLU board member Wendy Kaminer discusses the New York Times’ refusal to correct repeated falsehoods in its editorials about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and its decision to repeat those false claims even after their falsity was pointed out by attorneys and a constitutional law professor. The Times has repeatedly insinuated that the Supreme Court overturned a 1907 federal law banning corporate contributions to political campaigns when it actually did no such thing.

The Citizens United ruling allowed corporations and unions to pay for their own political ads attacking politicians, but it did not allow them to make campaign donations to congressmen, or strike down the Tillman Act, a 1907 law barring such donations. The Times also falsely implied that the Supreme Court had struck down “disclosure requirements“ for campaign donations.

Earlier, law professors wrote at The Volokh Conspiracy about the New York Times’ refusal to print a letter to the editor pointing out a mistake in a recent Times editorial about federal appeals court rulings dealing with business and arbitration of legal disputes. The law professors also argued that the Times persistently misstated whether it is permissible to detain enemy combatants.

I have previously written about the New York Times’ failure to correct repeated falsehoods it printed in its “news” coverage of the Supreme Court’s 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision, which you can find at this link. Times reporters such as Linda Greenhouse made it sound like the plaintiff in that case, Lilly Ledbetter, had been arbitrarily prevented by the Supreme Court from suing despite only recently learning of the pay discrimination around the time she retired. Actually, as lawyers have repeatedly pointed out, Ledbetter knew by 1992, if not earlier, that she was being paid less than the male employees she claimed should have been paid the same as her. No wonder the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear dismissed her lawsuit as untimely.

As the National Journal’s Stuart Taylor noted, Ledbetter brought her discrimination claim only after the supervisor she accused of discrimination had died, and shortly before she retired, and she knew of the pay disparity she later complained about for at least five years before filing an EEOC complaint. Thus, she was unable to qualify for an extension of the 180-day deadline for suing based on lack of awareness of the pay disparity.

The New York Times editorials repeatedly makes false claims about court rulings to try to depict the Supreme Court as “pro-business.” But it is not in fact pro-business, as I previously explained here.

Indeed, the Supreme Court is more hostile to business than most of the lower federal courts, and is generally hostile to employers in discrimination cases.

Michigan May Fire Salvo Against Regressive Debit Card Price Controls

by John Berlau on February 14, 2011 · 2 comments

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Property Rights

In the battle against Obamacare, the shots heard ’round the world were resolutions against the law by state legislatures. These resolutions led to court cases that have been victorious in two instances, and a new majority in the U.S. House Representatives that voted to repeal the law.

Now, the state of Michigan is poised to pass the first resolution against another command-and-control scheme, and there is bipartisan support for such a resolution. The target is the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul that Congress passed last year.

That measure sets price controls for the interchange fees that retailers pay issuing banks and credit unions to process debit card transactions. The Federal Reserve’s proposed rule implementing the provision explicitly sets prices at well below cost, excluding items such as fixed costs of infrastructure.

The Michigan resolution, which passed the state house  on Friday and is scheduled to be voted on in the Senate on Tuesday, lists many of the same concerns CEI has highlighted about costs being shifted to consumers, credit unions and community banks so that fat cat retail chains can get a “free lunch” on what they pay to proces debit cards.

It says in part: “Small issuers rely on debit interchange fees to provide free checking services to their customers and to cover costs associated with fraud prevention and data security. If these costs were not fully recoverable, small issuers would be unable to offer debit services to their customers, and the result could be decreased consumer choice and higher fees.”

In the House, the measure was approved by 36 Republicans and 12 Democrats. Given all that Michigan has gone through in the Great Recession, a statement from the legislature that part of a federal law is economically destructive should carry a powerful weight across the nation.

Hold the Sizzle: Chipotle, Immigrant Employees Get ICE’d

by Dennis Grabowski on February 14, 2011 · 4 comments

in International, Labor, Mobility, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation

Chipotle boasts that it offers “food with integrity,” but the popular restaurant chain may want to consider an addendum in light of its recent actions: “so long as the federal government doesn’t get involved.”

The chain was forced to fire over 600 employees from its 50 Minnesota restaurants last month — about half of its employees in the state — in light of an audit conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Says one Minnesota paper,

The investigation of Chipotle began several months ago, [Chipotle communications director Chris Arnold] said, when ICE asked to see work eligibility documents. The company was not told why it was singled out for review. ICE then provided Chipotle with a list of employees whose documents might be invalid, he said.

Chipotle tries to screen new employees, but some provide false documents showing they are eligible workers, Arnold said. In cases where employees insist they have the proper documents, Chipotle has sought to give them extra time to produce the identification, he said.

“We have asked ICE whether they would allow a 90-day period to resolve discrepancies, and they have told us that they absolutely would not,” Arnold said.

Not only is ICE denying Chipotle the 90-day period to clear up documentation issues with its employees — an allowance that is “standard practice,” according to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — but it is actively increasing the size and scope of its investigation of the restaurant chain. Earlier this month, ICE announced that it would also be auditing the 60 Chipotle locations in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Robert McGoey, a co-coordinator of the rights-based organization Denver Fair Food, suspects that Chipotle will eventually be audited in every state due to its 80 percent Latino employment. Similarly, a February 11 article in The Nation reveals that John Morton, the head of ICE, says it “plans many more mass firings.” This tactic fails to meet the organization’s goals, made explicit in the same article:

The ICE website says it targets employers “who are using illegal workers to drive down wages … [those] likely to pay illegal workers substandard wages or force them to endure intolerable working conditions.”

At Chipotle, however, as in every other sanctions target, ICE never improved conditions. Wages remain the same. In fact, although Morton boasts ICE collected $7 million in employer fines during 2,740 audits, those who cooperated in firing workers were given immunity. The only people penalized were workers.

It seems that Chipotle is being targeted on the basis of its largely Latino demographics, rather than any abuse of undocumented workers in the workplace. While wages are unlikely to improve in a market in which “there are nearly five unemployed workers competing for each available job,” ICE’s failure to leave improvements in its wake was virtually guaranteed when it targeted a fast-food chain with above-minimum wages across the board. According to a report from the Immigration Policy Center published on February 9,

[Concerning] Chipotle, labor leaders who criticized the firm for the way it handled layoffs in the wake of the ICE audit say the company is “definitely above the bottom tier” in its overall treatment of workers. Even though the chain is non-union, the SEIU’s Nammacher said Chipotle pays above the minimum wage and offers some basic benefits. “They’re an above-board corporate player,” he stated.

Not only is Chipotle a poor target for an organization seeking to root out “intolerable working conditions” (Chipotle is even known for its practice of paying higher food costs in order to better the compensation of supply-chain employees), but ICE’s impacts harm the very individuals whose interests the organization purports to be acting in. According to a 2009-2010 report from the Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network,

ICE’s new workplace enforcement strategy of auditing employment files, allowing employers to fire undocumented workers en masse – also dubbed “silent raids” – has deepened the economic and humanitarian crisis in many communities across the country, making workers further vulnerable to labor rights violations and other forms of abuse.

The study details several cases in 2009 and 2010 in which ICE audits — intended to publish “bad apple” employers — did anything but.  ”In each of these cases, rather than hold the employer accountable for existing labor law violations and abuses, ICE’s I-9 audits triggered massive layoffs leaving thousands of families in crisis and more vulnerable to abuse.”

SEIU president Javier Morillo described the effects of this practice on undocumented workers, stating that “They are pushed out of jobs where they are being paid above the table.” He added, “They pay taxes, Social Security taxes, etc. They are being moved, many of them, to precisely the bad employers that pay cash, that pay less than minimum wage.”

The deeper that one delves into ICE’s actions, the more that the government organization’s actions seem inconsistent. According to the organization’s website, “ICE’s primary mission is to promote homeland security and public safety through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, trade, and immigration.”

It’s unclear, however, how the organization’s recent moves against the employees of Chipotle are in any way consistent with its stated ends of promoting security and safety. It is similarly unclear that Chipotle was abusive  in its dealings with the undocumented workers that it unknowingly employed.

What is clear, however, is that ICE’s actions threaten the very employees whose working conditions it claims to defend.

Education Cuts Needed; Massive Spending Fuels Waste, Deficits

by Hans Bader on February 14, 2011

in Economy, Employment, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

Education expert Neal McCluskey earlier lamented the failure of House Republicans to propose meaningful cuts in education spending, “despite the fact that the ivory tower is soaking in putrid, taxpayer-funded waste. Quite simply, the federal government pours hundreds of billions of dollars into our ivy-ensconced institutions every year, but what that has largely produced is atrociously low graduation rates; at-best dubious amounts of learning for those who do graduate; ever-fancier facilities; and rampant tuition inflation that renders a higher education no more affordable to students but keeps colleges fat and happy.” Shortly thereafter, in an effort to trim the deficit, House Republicans came out with some additional cuts, proposing the elimination of some wasteful education programs.

If the GOP is reluctant to make cuts, Obama is much, much worse: he earlier sought to double education spending, and Obama’s recent State of the Union called for more increases in education spending (and other wasteful boondoggles at taxpayer expense), even though many students learn little in college. As we noted earlier, half “the nation’s undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college,” according to a study cited in USA Today. “36% showed little change” even after four years. Although education spending has exploded, students “spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago.” “32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.” States spend hundreds of millions of dollars operating colleges that are worthless diploma mills, yet manage to graduate almost no one — like Chicago State, “which has just a 12.8 percent six-year graduation rate.”

College degrees are delivering less and less, even as students graduate massively in debt. Law schools deceptively claim that virtually all their graduates get jobs. But they inflate their jobs figures by treating as success stories even students who end up working in low-paying non-legal jobs like “waiting tables at Applebees,” “stocking aisles at Home Depot,” or babysitting — or in part-time temporary jobs. And they sometimes hide joblessness by “losing track” of easy-to-locate nearby graduates who are jobless.  ”‘Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm,’ says William Henderson of Indiana University, one of many exasperated law professors who are asking the American Bar Association to overhaul the way law schools assess themselves.”

America already produces so many more liberal-arts graduates than it needs that 5,057 janitors have Ph.D’s or other advanced degrees. People who went to college due to rising college attendance rates mostly ended up in low-skilled jobs, even as their tuitions soared to pay for growing educational bureaucracies. Education spending in America is huge compared to most countries.

Image credit: Honeywell-Nobel Initiative’s flickr photostream.

Morning Media Summary

by Lee Doren on February 14, 2011 · 1 comment

in Economy, Energy, Environment, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Trade

Tech:

FTC Warns About Public Wi-Fi Hotspot Dangers:
“The OnGuardOnline.gov website, operated by the Federal Trade Commission, Justice Department, Homeland Security, Commerce Department and other federal agencies, is warning people to be careful when using public Wi-Fi hotspots. The agency says users on public Wi-Fi hotspots should “only log in to sites that are fully encrypted.” Encrypted sites have an https at the beginning of their address and typically have a lock in the lower right corner of the browser.”

Anonymous Claims Possession Of Insidious Stuxnet Virus:
“Houston, we have a problem. Or should I say, “Iran, we have your problem?” Last night, a member of hacker group Anonymous – a devious 4chan-spawned Internet coalition known for increasingly serious web-based attacks – announced on Twitter that the group was in possession of the Stuxnet virus.”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

Get Ready… Junk Scientist Al Gore Predicted North Pole Will Be Completely Ice Free By Next Year:
“If you thought that this was an unusually harsh winter just hang in there… By next year the North Pole will be completely ice free.”

Insurance / Gambling:

Sports betting laws outdated, Windsor MP Comartin says:
“The push is on by Joe Comartin to legalize the betting on individual sports game in Canadian casinos.”

Health / Safety:

Why infertility will stop humans colonizing space:
“Renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking once remarked that humankind would need to colonise space within the next century if it was to survive as a species.”

Economics:

White House Expects Deficit to Spike to $1.65 Trillion:
“The White House projected Monday that the federal deficit would spike to $1.65 trillion in the current fiscal year, the largest dollar amount ever, adding pressure on Democrats and Republicans to tackle growing levels of debt.”

Japan Economy Shrinks Less-Than-Estimated 1.1%, Surpassed by China in 2010:
“Japan’s gross domestic product fell less than estimated in the fourth quarter in a pullback that may prove temporary as overseas demand revives production after the nation fell behind China as the world’s second-largest economy.”

Clothing Prices to Rise 10% Starting in Spring:
“The era of falling clothing prices is ending. Clothing prices have dropped for a decade as tame inflation and cheap overseas labor helped hold down costs.”

France wants new global finance system:
“France, as current head of the Group of 20 countries, will help the transition to a global financial system based on ‘several international currencies’, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said today.”

AP Source: Obama to seek changes in Pell Grants:
“President Barack Obama’s budget plan would cut $100 billion from Pell Grants and other higher education programs over a decade through belt-tightening and use the savings to keep the maximum college financial aid award at $5,550, an administration official said.”

The Hill Poll: Voters troubled over future of Social Security:
“A sizable majority of likely voters is worried about Social Security’s future but much more divided over whether the retirement age for the program should be raised, according to a new poll conducted for The Hill.”

Legal:

Shed owners warned wire on windows could hurt burglars:
“A spate of thefts in several towns and villages in Kent and Surrey over the past few months led to many householders taking action to protect their property. “

Labor:

SEIU still plans to act on imposed contracts:
“The Service Employees International Union still is fighting contracts imposed on two of its units by McHenry County government, despite the contracts expiring later this year.”

Transportation/ Land Use:

High-speed rail is a fast track to government waste:
“Vice President Biden, an avowed friend of good government, is giving it a bad name. With great fanfare, he went to Philadelphia last week to announce that the Obama administration proposes spending $53 billion over six years to construct a “national high-speed rail system.” Translation: The administration would pay states $53 billion to build rail networks that would then lose money – lots – thereby aggravating the budget squeezes of the states or federal government, depending on which covered the deficits.”

The Pitfalls of Unionizing the TSA

by Hans Bader on February 12, 2011 · 3 comments

in Economy, Employment, Labor, Mobility, Regulation

Robert Verbruggen wrote recently about the downside of unionizing the TSA in the National Review, taking issue with the Obama Administration’s decision to allow the agency to unionize even though past TSA heads regarded unionization as a threat to national security.  As he notes, “after a mere nine years in existence, the Transportation Security Administration rivals the DMV and the Postal Service as a played-out comedy cliché. And now the TSA is adding union bureaucracy to the mix.”   As he notes, unionization has made matters worse at other federal agencies:

“Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) — which, unlike the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service, is a federal law-enforcement agency that allows collective bargaining — illustrates the problem with letting unions interfere in disciplinary matters: The agency got into an arbitration war over how it could discipline an employee who literally fell asleep on the job.  Worse, CBP lost. And the websites of NTEU and AFGE are already competing to see which one can provide the longer list of TSA disciplinary actions it has overturned. (Before the determination instituted collective bargaining, TSA agents were nonetheless allowed to join unions if they wanted, and about 13,000 did.)”

We earlier wrote about additional downsides to allowing unionization at this link.  One writer’s mistreatment at the hands of the TSA is chronicled at this link.

The TSA is already not terribly effective.  (Undercover agents have managed to slip bombs past TSA screeners, and the TSA is even less effective at detecting them than the private security firms it replaced after 9/11).  The AFGE union predicted on January 21 that voting to unionize the TSA will begin by mid-March.

What’s In Store for Egypt After Mubarak’s Departure?

by Hans Bader on February 12, 2011 · 1 comment

in Agriculture, Energy, Ethanol, International, Trade

Recently, Egypt’s pro-American dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was forced to resign after 30 years in power, and forced to give way to a military-controlled government.  Victor Davis Hanson has some interesting reflections on the revolution in Egypt at this link.

Earlier, we discussed the role of ethanol subsidies and biofuel mandates in increasing support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an anti-American group opposed to Mubarak, at this link.  By indirectly increasing wheat prices, ethanol subsidies drove up unrest in Cairo’s slums, which are more supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood than they are of Egypt’s historically much smaller pro-western democracy movements.  (Egyptians historically have spent nearly half their income just on food — more than that in the slums of Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt’s largest cities).

The Washington Post‘s editorial board and various columns in the Post, like one by Professor Tim Searchinger, agreed about the folly of ethanol subsidies and their role in contributing to misery and unrest among Egypt’s poorest.

Lowest Corn Reserves in 15 Years — Food Prices to Rise

by Fran Smith on February 11, 2011

in Agenda for Congress, Agriculture, Ethanol

The New York Times noted in an article yesterday that food prices are expected to rise this year as a result of significantly lower supplies of corn reserves — the lowest since 1996 — and a higher use of corn for ethanol. The food vs. fuel tug continues, with the ethanol mandate, the ethanol tax credit, plus massive subsidies causing more and more corn to be diverted to ethanol production rather than food. (See CEI colleague Brian McGraw’s post today.)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced February 9 that U.S. corn stocks are projected to be 70 million bushels lower this month, while the use of corn for food, seed, and industrial use will be higher than expected. USDA also said that corn for ethanol use is expected to be 50 million bushels higher — with a record ethanol production for December and January.

With corn prices almost doubling from six months ago, USDA is projecting that those food items most affected by corn used for feedstock will rise in 2011. Thus, pork prices are likely to rise 3.5 to 4.5 percent, beef prices, 2.5 to 3.5 percent, poultry prices, 2 to 3 percent, egg prices, 2.5 to 3.5 percent, and dairy, 4.5 to 5.5 percent.

Check out this and some of the extensive articles CEI has published on the unintended consequences of the ethanol program.

CEI Weekly: CEI Participates in CPAC 2011

by Nicole Ciandella on February 11, 2011

in Features

CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.

CEI Weekly
February 11, 2011

>>Featured Story

This weekend, the American Conservative Union is hosting the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference. CEI is proud to once again participate in the annual event. Today, our Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio is heading a grassroots activist session on “fighting Big Labor’s anti-worker agenda.” Tomorrow, Vernuccio will also be speaking on a panel on public sector unions; and CEI Vice President Wayne Crews will be moderating a panel on internet freedom. See the complete CPAC agenda here.

>>Shaping the Debate

How Many Congressmen Does It Take to Screw the Light Bulb?
Sam Kazman’s article in Cigar Magazine


Regulation Without Representation
Wayne Crews and Ryan Young’s op-ed in Investor’s Business Daily

Leviathan
Iain Murray’s op-ed in National Review

Regulation Destabilization: Time for Reform, Washington
Wayne Crews’ column in Forbes

Will Congress Stop EPA’s End-Run Around Democracy?
Marlo Lewis’ op-ed on BigGovernment


Nutrition Labeling Mandate Will Cost Jobs and Hurt Small Brewers
Michelle Minton’s op-ed on BigGovernment


Senate’s 1099 Repeal Shows Obamacare Edifice is Crumbling
John Berlau’s op-ed in The Daily Caller


Conservative, Free-Market Leaders to Host Press Conference on the Creation of a Competitive Market for U.S. Spaceflight
Rand Simberg’s citation on CNBC.com

>>Best of the Blogs

“Blue Laws” May Make Superbowl Fans “Blue”
By Angela Logomasini

Blogger Kareem Amer Missing in Egypt
By Grant Babcock

Put Regulations on a Life Cycle Budget
By John Berlau

TSA Given Approval to Unionize
By Brian McGraw

>> CEI Podcast

February 10, 2011: How Not to Stop Eminent Domain Abuse

Land Use and Transportation Policy Analyst Marc Scribner takes a close look at an eminent domain reform bill just passed by the Texas State Senate. As written, the bill would do little to actually solve the problem of government seizing private property from one private party and giving it to another private party with better political connections. Marc suggests some fixes and notes that many people are not fooled by this weak effort at reform.

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