Lou Dobbs is still attacking unions. This time for President Obama turning over a series of three Bush-era executive orders. From the AFL-CIO:
The men and women in the nation’s building and construction trades won a major victory today when President Obama signed an executive order overturning the Bush administration’s ban on project labor agreements (PLAs) on federal and federally funded construction.
Today’s action follows Obama’s three executive orders last week that reversed a trio of Bush-era orders governing the way federal contractors deal with union workers. The new orders:
- Require federal service contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
- Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
- Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.
More from the AFL-CIO on those executive orders: Obama Reverses Bush Executive Orders, Creates Middle Class Task Force
President Barack Obama today reversed three Bush-era anti-worker executive orders and created a Cabinet-level task force to rebuild the nation’s middle class. In a White House ceremony this morning attended by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and other union leaders, Obama signed three executive orders that reverse a series of orders by then-President George W. Bush, which govern the way federal contractors deal with unionized workers.
The three new executive orders:
- Require federal service contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
- Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
- Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.
Before signing the orders, Obama said:
We cannot have a strong middle class without strong labor unions. We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests.
Bill Tucker brings in Stefan Gleason from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to comment on how this is just a huge payback to the unions for political donations and Dobbs is outraged that taxpayers are being forced to pay money that goes to the unions.
This sounds to me like just more Right to Work rhetoric that doesn't get at the heart of what Right to Work laws do to unions. I think a better term would be the right to financially bust a union. The one thing that no one ever talks about during these discussions is that in "open shops" where a union does manage to get in the door in a "right to work" state, it allows those who choose to opt out of the union to still be afforded the union pay scales which are bargained for by the union and the union is forced to represent those workers even though they haven't paid any dues.
Those things are not free. Attorney fees are expensive and union business reps cannot afford to work for free and have salaries that have to be paid by union members. When you force those representitives and lawyers to bargain for or represent those who haven't paid into the system, the outcome is obvious.
You bust the union financially because there's always a group of people out there who will happily accept the benefits without paying their share to receive them. It's human nature. I've got mine and the hell with everyone else. Unions by their very nature are the opposite of that. It's we're in this together and when one of us benefits, all of us benefit and everyone pays their share for their representation.
Lou Dobbs hates unions because he thinks they are on the side of those evil Mexicans he loves to rail about night after night, so he's got a new enemy. Mr. Populist doesn't care about working people if he wants to rail on about unions night after night. I've got news for you Lou Dobbs. A union is not its leadership. A union is the members. When you attack the leadership, you attack the members as well because they are the ones we voted in to represent us.
Arnold Schwarzenegger found that out the hard way in CA when he decided to start trying to demonize the unions there and got put in his place for doing it. And Lou, YES, this is change. It's a President who's actually supportive of labor and unions instead of one who was determined to bust them at every turn and put anti-labor zealots in charge of the Department of Labor. Unions are the only group out there solely representing the interest of workers and not business or corporations.
Shame on you Lou Dobbs. You're nothing but a hate monger. I actually used to like your show for a while there before you looked like you lost your mind over immigration. You've taught me the error of my ways.
