Christmas is a year around holiday for unions and other Democratic special interests

From the Washington Times:

The financial reform bill expected to clear Congress this week is chock-full of provisions that have little to do with the financial crisis but cater to the long-standing agendas of labor unions and other Democratic interest groups.

Principal among them is a measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States.

The so-called "proxy access" provision, which activist groups say they will use to try to improve oversight of corporate financial practices, has provoked a backlash from the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other major non-Wall Street business groups.

"This legislation includes provisions totally unrelated to the financial crisis which may disrupt Americas fragile economic recovery" and lead to increasing political battles in the boardrooms, said John J. Castellani, president of the roundtable.

This provision has long been on the wish list for union activists: they can bring their particular brand of pressure into the boardrooms, while also having access to sensitive information that management may care to keep confidential.

Boardrooms are not the place where labor/management battles should occur.

But the goodies go to other special interest groups of the Democratic Party.

The bill would create more than 20 "offices of minority and women inclusion" at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses.

The agencies also would apply "fair employment tests" to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.

"The interjection of racial and gender preferences into America's financial sector deserves greater media exposure" before Congress debates and passes the massive 2,400-page bill, said Kevin Mooney, a contributing editor for Americans for Limited Government's daily newsletter.

The powerful new consumer protection agency that is the centerpiece of the reform bill also would provide substantial employment opportunities and funding for Democratic and social-activist groups such as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), critics say.

The new consumer protection agency will have powers unmatched by any other federal agency (and we know, as Ronald Reagan knew, these bureaucracies enjoy perpetual life) to inject themselves any time businesses have a relationship with a consumer. That power provides a fertile field for bureaucrats gone wild who can make life miserable for small and large businesses across America. Needless to say, trial lawyers will also have a field day as they sue businesses for a wide variety of "violations" of consumer protection agency rules. Perhaps the agency should be renamed to the "consumer extortion" agency.

Democrats continue to pass out goodies to their political allies that the rest of America will end up paying for in the form of higher taxes, prices, and debt. The march to the "Unionized States of America" continues - as portrayed quiet succinctly in this column by Peyton Miller in the Weekly Standard. Miller's list of payoffs to unions is well worth reading in full (it is quite short). An excerpt can give you the flavor of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda to turn the country over to the Labor Left:

President Obama has unilaterally aided unions through regulatory initiatives, which, according to Randel Johnson of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have mirrored the "wish list" presented to the Obama transition team by the AFL-CIO. Obama signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to inform employees of their right to organize under federal labor laws, and revoked an order that they be informed of their right to forgo joining a union or paying certain union dues. Another executive order reflected unions' preference for seniority-based hiring by requiring contractors to offer existing service employees first refusal of positions for which they are qualified under a new contract. Obama has precluded reimbursement of expenses contractors incur to influence employees' decision to form a union, and relaxed union financial disclosure requirements. He strongly encouraged federal agencies to award construction contracts of more than $25 million to companies that either employ unionized workers or offer union wages and benefits, which is bound to increase the cost of government construction.

The president's bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler subverted bankruptcy law by giving preferential treatment to the United Auto Workers over the automakers' secured creditors. Bondholders ended up with a smaller stake than the UAW members of both companies, even though they had lent money under the contractual understanding that they would be compensated first in the event of bankruptcy.

The ever expanding list illustrates Obama's agenda to reward his union supporters who showered his campaign with so much support. Andy Stern - as most people know by now - was the head of the Service Employees International Union and was the most frequent visitor to the White House. Now he is on the Deficit Commission where, no doubt, he is pushing to tax businesses more.

Corporate America tried to work with Barack Obama thinking they may be able to moderate his policy or enjoy the fruits of crony capitalism. But Obama's outreach to executives was a charade all along. Barack Obama modus operandi is to fool people into believing he is what they want him to be (he admitted this "talent" back in 2008). We have a chameleon in the Oval Office.

But businessmen no longer have the vapors. They now realize they have a malevolent leader in the White House ("fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"). They are increasingly coming out of the closet and publicly challenging him to stop his campaign against free enterprise. Ultimately, of course, any pain felt by business will be felt by us as higher prices proliferate and jobs are lost. Taxes will rise to pay off the favors given to public union employees and contractors who do business with a federal government playing with our money.

Is it too late to stop the takeover? Time will tell.