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Obama picks
union flunky as Labor Secretary.
"Right-to-work" employees will not get a fair shake
from the new Obama Department of Labor.
Fifth term Congresswoman Hilda Solis [D-CA], the daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrant parents, a staunch supporter of forced union membership, became President-elect Barack Hussein Obama's pick for Secretary of Labor. Solis' Mexican father was a shop steward for the Teamsters Union in Mexico, and her mother was an assembly line worker in a Nicaraguan tire plant, and a activist member of the Rubber Workers Union.
US labor unions,
which contributed heavily to Obama, the Democratic National
Committee and, in particular, Congresswoman Solis this year,
expect Solis to be a forceful advocate for union advocacy in right-to-work
States—particularly those where automobiles are manufactured. 
Union
lobbyists who shoveled millions of dollars at the Obama Campaign
(and into Solis' fifth campaign) expect the Democratic-controlled
Congress, the Obama Administration, and the new Secretary of Labor,
to push for federal legislation that would force businesses in right-to-work
States to recognize union representation when union recruiters get signed
union cards from 50.1% of the company's eligible employees instead of
waiting for secret-ballot elections (which would solve a lot of problems
for unions, which claim that plant managers intimidate employees into
rejecting unions in secret ballot elections. In reality, once they get
into the voting booth, employees, who are have been coerced and intimidated
by union representatives, are able to vote their own conscious and reject
the unions they do not want)
As a US Senator, Obama co-sponsored an AFL-CIO crafted piece of legislation, HR 800, S.1041, the Employee Free-Choice Act which would have amended the National Labor Relations Act by eliminating free-choice for employees and making is easier to unions to unionize businesses. HR 800 and S1041 would have given the unions what they now expect Obama and Labor Secretary Solis to deliver. Solis is committed to its enactment.
When the legislation was offered in 2007, Solis advocated on its behalf: "Unions are vital tot he health and strength of our communities," she said, "In this day and age when the number of women and new immigrants is increasing in the work force, it is important that they become a part of the American fabric and one of the ways s to be a member of a union." In reality, if new immigrants want to become a part of the American fabric, they need to apply for, and become, citizens of the United States. In the view of Solis, and many in the Hispanic and Asian communities who are here illegally, union membership protects them from the long arm of Immigration Control and Enforcement [ICE]. And, that has pretty much been reality.
When Obama picked Solis, Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union [SEIU] (which represents over 2 million union federal and State employees, as well as hundreds of thousands of healthcare and property services employees across the country) praised Obama's pick, saying that "...[f]or Representative Solis, serving as Secretary of Labor will not just be a job, but the culmination of a lifetime of action serving as the voice for people who work...[She is the] daughter of two immigrant workers and union members...She will be a Secretary of Labor [that] working men and women can finally count on to stand up and fight for them."
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney also praised Solis, saying: "We are confident that she will return to the Labor Department one of its core missions—to defend workers' rights. She's proven to be a passionate leader and advocate for all working families.. In fact, she's voted with working men and women 97% of the time." What Sweeney really meant was that Solis and her new boss were the union's best chance to cram forced union membership down the throats of right-to-work US workers without letting them vote on whether or not they actually want to join the union.
Solis also comes with the Sierra Club stamp-of-approval as a greenie. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club endorsed her appointment by saying: "We can think of no better person to help President-elect Obama implement his plans for an economic recovery fueled by the creation of millions of new green jobs." Solis serves on the board of their pro-union American Rights at Work which advocates mandatory union membership for all employed workers
In point of fact, most of the US factory jobs lost in the initial phase of NAFTA were lost because of the death grip that the labor unions have over industry largely because of lopsided laws that favor the unions against industry. In 1935 the Franklin D. Roosevelt socialist New Deal Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act that would [a] force industry to work without profit until FDR decreed the "Hoover national emergency" to have ended; [b] created the minimum wage, and [c] gave labor the right to collective bargaining with the White House acting as the arbitrator for industry to negotiate "fair labor deals" with the unions.
Solis has backed every pro-union measure that has been introduced in Congress since she won California's 32nd Congressional seat in 2000. Because Big Labor, which signed onto NAFTA because they would be given the right to unionize the third world. Only, they discovered, the industrialists in the emerging economies had no intention of giving the unions collective bargaining rights, believing that was what gave labor the upper hand in the United States. Industry was forced to negotiate with labor but labor was under no obligation to sit down with industry. And government negotiators and the muscle to force industry to accept labor's terms.
Solis was opposed to the Central American Free Trade Agreement promoted by President George W. Bush. She voted against CAFTA, and correctly told her constituents that it would further erode jobs in the United States as even more union factories shed their collective bargaining rights like a suit of clothes that no longer fit, and continued the never-ending job exodus across the Rio Grande. But now, the factories were heading to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Solis also staunchly opposed giving Bush "fast track" trade negotiating authority because it would also harm the unions. She is popular with the Hispanic and Asian low working class voters in the 32nd Congressional District, and she is popular with the labor bosses
It's fair to say that Solis—like her soon-to-be boss in the Obama White House—is solidly ingratiated to Big Labor. Seventy percent of her corporate contributions came from Labor. In real dollars, that's $785,446.00—or a lot of quid pro quos going to Big Labor after the Obama inauguration when labor will find the doors to both the Labor Office and the Oval Office open wide to their lobbyists.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee was alarmed by Obama's pick since the President-elect is sending a clear message that he is committed to enacting card-check legislation that will negate the need for secret ballot union elections by sanctioning representation when union organizers successfully strong-arm 50.1% of the employees of any company into signing enrollment cards by promising company employees a big fat raise if they joined the union and assuring them that their bosses will no longer be able to fire them. Mix noted that "...Solis is a die-hard forced-union activist who apparently believes that all workers should be gathered into union collectives—whether they like it or not."
Jim Bruite, a former Republican leader in the California Senate said that "...business groups will need to be very, very well prepared when they go and see her because, in moving Obama's agenda forward, she won't be taking any prisoners." Business groups need to be forewarned. When they meet with the new Secretary of Labor, they will be an enemy ground—and they will be viewed as the enemy.
Solis, a natural citizen of the United States, was born of immigrant parents in Los Angeles on Oct. 20, 1951. She was the third of seven siblings. She was also the first member of her family to attend college. Her education, which ultimately netted her a Master's Degree in Political Science, was funded by US government grants and her own sweat equity. Upon graduation from California State Polytec University with BA in Political Science, Solis secured a berth in the Carter Administration's newly-formed Office for Hispanic Affairs. Carter advisors pointed out to the president early-on that with the flood of immigrants—both legal and illegal—Hispanics were a rapidly growing constituency. The Office of Hispanic Affairs was created in September, 1979. Interestingly, there is an Office for Black Affairs, Women's Affairs, Jewish Affairs, Culturally Diverse Affairs, Ethnic Affairs and an Office on Aging to address the "affairs" of the elderly, but strangely, there is no office for White Affairs or Caucasian Affairs of White Male Affairs since the middle class conservative white male has now achieved very distinct minority status in the United States. The reason there is no "office" to address the concerns of the middle class white taxpayer of America is twofold. First, government couldn't care less what middle class whites think about anything, and second, the far left is only concerned with their own constituency, who are not white males—particularly not conservative white males. The same is true about government holidays or days of "special recognition." We now have holidays or days of "social recognition" for every minority imaginable, but there is no special social recognition for whites—which is now a well-established global ethnic minority.
Obama's
cabinet lineup was completed on Friday with the appointments of Solis
and 7th term Catholic Arab-American Congressman Ray LaHood [R-IL]
(who has a "zero" conservative rating from the Club of
Growth) as Secretary of Transportation. Obama has tried
to portray his cabinet choices, from Sen. Hillary Clinton [D-NY]
as his choice for the State Department to Gov. Janet Napolitano
[D-AZ], his choice for Homeland Security as moderates when all of them
were selected to further the agenda of the far left. Napolitano
has been touted by the media as "strong on border security"
since Nov. 28, 2005 when she declared a state of emergency in Arizona
and demanded that the Bush-43 Administration cover the $1.5 million
she was spending to secure Arizona's four border counties by paying for
dozens of new State law enforcement officers to combat border-related
crime. But, in the final analysis, she remains an advocate of open borders
and a steady stream of illegals from Mexico. She will become the nation's
advocate for border security.
Napolitano's media antics on border security were pure politics. Like all far left Democrats in the election of 2008, Napolitano has refused to support the border fence that was approved by Congress in 2006 since the far left considers all Hispanics—both illegal and illegal—as constituents. Despite increasing momentum in Washington to build the 50' fence along the southern border of the United States, Napolitano said the border fence was not well thought out, suggesting that it "...was too expensive, [would] take too long to construct, and would be ineffective once completed." She concluded: "Show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border That's the way the border works." Napolitano prefers the virtual fence that utilizes unmanned aerial drones, technology sensors that alert the Border Patrol when people cross (and who will be long gone when law enforcement officials arrive), and security cameras that record the crossings with just as effective apprehension rates as motion sensors.
Obama picked a former lobbyist in former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack [D-IO] for Agriculture; Gov. Bill Richardson [D-NM] for Commerce; Bush Defense Secretary Robert Gates for Defense (so he can continue to blame Iraq and Afghanistan on Bush-43 policies long after Dubya returns to Texas; Chicago School Superintendent Arne Duncan for Education; green energy guru Steven Chu for Energy; former Sen. Tom Daschle [D-SD] who lost his Senate seat to John Thune [R-SD] in 2004 became Obama's pick for Health and Human Services; and Shaun Donovan for HUD. Donovan, a former Clinton HUD official is probably Obama's best cabinet pick. He predicted the subprime meltdown and actually has new approaches to create affordable housing. For Interior, Obama picked Sen Ken Salazar [D-CO] even though environmentalists wanted Congressman Raul Grijavala [D-AZ]. His pick for Attorney General is Eric Holder, a former Clinton Assistant AG with the type of "Chicago ties" that make Obama feel comfortable. For Treasury, Obama picked NY Fed chief Tim Geither; and for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, he picked retired Asian-American Army Gen. Eric Shinseki who was fired by the Bush-43 Administration. Shinseki is the army commander who bought a ton of black berets from China because he thought that soldiers who couldn't qualify as Green Berets should at least have a black ones. Obama's cabinet will look a lot like Bill Clinton—with a peanut twist.
Copyright © 2009 Jon Christian Ryter.
All rights reserved.