RALEIGH — Since as early as January 2011, and perhaps before then, Gov. Bev Perdue’s press office has received access to confidential employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics hours if not days before its scheduled release, quite likely in violation of federal law. The governor’s staff used its early access to massage the monthly employment press release that reported jobs data to the public.

Documents and correspondence obtained by Carolina Journal show that the Division of Employment Security, formerly known as the Employment Security Commission, sent a draft of the press release each month to Perdue’s press office. The governor’s spokesmen typically rewrote the text and added a positive spin, even if the data did not support Perdue’s talking points.

The glowing quotes were attributed to Lynn Holmes, director of the employment agency, but the documents show the quotes were approved and probably written by a Perdue press aide, either Chrissy Pearson or Mark Johnson.

In several instances, DES spokesman Larry Parker cautioned Pearson or Johnson against using extraneous or unverifiable information in a release to boost Perdue’s image. At times, the Perdue communications team would push back, and the release would undergo several revisions before final publication.

While the operation may sound like a harmless effort to add political spin to the release of jobs data, sharing confidential BLS estimates while they are protected by an embargo violates a federal law barring the early release of employment data. This is no small matter: A conviction for breaching the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 carries a fine of up to $250,000, up to five years in prison, or both.

The data, including monthly estimates for current job totals, the labor force, and the unemployment rate, are produced by BLS with some minor assistance from the Labor Market Information Division of DES.

Read more here.

On Friday, RedState’s Ben Howe broke the story of the Democratic National Committee discriminating against a Charlotte-area business for the 2012 convention because its workers were not unionized.

When John told him he was not, the Committee member told him, “We were just told that we cannot accept bids unless they are from companies that are unionized.”

Politico also had another Charlotte business owner who was told the DNC was looking to use union labor for its Convention:

He was told the Convention was looking to use local contractors to run the project, but union labor to staff it — and then, he said, he was told he would have to sign an agreement stating he would use union labor for the project.

“We asked the question, how do you want to use local when no one local is unionized?” Webb told POLITICO.

Although the DNC tried to downplay its discrimination against non-union businesses by stating that any firm could bid, it implicitly acknowledge it may discriminate in the awarding of its contracts.

“The notion that the Host Committee will only allow unionized firms to bid is categorically untrue,” said Committee for Charlotte 2012 Executive Director Dan Murrey in an emailed statement. “The Committee for Charlotte 2012 encourages all firms to submit proposals for goods and services. The Committee works to have an inclusive procurement process in which all firms are welcome to bid.”

“We put a priority on goods made in America and businesses that are based in the Carolinas, party to a collective bargaining agreement, and are minority, women, disability or veteran owned,” he said. [Emphasis added.]

Shortly after denying that it was discriminating against non-union companies, the DNC chose Washington, DC-area vendor, Hargrove, Inc. (a company with a history of using union labor for its convention, trade shows and expo work) for the DNC Convention—once again discriminating against Charlotte’s union-free workforce. However, it gets worse.

Late last week, we received a tip that the DNC was forcing the downtown-Charlotte hotels to displace their own existing workers and bringing in union labor to work during the DNC Convention. While the Hyatt Place denied the rumor, numerous calls were placed to general managers at other area hotels but were not returned.

However, at the Ritz Carlton, Charlotte, where President Obama is reportedly staying during the convention, employees did confirm that they had been told they would be laid off during the convention.

Here is one of the conversations that took place over the weekend with a Ritz-Carlton employee:

Note: The individual employee’s voice was slightly altered to avoid retaliation from the Ritz Carlton management or the Democratic National Committee.

As the DNC and Mayor Foxx continue trying to dodge the issue of outsourcing Charlotte’s work to their union cronies, it is likely that more stories of Charlotte employees getting the shaft will emerge in the days, weeks and months ahead.

________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com and RedState.com

Gov. Bev Perdue’s off-the-cuff remark about suspending Congressional elections to focus on the economy went viral. Her aides tried to walk it back, calling it “hyperbole” and suggesting she was joking.

Was she? You decide.

If that was a “joke” then Gov. Perdue may have the worst sense of comic tone and timing in history.

Speaking to a Cary rotary club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.

“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that,” Perdue said. “You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”

The comment — which came during a discussion of the economy — perked more than a few ears. It’s unclear whether Perdue, a Democrat, is serious — but her tone was level and she asked others to support her on the idea.

Read her full remarks below.

“You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It’s a little bit more contentious now but it’s not impossible to try to do what’s right in this state. You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”

Read the whole thing here.

To unionists, it seemed like a drastic and unfair law, but for years it has protected the individual’s right to choose whether or not to join a union and the right to work without being forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.  In addition, it has protected the interests of the taxpayers of the state of North Carolina.

But a 2007 decision issued by a United Nations agency against the North Carolina law is back in the spotlight today, as labor unions are gearing up to use the argument in a mass campaign to repeal all currently existing Right to Work laws in response to Wisconsin’s collective bargaining outcome.

In an Emergency Labor Meeting that occurred last week in Cleveland, Ohio, nearly 100 labor leaders and activists met to construct an emergency action plan and strategy for the future to deal with what they say is an “assault on the unions.”  The meeting produced plans to hold a National Day of Action on March 12^th and again on April 4^th, as well as a “Perspectives” document that will serve as a framework for 15 key objectives.

Within the framework document are two specific objectives that are of special concern to supporters of the worker freedom movement and Right to Work laws. Labor unions and solidarity federations in the US and across the globe intend to use the UN-based International Labor Organization (ILO) decision to put pressure on US government officials and the public to repeal the Right to Work laws that exist in 22 states.

From the “Perspectives Adopted by the Emergency Labor Meeting:”

#4:  We must go to the streets to defend trade union and democratic rights, as public sector workers are now doing. The right to collective bargaining is a right enshrined in universally recognized Conventions 87 and 98 of the UN-based International Labor Organization (ILO); it is also a human right codified in the UN Charter. In fact, the United States is on trial before world public opinion for violating basic labor rights at home. The ILO ruled recently that the state of North Carolina was out of compliance with international labor standards for denying collective-bargaining rights for public sector workers, and the ILO called on North Carolina and the U.S. government to repeal this ban on collective-bargaining rights.

#14:  The call to protect the right to collective bargaining must include the demand to repeal all laws that prevent workers, such as those in the U.S. South, from having the right to bargain collectively and arrive at enforceable contracts. All laws, such as the Taft-Hartley Act, that prevent the consolidation of strong unions in the Southeast and other regions of the country must be repealed.

While the action in 2007 was not widely reported in mainstream news accounts at the time, the United Nations agency decision strongly condemned the 1959 North Carolina law and urged the US to repeal it.  Although Congress never ratified these conventions, labor leaders and activists are nonetheless invoking the ILO decision as a model for rectifying the recent Wisconsin legislature’s actions.  From the UN International Labor Organization’s April 2007 decision:

In a strongly-worded decision made public today, the International Labour Organization (ILO), an agency of the United Nations, issued an unprecedented call for the United States to “promote the establishment of a collective bargaining framework in the public sector in North Carolina,” and called specifically for the repeal of North Carolina General Statute §95-98, the state law that prohibits public employee collective bargaining.

The complaint charged the U.S. with failure to uphold its obligations, as a member state of the ILO, to protect the internationally-recognized rights of public employees in North Carolina to freedom of association and collective bargaining. North Carolina General Statute § 95-98 prohibits collective bargaining and declares any agreement between a labor union and any city, town, county, or the state to be illegal and null and void. The union alleges in the complaint that, by failing to take actions to overturn this law, the U.S. government is violating international law and ILO rules. The ILO’s decision sustains these charges.

[snip]

The complaint was investigated by the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA), its division for investigating violations of workers’ rights to form unions and collectively bargain. The U.S. government filed responses to the complaint in November 2006 and January 2007. The ILO CFA’s report concludes with the following recommendation:

The Committee[CFA] requests the [United States] Government to promote the establishment of a collective bargaining framework in the public sector in North Carolina – with the participation of representatives of the state and local administration and public employees’ trade unions, and the technical assistance of the [ILO] Office if so desired – and to take steps aimed at bringing the state legislation, in particular through the repeal of NCGS § 95-9895-98, into conformity with the freedom of association principles, thus ensuring the effective recognition of the right of collective bargaining throughout the country’s territory. The Committee requests to be kept informed of developments in this respect.

[snip]

“We are very excited and gratified that the ILO has endorsed what our union had been saying for years,” said Angaza Laughinghouse, a state worker and president of UE Local 150. “This ruling by an important body of the United Nations adds tremendous weight to the push for collective bargaining rights for all North Carolina workers. We call on Governor Mike Easley to provide leadership to bring our state into harmony with international principles of democracy and human rights for working people.”

With the recent debate in Wisconsin over collective bargaining by government employees, it is important to emphasize that there are stark differences between the public sector and private sector when it comes to the collective bargaining process for labor unions.

The public generally accepts that in the private sector, workers have the right to organize a union.  While some may challenge the functional benefits of today’s unions in the workplace, given the modern safety and employment laws that have evolved over the years, the US labor laws protecting workers’ rights to organize are clear in the private sector:

The National Labor Relations Act (the “Wagner Act”) gives private sector workers the right to choose whether they wish to be represented by a union and establishes the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold elections for that purpose. As originally enacted in 1935, the NLRA, then also known as “the Wagner Act”, makes it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers because of their union membership or retaliate against them for engaging in organizing campaigns or other “concerted activities”, to form “company unions”, or to refuse to engage in collective bargaining with the union that represented their employees.

However, despite the common misconception that union organizing and collective bargaining are inalienable rights, this is NOT the case in the public sector.

Federal law does not provide employees of state and local governments with the right to organize or engage in union activities, except to the extent that the United States Constitution protects their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association. The Constitution provides even less protection for governmental employees’ right to engage in collective bargaining: while it bars public employers from retaliating against employees for forming a union, it does not require those employers to recognize that union, much less bargain with it.

Most states provide public employees with limited statutory protections; a few permit public employees to strike in support of their demands in some circumstances. Some states, however, particularly in the South, make it illegal for a governmental entity to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with a union.

Patrick J. Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm that advances individual freedom and the rule of law in Michigan, has a great, informative post that further elaborates on this topic, titled Public-Sector Bargaining Privileges Are Not Inalienable Rights.

People frequently ask me my stance on labor union organizing, since it is a specialty area of mine.  Personally, my view is very Libertarian:  “free persons should have the right to associate or not associate in labor unions, and an employer should have the right to recognize or refuse to recognize a union.”  Above all else, however, I feel very strongly that no individual should be forced to be in a union as a condition of employment.  I have been in such situations, and have found them to be damaging to my personal morale and stagnating for my career.  My belief is that government’s first priority is to protect the rights of the individual, and by forcing a government employee to be a member of a union as part of any collective bargaining agreement when it’s applied seems to me to be a major conflict of interest.

There are a whole host of additional reasons why allowing government unions presents many conflicts of interest and creates volatile situations for local and state governments, and for the taxpayers.  They are too numerous to detail in this post; I recommend you read some of the history on public sector unionizing, including the opposition from Franklin Delano Roosevelt and former AFL-CIO president George Meany.

The propaganda from the left about public sector collective bargaining being an inalienable right, and a basic pillar of democracy is hard enough to swallow.  That labor leaders would further exacerbate an already divisive situation by attempting to use non-ratified conventions from a United Nations International Labor Agency as a pressure mechanism to override the sovereignty of our state and federal laws, including the repeal of Right to Work laws in 22 states, is absolutely shameful.

Nationwide Day of Action on March 12^th info here at Wisconsin AFL-CIO.  Also follow for Nationwide Day of Action on April 4^th.

Click here for complete list of 15 Perspectives Adopted by the Emergency Labor Meeting.

In the fight to retain his Congressional House seat, North Carolina U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (NC-2) emailed and mailed letters and newsletters from his House account last week. Observant voters noted that Etheridge used taxpayers dollars to underwrite the mailings, sending the pieces just ahead of the franking 90-day deadline before the election. Etheridge is the politician who pushed a student journalist when he was queried by the young man on a D.C. street.

Challenger Renee Ellmers, clinical director of a wound care center in Dunn, NC, is calling him on it. In an August 10th letter sent to Etheridge, Ellmers wrote:

“In every way these mailings resembled typical campaign ads, except they were paid for by taxpayers and not by your campaign.

In the text of one pamphlet you mailed you told voters you are “reducing the deficit and restoring budget discipline” in Washington. How much did this mailing (and your emailings) cost taxpayers? How many people received the mailings and emails? How can you explain writing taxpayers that you are “reducing the deficit” when you are wasting thousands of dollars of their money on political mailings to help you get reelected?”

Rep. Etheridge has more than a million dollars in his campaign account.

According to a poll of Second District voters done in June by Survey USA , 55% to 38% voting in Etheridge’s district disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Yet Etheridge voted with Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama 97% of the time, voting for every major item of the Obama agenda, including ObamaCare.

A majority of voters – 53% — in his district disapprove of the Healthcare reform legislation. Etheridge also voted for the Wall Street bailout, despite voter disapproval of 61%.

Etheridge supported Obama’s so called “stimulus” bill and trillion dollar deficit. The result: North Carolina’s employment figures are some of the bleakest in the country. Last February North Carolina’s unemployment hit a record high 11.2%, ranking 10th among States in unemployment.

Ellmers wrote at her website:

“Just like the taxpayer money Bob Etheridge voted to spend on highway signs praising the Obama stimulus plan, and the $700,000 he just defended spending on television ads defending Obamacare, Bob Etheridge has no problem spending tax dollars to try to justify his support of failed policies and record deficit spending. But the facts are not on his side and no matter how many taxpayer funded letters he sends to district voters, he will not be able to run away from his record.”

Last week, Democrat Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC2) attended a fundraiser headlined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He was asked by some students on the street whether he supported the “Obama Agenda.” He didn’t take it well.

Expect more of this. The hard, progressive left captured the Democrat majority in Congress and forced them to enact a fantasy grab-bag of legislation that is increasingly unpopular with the American public. We’re on the cusp of a deeper recession, millions of unemployed Americans have no prospect for work, taxes are about to spike higher and we’ve maxed out the national credit card. The Democrats were given a chance to run government and they’ve only succeeded in running it into the ground.

So, yeah, Democrats who are up for reelection this November are a bit testy.

Fortunately, Rep. Etheridge isn’t one of those gerry-mandered political welfare queens. According to the Cook Report, his district is an R+2 district.  He has a credible opponent. Check her out here.

Let’s recap what we saw on this video. A sitting Congressman–a presumed living extension of James Madison and other founding fathers–was asked on a public street whether he supported the President’s agenda. His response was to hit away a video camera and assault a student. The age of Pericles this ain’t.

It is going to be a long, hot summer. But, you’ve been shown a politician who can be beaten this November. Act accordingly.