Moe Lane

Before you ask: I was raised in a union household.  I know precisely what that word means, and I am using it precisely as my late father the local union president would have used it if he had lived to read this Wall Street Journal article by former SEIU boss Andy Stern.  Let me summarize said article: I, Andy Stern, am a cheap date* who can be easily persuaded to publicly abandon support for the most successful economic/fiscal system in human history in exchange to a free trip to the Great Wall of China.  But ignore for right now Stern’s unfortunate (for him) timing in writing a remarkably servile paean to the planned Chinese economy at precisely (I’m fond of that word this morning, it seems) the moment when the Chinese economy is looking alarmingly fragile to the rest of the world.  Let’s instead talk about the state of organized labor in the People’s Republic of China, shall we?

Well, in at least one way you can certainly say that labor’s organized in the PRC: the ChiComs haven’t been shy about instituting absolute and exclusive control over trade unions.  There’s precisely one trade union in China – the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which is, as CNN helpfully notes, “a government-sanctioned organization whose primary mission is to support Communist party policies and seek basic compensation for workers.”  If you don’t like that union?  Suffer.  Want to start your own?  Here comes the cops.  Want to do collective bargaining?  Oh, you poor, naive so-and-so – hey, wait: isn’t Andy Stern in favor of collective bargaining?  Why, yes, so he is. So why is Stern supporting a country where they routinely oppress the workers (including children)  in ways that go beyond even the most fetid fever-swamp agitprop of the American labor movement?  Particularly when labor unrest in China just keeps increasing?

Oh, right.  Because Andy Stern’s a scab that got bought off by a Center for American Progress-sponsored trip to China.  I’m embarrassed on behalf of my old man; Stern didn’t even have the decency to be expensive to buy.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*I originally had a different noun there.  But I decided that it  was too insulting to sex workers.

As it happens, this Wall Street Journal article discussing Ohio’s (among other states’) credit upgrade by Standard & Poor – and Ohio’s fairly dramatic drop in unemployment in a year – came out the same day that I spoke with Governor Kasich about his budget and labor union reform successes.  The latter (SB5, which was in many ways an even stronger reform package than Wisconsin’s) is up for ratification again by the voters, in the form of Issue 2; needless to say, the Democrats are particularly desperate to reverse it, pretty much for the exclusive benefit of their Big Labor cronies.  The need to keep reform alive in Ohio was thus prominent in the below interview:

The primary pro-Issue 2 website (“Building a Better Ohio”) can be found here.  I encourage folks to check it out.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

So, I’m confused.

• You see, I know that the Wisconsin Supreme Court did a full-force smackdown of Judge MaryAnn Sumi’s incorrect and egregious attempt to subvert the will of the Wisconsin legislature with regard to labor union reform.  That part is obvious.
• I also know that (Democratic) Secretary of State Doug La Follette is trying to give his party’s Big Labor cronies two more weeks at the public troughs by trying to delay publishing the bill until the 28th.  Like Ann Althouse (and presumably Glenn Reynolds), I’m not sure why La Follette thinks that he can get away with it, but I understand the gambit.
• What I don’t get is this: if the bill hasn’t been published (and thus not law), why did Big Labor get to file suit against it*?  And if Big Labor can file suit against it, then it’s law – and Secretary La Follette’s wrong about a key aspect of his job, right?

Seriously, while I am not a lawyer, I still don’t see exactly how the Democrats can have it both ways on this.  Either it’s law or it’s not.  If it’s not, then they shouldn’t be able to file a lawsuit.  If it is, then La Follette is ignorant of his responsibilities.  The Left should not be able to pick and choose like this.

Moe Lane

*Frivolously, as Hot Air rightly notes: differential treatment of various types of workers goes all the way back to Taft-Hartley.  Good luck trying to overthrow that one, folks.

PS: Yes, I’ve already had somebody privately tell me that common sense sometimes has very little to do with the law.

Union solidarity is a myth.

David Freddoso has the details: essentially, the Teamsters and the UFCW are at cross-purposes when it comes to the Giant supermarket chain here in DC.  The Teamsters are angry at Giant because Giant parent company Royal Ahold is closing a Teamsters-controlled facility in Jessup, Maryland, in favor of a non-union one in Pennsylvania*.  This will be happening, and the real question is whether Royal Ahold will start the process with another Teamster-controlled Jessup facility.  As Freddoso mentioned, part of the Teamster’s push-back on this involves directly attacking the Giant supermarket chain’s reputation… which if successful will of course adversely affect the UFCW’s own workers. (more…)

How many bites at the apple does this judge get, anyway?

Let’s recap what happened in Wisconsin (that link leads to a whole slew of links that track this epic foul-up by the Democratic party in Wisconsin over what should have been a simple enough demonstration of the principle that elections have consequences).

• Wisconsin Democratic Senators run away rather than do their jobs.  This prevents a quorum for bills that are primarily financial in nature.
• Wisconsin Republican Senators end up passing what they can, including a critical union reform bill.
• Having returned from self-imposed Illinois exile, Wisconsin Democrats find a convenient judge (Maryann Sumi) to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), on what is frankly a misunderstanding of the law.
• Judge Sumi makes a mistake in the TRO by only enjoining the Secretary of State (Democrat) from publishing the law.  For example, she did not enjoin the Legislative Research Bureau (LRB) from publishing the law, despite the fact that they are required to by law.
• The LRB publishes the law, as per their statutory requirements; as the TRO did not cover that department, they have no choice.
• On Monday, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DoJ) points this detail out to Judge Sumi and asks her to vacate the order, given that the law is published.
• On Tuesday, Judge Sumi reissues her TRO to prevent implementation of the law.
• On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Department of Administration (DoA) points out that this ruling was flawed in that it: did not in fact indicate that the law is not in effect; explicitly declined to state that the law was not legally published; and since when did Judge Sumi get to presume to drag the DoA (a non-party in the original dispute) into this mess she made in the first place?
• On Thursday, Judge Sumi has to fix her TRO again to rule that the law is not published, in a fashion that satisfies the DoA.
• At some point in all of this Judge Sumi somewhat plaintively (if you’ll pardon the pun) wonders aloud why the legislative branch simply just doesn’t pass the law again.
• To which Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) effectively replies “Because we did it right the first time, and it’s not like I tell you how to run a courtroom.”  Left off is the unstated “Although I apparently should.”

I agree with Hot Air: the sooner the Wisconsin Supreme Court takes this away from Sumi, the better.  At this rate, I fully expect the next ruling to feature Bozo the Clown.  Come to think of it, if Bozo has space on his judicial docket…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*I am assuming.

The bill in question is HB 1021, and it is designed to get government out of union’s business by: banning automatic dues collection for public sector unions; and requiring union leadership to get permission from individual members before using those dues for partisan politicking.  The bill passed 74-40, despite the rather strenuous objections of Big Labor: a similar bill (SB 830) is making its way through the Florida Senate.  The success of HB 1021 should help with the success of SB 830, which has been fought every step of the way, naturally; the Democratic-Big Labor governmental alliance has zero interest in seeing their profitable feedback cycle disrupted by the ability of mere workers to decide whether they like having their money go to keep one party in office.

Should the bill make it to the state Senate floor, it should pass relatively easily – both branches of the Florida legislature are solidly Republican.  In fact, they were like that before the last legislative elections… and that detail is something that I’d like to highlight, because it’s important.  Given that Florida is in fact a Right-to-Work state already, it may seem surprising that union reform is progressing even further in that state.  Well, there may be a reason for it, and that reason may be Wisconsin: specifically, the puerile, undemocratic, hooliganish, contemptuous, and generally infantile way that Democrats/Big Labor attempted to avoid dealing with the simple notion that elections have consequences.  The Left’s cheerleaders are currently ‘bragging’ – scare quotes because I’m not sure why anybody would be proud of the fact that they’re being vocal defenders of a political party’s deniable corruption slush fund – that their shrill, petulant extended whine against labor union reform in Wisconsin galvanized the Left nationwide.  That may or may not be true, but I can tell you one thing: it definitely galvanized the Right.

And, hey! – We control more state legislatures than you do!

Moe Lane (crosspost)

I agree with Mickey Kaus on one thing: people like that aren’t Republicans, Lefty agitprop peddlers to the contrary.  But progressives in California who are fighting public sector unions aren’t fighting them because public sector unions are bloated ticks on the backside of the American economy.  No, they’re fighting them because there’s not enough for both progressives and the aforementioned bloated ticks.  These guys  would happily go back to the old cash-for-votes deal if only the treasury wasn’t so bare.

Put another way, this is all just strictly business.  Nothing personal.

$250 dollars a day starting Monday, until they return and start doing their jobs. The article suggests that Indiana Democrats may not take this seriously*, as fines of this sort have been threatened in the past but never actually imposed. To which I say: given the language, rhetoric, and now live ammunition that have been scattered around towards Republicans by obedient Democratic lackeys… why should anybody assume that this is merely a threat this time?

Seriously. Look at this one Google search term alone. Tell me again why any Republican legislator should still have any sort of fellow-feeling towards any Democratic legislator who has spent the last month cynically inciting their weaker-minded followers up to the very edge of violence. We have come to the end of showing any consideration, and the end of toleration of nonsense. If Indiana Democrats don’t want to pay the fine, then they should stop pretending to be latter-day Robin Hoods, delete the number of their union boss masters from their cell phones, and go back to work.

Via All Politics Blog.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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