Congressional Republican leaders today unveiled a new website and report entitled: “Death by a Thousand Cuts: Democrats’ War on American Jobs,” which it describes as “a new report cataloging a Democratic agenda that threatens millions of U.S. jobs and family budgets at a time when many Americans are grappling with the rising cost of living and record tax burdens.”

The 58-page report covers a host of issues, such as tax increases and spending measures, that the authors contend will cripple an already “vulnerable economy.” It also makes clear the positions of the Republican leadership on a number of bills on the WorkplaceHorizons.com Watch List.

On the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the report states:

If enacted, the job-killing Ledbetter measure, which is currently awaiting action in the Democrat-controlled Senate, would put small business men and women on the hook for decades of decisions that may or may not have even been truly discriminatory, even if the accused passed away long ago.

The report argues that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007 (ENDA),

undermines state marriage laws, infringes on employment practices of religious organizations, and creates vague, undefined “protections” that will open the door to frivolous, costly litigation that could endanger the ability of employers and small business owners to create more American jobs.

The authors also take issue with ENDA’s protection of “perceived” sexual orientation, noting that the term is not defined and that “employers would be held liable for their perception of an employee’s sexual orientation, with virtually no way to disprove the allegations of what they did or did not perceive.”

With regard to various attacks on arbitration, including the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007, it is contended that “[t]he Democrats’ objective is to enhance trial lawyers’ ability to file class action lawsuits – even, evidently, if doing so destroys thousands of American jobs in the process.”

The report attacks the Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act on the grounds that it “ could lead to billions in frivolous claims against public companies, undermine their global competitiveness, and hamstring their ability to create family wage jobs for more Americans.”

The case against this job-killing bill starts with a single premise: a board may be fearful of its company’s most activist shareholders and – in turn – could substitute the judgment of the shareholder they think most likely to sue for their own personal gain. Indeed, if a hypothetical board did reject the will of the shareholders, lawsuits would inevitably follow, and courts could consider a board’s decision to disregard the vote of shareholders as evidence of the board’s failure to satisfy its obligations under current law. Subjecting this and other potential decisions to shareholder approval, observers argue, would politicize an employer’s decision-making process, stifle company growth and job creation, and reduce returns for shareholders.

Of course, trial lawyers aren’t the only adversaries identified in the report. The authors assert that organized labor is engaged in a “desperate effort to pass job-killing laws protecting their ability to deny jobs to workers who refuse to join a union.”

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Washington labor bosses – struggling to combat declining union membership in the United States – gave nearly $60 million in harddollar political action committee (PAC) contributions to Democratic candidates in the last election cycle, with tens of millions more for “get out the vote” efforts to aid the Democratic Party at the state and local level. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) gave $2,340,170 to Democrats in 2006, and only $27,000 to Republicans.  The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) gave $3,147,161 to Democrats, and $81,850 to Republicans. Of the top 20 major donors to all political campaigns in 2006, more than half (12) were Washington-based labor unions, and all gave overwhelmingly to Democrats.

The complaints against labor politics specifically target the card check provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act, arguing:

Card check is not just an affront on democracy; it also is an affront on jobs generally. Giving union bosses an unfair advantage in workplace elections – at the expense of workers and their employers – erodes trust in the workplace, leads to a less friendly economy in which to do business, and provides an incentive for employers to seek other alternatives, such as moving their operations overseas. Indeed, the Majority’s war on jobs is taken to a new level by those who back a card check – war on privacy in the workplace.

The website gives some indications that it will be an on-going project. We will keep an eye on it.

• WATCH LIST:

Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007 

Employee Free Choice Act

Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007 (ENDA)

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act