[Rhodes22-list] Warning - Brad's download takes 17 minutes - Political - very controversial

[Brad Haslett]

Ed,

I'm attaching (below) another article about an issue I have a great
deal of experience with.  I am a proud union member.  In the early
80's, I helped organize a union at my employer, not once, but twice,
because the first union vote was thrown out in a law suit.  I studied
labor law in grad school under a labor lawyer. I've been through three
unions with my current employer (the same one twice) and went through
a ten year process to get the first contract.  This "Employee Free
Choice" concept is a perfect example of Orwellian speak.  It is
anything but free choice.  It is easy to intimidate fellow workers
into signing a "right to act" card - I know, I was one of the better
ones at the process.  The worst position a group of employees can be
in is to have a union on the property with only lukewarm support.
Collective bargaining is just that, a collection.  With barely 60%
support (I've been through that twice) you are in the worst of all
conditions of union v non-union.  Obama has been bought, lock, stock,
and barrel by labor unions. Anyone who truly believes in the value of
collective bargaining and has experience with it should know how awful
this concept is.  For a good read on labor organizing, read
"Confessions of a Union Buster" by Feldman.  Again, I'm proud of my
union, I'm proud of their efforts, I support organized labor.  But,
this is a horrible idea.

Brad

---------------------------


Obama's Payoff to Unions
by Mark Skousen (more by this author)
Posted 10/06/2008 ET


"We're ready to play offense for organized labor. It's time we had a
president who didn't choke saying the word 'union.' A president who
strengthens our unions by letting them do what they do best: organize
our workers. . . . I will make it the law of the land when I'm
president of the United States. . . . " ~ Barack Obama

"We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a
secret-ballot election." ~ George McGovern

If Obama is elected president, which is highly likely according to the
latest political futures market Intrade (now a 65% chance of winning),
get ready for a unionized America and the end of the worker's right to
a secret ballot.

If he gets his way, Obama is ready to force millions of Americans into
unions by eliminating, for all practical purposes, this fundamental
American right.

This betrayal of a bedrock principle of U.S. democracy can only mean
one thing: America will go the way of Europe, i.e., higher
unemployment, slower GDP growth, a higher cost of living, and no new
job creation. That's the history of highly unionized states like
Michigan. Since the end of World War II, America has steadily moved
toward a more dynamic, flexible labor market, which has resulted in
huge job creation and a higher standard of living for all workers. But
-- if Obama and the unions have their way -- that is about to change.

Obama is a strong supporter of the falsely-named "Employee Free Choice
Act" (also known as the Card Check bill) sponsored by Ted Kennedy. It
almost passed Congress this year and is certain to become law if Obama
becomes president. Obama told the AFL-CIO this year, "I will make it
the law of the land when I'm president of the United States."
(President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation.)

What's so bad about the "Employee Free Choice Act"? The name is
positively Orwellian: instead of preserving workers' ability to make
the decision to unionize by secret ballot, it does just the opposite.
The bill makes it much easier to create a union at a business -- the
union bosses can publicly pressure a majority of workers to sign union
authorization cards (thus, the name "card check"). There is no secret
ballot -- workers sign the cards in front of other employees and union
leaders, and union officials keep the signed cards until they obtain
the required number. Under the watchful eyes (and arm twisting) of
union organizers, workers will be intimidated into signing.

Union supporters deny that the secret ballot is eliminated. Once the
union leaders are accepted as the exclusive bargaining agent for the
workers, employees can then freely vote for or against the union in a
secret ballot.

The problem is that the card check process creates heavy peer pressure
to support the union publicly, even if workers have misgivings
privately. As the Wall Street Journal editorialized, "Unable to
organize workers when employees can vote in privacy, unions want to
expose those votes to peer pressure, and inevitably to public
intimidation."

Congressman John Klein (R-Minn.) has warned, "It is beyond me how one
can possibly claim that a system whereby everyone -- your employer,
your union organizer, and your co-workers -- knows exactly how you
vote on the issue of unionization gives an employee 'free choice.'....
It seems pretty clear to me that the only way to ensure that a worker
is 'free to choose' is to ensure that there's a private ballot, so
that no one knows how you voted. I cannot fathom how we were about to
sit there today and debate a proposal to take away a worker's
democratic right to vote in a secret-ballot election and call it
'Employee Free Choice.'"

The potential for abuse is enormous. Even long-time Democrat George
McGovern is opposed to the Card Check bill: "To my friends supporting
the Employee Free Choice Act, I say this: We cannot be a party that
strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election. We
are the party that has always defended the rights of the working
class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and
coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always
championed."

Happily, Sen. McCain opposes the pro-union bill. "I am strongly
opposed to H.R. 800, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act of 2007.
Not only is the bill's title deceptive, the enactment of such an
ill-conceived legislative measure would be a gross deception to the
hard-working Americans who would fall victim to it."

Business leaders should especially be alarmed about another aspect of
H. R. 800. It gives unions the option to have federal arbitrators
write the terms of a binding contract, setting wages, benefits, hours,
work rules, and all other terms of employment if negotiations between
the employer and union fail. And this contract has the force of law
for two years.

Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, warns that this legislation
is so harmful that it is nothing short of a "hostile takeover" of
American business and will result in making the United States
uncompetitive in the global world and will ship millions of jobs
overseas: "When I asked CEOs if they had heard of this attack on
principles that form the bedrock of our democracy -- secret ballots in
elections -- only 7 out of 100 raised their hands. And yet, this plan
has the potential to redraw the political and economic landscape of
America. CEOs, and for that matter all Americans, need to know how
this legislation would jeopardize our system of free enterprise."

Spread the word: An Obama victory means a unionized America, higher
cost of living, more unemployment, a static economy, and a lackluster
Wall Street.

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Tootle <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>
> Brad posted this web site:
>
> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k6KUDv1wzraWhwlBt1
>
> It takes 16.5 minutes to watch.
>
> Unfortunately, it has been several years since I saw similar material.
>
> Unfortunately, I know how real it is.
>
> Thank you Brad for finding this current edition.
>
> Unfortunately, this election cycle has shown a dramatic increase in
> acceptance of Marxism by sheep, remember this:
>
> "In Germany they first came for the Communists
>    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
>  Then they came for the Jews,
>    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
> Then they came for the trade unionists
>     and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
> Then they came for the Catholics
>     and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
>  Then they came for me
>    and by that time no one was left to speak up.
>
>  --The Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church
> who spent seven years in a concentration camp.
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Warning---Brad%27s-download-takes-17-minutes---Political---very-controversial-tp19838114p19838114.html
> Sent from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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