The unfolding IRS scandal is chilling, historically so. As is the Justice Department’s spying
on journalists. But, we are likely
only seeing the tip of two icebergs, and there are other entire icebergs. One such iceberg concerns Barack Obama's use of myriad federal agencies to persecute, bully, and harass corporate symbols of non-union success. Federal government agencies as diverse
as The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Food and Drug Administration, The
National Labor Relations Board, the National Highway Traffic and Safety
Administration, and The FBI, have been thuggishly targeting corporations in support of Obama's big labor union agenda.
President Obama has redefined the “bully pulpit” and marshaled every
tentacle of federal power to do his bullying.
Labor unions are Obama’s largest support system. Unions supplied billions in the last
three election cycles, practically all of it to Democrats. More importantly, unions supplied the boots-on-the-ground
and the muscle for Obama’s vaunted ground-game (1). The labor union agenda is Obama’s agenda according to Obama
himself (2). The most frequent
visitors to the oval office are labor union bosses and labor union
lobbyists. Government is unionized
five times more than the private sector: 36% vs 7% and growing rapidly (3). In essence, when government agents knock down your door,
union members are knocking down your door. When the IRS audits you or demands to know the "content of your prayers", those are union members doing that. The IRS’s own labor union boss, Colleen Kelly, was at the
White House the day before the IRS abuses started. (This is particularly worth noting in the context of the cases below.)
These corporate/union bullying cases are similar to the IRS scandal in that government agencies were selectively targeting opponents of
Obama’s political agenda. But,
there are significant differences too.
The IRS scandals broke because the targeted parties,
non-profits and individuals, made a big stink. In these corporate cases, the targets are for-profit
corporations who will never make a stink.
Unlike individuals and non-profit groups, corporations have a huge
incentive to keep quiet when being targeted by their government. Corporations answer to their
shareholders, and shareholders care about one thing only - share value. Confronting abusive government is never
a shareholder priority. Corporations are also easily painted as villains. When corporations get unjustly targeted by governments, they
usually suck it up, pay their fines, settle the lawsuits, and quietly get
back to work.
Moreover, these corporations were occasionally bi-partisan targets. That’s
not surprising; The Code of Laws of the United States runs over 200,000 pages
making virtually every corporation, individual, or group in violation of
something and probably many things at any given time. According to author Harvey Silverglate, who wrote a book on
the subject, everyone in the US likely commits “Three Felonies A Day” (4). What
makes these corporate cases conspicuous is the over-the-top way they were
handled, the timing, and the symbolic existential threat they posed to Obama’s
labor union agenda. Taken
one at a time, each case is curious, puzzling; however, taken together and in
the light of the IRS cases, the picture becomes clear.
The
curious case of Tylenol and Johnson & Johnson:
In 2011, the FDA took over three J&J/McNeil/Tylenol
plants, shut one of them down, recalled a bunch of products, and started a
criminal investigation claiming poor quality on several fronts (5). The infractions
cited were various: musty odors,
poor quality, bacteria, imperfect doses, and dangerous containers. Headlines were written, criminal
violations alleged, reputations shot, management shuffled, mea culpas issued,
fines paid, and tons of money lost to J&J. How many people did these deficient products kill? How many were maimed? In all cases…none. Yet, to this day, it is difficult to
find brand named Tylenol and many other J&J products in a store.
This is not to say J&J products are perfect. No company, much less a pharmaceutical
company, can make that claim.
Every drug has side-effects, is prone to misuse, and has
impurities. But, J&J was
severely punished for routine issues. This all has the distinct air of a witch hunt. Why the harsh treatment?
J&J is one of the countries largest pharmaceutical
companies and one of its most revered workplaces. What makes J&J so successful, or any great company for
that matter, is its people. If you
want a great company, you need great people. If you want great people, you need a great workplace. On that score, J&J consistently gets
awards for being one of the best workplaces in the country (6). One reason J&J is such a great
place to work is its founding ideology, and that is precisely why Obama and the
unions have singled it out.
Robert Wood Johnson, a founding member of the company,
immortalized J&J’s ideology in 1943 in a document he called “Our
Credo” (7). Line two, paragraph
two, of the J&J Credo states:
“Everyone must be
considered as an individual.”
This is anathema, inimical, to the concept of a labor
union. A synonym for labor union
is “collective bargaining agreement”.
Unions seek to be considered as a collective, not as individuals. The J&J Credo is a symbolic
existential threat to the very idea of labor unions. Considering J&J’s perch at the top of the prestigious
pharmaceutical industry and their reputation as one of the best places to work,
it is easy to see how they were a symbolic threat to unions.
The Credo also made J&J vulnerable when the federal
government decided to bully them. The Credo states:
“…everything we do
must be of high quality.”
Barack Obama’s tactical bible, “Rules for Radicals” by Saul
Alinsky, teaches:
“Make the enemy
live up to its own book of rules.”
No company could endure the scrutiny of the FDA when
determined to find things like bacteria (which is everywhere), and odors (which
are everywhere). Whole J&J
plants have been shuttered for such nebulous infractions.
Today, J&J does employ union workers. Unionization at J&J runs about 5%
compared to 7% for the entire private sector (8). Public sector unionization is seven times higher averaging 36% (3). Not only was J&J a possible
target due to their prominence and Credo, they were also unionized at below
average rates.
Side bar: In
the 1980s, seven people died after ingesting cyanide tainted Tylenol. The case was never solved, but the
investigation did narrow the source of the cyanide to the Tylenol distribution
network around Chicago. Chicago in
the 1980s would have been the perfect place if a union had wanted to frame a
corporate enemy with poisonings and get away with it. Organized crime and organized labor controlled everything
including local law enforcement and politicians. (Not sure much has changed.) Moreover, unions in Chicago had control of the packaging and
distribution of Tylenol. Tylenol
was shipped from J&J’s plants in bulk containers to independently owned
distribution centers where it was put into capsules, then into jars, and
finally boxed and shipped to retailers.
The cyanide was introduced somewhere in that union distribution network (9).
One person, James Lewis, was convicted for extortion related
to the Tylenol case and is still considered a suspect, but he has never been
charged. Following the murders,
J&J took their packaging away from the independent contractors and the
unions and began doing it in-house.
Unions may have had nothing to do with those murders, but they did have
the means, the motive, and the opportunity.
The
curious case of Toyota and unintended acceleration:
On August 28, 2009, four people were tragically killed in a
Lexus with a stuck accelerator.
The tragedy properly led to further inquiry, and at the end of it all:
· NHTSA
had taken several Toyota models off the market (an unprecedented move)
· Obama’s
Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, instructed Americans to not drive Toyotas
(also unprecedented)
· Toyota’s
top leadership, including President Akio Toyoda, was compelled to testify
before congress
· There
were numerous congressional hearings
· There
was a 1.1 billion dollar lawsuit settlement
· Toyota
was ordered to pay about $15 million in fines to the National Highway Traffic
and Safety Administration
· Millions
of cars were ordered recalled
· Toyota
lost its spot as the number one autmaker in the world
· Billions
were lost in value and profit.
· Toyota’s
reputation was seriously damaged.
What caused the unintended acceleration and what was the
fix? In the case of the tragic
Lexus accident that triggered it all, it turned out to be errant floor mats
installed by a dealer. No other
cause was ever definitively found (10). Toyota did eventually recall millions of cars and replace some
parts, but the whole issue faded with a whimper.
Unanticipated acceleration is a ubiquitous charge against
all automakers. It is nearly
impossible to prove or disprove.
In short, the case against Toyota was a giant witch-hunt which seriously
hurt Toyota and helped GM. Why
would the government want to hurt Toyota and help GM?
Not only is Toyota non-union while its rival GM is
unionized, the UAW union owns GM along with the federal government who is the
majority shareholder. That makes
Barack Obama the overlord of GM, Toyota’s main competitor.
Consider the following timeline:
2008 - Union support of Barack Obama helps him win the
Presidency of the US
Non-union Toyota surpassed
unionized GM as the world’s largest automaker
2009 - GM and
Chrysler go bankrupt and get bailed out by the US government, which hands a
huge chunk of GM to the UAW union
Toyota is accused of unanticipated
acceleration
Toyota cites floor mats and issues
warning.
2010 – The ubiquitous complaints persist and the US
government insists on recalls
Toyota is forced by the US
government to cease selling several models, unprecedented in automotive
history.
GM offers $1,000 checks to Toyota
owners who switch to GM cars
Toyota sales are flat for the year.
GM sales rise 21% for the year.
But there’s more. The unions had other reasons to have Toyota in the
crosshairs. While Toyota is
non-union, they did have one plant in California that was a joint venture with
GM staffed by UAW workers. The
partnership was called NUMMI, New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. GM pulled out of that partnership in
2009 after the government take-over.
Obama and the unions apparently had no interest in a partnership with
non-union Toyota now that they owned GM.
Toyota was then stuck with UAW workers who had an inherent conflict of
interest; while they worked for Toyota, they were also part owners of its
largest competitor. Toyota chose
to close the plant and the unions responded with a fatwa:
"You are going to see an attack on Toyota that is
unprecedented." said Rome Aloise, a
top Teamsters official.
"We will take
this fight to every Toyota dealership in California." Richard
Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said via a videoconference link. "Our
message is that Toyota kills American jobs. This comes at a time when Toyota
can ill afford another black eye."
"If they close
the NUMMI plant, we union people will not buy another Toyota." said Bob King, UAW vice president.
The source of the above quotes is a definitive piece on the
subject, “Firestone Revisited: Was Toyota a takedown target in the name of
NUMMI?” by Mandy Nagy (11)
Despite all that and the tsunami in Japan, Toyota recently
regained their position as world’s largest automaker surpassing GM in global
sales. Their cars still do not
accelerate unexpectedly.
Side bar: If
you were around in the ‘80s when Audi was practically forced out of the US
based on a similar charge of unintended acceleration, this may all sound
familiar. In the Audi case, like the Toyota case, the whole thing turned out to
be nebulous at best, and at worst, a coordinated attempt to take-down
Audi complete with a scary "60 Minutes" story. At the time, Audi of Germany was having
unprecedented success in the US with its Audi 5000 model and eating into the
lucrative UAW made Cadillac and Lincoln markets.
The curious case of Gibson Guitar Corp:
On August 2nd, 2011, armed
federal agents from The US Fish and Wildlife Service raided Gibson Guitar Corp.
in Nashville Tennessee. They
stormed-in like a swat team, frightening workers, shutting down production, and
confiscating computers, raw materials, documents. This was the second time Gibson had been raided since Obama
took office, the first having occurred in 2009. At the time, the reasons given had to do with some alleged
violation of an obscure statute having to do with foreign laws and exotic wood. This made no sense. Other guitar makers were using the
exact same wood, but they weren’t raided.
Why Gibson?
Some suggested Gibson was targeted because CEO and owner,
Henry Juskiewicz, gave donations
to Republicans while Martin Guitars, Gibsons rival in the acoustic guitar
market, donated to Democrats. This
suggestion has re-emerged in the wake of the IRS scandal, but this also makes
no sense. Lots of CEOs give to
Republicans and don’t get raided by armed federal swat teams.
No, Gibson, like J&J and Toyota, symbolized an
existential threat to Obama’s union agenda: Gibson had relocated from a forced-union state to a
right-to-work state.
Gibson was founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, right smack
in-between union strongholds Chicago and Detroit. But, Gibson moved production to Tennessee in the 80’s,
fleeing a forced-union state for a right-to-work state. This is a cardinal sin for Obama and
the unions. Obama has called the
right-to-work “the right to work for less money” (12). Unions hate right-to-work laws because
it makes future unionization less likely and less lucrative for them.
Side bar: Gibson’s two major competitors in the
domestic-made guitar market, Martin and Fender, both manufacture primarily in
forced-union blue states, Pennsylvania and California respectively. Fender Musical Instruments, Gibson’s
rival in the electric guitar market has historical ties to media giant CBS,
which owned the company until the mid ‘80s. (Meanwhile, Michigan became a right-to-work state in 2012,
and the conversion did not please Obama or the unions (13).)
The curious case of Boeing:
Another curious case which relates to Gibson is the case
of Boeing’s South Carolina plant.
When Boeing tried to relocate some production to right-to-work South
Carolina, Obama and his NLRB tried to block Boeing from operating the plant
which had already been built at the cost of a billion dollars. The whole thing was an outrageous and
obvious attempt to both intimidate others from relocating to right-to-work
states, and blackmail to get Boeing to reach agreement with its machinists
union in Washington State. It
likely succeeded on both fronts (14). In light of the Gibson case and the question of motive, the Boeing case highlights the extent
to which Obama will go towards bullying corporations to achieve his ends.
Whenever Barack Obama acts in a puzzling way, it is best to
consult his tactical mentor, Saul Alinsky, for therein usually lies the
answer:
“The Radical may resort to the
sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals
whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols
representing ideas or interests
which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people.” Saul
Alinsky, 1946 (emphasis added)
The unifying theme in all the above cases is that
the targets are all “symbols representing ideas or interests” which Obama
believes to be inimical to his political agenda. All four companies are leaders in their industry and they
threaten unions in symbolic ways:
J&J because it is so successful and has a Credo to treat employees
as individuals, Toyota because it is non-union and is UAW/GM/Obama’s top rival,
Gibson because it fled Michigan’s forced-unionism to relocate in a
right-to-work state, and Boeing because it was a twofer: leverage for the machinists and a message about right-to-work.
Unfortunately, these are not the only cases. Unions have a long history of playing dirty and dangerous
when threatened. What makes all
this so remarkable and chilling is that, in Barack Obama, the unions have a new
thuggish partner capable and willing to use the full force of the federal
government to harass their mutual enemies.
Individually, each case could be dismissed as plausibly due to some
overzealous agency, but when taken as a whole, there can be no
benefit-of-the-doubt.
(8) According to sources at J&J. J&J declined to comment on their
labor relations or union relations.
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