Archive for the ‘Unions’ Category

I had to pinch myself to be certain I’d read this article right. I wasn’t imagining things. Sure enough, it really opened by saying “Two of the largest trade unions in Minnesota are backing the reelection campaign of Republican representative Jason Lewis against a Democratic business executive. The carpenters’ union and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49, both of which endorsed Hillary Clinton, will support the first-term congressman in the midterm elections in his rematch against former health care executive Angie Craig. Labor leaders praised Lewis’s record in Congress, highlighting his support for domestic energy development as well as his willingness to buck his political party. Lewis has supported Davis-Bacon, which favors union wage levels in federal projects despite the push in the conservative movement to abolish wage mandates.”

Here’s their explanation:

“In Jason’s time in Congress he has cast repeated votes in support of Davis-Bacon prevailing wage and has led on the issue of changing school curriculum to encourage more people to look at careers in the construction industry,” carpenters’ spokesman Adam Duininck said in a release.

First, if the name Adam Duininck sounds familiar, it’s because he was Mark Dayton’s chair of the Met Council. Then there’s this:

“Jason Lewis has made an effort to get to know our Union, understand our issues, and has taken politically tough stances in support of good paying Union jobs,” George said in a statement. “We don’t always agree on every issue, but we know that when it comes to supporting our jobs, he has stood with us, and that is why we are standing with him.”

Lewis offered this reply:

“I’m working hard to make certain we get Enbridge so we get the Pine Bend refinery in the second district … the oil it needs to grow the economy,” Lewis said in the Oct. 21 debate. “My opponent says, ‘well Sierra Club won’t let me endorse that.'” Lewis pledged to continue advocating for local laborers in Congress. He said he will continue to focus on workforce training and revamping the apprenticeship system, one of the Trump administration’s priorities, “so labor groups are able to thrive with adequately trained laborers.”

“This nation was built on the backs of hardworking Minnesotans like those belonging to these two groups and it is important we support them with our policies in Washington,” he said in a statement. “I am proud to have supported them in my first-term in Congress and look forward to continuing to work on their behalf.”

This is a major victory for Lewis. This can’t help Angie Craig.

John Sununu Sr.’s perspective definitely doesn’t match with the MSM’s. Just watch this interview with Bill O’Reilly and you’ll know what I mean:

I was particularly fascinated when they got to the subjects of Kavanaugh and the “migrant march.” Check out Sununu’s perspective. He said that Kavanaugh will affect the hard-cord Republican voter who was going to vote Republican. Then Sununu said that the migrant march “is going to affect the marginal Republican and the independents. Those are the ones that the surprise data has a majority talking about how they want this march stopped. So those 2 things affect the Republican vote but with 2 different groups of voters.”

I think that’s exactly right. That’s why I think the polling is missing what’s happening. It’s my theory that pollsters have misinterpreted suburban white women in a significant way. Every night, I hear how Democrats are leading with women, which I don’t doubt. That being said, I’m highly skeptical of the theory that suburban white women don’t worry about immigration.

They’re smart enough to know that those illegal immigrants pile tons of extra costs on them by piling tons of additional expenses on school districts and safety net programs.

The other thing that Gov. Sununu said that makes sense is that he disputes the notion that the union worker who’s voted Democrat “all his life except in 2016” will vote Democrat in 2018. Gov. Sununu thinks that Trump’s economy has earned him tons of good will with union workers. I wholeheartedly agree. Here in Minnesota, the DFL doesn’t have much of a chance of winning back the private sector unions anytime soon. That’s why Pete Stauber will handily win in the Eighth District.

Salena Zito is onto something. Again. This week, she opened her article by writing that “Jason Vogel is fired up to vote. He says his passion crystallized two weeks ago when he saw just how chaotic Washington would be if the Democrats seized power in Congress.”

Later in the article, she wrote this about Vogel:

The 40-year-old union steward for the local Teamsters 397 says he became motivated to vote for Kelly when he realized everything important to him is being championed by President Trump and is on Kelly’s ballot: “The Second Amendment, trade, job creation and keeping a good economy going, that comes to a daily fight if the Republicans lose the midterms,” he said. “A lot of my friends feel the same way. We ask ourselves, ‘Why would you vote Democrat?’ Our lives certainly weren’t better under their way of doing business.”

If Republicans focus on nothing else, they should focus on this. Americans’ lives were worse during the Obama administration. More people were on welfare. Economic growth was pathetic. Wages were stagnant. The fossil fuel industry was literally targeted for extinction. Manufacturing wasn’t a priority, either.

Teamster Steward Jason Vogel
What part of that sounds like a prosperity machine. I don’t want to see an America where people ‘get by’. I want to live in an America where everyone flourishes. America won’t flourish under Democratic control of any part of Congress. That’s why I’m predicting Republicans keeping control of both houses of Congress.

This article has to be seen as helpful to Republicans running for the Minnesota House of Representatives.

According to J. Patrick Coolican’s article, “Recent union endorsements provide clues about the direction of both organized labor and the two parties. The carpenters and their 11,000 Minnesota members endorsed 48 DFL candidates and 30 Republican candidates for the Minnesota House, but the GOP can be happy that incumbents in key swing districts got the nod, like Reps. Sandy Layman, Jim Knob­lach, Randy Jessup and Keith Franke.”

I’m represented by Jim Knoblach so this naturally caught my attention. Jim’s running against Dan Wolgamott, the carpetbagger who got into electoral politics (as near as I can tell anyway) in 2014 when he ran for the seat in HD-14A, which is the west side of St. Cloud, Waite Park and St. Augusta. He was defeated by Tama Theis that year. In 2016, Wolgamott ran for the open Senate seat in SD-14 when John Pederson decided not to seek re-election. In 2016, Wolgamott lost to Jerry Relph, who is now my state senator.

This year, Wolgamott moved to the east side of St. Cloud so he could challenge Jim Knoblach for the HD-14B seat. Apparently, the unions smelled a carpetbagger in Wolgamott and rejected him. It’s also clear that they like Jim Knoblach’s history of supporting projects like the Line3 Pipeline Replacement Project and other projects vital to the construction unions.

Just recently the Minnesota Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Republican state Sen. Karin Housley against U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, and Republican Pete Stauber, a retired police officer, in his race for Congress against Joe Radinovich. The Minneapolis Police Federation endorsed Republican Doug Wardlow in his race for attorney general against U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison.

It isn’t surprising that police don’t like Keith Ellison, especially considering the fact that he’s supported cop killers. That isn’t the only thing that’s hurting Ellison.

As we look back at Gov. Dayton’s time in office, it’s difficult to identify his signature legislative accomplishment. His first year in office, he shut down state government. It was the longest shutdown of state government in US history. When it ended, Gov. Dayton signed the budget deal he could’ve signed without the shutdown.

In 2013, with DFL majorities in the House and Senate, Gov. Dayton finally passed his massive tax increases. In addition to those tax increases, Gov. Dayton promised that he’d stop property tax increases as a result of the increased LGA payments and “historic investments in education.” I wrote this post in December, 2014 to highlight the major property tax increase that Princeton levied on taxpayers. They originally sought a 33.87% tax increase but ‘settled’ for a 25.16% increase.

In this post, I quoted then-Speaker Paul Thissen. Here’s what he said in a statement:

The House DFL Education Budget invests in what works: fully funding all-day, every day kindergarten and investing $50 million in early learning childhood scholarships. All-day K and early childhood education are proven tools to improve test scores, close the achievement gap, and prepare students for future academic success. The House DFL Education Budget also increases the basic funding formula for K-12 schools by four percent over the biennium, an increase of over $315 million, or $209 per pupil. The school shift payback will be included in the House Taxes bill.

In other words, the Dayton tax increase to buy down property taxes failed terribly.

What’s worse is that, in 2014, the DFL legislature repealed several of the tax increases it passed the final weekend of the session the year before. That led to the Republicans retaking the House majority in the 2014 election. Apparently, Minnesotans didn’t think much of Gov. Dayton’s tax increases.

In 2015, Gov. Dayton met with Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL- Cook, and Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt every day of the final week of session to negotiate a budget. On the Friday of the session, they were no closer to an agreement than they were when they started. Sen. Bakk and Speaker Daudt sat down and promptly negotiated a bipartisan budget deal in less than an hour. When they made the announcement, Gov. Dayton criticized the budget and vetoed the bill.

That led to another cave-in by Gov. Dayton during yet another special session. BTW, special sessions might be Gov. Dayton’s legacy, though I can’t call them an accomplishment.

Aside from these negative legislative ‘accomplishments’, Gov. Dayton ignored the Somali day care fraud scandal and the elder care abuse scandal. That’s the one where people actually died and nobody from the Dayton administration bothered to investigate.

The other thing that Gov. Dayton was famous for was temper tantrums:

Finally, there’s the MNLARS fiasco, which Gov. Dayton created but didn’t fix and the child care unionization legislation. The unionization legislation went nowhere because child care providers defeated the measure 1,014-392. That’s what happens when you’re stubborn and you don’t listen to people. Gov. Dayton earned those epic slap downs.

Ron Latz isn’t just about criminalizing law-abiding gun owners. He’s also into making 12 to 17 year olds feel like criminals.

Monday, “senators overwhelmingly approved three bills written to help reduce regulations home-based child care providers say could drive them out of business.” Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer “said the No. 1 problem with home-based child care is an existing state rule requiring family members ages 12 to 17 to undergo a criminal background check, including being fingerprinted and photographed. ‘This is frightening for them,’ Kiffmeyer said, and makes the youths feel like criminals. The bill provides for a simpler background check for young people.”

The legislature took up this bill because “94 percent of the home child care providers say they are thinking about closing” and because “in rural Minnesota, the lack of child care has become a crisis”, according to “Sen. Bill Weber, R-Luverne.”

Ron Latz has a different take:

Sen. Ron Latz, D-St. Louis Park, said he is concerned that easing the background checks for youths could allow some dangerous people near children. Kiffmeyer, however, said the Human Services Department considered her bill a good balance between safety and privacy.

That’s BS. Sen. Latz is simply carrying the unions’ water. It isn’t that he’s worried that 12 to 17 year-olds pose a major risk to children. It’s that he’s intent on making life miserable for child care providers who rejected union representation.

It’s apparent, too, that Sen. Latz cares more about unions than he cares about the child care crisis. That’s a sick puppy.

If Democrats want to have a chance at winning back the US House, they’ll need to prove that they won’t consistently side with Big Environment, aka Big Green. During the Obama administration, Big Mining got the shaft without getting the mining project. Salena Zito’s latest article suggests that Democrats are rebuilding their relationship with Big Labor.

The union voters I talked to said they didn’t feel that Democrats in Washington had their back; that they were too progressive, too strident, and way out of touch with their lives and needs. “I think there were two factors at play with how union members, many union members turned away from the Democratic Party,” said Mike Mikus, a western Pennsylvania Democratic strategist who does campaign work for several unions. One is that they didn’t feel their economic issues needed to be addressed and pretty frankly it was in the Democratic playbook to play to the center meant taking on organized labor rather than any other Democratic constituency,” he said.

I’m not convinced that Democrats have figured it out yet, though. I don’t doubt that some Democrats have made the decision to support mining. That will give those Democrats a fighting chance in some districts. The problem is that they’re still part of a Democratic Party that’s dominated by environmental activists.

The Democratic Party won’t part ways with the environmental activists. The miners still remember this:

or this:

Tom Steyer and Alita Messenger won’t tolerate a significant shift back to mining, which is where most union workers are employed. The other industry where lots of union workers are employed is construction. Democrats still fight tooth-and-nail against pipeline projects. If I ran the NRCC, I’d remind voters in the heartland that Democrats are still funded by environmental activists. As long as that’s the case, labor will get shafted by the Democrats.

This amendment puts the DFL in a bind this election season. Right now, I’m betting that they’ll vote to put the constitutional amendment in front of voters.

Here’s what’s happening. For 3 years, Republicans have pushed for additional funding for roads and bridges. Then-House Transportation Chair Tim Kelly proposed dedicating “a portion of existing tax revenue to transportation. Those taxes may include the sales tax on auto parts as well as taxes on leased vehicles and rental cars.” Initially, the DFL balked, saying that the money wasn’t dedicated, then arguing that taking that money from the general fund would take money from health care and education.

This week, “Scott Newman finally got his bill in front of lawmakers for the first time.” His constitutional amendment would dedicate “sales tax dollars from vehicle leases and rentals toward transportation projects” to the building of roads and bridges.

It isn’t amazing that the GOP is attempting to put this question on the ballot. What’s astonishing is that it’s garnered the wide-ranging support that it’s gotten:

The coalition supporting the bill includes business groups like the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, contractors and some labor unions, including the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49 and the Northern States Regional Council of Carpenters. “This is the biggest job creating bill you can pass this year,” said Jason George, the legislative and special projects director for Local 49, noting that the total spending would amount to dedicating less than 1 percent of the state budget toward transportation.

It isn’t surprising that the DFL opposes this constitutional amendment:

“There are two things we should be treating with the utmost caution, and it’s our general fund and our Constitution,” said Bradley Peterson with Greater Minnesota Cities. “Putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot for potentially $300 million per year is premature.” School groups and other labor unions, including SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, testified that the bill would limit the pool of funds available for education and health programs across the state, which don’t currently have any dedicated funding streams.

“We shouldn’t be pitting students against roads, and we shouldn’t be pitting healthcare against the trades,” said Sen. Matt Little, DFL-Lakeville.

The question now is whether the DFL actively opposes this proposed constitutional amendment or if they’ll support the construction unions. At this point, they’re in a can’t-win situation. Thanks to Sen. Newman, Minnesota’s roads will likely have dedicated funding for roads and bridges.

I don’t actually believe what the headline says. I just thought I’d use a headline the way progressives used words at CNN’s townhall meeting. That’s the one where people said Sen. Rubio had blood on his hands because he wouldn’t reject campaign contributions from the NRA.

What I can say with certainty is that the NEA isn’t in touch with its members on guns in schools. According to this article, the NEA issued a statement that said “Bringing more guns into our schools does nothing to protect our students and educators from gun violence. Our students need more books, art and music programs, nurses and school counselors; they do not need more guns in their classrooms.”

Apparently, teachers in Ohio disagree:

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones told FOX Business’ Liz MacDonald that the response from teachers and school administrators has been overwhelming. “We thought we’d get 20, 25 signed up. We had 50 within the first hour. We had 100 within two hours, we had three hundred within like five hours. We offered to teachers first, then we start getting calls from a secretary that works in the school, janitors that work in the school,” Jones said.

More schools are beginning to train their educators to access or carry concealed weapons with reports suggesting there are now more than 1,000 school staffers in a dozen states with access to guns in schools spanning 225 districts.

Apparently, the people sitting on the front lines have a different opinion of what is and isn’t needed than the suits in the offices. Imagine that. Union leadership isn’t in touch with its members. That’s virtually unimaginable. (I’m kidding.)
Pay attention to this interview:

This is a paid professional law enforcement officer. Does the NEA seriously think that they know better how to protect schools than this police officer? Forgive me if I side with the police officer over the NEA on school security measures.

I find it disturbing that the NEA didn’t know that the thirst for arming teachers was this strong amongst teachers. Was it that the NEA didn’t know? Or was it that they knew and chose to not represent their dues-paying members? Both possibilities are frightening.

Saturday, Sen. Klobuchar, Sen. Tina Smith and Rep. Emmer brought their dog and pony show to St. Cloud to talk with Electrolux employees. This isn’t a criticism of Electrolux employees. It isn’t even a criticism of the federal government, though I’m not thrilled with the fact that Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Smith voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

It’s mostly a criticism of the Dayton administration and the DFL. The DFL are the idiots who’ve created a hostile environment for companies. The DFL raised taxes. The DFL implemented unreasonable regulations. The DFL put in place systems that give special interests multiple bites at the same apple in terms of granting permits.

I can blame Sen. Klobuchar for wanting to accept more refugees than Minnesota can handle. That matters because of this information:

There’s also a segment of Somali workers, about one-quarter of the Electrolux workforce, Klobuchar said. One of the workers who spoke in the meetings is part of that community. Many of them don’t have a high school degree or came here for this job. “This is their whole life, the life they’ve known,” she said “Losing that community of the people you’ve worked with forever, you’re not going to be able to replace that and that was really heartbreaking.”

It was utterly predictable. Why would a company stay in a place and accept workers who weren’t considered part of a well-trained workforce? South Carolina has a better tax environment, a more skilled workforce and it’s a right-to-work state. Why would Electrolux choose to deal with union negotiations when it doesn’t have to?

Companies (and wealth) have been fleeing Minnesota for a couple decades. The DFL keeps pretending that everything’s just fine when things aren’t fine. It’s time for the DFL to finally admit that their policies aren’t pro-growth policies.