Mark Hemingway, Washington Examiner, “Big Labor’s ‘Middle Class’ Task Force“:

In February, the Obama administration released the “Annual Report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class.” But under the guise of the report’s benign title, the White House’s Middle Class Task Force is nothing but a shibboleth for instituting a number of expensive pro-union regulatory reforms — one of which could be using your retirement savings to bail out Social Security.

The section of the report devoted to “Protecting Workers and Creating Middle-Class Jobs” reads like organized labor’s policy wish list. It pushes expensive “high road” federal contracting, plans for project labor agreements, enforcing labor standards, a “National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force” and, most perniciously, “retirement security.”

Social Security is bankrupt and the average union pension plan only covers 62 percent of its liabilities, well below the 65 percent threshold at which the government considers the plan “endangered.” Given these facts, the Economic Policy Institute has teamed up with two of the most powerful unions in the country — the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union — to push something called “Retirement USA” (visit Retirement-USA.org).

Retirement USA looks like a scheme to prop up trillions of dollars worth of failing pension plans by seizing your personal savings. It would create a universal retirement plan for all Americans that centralizes all existing retirement plans — including your personal 401(k) savings and private pension plans — into the same retirement system.

Hemingway  is one of the few reporters/columnists to pay attention to the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, chaired by Vice President Joe Biden. It appears the task force was formed to reach pre-determined recommendations meant to reinforce organized labor. Who else would answer the question, “What can we do to improve the status of the middle class?” with the response, “Project Labor Agreements!“? Another recommendation: Enact the Employee Free Choice Act.

In related analysis, the Gerson Lehrman Group reports, “Congress Seeks to Rescue Underfunded Union Multiemployer Pension Plans“:

Moody’s estimates that large union multiemployer pension plans are underfunded by $165 billion. House and Senate bills seek to allow the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to assume responsibility for these plans, taking certain employers and unions off the hook at a cost of billions of dollars to US taxpayers. This would discourage these plans from fixing their problems on their own by raising retirement ages and contribution levels and lowering benefits. Watch for a union bailout this fall.

For the children middle class!

Bret Jacobsen in Forbes.com, “Everyday Higher Prices,” a commentary on the “high road” federal contracting standards:

It’s just the latest effort to increase costs on taxpayer projects in the name of pushing more money to labor unions.

Reports this week of the new proposal are raising eyebrows. Though details are sketchy, here’s the general idea: The Obama administration is attempting to alter the scoring system currently used to evaluate government contractors and suppliers.

The new system would provide additional points for so-called “high road” employers who pay wages and benefits above minimum standards. (Note that the new requirement is not about providing quality above minimal standards; employers simply have to pay more.) Thus, competition in bidding becomes a tangled race to see who can charge the most to cover higher labor costs.

The costs of this favor to Big Labor would be borne by the taxpayers, paying the direct costs of more expensive contracts and indirect costs from inefficiency.

The recent report from the White House Task Force on the Middle Class foreshadowed this major change in federal contracting. From page 23, the section entitled “Responsible Federal Contracting.”

The Federal Government spends over half a trillion dollars a year on contracts for goods and services, generating employment for tens of millions of workers. However, there are inadequate controls on the records of firms who get these contracts and on the quality of the jobs these contracts create.Ignoring these factors has negative implications, not only for the workers on these contracts, but for the quality and efficiency of services rendered. For these reasons, the Task Force has participated in a review process to identify ways to reform the procurement process to increase the quality of both the services procured and the jobs created under Federal contracts.

The Task Force recognizes that contracts should not be awarded to irresponsible sources with unsatisfactory records of business ethics, including noncompliance with labor and employment, tax, fraud, and consumer protection laws. We also recognize that substandard wages and benefits can have negative impacts on employees’ productivity and stability, which in turn can reduce the quality of performance on Federal contracts.

We expect to produce shortly some new recommendations to bring these ideas into practice.

• Associated Press, “‘Living wage’ could be factor in govt contracts”
• New York Times, “Plan to Seek Use of US Contracts as a Wage Lever“
• Bloomberg, “Plan to Seek Use of US Contracts as a Wage Lever“

The White House streamed the audio of Vice President Biden’s remarks Monday to the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council in Orlando, but we find no archived version or transcript. The AFL-CIO’s blog, usually eager to tout this sort of thing, offered just a brief report on the Veep’s most controversial pronouncements, “Biden to Executive Council: We Need A Middle Class.” Yikes!

Of the part of his remarks we heard, this was the relevant passage on the top issues of the day (from The Wall Street Journal):

In terms of the NLRB, we’re going to get it done. In the fight for EFCA, we’ve got to sit down and figure out where we go from here…. I think we’re going to get it done.

So, not much substance, nothing new. He spoke in vague terms about getting a Senate Republican to support the Employee Free Choice Act but moved on quickly to different topics.

Advocates for the recess appointment of SEIU attorney Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board must have been disappointed. The Vice President offered nothing along the lines of, “We need this man.”

In introducing Vice President Biden, the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka hailed the release of the White House’s Middle Class Task Force’s first report last week. Makes sense: Its content tracks closely with the political and policy lines of Big Labor, moreso than any other single document we’ve seen come from the White House.

• New York Times (blog), “Biden to Labor Leaders: Things Could Be Worse“
• The Associated Press, “Biden says he understands resentment over bailouts“

From the White House’s annual report of the Middle Class Task Force, released today by Vice President Biden:

Protecting Workers and Creating Middle-Class Jobs. Access to good quality jobs, with fair compensation and stable benefits, is a key factor in building a strong middle class. The Administration’s most immediate imperative in this regard is to do all we can to jumpstart job creation. Building on some of the successes of the Recovery Act, the President has outlined a program to quickly generate job growth in small businesses, clean energy, and infrastructure. In addition, the Middle Class Task Force is focusing on the following initiatives to ensure that we create good jobs that can sustain a middle-class lifestyle and that workers are treated fairly:

••Passing the Employee Free Choice Act. To level the playing field for workers who want to form unions, the Administration is committed to passing the Employee Free Choice Act. The loss of bargaining power has been a factor in both the stagnation of middle-class earnings and the divergence of wage growth from productivity growth. Restoring the right to pursue collective bargaining in a more balanced environment would help middle-class workers get their fair share of the gains as the American economy recovers.

That’s on page v of the Executive Summary, so it’s one of the premises the Task Force started with as opposed to key finding and recommendation for moving forward. So consider it just boilertrap and clap-plate.

(Hat tip: U.S. Chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative)

UPDATE (2:40 p.m.): We jumped to post before reading through the whole report. On pages 23-24, the task force reaffirms and even elevates the Administration’s support for the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act: “Over the course of this year, the Task Force will continue to promote the benefits of union membership and to amplify the President’s message of the importance of EFCA as a way to guarantee workers who want to organize a fair chance to do so.”

Forced unionization is NOT a means to a more prosperous, stable middle class. Organized labor will applaud a renewed push for the Employee Free Choice Act in an election year, but the politics here only add to the uncertainty that discourages business investment.

Vice President Joe Biden today issued the first annual report of the Middle Class Task Force, reaching the pre-ordained conclusion that the middle class needs more government programs and financial support.

The task force did spend a lot of time talking about the manufacturing sector, efforts recounted starting on page 13 of the report. Two of the task force’s meetings during the year emphasized manufacturing, the first in Perrysburg, Ohio, and then a White House meeting in December.

Looking ahead, the Vice President and Task Force intend to work with the agencies and with Senior Counselor Bloom to continue to promote the Administration’s manufacturing agenda. Policies in this space may include: export promotion, transitional assistance to supply chains (especially former auto suppliers), public/private partnerships (especially in green manufacturing), and continuing to build off of the ARRA investments noted above.

There’s much to welcome there policywise, and we’re glad to see export promotion head the list.

The Middle Class Task Force report also extensively promotes “green jobs” and the “green economy.” Coincidently, The Washington Post today runs an op-ed by Sunil Sharan, an expert in the “smart grid” and other clean-energy developments. Using the example of “smart meters” — the retail, consumer portion of smart grid technology — he concludes that the technological advances probably result in net job destruction. He concludes:

For the purpose of creating jobs, then, a “clean-energy economy” will not offer a panacea. This does not necessarily mean that America should not become green to alleviate climate change, to kick its addiction to foreign oil or to use energy sources more efficiently. But those who take great pains to tout the “job-creation potential” of the green space might just end up inducing labor pains all around.

On Thursday, the White House blog previewed the Philadelphia meeting of the Adminstration’s Middle-Class Task Force with this post, “Green job spotlight: Energy auditor“:

Green jobs are going to be one of the primary ways the middle class benefits from the economic recovery. That’s why they’re the focus of the Middle Class Task Force’s first meeting tomorrow, in Philadelphia.

But even though the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was just signed, there are previews of the impact all over the country.

The Philadelphia Inquirer today profiles Suechada Poynter, a 39-year-old woman who is a home energy auditor — she checks for air leaks and improperly functioning furnaces to make buildings more energy efficient — exactly the kind of job the ARRA will create:

“Green jobs have opened a lot of doors for a lot of lower-class people to get into this field,” said Poynter, a Thai immigrant and mother of seven who lives in Philadelphia’s Logan section and earns $11 an hour for her work.

“”I’d tell him to open more doors to get more people into this field,” she said. Passionate about the environment, she is studying architecture in college. “This is just the beginning of a bigger door,” she said.

Thing is, Ms. Poynter works for the Energy Coordinating Agency, a non-profit corporation. Worthy, socially useful work, but…

Are jobs with non-profits really the model on which to build a strong, resilient economy? How much stimulus does one get if “home energy auditor” is “exactly the kind of job the ARRA will create?”

The AP describes the executive orders signed by President Obama this morning as follows:

• Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
• Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notices that workers can limit financial support of unions.
• Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union.

No mention of reversing President Bush’s executive order on project labor agreements in federal contracts, as mentioned below.

The White House website has an item about the Middle Class Task Force being created, but no listing yet of the executive orders. We’ll post the orders when they get around to posting them at WhiteHouse.gov.