The current state of the economy has placed a large burden on private business, especially on small businesses and the self-employed. Subscribing to a Keynesian tenet of financing debt and increasing government spending to boost output, lawmakers are repeatedly giving themselves cover for splurging. After the first bailouts came the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, an urgent remedy that Congress and the White House insisted was all about “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”
And as spending has increased, so has the size of the public employment sector. Meanwhile, the private sector will soon be close to earning a coveted placement on the endangered species list.
As the union leaders’ plundering of the private sector has continued, this doesn’t mean that they have abandoned unionizing private sector workers altogether. In fact, while the number of private sector jobs overall is down, the number of unionized private sector jobs is trending upward, right alongside the public sector growth.
But don’t let the beltway pundits fool you. While the current administration certainly deserves a great deal of credit for bloating the public roster, this was a plan in the making far before the economic “crisis” was created. And while America focused on the sexier details of a scandal at that time, many overlooked the legislative and economic arsenal of weaponry that labor leaders honed at the height of their rebirth.
The public bloating flourished years ago in places like California, Illinois, Michigan and Maryland, and grew steadily, though concurrent private sector employment growth dampened that effect. The public sector saw a dramatic spike between 2006 and 2007, just before the mid-term election when Democrats won back control of Congress again – this after stints of Republican power from 1995 to 2001 and from 2003-2007 had interrupted Democrats’ control of one or both houses for 46 straight years. In 2007 the private sector plummeted. There would be plenty of catch-up to play.
Union leaders have an obvious history of bloating public sector employment. But more importantly, there are direct connections to their activity in certain private sectors and intentional disruptions in the balance between the public and private workforce. Reading about events in isolation from one another might not emphasize the gravity of this issue. But revisiting prior stories and connecting the dots over and over again will. Apathy is our greatest enemy right now. As we enter 2010, this is perhaps one of the most important times in history when such activity could literally push America past the point of no return and will impact who your children will work for in the future. One particular time in recent history really sets the stage for the perfect storm of today between private and public sector employment; the current stimulus spending is merely the el Niño that has stirred up the silently raging waters.
It starts in 1994 and gains its true momentum by 2005.
In 1994, ACORN and labor unions rallied behind Maryland Democrat Parris Glendening. Soon after, that same coalition stood by a newly elected Maryland Governor Parris Glendening as he signed the Living Wage bill into law, granting government the power to set wage standards on any project that receives public subsidies. The practice of quid quo pro was back in full force. In 1996, Glendening needed to fulfill another campaign promise to unionize state employees. When it looked like too much political and community opposition would stop that from occurring through the normal state legislative process, he issued an executive order to mandate unionization of state employees. It was the first of its kind. It was challenged shortly thereafter, but upheld in court as within the power of the Governor’s office. That set the wheels in motion down one path.
In 1999, after SEIU and California Nurses Association lobbied for a mandate on nurses in hospitals, California Gov. Gray Davis signed the Nurse to Patient Ratio bill into law. That same year, SEIU made headlines all across the country when it successfully organized nearly 75,000 Los Angeles County home care workers, receiving credit for revitalizing a labor movement that was all but left for dead. The cause to take care of the caretakers seemed a noble one to the public; however, most were unaware of the fact that the effort would require SEIU to sue the county of Los Angeles in order to set up a shell corporation that could serve as the employer of record with which the union could bargain. The public was also completely ignorant to the reality that the state of California could never sustain the level of financial burden that such an arrangement would create. Nonetheless, this set the wheels in motion down a parallel path, where eventually the two paths would meet.
Fast forward to 2003.
Rod Blagojevich is the newly elected Governor of Illinois. Still energized by their California home care workers win, Andy Stern, Anna Burger and their SEIU have just founded the New Unity Partnership with four other AFL-CIO unions (which later became Change to Win in 2005). Intent on organizing unorganized workers and vowing to push for a far more progressive agenda than their parent AFL-CIO has pursued, Stern is positioning himself as the more liberal replacement for current AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, himself a Democratic Socialists of America member. SEIU has worked hand in hand with ACORN and its political organizing arm, Project Vote, to win promises from politicians, including Blagojevich, in exchange for their mobilizing power in recent and upcoming elections.
After helping Blagojevich reach his 1% margin of victory in Illinois’ gubernatorial election, SEIU is immediately rewarded on March 4, 2003 with a signed Executive Order from Blagojevich granting it collective bargaining rights for the state’s 25,000 home-care workers. On February 18, 2005, Blagojevich signed another Executive Order for the bargaining rights of 49,000 child-care workers. This also gave the SEIU unprecedented access to the names and addresses of thousands of workers it could target for mailings and visits from union organizers – a particularly frightening prospect for those whose workplace was also their home.
And in December 2005, Blagojevich then took it a step further. The state of Illinois and SEIU reached a precedent-setting agreement for those child care workers, making it the nation’s first state contract of its kind for such workers. While these workers wouldn’t technically be considered direct employees of the state, they in essence became contractors to the state, gaining health benefits and a 35% increase in wages, at the cost of nearly $300 million to Illinois taxpayers. The contract was officially signed on March 9, 2006. Meanwhile, some of those home child care workers weren’t even aware they’d all but lost their “self-employed” status.
And such solidified a pattern. Just as they raid one another’s territory for new members, unions like SEIU now saw the tangible benefits to raiding the private sector, not only to gain new members, but to secure public funding and make it more difficult to cut it off.
It wasn’t long before Andy Stern was reciting, “Time to Build a National Child Care Movement.” SEIU formed strategic organizing campaigns AFSCME and UAW to split up regions and form child care unions, and with groups like ACORN and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to mobilize support and serve as a public relations vehicle. In 2005, Change to Win split from the AFL-CIO and was now its own entity, with SEIU and the Teamsters as its anchor unions and Anna Burger as its chair. Democracy Alliance is founded, with Anna Burger appointed vice-chair, spawning dozens of inter-connected progressive 527 organizations and injecting more than $50 million into big labor’s agenda.
Even ACORN became revitalized, as it reaped the benefits of not only being a paid vendor to SEIU (search LM2 reports on Dept. of Labor website), but they would also see an increase in grants from state and federal government agencies to serve as a recruitment and training arm for these causes. On Page 107 of ACORN’s Year End/Year Begin Report for 2006, SEIU and ACORN celebrated the child care victory together:
“And we signed this in style on March 9th: marching into the state of Illinois Building locked arm-in-arm singing ‘Victory is Mine,’ led by SEIU President Andy Stern and Local 880 childcare leaders Angenita Tanner, Martina Casey, Alma McIntosh, Maria Velasquez, and scores of others from across the state. All the while, we were being filmed by “60 Minutes” and were broadcast on the show in May of 2006 – another first! And we had a great blowout of a party afterwards when hundreds of homecare and childcare leaders from across the state celebrated the victory with a party across the street from the state of Illinois Building where we were joined by Governor Blagojevich, State Senate President Emil Jones, and President Stern!
Best of all, this victory in Illinois was followed up by other organizing and contract victories in Oregon, Washington, and New York, with another ten states with hundreds of thousands of childcare providers in the organizing process!” The report continued, “…Our early support of Governor Blagojevich and his commitment to support an Executive Order allowing homecare and home child care workers to organize put us far ahead of the other states… It is no accident that once Illinois’ Governor signed the Executive Order and helped pass the enabling legislation granting home child care providers organizing rights, that states like Washington, Oregon, Iowa, New York and others did the same thing…”
Generally, there is public acknowledgment that many union leaders take advantage of the political system in order to work around it at the same time. This presentation given for the Child Care Association of Illinois highlights some of these tactics:
Unions have been “working governors” and “working state legislators”, as well as pressuring for more governmental support through “political quid pro quos.”
And so was Chicago, where the momentum propelled a larger movement of legislative scheming between labor unions and governors, with SEIU at the helm. Legislating by Executive Order was now their most powerful political tool. Converting independent private sector workers to the public workforce became their most powerful social tool.
Armed today with the invaluable power of hindsight, we’re able to dissect a master blueprint that has changed the balance between private sector and public sector employment and helped set into motion a sophisticated strategy designed to hijack the private sector right out from under the noses of the American people. Rather than depend on local organizing or on Washington, SEIU and its partners would simply work the state legislators. Their plan? Replicate the Blago formula in multiple states and multiple sectors. In a few short years, nearly 20 states had already been infiltrated, the fallout of which is only becoming evident to most average Americans now, as the economic downturn shines a spotlight on budgets.
Workers in some states are finally noticing and have been crying foul.
In Michigan, the brewing legal battle over a unionizing scheme that began in 2006 continues. As I wrote last month on Loar v. DHS, self-employed home child care workers in Michigan, like Sherry Loar and Michelle Berry, suddenly found out one day that they were now part of Child Care Providers Together Michigan (CCPTM), a union created in partnership with AFSCME and UAW. This seemed ludicrous, since these individuals don’t work for an employer, they work for themselves. While an executive order was not used to establish collective bargaining for child care workers in Michigan’s case, one noticeable tactic in particular seems similar to SEIU’s unionization of home care workers in California in 1999. The creation of a shell corporation against which the new union could bargain. In Michigan, the Department of Human Services entered into an interlocal agreement with Mott Community College to create the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council (MHBCCC). The newly formed union, CCPTM, then filed a petition seeking to organize against the MHBCCC. When challenged, the groups all seem to absolve themselves of responsibility for these union members as “employees”, which then begs the question, who is the employer? The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has been fighting the state and its forced unionism scheme head-on.
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Their latest video below provides an update on the Loar v. DHS complaint. Mackinac Center communications specialist Kathy Hoekstra indicated that the center has received additional interest from other individuals, as well as from national media, especially since their recent Wall Street Journal article. Director Patrick Wright elaborates on the state’s curious stance on the matter, and expresses astonishment over the MHBCCC’s no-show to scheduled hearings where the organization was expected to provide testimony, one of which was a state House Human Services sub-committee meeting on an Auditor General’s report concerning the child care programs. You can follow continuing developments and media coverage on the Loar v. DHS case here.
(Coincidentally, SEIU has recently received a $2 million tax credit to build a Member Action Center in Michigan).
In Colorado, Governor Bill Ritter sparked debate in March 2007 when he signed an executive order that rescinded a previous executive order by former Gov. Bill Owens that prohibited unions from forcing the state to deduct dues payments from state employee paychecks. Then in November of 2007, after public opposition forced him to veto a bill, Ritter worked around the legislative process and signed an executive order “allowing employee organizations to establish partnership agreements with the state”, citing that the model is one followed by Kaiser Permanente. SEIU’s Andy Stern is of course head of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.
In October 2007, Colorado’s Face the Nation revealed Ritter’s collaboration with the unions:
“In the latest documents obtained by Face the State, it is clear that policy analysts inside Ritter’s office solicited the advice of staff at the National Governor’s Association to identify states that have “authorized state employee collective bargaining by executive order.”
Only days after the order was issued, CAPE SEIU, AFSCME and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced a joint labor coalition, Colorado WINS, which organized state workers under a cooperative agreement. Some were staunchly opposed to any union involvement, like Dave Ohmart, founder of Colorado LOSES, who contacted me back in May to share his concerns about SEIU. He was also worried the initiative would lead to the release of home addresses, union solicitation at work meetings, increases in state spending, and the forced deduction of dues from paychecks. Just this October, a HR manager had to intervene to halt WINS reps from using work meetings to solicit members. In November, Ohmart contacted the Governor’s legal designee for employee partnerships, asking questions about how union representatives obtained the home addresses of employees. As with Michigan and others, the state seems to absolve itself of any responsibility. Meanwhile, Ohmart’s concerns and those of Colorado LOSES seem to be being validated, one at a time.
In Washington state, in 2006 Governor Chris Gregoire signed into law a bill granting collective bargaining rights to home child care providers. Despite the fact that only 2,000 out of the state’s 10,000 child care providers are reported to have had any interest in joining SEIU, providers were forced into paying SEIU dues, or a union fee, regardless. The state and SEIU both contend that union membership is voluntary. But non-union providers still receive a 2% deduction in their subsidy payments called a “fair-share” fee, which the state allows SEIU to cover its costs associated with negotiating the state contract. Like Michigan, many self-employed home-based providers have no contact with the union but are receiving their customers’ subsidy checks with money deducted from the total. They see no benefit in SEIU being involved, rather more bureaucracy and an imposition on their self-employment status. Some child care advocates, like Margo Logan of Washington Parents for Safe Child Care, writes at Child Care in Washington State that the arrangement has the opposite effect – in an effort to break free of SEIU’s hold, some providers decide to stop accepting children whose parents participate in the state subsidy programs. This leaves low-income high-risk children with fewer provider options and results in overcrowding and lower quality in care. (Similar to the effect that occurs in health care when providers opt out of Medicaid and Medicare, huh?) In addition, advocates complained they were intentionally left out of the Negotiated Rule Making process, which is intended to review and update safety regulations in child care. They contend SEIU announced meetings last minute, at inconvenient times, and meetings weren’t advertised as open to the public. When conducted, the focus of the meetings were not on child safety, but rather on political and organizing discussions.
Other states are all facing similar issues, in addition to heavy burdens on the state budget.
While the campaign to unionize child care and home care workers in the remaining states continues, unions like SEIU have lined up the next concentration of unorganized workers, to name just a few: private security workers , Transportation Security Officers in the TSA (2008 letter from President Obama to AFGE union president John Gage), and as we’ve seen in the Green Jobs programs and government development projects, independent contractors, such as the New York City Independent Contractors Agreement with SEIU.
Looking back in hindsight at 1994, 1996, 1999, the Blagojevich executive orders in the early 2000’s, and all of the state milestones that have followed since then, the pattern is undeniable. There is an intentional balance shift between the private sector and public sector employment that took hold long before today. There is a concerted effort that contrives the anti-capitalist propaganda circulating the country for the last decade, camouflaging it as populace outrage. The radical stimulus spending and the legislative squall are the catalysts that have finally jolted everyday Americans into engagement. I started out this piece by stating that apathy is our greatest enemy right now. Fail to observe, to connect the dots, and to engage, and we risk depriving the next generation of the innovation and entrepreneurship that molded the lives of all who came before us in this great country.
In 2010, we all must be John Galt.
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