Video: Card Check is poison for business
posted at 7:55 pm on July 9, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Heard much about Card Check lately? Neither have I, and for good reason. With the economy tanking, the Democratic stimulus plan failing, and unemployment skyrocketing, lawmakers have little enthusiasm for adding Card Check to the health-care reform and cap-and-trade wars already ensuing on Capitol Hill. As the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace reminds us, though, we’d better remain vigilant, especially now that Al Franken has arrived in DC:
VO: America’s economy, is in crisis. Unemployment, is soaring. But some special interests want to put a huge new burden on the economy.
It’s called card check, a radical plan to take away the secret ballot when workers decide whether to join a union. Large and small business would be hurt. Costs would rise, many more jobs would be lost.
Card check. It’s poison for our economy.
As the press release notes, Democrats keep talking about “compromises” that will supposedly address the objections from workers and businesses in the original proposal. However, they’re sticking to the ability of unions to strip the secret ballot from organizing elections and with government-imposed arbitration, both of which will further damage the economy. Compensation should be set between workers and employers, not dictated by government bureaucrats with no conception of the private market.
Keep your eyes open, and keep the phone calls coming to your Senators. Tell them you want to preserve the secret ballot and keep government out of business.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
You’ve got to figure that the Democrats are going to have to pass at least one of their big name proposals. If it isn’t going to be Cap and Trade, it’s got to be ObamaCare or Card Check.
They promised those things and touted those things and they won large numbers in both chambers. If they cannot pass one of those big items, how are they going to explain it to the base? All they have on their list of accomplishments is the huge spending on Stimulus.
myrenovations on July 9, 2009 at 8:00 PM
the unions are already corrupt, card check will make them chicago corrupt.
SHARPTOOTH on July 9, 2009 at 8:00 PM
Don’t worry. That ugly beast will rear its head again.
The left is like poisonous eels – dangerous and slippery.
madmonkphotog on July 9, 2009 at 8:04 PM
So Obama is already a lame duck president?
Skandia Recluse on July 9, 2009 at 8:07 PM
Don’t forget the Fairness Doctrine.
BacaDog on July 9, 2009 at 8:10 PM
Didn’t the Unions get Billions of taxpayer dollars and ownership in GM and Chrysler…………?
……….. Aren’t they exempt from just about every law and regulation being passed in the unread tax and spending bills being passed in the middle of the night?
Isn’t it the Public Employee and Teacher’s Unions that have used taxpayer money for their extremely lucrative pension plans that have driven California into the dust………?
……….. Why the hell do they need ‘Card Check’?
Seven Percent Solution on July 9, 2009 at 8:12 PM
They are slipping that into something else, aren’t they? To get it without having to overtly pass it.
myrenovations on July 9, 2009 at 8:13 PM
Frankly, without card check several large unions will be forced into bankruptcy next year. They ransomed their futures getting The One elected…and without this powerful weapon to drive their dues collections, they are doomed to the scrap heap of history.
DrW on July 9, 2009 at 8:13 PM
It scares me a little bit that all of their big plans aren’t going well, I am afraid they will do something really stupid as a show of power.
Cindy Munford on July 9, 2009 at 8:14 PM
Hadn’t heard that. Anyone know?
BacaDog on July 9, 2009 at 8:15 PM
……….. Why the hell do they need ‘Card Check’?
Seven Percent Solution on July 9, 2009 at 8:12 PM
The objective is to break the back of Wal-Mart, they have been enemy number one for the unions for ever.
fourdeucer on July 9, 2009 at 8:15 PM
Hmmm, as if what they are already doing isn’t really really stupid?
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:19 PM
Well, they can’t get folks to voluntarily sign-up, so they want to use thuggish tactics to force them to.
BacaDog on July 9, 2009 at 8:20 PM
“Localization”, or whatever they’re calling it. They will demand local coverage for some percentage so that nationally syndicated programs, like Rush or Levin, cannot be run without putting up some really junky local shows to offset them. Different approach. Same effect as the Fairness Doctrine.
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 8:21 PM
The problem is that any one of the Big 3 proposals will jump start impending inflation resulting from all the debt we are amassing. With unempoyment already so high, card check will be a further blow to job creation.
Companies (small) will be very careful to manage growth in order not to trigger the thresholds. Prices on all goods and services will have to reflect the increased costs to those companies caught in this mess.
HoustonRight on July 9, 2009 at 8:22 PM
I know and I can’t even come up with something but these are not people who like to be told no. It’s hard to believe that there are senators willing to stand up against health-care considering the email I got from one of mine. He’s swallowing all the b.s. hook, line and sinker.
Cindy Munford on July 9, 2009 at 8:23 PM
Like backing the wrong political party in Honduras, or dis-mantling our defensive missile program, passing trillion dollar programs without any budget checks…that could be disastrous if they did anything like that.
right2bright on July 9, 2009 at 8:23 PM
So, the local moonbat gets an hour rant after Rush? Heh, that’ll show em’.
Still, a crack in the door is not good.
BacaDog on July 9, 2009 at 8:23 PM
Unfortunately, if we don’t have military personnel involved the vast majority of public don’t care about foreign policy.
Cindy Munford on July 9, 2009 at 8:26 PM
While it’s perfectly clear that Card Check will be awful for business and seriously hamper economic growth, the biggest problem with Card Check is that it’s just totally un-American.
I’m still trying to figure out how unions have gotten the right to monopolize the hiring policies at “union shops”. I cannot even imagine how that was ever defended in court and what sort of whack-job judge allowed it.
I have no problem with people banding together in a workplace for collective bargaining and other group action, but to have 51% vote union and then demand that all employees must join that group is as un-Constitutional as anything I can imagine.
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 8:26 PM
Localism in one avenue. What I was referencing was maybe the hate crimes legislation. There is a part of the bill about transmitting hate speech or messages across state lines or some such. Hate speech is left vague, which is the alarming part.
I was in the shower when I heard a radio guy talking about it, so I’m fuzzy on the details.
myrenovations on July 9, 2009 at 8:26 PM
Which of the three would you prefer?
brilrodion on July 9, 2009 at 8:26 PM
Click on the link!
The Guy tells you,you don’t have to be here,take a walk!!
Nice Liberal website!
canopfor on July 9, 2009 at 8:27 PM
That’s another way, but that is very, very dangerous for them to try. This country is already about to explode and that would certainly light it all up.
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 8:27 PM
They’ve already passed SCHIP, so they’re 1 for 1 on tax increases signed into law.
BacaDog on July 9, 2009 at 8:30 PM
They are all horrible and will cause great economic pain. Then again, if you don’t count John McCain, I didn’t vote for anyone who supports these things.
With a gun to my head, I would take Cap N Trade and then pray that we take back Congress with Conservatives willing to repeal it all.
There is no going back on ObamaCare, so that would be the worst option. And as progressoverpeace says, Card Check is just so un-American.
myrenovations on July 9, 2009 at 8:34 PM
Keep in mind if they have been in office more than 2 terms they are absolutely corrupt and it doesn’t matter which party they are in. However, just being in their first or second term doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as corrupt as their entrenched career brethren. Politics corrupts period end of story.
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:36 PM
Tell me about it. It made me cut down from almost 3 packs a day to a half pack a day, and I’ll be moving down to 5 cigarettes a day soon enough.
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 8:37 PM
True, that is another “big accomplishment” they can run on. I just don’t see how a bunch of unpopular people go out and campaign in 2010 on having had a large majority and done nothing with it.
myrenovations on July 9, 2009 at 8:37 PM
QUITER…………………. Opp’s, I used to smoke 8 cigars a day now I’m down to two or three a week (on Saturday while drinking beer with my little bro)… ;O
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:39 PM
My quickie mart guy who sells me my smokes apologizes to me every day for the prices. I asked him if he was a Democrat and he said no, so I told him he didn’t need to apologize to me.
myrenovations on July 9, 2009 at 8:42 PM
Heh. I tried smoking cigars once (a long time ago) but even though I inhaled them (yes, I really did), I still had to put the cigar down to have a cigarette.
I have tried to explain to people that no one has felt the fascist jackboots like cigarette smokers have. The leftists have been happy to trash private property rights to stop any restaurant in Philly from even allowing smoking and now condo boards are moving to stop people from smoking in their own apartments. It is very ominous, because they will move from smoking to whatever they want and non-smokers don’t really know how far these people are willing to go to enforce their petty desires. They’ll find out.
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 8:44 PM
It’s unbelievable. I feel bad for a guy who has to apologize for something that isn’t his fault, at all. You know that cigarettes in Manhattan are around $11/pack!
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 8:46 PM
I still haven’t figured out how *anybody* can defend stripping the right to a secret ballot from organizing elections. Other than allowing the unions to railroad into a shop, what benefit does it give anyone?
KS Rex on July 9, 2009 at 8:49 PM
Yep. And it’ll be too late when they do.
BacaDog on July 9, 2009 at 8:59 PM
How does that go? Were it not for the obvious impact on myself I would sooo love to see them get exactly what they are asking for.
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 9:13 PM
That’s what my Backwoods Cigar’s were costing me here in Sunny Socialist SoCal. Since I smoked a pack a day (Yes 8 cigars to a pack) they were costing me over $300.00 a month.
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 9:15 PM
Big push right now by the Teamster gangster thugs at UPS to force rules changes to push non-union Fed Ex into being stuck with those union criminals.
Jeff from WI on July 9, 2009 at 9:26 PM
Non-smoker Lefties never rarely care about what is happening to smokers. Most of them just say, “Good. You should stop smoking.” I get a little bit of a reaction to private property rights arguments, but never much more than mild interest from the lefties, at best. Even conservatives seldom see the infringements used to attack smokers coming down on them for some other reason.
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Went from 3+ packs a day to 0 six months ago.I got hypnotized.
Jeff from WI on July 9, 2009 at 9:27 PM
FYI, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is enthusiastically urging its members (or which I am one) to contact their representatives in Washington to support Card Check.
The rationale behind the position: Opponents of Card Check don’t want people to be able to organize.
They’re couching it as a fight between those who want people to be able to form unions and those who want to PREVENT people from forming unions.
There is NEVER any mention of secret ballot or mandatory arbitration ANYWHERE in ANY of the union’s messages.
As usual, most SAG members have their heads either in the clouds or in another place where one’s vision is significantly impaired.
IndieDogg on July 9, 2009 at 9:35 PM
Yeah, I’ve thought about that. I had some friends who got hypnotized to quit years ago. Food for thought. Thanks for the info, Jeff. Good job.
progressoverpeace on July 9, 2009 at 9:36 PM
you guys that are quitting smoking, must HATE THE CHILDREN…who’s gonna pay for their healthcare if YOU don’t???
surely you don’t expect their own mothers and fathers to care for them do you??? thats RACIST, BIGOTED and SEXIST!!!
right4life on July 9, 2009 at 10:01 PM
Adolph Stalin will find a way to implement the plan to “help the workers”……
DL13 on July 9, 2009 at 11:27 PM
Looks like they can use the same video almost in its entirety against Obamacare. Just change the audio a little.
Christian Conservative on July 10, 2009 at 1:18 AM
I think I can survive it because I’m not a whinny libtard. I would very much like to see the ultimate suffering that the left and their libtard lap dogs would enact upon themselves if they got their way. I expect it to closely follow the Cuba model because for some reason they view Cuba as some sort of utopia.
jmarcure on July 10, 2009 at 8:35 AM
Now the secret ballot I can understand and am dead against, if they are worried that it will raise costs just because there will be more unionized jobs I don’t see that as a winning argument. People should be able to unionize if they wish, if there are ways to keep employers from intimidating organizers I would be for that. The way wages have been in this country, especially during years of record profits, I am not going to sympathize with management on the general topic of unions. I am against card check, and am opposed to the way most unions organize their business, but not against the idea of a union. More unions would be better served to look towards stuff like profit sharing versus arguing for higher wages for the sake of higher wages, there are ways to have unions in a fashion that will help both workers and management.
LevStrauss on July 10, 2009 at 9:36 AM