A bit of advice for Diane Lacy:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.
Too bad it is after the fact. When I fisked Diane Lacy’s, Prez of SEIU local 1984, appearance on WMUR’s “Closeup” yesterday, I forgot to comment on this doozy:
There are local businesses that stand that stand to be deeply damaged by these bills if they are passed. I mean some of the bills on dues deductions. That will impact e-commerce here in NH. That will impact bankers, insurance companies, lawyers, a number of services, vendors, manufacturers. And these legislators have no clue as to what they are going to do to businesses on this so we will have the conversation.
THIS is a wallapalooza of a claim concerning e-commerce – and wrong! And it a lame attempt to prevent a defanging of one of the Unions most potent weapons, their financial oxygen: automatic union dues deduction.
Unions need the money – and it seems that when that automatic dues deduction from their members is turned off, the members actually start thinking like Conservatives:
Gee, who can spend my money better: the Government Union or me?
Just ask the teachers union in Wisconsin – their income has plummeted as the new laws. Yes, the members are still there but now the union has to provide REAL value to the teachers – but they have not. They have decided that they have better uses for their own money than the union does.
So let’s walk though this – how will it affect e-commerce here in NH? Pretty much, it is a big nothing burger to the NH ecommerce economy if the automatic deductions for union dues is stopped. The normal process is that a standardized electronic format is used to transfer all of the funds for all of the “splits” for a given check. How it actually happens depends on the company issuing the transactions or if another entity is doing on the company’s behalf (e.g., a bank or an entity like ADP). Yes, there can be micro-payments due for each transaction but in the context of the entire e-commerce NH economy, if a single check contains one less transaction (out of anywhere between the normal 5 to 10 associated with the average check), the impact would be, well, rather insignificant.
I know a fair number of the legislators – and a fair number of those are software folks with more than a passing knowledge of this area. Trust me, their integrity is such that if there was a real problem, it would be addressed. The fact that I have heard nada from them tells me this is nothing more than a trifling matter. This will NOT adversely impact bankers and insurance companies.
I did LOL when I transcribed the rest: lawyers (really?? lawyers? Whose lawyers, Diane?), a number of services, vendors, and manufacturers. When I read it back, it seemed to be more of a list more proper for an organization than for individual members. I have assisted companies all over the country with setting up both AP checks and payroll checks over the years as well as the automated transactions I mentioned above. My take on her assertion?
Utter nonsense. She has no reason for this fear expressed above – unless she ran on to the next step: what will her members do? Probably, she has already looked at what has happened as the Wisconsin legislature gave union members the freedom to decide for themselves when and how to send in their dues. No longer does Wisconsin have to be the bag man for the fat cat union heads in getting the coffers full. No longer do the electronic transactions head directly to the unions.
What she is afraid of is that many memebers will become MINOs – Members In Name Only rather than full fledged financial supporters. No longer will SEIU Local 1984 have a complete lock on cash flow.
In fact, the union may have to earn and show value for it. Just like companies have to when vying for consumers voluntary transactions.
