FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A group in a North Carolina city is continuing its efforts to overturn a state law prohibiting local governments and the state from bargaining with unions.

The Fayetteville Observer reported that the Fayetteville chapter of a statewide coalition called Hear Our Public Employees will sponsor the meeting tonight at the Cumberland County Headquarters Library.

Also sponsoring the meeting is the N.C. Association of Educators.

This summer, local members sought to have the Fayetteville City Council and the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners consider adopting resolutions urging a repeal of the state ban. Neither board considered the resolution.

Only North Carolina and Virginia have laws expressly banning state and local governments from collective bargaining with employees.

WASHINGTON  – Addressing a nation on an economic precipice, President Barack Obama asked worried Americans to pull together Tuesday night and declared reassuringly that the U.S. “will emerge stronger than before.” Obama aimed to balance candor with can-do in his first address to a joint session of Congress.

“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation,” Obama said. “Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

The comments were included in excerpts from the speech that were released early by the White House.     

Set to address an ebullient Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as millions of anxious viewers at home, Obama was arguing that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for – even demands – a broader agenda including dramatic increases in health care coverage and wiser, “greener” fuel use.

“The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth,” he said. “What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face and take responsibility for our future once more.”
 
Just five weeks after his inauguration, Obama wasn’t charged with producing a formal State of the Union status report. But for all intents and purposes, that’s what it was: a night for the president to sketch out his priorities in a setting unmatched the rest of the year.
 
The gallery was to include a special section hosted by first lady Michelle Obama in which guests were selected to serve as living symbols of the president’s goals. Cramming the floor were to be the leaders of the federal government: Supreme Court justices, all but one Cabinet member – held away in case disaster strikes – and nearly every member of Congress.

Pre-speech, Wall Street was in a better mood than it had been in for days: Stocks were up after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the recession might end this year.

Comments on Obama’s address came in early from Republicans, hours before he had uttered a word.

Louisiana’s young, charismatic governor, Bobby Jindal, who was delivering the televised GOP response to the Democratic president, exhorted fellow Republicans to be Obama’s “strongest partners” when they agree with him. But he signaled that won’t happen much, calling Democrats in Congress “irresponsible” for passing the $787 billion stimulus package that Republicans have criticized as excessive and wasteful.

“The way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians,” Jindal said, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the Republican Party. “Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?”

Jindal is considered a likely presidential contender in 2012.
  
In contrast to many State of the Union addresses by George W. Bush, Obama was not expected to emphasize foreign policy.

He planned to touch on his intention to chart new strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan and to forge a new image for the U.S. around the world even as he keeps up the fight against terrorism.

But with the economy in a recession that already has lasted longer than any other in a quarter-century, that was the dominant topic.

The president aimed to drive home several points:
      – He inherited the mess, and a quick turnaround is unlikely. Not only did the recession emerge on Bush’s watch, the Bush approach wasn’t the right one.
      – He’s tackling the situation on multiple fronts. Already done: the massive stimulus plan, an overhaul of the separate $700 billion bailout for the financial sector, and a $275 billion rescue for struggling homeowners. On the way: decisions about limping U.S. automakers, a move to broadly rewrite financial industry regulations and perhaps more money aimed at propping up banks.
      – Thinking short-term won’t do the trick. Focusing even amid the crisis on longer-term goals such as helping the millions without health insurance and switching the U.S. to greater dependence on alternative energy sources is crucial to the nation’s economic well-being.

Also crucial is bringing down the estimated $1.3 trillion budget deficit that is ballooning as Washington pours money into the economic recovery. Obama was to declare that the budget request he sends to Congress on Thursday will slash the deficit by at least half by the end of his term in 2013, in large part by ending U.S. combat in Iraq and eliminating some of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

He was also expected to talk of a continuing need to reach across ideological boundaries, and for him to connect with the everyday Americans dealing with hard times. Obama hoped to hit just the right note with this address: grim enough to be honest but optimistic enough to be inspiring.

“Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure,” Obama said.

New polls showed how the political climate can be as precarious as the economic one.

While a new Washington Post-ABC News survey found 68 percent of the public approves of Obama’s job performance, a Gallup poll also out Tuesday showed his approval rating falling to 59 percent.

By Billy House and Sean Mussenden
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON — He’s at the start of his first term, riding high in public approval ratings, supported by Congress’ Democratic leaders, and fresh out-of-the-gate with legislative victories.

But President Barack Obama also remains cursed with a worsening economy, a need to hold to a tight federal budget, and public anxiousness about two ongoing wars.

With Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid perched behind him, Obama on Tuesday will give his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress.

The speech is not technically a “State of the Union Address” because it is Obama’s first year in the White House, says Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist.

“Still, it’s sort of the season for a State of the Union. And given the gravity of the economy, in particular, I think people will be hanging on every word,” Ross said.

Even as Obama is expected in his nationally televised speech to underscore the severity of the nation’s economic crisis, he will also set the stage for his first proposed federal budget to be outlined to Congress later in the week.

Obama’s administration is not yet prepared to submit a fully detailed budget, which will come in the spring.

But what he will mention Tuesday, and unveil on Thursday, is a framework of his spending priorities and broad funding levels for programs, and the gap he anticipates between the government’s projected spending and revenues.

One Washington think-tank, the Brookings Institution, has issued a report projecting the national deficit will average at least $1 trillion per year for the 10 years after 2009, even if the economy returns to full employment, and that the longer-range picture is even bleaker.

So far, Obama has not needed much Republican support in a Democratic-controlled Congress to get his earliest legislative priorities through, a veritable spending spree in the form of an expansion of health insurance for poor children and a $787 billion economic stimulus package.

But with such huge and long-term budget-deficit projections — things could now get much tougher for the president to muster the congressional votes needed to accomplish some of his prominent campaign promises, such as expanding health-care coverage for the uninsured.

One important thing to watch Tuesday night will be the reaction of Republicans to what Obama lays out in his speech, say non-partisan political analysts.

“I expect (Obama) will use the speech to continue to advance the objective of addressing the most serious economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression,” said Thomas Mann, a Brookings congressional expert.

“He will likely present a very sober assessment of the problem and the extended time it will take to recover from it,” Mann said. “And he will urge Republicans to work with him and the Democrats to do what must be done to avoid a global economic catastrophe.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said she hoped Obama would avoid words like crisis or catastrophe when talking about the state of the economy. 

“We keep hearing it’s a catastrophe, a crisis, it’s all negative.  I fear that his continual talking down of the economy down is really doing damage, because people won’t spend. They’re scared to,” she said.

Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., said he expects Obama to use the speech to “rally the forces in a difficult time for the economy, and tell us to hang in there and be willing to sacrifice.”

A spokeswoman for Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said Hagan was “very much looking to hear how President Obama squares the numerous, necessary and needed changes in our country with the leadership and hopefulness so many North Carolinians and Americans are looking for.”

A conservative advocacy group is taking a stand against a bill under consideration in Congress that is backed by labor organizers.

“Americans for Prosperity” rallied Tuesday outside the General Assembly against the “Employee Free Choice Act,” often referred to as “card check.”

Labor unions say the bill would make it easier for workers to organize and pressure companies to negotiate wages and working conditions.

If passed, the measure would get rid of private ballot elections. Instead, employees would simply sign a card for or against.

Senator Richard Burr is against the measure. Burr spoke at the rally about the sanctity of voting rights to Americans. He didn’t talk about unions or about the legislation, and instead talked about voting in general.

Those rallying Tuesday, along with several state lawmakers, urged Senator Kay Hagan to vote against it.

“What the unions did to cripple the American automobile industry and what they did to Detroit, Michigan, we surely in North Carolina can’t allow unions to do that to the North Carolina businesses,” said North Carolina State Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg.

“Free choice would be severely restricted by subjecting workers to undue pressure and intimidation, by having to make a public decision for or against union representation,” said State Rep. Paul Stam R-Wake.

Hagan said the move will “level the playing field.”

“It doesn’t do away with the secret ballot; it gives employees the opportunity to decide which way they want to consider the vote,” she said.

Ralliers flooded the phonelines at Hagan’s offices in Washington and Raleigh to voice their opposition.

Democratic Party activist Will Cubbison of Raleigh said labor elections aren’t fair because of company intimidation in the days leading up to a vote.

State House and Senate republicans are sending a letter to North Carolina’s congressional delegation in Washington to ask them to oppose the bill on behalf of the state’s workers.

Listen to Hagan and Rurcho:

A rally was held in Raleigh held Tuesday in opposition to Employee Free Choice Act, also known as the card-check bill, which may be proposed in Congress.

RALEIGH, N.C. – As the US Congress makes a renewed push to overturn long-standing secret ballot elections for labor unions, North Carolina voters are casting a doubtful eye on its actions.

According to a new poll released by Civitas Institute, 54 percent of North Carolina voters prefer the current federally supervised secret ballot elections for unionization as opposed to an open card-check effort, which aspires to force workers into publicly displaying personal votes. Only 32 percent of voters prefer the card-check method. Fourteen percent of voters were unsure.

The misleadingly named legislation, H.B. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act (aka card-check bill) is a high priority for President Obama’s administration, despite its defeat in the 2007 US Senate.

“The right of workers to hold secret ballot elections, free from intimidation by labor bosses is a fundamental issue of freedom,” said Francis De Luca, executive director of Civitas Institute. “Voters in North Carolina recognize this falsely named legislation as an affront to basic worker freedoms and is nothing more than a power grab by big labor unions to increase their membership rolls.”

Voters will also hold elected officials responsible who support taking away the right of workers to secret-ballot elections. When asked if they were more or less likely to vote for a Senator who supports eliminating secret-ballot elections for union workers, 44 percent of voters said they were less likely to support that Senator’s re-election. Only 21 percent said they were more likely to support them again. Twenty-four percent of voters said a Senator’s support for card-check legislation would have no bearing on their support.

“This should be seen as a strong message to Senators Burr and Hagan that North Carolina voters do not approve of card-check legislation and will hold any Senator, who votes for the bill, personally accountable for their actions,” added De Luca.

The Civitas Poll is the only monthly live-caller poll of critical issues and policies facing North Carolina. Complete results of the poll will be released at noon on Thursday, Jan. 29 at the Clarion Hotel in downtown Raleigh during the monthly poll luncheon hosted by Civitas.

Full text of questions:

“Currently, in order to form a labor union, workers hold a federally supervised secret ballot election to determine if a majority of workers voted for unionization. Some in Congress want to replace secret-ballot elections with a system where workers would publicly sign a card stating they wanted unionization.  Which system do you think is best?”

Private Ballot – 54%
Public Card Signature – 32%
Not Sure – 14%

“Would you be more or less likely to re-elect a United States senator who supports eliminating secret ballot elections for union workers?”

More – 21%
Less – 44%
No Difference – 24%
Not Sure – 11%

The study of 600 registered voters was conducted Jan. 19-22, 2009. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that:

95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.”  True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.

This editorial appeared in the The Waynesboro News Virginian.

Among other things expected to occupy Congress and Barack Obama next year will be legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, a name that strikes some, including Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, as oxymoronic.

Particularly objectionable in the mind of Saxman and business is an element that would eliminate secret ballots for union elections, leaving workers subject to coercion by union bosses eyeing power and dues. The right-to-work status of Virginia, Saxman explains, would be shattered and so he acts.

His solution is a constitutional amendment that would safeguard the commonwealth’s right-to-work law, which bars unions and employees from making payment of union dues a condition of employment. Union representatives say the federal law would shield workers from employer interference. Saxman says the law would accomplish the opposite and would deal an ill-timed blow to the state’s efforts to attract business.

Not only is Saxman correct, his position on secret ballots is reflected by Mark Warner, the former governor and one of the state’s most powerful Democrats who next month will take John Warner’s place in the Senate. Warner relied in no small part on union support in scoring an easy victory over Jim Gilmore in November, but told The News Virginian in an editorial board interview in the fall that he found troubling the portion of the law proposing to eliminate secret ballots.

Jim Flickinger, president of the International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers, which represents Invista employees, worries about lag time between approval of union elections and the time the election is held. He says he has seen elsewhere how employers use this time to propagandize against unions. But he adds that he does not quibble with Virginia’s right-to-work law.

Unions and the federal bill would chew away at the free-speech rights of employers while placing workers under the unvarnished scrutiny of organizers. Further, it would allow a government panel to establish a two-year collective bargaining agreement if the two sides fail to broker their own deal within 130 days. That places workers as well as employers at a disadvantage when considering the impact of unionization.

For these reasons, Congress should reject the Employee Free Choice Act. Because the concept is bound to linger whether it survives this year or not, the General Assembly should press ahead with Saxman’s legislation. That even a union leader such as Flickinger finds the state’s right-to-work law acceptable is a testament to its fairness.

The ability of workers to organize is part of life in the American workplace. So, too, should be the right of workers to just say no.