Something’s Amiss At The AFL-CIO

Apparently (and stunningly) the President of the American Federation of Government Employees spoke out against the so-called “High Road Contracting Policy” (currently under consideration by the Obama Administration’s Union-hugging policy geniuses and eagerly being awaited by those who would most benefit by it being inflicted on us) when he “recently questioned the wisdom of using the procurement process as a tool of social policy”:

[I]n a letter dated March 23 to Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag, AFGE President John Gage expressed concern about the “High Road’ proposal, noting that it could “significantly increase subjectivity and politics in federal procurement.” AFGE is the largest union representing federal workers, with more than 600,000 members worldwide.
[snip]
“The various preferences for small businesses that ‘High Road’ proponents cite as precedents for rewarding a certain class of contractors are in fact riddled with fraud and often ultimately benefit ineligible businesses that act as subcontractors,” Gage wrote. “Finally, as proponents now acknowledge, there are no jurisdictions at the state or local levels that use a process similar to the one proposed by ‘High Road’ proponents.”

To be fair…Gage didn’t directly challenge the idea of using High Road Contracting as a “tool of social policy” but his concerns make perfect sense if you are a non-Union worker, and echo the concerns of many people worried about the effects of this High Road Contracting idea on non-Union private sector jobs and the struggling businesses out there trying to make a go of it in these Depression-like economic times. So, why would an AFL-CIO bigwig stand up against it, given its deference to Big Labor?

Answer? [emphasis mine]:

“In his letter Gage argued the High Road proposal should not apply to any functions that currently or in the future may be performed by federal employees and questions expanding federal preferences for certain contractors.

Why IS that, one wonders…but a closer read of what Al Burman (“a top federal procurement official under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush”) said in the Caller piece clears things up nicely for us:

“We’ve already got issues with an understaffed contracting corps. They’re just trying to keep their heads above water,” Burman said, pointing out that the federal government has seen a huge increase in funding during the last 10 years but the acquisition work force has remained the same size. President Obama has proposed increasing the acquisition work force by 5 percent but that change could take years to implement given the federal government’s lengthy recruitment and hiring process.

Translation? We already have enough trouble…we don’t need this monstrous bureaucracy piled on top of an already overwhelmingly monstrous bureaucracy…we’re going to screw this thing up worse than we already do!

Make no mistake, this ‘High Road’ idea truly WILL set social policy in ways Congress has been unable to do for years. It will require Contractors to pay their employees a ‘living wage’ as well as mandate paid sick days, insist on employer-provided health insurance and retirement plans, and open a back back door to putting ‘Card Check’ in place, completely circumventing Congress and rendering moot the entire EFCA debate still raging on Capitol Hill. The temptation to raise Union Membership is just too great to pass up…just ask SEIU’s AQnna Burger…but, more on that separately.

Mark Hemingway, over at the Washington Examiner summarizes Obma’s logic in redefining America through the prism of Organized Labor rather nicely:

If even prominent union leaders think this is terrible policy, why is the White House supporting it? Oh right — unions spent $400 million electing Democrats in 2008.

[facepalm] What was I thinking?