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Thursday, March 26, 2009
Barbara's Article in Today's Washington Examiner!

Labor bosses threaten Virginia’s healthy economic bipartisanship

By Barbara Comstock, OpEd Contributor(Washington Examiner)

As we see hundreds of thousands of jobs disappearing, 401(K)s shrinking, house values dropping, savings dwindling and taxes increasing, we face two very different visions for economic recovery.
The first is a 1930s Big Labor/1960s Big Spending/1970s Big Taxing vision with a huge increase in government jobs. This very partisan vision is focused on higher union membership as a key to prosperity.
 
Over the past several election years, Big Labor has invested heavily in the Virginia Democratic party – including over $6.2 million to Gov. Tim Kaine and his party. Now the union agenda in Virginia could dramatically change our business-friendly climate that has been so crucial to our job growth, prosperity and quality of life.
 
This year, the Virginia House of Delegates, with bipartisan support, passed an amendment enshrining our state right-to-work law in the Virginia constitution. Every Northern Virginia Democrat in the state House opposed this measure and their state Senate colleagues killed it. 
 
On the national front, Democratic leaders are pushing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), aka Card Check, a partisan measure that effectively eliminates the secret ballot in union elections, creates an unprecedented federal intervention in the workplace, and further weakens the economy.
 
Kaine, as Democratic National Committee Chairman, is a leader in this effort. According to the Service Employees International Union boss, Andy Stern, the bill has the support of 60 U.S. senators.
 
Recently, Vice President Joe Biden told the AFL-CIO leadership that he supported EFCA and understands that “you go home with them that brung you to the dance…you all brought me to the dance a long time ago.” He continued: “The fact of the matter is …you can’t have a middle class without a strong labor movement.”
 
This is a thesis Northern Virginia’s business community proves false every day. The Virginia Chamber, the Virginia chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Northern Virginia Technology Council, and a bipartisan coalition of Virginia businesses and employees strongly oppose this job killing bill.
 
Their sound position is backed up by a recent economic study, by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar that found that for every 3 percentage points gained in union membership through Card Check and mandatory arbitration, a 1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate follows.
 
Virginia has lower unemployment than the national average, but job losses are growing here by the day. Is a payoff to Big Babor bosses nationally worth risking the jobs of hard-working Virginians?
 
A bipartisan coalition of Virginians has a very different 21st century vision for economic recovery. Our business-friendly, win/win, private sector approach provides good middle class and high paying professional private sector jobs, as well as healthy private/public partnerships with federal employees.
 
These jobs have salaries and benefits that in turn provide for a healthy service economy, good schools and growing revenues that raise the quality of life for all. While we are facing historic economic challenges like the rest of the country, and still face daunting transportation and education funding challenges, adopting a partisan Big Labor policy agenda is exactly the wrong turn for our local economy. 
 
Card Check is a highly partisan bill, far out of the mainstream. Warren Buffett, the man President Barack Obama has said he would look to on economic advice, said he was “flatly opposed” to Card Check.
 
Even labor icon George McGovern opposes it, calling it a “disturbing and undemocratic overreach.” And Al Sharpton is among the growing bipartisan list of opponents, too.
 
Virginians should beware that this bill will not just have federal impact – it will impact our state right-to-work laws, which the Big Labor bosses are committed to eliminating.
 
The SEIU’s Stern has promised that “in a post-Employee Free Choice Act world, we [SEIU] would go where no one else wants to go, which is the South and Southwest.” Once he gets to Virginia, you can be sure he will be calling on those he has “brung to the dance.” 
 
Recently all three Democrat candidates in the Virginia Governor’s race walked a picket line at Hilton Hotels just as the company was making the decision to move its headquarters from California to Virginia.
 
Is this the welcome mat we need in these tough economic times? Northern Virginia has the opportunity to lead the economic recovery if we follow our bipartisan entrepreneurial job growing practices instead of dancing to the partisan tune of big labor bosses.
 
Barbara Comstock, a partner at Corallo Comstock, Inc., is a representative of the Workforce Fairness Institute and a Republican candidate for the 34th District in the Virginia House of Delegates.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/More-OpEd-Contributors/Labor-bosses-threaten-Virginias-healthy-economic-bipartisanship-41901512.html
 
 
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