Minnesotan John Kline (R) to head U.S. House (Anti) Labor Committee (opposes tougher penalties etc)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4688

By Mark Gruenberg
21 November 2010

WASHINGTON - John Kline, the Republican who will take over the House Education and Labor Committee next year, hates the Employee Free Choice Act and opposes tougher penalties for job safety and health violations.

By and large, according to a review of his statements, the 63-year-old ex-Marine from a district south of Minnesota’s Twin Cities will be dubious to hostile towards causes pushed by workers and their unions. The AFL-CIO’s 2010 legislative scorecard said Kline went 0-for-12 on votes on the labor federation’s top issues so far this year.


Congressman John Kline

Kline is the top Republican on the committee, which for years has been one of the most polarized in Congress. Present chairman George Miller, D-Calif., leads its pro-worker Democrats. Its GOP contingent is heavily pro-business. Some of its Southern Republicans are virulently anti-union.

Kline, a close ally of incoming Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is no fan of the Employee Free Choice Act. Kline also opposes project labor agreements for federal construction and the new majority-of-those-voting rules for airline and railroad workers seeking union recognition, promulgated by the National Mediation Board.

“There’s nothing free about it, there’s no choice about it. It is one of the biggest misnomers in all of government,” Kline says of EFCA, which never came up for a vote this year in the House panel. Miller was waiting for the Senate to pass it first.

But Senate Labor Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa – who will hold that post in the next Congress – never got the 60 votes he needed to stop a planned Senate GOP filibuster against it. It had been labor’s top specific legislative cause.

That didn’t stop Kline from raising the specter of congressional passage of the Employee Free Choice Act sometime between now and Jan. 3, when the GOP takes over the House – and he takes over the House panel.

Kline declared in an August op-ed that one key provision, “’card check,’ would replace a secret ballot election with a public sign-up process for workers deciding whether to join a union. As a result, the bill would drive up costs on business, increase workplace conflict, and lead to fewer jobs…Just yesterday, President Obama promised labor bosses he would remain in the fight to pass card check.” Kline warned labor would try to enact EFCA in the current lame-duck session of Congress.
His priorities will be very different, Kline said the day after the election gave the GOP House control, on Jan. 3 and for the next two years. “Because quality schools are essential to our economic strength, our efforts will include an emphasis on education reform to ensure all students have the opportunity to thrive in the 21st century,” he said.


FULL story at link.

[Brickbat]

1. Between this and the loss of Oberstar, it makes me want to fucking vomit.

[Angry Dragon]

2. He is mine

Usually it seems he keeps a pretty low profile.

[Brickbat]

3. Mr. I'VE GOT THE NUCLEAR BUTTON???

Poor you. :)

[Angry Dragon]

4. I pitty the ones that have bachmann ...........

The only time they hear from her is on tv