Introduction: Many
members of labor unions vote for Democratic candidates (often upon the
heavy-handed "advice" of union leaders) even though the Democrats stand
for socialist principles with which the average blue collar worker probably disagrees.
Labor unions appear to be little more than fundraising machines — and pools of temporary
manpower — for the Democratic Party. But the Democratic Party supports a number of
things that the average blue collar worker opposes, such as high taxes, gun control, abortion,
same-sex adoptions, same-sex marriages, women in combat, radical environmentalism, radical
feminism, race-based hiring quotas, and a permanent multi-billion dollar
welfare state.
"Joe Six-Pack", the average white male factory worker, has no use for
taxpayer-funded needle exchanges for IV drug users. He doesn't approve of
dispensing condoms (and instructions on how to use them) in schools. And
he doesn't like 1.6 gallon toilets any more than the rest of us. But these
are the kinds of things the Democratic Party fights for, and he unwittingly supports
them with money siphoned from his union dues.
Labor leaders vigorously opposed NAFTA, which was signed into law
during President Clinton's first year in office, yet the unions endorsed Clinton's
reelection. It makes no sense!
According to 1992 exit polls, 45% of all union members voted either for
George Bush or Ross Perot, not Bill
Clinton.*: If
you belong to a labor union, remember this: the union cannot tell you how
to vote! It is your decision, not theirs.
Related pages:
Jump to the Minimum Wage
Section
Jump to the page about the teachers'
unions in particular.
Jump to the page about liberal politics in general, and
the socialist Democratic Party platform.
Jump to the page about Barack Obama, the most liberal
Senator and the most poorly qualified presidential candidate ever.
What Do Union Members Want? For
all their influence in the workplace, it is not clear whether unions actually represent their members' values.
While it is true that union members elect their leaders, union leaders appear to pursue an agenda disconnected
from the concerns of their members.
Bringing Back the Union
Label? Most Americans these days have little to do with unions. Barely 12% of today's
workers belong to a union, compared to over 32% at the high water mark in 1953-1954. And most union
workers today don't work in factories, mines, shipyards, on the railroads or driving trucks like they did in
the 1950s. Most of them are federal and state civil servants, policemen and firefighters and public
school teachers with a few service workers and airline pilots and attendants thrown in.
Detroit's
Faustian Bargain. A Democratic Green Industrial Policy was already gaining speed Thursday [11/6/2008] as
American automakers groveled for money before the most openly hostile-to-auto Congress in U.S. history. ... It is, of
course, no coincidence that the Big Three arrived at Washington's doorstep together. All three have labored
under "pattern bargaining" union contracts — Democrat-supported unions — that
made their wage and pension costs unsustainable against non-union foreign automakers.
Bloated
benefits for unions are sinking automakers. The current auto-industry panic is instructive of
Obama's dilemma. The crisis facing America's Big Three auto manufacturers has, arguably, a single source:
legacy costs resulting from union contracts that were negotiated half a century ago. The financial burden
thus incurred weighs down their balance sheets to such a degree that, even if the industry in which they compete
were thriving, it would be extremely difficult to maintain long-term profitability.
Next Under the
Bus: UAW? Should we, the people, be tithed to save the grand old American auto manufacturers of
Detroit, and the unknown number — the figure three million is being kicked around — of
other jobs that depend on them in some secondary way? The generality of opinion among conservatives, which
I share, is that we should not. For all our disagreements, there are come core issues we are unanimous about,
and one of them is that government should not be running businesses. Amtrak and the Postal Service are quite
enough socialism for us — too much, for most of us.
Union Workers at Big Three Automakers
Average $73 an Hour. Economists in Michigan, the long-time home of the auto industry, say they don't
support the proposed multi-billion dollar bailout of Big Three automakers Chrysler, GM and Ford. One reason why,
they say, is the ultra-high labor costs for union workers employed by the Big Three. It costs over $73 per hour
on average to employ a union auto worker, according to University of Michigan at Flint economist Mark J. Perry.
"Is it right to tax the average worker making $28.50 to bailout workers whose labor cost is over $73 an hour?" Perry asked.
Give
Unions a Bitter Pill to Cure the Big Three. The Big Three US auto makers need more than an
injection of $25 billion from the federal government. Because of their ongoing losses, they would
burn through that money in less than a year and would soon be back for more. General Motors, Ford and
Chrysler can make excellent cars, but they cannot sell them at prices that are competitive with the prices of
cars produced in the United States by Toyota and others or with the prices of cars imported from Europe and
Asia. The basic reason is the labor costs imposed by union contracts.
Unions
plan organization push in Texas. The unions, which include the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition,
enhanced their political muscle by campaigning heavily for Mr. Obama, who sponsored several labor-friendly bills
during his brief career in the Senate. The unions want the next Congress to quickly pass a bill at the top
of their shopping list: legislation that would allow unions to form as soon as a majority of workers sign
cards saying they want one.
Unions'
Creepy Push Against Secret Ballot. The first campaign promise Barack Obama should break is to
push through the Employee Free Choice Act. That harmless sounding piece of legislation would let union
organizers do an end run around secret-ballot elections: Companies would have to recognize a union if
most workers signed cards in support of it. We're not children here. We know how those majorities
can be reached. There's repeated harassment, bullying and more inventive tactics, such as getting
workers drunk, then sliding sign-up cards under their noses. Meanwhile, any strong-armed tactics by
employers can be dealt with.
After
Push for Obama, Unions Seek New Rules. After making millions of phone calls and knocking on millions
of doors to elect Barack Obama, the nation's labor unions have begun a new campaign: to get the new president and
Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize. Unions, delighted that they
will have a friend in the White House after eight years of fighting President Bush, also plan to push for
universal health coverage and a huge stimulus program to create jobs and counter the downturn.
Democracy
Alliance memo details Dem plan to "educate the idiots" and target minorities. In a confidential
internal memorandum obtained by Face The State (PDF), the Colorado Democracy Alliance outlines a roster of
"operatives" who worked for Democratic victory in the 2006 general election. The document outlines
specific tasks for various members of the state's liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to "educate
the idiots," assigned to the state's AFL-CIO union. Among the operation's intended targets:
"minorities, GED's, drop-outs."
Union Pension Funds Go Green.
Organized labor officials are using their control over union pension funds to promote their own political
agenda at the expense of rank-and-file union members. By promoting shareholder resolutions that advance
environmentalist causes, among other "progressive" goals — as part of the unions' "corporate
campaign" strategy — unions are building a stronger political coalition, but they may be violating
their fiduciary responsibility to their own members and putting workers' retirement security at risk.
Auto workers launch $3 million
ad campaign for Obama. The United Auto Workers union launched a $3 million advertising
campaign on Tuesday [10/7/2008] to spur Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign, with less than a month
to the U.S. election on November 4. The ads, which feature UAW members talking about lost health
care benefits and the loss of manufacturing jobs, will run on television, radio and Web sites in the key
manufacturing states of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Colorado's Labor Showdown:
Right-to-work laws tend to make it harder to organize a union, and Big Labor's national priority these days is
reversing a long-term trend of falling union numbers. So at the first hint of the initiative, Colorado's
labor unions mobilized to defeat the measure, while escalating with four antibusiness ballot initiatives as
political retaliation.
Labor Goes for the Brass Ring.
Organized labor spent tens of millions of dollars and untold man hours to help elect a Democratic Congress in
2006. So far the pay-off has been modest. But with the presidency at stake, unions are expected to
spend up to $360 million by November, more than twice as much as four years ago. At the top of
labor's agenda is the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, which would deny employees the opportunity to vote
before a union takes over their workplace.
AFL-CIO
kicks off largest Get Out The Vote effort ever. With less than two weeks to go before voters
cast their ballots, the AFL-CIO launched a massive Get Out The Vote campaign Tuesday [10/21/2008], targeting
over 13 million union voters across the country in presidential, congressional and gubernatorial
battleground states. ... The efforts will also target 12 Senate races and 60 House races in an effort
to secure a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate.
The Editor says...
So much for our system of checks and balances.
Dems play footloose
with immigration facts. As they recall the failure of immigration reform in Congress, Democrats
want to come off as the good guys. This means burying the fact that their patrons in organized labor
instructed them to kill any compromise that included guest workers — a concept AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney termed "a bad idea (that) harms all workers."
Union helps
non-profit groups pay for attack ads. The nation's largest public employee union has funneled
more than $5 million to a series of non-profits running ads attacking Republican congressional candidates,
federal election records show. Since July, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME) has donated almost $5.5 million to three groups: Campaign Money Watch, Patriot Majority
and Patriot Majority Midwest.
States of
the unions. You just knew that when Joe O'Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on
stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union
voters. "I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain," O'Connell
said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved "Another Democrat for John McCain" signs and roared its approval.
Big Labor's Billion
Dollar Bet on Obama. Big Labor is launching its largest political campaign in its history, and
this year, more than ever, Big Labor means Big Money. The union conglomerate is already sending teams
of canvassers to knock on doors in swing states. Unions are distributing 1.5 million flyers and
sending 500,000 targeted attack mailers to voters as well. The two largest union coalitions — the
AFL-CIO and the "Change to Win" Federation, a coalition of the American labor unions formed in 2005 as an
alternative to the AFL-CIO — have publicly admitted they will spend at least $300 million
combined on federal elections alone.
AFL-CIO getting ready to endorse
Obama. The AFL-CIO is preparing to give its stamp of approval to Democratic presidential nominee
Barack Obama. The leaders of the nation's largest labor organization started voting Tuesday [6/24/2008]
on whether to endorse the Illinois senator. The election, which is being done by fax, is scheduled to
end on Thursday. Obama's name is the only one on the ballot sent to the AFL-CIO's 56 unions.
Just one name on the ballot.
Sounds like Zimbabwe.
Barack Obama's AFL-CIO
nod gives him one more potent weapon. With just a few days left before June ends, there's a
clear frontrunner for the month's least surprising political development — the endorsement Barack
Obama received today from the AFL-CIO. The massive conglomeration of 56 national and international
unions — comprising about 10.5 million workers — steered clear of making a pick
during the primary season because there was no consensus choice among the group's various affiliates.
The Editor says...
If you are a member of a labor union, and a portion of your union dues — your money — goes
to support Barack Obama, I urge you to take a look at his voting record in the Senate, as well as the Illinois
legislature. There is no US Senator who is more radically liberal than Obama. Read about him
on this page.
The Union Party:
At the AFL-CIO forum in Chicago this summer, Barack Obama declared that "special interests have been shaping
our trade policy. That's something that I'll end." … But Obama and his rivals have had nothing
to say about the special interest that sat right in front of them at the forum — the one that really is
shaping our trade policy. That would be the labor unions. According to the National Institute for
Labor Relations Research, unions contributed $925 million to political campaigns and causes during the
last presidential-election cycle. Nearly all of that money went to Democrats.
Your union dues at work:
Donors pick
up convention tab. Labor unions and wealthy donors are helping to close funding gaps for both
national political conventions, sometimes contributing more than what they could legally donate to Barack
Obama or John McCain. The American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees (AFSCME) each recently gave at least $500,000 for the Democratic convention in Denver.
Docking
Paychecks for Politics. The mighty Service Employees International Union (SEIU) plans to spend
some $150 million in this year's election, most of it to get Barack Obama and other Democrats elected.
Where'd they get that much money? That's a question the Departments of Labor and Justice are being asked to
investigate by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Specifically, the labor watchdog
group wants Justice to query a new SEIU policy that appears to coerce local workers into funding the parent
union's national political priorities.
Secrets Are
No Fun for Unions. Who are you voting for this fall? The answer to that question is none of
my business. In fact, it is a fundamental American right to have your vote be as private as you wish.
Unfortunately, Democrats and their financiers, Big Labor, want to abolish a worker's fundamental, American right
to a secret ballot. Why are they doing this? Maybe because Democrats have openly admitted they owe
their 2006 electoral success to Big Labor and have promised the elimination of the secret ballot as a return
on investment.
Viva la Secret Ballot! This is all
preliminary, mostly because I made the mistake of taking German instead of Spanish in high school, but if
Google Translator is correct, it appears the Mexican Supreme Court has ruled that secret ballots are
necessary in union elections.
Big Labor's Bill to End Secret
Ballots Gains Momentum. In April, then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in
Philadelphia, "I've fought to pass the Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate. And I will make it the
law of the land when I'm president of the United States of America." President-elect Obama will move
into the White House with increased Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, which also support
legislation designed to stem the tide of declining union membership.
Union Leader's
Spending Scrutinized. Annual reports filed with the Labor Department show that the local paid
$177,000 last year to a video production firm run by [Tyrone] Freeman's wife, Pilar Planells. The
local's training center has often paid more than $90,000 a year to a child care firm run by Mr. Freeman's
mother-in-law. In 2006, the local paid $16,000 to a basketball team coached by Mr. Freeman's
brother-in-law. The expenditures were first reported by The Los Angeles Times.
AFL-CIO Falsely Attacks McCain. It runs an ad
claiming McCain voted "against increasing health care benefits for veterans," when he actually voted
repeatedly to increase them.
Obama Says Teamsters Need Less
Oversight. Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling
the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the
union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely
treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an
independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.
Teamsters
Defend Endorsement of Obama. The Teamsters union vigorously denied on Monday [5/5/2008] that its decision to
endorse Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race was in any way tied to Mr. Obama's statement that federal supervision
of the union had run its course.
Culture of Corruption: Obama and the
Teamsters. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that last summer, Illinois Senator Barack Obama
told officials in the Teamsters union that he favored ending the Independent Review Board (IRB) that was created in
1989 by the federal government to rid the union of organized crime. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama,
confirmed the story, saying that the candidate believed that the IRB had "run its course" because "organized crime
influence in the union has drastically declined." The Teamsters subsequently endorsed Obama for president, in
late February. Obama and the Teamsters bristled at suggestions that any deal was made.
Democrats' Risky Alliance with Big
Labor: This is one more instance in which Democrats have confused the interests of union power
brokers with the interests of working-class voters. Unions may want to do away with workplace democracy,
but real workers do not. Similarly, teachers' unions hate school choice measures, but working-class
voters whose kids are trapped in underperforming public schools like them.
Barack Obama Isn't Santa Claus. In
his speech, Obama speaks of America being "a better country than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the
equipment that he's worked on for 20 years and watch as it's shipped off to China." Yet he left out
that he recently told the Las Cruces Sun-News about his plan to give citizenship to all the undocumented
illegal immigrants already here taking Americans' jobs and undercutting wages. I wonder how all the
union employees who applauded this week as some 600 illegals were hauled out of their plant during an INS raid
in small town Mississippi would feel about Urkel Obama's plans to turn around and give all such cheaters
citizenship?
Labor Unions Prolonged the Depression.
Pre-Depression-era growth and prosperity did not return to the private sector until the early 1950s, when the spread of
state right-to-work laws prohibiting forced union membership and dues greatly reduced the detrimental effects of the Wagner
Act. The U.S. has just experienced another stock market crash, and Barack Obama, the candidate now favored to be the
next president, is in favor of what amounts to a new Wagner Act.
Unions Support Democratic Presidential Candidates.
Last month the AFL-CIO held a press conference to announce its $53 million "McCain Revealed" campaign to portray McCain
as "anti-worker" and attack his support for President George W. Bush's economic policies. Unions already have
spent at least $7.3 million in independent expenditures on behalf of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the
latter receiving $3 million from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) alone, according to Cox News Service.
The SEIU has pledged $150 million to support Obama in the general election.
As expected, UAW endorses
Obama for president. The United Auto Workers union has given its expected endorsement to
Democrat Barack Obama, while criticizing Republican John McCain as an heir to President Bush's policies.
Wal-Mart
ordered to allow union contract in Canada. A Quebec arbitrator imposed a labor contract
Friday [8/15/2008] at a unionized Wal-Mart outlet there, marking the first such deal involving the
retail giant in North America. While other Wal-Mart stores have been unionized, a group that is
critical of the company's labor policies called it a "landmark" collective agreement.
ACORN Cracks
Wide Open. It's more than a little ironic that ACORN for nearly 15 years has been
leading heavily union-backed campaigns to force private- as well as public-sector employers in cities
and counties across the nation to pay workers a "living" wage, while severely underpaying and otherwise
exploiting its own community foot soldiers. Indeed, ACORN for years had blocked attempts by employees
to unionize until the National Labor Relations Board told them otherwise.
Did
someone mention ACORN?
Union workers lose Labor Day holiday
...but this will appease the Muslims, so maybe they won't poison the chicken nuggets.
Plant Drops Labor Day For Muslim Holiday.
Workers at the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville [Tennessee] will no longer have a paid day off on
Labor Day but will instead be granted the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. According to a news release from the
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a new five-year contract at the plant included the change to
accommodate Muslim workers at the plant.
Tyson 'regrets' public reaction. Tyson Foods
says that Labor Day is still a holiday, but not for the union employees at the Shelbyville poultry processing
facility, who will be taking off the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr instead. Meanwhile, the union that
negotiated the controversial contract at the Shelbyville plant has removed the original press release
announcing the holiday change from its web site, and the union president has described the backlash
to the decision as "bigotry."
Tyson
Foods Adopts Muslim Holiday. Eid mubarak, Shelbyville! Union employees at Tyson Foods' poultry
processing plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee will enjoy a paid holiday this year on October 1, the date on
which the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr falls this year. And on Labor Day, they will be hard at work,
per a new agreement that the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) negotiated with Tyson.
The RWDSU explained that the new contract "implements a new holiday to accommodate the … Muslim workers
at the plant."
The Editor says...
Something tells me most of the non-Muslims will call in sick on Labor Day, so they can go to
the parades and picnics with everybody else.
AFSCME, MoveOn ad
targets McCain on Iraq war. A major labor union and the liberal organization MoveOn.org are
joining forces to air a provocative new ad portraying John McCain's Iraq policy as a prolonged presence that
would involve a new generation of Americans. Paid for by the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees and by MoveOn.org, the commercial represents an expansion by Democratic-leaning groups of
a campaign against McCain.
The Union Agenda:
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama visited the House of Labor this week, and Labor can't wait to invite one
back. Which one? Who cares. To read the press coverage, unions are as split as the rest
of the country over a Democratic nominee.
Hillary
Labor Pains: Powerful union bosses, including a key backer of Hillary Rodham Clinton, urged her
to sack chief strategist Mark Penn just days before she axed him, it was revealed yesterday [4/7/2008].
Clinton backer Gerald McEntee, who heads the powerful AFSCME union of government workers, says he told her
that Penn needed to go.
Voter Turnout or Voter Fraud? On
March 8 the Washington Post disclosed that George Soros has decided to help fund a state-of-the-art
database that will collect and organize detailed information on millions of voters. ... Harold Ickes, a former
Clinton White House deputy chief of staff, will organize the project and he will encourage labor unions and
liberal special interest groups to use its information. ... Ickes' job will be to help unions and advocacy
groups use its detailed up-to-date information on voters' likes and dislikes to push their hot buttons and
get them to the polls on Election Day.
When Unions Negotiate With Governments: Ever
wonder what determines the outcome of multi-year billion dollar employee contracts negotiated between labor unions and
state government agencies? Here's what happened when one group filed a public records request to find out.
U.S. Supreme Court to Consider Union Political Funds
Collection. Taxpayers across the nation will soon know whether states can prohibit local school
boards from collecting political contributions for teacher unions, as the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing
such matters in a case from Idaho. In 2003, the Idaho Legislature passed the Voluntary Contributions
Act, which banned the collection of political contributions through government payroll systems throughout
the state. Nothing in the law prohibits union members from contributing to candidates by choice, and
nothing in it prohibits unions from engaging in politics.
Unions Look to Democrats to Enact Sweeping Legislative
Agenda. What makes labor's current political activity so significant is that, unlike when Democrats controlled
Congress and the White House in the early 1990s, this time unions want a major overhaul of labor law. Unions are demanding
that Democratic presidential candidates commit to adopting their agenda, and a Democratic president will feel an enormous
obligation to uphold election promises. If Democrats hang onto the House and increase their Senate margin, Republicans
will have few opportunities to impede labor's broader agenda.
Workers
are fine with fewer unions. Labor unions' importance in the workplace has fallen steadily since
1950, when roughly a third of American workers were unionized. Today, that number is well below 10% in
the private sector. ... Maybe unions aren't so crucial to worker well-being. When more than 90% of the
private-sector labor force isn't unionized, why do 97% of us earn above the minimum wage? If our
bargaining power is so pitiful, why don't greedy employers exploit us and drive wages down to the legal
minimum?
UAW Membership Drops
Below 500,000. United Auto Workers union membership has fallen below 500,000 for the first time since
World War II, reflecting the massive restructuring undertaken by Detroit's automakers. The union reported
Friday [3/28/2008] in a filing with the Labor Department that it had 464,910 members by the end of 2007, compared
with 538,448 at the end of 2006.
Expect Big Labor Power Grabs Next Year.
Focused on raising forced-union-dues dollars, union officials have made expanding Big Labor's government-granted
special privileges a top priority. So, although the Supreme Court's decision in Chamber v. Brown may slow
coercive union organizing down from its current breakneck speed, workers likely face a renewed assault on their
freedom of association after the November elections.
Workers Get To Say No To Labor Bosses.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday [6/14/2007] that unions may not spend nonunion workers' fees for political
purposes without the workers' permission. Now the question is, will the unions obey the ruling?
Union Officials Forced to Drop $5,000 Retaliatory Fines.
Under federal law, workers who resign from union membership cannot be lawfully fined by a union — even
if the union maintains a formal rule governing the situation, which it did not in this case. In
Patternmakers v. NLRB (1984) U.S. Supreme Court decision, the High Court ruled workers may resign
their formal union membership immediately, at any time, and without restrictions.
Unions pump $1 million into
phone-tax campaign. Organized labor has contributed more than $1 million to
help Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa persuade voters to approve a Feb. 5 ballot
measure that would maintain the city's telephone utility users tax. … Los Angeles County
Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo said unions are
bankrolling the campaign because losing the telephone tax would hurt city services and the
public employees who provide them.
Rescuing the
Rust Belt? When the American automobile industry was the world's leader in its field, many people
seemed to think that labor unions could transfer a bigger chunk of that prosperity to its members without
causing economic repercussions. Toyota, Honda, and others who took away more and more of the Big Three
automakers' market share — leading to huge job losses in Detroit — proved once again
the old trite saying that there is no free lunch. … Many workers in the new plants being built by
Toyota and others apparently already understand that. They have repeatedly voted against being
represented by labor unions. They want to keep their jobs.
Big
Labor's Unfulfilled Wish List: The federal government's union watchdog agency will have to get
by on less next year. The mammoth omnibus spending bill passed last week hacks nearly $3 million
from the Office of Labor Management Standards — a small gift for Big Labor just in time for Christmas.
The budget cut was a setback for the office, which has recouped more than $100 million for American
workers since 2001 as a result of increased enforcement.
Government Unions Hide Behind
Secrecy Protections. There is little doubt that financial transparency is a
major deterrent to labor union and political corruption. Yet, where the two
meet — unions of government employees — there is virtually no financial
transparency. Unions composed entirely of government employees at the state and
local level are not covered by the federal Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure
Act (LMRDA), also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act.
Unions Allowed Back Into Utah's Payroll
System. Big Labor struck back against Utah's Voluntary Contributions Act by convincing the
state's 10th Circuit Court unions have the right to collect political contributions of members through
the state and local payroll systems.
FEC
Fines Group Allied With Democrats. A union-financed advocacy group that played
a major role in the 2004 elections has agreed to pay a $580,000 fine after the Federal
Election Commission concluded it illegally ran advertising against President Bush and
in favor of Democrat John Kerry.
Union Math, Union Myths. Since its
peak in the 1950s, union membership in the private sector has steadily dropped. To explain the decline,
labor leaders have scapegoated businesses for intimidating employees during organizing campaigns. But
data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) do not — in any way — substantiate
the notion that tens of thousands of employees are wrongly fired each year.
Embezzlement, False Reports, Violence, and
More. Most people don't know just how many crimes are committed every year through which union
officials hurt their own members. The number of reputed and verified crimes is staggering. Nothing
illustrates this more clearly than the hundreds of indictments of union officials for violations of the Labor
Management and Reporting Disclosure Act. According to the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS),
those crimes include "embezzlement, filing false reports, keeping false records, destruction of records,
extortionate picketing and deprivation of rights by violence."
Union Violence, Harassment, and Intimidation
of Workers: Many union officials have ordered or approved of violent, coercive, and harassing
conduct aimed at making an example of employees who don't toe the union line. The National Institute for
Labor Relations Research has compiled a list of incidents of union violence that average nearly 300 per year
for the last 30 years.
Conscientious Objections
to Union Fee Increase. Federal law is clear that no employee can be forced to support political
or ideological causes with which he or she disagrees. Unionized employees have the right to become
religious or political objectors, either diverting their full dues to charity, or receiving a refund for
the portion of their dues which would otherwise be spent for political causes. In this way, employees
can ensure that their funds are not used for purposes which contradict their beliefs.
[In one recent year, the IBEW spent $4,637,733 per year on political activities and
lobbying.*]
Unions' Latest Abuse of Power:
Union leaders [have begun] to lose touch with the men and women they were supposedly elected to represent.
Today, they are more likely to be found on the golf course or at pricey restaurants and nightclubs than at the
negotiating table or on the picket line. As a result, workers who were once proud of their union
affiliation have begun to turn away in droves. Less than 7.4 percent of the private-sector workforce
in this country is unionized today, and the percentage is steadily decreasing.
Carpenters'
Union Outsources Picket Lines. In this video, one union boss oversees a picket line of homeless
and transients the union hired to do work the union's members won't do themselves. When a reporter tries
to ask the picketers questions, they say that they will be fired if they talked to him. The union boss
remains tight lipped too.
Clinton Picks Up
Union Endorsement. The United Transportation Union on Tuesday [8/28/2007] endorsed
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, the first national
union endorsement of the 2008 campaign. … The UTU also is one of the top political donors in
organized labor, contributing $1.3 million in the 2004 federal elections, with
84 percent of the money going to Democratic candidates.
Large Union
Backs Obama; Another Is Likely to Do Same. Giving Senator Barack Obama new momentum, one of the
nation's largest labor unions, the United Food and Commercial Workers, endorsed him on Thursday [2/14/2008].
Another giant, the Service Employees International Union, was on the brink of backing him.
Union
members can opt out of dues based on religious beliefs. An employee whose religious beliefs
conflict with the political positions of their labor union cannot be forced to pay dues, a federal judge
ruled. U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost's ruling broadens the category of employees who may opt out of
unions because of religious beliefs beyond Seventh-day Adventists and Mennonites.
Democrats pledge to reverse unions'
decline. Six Democratic presidential contenders, courting one of the party's most crucial
interest groups, pledged Wednesday [8/15/2007] to work to reverse decades of decline in the nation's
union movement.
Big
Labor Pushes for Big Payback. Big Labor bussed thousands of activists to Capitol Hill Tuesday to
lobby for the Employee Free Choice Act -- an act union leaders have called their top legislative priority
for the 110th Congress. Event organizers claimed they brought 2,000 participants on 62 busses from
the Campaign for America's Future's "Take Back America" conference to the Upper Senate Park. There,
a parade of Democratic congressmen and senators delivered hard-line progressive rhetoric to their
pro-union advocates.
[Take back America? Who has America now?]
Courting union votes:
When Barack Obama was seeking AFL-CIO support in the primaries, he promised to sign a bill that would
effectively deprive workers of a private-ballot vote in unionization drives. … Mr. Obama doesn't talk
about this issue much before general audiences, but it his No. 1 promise when he speaks to
unions — pledging that the so-called Employee Free Choice Act will become law in 2009 if
he wins the presidency in November.
AFL-CIO to
spend $200 million on 2008. The AFL-CIO and its unions said Friday [9/21/2007] they will spend
an estimated $200 million on the 2008 elections, with the nation's largest labor federation devoting
$53 million exclusively to grass-roots mobilization. In addition, the AFL-CIO said it would deploy
more than 200,000 volunteers leading up to the election, with special focus on battleground states such as
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Here is an excerpt from the article above...
"Today the AFL-CIO is sending a powerful message that we are going to change the
course of our country in 2008 by electing a president and candidates at all levels who are committed to
restoring the promise of America to working people," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.
The Editor says...
This is the emptiest rhetoric I've heard in a long time. Who made (and then retracted) the
"promise of America?" And what guarantees do you have when someone has promised you "America"?
I'm sure the enthusiastic crowd cheered, even though Mr. Sweeney's statement makes no sense.
AFL-CIO
to spend $40 million in political fight. The AFL-CIO, a federation of 52 U.S. labor
unions, plans to spend a record $40 million in an attempt to unseat Republicans in this
year's congressional elections.
AFL-CIO Begins $40M Voter Drive. The AFL-CIO
launched a $40 million voter-drive yesterday [8/30/2006], targeting 21 states and hoping increased turnout
among union members swings competitive races in Ohio and Pennsylvania. … The vast majority of the
candidates who would benefit are Democrats in union-heavy states, especially the Midwest.
Outsourcing
the Picket Line: Carpenters Union Hires Homeless to Stage Protests. Although their placards
identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union
members. They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to
picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently
been released from prison. Others are between jobs.
Your Right to Vote on the
Ballot. Few are aware that their right to vote in private — at least in the
workplace — may be in danger. It seems too bizarre to be true, but union bosses want
to end secret ballot elections, and many members of Congress are willing to go along. If
they succeed, more than 100 million workers would lose their right to a private vote on
whether to join a union. … Some 105 million American workers would lose their right to
a private vote under the "Employee Free Choice Act." It has nothing to do with employee
free choice and everything to do with increasing union membership.
One union fights another -- over politics.
Voter-Fraud
Rethink: Nevada allies of Hillary Clinton have just sued to shut down several caucus sites inside
casinos along the Las Vegas Strip, potentially disenfranchising thousands of Hispanic or black shift workers
who couldn't otherwise attend the 11:30 a.m. caucus this coming Saturday. D. Taylor, the
president of the Culinary Workers Union that represents many casino workers, notes that legal complaint was
filed just two days after his union endorsed Barack Obama. He says the state teachers union, most of
whose leadership backs Mrs. Clinton, realized that the Culinary union would be able to use the casino caucuses
to better exercise its clout on behalf of Mr. Obama, and used a law firm with Clinton ties to file the
suit.
Unions
bitterly divided in Democratic race. The tight race between Hillary Rodham Clinton
and Barack Obama has opened surprisingly deep and bitter divisions in the ranks of organized labor,
as rival union leaders fly planeloads of last-minute volunteers into key states, accuse each other of
trying to disenfranchise members, and even launch open attacks on rival Democratic candidates.
Teachers
Sue to Block Hotel Workers' Union Vote in Nevada Caucus. Nevada's state teachers
union and six Las Vegas area residents filed a lawsuit late Friday that could make it harder for
many members of the state's huge hotel workers union to vote in the hotly contested Jan. 19
Democratic caucus in Nevada. The 13-page lawsuit in federal district court here comes two
days after the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada endorsed Senator Barack
Obama, a blow to Mrs. Clinton.
The
Voters Beat Shameful Suit by Nevada Teachers. This year's presidential contest already has
sparked massive voter interest in Iowa and New Hampshire, and for those of us who are embarrassed by America's
low voter turnout the past few election cycles, it is something wonderful to watch. So thank goodness a
federal judge in Nevada didn't damage this excitement by siding with the state's teachers union, which filed a
shocking lawsuit eight days before Saturday's primary [1/19/2008] in a clear effort to dilute the voting
strength of working-class people.
Democrats love unions, and unions love
Democrats. Whenever Democrats meet with organized labor leaders, it is a love fest. Indeed,
the love fest has been a central feature of this year's congressional session. Few things have been
more important to Democrats that pleasing organized labor.
Whose side are they on?
AFL-CIO Sues Over Government Crackdown.
The nation's largest federation of labor unions sued the U.S. government Wednesday over a plan to crack down on
employers who hire illegal immigrants, arguing increased scrutiny of Social Security numbers will result in
errors and threaten the jobs of legal workers.
Tennessee raids Teamsters
amid union rivalry. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday hauled away files and
computer hard drives from the Teamsters, which took over as the police department's representative from
the Fraternal Order of Police last year in a bitter department election. Earlier this month,
International Brotherhood of Teamsters organizer Calvin Hullett was arrested and charged with
aggravated burglary. Agents said he hid cameras at a youth camp run by the FOP.
Why
union assault is 'failed campaign'. Who is Gomez, I wondered, and what does he have to do with
Cintas? The answer tells us a lot about how far unions will go to distort the truth and destroy a
successful company.
Rival Labor
Unions Beating Each Other Up. The effort to unionize Ohio nurses has ended with one labor union
accusing another labor union of waging a "vicious union-busting campaign."
Unions Grasp for Influence Over Private
Equity. When planning corporate campaigns, unions and activist groups research their target and
identify its weaknesses. One key pressure point is a company's need for capital. Because they often
have great influence over pension funds, many unions are able to pressure companies by having the funds offer
shareholder resolutions at corporate annual meetings.
Food
Workers Local 951 Pressuring witnesses to save a suspect election. The DOL charged substantial
and numerous LMRDA violations, including: no secret balloting; ballot distribution and collection by
staff at work sites; failure to account for hundreds of unused ballots and replacement ballots; denying
ballots to eligible voters; discriminating in the use of the membership list; and using union and employer
money to promote the incumbent slate.
Leaders wonder if
state ready to rethink unions. Michigan is bleeding jobs, especially good-paying, top-benefit
manufacturing jobs. Supporters of making Michigan a right-to-work state, including about a dozen
Republican legislators, say a heavily unionized culture deters businesses from locating in the state, so, with
the economic crisis, the once unthinkable must be examined.
Don't Scrap
the Private Ballot. Democracy can be messy. You find that in any number of stories about
voting irregularities. For example, in Florida's 13th congressional district, Republican Vern Buchanan
won last fall by just 369 votes. Democrat Christine Jennings cried foul, noting that some 18,000
ballots were cast without a vote for either candidate. (The House of Representatives is investigating.)
Not to worry, though, because organized labor has a way to end electoral controversy: Eliminate the
private ballot.
How Labor Rules:
Why did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi renege on her previous commitment? She dances to the tune of AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney, who preaches outright protectionism. Hostility toward not only the Peru and
Panama pacts but also a vital agreement with Colombia can be traced to influence on U.S. unions by
South America's leftist labor leaders, originating in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.
Election 2008 — Notes on
Funding and Support. It is a well-known fact that unions invariably support the Democrat Party
with cash, workers and votes but, it seems the Democrat Party has forgotten to support the unions! The
Democrat National Convention on August 25-28, 2008 is scheduled to be held in Denver Colorado. Colorado
is known as NOT being overly supportive of organized labor. In the 2006 Mid-Term Elections, unions were
very useful in putting the Democratic candidates over the top in close contests and enabling Democrats to
take control of Congress.
Colorado
opens door too wide for unions. Will the proposed policy that would expand the access unions
have to state employees truly make Colorado a "union paradise," as Republicans claim? Is it Gov. Bill
Ritter's "thank you" to organized labor for its help in his winning election?
Barack Obama,
Control Freak: Senator Barack Obama recently said, "let's allow our unions and their organizers
to lift up this country's middle class again." Ironically, he said it at a time when Detroit automakers
have been laying off unionized workers by the tens of thousands, while Toyota has been hiring tens of
thousands of non-union American automobile workers.
Union
mentality can be a roadblock to innovation. One of the most cherished assumptions of
organized labor is that a hefty increase in union membership would be good for the nation.
This is simply untrue. … For the economy as a whole, a large increase in the number of
unionized businesses would be a tremendous drag on growth, especially in dynamic sectors such
as technology.
The
Union Police: Unions keep losing membership as a share of the national workforce, which explains
why organized labor's main political focus is changing the rules to force more workers into unions. Witness
a bill that Senate Democrats are pushing this week to require that hundreds of thousands of local police and
firemen submit to collective bargaining. … Sixteen states have considered legislation like this since 1996
and voted it down. The bill, pushed hardest by the International Association of Fire Fighters, would
impose it nationwide, superceding all of these state laws.
Heat
on volunteer firefighters. You probably haven't heard Congress is about to shut down many of
America's volunteer fire departments. Not intentionally, perhaps. Yet a little-known bill
advancing through Congress would do just that. … Who would want to shut them down? The International
Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), that's who. … The union's effort to ban volunteering is an assault
on our civic fabric. Doctors who provide free care to the poor, lawyers who work pro bono for the
disadvantaged, and firefighters who volunteer for their communities make America a better country.
Labor-Liberal
Incest. In Stamford, Connecticut, where I live, police, fireman, and teachers unions, which
constitute more than 70% of the budget, are driving property taxes upward at rates of 8% to 10% per annum.
Emblematic of the malevolent influence of these unions is the daily spectacle of uniformed policemen, at
$70 per hour, doing an indifferent job of directing traffic around roadside work crews. Such work
could and should be done at no more than $10 per hour by lower-income people eager for such work.
Labor's man in
'08. While Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama soak up news media attention, John Edwards
has pushed for organized labor's support. No decisions have yet been made, but the former senator from
North Carolina and 2004 vice presidential nominee is the front-runner for winning over the big, dynamic unions
who left the AFL-CIO 18 months ago.
Organized Labor Supports Democrats with Biggest
Voter Mobilization Ever. The labor movement geared up for its "biggest political blitz ever" in
the November 2006 elections, according to the Capital Research Center. The AFL-CIO announced it intended
to pour "$40 million into 80 targeted races in 21 states — the largest voter mobilization drive
in the history of organized labor." That is only the tip of the iceberg and doesn't account for in-kind
contributions such as volunteer hours, phone lines, brochures, etc.
Nurse Sues Union for
Failure to Accommodate Religious Beliefs. Sacramento nurse Jennifer Le … is a Roman
Catholic who objected to membership because of the union's positions on moral issues such as abortion,
comprehensive sex education and domestic partnerships. The union informed Le that she could divert
her dues to charity. However, the union insisted that Le give her dues to one of five charities
such as Planned Parenthood and the AIDS Foundation.
Union Free Choice. Union membership
among non-government employees now stands at 7.4 percent, its lowest rate in decades. So, the
AFL-CIO, its affiliates, and several independent unions are trying to make it easier to force employers to
recognize unions as exclusive bargaining agents through legislation.
Union Members, Not Minimum-Wage Earners, Benefit
When the Minimum Wage Rises. Supporters of raising the minimum wage argue it will raise the earnings
of low-income workers. Labor unions are among the most prominent of these supporters, a fact that makes
little intuitive sense, because very few union members work for the minimum wage. Unions, however, are not
just being altruistic when they push to raise the minimum wage. A higher minimum wage increases the expense
of hiring unskilled workers. This makes hiring skilled union members more attractive.
The heroic era of organized labor is
long gone. Soon, perhaps, a majority of organized labor will be government employees. The
labor movement will be primarily government organized as an interest group to lobby and pressure itself.
Already New York City, which has about the same size population it had 40 years ago, has 30 percent
more city employees. Antonio Villaraigosa, the new mayor of Los Angeles, is a former organizer for that
city's teachers union.
Are Labor
Unions Obsolete? Hint: Yes. Whether or not you think that unions were necessary
in the first place, it's clear that today they've become a dinosaur of our post-industrial society. Like
a dead whale washed up on a beach, unions are big, rotting, and avoided by a growing number of people each
day — but nobody quite knows how to get rid of them.
Connecticut Public Employees Live On Easy
Street. "No, layoffs are not something we would ever consider," said former Connecticut
House of Representatives Speaker Moira Lyons (D-Stamford) in November 2002, in response to a reporter's
question about laying off state employees in order to close the state's budget deficit.
Overly
Powerful Public Sector Unions. The percentage of private sector workers who are covered by a
collective bargaining agreement has plunged to just 8.5 percent, down from 23.2 percent
in 1983. … Meanwhile, public sector union membership shows very little net change over the
past 22 years, rising from 340,00 to 350,000.
Puerto Rican Union President Sentenced
for $15 Million Theft. In the summer of 2005, four officials of UTM 1740, an affiliate of
the International Longshoremen's Association, along with six businessmen and three companies, were indicted
in U.S. District Court on nearly two dozen counts of embezzlement, money-laundering and maintaining false
records. They were accused of converting some $10 million in funds, mainly from the union's health
care plan, to their own use, plus underreporting another $1.5 million in dues collections.
Court hears
arguments in Washington state cases. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that labor unions may collect
fees from nonunion workers to cover the costs of collective bargaining performed on their behalf. But
the court has further held that's all they can take — the unions are forbidden from collecting and
using additional fees from nonunion workers to finance union political activities, unless those
workers grant their permission.
First pizza-delivery union formed in Florida
city. Eleven Domino's employees hoping to make a little more dough have formed the nation's
first union of pizza-delivery drivers. … The union organizing drive was started by Jim Pohle, a
37-year-old Domino's driver who said he delivers pizzas because he likes to sleep late, smoke on the job
and listen to the radio.
[That sounds like exactly the kind of employee that the unions work hardest to defend.]
NLRB Decision on Supervisors Could Limit Unions'
Power. Labor unions are conducting rallies in cities across the country in anticipation of a
decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dealing with the definition of a supervisor.
UFCW Exposed. The United Food and Commercial Workers' union
bosses have a dirty secret: While they rake in six-figure salaries paid by their member's hard earned
dues, the union has done little to represent their members' interests.
RICO Trial for Bosses of Florida Union
Gets Underway. Michael and Robert McKay have been living on borrowed time. Respectively,
president and treasurer-secretary of the American Maritime Officers, the McKay brothers, aged 59 and 56,
rigged elections, stole funds, obstructed justice, and orchestrated illegal campaign contributions. At
least that's what the Justice Department has been alleging in a criminal racketeering suit against the pair.
Freightliner Faces Federal Prosecution. The
Regional Director for the National Labor Relations Board has filed a formal complaint and agreed to prosecute
Freightliner LLC for federal unfair labor practices after an autoworker suffered retaliation for questioning
a pattern of special treatment given to United Auto Workers union officials by the company.
US postal workers union endorses
Obama. US Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday [4/7/2008] won the endorsement
of the country's largest postal workers union in a fresh boost to his 2008 nomination race against rival Hillary
Clinton.
Former
postal union leaders arrested. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat could stop two leaders of
an American Postal Workers Union local, but a federal criminal investigation apparently has. John
McGovern, 50, of Hawthorne and Gary Weightman, 53, of Keansburg were arrested Friday [2/17/2006] and
charged with embezzling more than $400,000 from Local 190 of the APWU.
Can the Postal Service Learn? Employees
of the U.S. Postal Service — the third largest employer in the country — should take note: Asking for
too much can sometimes turn big benefits into big layoffs. Delphi, the nation's largest auto-parts
supplier and employer of 34,000 hourly workers, is bankrupt. It might have something to do with the fact
that Delphi's unionized workers make on average $64 per hour in wages and benefits — more than twice what
some of its competitors pay.
Economic
sabotage with a union label. During the mid-90s, for example, United Steelworkers
Local 9121 targeted Bayou Steel Corp. In addition to striking, the local union (supported by the
national union) advanced its demands through assaults, vandalism, blackmail, and threats against
management's family members. The exasperated Louisiana-based company filed a civil RICO suit
against the union, eventually settling out of court.
So America wants Socialism, eh? In
the mid-sixties, Union activists started visiting my Dad's shop, pressuring [harassing] him to hire Union
Employees and pay Union Wages. As Ohio was a "right to work" state at that time [as I recall]. Dad
told them that this was his business and that if they wanted to set the rules that they should go start their
own business. This was unacceptable to these organizers. I remember the resulting vandalism, a
slashed tire the following night on the family's only vehicle. ... Calls to the police never resulted in any
arrests. Telephone threats persisted. Today, forty years later, ACORN has shown that nothing has
changed.
Kennedy Pledges
to 'Play Offense' for Labor. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) joined with union leaders Friday
[12/8/2006] to rally for a bill that would make it easier for American workers to unionize and pledged to work
for labor interests when he takes over the Senate Labor Committee in January.
Head of Nation's Largest Municipal Labor Council Arrested in
NYC. A seven-term Democratic state assemblyman who also is president of the nation's largest
municipal labor council was arrested on federal racketeering charges Tuesday, accused of stealing more
than $2 million from the state, labor unions and even a Little League fund.
Unions are bad for job growth.
Right to Work laws give individual workers the right to stay out of unions. In a truly free society, though,
right to work laws would not exist. After all, a company should have the right to make union membership a
condition of employment, even though that might be a foolish approach. But because there is so much
pro-union legislation tilting the playing field against business, right to work laws are seen as a way
of creating some balance.
Unions using coerced revenues
for politics. The cases began in Washington State where teachers have been embroiled in a
conflict with the NEA-affiliated teachers' union over whether the union has a right to use nonmembers'
dues however it chooses. Passed by nearly 73 percent of voters in an initiative, Washington's
paycheck protection law has been on the books for over a decade. It requires that union receive the
"affirmative authorization" of workers prior to spending their mandatory dues or agency fees on politics.
The union flagrantly violated the law, even admitting to multiple violations during a state investigation.
Unions' Grip
on State Governments Tightens With Forced Dues. Recent developments in Washington and Maine
demonstrate why state government is the silver lining to the cloud that hangs over organized labor.
Although union membership in private industry is at an all-time low, one in three public-sector workers is
unionized, and the number is growing. Beleaguered state governments are agreeing to union contracts
that force non-members to pay union dues.
Mob-Controlled Queens, N.Y. Local
Threatens, Ignores Members. Members of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) want some
answers about where their money is going. That's understandable given the caliber of people running the
show. The president of the 15,000-member Queens, N.Y. school bus drivers' local, Salvatore Battaglia, is
facing federal charges of obstruction of justice, having been accused of conspiring with members of New York's
Genovese crime family. He's still in office. The union's secretary-treasurer, Julius Bernstein, was
forced by prosecutors to step down from his post in June; he's due for sentencing late next month for
racketeering. And its pension fund director, Ann Chiarovano, despite pleading guilty in August to
obstruction of justice, remains at her job because she is technically not a union officer.
Union corruption and the
law: Some corrupt acts are punishable by criminal laws, most effectively in blatant
cases. Others are best addressed through labor law and regulation, again of limited effectiveness
except in the most blatant cases of financial misuse. The entire control structure is complex and
uneven in application, reflecting the particular concerns that happened to occupy regulators during their
sporadic bouts of regulation.
Birdwatching,
Government style. Many of you who thought you had the stomach flu this year really had food poisoning
from bacteria. We should treat raw chicken as if it were covered in fecal matter — it's crawling
with bacteria. Keep it away from the salad, and wash the cutting board. Local 2357 had a
different solution: The government must hire more union inspectors. Apparently if more people
stared at the birds, they'd be better at seeing invisible germs.
The so-called Employee Free Choice Act
Secret ballots in
union selection process facing extinction. Labor unions hope this exquisitely mistitled act, which
the House of Representatives probably will pass this week, will compensate for their dwindling persuasiveness as
they try to convince workers to join. It would allow unions to organize workplaces without workers voting
for unionization in elections with secret ballots. Instead, unions could use the "card check" system:
Once a majority of a company's employees signs a card expressing consent, the union is automatically certified
as the bargaining agent for all the workers.
Patrick
signs bill to ease union organizing. Union organizing just got easier for government
employees in Massachusetts. Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill yesterday [9/27/2007]
that allows employees to organize through "card check" drives, rather than secret ballots.
AFL-CIO
bullying Colorado on Dems' 2008 convention. Why is the AFL-CIO so worried about an obscure
Colorado bill? Because the vetoed measure was of a piece with the "Employee Free Choice Act of 2007" now
being rushed through Congress by national Democrats, led by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. That bill
abolishes all secret ballot voting in union representation contests. Doing away with workers' right to
cast a secret ballot when voting on whether to unionize is the AFL-CIO's top national priority because union
leaders think it will help them reverse their decades-long slide in membership.
Stop Democrats' Big Labor
payoff. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are expected today to approve the
deceptively labeled "Employee Free Choice Act of 2007," sponsored by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, and most of
his colleagues on his side of the partisan aisle. … EFCA is Big Labor's No. 1 legislative priority
for the 110th Congress. We believe it should be defeated for these three reasons. First, EFCA strikes
down a fundamental right of workplace democracy, the secret ballot in representation elections.
House
votes to ease unionizing. Democrats rewarded organized labor yesterday for helping them retake
control of Congress, passing a House bill that would make it easier for workers to start unions against
companies' wishes. The legislation, passed 241-185 on a nearly party-line vote, would take away the
right of employers to demand secret-ballot elections by workers before unions could be recognized.
Labor's Payoff:
Organized labor may want to celebrate the House vote March 1 that one newspaper headline touted as a "payoff"
for the $56.7 million that unions contributed to Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections. The passage
of H.R. 800, the "Employee Free Choice Act," is indeed a milestone for big labor, which watched it go down
in defeat in the 108th and 109th Congresses. But it will have to be a quick victory dance; the bill will
not pass in the Senate by a long shot.
Unions
are sinking, but secret ballots not the cause. In D.C., they're calling it the Employee Free Choice
Act, a title that conservative Washington Post columnist George Will called "Orwellian." The bill, which
prevailed in the new Democratic- controlled Congress, removes the right of employers to demand secret-ballot
elections by workers before unions could be recognized. If the bill became law, a union would be certified
once a majority of workers signed authorization cards, a fairly public process. Today, if a majority of
employees signs such cards, employers can require a secret-ballot election, which is conducted by the National
Labor Relations Board.
"Card
Check" Is Just One Reason Unions Are Losing Workers. Secret ballot elections, though not prefect,
are the best means with which to insure each man has just one vote. Labor Unions are attempting to justify
the removal of free and fair elections in the unionization process.
My Party
Should Respect Secret Union Ballots. Voting is an immense privilege. That is why I am
concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans. As a longtime friend
of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and undemocratic
overreach not in the interest of either management or labor. The legislation is called the Employee Free
Choice Act, and I am sad to say it runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement.
McGovern
Criticizes Dems on Big Labor. Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern is
taking a prominent role a $30 million campaign to oppose Democratic-backed "card check" legislation
that would eliminate the secret ballot process required to unionize workplaces.
No way to form a union.
When citizens go to the polls on Nov. 4, they will be free to vote their conscience — regardless
of pressure from relatives, friends or co-workers — after having had a chance to weigh the alternatives.
Campaigns and secret ballots are sacrosanct elements of American democracy. So it's surprising and
disturbing that organized labor wants to do away with both these elements when workers decide whether to
form a union.
'Card check' red
herring. There are two principal methods for employees to join and command employers to
recognize their union's collective bargaining request. First: Company workers can get at least
30 percent of their colleagues to sign petition cards requesting representation, send the cards to the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and have them oversee a secret ballot election. Second: If
more than half of the workers sign up for representation, a union is deemed legitimate through "card check"
procedures without Labor Relations getting involved at all, but the employer has the right to request a secret
ballot election.
Union-Abused Employees Give Testimony to Congress.
The coercive card check unionization scheme is highly controversial for severely curtailing employees' freedom
to choose whether or not to unionize and for stripping workers of the limited protections of a
government-supervised secret ballot election.
Illegally Forcing Union on Workers: Because of the
prevalence of union intimidation tactics directed at employees, card check is controversial for severely
curtailing workers' freedom of choice in deciding whether or not to unionize. Consequently, the organizing
scheme has sparked numerous legal cases documenting illegal activities by union organizers, including threats,
bribes, and stalking of rank-and-file workers.
Little minds don't grasp big-box appeal.
People who buy their groceries from Wal-Mart — it has one-fifth of the nation's grocery
business — save at least 17 percent. But because unions are strong in many grocery
stores trying to compete with Wal-Mart, unions are yanking on the Democratic Party's leash, demanding
laws to force Wal-Mart to pay wages and benefits higher than those that already are high enough to attract
77 times more applicants than there were jobs at Evergreen Park's store.
Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought
Unions. In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992,
Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world's largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions
seeking to represent store workers.
Making children
cry: How the unions stole Christmas. Inside a South Florida Wal-Mart last Thursday
[12/15/2005], union-sponsored protesters handed out empty, gift-wrapped boxes to children and made them
cry, according to multiple witnesses — and it appears that the arrests of two of the
protesters may have been part of a grand strategy designed by Big Labor-backed WakeUpWalMart.com.
Editorial Comment: If you
are a member of a labor union, would you stoop to that level to get publicity for
your cause? I assume most of you would not. How then can you continue to
support organizations that have no moral boundaries?
Union Leader Fraud &
Corruption: Most people don't know just how many crimes are committed every year through which
union officials hurt their own members. The number of reputed and verified crimes is staggering.
Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the hundreds of indictments of union officials for violations of
the Labor Management and Reporting Disclosure Act.
Union Demands Washington Workers Be
Fired. On November 2, 2005, the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE),
Washington state's largest public employee union, delivered a list of 800 workers' names to the
state Labor Relations Office. The state then notified those employees they would be fired
just after Christmas if they did not acquiesce to the union's demands. Their crime? Not
paying union dues.
They have to be told?
UAW tells
workers to stop vandalizing non-Ford cars. A United Auto Workers official is warning workers
to stop vandalizing non-Ford cars and trucks parked at the automaker's Kansas City Assembly plant,
according to a leaflet posted online.
UAW boss: The worst is upon
us. Since the last UAW convention four years ago, the three Detroit automakers have cut production
of new cars and trucks by 1 million vehicles, while nonunion plants have increased production by more
than 1.1 million.
The UAW's
Slow Death: No longer can the UAW bring Detroit to its knees. In its heyday, the UAW had
more than 1.5 million members; today, it claims only 640,000 active workers, and its major goal in
negotiations with the big car companies is to keep that number from shrinking. But the battle
ultimately may be a losing one — and the union is largely to blame.
Chrysler offers $100,000
buyouts to UAW plant workers in Metro Detroit. Chrysler employs about 12,000 United Auto Workers
members at its 10 Metro Detroit manufacturing sites. Any worker with more than 1 year
experience — and very few Chrysler factory workers are of that short tenure — is
eligible to accept a $100,000 buyout.
Labor
Unions Admit They Are Killing American Jobs. Industrial unions' origins have in nearly all cases
involved violent property destruction and deaths as they strove to supplant capitalism and place business
management in the hands of the workers.
Union behind
illegal immigrant. Of all the offenders that U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown has sentenced, a
carpenter and union organizer who illegally immigrated from Mexico more than 15 years ago drew one of the biggest
crowds. Instead of spurning Jose Alfredo Cobian of Molalla as a threat to their jobs and wages, fellow union members
packed Brown's Portland courtroom last month in a gesture that reveals the changing relationship between organized
labor and immigrant workers.
A confounding
alliance of unions and illegal immigrants. It was billed as the biggest act of civil disobedience
in Los Angeles history — rivaled only by Californians' defiant use of appliances during peak hours back
in the days of the energy crisis. In reality, it was street theater in three acts with a confusing
plotline. Thursday's march [9/28/2006] encouraged unionization of hotel workers at the Hilton near
Los Angeles International Airport, coupled with a call for amnesty for illegal immigrants. Or, to
put it plainly, unions demanded higher wages for workers, while throwing their weight behind an
immigration movement that drives wages down.
Taming the Air Controller
Union: Twenty-five years ago Ronald Reagan changed labor relations in America by firing the air
traffic controllers for striking illegally over pay, violating their oath as federal employees. George W.
Bush and the Republicans in Congress now face an equally aggressive union.
Unions Played Key Role in May Day
Rallies for Illegal Immigrants. Organized labor since the mid 80s has moved away from its
historic opposition to high levels of immigration. Whereas union leaders for decades had
believed — and with more than passing evidence — that a huge influx of unskilled workers
from abroad drives down wages, they have come to view immigrants as the salvation of the labor movement.
Did someone mention the Immigration Protest Rallies?
Thanks to the Auto Workers Union. Thanks
to the UAW, GM has so-called Monday-morning automobiles. That is, automobiles poorly made for no other
reason than because they happened to be made on a day when too few workers showed up, or too few showed up
sober, to do the jobs they were paid to do.
The tragedy that is General
Motors: To compensate [for high labor costs and heavy bureaucracy], GM uses cheaper materials and
specs down components. Consequently, GM vehicles are less attractive, and their five-year reliability
records lag behind vehicles sold by Toyota and Honda. Check out the cheesy interiors of recent Chevy
offerings, and the reliability data published in Consumer Reports. Only a fool would pay as much for a
GM product as for a product from Toyota or Honda.
Union Dues Spent on Golf, Cadillac, Resorts, and
Even Wal-Mart.
• Nearly $1.5 million in union members' dues money was spent on golf.
• The Ironworkers AFL-CIO Local Union 40 spent $52,879 on a new Cadillac for a retiring president.
• $7.9 million of employee dues money went to resort expenditures.
• The Boilermakers AFL-CIO Local 374 spent $8,800 of employee dues money on
Christmas gifts at Wal-Mart, despite the labor movement's smear campaign against the retailer.
• Between six AFL-CIO locals, over $50,000 of employee dues money was spent at a
single D.C. steakhouse.
• The AFL-CIO alone spent over $49 million on political activities and lobbying -- much
of which is spent quietly on in-kind political expenditures like pro-Kerry brochures and
websites. That's almost $20 million more than it spent on representation activities.
Sewing Discontent: Globalization
continues to be a boon to mankind. Economic benefits once reserved to residents of the developed world
are spreading rapidly throughout the developing world. Thanks to free trade, companies from rich
countries are bringing improvements in health, safety, and environmental quality to their overseas employees
and their communities. … Yet another Western export threatens to derail this process. Labor
unions are beginning to globalize, threatening to spread overseas the onerous rules and inefficiencies for
which they're renowned in the West.
Union Ordered to Pay Sutter
Health $17.3 million. The jury found the New York-based Unite Here union had acted with "fraud,
malice or oppression" when it mailed defamatory postcards about Sutter Health. … Unite Here
sent a mass mailing last year claiming Sutter Health used inadequately cleaned bed linens in
its hospitals. The linens were cleaned by a commercial laundry service, which was
embroiled in a labor dispute with the union.
Air Controllers Strike Again? In
1998, the union-dependent [Clinton] administration caved in to today's average controller pay of $166,000
(not counting the most generous pension and benefits in the world), with the top rate of $197,000 exceeding
the pay of all cabinet secretaries — and costing $1.9 billion. That apparently is
not enough.
Clueless Labor Leaders: As
a result of its United Auto Workers-brokered "job security" agreement, in 2005 Delphi paid around 4,000
workers (almost 10 percent of its U.S. workforce) not to work. The Detroit News reports
that this arrangement is projected to cost Delphi $630 million over the next four years.
When is a picket line not a picket line? When AFL-CIO
officials cross it. Even we weren't ready for the union execs' shocking hypocrisy: the
hotel where labor leaders are spending their members' money is currently being picketed by a union in a
labor dispute!
Ex-LA
labor leader pleads guilty to campaign finance violations. Former city councilman and
ex-labor leader Martin Ludlow pleaded guilty Wednesday [3/8/2006] to breaking campaign laws by secretly
accepting $36,000 in union money for his 2003 campaign.
Safeway Employee Hits Union with Federal Civil Rights
Lawsuit. Seattle-area UFCW union officials maintain discriminatory scheme, refuse to honor
worker's right to religious freedom under federal law.
Discrimination by Unions: The
Davis-Bacon Act was passed by Congress in 1934 with the strong support of labor unions. The Act requires
construction firms contracting for the federal government to pay their workers "locally prevailing wages," and
it was passed by lawmakers with the explicit intention of keeping low-skilled African-American workers out of
federal construction projects. … In 1999, Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce
testified before Congress on the "racist roots" of the Davis-Bacon Act.
Financial
disclosure is a wonderful thing. Gerald B. Ellis, for example, made $116,703 in 2004 as a
business manager at Local 627 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, a member of the
AFL-CIO. Local 627 also buys $86,400 worth of legal services from the one-man law firm
Gerald B. Ellis, Inc., nicely padding its business manager's income.
[Edwin Hill, President of the IBEW, has an annual salary
of $315,827.*]
Unions are Dangerous to Business and
Taxpayers. Every state and community across the nation is now facing powerful public
employee unions when it's time to renegotiate public employee contracts. The unions are
aggressive, self-serving, and will strike, shutting down or crippling essential public
services when it's to their benefit in order to intimidate and win larger concessions.
What's next? Unionized vagrants and panhandlers?
AFL-CIO to work with day
laborers. The nation's largest federation of unions agreed Wednesday [8/9/2006] to work with a
network of immigrant day laborer centers to improve wages and working conditions for those who solicit
work from street corners across the United States.
Washington State Workers Win Back Their
Jobs. Ten Washington state employees who were forced from their jobs for refusing to pay union
dues are back at work. In June the state employees settled their class-action lawsuit against the
Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE). The union agreed to remedy its violations, rehire
the fired employees, provide them back pay, and cover nominal damages and attorneys fees.
A phoney
pay comparison. On a recent CNBC show, Maria Bartiromo asked how I could possibly not
agree that typical CEO pay was excessive, since the average CEO earns 431 times the salary of
an average production worker. In my typically diplomatic style, I said that was untrue, a bad
case of comparing apples to oranges. … Dividing one bogus statistic by another bogus statistic
compounds the errors.
Where
will the labor defections take us? The dissidents want to see less
money spent on politics and more on organizing and recruiting. On an individual
level, a lot of union members are conservatives, many Christian conservatives, and
they are sick of paying dues to an organization that has been a rubber stamp of the
left and the Democratic Party.
Should union dues back
political causes? Fred Glass is fighting Proposition 75, an initiative that
goes before California voters on Nov. 8. It would bar public employee unions
from making financial contributions to political candidates or causes without its members'
annual consent to do so.
State Worker Ousted for Not Joining
Union. Pat Woodward, 64, of Olympia, Washington, was recently fired from her job as a
financial analyst for the Washington state Department of Licensing. The reason? She refused
to give a percentage of her paycheck to a union. "I decided not to join the union because it
would violate my religious and ethical beliefs," Woodward said.
AFL-CIO
Promotes Homosexual "Marriage". The political activism of labor unions is growing, and
drifting far from labor issues. Recently it was learned that the AFL-CIO has endorsed and is
using member dues to promote homosexual "marriage."
Metro Transit driver allowed to avoid
buses with gay-themed ads. A Metro Transit bus driver who objects on religious grounds is being
allowed to abstain from driving buses that carry gay-themed ads. Officials with the public transit system
said they've made a reasonable accommodation to her beliefs. But a union leader said the bus company is
condoning intolerance, and that drivers were never before exempted from buses carrying other ads they found
objectionable.
Unions
play Social Security hardball. Unions are losing members and clout at
the bargaining table, but that doesn't mean they aren't still powerful players on the
political scene. Now, Big Labor is trying to stop Social Security reform, even
if it hurts union members.
Accusations fly in Teamster
race. When control of one of the country's largest and most influential labor unions is at stake,
nothing is left to chance. So as 1.4 million North American Teamsters decide this month who will be
their next president, the campaign rhetoric between incumbent James P. Hoffa and challenger Tom Leedham
has rivaled the most heated political election.
Labor's
political illusion: [John Sweeney] wanted to restore union power through
politics. His project was a total failure, and the AFL-CIO is in ruins 50 years
after its creation.
Witnesses to
the AFL-CIO's Decline: The AFL-CIO is faced with serious problems: declining
membership, failed political efforts, internal disputes over dues payments and funds for organizing,
unions threatening to withdraw from the federation, and a potential challenge to John Sweeney's
presidency. None of this surprises observers of the waning labor movement.
Competing
trade unions: All that competition for union dues is bad news for the
AFL-CIO hierarchy, but not necessarily for unions in general, much less for workers
in general. This seems an opportune time to reconsider what a trade union is,
and what it can and cannot do.
A tough year for
the AFL-CIO. It's been a lousy year — indeed a miserable several
decades — for Big Labor. With union membership falling to historic lows
and the unions' political clout on the wane, even while unions pour, literally, hundreds
of millions of dollars into politics, the coup de grace for the AFL-CIO may come at the
convention itself.
AFL-CIO Defections May
Weaken Unions' Influence. The defection of two major unions from the AFL-CIO has
stirred questions about the possible impact on local, state, and national tax and budget
policies. The Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union dropped out
of the AFL-CIO on July 25, during the organization's convention in Chicago. Four
other AFL-CIO unions boycotted the convention. Most of the unions' campaign cash
and foot soldiers have gone toward candidates, mainly Democrats, who advocate increased
government spending and higher taxes. With the apparent split, some political
observers are suggesting Democrats will lose valuable support.
Fourth
Union Leaves AFL-CIO for Reform Coalition. For the fourth time in the past two months, a
union has withdrawn from the AFL-CIO in favor of a coalition that seeks to reform the organized labor
movement.
AFL-CIO
Loses Third Union to Reform Coalition. Just four days after two of the largest
unions in the country withdrew from the AFL-CIO, a union representing 1.4 million food
and commercial workers announced on Friday [7/29/2005] that it was also leaving the federation
as part of an effort to reform the organized labor movement.
Union trouble: Pilots,
flight attendants and other members of different unions are crossing the picket lines manned by members of the
Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association.
Union Leaders Accused of Profiting
From Insider Trading: "These guys got rich, basically, off the workers they're supposed to be
protecting," said Dan Cronin, spokesman for NRTW. "This is exactly what Enron did."
Meet Union-Buster
Nancy Pelosi. A blockbuster NewsMax Magazine story by best-selling author Peter
Schweizer exposes how Democratic leaders passionately fight for liberal policies, but go to
great lengths to avoid applying those policies in their personal lives.
The End of
Direct Taxpayer Funding for Union Think Tank. The California Labor Federation
claimed a central role in winning taxpayer funding for this program, included in the budget
with virtually no attention from Republicans, businesses, or taxpayer groups. It
wasn't long before the Institute for Labor and Employment began collecting leftist academics
and former union organizers at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA to serve as the "think tank" for the
unions' political agenda at the state and local levels.
Port Fear:
Longshoremen union members will continue to handle packages at America's ports, no matter who owns the
facilities. Oddly, none of these same members of Congress have called for inspecting the disturbing
history of these unions. At least three aspects of Longshoremen history suggest that these union
members at our ports might pose a risk to national security. They have been associated with organized
crime, specifically the Mafia. They have a history of anti-American radical politics and have
committed acts of violence.
Grocery Union Hit with Federal Charges for
violating Safeway workers' right not to subsidize union politics. Union officials refused to provide
legally mandated breakdown of union expenditures. Under the Supreme Court decision Communication
Workers v. Beck and subsequent NLRB rulings, union officials must inform employees of their right to
refrain from formal union membership and the right not to be forced to pay for costs unrelated to collective
bargaining, such as union political activity.
Former
AFL-CIO Union Joins Coalition for Labor Reform. The United Brotherhood of
Carpenters and Joiners left the AFL-CIO four years ago because it felt AFL-CIO boss
John Sweeney was spending too much money and time on politics and not enough on labor
organizing.
Union
Leader: Labor Can't Just Back Democrats. Organized labor should
help politicians who will advance labor's cause rather than simply supporting
Democrats, says a union leader pushing for changes in the AFL-CIO.
Union Corruption
Update. Local 933 of the American Federation of Government Employees for
the last few years has been in financial shambles. The explanation lies at the
top. The local's leadership operated their union like a personal bank. A series
of investigations, most recently by the Detroit News, reveal a disturbing pattern of
embezzlement and other forms of malfeasance.
Union corruption
update - the August 29, 2005 issue. David Feeback's sybaritic ways as
president of Local 69 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees ended several
years ago. This August 23 he got the final bill: a year and a day in
federal prison, and mandatory restitution of almost $90,000.
California's
Union Blues. The controversy surrounds an initiative called "paycheck protection" which
is now headed to Golden State voters in a special election this fall. The measure would require
public sector unions to receive written permission from rank-and-file members before spending
their dues on political activities.
Elaine
Chao is looking out for you! John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, has
said, "transparency, accountability and full and accurate disclosure should be central
goals of financial regulation." Of business. But try to apply those
reasonable standards to Sweeney's own organization, and he sings a different tune.
Anchorage School Bus Drivers Vote Out
Unwanted Teamsters Union. Workers successfully challenge stifling of
union-dissenting free speech.
Not
Your Father's Labor Union. Most union members think their dues —
which amount to an average $600 per year, allowing unions to take in some $17 billion
each year — go to providing better representation at the bargaining table. But
most unions today now spend substantially more of their members' money on politics and
other non-contract-related activities than they do on bread and butter issues. Worse,
most members have no say how their money is being spent and many have no idea that their dues
are being diverted to far-Left causes that they would never support — everything
from abortion rights to opposition to the war in Iraq.
The
Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911 is often misused as a example of the need for
child labor laws and safety codes. It is actually a warning to employers and employees to
beware of the misdeeds and negligence of other employees. … The workers
were 17, 18, and 19 years old or older. So workers were not children, would not
be controlled by present child labor laws and thus the incident provides no
support for child labor laws. … Socialists deliberately lied about the Triangle
Shirtwaist fire in order to blame capitalism and to cover-up for the usual
failures of socialism.
Excellent
Faltering
unions: The American labor movement is in a mess, and the current leadership
doesn't seem to have a clue what to do about it. … Fifty years ago, more than
one in three workers belonged to a union, but this is not your father's — much
less your grandfather's — labor movement. Today's union honchos are more
interested in politics than in collective bargaining. And they've hitched Big Labor's
wagon to the Democratic Party, to the detriment of both institutions.
Union Sacks Stadium
Sign. The Madison Square Garden-led campaign to halt construction of
the West Side stadium project hit a snag when union workers refused to hang a sign
opposing the controversial plan, The New York Post has learned.
[So much for freedom of speech and diversity of ideas.]
Firefighters Versus the
Media. One of the biggest stories of the presidential campaign is being
ignored by the major media. It's how the president of the firefighters union
engineered an endorsement of John Kerry for president without asking his members
about it. It turns out most of the members of the union are Republicans who
support Bush.
Machinists union employees are
entitled to a 25% dues refund. For 2004, the International
Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers admits that 26.30% of International
union dues, 7.98% of district lodge dues and 29.41% of local lodge dues are spent
on political, ideological and other non-representational activities for which no
employee can be required to pay.
Free
Pass. Amid the uproar over the ads run by the "Section 527" political
committee known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Establishment media have remained
eerily silent about the massive union-funded 527s that are spending exponentially
more resources.
She's serious.
Should Democratic
Party merge with Communist Party? If you belong to the Democratic Party, I urge
you to take the time to study the platform of your party and compare them to the goals of the
communists. They are one and the same, although this will bring shrieks from the
likes of Marxist Hillary Clinton, it is the raw truth.
The People Who
Brought You Weekends? Not Quite. The government
outlawed child labor only once large numbers of parents were doing
well enough that they didn't need to send their children to work.
Don't Get into a Lather
over Sweatshops. Economists point out that alternatives to working in a sweatshop
are often much worse: scavenging through trash, prostitution, crime, or even starvation.
Aviation Security: Are
We Looking for Answers in the Wrong Place? The perpetrators of the violence
were not the striking flight attendants but rather other TWA employees, predominantly from
the air side of the airport, who supported the striking flight attendants by openly menacing
working flight attendants and reputedly sponsoring and participating in acts of violence
including assault, fire bombings and even an attempted shooting of a flight attendant
through the window of her hotel room while on a layover in Denver.
Images from the Teamsters Attack on Don Adams.
President Clinton came to Philadelphia for a fundraiser October 2, 1998. Because he was to visit
several places in the same general area both his supporters and detractors were spread throughout a several
block radius for most of the event. The assault on Don and Teri Adams occurred just minutes after
arriving in front of city hall where they encountered 150 Teamsters.
Union Sheep: After
eight years of Clinton in office the US steel industry was failing. Many countries such as
Russia and China were dumping steel here at below market prices to drive American companies out of
business. All under the Clinton watch I may add. But what do union sheep do best, they vote
Democrat out of habit and the onslaught continues.
Labor's "Enron"
Scandal: Labor leaders like John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO seized on the
opportunity to denounce scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other corporations to help drum
up support for Democrats in the 2002 elections and shift political power to labor
unions. But then it was discovered that several directors of Ullico, a financial
company serving union employees' pension funds, allegedly collected large sums of
money in a stock-investment scheme.
Don't
Place Stock In Big Labor. Labor is signaling that it would rather employ a
bad fund manager (if he agrees with it politically) than a good funds manager (if he
does not). If this happens, it'll be union members and retirees who lose, not
the AFL-CIO leadership. That fact alone could signal a violation of the
unions' legal responsibility to manage retirement funds to benefit their members.
Robin
Hood Union Bosses: Union leaders may think that the pockets of people earning
more that $100,000 are a bottomless well from which they can forever draw, but it's not
the case. Plenty of these folks, after all, are already paying twice for their
children's education — once in taxes and once in private-school tuition.
How Outsourcing Creates Jobs for
Americans. Some companies are being criticized for outsourcing work from the
United States to other countries. U.S. manufacturers have outsourced operations to countries
such as China to lower wage costs and escape from high taxes, burdensome government regulations
and intransigent unions at home.
The Great Outsourcing Scare of 2004,
like all protectionist scares, turned out to be one part sensationalism, one part economic ignorance. … If
there is a threat to American workers, the U.S. government should get a large portion of the blame.
Taxes, regulations, and mandated employee benefits, when taken together, drastically increase the cost of
hiring Americans.
The
silver lining of outsourcing overseas: The truth is that outsourcing is far
less of a threat to American workers than they imagine, and there are significant benefits
for the U.S. economy. For starters, there is not a one-for-one relationship between jobs
lost here and those gained elsewhere from outsourcing.
Help for
Americans. Since 1992 there's been a loss of 391 million jobs; however, during those years,
America created 411 million new jobs, for a net gain of 20 million. A Dartmouth University
Tuck School of Business study found that companies that send jobs abroad ended up hiring twice as many
workers at home. Most new jobs created are higher-paid.
Jobs
come and go. In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000
switchboard operators. In the same year, Americans made 9.8 billion long
distance calls. Today, the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000
operators [and we make ten times as many calls]. That's a tremendous
80 percent job loss. One forgotten beneficiary in today's job loss
demagoguery is the consumer.
Liberals
and class: part III. Sometimes it seems as if liberals have a genius
for producing an unending stream of ideas that are counterproductive for the poor, whom
they claim to be helping. Few of these | |