cozcommunio

College freshman, John Tyler Hammons, is elected Mayor of Muskogee Oklahoma. Hammons won a runoff with over 70 percent of the vote over former Mayor Hershel Ray McBride. Hammons defeated a 3 term former mayor who outspent him 10 to 1. He ran on a transparency platform. He said that his message that resonated with voters was openness of government and keeping citizens better informed of city operations.

Big Labor is planning to spend in the area of a billion this election year: AFL-CIO, American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, National Education Association, Service Employees International Union and others.  The unions want to win the trifecta, the White House,the House of Representatives and a filibuster proof Senate.   Kim Strassel at Wall Street Journal has a very enlighting article on this today.  Here are the highlights:

How bad does Big Labor want this? Consider what it will get if that money pays off. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have already pledged a rewrite of Nafta and an end to more trade deals. Both promise to throw government money at new union-only jobs, to boost unemployment insurance, to penalize companies that hire overseas, and to take a run at “universal” health care.

To this, unions will add passage of “card check,” which would outlaw secret ballots in union organizing elections. Alongside will be legislation to make union officials the exclusive bargaining agents of most police, fire and rescue personnel. Then there’s the biggie – so big that most officials don’t talk about it publicly. Tucked into the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act is a provision called 14(b), which allows for “right to work” states. Big Labor last took a run at deleting this section, and forcing more unionization, in the Johnson administration. With a filibuster-proof Senate, they’d have a far better shot.

Unions want a Department of Labor that will sit on corruption cases, water down financial disclosure rules, and turn a blind eye to the use of pension funds to influence boardroom decisions. The National Labor Relations Board has three vacancies, which Senate Democrats will refuse to fill this year. Big Labor’s own slate would include people favorable to proposals to allow “mini-unions” within corporate workplaces, or to rework job definitions to bring more positions under the union umbrella.

Here is the link to full article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726663082588243.html?mod=djemEditorialPage