Michigan State should end union organizing seminars, say anti-union lawmakers and builders

EAST LANSING – The Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan is demanding that Michigan State University cancel its Building Trades Academy program on the grounds that it encourages "organizing in non-union construction companies," while a state legislative committee has struck funds from the university's budget for 2014-2015.

"Such activities lack legitimacy when performed by an academic institution," Chris Fisher, president of Michigan chapter of ABC, said in a statement. "Would the university support a similar program geared toward union busting?"

But MSU spokesman Kent Cassella said that the program, which began in May 2013, is not paid for by taxpayer money but by the trade unions. "Beginning in May 2013, MSU's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations was contracted by North America's Building Trade Union Department to administer and provide academic oversight of the Building Trades Academy," Cassella said in a statement late Wednesday night.

The Senate appropriations subcommittee on higher education approved a budget Thursday for the state's public universities that docks $500,000 from MSU's funding because of the university's involvement.

The Building Trades Academy, a series of four- and five-day seminars offered through the school of Human Resources and Labor Relations, is described as a program that provides "educational programs that offer useful and practical skill building for Building Trades union staff and leadership and capacity building for their unions." Classes are held in East Lansing, Los Angeles, and the Washington D.C. metro area. The D.C. classes are held at union-owned facilities while the classes in Los Angeles and East Lansing will be held at union halls.

... qualify as employees under federal law and therefore can legally unionize.

Sigh. :^(

Here we go again.

Fx News's "The Five" were talking about this issue the other day. But since they overlooked some very important constitutional problems with it for some non-obvious reason, I will fill in the void.

When patriots hear about vague federal laws and regulations, the example of this thread concerning unionization, they need check the constitutional validity of what they hear using a few key sections of the Constitution.

The first thing that patriots need to do when they hear about some questionable federal law is the following. They need to look in Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to find a clause which would reasonably justify such a law in the context that the law is being applied to. And without even bothering to look at these clauses, there's only 18 of them so I have a good idea by now, there is no clause that would reasonably address non-federal government employment, non-military schools or labor unions.

In fact, an examination of Section 8 shows that the Founding States had granted Congress exclusive legislative control only over those entities indicated in Clauses 17 & 18 as examples, the Founding States also making the 10th Amendment to clarify that the states essentially have unique legislative control over intrastate issues which is what this situation is imo.

Next, even if states had delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to address the issues of this thread, patriots also have to consider who is calling the shots concerning a federal regulation. This is because the Founding States had made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide it from many citizens, to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in non-elected government bureaucrats in the constitutionally undefined NLRB. And by establishing such agences Congress is wrongly protecting federal legislative powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of the previously indicated clauses.

Sadly, the reason that many low-information patriots relucatant ask, "How high?" when constitutionally toothless federal agencies like the NRLB shout "JUMP!," is because parents have not been making sure that their children are being taught the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood.

Again, patriots need to run a Section 8 checklist and also consider who is calling the shots every time they hear about a strange federal law or regulation.

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