Pensions

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Liberals - President - State Government - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Stimulus for Unions

October 8, 2009 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Stimulating the economy isn’t nearly as important to President Obama as putting federal dollars into the pockets of his union cronies. Because of Obama’s PLA Executive Order, thousands of jobs are going to unions in states that have few union members.

The Washington Times, for instance, reports that Obama has grandiosely given a $35 million federal construction project to the New Hampshire. But there are strings attached, strings that pull federal pay levers for the exclusive benefit of unions.

In February Obama signed Executive Order 13202 that demanded that project labor agreements be forced on every federal construction project. These PLAs would demand that federal construction projects either hire union labor or pay all workers union wages. Of course, as these non-union workers are getting union wages the government will also be deducting union dues from their paychecks regardless of whether said worker is in a union or not. This is little else than a direct transfer of federal money to union coffers.

And what of this New Hampshire project? Well, the PLA is in play as a matter of course. This $35 million federal construction project will either employ an all-union workforce, or force contractors to pay union wages to non-union workers as well as remove dues fees from said workers.
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Obama’s Stimulus for Unions”

Anti-Americanism - Budget - Business - Capitalism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Liberals - Society/Culture - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Expense Forces 92-Year-Old Restaurant to Close

September 1, 2009 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Café des Artistes has been doing a steady restaurant business in New York City since 1917, but is now forced to close its doors. One of the main reasons for this happens to be the fact that the Café is unfortunate enough to be a union restaurant and the exorbitant costs of supporting a union workforce has contributed to killing the business.

A blog called the 212DressingRoom, a website about New York fashion, culture, art and other rather Bohemian subjects, has detailed the sad end of the long time café written by the owner of the place, Jennifer Lang.

The decision to close the Café is exceedingly painful to make, but inevitable. We are one of the very, very few independent restaurants in New York City that operates with a union; many of those have closed in the last few years, and hundreds have closed in the last few decades. In that respect, we are a dinosaur because the huge added expense of having a union restaurant can be crippling, especially when the economy takes a nosedive.

Since 99% of the independent restaurants in New York City do not have a union, we are not playing on a level playing field with the rest of our competition. One example: We pay approximately $250,000 more each year for health insurance and pension coverage for our employees than we would if we were paying for non-union coverage.

This is a stark reminder that unions kill profitability and cost jobs. A minute can be spent here to realize what the Obama administration’s “cure” for this sort of situation is, too.
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Union Expense Forces 92-Year-Old Restaurant to Close”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Liberals - Socialism - Society/Culture - Taxes - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

The Union’s Bleeding Pensions

August 11, 2009 by 5 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

We’ve mentioned it here and there in the past, but one of the under reported stories about unions today is that few of them have fully funded pension plans and worse, many are in dire trouble. The Wall Street Journal reminds us all of the mess that union pensions are in with a July 27 piece headlined, “Union Pensions in the Red .”

The WSJ reports on the unusual actions of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the most powerful unions in America, as it tries to fix its pension funds.

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The Union’s Bleeding Pensions”