Look For The Union Label

President Obama is said to be considering issuing executive orders to change the government contracting process in an effort to be more competitive. The policy changes are designed to save money by making federal contracts more accessible to independent and small contractors. The president is expected to announce these and other changes by the end of this week.

I’m hard pressed to see where this new “competitive” process will save money or encourage competition in the long run. For the president also has signaled that he intends to stop outsourcing to private contractors many services that should be performed by government employees. One of reasons why the federal government moved to private contractors in the first place was because of the inefficiency and waste of government employees.

Additionally, “independent” doesn’t necessarily translate to cheaper in Obama’s labor force. One of President Obama’s first acts in office back in January was the repeal of Executive Order 13202, signed by President George W. Bush, which prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from requiring contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects. Forcing small and independent contractors to agree to union wages and benefits will likely drive up project costs, while discriminating against those construction workers who opt not to join a union.

One of the oft-repeated refrains of the left during the Bush years was how the administration hijacked the system to reward their cronies at Halliburton and Big Oil. But I hear no similar caterwauls on how Obama is working the system to treat his organized labor buddies to some good old fashioned stimulus lard.