Obama’s Stimulus for Unions

Stimulating the economy isn’t nearly as important to President Obama as putting federal dollars into the pockets of his union cronies. Because of Obama’s PLA Executive Order, thousands of jobs are going to unions in states that have few union members.

The Washington Times, for instance, reports that Obama has grandiosely given a $35 million federal construction project to the New Hampshire. But there are strings attached, strings that pull federal pay levers for the exclusive benefit of unions.

In February Obama signed Executive Order 13202 that demanded that project labor agreements be forced on every federal construction project. These PLAs would demand that federal construction projects either hire union labor or pay all workers union wages. Of course, as these non-union workers are getting union wages the government will also be deducting union dues from their paychecks regardless of whether said worker is in a union or not. This is little else than a direct transfer of federal money to union coffers.

And what of this New Hampshire project? Well, the PLA is in play as a matter of course. This $35 million federal construction project will either employ an all-union workforce, or force contractors to pay union wages to non-union workers as well as remove dues fees from said workers.

So what, you might ask? Won’t this help the job situation in New Hampshire? Perhaps a bit, but what it will do is illicitly give unions tons of cash for no reason. After all, according to the Washington Times only has 8.7 percent of New Hampshire’s construction workforce is unionized. This means that the largest number of New Hampshire’s construction workers will not see jobs from this project and if they do they will find their paychecks docked for union dues even though they are not officially in the union. Additionally, it is highly doubtful that any of these non-union workers will ever see any benefits from dues and pension payments that they might make while employed on the federal project.

But even worse than that, these forced union sops will drive up the costs of the project, cause delays, and fill the pockets of corrupt union officials. So the federal dollars going to these projects will not be cost effective. It should be also remembered that these projects are being funded by the taxpayers.

In the end, this is neither about jobs, nor stimulus. In truth, this is simply a massive payoff from Obama to his supporters in the unions made at the expense of the national treasury as well as the exclusion of New Hampshire’s successful small businessmen.