A bit of good news today as it was announced this morning that the SEIU has asked that the Proposal 4 that would impose a competitiveness-killing paid sick leave mandate on employers, be removed from ballots in November. The proposal sought to require seven days of paid sick leave each year for employees who work at least 30 hours a week, and a pro-rated number of days for employees working fewer than 30 hours. The devil was in the details though, as in the “fine print,” the proposal would have also allowed employees to take that leave with little or no advance notice in increments as small as an hour or less.

Ohio Gov. Strickland had recently come out strongly opposed to the measure which he deemed: “unworkable, unwieldy and would be detrimental to Ohio’s economy”. One may assume that a similar proposal in the U.S. Senate sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) would be have the same detrimental economic impact…however on much larger national scale.

UPDATE (10 a.m. Friday): Here’s the news release from the Ohio Manufacturers Association.

The NAM issued a release, as well: “REMOVAL OF PAID LEAVE BALLOT INITIATIVE IS GOOD FOR OHIO JOBS GROWTH AND ECONOMY, SAYS NAM.” Excerpt:

“We are relieved that Ohio businesses will not have to face this issue in November,” [NAM President John] Engler said. “Rising energy, health care and other costs in a slowing economy have taken a toll on manufacturers in Ohio and across the nation. Gov. Strickland (D-OH) and Sen. Brown (D-OH) clearly recognized that the added burden of this misguided proposal couldn’t have come at a worse time. These types of restrictive mandates limit employers’ flexibility to provide the best fit of benefits for their employees,” he noted.

An ad in Minnesota sponsored by the Coalition for a Democratic Workforce, which the NAM helps to lead, is creating quite a buzz at the GOP Convention in the Twin Cities. The ad effectively points out that Senator Norm Coleman has been a staunch supporter of protecting the secret ballot in Union elections, while his Democratic opponent, Al Franken, certainly is not. (For the coalition’s Minnesota microsite, go here.)

The secret ballot issue (also known as “card check”) was a hot topic at a reception sponsored by McGuireWoods Consulting. Former Virginia Governor and Senator George Allen was on hand. He is an articulate and passionate advocate of protecting the privacy of a worker’s ballot in union elections. A key spokesman on the issue, Governor Allen believes the issue will resonate with voters all across the country this November.

My long-time friend Mike Thomas, an executive with McGuireWoods, told me the secret ballot issue is reverberating around the Old Dominion like few others he has seen. Makes sense, since Virginia considers itself the Cradle of Democracy in the New World.

Virginia Republican Senate candidate Jim Gilmore, also in attendance, noted he has become aware that the card check issue is emerging as an issue in Congress and that he is a strong opponent of the card check legislation.

AFL-CIO Big Labor Bosses in Denver last week declared they will spend over $50 million to advance candidates who pledge to end the secret ballot in union elections and other Big Labor priorities. That’s why the NAM and many other business associations are working hard to defeat this misguided legislation. Its defeat will remain a key priority for manufacturers and the 14 million workers we represent in the next Congress.

(NAM Executive Vice President Jay Timmons has been blogging from both the Democratic Convention in Denver and the Republican Convention in St. Paul. He brings not just expertise as trade association leader, but also as the former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and chief of staff for Senator Allen, both during his time in Congress and as Virginia’s governor.)

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the Employee Free Choice Act, Andy Stern, the Republican National Convention and Rage Against the Machine, let’s put aside the issue of card check and note just the basic facts, that is, the outrageous actions of a national labor union leader.

On Monday, Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, appeared on stage at an SEIU-sponsored “Take Back Labor Day” event with Tom Morello, guitarist for the rock band, Rage Against the Machine. From the SEIU news release:

On Sept. 1 from noon to 7 p.m. at Harriet Island Regional Park in St. Paul, Minn., the musicians will share the stage with already-announced performing artists Steve Earle, Allison Moorer, and Tom Morello & friends. The Take Back Labor Day Festival, sponsored by SEIU, will include a concert, a You Tube station, a children’s area, and a large audience-participation art project. Joining the performers will be SEIU leaders Andy Stern and Anna Burger and other special guests.

Tom Morello has campaigned for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who viciously shot and murdered Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. (Morello’s YouTube promo here.) Mumia was convicted of the murder based on eye-witness accounts, but the anti-American left has made him a cause celebre.

In 2001, Morello visited the unrepentant Mumia in prison, writing later:

When the guard came in and said that my time was up, we pressed our fists together through the thick glass (his still in handcuffs), exchanged farewells, love and respects, and spontaneously shouted “power to the people!” in unison.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a great man, a great revolutionary, and a friend.

So Andy Stern thinks Tom Morello is a worthy ally for the labor cause. And what would the proud members of the Fraternal Order of Police, Philadelphia Lodge #5, think?

The union sponsors a website, Justice for Daniel Faulkner. From that site’s biography of Officer Faulkner, noting the activism in support of the murderer, including by such groups as the Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine:

It is the weight of this coalition, built by the supporters of this killer, that demands that organizations such the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police also weigh into this fight in an effective and substantial way. It is our responsibility to Danny, and all the fallen officers he represents, to assure that the public knows the truth about this incident and that substance will prevail over celebrity. Maureen Faulkner, Danny’s widow, cannot do it alone. The Philadelphia and Pennsylvania FOP Lodges cannot do it alone. The financial and public relations resources that have come together to render aid to this common killer with the uncommon knack for propaganda, are too much for any one group to face alone. It will take the effort of all the members of the FOP from across our country. We must all become aware of the facts of this case. We must speak out so that the truth is heard. Danny Faulkner was a good and decent man and an honorable police officer. He was brutally murdered and his killer is Mumia Abul-Jamal. This is a time when justice demands that no honest man sit silent.

Andy Stern doesn’t sit silent. He makes common cause with a rock celebrity who considers Mumia Abu-Jamal a hero and political prisoner — Mumia, the killer of a working man.

Solidarity.

Financial Week reports from the Republican Convention in St. Paul on the politicking involved in the Employee Free Choice Act, the legislation that would deprive employees of a secret ballot in union-organizing elections and impose mandatory contract terms if the union and business do not reach an agreement on a first contract.

If the legislation comes to the House against next year, don’t be so sure it will pass card check a second time, NAM Executive Vice President Jay Timmons says.

UPDATE: But just to be clear, the Senate is the more promising venue for stopping the anti-democratic card legislation.

From John Fund, Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary:

DENVER — Democrats narrowly avoided a major embarrassment before holding their abbreviated roll call of the states here on Wednesday night.

Politico.com reported that the Obama campaign was seriously considering letting delegates vote by secret ballot, the better to avoid intimidation and fear of reprisal from local party bosses. But the plan — which was pushed on the Obama camp by supporters of Hillary Clinton — was suddenly dropped when it was realized that a key plank of the Democratic Party platform backs a so-called “card check” provision being added to the nation’s labor laws. Card check would effectively strip workers of the protection of secret ballots in union elections. Business groups and former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern oppose the measure on the grounds that it exposes workers to harassment and intimidation.

That was precisely the concern of Democratic delegates who wanted to cast a secret ballot vote on the convention floor. The Obama campaign thought seriously about accommodating them until it realized how such a naked contradiction to the party’s stance on union balloting might look to voters and the media.

Mark Mix, National Right to Work Committee, “Barred by a union card?“

The 2008 elections may represent the high-water mark of Big Labor’s political ascendancy. Although union operatives have already announced $300 million in national campaign expenditures, union political spending could exceed $1 billion after factoring in PACs, 527s, and state and local outlays.

What does Big Labor want? A sympathetic president and a filibuster-proof Senate majority mean less federal oversight for corrupt unions and new government-granted special privileges for union bosses.

Danny Glover, actor, pro-democracy reformer, John Edwards supporter:

DANNY GLOVER: Well, I think that what Edwards represented to me and for so many others was that he positioned his candidacy on the issues, domestic issues, and on healthcare and poverty. As we noted in the—as all of us noted in the early campaign days with Senator Clinton and also Senator Obama, that the person who focused on those particular issues was Edwards, and that he brought those issues to our attention. He talked about them, and he based his candidacy on that. That’s the reason why. The fact that—the idea, as we talk about Employee Free Choice Act right now, that would have been a tenet of an Edwards campaign or an Edwards candidacy, as well, that we could use unions as the basis of establishing equity in this country, that we can talk about living wage, healthcare, pensions, etc., benefits. All those things, we can talk about that. So that was the basis of my support of John Edwards.

The conservative Heritage Foundation, perhaps straining a little to be counterintuitive, identifies omissions from Senator Obama’s that could alarm “progressives.” Interesting enough. From The Morning Bell blog:

Global Warming: Obama did not utter the phrase “global warming” once last night. Progressives might respond that they prefer to label the issue “climate change,” so Obama should not have mentioned “global warming” anyway. Fair enough. But Obama only mentioned climate change once, and even then it was in reference to “new partnerships” he would form around the world “to defeat the threats of the 21st century.” No mention of cap and trade. No mention of carbon taxes or the preferred progressive term “putting a price on carbon.” All of Obama’s energy policies were framed as energy independence, not climate change. This should deeply worry progressives.

And…

Progressives firmly believe they can form a permanent governing majority if they reverse this trend. To do this they support “card check” legislation that would end the secret ballot in union organizing elections and allow union organizers to intimidate or force workers to sign cards, in public, saying they support unionization. While Obama has voted for card check legislation in the past, he did not mention it last night. Even more surprisingly, he failed to utter the words “labor” or “unions” either.

 

For government contractors…

From today’s WSJ, “White House Prepares Order On Union Organizing“:

The Bush administration is weighing an executive order that would eliminate a union-preferred method of labor organizing at large government contractors, according to people familiar with the situation.

Labor leaders prefer a card-check system in which workers can form a union if a majority of them sign a union-authorization card. Companies generally prefer a secret-ballot election.

The issue has become a factor in some Senate races and the presidential campaign. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, supports legislation favoring the card-check approach. Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, opposes such legislation.

The executive order would require large government contractors to use secret-ballot elections for union organizing or risk losing government contracts, say people familiar with the order. Though companies typically prefer secret ballots, some are willing to accept card checks to avoid a fight.

This is the first we’ve heard of it, so will have to do some more examination. At first blush, it seems a worthy reinforcement of the principle of the private ballot and the protection elections provide for real choice, not intimidation, in the workplace.

And it might be fun to see what stage in labor rhetoric comes after apoplectic.

Astute column from Denver by Clive Crook in The Atlantic Magazine, who strikes a sympathetic tone about labor’s aspirations but assesses card check’s destruction of the secret ballot as wrong, both morally and as a political strategy.

From “More on unions and card check“:

A secret ballot protects workers who want union recognition as well as those who do not. That is why opposing it arouses suspicion. Membership has fallen at least partly because workers themselves doubt that unions best serve their interests, and with reason. Opposition to secret ballots does not reassure them. It is a self-serving demand, and plays badly with the centrists the Democrats need to bring in. It is bad politics, therefore, as well as bad law. …[snip]

The secret of success, arguably, is a culture of accommodation and non-confrontation. Unions can make it easier for firms to work in closer partnership with their employees, to their mutual advantage. But if the relationship is framed as nothing but a contest over rents–a zero-sum game, with no holds barred–the drawbacks seem likely to predominate. What may concern centrist voters is that Democrats are apt to press the unions’ case in precisely this spirit of confrontation. Anti-business sentiment is a dominant note at the convention. EFCA’s most enthusiastic advocates would like nothing better than to grind the faces of the bosses. You do not have to be a boss to be wary of that.

Our emphasis. Cook wrote about card check earlier in the week, which we cited here.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal and Best of the Web Today  reports from a panel discussion out in Denver, a forum sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future:

One of the participants was David Bonior, who served as a congressman from Michigan for a quarter century and Democratic whip for 12 years before retiring in 2003. Bonior now heads a group called American Rights at Work. Although the name sounds like “right to work,” it is actually a pro-union outfit.

Bonior was making the case for “card check,” a regime that would eliminate secret balloting on whether to organize a workplace, thereby making it easier for unions to impose themselves. Card-check passed the House but was stopped by a Senate filibuster. Bonior urged his audience to work for Democratic Senate candidates in states like Maine and Mississippi, where Republican incumbents are favored but not prohibitively.

If card-check passes, Bonior claims, it will set off “a torrent of organizing like my father saw in the 1940s. . . . The progressive movement will not only be in ascendancy–we will be on rockets.” This, he says, will result in “universal health care,” an expansion of civil liberties and “an end to this rotten war that these monsters have created in Washington.”

Taranto notes that Bonior went on a Saddam-excusing trip to Baghdad in 2002 and rightfully objects to the former Congressman calling elected U.S. officials monsters. Meanwhile, we’re certainly not enthusiastic about the prospects of a progressive movements on rockets, targeting freedoms.

In related “America is a lousy place and we’re all suffering” news, American Rights at Work has launched a new ad campaign promoting the Employee Free Choice Act, which is a legislative attack on American rights at work. Guess they want to keep the Orwellian rhetoric consistent.

Home Depot’s founder, Bernie Marcus, wrote a call to arms for business against card check in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, “Bad Labor Law Is a Path to Economic Ruin.”

Marcus then appeared on CNBC discussing the legislation, a very good nine-minute segment. Inspirational quote: “I’m not against a union, but this is the most anti-democratic bill I’ve ever seen in my life. How they have the chutzpah to try to put this bill through is beyond me.”

Marcus says too few CEOs know about the legislation, but hopefully they’re waking up.