EFCA update

By Jennifer J. Foster

We’ve talked here a few times about the impending fight over the Employee Free Choice Act, how it is organized labor’s No. 1 priority this year and what that means for American businesses and workers alike. President Obama, Vice President Biden and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis are all huge EFCA fans.

Not me. I don’t like the idea—under any circumstances—of taking away Americans’ right to a secret ballot. I think it’s bad policy and it’s bad precedent.

Supporters of EFCA say the bill will free workers from the overbearing shackles and harassment of union-averse employers. EFCA opponents say the card-check provision of the legislation is an invasion of privacy and would increase harassment by union organizers of union opponents.

Who’s right?

Ask employees of the Dana Corporation Auto Parts plant in Albion, Ind.. They have some experience with the card-check process labor leaders want to take national. From FoxNews.com:

A union organizer came to the plant two years ago to ask employees to join the UAW because the company had signed a neutrality agreement with the union.

The meeting, however, did not go well, according to plant employee Larry Guest.

“He was using real rough language—cursing. It didn’t go over well with the women at all. There were a couple that just got up and left,“ Guest told FOX News.

Employees said union representatives approached them in the break room, at the plant doors and even followed them to their cars.

“He was just like an itch that you couldn’t scratch. He just wouldn’t go away,“ said employee Rita Murphy.

“After a while we realized he was going to be here morning, noon and night until he got his numbers that he needed,“ said Betty Pop.

Dana employee Jamie Oliver told FOX News that she was approached at her home.

“We’re here in a little town and we’re a plant of 50 some people—you know the last thing you need is to have the union coming to your door saying I want your name,“ Oliver said.

So, to summarize: Secret ballots: Good. Anything else: Bad.

And one more thing. Don’t think this isn’t at least in some part about campaign finance. Union members pay dues—dues that labor leaders then use in no small portion for political purposes. Individual union members don’t have the ability to opt out of the political component of their organization, regardless of whether they agree with the views of the labor-supported candidate.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The upcoming debate on EFCA seems like a fine time to rekindle efforts to pass paycheck protection—that is, the ability of a worker to opt out of that portion of union dues that goes to political activity.

Why not? Unions are all about empowering and protecting American workers, right? They trust their judgment enough for card check. So why shouldn’t they trust their judgment about whether to contribute to the organization’s political activities?

Come on, senators ... give us that debate.

Obama to Volcker: Find tax cheats!

By Jennifer J. Foster

Check out this little gem from Bloomberg today:

President Barack Obama is putting former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in charge of a tax-code review aimed at closing loopholes, streamlining the law and generating revenue, budget Director Peter Orszag said.

Volcker, 81, who heads the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is being asked to take a look at the laws in an effort to rebalance the tax system.

Orszag said the review, given a deadline of Dec. 4, is being ordered to make recommendations on steps to simplify the code, built over the last 96 years, in ways that would reduce tax evasion and what he called “corporate welfare.”

“There are hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollected taxes each year,” Orszag said in a conference call. The Volcker board “will be examining ways of being even more aggressive on reducing the tax gap.”

The tax gap is the difference between the amount of taxes owed by taxpayers and companies and the amount collected. Orszag cited academic studies suggesting that the difference is $300 billion or more. That is “ a lot of money,” he said, adding that the administration is going to be “as aggressive as possible” in reducing it.

This is just too easy.

First of all, we have this curious phrase—“an effort to rebalance the tax system.“ Remember then-candidate Obama’s discussion with you-know-who about how he wanted to “spread the wealth around?“ Well, call me crazy, but with this announcement about the Volcker Board, we can expect that our Middle East correspondent will begin making the television talk show rounds again.

*Sigh.* Guess I’ll be watching more ESPN than usual.

Secondly, this bit about reducing tax evasion and “being even more aggressive on reducing the tax gap” is so ironic, it’s hilarious.

Bloomberg helpfully defined “tax gap” for us: It’s “the difference between the amount of taxes owed by taxpayers and companies and the amount collected.“

Put more plainly, the president wants Volcker to devise a plan to more effectively track down tax cheats.

No word on whether Volcker will consider how no fewer than three Cabinet nominees and three other high-level West Wing candidates managed to achieve those nominations with questions about outstanding tax debt—or how one of those tax evaders won confirmation and now oversees the agency that would be chasing down tax evaders.

Truly, Washington hypocrisy is amazing.

Hawkins is out

By Jennifer J. Foster

From the Associated Press:

Troy University Chancellor Jack Hawkins says he has decided not to run for governor in 2010.

Hawkins said Wednesday in Montgomery that he had received lots of incouragement to run for governor as a Republican. But he decided he was more passionate about Troy than pursuing public office.

Yes ... this copy editing must have been done in India. But that’s beside the point.

I have to admit that this one caught me off guard. I fully expected Hawkins—who has arranged to prominently display himself in a series of TV ads for Troy—to jump into the race to succeed Gov. Bob Riley.

Even recent signs pointed to Hawkins’s inclusion. As fate would have it, the crisis in Alabama’s prepaid college tuition program put Hawkins in the unusual position of being able to exert some leadership on a state issue from a non-elected post. And Hawkins took full advantage. Troy became the first state university to announce a three-year waiver of tuition increases for students enrolled in the program, and officials at Alabama State have since followed suit.

So ... this is a surprise. What does it mean for the gubernatorial race? Who benefits from Hawkins’s decision to stay out? Your comments below.

All’s well that ends well

By Jennifer J. Foster

If you’ve followed the short but hot-burning saga of the bar-by-a-daycare in Auburn, I’m pleased to be able to tell you that it has ended for the best.

After asking council to table the issue until April 21, Columbus, Ga., businessman Brandon Haynes requested that his application to locate a Flip Flops bar franchise next to Hardy’s Creative Childcare in downtown Auburn be withdrawn altogether, City Manager Charlie Duggan told councilmembers last night. The council’s subsequent meeting was happily anticlimactic.

You can read the article from this morning’s Opelika-Auburn News here.

As I told councilmembers during the meeting, this particular issue may be put to rest, but it exposed a hole in the city’s zoning ordinance that should be addressed. Most councilmembers indicated, either publicly or privately to individual constituents, that they planned to vote against Haynes’s application because they found bars and day cares to be “incompatible” uses. If that is their general belief, I said, they have an opportunity to amend the zoning ordinance to reflect those beliefs. In doing so, they will not only be clarifying and tightening the zoning ordinance itself; they will also be providing assurances to parents and much-needed guidance to potential business owners so that in the future, we can avoid the kind of confusion and anger—and squandered financial investment—that have defined this issue over the past two weeks.

Parents were caught off guard when they heard about Haynes’s plans for the Freewheeler building. They had always taken for granted that a bar simply couldn’t locate next to a daycare; a mere two weeks later, but for their organized and vocal opposition, that once-inconceivable notion could have become reality. The City Council can ensure that it never will.

Finally, from a political perspective, the organization of the opposition to Haynes’s plan is a stellar study in modern grassroots politics.

If you’re a regular reader of my newspaper columns or this blog, you know that I spend a lot of time watching and reading the news.

But I first heard about this issue on Facebook.

In addition to the articles that appeared in the Opelika-Auburn News and on this web site, e-mail, internet research and social networking all played a part in keeping opponents informed, engaged and—most importantly—mobilized. Spring Break fell in between the planning commission meeting and the City Council meeting, and many people were out of town for more than half the time between those meetings. Even so, people who didn’t have a clue about this issue two weeks ago were able to organize enough to defeat it last night.

And the web was the amazing, great equalizer.

See also:

Do bars and daycares mix? A special project for the Opelika-Auburn News by reporter Amy Weaver

Let the residents be heard: An Opelika-Auburn News editorial

Are you militia material?

By Jennifer J. Foster

Does the government consider you a troublemaker?

You know—a rabblerouser, a pot-stirrer, always in the middle of the fray?

No?

Well, does the government consider you a potential militia member?

If you believe in the sanctity of life and/or the Second Amendment, and/or if you support Ron Paul, and/or if you believe the two-party political system is failing this country, don’t be so quick to answer. Uncle Sam may have his eye on you—your up-to-date taxes and clean arrest record notwithstanding.

A new report from the Missouri Information Analysis Center, one of the government’s so-called “information fusion centers,“ says that these groups are among those the government believes could be home to those threatening American national security.

And, as FoxNews.com tells us:

MIAC is one of 58 so-called “fusion centers” nationwide that were created by the Department of Homeland Security, in part, to collect local intelligence that authorities can use to combat terrorism and related criminal activities. More than $254 million from fiscal years 2004-2007 went to state and local governments to support the fusion centers, according to the DHS Web site.

During a press conference last week in Kansas City, Mo., DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano called fusion centers the “centerpiece of state, local, federal intelligence-sharing” in the future.

“Let us not forget the reason we are here, the reason we have the Department of Homeland Security and the reason we now have fusion centers, which is a relatively new concept, is because we did not have the capacity as a country to connect the dots on isolated bits of intelligence prior to 9/11,“ Napolitano said, according to a DHS transcript.

“That’s why we started this…. Now we know that it’s not just the 9/11-type incidents but many, many other types of incidents that we can benefit from having fusion centers that share information and product and analysis upwards and horizontally.“

Napolitano will give a live interview on CNN today at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. It will be interesting to see whether she is pressed on this report from the MIAC.

One more note: I am all for thorough intelligence-gathering and information-sharing techniques to protect this country from another 9/11. But I’m not sure how much confidence I would have in the intelligence gathered and shared by an organization whose staff members spell the president’s name “Barrack Obama.“