After doling out $450 million in 2008 to elect Democrats in Washington, unions are looking for payback | Emily Belz
Eye Construction, Inc.
WASHINGTON—A $35 million Job Corps Center commissioned by the Department of Labor will be going up soon in Manchester, N.H., but don't expect everybody in the state to be happy. Only unionized construction workers will be allowed on the site, according to restrictions the federal agency imposed on the project.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., protested, saying that because very few construction workers are unionized in the state, local firms would not be able to meet the requirements for the bid, which further requires that the contractor has done three projects under the same rules. Of the 37 contractors listed as interested in the project, five are New Hampshire businesses. (Bidding begins Nov. 5.)
"In a time of economic hardship, it is simply absurd to discriminate against local contractors and construction workers for the benefit of national labor unions," Gregg objected in a statement.
Switching sides
| Emily Belz
For 15 years, Rian Wathen knocked on doors, organizing unions in Terre Haute, Ind. But as he rose in the ranks of the UFCW Local 700, becoming the director of collective bargaining for the state, he didn't like what he saw.
"You find that the organization exists for the organization," he told me, saying that the union made deals with companies like cutting wages at one facility if they would be allowed to unionize another facility.
Now he advises employers on how to deal with attempts to organize in the workplace—and he doesn't go easy on them. "There's no such thing as good unions, just bad management," he tells them. An attempt to organize a union he said, is simply a message that employees don't trust their employers anymore: "The employer has to own up to that."
Money for something
| Emily Belz
Big labor isn't the only big spender on politics; business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have also spent their millions lobbying for favor from politicians.
As the law stands, penalties for employers who fire workers attempting to organize are "remedial, not punitive," said James Sherk, labor expert at the Heritage Foundation. The Bush administration board rarely doled out injunctions on employers for firing employees, which would allow the National Labor Relations Board to intervene and reinstate employees.
"Penalties could be greater," said Sherk. The Bush board also shrunk the ranks of potential union members by defining "supervisors" as essentially anyone with decision-making power; supervisors cannot join unions. The Obama board could try to undo that definition.
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COVER STORY |
Issue: 
No pious baloney
