Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Democrats=unions=a civilian draft


Union Chain Mail: A Card Check Cautionary Tale
By Sean Higgins

Over at the Washington Examiner, Mark Hemingway highlights a case which shows just how the Employee Free Choice Act might work in practice if it were ever enacted. The act would make union organizing radically easier by replacing federally monitored elections with alternate methods, such as the following:
One day last fall, approximately 40,000 private day care owners in Michigan woke up to discover they had become members of a public sector union. Most had no idea what was coming.
Here’s how it happened: The United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees worked with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission to conduct a vote-by-mail union election.
Of the 40,000 day care workers in the state, only 6,000 responded to the ballot they received in the mail. But that was enough for the state to declare all of the day care owners would henceforth be represented by the newly organized Child Care Providers Together Michigan union.
If 40,000 day care workers suddenly having to pay union dues weren’t enough, Hemingway notes where the money comes from: Michigan’s Department of Human Services collects the $3.7 million in union dues by taking money out of child care subsidies the state pays to day care providers.
As Hemingway wryly notes: “The union says it will use this money to lobby the state for bigger child care subsidies — no doubt needed to cover the newly created $3.7 million shortfall they’re using to pay themselves.”
The column is the first in a week-long series Hemingway is writing. Capital Hill will keep you posted on other good tidbits.

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