International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union President Jim Hoffa told Candy Crowley on “State of the Union” that President Obama should attack American companies in his upcoming speech for being “unpatriotic” by investing on other countries.
Hoffa admitted that it is cheaper for companies to invest in other countries -“we know that,” he said – but maintained that companies “have an obligation to America to build [factories] in America.” Hoffa then called on Obama to attack companies who invest overseas in his upcoming jobs speech:
Hoffa also suggested a tax incentive to get companies “off the sidelines, get into the game and start spending some of that money here in America and put America back to work.”
The problem with the union pushing the President to dangle a carrot to companies is that they also have Obama carrying a huge stick in the form of his National Labor Relations Board, which has sued Boeing to close a non-union factory that the airplane manufacturer built in the right-to-work state of South Carolina.
Hoffa continued by calling Apple “unpatriotic” for considering construction of a factory in Mexico. He argued that labor costs are not too high for companies to succeed in the United States:
We have got to turn this around and say, hey, we are an American company, we owe an obligation to America, let’s put America back to work.
And with that, Hoffa walked himself into an absurdity, because simultaneously he denied that labor unions have caused business costs to skyrocket, but then admitted that U.S. companies need more “incentive” to keep their operations in the country. And Hoffa talks for a minute as if he wants these companies to have some change of heart and business model, but when he says “we have to turn this around,” clearly he means that President Obama has to do something, presumably through that “program” that Hoffa suggested as part of a “bold plan” from the president.
Hoffa does not seem concerned that the United States Postal Service needs a bailout from Congress to avoid having to close their doors. Why?
At the same time, decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.
In other words, the USPS needs Congress to pay for their union contracts, while FedEx and UPS are benefiting from a much smaller union force. A bailout for the Post Office is a bailout for labor unions, just as the auto company bailouts proved little more than kickbacks to unions, and just as a program that punishes American companies for avoiding Hoffa and his union will be another example of the close alliance between President Obama and Big Labor in this country.
It will be interesting, and perhaps very troubling, to see if President Obama takes his policies positions from the Teamsters Union president.
You can watch the interview here:
