The Employee Rights Act would reduce union exploitation of workers

[Omaha Steve]

Keep in mind this is written by an anti-union thug. X post in Labor & GD

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/4/richard-berman-employee-rights-act-in-congress-can/

By Richard Berman - - Sunday, January 4, 2015
While the resolution of Election Day was clear, the New Year’s resolutions of elected legislators are anything but. That’s not to say Americans haven’t been united in what they’re after — poll after poll shows an electorate desperate for real economic improvement. It’s just that members of Congress are divided on how to get there.

This year, there’s an easy place to start: improving employee rights.

Not all legislators agree on the best way to achieve this. One group, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and her acolytes, has called for a renewed focus on unionization. Yet economic evidence suggests that on average, unions are bad long-term bargains for employees. Economists find that unions tend to make businesses less competitive and less profitable, as their demands reduce the ability to hire, expand and invest.

Such findings haven’t stopped the activist National Labor Relations Board, which has made a series of dramatic changes to labor law in an attempt to stem the historic drop in private-sector unionization.

FULL story at link.

[dballance]

1. I don't bother reading anything the Washington Times prints. /nt

[prairierose]

2. I absolutely Agee with you...

Propaganda from that rag is only so we know what lies they are telling. I can not believe they are trying to sell such crap.

[delrem]

3. Of course, a point of propaganda has to be that unions are "anti-employee".

But come on, people!

First and most important of all, the existence of unions has little if anything to do with Elizabeth Warren, or any individual politician.

Unions were fought for with the blood, sweat and tears of generations of workers and that history can never be unwritten.
For all the evil politics that attaches to unions, as attaches to *every* democratic endeavour just because of the diverse nature of the general population, the one enduring *point* of unions, the reason for their existence, is to empower employees of huge corporate and gov't conglomerates.

As Cockburn sings, "and they call it democracy"

[TBF]

4. I read this far:

Yet economic evidence suggests that on average, unions are bad long-term bargains for employees. Economists find that unions tend to make businesses less competitive and less profitable, as their demands reduce the ability to hire, expand and invest.

BS.

[Omaha Steve]

5. CNBC a few years ago had a problem

They couldn't name any unionized companies that were profitable/successful during a segment.

Seems they forgot parent company GE is heavily unionized.

[TBF]

7. Selective memory ...

I'm not at all surprised by that.

[Starry Messenger]

6. Humane Society has an FAQ on Rick Berman.

Their witty ad on Google is BermanExposed, which will make you chuckle if you've ever encountered his web astroturf. I had no idea he'd gone after the Humane Society. He is truly pond scum.

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/opposition/facts/faq_berman_hssp12162011.html

More on "Dr. Evil" (whom I have seen DUers rashly quote from in their hurry to support their anti-union bigotry...!)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Berman_%26_Co.

"Rick Berman created EPI in 1991 to "argue the importance of minimum wage jobs for the poor and uneducated."[4] But in 2013-14, Berman and his Employment Policy Institute are leaders in a national campaign against the minimum wage, that includes TV ads, print ads, op-ed in state newspapers and more.[5]

The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) is headed by Richard Berman according to tax filings. It shares the same office as Berman's PR firm and it funnels money to the PR firm as the New York Times reported in a front page story in 2014: "the Employment Policies Institute has no employees of its own. Mr. Berman’s for-profit advertising firm, instead, “bills” the nonprofit institute for the services his employees provide to the institute. This arrangement effectively means that the nonprofit is a moneymaking venture for Mr. Berman, whose advertising firm was paid $1.1 million by the institute in 2012, according to its tax returns, or 44 percent of its total budget, with most of the rest of the money used to buy advertisements." [6]

In 2013-2014, EPI has become a primary industry attack dog, fighting minimum wage as dangerous to the economy, fighting living wages and advocating a low road economic development policy."

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