The Administration is using another federal agency to bring pressure on health care organizations. The goal is to subject these heavily regulated organizations to further legal scrutiny, which can in turn be used by Big Labor in organizing and/or corporate campaigns. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is trying to use hospitals’ status as a TRICARE network provider (TRICARE is the Defense Department’s healthcare program for uniformed service members and their families) to qualify them as “subcontractors” who would fall under the OFCCP jurisdiction. In yet a further “tilt” to unions, the administration posted a list of 111 companies or groups that received waivers from having to participate in the Obama healthcare scheme, and 13 of those entities were unions or union-related. The administration attempted to keep the news quiet, and buried the list 6 clicks deep in a government website (click here to see the entire list). The waivers are viewed as an admission that the healthcare legislation is a failed piece of law. In an interesting twist on the Card Check question, Big Labor may have found a way to force more “union-friendly” labor laws via the United Nations. Obama is attempting to entangle the U.S. in the U.N. Human Rights Council, and one prospect of any international treaty is that it circumvents national sovereignty and balance-of-power safeguards. The position paper submitted to the Council as background for the labor law component of the discussion was of course developed by such regulars as the SEIU, the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and the Steelworkers. In one bright spot, a Wisconsin law passed in May preventing employers from requiring employees to attend management-led meetings that discussed unions was in essence nullified.
