Mr. Brett McMahon - VP Miller & Long on the EFCA

I spoke with Mr. McMahon, VP of Business Development at Miller & Long Concrete Construction and he gave permission to reprint his article in it's entirety.

I'm an outsider with no ties to Miller & Long and in fact, never heard of the company until a couple of days ago. The Internet is a wonderful thing and information is at everyones fingertips. What about Miller & Long?

First, you can Google "Miller & Long Concrete Construction" and find NOTHING negative, other than posts by LASER, Inc. (Legal And Safety Employee Research) publishing on The Concrete Facts. Call me skeptical but these folks run slick, professional websites and I suspect I'll have to "follow the money" to see where the bias's are. Not for a second do I believe it's all "public service". I take the lack of negative information as a pretty good sign the company is doing business the right way.

The company was formed in 1947 (the year I was born :-) and is now the largest concrete contractor in the U.S. Miller & Long has received numerous awards including the Engineering News Record Number One Concrete Construction Company in the U.S. for the last four years in a row. I know nothing about concrete but it seems pretty impressive to me.

I'll sum up my feelings by saying I see a profitable company, in business for 62 years, with thousands of employees, being threatened because unions don't want to compete on a level playing field. If the majority (50% +1) of the employees wanted a union, they'd have one. Seems pretty simple to me.

Mr. McMahon:

The Employee Free Choice Act Could Kill My Company

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 by Brett McMahon

My company has been operating for more than sixty years — six decades — to build the American dream. We have been named America’s top concrete construction firm in four of the last five years. So take it seriously when I warn:The Employee Free Choice Act could kill my company, and many like it.

EFCA, known by many as the “card check” bill is an absolute abomination. Its card check provision would allow union organizers to harass thousands of my company’s employees. Its “binding arbitration” provision would substitute the judgment of a government-imposed busybody for decades of practical know-how developed during the building of a successful company within the free enterprise system. That’s why this fight is personal for me, my family, and thousands of our employees.

The fallout from EFCA could be severe. From a business perspective, it would make the already-difficult economy even tougher because the labor market would be much less flexible. And the notion of having the government dictate terms of private contracts is mystifying. But from an employee’s perspective, there is worry that the large economic effect of EFCA will be massive job loss.

That this issue is alive at all is a testament to the fact that workplace issues are complex and arcane. Most people have no daily experience with union organizing laws — and it’s an area that’s still misunderstood by those who do deal with the subject. Many people wrongly believe unions do not have fair access to “pitch” employees on their service. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Organized labor has relied on these misperceptions because it desperately needs to pass EFCA (or some form of it) to usher in millions of new members and their dues dollars. Of course, if a private business like mine asked the government to pass a law virtually forcing people to pay for my service, there would be unstoppable outrage (much as we have seen from citizens and editorial boards who are aware of EFCA). In part, organized labor needs to continue to fund its political operations. A lesser known concern is that many union-run pension funds have run out of sufficient membership to keep the funds solvent and, consequently, unions are seeking ways to get more people “in the door” to stay afloat.

Whatever the reason EFCA is pushed by a special interest, it is not in the interest of working Americans or the free enterprise system. We, and our elected leaders, must continue our promising fight against EFCA and any “compromise” that harms employee rights and the health of our economy.

How Low Can You Go? - New Union "Limbo"

The latest union ploy to resuscitate card check? Use the billions held in member pension funds to intimidate Wall Street into supporting that piece of garbage legislation. 

Ben Smith of Politico exposed the scheme in his May 23rd, 2009 post after Politico obtained a copy of the March 9th letter and questionnaire signed by local President Carl Pecoraro and Secretary-Treasurer Al Mixon of Teamster Local 507. 

Good job guys; to hell with any fiduciary duty to manage the funds for the benefit of the members ; use the funds to advance to your own power grap ploy - Jimmy would have been proud.

I wonder what's in the Local 507 LM-2's?

Good, Bad & Ugly News

Labor union find themselves card-checkmated

Tom Hamburger Los Angles Times May 19th, 2009

Good! The so called Employee Free Choice Act was a horrible idea from the start. Time to drive a wooden stake through it's cold black heart and send it back to the deepest pits of hell where it was spawned.

The American people and their legislators have shown they have more common sense than the hucksters, union toadies, flim-flam artist and riff-raff gave them credit for. Let those miscreants crawl back into their vermin infested sewers and try to come up with a different way to screw the American worker.

Treasury may own 72.5% of GM

Tom Krisher & Kimberly S. Johnson AP May 29th, 2009

The public would own 72.5%, UAW 17.5%, "old" GM (bond holders) 10%, current stockholders 0%

Fantastic idea! The citizenry, government and UAW in partnership to form the new lean, mean car-buildin' machine, Government Motors (GM). I can't wait to get me one of them beauties (above left) as soon as it comes of the assembly line.

I would suggest to President Obama that he immediately set up a new executive level Department of Central Planning to manage the new company and all the other companies the citizens will own in the near future. The centralized production planning concept worked so well in the old Soviet Union, I can't wait to see it in action here. I know we can do it even better than them pinko commie bastards did!

Automakers Struggles May Cost 6 Million Jobs, Metalworkers Union Says

Mitchell Jaworski All headline News May 25th, 2009

The Metalworkers are the International Metalworkers' Federation with eight 

U.S. affiliates. It will be a horrible tragedy if Marcello Malentacchi's fears are realized.

Certainly most of the blame must go to the crappy Big Three management but is it possible that the UAW, and perhaps other unions, played some small role in creating the current crisis? To paraphrase (butcher) Mark Twain - "The news of a economic recovery is greatly exaggerated"

th, th, th - that's all folks

Right-To-Work v. Union Security (Protection) Clause

There are currently 22 right-to-work states. That leaves (of course :-) 28 states and the District of Columbia with laws that allow a union security or protection clause. I don't know if the average worker is "better off" in one environment or the other but I don't want anyone, union or anti-union, to try and force-feed me any crap.

It's 2009 and as a thinking person, I have to ask: "If unions are such a great deal for me, why do they insist on laws allowing my employer to deduct money from my paycheck just so I can keep my job?" I won't even comment on the (choke, gasp) "Employee Free Choice Act", the most blatant, self-serving bucket of chicken manure ever proposed. Thankfully, it's starting to look like it's on life-support and it's only a matter of time till the plug is pulled.

I make many other decisions on how to spend my money, why not allow me that choice also? I promise, that if a union offered me something of value I couldn't get on my own, I'd gladly authorize a payroll deduction to them.

The amount of money the unions spend to protect the unions is staggering! Long ago, I belonged to the B.S.A. and even as poor as my parents were, always found the ten cents a week to pay my dues. Is it possible that the difference between the B.S.A. and the unions, is that the B.S.A. has adult leadership?

My challenge to all the so-called labor leaders, looking out only for the welfare of the "down-trodden" worker: "Quit hiding behind the cowardly Federal/State protection laws and compete like a (wo)man!". It would earn my respect.