It would appear that former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, Robert Reich fancies himself a member of the Race Police.

"if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most -- women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed -- will be shut out."

These people who 'dominate the construction trades' are the type of professionals that one would want working on expensive and critical public works projects. The fact that they are both trained to do the work and are struggling in this flailing economy seems to have no weight as far as Mr. Reich is concerned. His only concern, one can extrapolate, is to take jobs from trained construction workers and give them to untrained minorities.

But what is so bizarre about Reich;' comments is that they should be causing alarm bells to sound within the Democrat Party's most supportive special interest group, Big Labor.

It is just this kind of thick-headed bumbling that is going make a stimulus package that is more likely to stimulate graft and cronyism than jobs, a bigger problem for Obama. Barack Obama, by all realistic accounts must be able to point to an improving economy as we head into the mid-term elections in 2010. If he cannot, Americans might get it into their heads that perhaps one-party rule, regardless of which party is doing the ruling is just a bad idea.

Interestingly, if Reich is serious about using "other than white" but still trained labor, the non-union building associations have been making serious progress in this area though not all trades are yet represented. Anyone interested in learning more about non-union construction training should search "merit shop apprenticeship" in their favorite browser.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger is "terminating" jobs.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday ordered mass layoffs and unpaid furloughs for state workers starting in February to address California's growing fiscal crisis.

Under his executive order, 238,000 employees will be forced to take off two unpaid days per month through June 30, 2010. Managers will receive either the furlough or an equivalent salary reduction during the same period.

It's a little ironic that today's layoffs and furloughs are a direct result of California unions' fight against the fiscal discipline that Arnold brought to Sacramento when he arrived in 2003 but summarily backed down from after the defeat of his initiatives in 2005.

Big Labor has only itself to blame.

Flashreport contributor Jill Buck updates us with the response from the SEIU:

Then I turn from the Business Section of the paper to the front page where I encounter the remarks of a spokesman of SEIU, representing 235,000 state employees (whose paychecks come from the same taxpayers who are getting laid off left and right) who will keep their jobs, but have to take some reductions in pay. Here is what SEIU had to say, “ We are reviewing our legal options at this time. We definitely think we have grounds for filing an unfair labor charge.”

Read the great post and comments here.

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Or is it really that big of a payoff?

Of course, the big picture is that Solis will be a lightweight in this Administration, stuck overseeing the DOL bureaucracy while the big guns like Summers, Volker and Geithner continue the crushing restructuring that is killing the once proud American worker and their labor movement.

But what I find most shocking about Ms. Solis is her apparently contradictory views to the union mantra of higher wages. Or maybe the message is higher wages for some but not for others.

Solis’ real claim to fame probably lies in her interest in immigration issues and that’s likely why she and Andy Stern of SEIU are so cozy. SEIU has used a low wage immigrant organizing strategy over the last two decades.

As detailed at some interesting posts at GangBox, a rank and file website run by a construction worker, SEIU was unable or unwilling to stop the shift in their industry from highly skilled service workers at apartment and office buildings when those buildings put in place modern HVAC equipment and displaced largely African American union members. This was part of the battle to defeat construction workers, too.

Instead they began to orient towards much lower paid hispanic, largely immigrant janitors who were brought in to replace those displaced black workers through outsourcing and SEIU was willing to offer cut rate contracts to secure employer contracts for them.

Read the whole piece here.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Solis subscribes to the ideology of the most militant in the Labor Movement. In 1999 Assemblywoman Solis defended AB 1268—Condoning Violence in Labor Disputes (yes I'm serious - click the link).

A non-union Construction contractor pointed out that current law was well-balanced and AB 1268 would encourage more violence. Committee Chairwoman Hilda Solis responded, “Well, I don’t agree with what you say.”

Representatives of the California Chamber of Commerce, California Manufacturers Association, and Associated General Contractors all spoke against the bill.

The bill passed the committee 4-2 on a party-line vote. Democrats support; Republicans oppose.

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Time will tell if this statement is more than just wishful thinking on behalf of the biggest of the Big Labor instruments.

The following is a statement from Change to Win
communications director Greg Denier on the federal investigation involving
Governor Blagojevich.

"No one connected with Change to Win ever considered, discussed or promised any
position at Change to Win to Governor Blagojevich, his staff or his advisers. In
the affidavit released by the United States Attorney, a position at Change to
Win is discussed only in conversations between the governor and his advisers.
The first time Change to Win learned of any of the matters raised in the
criminal complaint was with today's public release of the affidavit."

I don't trust Big Labor bosses and neither should The Justice Department and The National Labor Relations Board.

UPDATE: According to The Washington Post, contained in the complaint against Blagojevich is:

a description of an official with the Service Employees International Union acting as an apparent intermediary between the governor and Barack Obama's camp in discussions over Obama's Senate seat.

[...]

The U.S. attorney's complaint states that Blagojevich mused aloud with his advisers about the possibility that he could seek a high-paying job with Change to Win, the coalition of seven unions -- dominated by SEIU -- that broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Blagojevich and his chief of staff wondered aloud about a "three-way deal" in which he would appoint Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett, a Chicago businesswoman believed to be the woman identified in the complaint as "Candidate 1," to Obama's Senate seat; Blagojevich in return would become Change to Win's executive director; and Obama would reward Change to Win with pro-labor policies.

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