7 Ways Barack Obama Will Influence CE Pros

I was asked by Jason Unger to write a blurb on why McCain’s policies would be better for our CI biz, and my local dealer friend, Brad Smith, owner of AVD did the Obama side. We were posted head to head yesterday. I enjoyed the debate, made my case and then last night watched history being made. Even though the outcome was expected, the power of the moment was palpable.
I’m going to join in Brad’s most salient point IMO and say this one was for my children, and grandchildren (and I have a good bunch of both). Our Country put aside so much to make Obama president, that whatever policies and programs develop, we stepped past a few hundred years of ‘the race question’ and demonstrated to ourselves and the world that the USA can do anything. I admit to not enjoying the seemingly pompous rhetoric and prematurely presidential sounding speeches Obama gave in Germany, and elsewhere, but as President Elect Obama, last night was different. I think I will enjoy a leader of the free world who can construct an english sentence better than I can, and deliver a message with power and eloquence.
As far as policies go, the office will make the man, and if the man is good in heart and intellectually advanced, I like our chances. We haven’t had a president in a long time with both qualities at once.
Business will boom again, the housing and financial markets will find stability and our domestic outlook will be envigorated. Our foreign policy will be impacted by a new attitude from us and towards us, a clean slate, as it were. I believe this because as the dust settles, the problems will emerge and there is a coalition led by some brilliant minds working on them, without the barriers of our past political infighting.
McCain was and is a fighter, and he’ll be there as well, and for a change, everyone might fight for the goals ahead instead of each other, and that’s the underlying basis for my optimism.
As Colin Powel said, Obama is a transcendant figure, and if we transcend politics and get to work, we will see great things ahead.

I’m also concerned about the president elect’s support of organized labor and how it will affect our industry both from a manufacturing and installation standpoint.
-  The Employee Free Choice Act:  Card-Check Organizing and Binding Arbitration - That means your shop could be organized once a majority of your field employees simply sign a union card.  The card-check process is open to fraud and abuse, and could subject your employees to intimidation and coercion at the hands of professional union organizers.  These organizers have a success rate of more than 80% when they use card-check, and now they’ll make it the law of the land.  Many of us in this industry including manufactures and installers are small business and our employees are our primary resource; but could we be effective in the marketplace if our employees were organized against us?
Other Pending Issues That Will Negatively Affect Your Business
•  Executive Order that mandates project labor agreements for all federal contracts.
•  Legislation to make your business a target for pay discrimination suits without a statute of limitations.
•  Legislation to mandate 7 days of paid sick leave on top of your existing policies while also forcing businesses with only 15 or more employees to comply with FMLA.
•  The continued expansion of Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rate on federal contracts.
•  Legislation that expands the definition of who can join the union to include jobsite supervisors.

Shawn—great insights, thank you for sharing.

You hinted at, but failed to mention (in case others don’t know) that Card Check allows unions to make VOTES PUBLIC. If you vote NO to a union, everyone knows. Am I understanding it correctly?

Please, can anyone give me any good reason for Card Check? What am I missing?

FYI—Some publicity just came out claiming that technology will play a “critical role” in the new Obama administration.

The press release, citing a report from INPUT, a government business authority, says solutions related to health IT, green IT, cyber security, unified communications and intelligence collection and analysis could see a boost in his administration. The emphasis will go to solutions that save money, maximize current resources, and increase efficiency.

“Obama’s plans for healthcare, energy, and homeland security have embedded technology requirements that could represent opportunities for the federal technology contracting community,” said Deniece Peterson, principal analyst for INPUT.

These findings and others were released in an INPUT Industry Insight Report, “Technology in the Obama Administration.” More details are available at http://www.input.com/corp/library/detail.cfm?itemid=7774&cmp=OTC-mrobamaii110608.