Jimmy Hoffa wants me to do the right thing and join his union to protect the environment

From The Daily Caller:

President Barack Obama’s administration is using new “environmental standards” to force independent owner-operator truckers into becoming part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union that gave more than $2 million to Democrats in the last two election cycles.

By increasing the number of “green” requirements truckers have to comply with in order to get into some major United States ports — like Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland — the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are helping push previously independent truckers into companies, which then makes them vulnerable to unionization or, in many cases, forced to join a union.

I love, love, love the word "green". 

Please allow me to explain the word "green" as it was used in Annus Horribilis 2010. 
There are no environmentally friendly trucks, skyscrapers, houses, shopping bags, cars, kitty litters, or restaurants.  But if you are willing to employ favored companies, support favored programs, or manufacture products using materials and processes that favor certain political constituencies, you can be awarded the "green" label.  

Purchasing a Prius, eating at a restaurant that has napkins and tablecloths made of recycled tampons, or eating Locavore bananas grown in a greenhouse with a bigger carbon footprint than Al Gore's house - none of these things do diddly squat to protect the environment.  The costs and environmental impacts of greenie production are so ridiculous and so expensive that they defeat the purpose.  "Green" is nothing but marketing with a light sprinkling of Ultra-Wholesome Big Brotherism.
It makes you feel better and creates more power for Uncle Sam.   

As these aren’t administrative laws from the EPA per se, trucks that don’t fit this new “green” standard, which is meeting at least 2007 EPA emissions levels, are still allowed to operate throughout the country. But each of the major port authorities won’t let them in if they don’t fit the new environmental regulations, which would force many independent truckers out of business if they resist since many truckers depend on business from the ports to survive.

Most of this silliness is centered around the Port Of Long Beach, California.  Getting a truck in and out of California now requires about as much hassle, paperwork and graft as getting a Chinese orphan out of Beijing. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, recently opened a West Coast warehouse.  West Coast, West Coast, West Coast....what city did we choose?  L.A.?  San Francisco?  Sacramento?  San Diego?  

Nope.  Phoenix, Arizona.  My employers are not silly people, despite being educated at Baylor University.  Nobody in his right mind would open something in California under current conditions. 

Alex Cherin, an attorney who represents a trucker advocacy group opposed to these forced unionization attempts, told The Daily Caller the Teamsters have been trying to get independent truckers classified as employees of a company for years because “under federal labor law, they [the Teamsters] cannot unionize independent contractors.”

“They [the Teamsters] see this as their window of opportunity,” Cherin said in a phone interview. “They know that most drivers want to stay independent contractors to keep their freedom, but that many can’t afford these new ‘green trucks.’ They want to piggyback their agenda onto an environmental initiative.”

There is is again.  The Baptists And Bootleggers thing.  In this case, the Teamsters are the Bootleggers and the Environmentalists are the Baptists.  Here's an explanation:

The bootleggers like prohibition because it gets rid of competitors. But a politican who wants to listen to the bootleggers needs a more high-minded cause to sell to the public. The Baptists give the politicians cover with the argument that drink is from the devil—it leads to social unrest, unemployment, higher social costs and so on.

If you buy into the idea that carbon emissions are evil, then no one other organization emits more evil than the Teamsters.  But they're claiming to fight evil by keeping the independent truckers out of the ports. 

You gotta love it. 

Cherin said the Teamsters has been pushing unionization more and more lately, and it has “really heated up with the ‘green trucks’ program.” He said that the air in Southern California is cleaner as a result of the program, but that this is really a unionizing effort disguised in a “green” initiative.

Americans for Limited Government spokesman Rick Manning said this effort is definitely driven by labor unions, especially since the leader of the Teamsters, Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., is pushing it.

Aw that makes it all better, doesn't it?  When I think of "wholesome", "green", and "little Disney bluebirds flitting about my recycling bin", I can't help but think of the Hoffas, and I hope that Jimmy Senior is now composting nicely.   

Hoffa, Jr., the current president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and son of the infamously “disappeared” union boss Jimmy Hoffa, alluded to his real intent with the program while advocating on behalf of the new “green truck” rules in a Huffington Post blog.

“We want the trucking companies to buy and maintain clean new trucks,” Hoffa, Jr. wrote in March 2010.

Oh for God's sake.  Just because the demon spawn of Jimmy Hoffa wants me to buy new trucks doesn't mean I should have any obligation to do so.  Folks, I can get your crap delivered from Point A to Point B at less cost with the tractors I already have. 

And please spare me any of the "green" bullshit that they're using to justify these power grabs.  If the American trucking industry were to allow you to run out of, say, toilet paper for three days?  You would burn Al Gore at the stake, and not think twice about the environmental impact of the grease fire.  
One little product shortage is all it would take to end this entire farce.  Lord hasten the day.     

“We also want them to pay their truck drivers a fair wage and the employment taxes that go with it."

If I can find a driver willing to haul a load for the amount that I'm willing to pay, then that's a "fair wage".  I don't need the rent-seeking bastard of Jimmy Hoffa telling me what is and isn't right. 

The trucking companies would prefer the federal government protect them from those obligations.”

Who died and left Jimmy Hoffa in charge of my obligations?  Do you have an obligation to pay your yard service, your baby sitter, the guy who changes your oil, your grocery store, your drug dealer, etc. a "fair wage"?  Yeah.  You pay them as little as the market will bear.  That's the fair wage  When they want more, you start checking out competitors.  That's what people do.  That's what Jimmy Hoffa, Barack Obama, Joehn Boehner, The Pope, and Oprah do.   

These new “green trucks” cost more than $100,000 and, to meet the “green” requirements, truckers have to join companies and, by extension, the Teamsters union.

That is stretching it just a little.  Truckers don't "have to join companies".  Yet.  But to meet the massive regulatory burden it's very difficult for an independent trucker to make it these days.  Go here to learn about Uncle Sam's latest regulatory brain fart called CSA 2010.   This thing makes driving across town the equivalent of a genius level Sudoku puzzle. 

The government has had to delay implementation of CSA 2010 for at least a year because they can't get their computer systems to work properly. 

The trucking industry, however, will be expected to comply immediately when the government is ready.  Lots of independent truckers will give up and go work for Jimmy Hoffa.  After all, he's the one who is getting what he paid for. 

That's the end of my rant.  I feel better now. 

The pics of the kickbacks came from here.  The hostility toward unions came from working at with the union guys at trade shows here.   The Daily Caller's main page can be found here.  My hostility toward the Teamsters evolved slowly.  It would've happened quicker except for the influence of my friend Frank.  A couple of the other Teamsters at Frank's company require three attempts to back up to a toilet, much less a freight dock.   

Card Check vs. Secret Ballots

A monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly.
It doesn't matter if the monopoly is in sugar, corn, or computer operating systems. Monopolies are harmful. They harm consumers by preventing lower-priced goods from entering the market. (Do a bit o' Googling on the words "Sugar" and "Fanjul".)
It doesn't even matter if monopolies are related to labor. Labor unions are monopolies. The only way they can be effective? Keep out everyone who is willing to do the job for less. (Do a bit o' Googling on the words "Hoffa" and "Teamsters".)

Back during the campaign season, [the President-elect] vowed that he would pass something called Card Check:

EFCA (The hilariously named Employee Free Choice Act, AKA Card Check) requires employers to recognize a union— without an election—once organizers collect cards from a majority of employees. Indeed, the act states that once the union submits signatures from over 50 percent of the employees to the NLRB, it must certify the union without an election. Under EFCA, holding a secret ballot election once unions collect cards from a majority of workers would become illegal.
Additionally, a card-check–only recognition pro­cess strips workers of their privacy. Polls show that most Americans strongly oppose denying workers the privacy of the voting booth when deciding whether to join a union. In response to such criti­cism, unions now argue that EFCA does not end secret ballot elections. Instead, proponents argue that EFCA gives workers the choice between orga­nizing using public card-check or private elections.
Unions make this claim because union organiz­ers can call for an organizing election after cards have been signed by at least 30 percent of employ­ees. Since card-check recognition under EFCA occurs after organizers submit cards signed by a majority of workers, secret ballot elections could— in theory—occur under EFCA if organizers submit­ted cards signed by 30 to 50 percent of workers.
In practice this scenario will not happen. Noth­ing in the legislation gives workers any control over what organizing method unions use. That decision is left to union organizers. Organized labor's well-documented preference for card-check recognition makes it clear that EFCA effectively eliminates secret ballot elections.

In other words, union organizers have a choice between going the Secret Ballot Route, or the Card Check Route. Here's why:

Those are almost the EXACT words I heard from a Teamster driver when we were discussing this issue last week. The absence of secret ballot allows fear, intimidation, and peer pressure to enter the picture, a fact that is conspicuously absent from most of the mainstream media coverage of Card Check.

Organizers can simply go from employee to employee with either a petition or cards. They can get the employee drunk. They can tell the employee that he's signing a football betting pool. They can do whatever is necessary to get a signature on that document. Once they hit the magic 51 %, it's over. No secret ballot. No right to privacy.

If one political party or the other were to advocate eliminating secret ballots in general political elections? You would've heard a lot more about the right to privacy. Whether it's fair or not, unions gave more than 80 million dollars in support of the [President-elect] so they could get this card check thing put into play, and they're going to want something for their money.

But enough about Card Check.

There are two ways to move large quantities of large freight. Truckload (TL) and Less-Than-Truckload (LTL). Truckload carriers usually carry large amounts of freight directly from point A to point B. The freight usually isn't unloaded or transferred from trailer to trailer. The driver who picks the stuff up is often the one who delivers it to the final destination. Truckload carriers are more difficult for unions to organize, simply because One Driver in One Truck doesn't require much of a supporting cast and doesn't spend much time socializing with the breakroom lawyers at the freight dock.
LTL freight is picked up in smaller quantitites. One driver will often drive around the same area every day, gathering as much freight as possible from multiple shipping locations. He then delivers it to a central terminal, where it is sorted by state/zip code, and put onto other trucks going in that same general direction. All of that freight moves to the next "break bulk" terminal, where it is sorted one more time by destination. One pallet of merchandise might be on 6 different trucks if it had to go from Key West to Seattle. Large numbers of LTL employees work in the same location every day. They clock in and clock out, unlike their TL counterparts. Therefore, they've been much easier for the unions to take over.

As I understand it, almost all LTL carriers were once organized by The Teamsters Union. Therefore, most of them are now out of business.

But their former employees are still entitled to payments from The Teamsters' Pension Fund. (For an insane amount of info on this, read The Teamsters, by Stephen Brill.)

The U.S. is left with four LTL carriers burdened with the blessings of Teamster drivers: Yellow, Roadway, USF, and ABF.
Yellow Freight purchased Roadway in 2003. Then they bought USF. (Or maybe they did it earlier. I've always had difficulty getting USF to show up on time, and don't use them if I can help it.) The new Yellow/Roadway/USF conglomerate is called YRC Worldwide, and they're having issues. They're having to re-negotiate their Teamsters contract.

Here's Bill Zollars, president of YRC Worldwide: "This modification would address our operating cost structure, which is higher than a number of companies in our industry, due primarily to pension plan funding obligations. Funding pensions for our own Teamsters employees is affordable; however, paying for all the retirees and former employees of failed companies as required under our current plans makes us less competitive."
While working on a longer-term solution to this issue, YRC Worldwide is seeking immediate cost savings through proposed changes for the remainder of the contract including:

-- 10 percent reduction in all wages paid, inclusive of scheduled
increases
-- Suspension of Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA)

In exchange, Teamsters employees would receive a 15 percent ownership stake in YRC Worldwide allowing them to share in future company performance through stock price appreciation. The details of this plan are still being finalized. Contributions to the health, welfare and pension plans would continue as previously negotiated.

Why are The Teamsters being so accomodating to YRC Worldwide? Because if YRC goes belly up, that leaves ABF as the only LTL carrier paying money into the pension fund. The Teamsters pension fund is just like Social Security, the Bernie Madoff ripoffs, or any other Ponzi scheme. The continued health of the fund relies on finding new suckers to contribute money to the fund.

So, according to my Teamster buddy, they'll soon be voting on whether or not to take this pay cut in exchange for a 15% share of YRC Worldwide. Here's the Teamsters For A Democratic Union website:

The final decision will be made by YRC Teamsters, because Article 12, Section 2 of the IBT Constitution requires a secret-ballot vote to amend the national contract.

What ???

The final decision will be made by YRC Teamsters, because Article 12, Section 2 of the IBT Constitution requires a secret-ballot vote to amend the national contract.

Did that say "secret ballot vote"? What ??? Surely that's a typo. Nope. Here's a blog called The Union Label, regarding a recent Teamster publication:

On the inside back-cover, in a special “Election Supervisor’s Report to IBT Members,” Richard W. Mark explains that “Every member has the right to vote their own ballot in secret” in the upcoming election of union leaders. Yet on Page 28, the headline boasts: “Winning With Card-Check.”

So.... James Hoffa Jr., the son of the still-absent Jimmy Hoffa Sr., is presently in charge of The Teamsters. Why would a Hoffa supporter or opponent insist on the anonymity of a secret ballot?

Sounds like they could use some Card Check.

Cartoon from RedPlanetCartoons.