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Every time Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell is criticized for his position on jobless benefits, members of his campaign seem to retort with two words: "card check!"
It's understandable that McDonnell wants to change the subject. He should have foreseen the inevitable backlash when he supported Republican lawmakers' rejection of $125 million in federal stimulus funds. The money would have paid for unemployment assistance at a time when 300,000 Virginians are out of work.
What's harder to understand is why McDonnell keeps insisting the issue is somehow connected to the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as card check, a bill before Congress that would make it easier for unions to organize workplaces.
McDonnell had no vote on the stimulus aid last month, but his opinion on the matter is relevant to voters and to his party colleagues in the General Assembly. The legislature could revisit the issue in 2010, and if McDonnell succeeds in his quest to become the next governor, he will play a crucial role in the outcome of that debate.
The Republican has also loudly proclaimed his opposition to the card check bill, but he will have no vote on the matter because he is not running for Congress.
In any case, there is no evidence - none - that expanding federal jobless aid would somehow unleash unions on the commonwealth. McDonnell's campaign can't even provide a lucid explanation of how one leads to the other.
The two issues are entirely separate. Indeed, this page has agreed with many of the concerns McDonnell has expressed over the card-check bill while roundly excoriating his obstructionism on jobless aid.
Among the most serious flaws in the card-check bill is a provision allowing a federal arbitrator to impose a labor contract on a workplace when negotiations break down. This page noted the dangers inherent in that proposal, arguing that "politics would play too big a role at the workplace" if it became law.
Our abhorrence for political intrusions into workplace issues was likewise triggered by last month's vote to turn down funding for unemployment assistance. Rather than consider how best they could help constituents survive the recession, Republican lawmakers gloated that they had bested President Barack Obama and Gov. Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as if the whole thing were a game.
Rather than give up on the non sequitur connecting unions and unemployment money, McDonnell supporters are digging themselves in deeper. Campaign chairman Ed Gillespie not only continued to link jobless aid with the card-check bill last week, he also suggested unions are trying to defeat McDonnell so they can undermine Virginia's right-to-work law.
There is no credible effort under way in Richmond or Washington to abolish the 62-year-old statute guaranteeing that workers cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment.
The only reason to raise that straw man is to distract from a real issue in this campaign: jobs.
Thousands of Virginians have been laid off and are now preparing for new careers. Federal aid would have allowed them to continue their training. To suggest that such assistance is a threat to their "right to work" is both a miracle of convoluted reasoning and an insult.
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Thank you...
Thank you for a compelling answer. We all know the liberal hypocritical truth. One claims to be so supportive of the plight of the working person but in reality talk is extremely cheap.
I don't disagree..
with everything the Pilot says in this editorial, but I have to point out yet again their unending hypocrisy when such things suit their argument du jour!
From the column: "Rather than consider how best they could help constituents survive the recession, Republican lawmakers gloated that they had bested President Barack Obama and Gov. Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as if the whole thing were a game."
Since when does politics not include this? Of course, the Pilot would never report on any instances of the Dems doing this, even though we all know the Dems engage in such practices themselves. Anyone remember the Dems going very public with their own "go negative" strategy in Bush's second term? Ever see an editorial about that? No, you didn't. I have no problem with the Pilot pointing these things out, I DO have a problem with their usual one sided presentation of them. If the situation was reveresed, and they were indeed calling out Dems in this column, you would have had the obligatory reference to Repub practices as well. They conveniently don't saddle themselves with such requirements when their ardor is focused on someone like McConnell. So typic
No, I won't. Do your own
No, I won't. Do your own research. My understanding of the law now is that employers do not pay into the unemployment insurance fund for part time or for seasonal employees, so if such an employee were discharged, such an employee would not be eligible for unemployment insurance compensation in Virginia.
Try number 2...
So would Mr. Barrett please provide us with truthful benefits policies for non-exempt and part time workers at his company. The web site doesn't have any employment section. Or how about SPSA since he is on the board of directors?
I know, I know "awaiting staff approval" because about 50% of my posts get deleted by the guess who.
Point
Well, my point was that the receipt by the Commonwealth of the $150M in extended unemployment benefits, when paid to eligible workers who had lost their jobs, allows them to contine to patronage Virginia businesses, so while there is a cost to this change in policy, there is also a benefit. I think that the business community, the large majority of whom abhor the corporate greed that led to this near collapse of our economy, missed a rare opportunity to show compassion, empathy, and plain old ordinary sympathy with workers harmed by corporate greed, incompetence, and failure to act in a business like fashion to prevent this near catastrophy. Yes, I admit some self interest as well as tenants who get continued business from patrons who receive those extended benefits may benefit my employer as well. Point is, we are all in this mess together, and McDonnell and the republicans, and the Chambers of Commerce, made a bad decision on this issue and failed to do the right thing.
You didn't answer C.B's
You didn't answer C.B's question Mike.
my prediction
Brian Moran will be the next Governor.
McD does not stand a chance as Republicans continue to run on issues that have no importance and only want to TRY and block anything a Democratic President is trying to do. This is not fun and games time for Republicans, but that seem to be their only current platform.
If people think this is a
If people think this is a "leftist" newspaper based on its opinions on card check, Bob McDonnell, or politics, then the "right" is truly a scary position on the political horizon.
And if the "dangers inherent in that proposal" i.e. EFCA, means that "politics would play too big a role at the workplace," the person presenting the opinion is management and not a "regular" employee, because in the place I work, politics is the only game in town.
Bob McDonnell has a tendency to take extreme positions on many issues and uses arguments that are shallow and arrogant. Extremism, coupled with arrogance, never moves an argument forward nor does it promote mutual cooperation.
Of course, as you read
Of course, as you read C.B.'s post, you can discern that he is not just against receiving the extra federal allotment, he is opposed to unemploynet insurance in general. He ignores the fact that we have this program so people who lost their jobs without cause can live and support their familiesw while they look for work. In the current scenario, most Americans who have joined the ranks of the unemployed are victims of a system of organized greed and corporate corruption that is unparalleled in the history of our nation. The fact that wall street essentially continued securitization of assets that most of them knew were either worthless or worth less than advertised, because they could earn millions if not billions in fees, is corruption of the grossest kind. To deny extended unemployment benefits to many of the hard working Americans caught up in this debacle is to practice hard heartedness at the highest level.
Well let me see
...count the times any state or local government has ended an assistance program.....uhhhhh .... uhhhmmmm.... maybe exactly never.