Posted on 03/20/2004 4:36:56 PM PST by CedarDave
Friday, March 19, 2004
Unions Flourish Under Richardson
By John Dendahl
Syndicated Columnist
Thanks to four University of New Mexico regents, a bountiful harvest continues. I speak here of the returns to organized labor on its huge investment in Gov. Bill Richardson. UNM plans a major hospital expansion, and its Board of Regents has effectively erected a union-only fence around the project.
First, a slight digression.
On Dec. 27, 2002, dictator-in-waiting Richardson wrote to regents of all state universities "requesting" their resignations. The letters concluded, "Should you wish to be considered for either your current position or another in my administration, please submit your application to Brian Condit. ..."
And who is that? Until becoming the go-to man in Richardson's hiring hall after the 2002 election, Condit was executive director of the state AFL-CIO's Building & Construction Trades Council. In other words, he was a major state labor union boss. Unions funneled millions into Richardson's campaign for governor, spent hundreds of thousands savaging John Sánchez in the Republican gubernatorial primary, and chipped more hundreds of thousands into Richardson's campaign to raid the Land Grant Permanent Fund by amending the state constitution.
Reportedly led by Regent Mel Eaves, the 100-percent Richardson Board of Regents has now declared a lavish dividend for about 15 unions in Condit's trade union council.
This dividend is a so-called "project labor agreement" (PLA), which hands to Condit's unions jurisdiction over most construction work on the $183 million UNM Hospital expansion.
Whether the successful bidder is a union contractor or not, those employed will be screened at the union hiring halls; pay union initiation fees, dues and assessments; and contribute to union pension funds. Wages are expected to exceed even Davis-Bacon rates, thus adding more millions to the project cost.
Richardson's Regents— with one (Doug Brown) absent from the meeting and two (Sandra Begay-Campbell and María Griego-Raby) bravely voting "no"— have handed the unions what they can no longer earn in the marketplace, dues payers.
It's a blatant end run around the choice made by most workers today not to join and elect representation by unions. Eaves justified this outrage by dragging a red herring, unfairly alleging poor performance by a nonunion contractor.
The workforce fraction outside government represented by unions is likely the lowest it has been during the lifetime of any living American, and continues to fall. Fewer than 10 percent of New Mexico's private sector employees are unionized.
Nonetheless, labor bosses wield political power and influence vastly disproportionate to the anemic membership numbers in their unions. To understand how that could be, one need only look at the campaign finance reports of most Democratic office holders, particularly Richardson, and of the Democratic Party.
In a typical election cycle, union political contributions around the country total something like half a billion dollars.
It's important to remember that union bosses need no permission slip from anyone to spend a member's dues money for political influence. Yes, a dues payer can ask for an accounting, and demand a proportional refund of political expenditures, but action like that brings from a union boss all the felicity of a member's saying the boss has serious BO.
UNM's project labor agreement is the most recent of several gifts to union bosses since Richardson was elected.
Public employee collective bargaining has been reinstated. The state Department of Labor has adopted a new rule favoring unions in determining the "prevailing" wage rate for government construction projects. And the state Regulation and Licensing Department has proposed new work rules sought by unions, which would add a bureaucratic touch (and more cost) to construction— private and public, commercial and residential— all over the state.
The PLA was negotiated by a Washington, D.C., lawyer— at $395 an hour— and is claimed to bring UNM great benefits of labor peace and price stability during construction.
It smells to me like the East Coast expert is Eaves' security blanket. More important, all of us should be asking what recent "job action" (the euphemism for strikes and slowdowns) and economic conditions justify the insurance Eaves claims UNM is buying with his cozy union deal.
Lifelong New Mexican John Dendahl is a retired executive and political leader. E-mail: jdendahl@swcp.comCopyright 2004 Albuquerque Journal
One more reason to view the Clinton cabinet member with abject disgust.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.