Doing a Deal with the Devil: How Democrats will cost Americans their jobs

If Americans thought 12 years of Republican congressional rule was bad for workers, just wait until things under the Democrats get rolling...

While posting news articles for EmployerReport.com this morning, the following news article hit me like a ton of bricks. It was clearly an "aha!" moment....

Here's the gist: The President's "fast track authority" on trade deals may be held hostage to such bills as the Employee Free Choice Act--one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation to hit the American workplace ever. EFCA is going to become a "package deal" to extort support from Republicans (and the President) in order to get deals on free trade legislation.

It seems ultra-liberal Barney Frank, the the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is willing to trade with the Republicans on certain bills in order to get Democrats' (read 'union-backed') agenda through the Congress. Barney Frank is calling this a "Grand Bargain," but it is more appropriate to call it a "grand scheme" (at the very least) or, more adroitly, a "grand f**king."

In sum, the unions are going to be holding Democrats' feet to the fire (under the threat of political ostracization) to push some very dangerous legislation through Congress, such as:

1. Minimum wage hike. Although there will likely be a small debate on the subject, President Bush has indicated he will sign this legislation.



2. Universal Health Care (read Socialized Medicine). While there is going to be much debate on how to handle the nation's current "health care crisis," the country is likely to move toward socialized medicine...If not during this Congress, then most certainly under the next if a Democrat like John Edwards or Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama wins the White House in 2008.



3. Immigration Reform. To legalize illegal aliens or not to legalize illegal aliens is just part of the political question that will be debated in the weeks and months ahead.



4. Last, but not least is the Employee Free Choice Act. This bill, more than any other, has labor bosses in a feeding frenzy over its passage. It was the Democrat candidates' litmus test, not Iraq or immigration or minimum wage or socialized medicine, that candidates had to pass in order to get Big Labor's $100 million support in the mid-term elections.

Anyone who has followed EmployerReport.com since its launch on Labor Day '06 knows that we have devoted a lot of time to alerting the business community and media to the dangers of the Employee Free Choice Act also known as the Kill American Jobs Act. In fact, we have a whole web page devoted to the subject.

What is the Employee Free Choice Act? In sum, it is a bill that will destroy thousands of small companies and an untold amount of American jobs. Here's the essence of it:

What are its primary provisions?

1. To outlaw secret-ballot elections on the matter of unionization in workplaces with two or more employees that are under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act.



2. To force binding arbitration on above-referenced employers if, after 120 days of negotiations (including 30 days of mediation) fail to produce a collective bargaining agreement.

What are its likely consequences?

• Immediate gains in union membership, swelling union coffers immensely



• Closure of small companies under the burden of unionization, resulting in layoffs of workers



• Capital flight in the form of more outsourcing of jobs, as larger companies take flight from the onerous regulation



• More automation in those industries that cannot be outsourced resulting in fewer jobs



• Potential for one-party rule in state and national politics, as unions will be able to mobilize millions of dollars and thousands of members to polls.

In 2005, Andy Stern, Anna Burger and the rest of the gang at Change to W(h)in(e), published some statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), showing that, while overall manufacturing in the US fell 12%, union manufacturing fell 66% from 1973 through 2001. The Illinois Manufacturers Association just published an alarming statistic that manufacturing in Illinois has fallen 25% (or lost 200,000 jobs) since 2000.

The conclusion can easily be reached that being union has a dramatic (and negative) effect on a worker's job security.

So, let's put this into some perspective....

As outsourcing and downsizing has affected the American worker for the last two decades, the newly-elected Democrats are willing to give the President fast-track authority on free-trade deals like the FTAA, in exchange for Republican support on such American job-killing provisions as EFCA and amnesty for illegal aliens.

Pass a law to make it easier for my job to get sent out of the U.S. in exchange for a law that creates an incentive for companies to send jobs overseas! Talk about a betrayal of American Workers!!! (...But, hey, at least you've increased the minimum wage so that McDonalds will pay me more!...)

This gives new meaning to that giant sucking sound that Ross Perot talked about in '92. This Deal with the Devil will be will be the biggest flushing down the toilet of American jobs in history!