Bret Jacobson is a leading communications specialist with extensive experience in devising and executing high-impact, research-based national advocacy campaigns. His work has been covered by radio, television, and new media, as well as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and major regional and local news outlets. In January 2008, Bret launched Maverick Strategies LLC to assist businesses and their advocates in improving the effectiveness of their communications capabilities. Prior to founding Maverick Strategies, Bret co-founded the Center for Union Facts, overseeing that organization's research activities, guiding its communications, launching its new-media capabilities, and helping plan its strategic national advertising and earned-media campaigns. Bret is frequently quoted by media outlets as an expert on the modern labor movement and speaks to free market advocacy organizations on effective opposition and issue research. Bret blogs at TheChillingEffect.org and is a graduate of the University of Oregon.
Bret Jacobson
Ergo Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
by Bret JacobsonSome want to regulate what you eat, some want to regulate what you say, and some want to regulate how you type your TPS reports.
Those around long enough to remember the 1990’s will grumble to recall the battle over ergonomics regulations sought by Big Labor and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. OSHA has already taken an important step in the march to regulating ergonomics by announcing its plan to require employers to keep records of ill-defined “musculo-skeletal disorders.” It announced today that the deadline for filing comments is March 30.
What’s a musculo-skeletal disorder? It isn’t defined well (and can and will include injuries not from work), so the eventual outcome is a flood of new “injuries” all kept in one big umbrella category. Remember: injuries are already recorded; now the government would have an additional statistic to urge regulatory action. Want the gist of the problem: at Maverick Strategies, we put this together:
Want to file a comment with OSHA? There’s still time (go here). But, you’d better be in the right position when typing…
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Shame On You, Big Labor
by Bret JacobsonThere are serious protests going on in Albuquerque by a local Carpenters union. But one company is fighting back and the story is starting to get interesting. It turns out things aren’t exactly as they seem:
So temp employees without benefits are being hired by a union to protest a company that offers good wages and benefits? As Tony The Tiger would say, GRRREEEEEAAAAT.
Best part: the union watchman suddenly forgets English. Obviously, this is nothing new but it’s so easy to confuse people in the community who aren’t used to hearing about these kinds of campaigns.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Tides Foundation: General Support, Major Concern
by Bret JacobsonNot enough people know about the Tides Foundation, which is one of the original “philanthropic” donation launderers for donors who don’t want to be tied to fringe activist groups. Frankly, there’s too much to tell, but they’re the sugar daddy for ACORN (whose founder, Wade Rathke, is intricately linked within Tides official leadership).
[I'm including some grants of note below -- What will you find?]
A look at their 2008 tax return, 160-plus pages, reads like a directory of the New Left. I’ve pulled out the donations to ACORN groups and Big Labor’s Working America Education Fund (not many people know unions take in ostensibly charitable donations) and one theme is clear: “general support” seems to be a popular phrase. Another theme: notice that states receiving money are critical to election-year success for Democrats. And finally, notice just how much money is being thrown around.
ACORN, Inc – 100,000 Latino voter registration and engagement canvass
ACORN International – 100,00 general support
ACORN Institute
49,500 – general support
25,293 – general support
10,000 – general support
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Unions: Forever War
by Bret JacobsonYou’re hoping for another 1994, eh? Well, you’re not going to get it if D.C.’s biggest union bosses have their say — and they don’t just have a say, they have a checkbook to put where their mouths are. And both words and munitions are taking on an overtly combative tone.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting:
The AFL-CIO plans to roll out its biggest political campaign ever, surpassing the $53 million spent in 2008 to help elect President Barack Obama, to try to avert a repeat of the 1994 midterm election when Democrats lost a majority in Congress.
If that sounds a bit aggressive, that’s nothing compared to the powerful head of the AFSCME public employee union, who is saying “The time has come to draw a line in the sand…Regardless of your party affiliation, if you’re not with us, you are against us.”
(We’re pretty sure we’ve seen other people get hammered for using the same language, but we digress…)
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Buy American, Eh?
by Bret JacobsonYou remember the iconic call by American labor to “look for the union label” (and ignore the price tag)? Well, U.S. union officials have turned to a new slogan, calling for “Buy American” provisions of bailout and stimulus legislation.
In fact, the AFL-CIO labor federation is highlighting its new website, which it says “gives workers, people who have lost their jobs and activists a chance to take action, share their stories, find resources and, most importantly, be part of a grassroots movement to help the nation climb out of its 10-million jobs hole created by the recession.”
But what if those people lost their jobs to Canada? Perhaps it would be best if union bosses stopped being hosers and checked their own Internet host, where the IP address resolves to our brothers in the Great White North (Oh Canada!). We ran this trace from Washington, D.C. to the AFL-CIO’s website:
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
View of Unions ‘Plummeted’ Since 07
by Bret JacobsonAccording to Pew, “Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions’ purpose and power.”
(click here for more polls on union officials)
One hates to surmise, but it seems probable such a shift comes from such little things as crippling the Big 3, pushing card check on working Americans, cutting disgusting deals to exempt their members from a new tax on healthcare plans, pimping ACORN, and just being all-around-un-swell guys.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Your Neighbor Hearts Socialism
by Bret Jacobson… at least that’s what the latest Gallup numbers would suggest: “Socialism Viewed Positively by 36% of Americans”
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Big Government Too Far In Business’s Business
by Bret JacobsonWe’ve been discussing the Democrats’ scheme to shift to a regulatory agenda. Gallup says that might not meet with much approval, as “Americans Leery of Too Much Gov’t Regulation of Business.”
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
ACTION ITEM: Block Card Check By Fiat
by Bret JacobsonCard check is looking dead at the ballot box because politicians know it makes for terrible politics. But President Obama’s administration is turning to clever, quiet regulatory efforts to push through Big Labor’s agenda — and the first item on the agenda is today’s hearing for the man who would impose card check by fiat.
What can you do? Call your Senator now (202-224-3121) to oppose Craig Becker for the National Labor Relations Board.
Why: Today’s hearing is for Craig Becker, a top SEIU and AFL-CIO lawyer who hates that employers can talk to their employees about little things … like union dues, unions punishing employees who don’t picket, things like that. BG blogger Rick Manning has noted previously:
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Unions’ Unfair PLAy in California
by Bret JacobsonSome elected leaders in California are coming up on a tough decision: do they do what’s right for taxpayers, or take from the poor and give to rich union officials?
The story: Working Americans — taxpayers — have taken it on the chin in a tough economy. And now union are increasingly pushing special-interest laws known as “project labor agreements” that ensure that taxpayer-funded projects cost more because they can only use union labor. (watch video for a good explanation of the issue)
Now officials in Riverside, California are looking to slap a costly project labor agreement (see here) on $350 million of construction efforts at the community college district. This after they have have already raised tuition by 30 percent this year passed a major tax increase. Not to load you down with math but PLA’s add about 20 percent in costs — meaning that tuition goes up, taxes go up to pay for the construction bond, and unions skim about $50 million in added costs.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Which Senators Are Terrorists, SEIU?
by Bret JacobsonFollowing up on our post yesterday, the Workforce Fairness Institute has this video asking SEIU boss Andy Stern which Senators does he think are terrorists.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
SEIU Calls Senators ‘Terrorists’
by Bret JacobsonWow, this is beyond the pale. Andy Stern has called two Senators “terrorists” for not going along with the plan to socialize the nation’s medical system. Analysis from TheTruthAboutEFCA.com:
You probably thought it was outrageous that SEIU president Andy Stern has persecuted his own members and driven away large chunks of his own organization.
You probably thought it was incredible that he dropped tens of millions of dollars on politics after leading a split in labor because the other federation was spending too much on politics.
You probably thought it was horrifying to hear how SEIU badgers — almost terrorizes — companies that don’t cave into the union’s card check demands.
Even with all that, you’ll probably still manage to be shocked that Stern has criticized Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Ben Nelson for halting disastrous health care legislation by saying, “There are a lot of terrorists in the Senate who think we are supposed to negotiate with them when they have their particular needs that they want met.”
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Where’s Our Copenhagen Souvenir?
by Bret JacobsonDrudge is pointing to this damning story to proclaim “TRIPS TO COPENHAGEN COST OVER $1,000,000… ” for Congressional trips across the pond. What did you get for it, other than the joy of sending “106 people from the House and Senate” which included “spouses, a doctor, a protocol expert and even a photographer”? Nothing. No climate deal (thankfully). While you gave the shirt off your back, you didn’t even get this:
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Missing The Mass Point
by Bret JacobsonAs Democrats are grieving their lost super-majority in Congress, some special interests are trying to spin the loss in ridiculous ways. The latest: Union boss Leo Gerard writes that “The message of Massachusetts should be clear: If Democrats want to save their own jobs in the midterm elections this fall, they must create jobs now.”
Create jobs? Create jobs?! It’s truly a fundamentally different worldview — and the kind that led Democrats off the cliff in the first place — to believe the government, rather than American entrepreneurs create jobs. (Here’s just one retort to that kind of logic.)
In one sense, there is a way Democrats could create jobs: They could quit trying to kill job-creating employers. Shred cap and trade. Hit the reset button on health care legislation. And, particularly important given the disastrous push by labor bosses, toss card check. Quit trying to force “green jobs” by killing other jobs. Stop the devastating machine of regulation from steamrolling any hope of economic recovery.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Big Government, Big Unions
by Bret JacobsonThis week brought inauspicious news: more union members work for the government than work in the private sector, “despite there being 5 times more wage and salary workers in the private sector.”***
Because of globalization, safer workplaces, Social Security, the ability to save for one’s own retirement through 401k plans, and a better-educated, more mobile workforce, only 7.2 percent of workers in the private workforce have chosen to join a union.
Compare that to the world of government employment, where there is no employer to tell people why a union might not be best for them (we’re the employer, but we’re a little busy with our day jobs) and you get 37.4 percent of government workers paying dues. All told, that’s 7.9 million that we pay and 7.4 million paid by people who actually create wealth.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
You Decide: Dems’ Level of Grief
by Bret JacobsonA friend drew my attention to the seven stages of successful grieving, the first few of which sound an awful lot like the whining, recriminations, and bargaining we’ve heard since Democrats lost their super-majority after Scott Brown won the special election for Massachusetts’s open Senate seat.
So, here are the 7 stages. See Which sound familiar from recent articles, and which steps to healing (our nation and our budget) Democrats need to walk:
- SHOCK & DENIAL
- PAIN & GUILT
- ANGER & BARGAINING
- “DEPRESSION”, REFLECTION, LONELINESS
- THE UPWARD TURN
- RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH
- ACCEPTANCE & HOPE
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Winners, Losers and Lessons From Tuesday
by Bret JacobsonOne would think the repudiation of the President Obama’s direct personal plea would make him the biggest loser in the wake of Tuesday’s stunning victory by Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special Senate election. But one would be wrong.
The biggest loser, of course, is Martha Coakley. It takes a choke-job of epic proportions for a Democrat to lose statewide, no less to fill the legendary Ted Kennedy’s seat. Next on the list would be the Democratic establishment, which failed to find a workable candidate under what’s as close to idea conditions as it comes. (Coakley’s spin machine was certainly happy to cast blame in that direction.)
Though the Republicans are ostensible winners, the meaning of this victory may be lost. The vote, by most accounts, was anti-Coakley and largely in opposition to D.C. Democrats’ over-reaching plans to regulate and legislate our economy into the ground.
But that buck won’t stop at the president’s desk.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
When SEIU Is The Devil At Your Doorstep
by Bret JacobsonRemember Brent Southwell, the business owner who says SEIU threatened to “kill” his company? Sadly, his experience isn’t unique. While BigGovernment.com readers have become increasingly acquainted with the tactics of unions like SEIU (and their allies in ACORN) to demonize American employers, the practice remains unknown to millions of Americans. Yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held an event in Washington to spotlight smear campaigns (known in the jargon as “corporate campaigns”).
David Bego, a business owner in Indianapolis whom my fellow BG bloggers have referenced, gave an often emotional keynote speech outlining in great detail the nightmare experience of SEIU attacking his company. After telling the union he would not sign away the secret-ballot rights of his employees, he says the union responded that it would begin its attack, warning: “We enjoy conversation, but we embrace confrontation.”
In his book, The Devil At My Doorstep (Amazon), Bego writes:
One minute, we were enjoying the fruits of our labors minding our own business, and the next attacks begin lambasting the company as a “rat contractor” that cleaned buildings dubbed “Houses of Horror” for janitors who were exploited, intimidated, threatened, and abused all in the name of corporate greed. For the first time in our history, multiple National Labor Relations Board filings, frivolous charges with questionable evidence, would be filed against us for employee rights violations and for firing union supporters as the EMS image was dragged through the mud.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Force-feeding Us Big Government
by Bret JacobsonAfter the bruising health care policy fight in America left moderate Democrats battered, they could get fried if leading big-government-type politicians keep pushing cap and trade energy rationing and taxes.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Merry Carbonless Christmas
by Bret JacobsonThis year hasn’t been kind to sensible policy, especially when it comes to energy and the environment (and efforts like “cap and trade” or a massive new energy tax to make carbon-based energy too expensive). Throw in massive new spending on health care deform, and all of a sudden it isn’t a very merry Christmas for the United States.
Maybe it’s time to start looking for the “gift receipt” on all this costly crud?
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?