Obama helping out his union cronies--on the taxpayer's dime

"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama -- $60.7 million to be exact -- and we're proud of it." SEIU President Andy Stern.

And President Obama is paying his union pals back, as the Wall Street Journal tells us:

There's almost a direct correlation these days between the Obama Administration's complaints about "special interests" and its own fealty to such interests. Consider its latest decree that federal contractors must be union shops.

The federal rule, which went live yesterday, implements an executive order President Obama signed within weeks of taking office. It encourages federal agencies to require "project labor agreements" for all construction projects larger than $25 million. This means that only contractors that agree to union representation are eligible for work financed by the U.S. taxpayer.

Only 15% of the nation's construction workers are unionized, so from now on the other 85% will have to forgo federal work for having exercised their right to not join a union. This is a raw display of political favoritism, and at the expense of an industry experiencing 27% unemployment. "This is nothing but a sop to the White House's big donors," says Brett McMahon, vice president at Miller & Long Concrete Construction, a nonunion contractor. "We've seen this so many times now, and how many times does it have the union label? Every time."

It's also a rotten deal for taxpayers. White House economist Jared Bernstein blogged that these agreements "significantly enhance the economy and efficiency of Federal Construction projects." In fact, the carve-outs put an end to open, competitive federal bidding, which means higher project costs. They also mean taxpayers must finance the benefits and work rules of union members.

Project labor agreements (PLAs) lead to higher labor costs and cost overruns, which of course are footed by taxpayers, most of whom of course are not members of one of Obama's protected classes--organized labor.

More change that I can't believe in.

Related posts:

Sneak attack: Obama likely to make recess appointment of radical Craig Becker to NLRB

Unions look to PLAs to bail out their failing pensions

Technorati tags: labor politics unions news organized labor SEIU Obama