Ohio’s Ben Konop Wants Kids to Starve so he can Give Gov’t Payoffs to Unions

24 Nov, 2009 by Warner Todd Huston

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Ruinous PLAs Coming Your Way Lucas County, Ohio!

Magie Thurber is reporting that Lucas County, Ohio County Commissioner Ben Konop is trying to force unions on non-union labor in his jurisdiction. What about freedom to chose? Forget it. Konop as big brother knows better.

On Tuesday, the commissioners will discuss an agenda item ominously entitled “Incorporating Project Labor Agreements into Bidding Specifications for all County-Supported Projects.” (Download PDF) Apparently the commissioners will be pursuing PLAs in all contracts in Lucas County’s future.

What is a Project Labor Agreement or PLA? I discussed this back in February right after President Obama signed his Executive Order 13202 pushing PLAs and in October after New Hampshire faced this situation. Obama’s EO demanded that every federal construction project force a PLA on its contractors. Essentially, a PLA requires all hired contractors and their employees to pay union dues, work under union rules, and pay into union pensions (even though they will never get any benefits from them) whether they belong to a union or not. This forced unionism is to be enforced despite that up to 84 percent of all contractors in the country are not part of a union.

This forced unionism raises the costs of government projects, causes delays to construction deadlines and fills the pockets of corrupt union officials that work hand-in-hand with pliant government officials who then find union campaign cash coming their way. A PLA is essentially just a payoff to unions as there really is no legitimate reason to force non-union businesses to operate under union domination. PLAs are little else but a direct transfer of government funds (your tax dollars) straight into the hands of corrupt union officials and their bank accounts.

I mean, imagine how you would feel if you were a non-union employee and in order to be allowed to work you are told that you have to pay union dues all the while knowing that you have no vote in the union, no choice on the matter, and that you will never benefit from the union pension that your dues money is supposed to be paying for. How would that make you feel?

Fortunately there is hope. New Hampshire recently saw a Dept. of Labor project canceled because PLAs were to have been forced on the state’s contractors.

Now Maggie does a fantastic job of fisking the summary paragraph of the Lucas County PLA agenda so I won’t rehash all of that. But I do have one thing I’d like to point out. But first, here is that summary:

Whereas this Board of County Commissioners is responsible for facilitating funds for social services, employers who contract to construct county-supported projects are effectively compensated with public dollars and should pay their workers enough so that those same workers might not also rely on taxpayer-funded social services. Applying project labor agreements on all county-supported construction projects, which will ensure workers on those projects are paid prevailing or union-negotiated wages, will also create more opportunities for our local working families, promote fair-bidding practices, protect area standards, avoid disruptions, delays and labor disputes, and create a higher level of workmanship on the aforementioned projects.

If this isn’t the most warped logic to force a transfer of government money to unions you’ve ever seen then… well, you aren’t paying attention!

Look at what this union supporting political hack is saying. He’s saying that he wants to force unionism on all contracts so that the “public” won’t go on welfare. So, he wants to take government money to pay workers so he doesn’t have to take government money to pay people who won’t work? Notice, though, that government money is still going out the door! This fool is just shifting the government money from the welfare office to the funds that pay for building projects. What’s the difference? Only the tiny mind of a Democrat can see the difference.

But, let’s face the truth here. The true crime of this whole thing is that Commissioner Ben Konop is proposing that the county take money away from welfare so that he can give it to his favorite union pals. This guy wants children to starve so that his union thug buddies can get some government cash! This truly is a new age of Obama! Welfare recipients come in second to union chiefs.