In part one I related the Maryland Model in its current state to the 2012 campaign, particularly when considering the battle to repeal the in-state tuition for illegal aliens passed last year by the General Assembly. The bill was petitioned to referendum as opponents turned the trick for the first time in over twenty years in Maryland.
As you should recall, I distilled the idea behind the Colorado Model liberal Democrats used to take over that state into four simpler M words: money, message, media, and mobilization. In this part I assess the overall shape conservatives here in Maryland exist in regarding these four issues – and we definitely need to do some work!
Over the holidays I did a little bit of light reading, and while I was doing so it occurred to me that the General Assembly session is sneaking up on us rather quickly. In 2011 that session set the scene for what turned out to be one of our side’s rare successes in Maryland, the petition drive to bring the in-state tuition law for illegal aliens to referendum later this year. It appears that will be on the ballot since CASA de Maryland and other pro-illegal groups are dropping the challenge to the petition signatures and narrowing their focus to whether the referendum itself is legal while simultaneously fundraising to sustain the law at the ballot box.
That fundraising: $10 million. What that means: carpet-bombing the media with images of poor, purportedly law-abiding and successful immigrant families being denied a chance at the American Dream due to racist TEA Partiers who hate all those who look different than they do. Don’t believe me? Just watch.
And this nicely leads me into my main points of this post, which will be the first of a multipart series on what I’m calling the Maryland Model. You see, part of my reading over the holidays was this RedState article on what is called the Colorado Model, which led me to read the original post on this strategy from the Weekly Standard back in 2008. Read those articles (I’ll wait for you) then take a look at how the CASA de Maryland folks are fighting the will of the people here in the Free State.
While they have seven pieces to the puzzle in the RedState article, I’ve consolidated these to what I can call the 4 M’s: money, message, media, and mobilization.
Having lived in the Congressional district in question for a long time, I think this is quite funny.
First of all, the Republicans who are running Ohio’s redistricting process played quite the nasty trick by lumping two longtime liberals in Congress into the same Congressional district – Ohio’s Ninth District, which used to be primarily a Toledo-based district represented by Marcy Kaptur since 1983, now snakes along the Lake Erie shoreline toward Cleveland and has since the 2000 redistricting. But the newest Republican lines have now expanded the district far enough eastward to take in the residence of one Dennis Kucinich.
Obviously the political landscape is much different here than it is in my native state of Ohio, but there are times I still get missives from the Buckeye State because I’m still on a number of mailing lists.
One such case was today, and although I deleted the actual message the gist of it was a local chief of police calling out the opponents of Issue 2 – a measure that would roll back gains made against the overly powerful unions in the state – for misleading the public into thinking they’d be less safe if it passed. On the contrary, passage of Issue 2 would allow him more funding for hiring police officers since his other overhead costs would be reduced.
It’s been seven years since I left the state of my birth, and it doesn’t seem like politics has changed all that much.
Even the ray of hope provided when a solid conservative governor was elected may be snuffed out next week if voters in the Buckeye State are fooled into voting against Issue 2. A no vote would wipe out a series of common-sense measures designed to hold the power of the state’s labor unions in check along with making them contribute a little more to their benefit package (but still less than the average private-sector worker does.)
It’s telling that opponents of the measure, essentially Big Labor and its allies, are outspending those who want a yes vote by a significant margin. The unions didn’t want Governor John Kasich to be elected anyway, as one of his first priorities was to whip them into line. If they can’t beat him until 2014, they can do their level best to thwart his efforts. It’s nothing new from a state which is heavily unionized along the Ohio Turnpike corridor from Toledo through Lorain and Cleveland to Youngstown. The rest of the state is relatively conservative.
I’m hoping against hope that the smart voters aren’t fooled by the lies and obfuscation of Big Labor’s campaign and hand them a stinging rebuke. If they don’t, you can well see why I left the state – not that Maryland is a whole lot better, but the weather and vibe is what keeps me here. It would be nice to have a governor with the cajones to take on Big Labor, so let’s hope he’s rewarded next week.
As always, I like to know what the opposition is up to.
The other day I got an e-mail from Organizing For Against America which asked if I could organize in Salisbury. I’ll come back to that question here in a couple minutes, but if you can stomach this video here’s the One talking about organizing:
I guess the first question is: did you notice anything missing?
Well, I suppose those of us who like summer can heave our collective sighs and recall the time it was.
Of all the holidays which dot the calendar, Labor Day is probably my least favorite. Sure, I appreciate the day off work but look at all the other things going on:
For many children (including my significant other’s), it’s literally the last day of summer vacation.
As a Shorebirds fan, after today I have seven months without baseball to dread.
Those in the local tourism industry see their window of opportunity beginning to close down, although the push to establish a “second season” in recent years has cushioned that blow to an extent.
But today is the day which Big Labor calls its own, allocating the celebration of the American working person despite the fact that the vast majority of workers don’t belong to a union. An area which is a union stronghold (like the city of my birth) is quite likely to have a Labor Day parade, and it irked me to no end that the Labor Day parade was much better attended and had greater participation than the Memorial Day parade which was often moved to the Saturday before. Something is amiss with those priorities.
Well, to answer the question, Rasmussen conducted a poll which stated 43 percent now see the TEA Party label as a negative. Of course they do, since the media constantly portrays the TEA Party as part of the problem and not part of the solution. I think the number around here who would agree with the 43% is only about half of that.
But the labeling trend is definitely not in the favor of those who believe in smaller, more limited government as independents dislike the TEA Party label by a 42-25 margin. Generally they are the ones who fall in the middle politically and supposedly it’s the great unwashed whose votes pile up on election day.
So here’s my message to the 43 percent: if you don’t buy the TEA Party and its message of limited government it’s only because you believe the lies told about the TEA Party by those who have a vested interest in keeping things just the way they are!
Do you want to know the way it is? We spend way too much money in government, and it’s money we create out of thin air. The question now isn’t if we’re heading into an inflationary era, but when and how much. It’s sort of like our experience with Hurricane Irene – some got a little wind, some got a little rain, but most had some sort of damage done to their towns and dwellings. All that differed was the degree.
So follow the money. If you didn’t get a raise last year or – worse – lost your job, well, what has the current big-spending government done for you? Maybe you’re getting some sort of transfer payment like unemployment benefits or food stamps but wouldn’t you really rather have the standard of living of being a productive full-time worker returned to you? As it stands you have less but government has more because they set the rules and print the money! Let my people go!
With no end in sight, the varying group of red-clad picketers at the Verizon location just around the corner from me promises to be a sight I’ll see for awhile – at least until the economic reality of making no money from working begins to rear its ugly head. According to reports like this, the union and company have been far apart in negotiations.
The Communications Workers of America union calls the strike “standing up for middle class jobs.” Their complaint is that an immensely profitable Verizon has “regressive demands” which “would roll back 50 years of bargaining gains.” Too, the union condemns the “Wisconsin-style tactics” employed by the company.
And the union is getting support in its efforts – for example, the Teamsters who represent UPS workers have ordered drivers not to make deliveries to Verizon facilities where they would cross a picket line. (Sounds like an opportunity for FedEx.) The CWA also claims that over 100,000 have signed a petition decrying Verizon’s “corporate greed.”
Yet Verizon states a case that the workers represent a division of the company that’s not profitable and all they are asking is for well-compensated union employees to chip in a little bit on their benefit packages. The company is also accusing the union of misrepresenting the company’s bargaining demands and also several incidents of vandalism and sabotage. (That seems to be par for the Big Labor course, as I’ll explain later.)
In essence, the conflict boils down to this: Verizon is trying to cut costs in a division that’s on its way to obsolescence. No longer are Americans tied to a phone line as more and more households have eschewed a landline phone for cellular service. Nor does Verizon even have the monopoly on landline service as they used to because cable providers and others have made these services available. Unfortunately for the Verizon employees affected by the strike, their business will eventually go the route of the horse and buggy just as that of the telephone operator went away years ago when direct-dial phones became available.
The other irksome item within the union’s argument is playing that old class envy card. Their claim that the “very profitable company has paid its top five executives more than $258 million over the past four years” doesn’t address how these corporate leaders were paid. Most likely much of the compensation came in the form of stock options granted because the company was “very profitable” – would they prefer these executives lost millions of dollars instead? (By the way, that $258 million number works out to $1433.33 per striking employee per year. Would the strikers accept such a measly pay raise on even a $60,000 salary, let alone upwards of $90,000?)
Certainly that sounds like a huge amount of compensation for these executives – after all, who wouldn’t want a gig where they made an average of $12 million per year? But then again, would you like the hard work and long hours these people put in on their way up the corporate ladder? I doubt these positions were handed to them, and they certainly require more thought and skill in a number of areas than the average line worker would be able to exhibit. A failure on a line worker’s part may mean a few hundred customers are inconvenienced until someone can fix the issue. A CEO’s screwup could drive the entire company to bankruptcy and cost thousands of workers their jobs – so let’s get a sense of proportion here.
It seems to me the unions are becoming more and more desperate as they realize their hold on power is slipping away. Thus far Verizon has managed to keep their service going – albeit at a somewhat slower pace – and as the strike drags on Verizon’s management may find that they can do without some of these striking employees on a more permanent basis. Surely above all that’s what the CWA is afraid of, and the sabotage now may lead to more violent attacks later.
While it’s not related to the Verizon strike, consider an event which happened near my old hometown where a non-union electrical contractor was wounded in an attack – presumably by a union electrician or supporter. (Having “SCAB” spraypainted on the business owner’s vehicle would be my first clue.) There’s no question Toledo is a rough-and-tumble union town and has been for decades; why do you think I’ve called them “union thugs” before? I know how they operate so as soon as I saw the “Ohio business owner” blurb for the story I figured it was from Toledo.
Still, the idea that someone would actually attempt to gun down a business owner who was protecting his property appears to me to mean the stakes are deadly high in Big Labor’s case. After all, consider the unions had the federal government’s apparatus lock, stock, and barrel for a two-year period but couldn’t get everything they wanted because a number of people said “no, you cannot have card check” and “yes, corporations have the same right to political speech as unions do.” That had to hurt, even if they picked up an automaker or two in the process.
Now does this mean the Verizon strike will turn deadly? I pray not, as cooler heads on both sides need to prevail.
But those walking the picket line around the corner from me have to know they’re whistling past an economic graveyard because in this day and age workers need to be flexible and the ball is usually in the company’s court. In all honesty, they’re only being asked to work under the same rules most of the rest of us already do and as such be thankful they have a good job.
Bear in mind profits are by no means permanent, nor are corporations. Too often a union has won the small battles of getting workers raises and better benefits only to lose the war when the company closes shop because it can’t compete anymore. There’s always the likelihood that in ten years Verizon may be a distant memory, another casualty of an ever-changing world. No work stoppage can ignore that fact.
It probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day if not for a court case, but an organizing document put together by the purple shirts at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) shows that the bad old days of workforce strife may be returning.
“It’s not enough to be right. You need might as well.” That’s how the SEIU’s chapter on organizing tactics begins, and the tome shows they’re out to play hardball. Some of the means to their ends:
“Job actions, such as refusing to do more than the bare minimum required by the contract or engaging in short work stoppages, or on-again, off-again ‘rolling strikes.'” In short, a work slowdown.
“Outside pressure (involving) jeopardizing relationships between the employer and lenders, investors, stockholders, customers, clients, patients, tenants, politicians, or others on whom the employer depends for funds.” Read: a point just barely short of extortion.
“Community action and use of the news media can damage an employer’s public image and ties with community leaders and organizations.” If you hear it on the news, it must be true – even if the union is lying like a rug.
They also talk about escalating tactics – if something doesn’t get the employer’s attention, another more radical idea might just do the trick. This is why you get instances like the 14 busloads of shouting protesters who invaded the front yard of a Bank of America executive.
The problem is that sometime, somewhere, somebody is going to decide to fight fire with fire, and then you get an Auto-Lite situation. The difference will be that it likely won’t be the National Guard doing the shooting.
For all they’ve done on behalf of the American laborer in decades past, the labor movement can be thanked. Certainly there’s nothing wrong with organizing a workplace if the workers decide on their own to organize. But that outside pressure placed on employers also can be used to intimidate employees into signing their rights away as well.
The idea of their employing intimidation tactics like those was the reason unions, for all their political power in the Democratic Party and control of both Congress and the White House from 2009 to 2010, couldn’t pass ‘card check.’ Note that once the Dana plant’s employees made the union go to a secret ballot, the union lost. It doesn’t always happen that way, but in about 1/3 of the cases the union loses an organizing election.
So the SEIU is going over the head of the employees in a particular workplace and trying for the jugular of the employers themselves.
Sodexo, a catering company, was a target of SEIU pressure (as well as a smear campaign, which continues) but decided not to knuckle under. It’s their RICO lawsuit against the union which brought the SEIU pamphlet to light. (Worth noting, too, is that many Sodexo workers are already organized under UNITE HERE, a rival union to the SEIU.) But Sodexo isn’t taking the SEIU’s attacks without stating their own case, like this example.
How many companies, though, can withstand that sort of outside pressure? And what happens when government comes down on the side of unions rather than being a fair arbiter?
For one thing you get bills like Maryland’s “Fair Share Act of 2009,” which allow unions to collect a service fee from non-members. Even more troubling is the fact the state isn’t negotiating from a profitability standpoint because they have the power to tax and redistribute that largess to a union constituency, something a private employer doesn’t have. It’s not quite a license to print money but it’s a close as one can get. The unions then take a portion of those fees and reward their political friends. It’s a pretty sweet deal for everyone – except the taxpayer.
And the unions get mighty uppity, flexing their muscles if someone comes in and tries to upset the apple cart. There were quite a few SEIU members present and accounted for there as well as here.
So it’s good that the SEIU was busted, but of course you’re not seeing this on the nightly news or in the major newspapers. It’s living in the shadows, sort of like the Gunrunner scandal has been confined mostly to investigative blogsites like this.
With freedom of the press comes responsibility. I’m trying to do my part.
You know, one would think that an administration which is trying to prevent Boeing from moving production of the 787 jetliner to a right-to-work state and has stacked the National Labor Relations Board with union toadies – through recess appointments if necessary – would have Big Labor’s seal of approval. But they’re greedy and chagrined that ‘card check’ didn’t pass when Congress was fully in Democratic hands.
And now Big Labor has to worry about things at the state level. It’s the focus of a report by the Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch project co-authored by Ivan Osorio and Trey Kovacs. And to bear this out, remember that even the union-friendly Martin O’Malley was booed at this supposedly friendly gathering because he wanted to tinker with teacher pensions.
Yet Big Labor suffers from the same problem that any member of a broad coalition of special interests runs into when the Democratic Party seizes power – everybody wants everything they asked for all at once, no matter how noxious. Abortionists want easier access to abortions paid for by Uncle Sam, the gay lobby equates their cause with the civil rights movement and wants laws passed accordingly, gun grabbers want to flout the Second Amendment even more, and so on and so forth. Unions just don’t like taking their place in a long line of liberal special interest groups.
And the key question is: where else can they go? Like those on the conservative side who occasionally express their disgust with the GOP and threaten to boycott the next election if so-and-so is nominated, Big Labor is pretty much stuck with the one who brung them to the dance. They’ve obviously alienated themselves from Republicans, a party they bash mercilessly despite the fact a significant portion of their rank-and-file members vote that way at the ballot box, so I don’t doubt they’ll eventually suck it up and drop millions into the Democratic coffers because there’s nowhere else for them to turn politically. And the fact Big Labor still confiscates huge sums of money for political purposes via union dues means that, somewhere along the line, they and the Democrats will mend fences. It’s all about the Benjamins to both players in that game.
So don’t be surprised to see Big Labor make a push for a more liberal strain of Democrats to replace the ones they feel betrayed them in both state and national races. After all, if they can continue to play the class envy game with any success they’ll always dupe a few useful idiots into pulling the lever for their allies in the Democrat Party, even if they’ll hold their nose a little in the process. As long as President Obama is in office, their goals will be advanced regardless of means.
This will be quite the multimedia post as I have plenty of material to go with my observations.
The parade of unionistas was slated to begin at the Navy stadium, so there were staging units set up at that location.
Buses were ready to take the protesters down to Lawyers Mall.
We also parked at the stadium but we opted to take the city’s shuttle downtown. Our little band arrived onscene about 4:30, and a few hardy protesters were already there.
There were instructions given to us by organizer Ann Corcoran, mostly dealing with where we would be placed. Once the street was barricaded, we could go off the sidewalk.
We were shunted off to the side, adjacent to the House of Delegates office building. Meanwhile, the unions were busy getting their site built.
They also had their own security, dressed up in fluorescent orange vests.
By 5:30, people were beginning to congregate in Lawyers Mall. Remember, we were placed well behind and to the side of the venue.
But the busses dropped off some protesting teachers and others where we were standing. It made for some interesting interaction.
This video was shot when the Baltimore City teachers arrived. Notice how the union security positioned themselves, watching our group.
This was our message, in part.
And while they had preprinted Astroturf signs in varying colors, mostly saying “Keep the Promise,” we had more creativity. Here’s a series of our posters.
This lady was two-sided.
Pictures convey a message too.
So do socks.
We are a union too?
But some of their side had a little creativity too.
In the last picture, the gentleman was talking to an enterprising high school reporter who was collecting a lot of information from both sides (he had been among our group earlier.) Needless to say, there was a lot of media there.
That crew from WJZ in Baltimore alternated sides between theirs and ours. But if you got passionate, they would find you. Watch this.
This guy was a squeaky wheel as well. I think he was in my Baltimore teachers video above.
I even got my picture taken by AOL News (see update below.) They interviewed our side too, so we can’t complain too much about the amount of coverage.
And we are pretty media-savvy to boot.
In case you’re wondering where all the people came from, bear in mind that busses continually arrived and dropped off 50 or so people, like this group.
By 6:00 Lawyers Mall was comfortably full.
But the main group arrived a little after 6. The picture is the front of the parade, while the video is about 8 minutes’ worth of them passing by.
The lady with the upside-down sign amused me, but the number of kids was disheartening. Talk about being used as props.
Once they arrived, the speakers started (not that we could see or hear anything from our vantage point) and the two sides were separated. That’s where some of the fun I detailed above began.
Aside from words, though, there was no violence. There was even some capitalism among union ranks, like this guy selling buttons.
I have Wisconsin solidarity – I stand with Governor Walker.
Nor was it just a button seller. There was someone pushing hard-line socialist books (took the picture but it didn’t come out) and at union events it also seems the LaRouchites come out.
He was passing out a flyer talking about a general strike and return to Glass-Stegall laws, along with exhorting us to combat the British conspiracy. Yeah, those people are sort of nuts so it was just the right element for them.
And while it wasn’t as bad as other rallies, there was plenty of trash!
You know, no one got us a chicken sandwich for dinner! Sounds like a sweet gig – maybe that’s why they got several thousand. Gee, you would think the Koch brothers would have plied us with free food.
But the biggest question I have yet to hear the answer for is: what was the promise? It’s unfortunate that the unions and government colluded to tell workers the gravy train was never-ending but the money isn’t there. We can’t provide 40 acres and a mule, either. And our message was clear: “state workers yes, unions no.”
As a matter of fact, if the teachers were upset about how they’ve been treated in our recent budgets, they have only one person to blame: Martin O’Malley. In Maryland, try as they might, Republicans can’t cut the budget because the Democrats control the purse strings – our budget maximum is set by the governor and any Republican ideas for frugality don’t make it through the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. So if teacher pensions are in trouble, they are blaming the wrong people and party.
In all honesty, we knew we would be horribly outnumbered: the old game show 1 vs. 100 had nothing on this. Surely some on the other side were in it for the free food, and others thought they were making a point or even sticking a thumb in the eye of the TEA Party. But all the bloviating doesn’t change the reality that we are simply out of money. Raising taxes isn’t the solution because the returns will constantly diminish – just look at what occurred when we enacted the “millionaire’s tax.” Instead of raking in millions, we lost money.
But take away the free food and bus trip, and I wonder how many would have still shown up to stand up for an outmoded system that has outlived its usefulness. We drew several dozen people to speak our minds without any of those advantages, and may have done better had the protest occurred on a weekend. (A lot of those who might be on our side were also in Annapolis, but they were present for the March for Life. One of those riding with us came for that specific event and didn’t stay at our rally.)
One final aside: I was told that Delegate Maggie McIntosh, a strong backer of the gay marriage bill, lamented the demise of the bill and compained that if six additional Republican delegates hadn’t been elected last year the bill would have made it through. More proof elections mean things and our votes make an impact, even if we have a small minority in the General Assembly.
We had a tiny minority yesterday evening, too, but the truth and facts are on our side so we will eventually prevail. It’s only a matter of how much damage is done beforehand.
Update: the camera indeed caught me at the rally. Thanks to photographer Teresa McMinn of AOL News for the link, and don’t forget to read the coverage from the Annapolis Patch.
