Unions Get Yet Another Boost

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"Under the Rail Labor Act (RLA), rail and airline employees had their right to choose to be elect to be represented by a Union, which Union to be represented by, or to end Union representation. The Wikipedia entry on the RLA shows how a Union representation vote is handled:

"The NMB [National Mediation Board) usually uses mail ballots to conduct elections, unlike the National Labor Relations Board, which has historically preferred walk-in elections under the NLRA. Also in contrast to the NLRA, under the RLA a union must receive a majority of votes from the entire craft or class, rather than merely a majority of those who choose to vote."

The important part of that is the Union has to receive the votes of the majority of all employees. Any employee not participating in the vote is considered a "no" vote.

On May 11th, the NMB released an update to the Act. This update, to be effective June 10th, 2010, allows a Union victory if the majority of votes cast are for Union representation.

Here's the difference. If you have a workforce of 1,000 and 500 vote, there was no way the Union would be certified as they didn't receive the necessary majority (501) votes of all employees. Now, if only 500 of those 1,000 employees votes, 251 supporting votes will certify the Union. Taken to the extreme, if only 1 person votes, that singular person votes for the entire 999 other employees.

According to Mike Hall's AFL-CIO blog, the election rules "are more fair and more in line with democratic principles." While he is correct in that every other election, the simple majority of votes cast wins, this is not the same as every other election. The only elections that are simple majority elections are local elections (ie. property tax levies, school levies, local and state level government officials, etc.). The RLA extends past the local level and applies to every employee in that class across the nation. So, if there are two locations for a particular job class, one with 250 employees that is in a very anti-Union area and the other with 750 employees in a very pro-Union area, it is possible that the larger facility could certify the Union to represent all the employees without any supporting votes in the smaller facility. While the original rules would have allowed that same result, it would have been significantly more difficult, requiring more than 2/3 of all employees at the larger facility to vote and to vote in favor. If voter turnout is 50%, all the Union needs for certification is for 1/3 of the larger facility to vote in favor of certification.

Presidential elections aren't straight up majority vote wins, either. In the 2000 election, Al Gore won more votes from the populace, 48.4% to 47.9% for George Bush. Since the public does not elect Presidents directly, Bush ended up winning the Presidency because he won more votes in the Electoral College.

Additionally, it takes a majority of Electoral College votes for a candidate to win an election. If no candidate wins the majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives chooses the President from the slate of candidates. This happened in 1824. Four candidates split the popular vote and the electoral vote. Andrew Jackson had more popular votes and more electoral votes than any one of the other three candidates (John Quincy Adams, William Crawford and Henry Clay). The House of Representatives selected John Quincy Adams to be the next President of the United States even though he had the second most popular votes (30.9% to 41.3%) and the second most electoral votes (84 to 99 (percentage of electoral vote were 32.2% to 37.9% respectively)).

President Obama and the Democratic Party leaders relied heavily on Union votes to be elected. By making it easier and passing legislation that is pro-Union, the favors are being paid back. Union membership has been waning. Unions are coming under increasing pressure to boost enrollment or be faced with fiscal problems. Helping the Unions in this goal is essentially giving Federal backing to a minority institution at the expense of the majority of workers. According to the Labor Unions Wikipedia entry, only 12.4% of all workers are represented by Unions.

Union practices were once a boon to the mass of employees. Now, they unfairly increase labor costs and reduce the ability of companies to compete, especially with foreign competitors. Rights of the employee have to be protected. The ability of a company to be competitive and not close is of equal importance."

TEA and Bourbon mix well

Rand Paul, son of Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) has beaten Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the Republican Primary! With 81% of the votes counted, Paul is leading Grayson 59% to 35%.

Kentucky Republicans have shown that "Establishment" Republicans aren't necessarily as desirable as new candidates. Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, backed Grayson. Paul was backed by multiple TEA Party groups, Sarah Palin and Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).

The surge that Paul rode to the election win shows that in the Land of Bourbon, Tea is still quite palatable.

Labor Statistics and Wealth

We added 290,000 non-farm jobs in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (Table 1; May 7, 2010 release). That is great news overall.

59,000 jobs were Governmental jobs. With the census happening right now, that's not unrealistic.

That also means the private non-farm sector added 231,000 new jobs. That is great.

So, what am I doing here right now?

Well, we added 59,000 governmental jobs. The Post Office lost 4,100 jobs. Excluding education jobs, local Government grew by 500 jobs. Local/State government job changes were (1,000)/(5,000) respectively. That is, local and state governments lost jobs. So, Local and State Government job losses were 6,000 jobs and USPS lost 4,100 jobs, but we had a net gain of 59,000 jobs. Federal job gains totaled 69,100 new jobs. There were 66,000 census workers hired in April according to this BLS report.

3,100 new jobs in the Federal Government, not including census workers. I wonder when the hiring will stop there.

Private sector hiring: 231,000 new jobs.

Service-Providing Sectors: 166,000 new jobs.

Goods-Producing Sectors: 65,000 new jobs.

Where does wealth come from?

Does Service-producing jobs produce wealth?

Do Goods-Producing jobs produce wealth?

Do Governmental jobs produce wealth?

I'm of the mind that Government jobs destroy wealth. Sure, they are responsible for basic things like protecting the country from invasion. Invasions can definitely put a crimp on wealth production, but they aren't really creating wealth.

Does the Federal Reserve create wealth? I would say they might create wealth, but it's not real wealth, but paper wealth. On paper, wealth rose.

Look at the Real Estate Bubble. Buy a home now, wait 15 minutes and the value of your home just went up 10%. Okay, so it wasn't that much or that fast. But was that real wealth? When the bubble burst and housing values reset, what were you left with?

For all those unfortunate souls who are now underwater on their mortgages, did they create all that wealth and lose it just as quickly? Or, was it just paper wealth that was worth paper, but not really worth anything? Timing is everything, isn't it?

Goods-producing jobs create wealth. Goods are that wealth. That's where it all has to start. You don't see people sitting down and spending money to eat a head of lettuce, a carrot, a cucumber, a tomato, some vinegar, oil, sugar, water, salt, pepper and herbs, do you? No, you see people buying the salad and dressing; the Goods. Does the waiter or waitress have a job if there is no food? Until the computer system is built, what's an IT professional to do?

How does a company pay for that IT pro, accepting that they have that computer system? They transfer a bunch of paper according to the contract between the company and the IT pro. Well, either they sold a service, or sold some goods they made. In the former, they were paid by a company that either sold a service or sold some goods. Trace it back far enough and you'll see that it starts with someone making something. Everything after that is just transferring the wealth created by that Good.

Does this production have to be in the US? Not really. It sure helps, but it isn't required as long as we can get those products here. The more Goods are produced here, the more wealth will be created here. The more that's outsourced, the less actual wealth we have here.

Adding 65,000 goods-producing jobs is good, but it's going to be really difficult to maintain the growing number of Governmental employees when they are gaining more jobs than the Goods-Producing sector of the economy.

TEA Party Hypocrisy or...

One of the big liberal attacks on the TEA Party Movement (TPM) is rooted in the TPM's desire of reduced Federal Government. They quote the sign, "Keep your hands of Medicare" and similar signs. That is hypocritical as Medicare - as well as Social Security and the Federal Government's support to Medicaid - is a Government program.

All the liberals reading this can now laugh it up.

Okay, now stop.

The problem isn't that it's hypocritical. It's in not having a great plan, or an easy to detail plan to end Medicare, Social Security or the Federal Government's support of Medicaid. That doesn't mean we don't want it to end ever.

How do you go about and pull the rug out from underneath people who are relying on these programs? You can't. While you can in a literal sense, you can't in an ethical or moral sense.

Here is what can be done. First we come up with a cutoff date. I've read articles making 10 years from now being the cutoff date. That is, if you're under 55 when this plan takes effect, you won't have Medicare benefits available. Step 2 would be to roll back coverages in a methodical and slow manner so that costs aren't absolutely through the roof.

While this presents a big change, it would be a good change in the long run. Those that won't make the cut off will have to plan for their retirement health needs instead of relying on Medicare. There would also have some sort of "means testing" to roll back coverages or increase co-pays for those that can afford it.

Medicare would effectively end when the last person that qualifies passes away. Ten years from the bill passage date, the Medicare enrollment would be as large as it will ever be. Slowly the number of people on Medicare would be reduced until there was no one left. While this could very well take 30-40 years from passage date, it would still be significant progress.

The very same could be done for social security.

Medicaid is a different animal as it is a program of the individual states that has significant funding from the Federal Government. Slowly rolling back the amount of money from the Feds to the States for this program would probably be the best attack. Determine a definite final date (ie. 15th year after bill passage) where funding from the Federal Government ends. To assist the States, there should be changes to Medicaid to slash costs and reduce bills.

Of course, these things need to be paid for and it needs to be "fair" and equitable. As I am not close to 55, I would have no Medicare available to me. Should I still be taxed for it? The same question applies to Social Security. If they decided to continue to tax everyone, but give an IOU for the same dollar amount in a Health Savings Account (HSA) at some determined age (65 like for Medicare or perhaps 72 similar to Social Security's age levels) and a private savings account for the same dollar amount for SS taxes. That way, the Government gets the money now and has to pay a smaller sum later (as Medicare program costs drop due to decreasing enrollment, the HSA's could be started, taxes could be reduced, or both).

There needs to be a sunset on the entitlement programs. Plain and simple. While TEA Party sign makers may or may not see the hypocrisy in telling the Federal Government to keep out of their Medicare, the plain truth is that Medicare is bankrupting the US and that needs to be addressed before we have economy destroying taxation.

Onward and upward.

Is Arizona's Immigration Act Constitutional?

So, you've probably already heard that Arizona has either passed a "revolutionary" immigration law, or a "revolting" immigration law. The question is whether or not they are allowed to do that. There is no end to the liberals that are marching to microphones and blasting Arizona over this. You want to get a laugh? Read this editorial. Many on the right (as in "side of the aisle" and not necessarily "not wrong") are supporting the new Law.

What caught me by surprise was that Judge Andrew Napolitano has come out very much against this Act on "Your World With Neil Cavuto." He declares it un-Constitutional and cites a Supreme Court Decision to support his view. Well, not being one to always accept everything I read or hear, I looked into it.

The case cited was:

Hines vs.. Davidowitz (1941)

Pennsylvania passed Alien Registration Act in 1939.

Requirements of Aliens (some exceptions existed):

- Register once/year

o Provide info required by statute

o Provide “other” info that the Dept. of Labor and Industry (DoLI) wants

- Pay $1 annual fee for Registration

- Carry Alien ID card received when registering

- Show card whenever demanded by police or agent of DoLI

- Show card when registering a motor vehicle or getting license to operate one

Consequences of Non-compliance:

- Non-Exempt Not Registering:

o Fine of not more than $100

o Jail sentence not more than 60 days

o Both

- Not carrying ID card or failing to show it upon proper demand:

o Fine of not more than $10

o Jail sentence nor more than 10 days

o Both

Those are the basics of the Pennsylvania Alien Registration Act passed in 1939

In 1940, the Federal Government passed the Alien Registration Act (aka the Smith Act). While this Act was more geared towards Sedition, it “provided for the registration and fingerprinting of aliens living in the United States and declared it unlawful to advocate, teach, or belong to any group advocating the forceful overthrow of any government in the United States.”

Requirements:

- Single Registration of aliens 14 years old or older

- Detail info specified by the Act and other info as required by the Commissioner (with approval from the Attorney General)

- All aliens get fingerprinted during Registration

Also provided:

- Federal Registration files were to remain secret.

- No requirement to carry registration card

- Only willful failure to register was penalized

o Fine of not more than $1000

o Jail sentence of not more than 6 months

o Both

According to the Defense, the State’s Law was Constitutional when it was passed. That left the only question as whether the State’s Law was “in abeyance” of the Federal Law, or if both the State and Federal Governments have “concurrent jurisdiction” to require registration.

Plaintiff argument invalidating the Pennsylvania Act was fourfold.

1. Denies equal protection of law to resident aliens

2. Violates Section 16 of Civil Rights Act of 1870

a. “All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”

3. Exceeds Pennsylvania Constitutional power for requiring the registration

4. Contended that the Federal Act of 1940 superceded Pennsylvania’s Act if the state even had concurrent power with the Federal Government in this area

The Supreme Court did not make any rulings on the first 3 contentions. Their only answer regarded the 4^th contention.

1. The Federal Government had the supreme power “over immigration, naturalization and deportation …”

2. Federal Acts are supreme law of the land over State Acts

3. According to Article VI of the Constitution, states can’t add to or detract from the force an defect of Federal Acts

The Supreme Court found in favor of the plaintiffs – against the State Act. The conclusion was that the “power to restrict, limit, regulate and register aliens as a distinct group,” was not an eternally concurrent power of the State and Federal Governments. Thus, any State statute was subordinate to the Federal statute.

At that time of this case, there was no Federal requirement to carry documentation at all times. Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter II, Part VII, §1304 of the United States Code specifies that:

“Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and

have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien

registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section.

Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.”

There also wasn’t an annual registration requirement or an annual fee for registration. All 3 of the PA Act requirements added to the force of the Federal act. As such, the Pennsylvania Act was invalidated

Here is where the difference between the PA Act and the AZ Act comes into play. The AZ Act does not add any force to the Federal Act. Nor does it detract from that same force. The penalties in the AZ Act are the penalties listed out in the Federal Act.

Now, I freely admit to not being a Constitutional scholar or a lawyer. I also haven't played one on TV. I didn't stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night and perhaps never have. But, what I am a concerned American. It isn't easy to understand United States Code and it definitely takes a lot of time. I took the time yesterday and today. According to what I've read and how I've processed it, the Arizona Act looks like it will pass Constitutional muster.

To use my favorite quote from Bill O'Reilly, "What say you?"