Organized Labor : Other problems

Subtopics on this page:     Mismanagement     Declining membership     Constant attempts to expand     Unions protect lazy and stupid workers     Unionized government workers Mismanagement Union Bosses Win, Ohio Workers Get Fired.  One month ago Ohio voted with its heart against reforms portrayed as an attack on public workers.  Ohio, DC, and New York union bosses spent more than $30 million drenching the airwaves in images of sad firefighters, sad police officers, and evil Republicans, convincing voters to overlook a broken status quo.  A month later, how are local governments celebrating the union victory on Issue 2?  Middletown is laying off nine firefighters, despite the city's police and fire budgets both increasing by nearly 1/3 in the past decade.  In Hamilton, a $5.9 million death tax haul will delay the inevitable. Crunch time at America's richest union.  Two years after the wrenching restructuring of the U.S. auto industry and the bankruptcies that remade General Motors and Chrysler, the UAW is facing its own financial reckoning.  America's richest union has been living beyond its means and running down its savings, an analysis of its financial records shows. Will the UAW run out of money?  I understand how the UAW could be in the middle of an existential crisis:  the Detroit carmakers that employ its members are facing very strong competition from auto companies that assemble cars in the U.S. but don't have to pay UAW salaries and pensions and don't have to deal with UAW work rules. ... But I don't understand why the UAW would collapse just because of its own impending internal financial crisis... More about the UAW. Another union pay chart of the day.  Last week, blogger Jason Hart charted the pay of Ohio teachers' union bosses versus the rest of the state workforce. ... Jason asks and adds:  "If Ohio's public union members hang by a thread, why do union bosses take so much for themselves?  If overpaid private industry entrepreneurs and investors are the root of Ohio's fiscal troubles, why shouldn't Ohio taxpayers be concerned about six-figure union salaries?  For organizations solely dedicated to their members' well-being, Ohio's AFSCME affiliates throw money at most every leftist cause in the state. Illinois teacher pension system nearly $40 billion in the hole.  The Teachers' Retirement System, the largest and costliest of Illinois' pension programs, is now almost $40 billion short of what's needed to cover future benefits — the deepest financial hole in 20 years of state records. Unions pressuring banks to "go easy" on foreclosures.  Public-sector union pensions aren't known to be doing all that well.  No matter — they're going to pull out of investments based on politics anyway! Union Bosses Blow Pension Funds on Politicians — Now Want Government Bailout.  The election cycles of 2006 and 2008 cost the labor unions many, many millions of dollars to get all those liberal Democrats elected and reelected to Congress and the presidency.  Where did those bribe bucks come from?  Were they in some union slush fund?  Do you suppose that all those bribes came out of the pension fund money that the suckers, er, members paid into for retirement benefits?  It is becoming common knowledge that the various union pension funds may not be there when Joe or Jane 'lunch pail' retires. Hypocrisy Is Big Labor's Big Problem.  Amid Labor Day's parades and picnics, union bosses will bellow Monday about workers' rights and the alleged greed of management, especially inside Big Business.  Such class warfare sloganeering would be easier to stomach if Big Labor were internally consistent.  Instead, when their own workers channel Norma Rae and demand better wages and benefits, labor leaders imitate union-busting robber barons. Electronic Voting Would Lead to Forced Unionization.  As union bosses have squandered the wealth that members' dues provided them, numerous national unions are suddenly finding that their pension plans have been so mismanaged and grossly under-funded, that they are in serious trouble.  In response, they are turning to the Obama Administration for bailouts — both financially and politically.  By coercing workers to join unions through systems such as electronic voting, labor bosses will be able to rake in more dues and replenish their members' pension funds, which they have squandered. The Union Pension Bailout.  Feeling tapped out after stimulus, ObamaCare and everything else?  Senator Bob Casey has one more deal for you.  If the Pennsylvania Democrat gets his way, U.S. taxpayers will also pick up the astonishing tab for poorly managed union pension plans. HuffPo and MediaMatters Omit Deadbeat Union's $90 Million Debt.  [Scroll down]  In 2007, the SEIU owed Bank of America nearly $95 Million.  By the end of 2008, SEIU owed more than $156 Million in total outstanding liabilities.  Only six years prior, its liabilities were $8 Million.  And we're not even addressing their debts to other banks, like $15 Million with Amalgamated Bank.  Perhaps all that campaigning for President Obama has emboldened the union to think that they deserve a free pass on their debts to Bank of America, and encouraged them to employ their usual thuggish shakedown tactics. Union Hypocrisy Marching on Wall Street.  Union bosses are marching today in New York City to demand that the Senate pass the Dodd Wall Street Bailout Bill.  "It's time to hold Wall Street accountable," Heather Booth, one of the organizers of the march, told Daily Finance in an interview about today's protest.  Perhaps the rank and file union members would better spend their time marching on their own union headquarters demanding accountability for their pension funds. Pot Calling Kettle:  Unions Say Banks are Corrupt.  Unions want Congress to institute financial regulatory reform because they feel that banks need to be "held accountable."  The first thought that comes to mind is to wonder when Congress will ever hold unions accountable for anything! Look for the union agenda, and get ready to pay.  The mother of all taxpayer bailouts is right around the corner.  Union bosses want taxpayers to foot the cost for bailing out the labor organizations' many failing pension plans that millions of their members are counting on to "be there" when they retire.  Unfortunately, the average union pension plan has only enough money to cover 62 percent of its financial obligations. Largest Union Theft in History Goes Largely Unreported.  While the mainstream media swarmed all over Bernie Madoff, AIG and corporate billionaires, the gentlemen of the press, who are so proud of fighting for the Little Guy, were mostly out to an expense account lunch when Melissa King allegedly made off with $42 million rightfully belonging to members of the Laborers International Union of North America. Union Pensions in the Red.  We've all read about underfunded corporate pensions, but here's an unreported story: Union pensions are even more in the red, and it's one reason union chiefs are so eager to rig organizing rules to gain more dues-paying members. ... Poor management probably deserves a lot of the blame for the union decline, but the exact causes are a mystery.  An even bigger mystery is that the unions do a far better job with funds created for their officers and employees than for mere workers. Your union dues at work... Autoworkers Union Keeps $6 Million Golf Course for Members.  The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn't out of the bunker just yet.  Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course.  And it's costing them millions each year. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Michigan Union Accountability Act:  Unions are not very accountable to those who finance them.  It's ironic that unions, set up to empower workers, provide far less financial information to their members—whose mandatory fees support them—than a publicly held corporation must, by law, provide to its shareholders. Declining membership Freeing Workers from Union Bosses.  For the first time in decades, union power is under serious threat.  Indiana is on the verge of becoming the 23rd state to enact a right-to-work law, liberating workers from being forced to join a union.  New Hampshire may also adopt some form of right-to-work.  Murmurs about a national right-to-work law are growing. Okla. Constitutional Amendment Pits Taxpayers Against Unions.  When Oklahoma State Senator David Holt discovered that Oklahoma was ranked the "most anti-taxpayer state in the southern United States" by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), he decided to propose amending the state's constitution to stop the unions' gravy train of collective bargaining contracts without taxpayer approval. Union membership dwindles in Wisconsin, U.S..  If labor unions' strength lies in numbers, a new report indicates unions' most powerful days may be behind them.  Membership in organized labor unions dropped last year in Wisconsin by 16,000, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  That left 13.3 percent of the employed population — 339,000 workers — represented by unions, down from 14.2 percent in 2010. Decades ago, unions were a much bigger force in the blue collar job market.  In the 1950's, it took a certain amount of skill and training to operate machinery in a factory.  In the 21st century, most of the tedious manufacturing and assembly is done overseas, while Americans do much of their work on computer terminals.  The exceptions are in automobile assembly, steel mills, and heavy industry, but those jobs are not as plentiful now.  Labor unions are on the way out. Here's why union membership keeps falling.  Folks in Springfield, Ill., witnessed a bizarre scene two years ago.  Thousands protested outside the Capitol, chanting:  "Raise my taxes!  Raise my taxes!  Raise my taxes!"  Who protests for higher taxes?  Government unions do.  The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees helped organize the rally.  This is the new face of the union movement. Indiana House passes right-to-work legislation 54-44.  The Indiana House voted 54-44 for the controversial "right to work" bill today.  Five Republicans joined 39 Democrats in voting against the bill. Two members — one Republican and one Democrat — did not vote.  The vote came as labor union protesters in the Statehouse shouted their disapproval and after two hours of often emotional debate. The New Face of Organized Labor.  When I was in high school, we had to read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle".  In that piece, Sinclair depicts the evils of the 19th/early 20th century meatpacking industry and how socialism and labor unions saved the day for the workers.  Now there were certainly times such as those when labor unions served a useful purpose in protecting the interest of workers, but...  Those times are past.  Today public opinion of labor unions sits at a historic low, despite having a very union-friendly President in the Oval Office. Once-secure union jobs are on the chopping block.  At the close of World War II, more than 1 in 3 American workers were union members.  On this Labor Day, it's down to about 1 in 8.  Last year, budget stress forced state and local governments to cut more than 200,000 union jobs.  And as the pressure mounts, cracks are showing in what used to be very strong public-sector unions. The Strike That Busted Unions.  Thirty years ago today, when he threatened to fire nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers unless they called off an illegal strike, Ronald Reagan not only transformed his presidency, but also shaped the world of the modern workplace.  More than any other labor dispute of the past three decades, Reagan's confrontation with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or Patco, undermined the bargaining power of American workers and their labor unions. Unions appear to be on life support as memberships dwindle.  Five decades ago, one in every three nonfarm workers in Wisconsin belonged to a union — most of them in manufacturing, construction or other blue-collar trades.  They assembled cars for General Motors, produced and packaged Rayovac batteries, made Mirro cookware.  Tens of thousands of those jobs are gone, some resurfacing at nonunion plants in other states or in foreign countries with cheaper labor costs. Bills Try to Curb Reach of Unions.  Lawmakers in New Hampshire and Missouri are advancing so-called right-to-work bills that would allow private-sector workers to opt out of joining unions, the latest such efforts to curb labor unions in the legislative season that in many states is now entering the home stretch.  The measures, if successful, would mark the first expansion in a decade of right-to-work laws, which are on the books in 22 states. Phoenix Police Union Loses More Members.  Dozens more Phoenix police officers have quit paying dues to the city's primary law-enforcement labor union as the organization added to its growing list of lost memberships.  The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association lost 61 members this month, according to city payroll records.  The first week of January is one of two weeks in a year that city employees can drop membership to their labor unions. Only 11.9% of workers in a union.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics says unions lost 612,000 members in 2010. Delta customer service workers reject union.  Another group of Delta Air Lines workers has rejected union representation, in the last of a series of elections this year that appear to have closed the door on any wave of unionization at the company in the wake of its merger with Northwest. Delta Ramp Workers Reject Union.  The National Mediation Board, the government agency that oversees labor in the aviation industry, said Thursday that 5,569 Delta baggage and cargo handlers voted against joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union. Voters Side With Small Businesses, Not Labor Bosses.  Big Labor bet against small businesses, and in favor of job-killing legislation and policies that will set us back.  And they experienced a rude awakening on Election Day.  While labor bosses try to sugarcoat the news, I am hard pressed to find much for them to celebrate.  In Colorado, Kentucky, Nevada and New Hampshire, the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) formed state coalitions to inform voters where their candidates stood on economic policies, specifically the Employee 'Forced' Choice Act (EFCA). Conservatives Should Not Be Celebrating the Election Results.  [Scroll down]  The government is infested with unions who have lost all shyness in forwarding their free-stuff-for-us agenda.  Through union dues collected from taxpayer-funded salaries, they use our tax money to run advertisements for candidates and issues.  On top of that, these unions still get health care plans that no one in the private-sector middle class can afford, and they still get ridiculous pension plans that allow some to retire at 55 with 85% of their largest career salary pension as well as health benefits for life.  Even this ridiculous compensation is not enough for AFSCME; they want more. Delta attendants say 'no' to union.  In a labor battle that's loomed since the 2008 merger of Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, 51 percent of flight attendants rejected a union for the combined workforce. Union leader resorts to blasphemy for the sake of politics: AFL-CIO official:  Jesus couldn't do anything more than Obama has done.  If you thought liberals stopped admiring President Barack Obama as the Messiah, think again.  In an October 15th piece about union membership's lack of enthusiasm for the 2010 campaign, the Associated Press interviewed Herb Johnson, secretary-treasurer of the Missouri AFL-CIO. The Editor says... If you belong to a union that is a subsidiary of the AFL-CIO, ask yourself this question:  Do you really want to be part of an organization whose leadership equates Barack Obama with God himself?  If you blow off this remark by saying, "he was only kidding," then do you really want to be part of an organization whose leaders will say anything to win an election? Obama Kneecaps Airlines.  The Obama administration set Big Labor on the easy road to cannibalize the airline and rail industries and last week Senate Democrats stamped their imprimatur on the deal — at a time when taxpayers are getting full view of the cost of out of control unions bankrupting state and local governments and destroying public education. Union Memberships Drop With Economy.  Union leaders will tell you organized labor is vital to the nation's economic health.  But in this brutal economy, there are plenty of folks who bristle when they hear about unions demanding pay raises or fighting against health care co-pays. The Incredible Shrinking Labor Movement.  The outlook for organized labor has never appeared as bleak as it does this Labor Day.  Just 12.3% of American workers belong to a labor union, with government employees constituting the majority of unionized workers.  In the private sector, just 7.2% of workers are union members.  The anemic figure represents the lowest level of private-sector unionization in more than a century.  The trend predates the depressed state of the economy. Choices Ahead For Today's Unions.  Less than two years ago, everything seemed to be breaking unions' way.  Now they're on the defensive.  Something went very wrong on the road to the liberals' idea of paradise. People Vs. Unions.  Perhaps softer than the sound of a union rallying cry is the quiet protest some voters are staging at the ballot box, speaking out against union contracts they say are too costly.  "You are getting less product for a higher price and we believe in quality, accountability and value," says Eric Christen of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, a group that lobbies on behalf of non-union contractors. Voters fighting back against union control.  Though it went unnoticed amid the flurry of primary races, the most significant election result this month might be the outcome of a local referendum in Chula Vista, Calif.  Voters in the San Diego suburb finally voted to rein in greedy local unions by banning Project Labor Agreements — a common arrangement whereby unions, usually with government backing, dictate the terms of construction projects. Voters Reject Union Favoritism.  Two of the most important results from last Tuesday's [6/8/2010] primary have been drowned out by the coverage of other races.  Voters in Chula Vista, CA passed measure G by a 56 to 44 percent margin while voters in Oceanside, CA passed measure K by a 54 to 46 percent margin.  These measures prohibit discriminatory "project labor agreements" (PLAs) on city-funded construction projects. Unions' Big Shift to Government.  Unionism is failing miserably in this age of a greater world market and an increase in competition for business across the globe.  More nations than ever have left behind the 18th century and are taking bold steps into a world made smaller by technology.  No longer is but a handful of nations leading the world in manufacturing while the rest wallow in abject poverty.  This greater competition is increasing the standard of living in nearly every corner of the earth but because there is so much competition, unions in the U.S. are dying out. 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. Delta, Northwest mechanics reject union representation.  Mechanics at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, the two carriers that merged in March to create the world's largest air carrier, won't be represented by a union, the company announced Thursday [2/26/2009]. Another Obama favor for unions.  Barely 15 percent of all construction-industry workers in the United States are union members, while the remaining 85 percent are nonunion, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.  So why has President Obama signed Executive Order 13502 directing federal agencies taking bids for government construction projects to accept only those from contractors who agree in advance to a project labor agreement that requires a union work force? Union Membership Drops 10%.  Organized labor lost 10% of its members in the private sector last year, the largest decline in more than 25 years.  The drop is on par with the fall in total employment but threatens to significantly limit labor's ability to influence elections and legislation.  On Friday [1/22/2010], the Labor Department reported private-sector unions lost 834,000 members, bringing membership down to 7.2% of the private-sector work force, from 7.6% the year before. A Victory Against Obama's Unionism in New Hampshire.  In a victory for free labor, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has cancelled its solicitation for bids to build a new Jobs Corps Center in the state of New Hampshire.  Why is it a victory?  Because initial plans to receive bids would have discriminated against non-union construction companies per President Obama's orders.  Over 80% of all construction companies are non-union. Political Wind Blowing Against Unions.  When Barack Obama won the election, Big Labor's ambitions soared.  It spent $400 million to elect Democrats and expected an easy ride ahead.  A hundred days into the Obama administration, it's playing defense. Union blues:  The approval rating of one of the biggest supporters of Obama's attempt to impose a socialist system on America has plummeted.  Gallup has been polling on the public's attitude to Labor Unions since the 1930s.  They report public support of unions is at an all time low. On Labor Day, support for unions plunges to all-time low.  This Labor Day brings word of a new Gallup poll showing that American public support for labor unions has taken a sharp dive in the last year and is at its lowest point since Gallup began polling in 1936.  In response to the question, "Do you approve or disapprove of labor unions?" just 48 percent of respondents said they approve, while 45 percent said they disapprove. The Union Fable.  Praise for organized labor was fulsome as usual over the Labor Day weekend.  But a poll showing public support for unions hitting an all-time low shows that Americans are seeing through the mist of deception. Most Union Members Oppose Big Three Bailout, New Poll Finds.  A deal may be close, but even union members don't think a federal bailout of the Big Three automakers makes much sense, according to a new ATI-News/Zogby poll.  More than 57 percent of those who identified themselves as being union employees said Congress should say no to a proposed bailout, while only 30 percent of union members approve.  Approximately 13 percent are not sure. 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. Anchorage School Bus Drivers Vote Out Unwanted Teamsters Union.  Workers successfully challenge stifling of union-dissenting free speech. 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. Less is more:  I happen to know a bit about airlines and why they go belly up.  Both my parents worked for airlines for decades.  My mother was personnel director for the "old" National Airlines which used to be Florida's top carrier and a major source of jobs for those who lived in South Florida.  National Airlines grew and grew and grew, until it failed.  Was it a poor economy that did National in?  Nope, it was good old-fashioned bureaucracy, aided and abetted by the firm grip of organized labor. Unions Turn to Public Sector as Membership Declines:  A new count of union members in 2002 reveals two significant developments:  union membership has declined dramatically, a shift driven by losses in private sector unions, and labor leaders are increasingly reliant on the growth of public sector unions to maintain their clout. IBEW Decertification cases.  Including: WTEN-TV, Albany, NY WJAR-TV, Cranston, RI KCPQ, Seattle, WA WPTA-TV, Fort Wayne, IN WIFR, Rockford, IL KSBW-TV, Salinas, CA Right-to-Work Showdown.  Twenty-two states have right-to-work laws, most of them in the South and West.  If New Hampshire passes such a law, it will be the first state in the Northeast to do so. Constant attempts to expand Unions are constantly trying to expand, which they do for the benefit of the union itself, not the workers.  When your union dues are spent on organizing the workers in other companies, you gain nothing. Do President Obama and his fellow Democrats seriously believe that "government should not intrude on private family matters?"  Let us count the ways! Obama's Government vs. Your Family:  [Scroll down]  When parents think about private family matters, one thing that comes to mind is babysitters.  Until now, you could negotiate a reasonable fee with a 16-year-old neighbor and, if you live in a neighborhood like ours, feel confident that your kids will be well cared for.  No longer; not here in Minnesota, anyway:  Minnesota's Democrats are pressing for unionization of all child care workers!  If they have their way, you and your wife won't be able to go out to dinner without dealing with union bosses — not because of your free choice, but because of government intervention into private family matters. SEIU siphons 'dues' from Mich. Medicaid payments.  If you're a parent who accepts Medicaid payments from the State of Michigan to help support your mentally-disabled adult children, you qualify as a state employee for the purposes of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  They can now claim and receive a portion of your Medicaid in the form of union dues. Unions 1, Workers 0.  The Obama administration, it seems, would rather propose rules to increase union membership than take steps to reduce unemployment.  One rule, which has already taken effect, permits the creation of "micro-unions."  Rather than all the employees at a specific plant or business joining one big union, there can be one just for cashiers or one just for those who stock shelves.  The attraction for union leaders is obvious:  They can cherry-pick the groups most interested in joining together for the purpose of collective bargaining, bypassing workers who aren't interested. Labor's new strategy:  Intimidation for dummies.  In the past decade, unions have become increasingly desperate to obtain new dues-paying members.  An example of how desperate can be found in a 70-plus-page intimidation manual from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which only recently came to light in a pending court case.  The new union tactic is to use pressure on corporate boardrooms as a means of organizing entire companies nationwide rather than recruiting workers on a site-by-site basis; in short, to organize employers rather than employees. After Losing Vote, Union Vows to Try Again at Target.  The National Labor Relations Board announced on Saturday morning that 137 workers had voted against joining the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, while 85 workers had voted for it.  The unionization drive sought to make the store on Long Island the first of Target's 1,750 stores in the United States to be unionized. Target workers at New York store reject union.  Workers at the Valley Stream, New York, store voted against union affiliation by a count of 137 to 85, Target said in a statement released Saturday [6/18/2011]. Labor's bull's-eye is on Target.  Target is having labor pains.  Until recently, the Minneapolis-based discounter largely had avoided the labor disputes and public relations challenges that have plagued Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer.  But now Target could face the same union opposition as its much bigger rival. When Does "No" Mean "No"?  In November of last year, Delta Flight Attendants voted against unionization.  This was the third time in the past decade that the employees of Delta have defeated the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA).  We defeated the attempt to unionize Delta despite a playing field that had been deliberately tilted in favor of the unions. Some people would rather have a job than a union. Who wants a union? Not Southern autoworkers, it seems.  Deric Golden has what he calls his dream job, fixing small flaws on the sedans being churned out at the Hyundai factory here.  So when two organizers from the United Auto Workers knocked on his apartment door one day, hoping to get him to sign a union card, he quickly sent them packing. Government Unions Build Ranks, Court TSA for Membership.  Thousands of airport security screeners could choose a union to represent them as early as March, marking the latest expansion of union influence in the public sector, which now has more labor union members than the private sector. Rep. Gingrey to introduce bill ripping into Obama Labor Department's airline unionization plans.  Republican Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey plans to introduce a bill that will restore the Department of Labor's union election rules for specialized industries, like airline workers, to what they were before President Barack Obama took office.  Obama's political appointees to the DOL's National Mediation Board lifted a longstanding requirement that mandated more than half of those who would be unionized to vote in favor of a union.  Now, under Obama's new rules, a specialized company or part of a company can be unionized by a majority of only those who show up to vote. Gingrey: Unionize on your own time.  Rep. Phil Gingrey, Georgia Republican, is spearheading legislation that would stop federal employees from doing union activities while on the clock.  Gingrey's bill, the Federal Employee Accountability Act of 2011, would stop federal employees from doing arbitration, collective bargaining and compiling lists of grievances for their bosses during working hours. Big Labor's Attack on the States:  Last Friday [1/14/2011], the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced its intentions to sue four states — Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah — to overturn voter-approved amendments requiring any attempts to unionize a workplace be done with the same secret ballot system used for general elections.  The NLRB contends such amendments conflict with federal law and that federal law "pre-empts" them. Labor Dept: If You Let Girl Scouts Sell Cookies, You Have to Let Unions Come in Too.  Obama's NLRB is trying to push a new rule that would force any business that allows Girl Scouts or any other local groups like baseball or football teams, school bands, charity groups etc. to sell their fundraiser items or solicit donations in front of or inside of their businesses to also allow unions into their businesses to cajole employees to organize.  Even when the purpose of many union actions are meant to drive customers away from the business in order to force the employer to accede to union demands, this rule would prevent a business owner from turning disruptive union activists away from their businesses. Now It's Unions Vs Girl Scouts.  If this new request by union leaders is allowed to become law, its effect will be for many business operators like myself to have no choice but to close doors to any outside groups.  The impact to charities ability to operate and reach support would be devastating.  Ultimately, unions are trying to make sure that no one wins. ... This is not hyperbole.  This is a direct threat to the ability for small business to say who comes onto their property and how they affect their business. Union Bosses Scheme to Be Girl Scouts' Next 'Tagalong'.  The same sort of deception and unfairness by Big Labor that would have allowed union organizers to replace workplace elections with coercion-prone "card check" is rearing its ugly head, and this time it may be Girl Scouts who pay the highest price. CDW Warns of Latest Union Scheme: Unfair Access.  Today [1/7/2011], the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) filed an amicus brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on the crucial question of whether the federal government will demand that a business allow organized labor union representatives to trespass at the workplace in order to harass customers and employees and otherwise harm an employer's business. Feds threaten to sue states over union laws.  The National Labor Relations Board on Friday [1/14/2011] threatened to sue Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah over constitutional amendments guaranteeing workers the right to a secret ballot in union elections. The Editor says... Imagine that.  The federal government is threatening to file a lawsuit to prevent secret ballot elections. NLRB to require workplaces to notify workers of their right to unionize.  The pro-union regulatory assault continues.  The National Labor Relations Board is now proposing new regulations requiring workers to be notified of their right to unionize. Transportation union has Delta squarely in its sights.  A rule change made by the Obama administration last May aimed at making it easier to unionize has put Delta Airlines squarely in union sights.  The new rule approved by the National Mediation Board — the body responsible for ruling on labor issues in the transportation industry — makes it easier to organize by allowing a simple majority of those voting in a union election to decide its outcome. The End of Our Legal System:  Judges Joining Unions?  Unions are meant for one thing and one thing only:  to "get" for its members.  They have one purpose and that is to take as much from an employer as they can take, to get as much money and benefits as they can get away with.  Unions are not interested in assuring quality workmanship, they are not interested in offering quality to customers, and they most certainly aren't interested in efficiency and modernization.  Unions have but one purpose, to extort as many goodies as possible from an employer regardless of what it does to a business or a profession. Unions Try to Monopolize Green Jobs.  [Scroll down]  One of the more startling revelations at the forum came in testimony from Stephen Worth, President & CEO of Worth and Company, a merit shop mechanical contractor out of Pipersville, Pennsylvania, currently employing more than 400 people.  Amid testimony of union harassment and exclusion from contracting bids was a startling revelation of union methods to monopolize "green jobs" through illegitimate and discriminatory regulatory definition. Home-care providers object to union label.  Sherry Loar and Dawn Ives take care of children out of their Petoskey homes so they were surprised to learn that their state-subsidized checks, which cover day care for some low-income families, now have union dues withheld.  Neither has ever voted for or consented to union membership. Union Intensifies Efforts to Organize Workers at Wal-Mart.  The United Food and Commercial Workers union is ramping up organizing at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after a five-year lull, dovetailing with its efforts to win support in Congress for a bill to make union organizing easier. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Warning: This Could Make You Sick.  The award for vilest politicization of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 goes to the AFL-CIO.  The organization has chosen to hijack the moment and turn it into a plea for anti-austerity union activism.  Consider this message from AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, posted on its website. Michigan Carpenters' Union Constructing a Fake Dispute.  As commonly understood, an American labor dispute is a rather simple matter:  Employees demanding a change in their pay or working conditions walk off the job and begin to publicly demonstrate against their employer.  But the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters is no longer playing by these rules. Unions protect lazy and stupid workers When it is nearly impossible to fire blue-collar workers, no matter how little work they do, it should come as no surprise that their motivation to do good work is diminished.  The unions have one common goal:  Less work for more money. Federal Union Flips Out Over 0.8% Increase in Pension Contribution.  [Scroll down]  And, no, I didn't get that decimal point wrong.  It really is a 0.8% increase.  So, if, say, a federal worker is currently contributing $100 towards their pension in any given period, they will now have to kick in an extra 80 cents.  This is an "attack" on "working men and women"? Why the United States Will Never, Ever Build the iPhone.  This weekend, The New York Times published a long exploration of the many reasons why Apple chooses to build its iPhones in China. ... The article's core lesson might be tough to swallow:  Apple doesn't only choose China because work is cheaper.  Apple also chooses China because the factories and the workers do a better job. Collective bargaining kills another company. Unions Ate Your Twinkie.  There is no mystery surrounding the death of the Twinkie.  In its bankruptcy filing, Hostess reported a net loss of $341 million last year.  The company blamed reduced demand from a more health-conscious customer base, and rising costs for ingredients like sugar and flour, but above all, the cause of death was an overdose of collective bargaining. ... A union member assured the [New York] Post that "any significant concessions demanded from route people will be overwhelmingly rejected."  The mind-shattering horror of asking drivers to load their own trucks will be avoided by putting them all out of work. Rebuilding costs increased by $96 million under lax union rules. No-work and all pay at Ground Zero.  The Real Estate Board of New York, a major developers' group, says antiquated rules let a cadre of crane and heavy equipment workers pocket six-figure paychecks for little more than showing up.  In the next three years the no-work jobs, controlled by Locals 14 and 15 of the Operating Engineers, could add $96.2 million to the cost of World Trade Center projects, the REBNY says. Can't-Do America.  Reports from New York City say that union work rules pertaining the rebuilding of Ground Zero are going to cost taxpayers an extra $96 million.  But that's only a small part of the sordid story. The Welfare State and the Selfish Society.  The welfare state enables — and thereby produces — people whose preoccupations become more and more self-centered as time goes on:  How many benefits will I receive from the state?  How much will the state pay for my education?  How much will the state pay for my health care and when I retire?  What is the youngest age at which I can retire?  How much vacation time can I get each year?  How many days can I call in sick and get paid?  How many months can I claim paternity or maternity care money?  The list gets longer with each election of a left-wing party.  And each entitlement becomes a "right" as the left transforms entitlements into the language of "rights" as quickly as possible. Slacker America.  Why do college graduates now seek jobs in government instead of private industry?  It has largely to do with lack of ambition.  Why take the risks inherent in the private sector when you can have a position that is virtually immune from layoffs, and for which you get vacations, sick days, health insurance, pensions, and every holiday on the calendar including imagined ones?  Why accept a job requiring effort and productivity when you can get a government job in which your compensation and benefits have absolutely nothing to do with your performance?  In fact, you may actually be discouraged from working too hard because it would embarrass your colleagues.  Additionally, there is almost nothing that can cause you to be fired!  So why take any risks in the private sector? Just 737 Of 1.2 Million Federal Workers Denied Raise For Poor Performance.  Just 737 federal employees were denied a pay increase in 2009 due to poor job performance, according to information obtained by the Federal Times, a D.C. newspaper for government employees.  That's about one out of every 1,698 workers, or a denial rate of 0.06%.  Believe it or not, that is actually up from recent years, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. The Editor is quick to point out... Those are just workers who didn't get a raise.  How many federal workers were fired in 2009 due to incompetence or misconduct?  I suspect the answer is a single-digit number. FAA chief suspends dozing air traffic controller.  The nation's top aviation official says he's suspended a control tower supervisor while investigating why no controller was available to aid two planes that landed at Washington's Reagan airport earlier this week. Why Air Traffic Controllers Fall Asleep on the Job.  Controller fatigue is obviously a major factor.  The FAA has known about the problem for decades but has repeatedly swept it under the rug.  Finally, on April 17, the FAA implemented changes to scheduling practices that will allow controllers more time for rest between shifts.  But the changes only address part of the fatigue problem.  And they don't face up to the reason for the FAA's repeated failures to deal with the issue. Are Unions A Detriment To A Good Work Ethic? You Betcha!  [Scroll down]  I was forced to join a union when I started working for the Vista Hotel at the World Trade Center in 1991.  During my training period as a hotel operator I noticed that the other operators would let the phones ring without answering.  One woman told me, "Don't answer it.  It makes us look busy and then we can get overtime."  I still had a work ethic and I would do extra work to make things go smoothly only to find that I was upsetting the cart so as the last person hired I was the first fired. Why I Changed My Mind About Unions.  [Scroll down]  A few years later, studying for my Master's degree, I lived in a low-rent apartment.  A tenant in one of the other units was a union roofer.  From November to April, he'd get $400 a week in unemployment.  It seems that in our state union employees didn't have to look for non-union work.  If the union didn't call, the unemployment check was a certainty.  But the phone stayed off the hook all winter to make sure the union couldn't call anyway.  He wasn't idle, though; he worked "under the table" all winter doing side jobs tax-free while collecting unemployment.  In the summer when he did union work he'd tell stories about the roofers getting drunk and stoned at lunchtime and making $22 an hour. Firefighters union boss' father a hefty user of sick leave.  As investigators probe the potential abuse of sick leave by firefighters, Clark County officials say they will find many instances of employees scheduling sick time off weeks or months in advance.  Among them is a firefighter who used the benefit to help carve out 53 consecutive days off in 2009. The SEIU's Friendly Inquisitor.  Carole Jean Badertscher was a California nurse who just wanted to go to work and take care of her patients — but the SEIU was determined not to let that happen.  The union's contract with Badertscher's employer, the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, had expired, and the union had called a strike in response.  Badertscher and other nurses, unwilling to abandon their patients for the sake of a stronger SEIU hand in contract negotiations, resigned from the union and went to work. The Editor says... When Obamacare gets rolling, expect to see more unionized nurses and more labor union attitude at your neighborhood hospital. Union-quality workmanship: SEIU Misspells 'American Dream' at Rally.  Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. $33-an-hour — For Sleeping On the Job.  Last week the NY Post ran a story about two late-shift, unionized public employees sleeping on the job.  According to the Post, "(S)leeping workers are a familiar nighttime sight along the streets of NoHo and SoHo around the Angelika theater, which is next to the transit crew entrance."  And what do these arrogant deadbeats get paid for shirking their responsibilities?  $33-an-hour. Union Audacity:  Yes We Will!  [Scroll down]  I lived in New York for thirty-five years.  I've seen park workers drinking from 40 oz. malt liquor bottles while they were picking up leaves.  I've woken up cops sound asleep in their patrol car.  I watched a garbage man pick up a stack of newspapers, drop them on the way to the garbage truck, and leave them in the middle of the street.  I talked to a principal who didn't want to investigate the possible rape of a 13-year-old girl in his school because it was "too much trouble."  I knew a teacher who spent three years in a "rubber room" collecting a salary for doing absolutely nothing.  I've seen hospital workers completely ignore patients, and leave their break room strewn with litter.  I had a tollbooth operator curse at me for paying part of my toll with pennies, even though it was all the money I had left. Libs Scold Black Conservatives.  In the eighties, I was a member of a team of six artists at a Baltimore TV station.  They hired a new kid.  Jeff was talented, enthusiastic, and ambitious. ... While the union could not nail Jeff for doing anything outside of the restrictions of our contract, the consensus was that he was too friendly with management and too eager to benefit the company.  The real conflict was that Jeff's nature drove him to excellence, but our union encouraged group mediocrity. Unions can't stand to see unpaid volunteers do their work, because it shows how little their labor is really worth. Union troubled by Eagle Scout project in Allentown.  In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.  Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union. When Big Labor Bullies and Volunteers Collide.  The Boy Scouts' motto is:  Be prepared.  Who knew it meant preparing to defend themselves against purple-shirted union thuggery over community service?  Kids, pay attention.  This is a teachable moment for all of you on power, politics and Big Labor's culture of corruption. Pennsylvania Union Leader Criticized for Threatening Legal Action Over Boy Scout's Volunteerism.  A Pennsylvania union leader has come under fire after threatening legal action against the city of Allentown for allowing a Boy Scout to voluntarily clear a walking path in a local park.  Nick Balzano, president of the Service Employees International Union's Allentown chapter, said last week that the union might file a grievance against the city for allowing 17-year-old Kevin Anderson to clear the hiking trail, instead of paying some of the 39 recently laid-off SEIU members to do the work. The Editor says... Why hire unionized workers to perform work that can be done by unpaid volunteers?  The fact that civic-minded people will volunteer to do this work proves that the monetary value of the labor is zero. The SEIU Thugocracy.  Kevin [Anderson] and his Boy Scout volunteer helpers logged in 250 hours completing the trail project, clearing brush and plants, and removing trash and old tires.  The Mayor of Allentown, Ed Pawlowski, told Fox News that Anderson's work was a "great service to the community."  But not everyone is happy about the service project. Now for the happy ending... Pennsylvania Union Leader Resigns Amid Criticism.  A union leader in Pennsylvania has resigned after being criticized for threatening legal action over an aspiring Eagle Scout's volunteer project.  Nick Balzano, president of the Service Employees International Union's Allentown chapter, submitted an unexpected resignation letter Thursday, along with a few other employees, SEIU spokesman Matt Nerzig told Foxnews.com. Why Public Sector Unions Will Go The Way Of Private Sector Unions.  The backlash against public sector unions being played out in Wisconsin, Virginia and elsewhere was a long time coming.  Now that it is here, it will likely remain front and center among the taxpayers who are on the hook for enormous unfunded union pension and retirement health care liabilities, and who are now becoming aware of the broader and very significant costs of hiring out government services to unions that face little or no competition. Unions, Lenin, and the American Way (Part III).  On the construction site at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, an outside freight elevator was built to lift crews and materials.  It was operated by an "elevator engineer" who pushed floor buttons at the rate of $37 per hour, competing for the title of world's most expensive bellhop.  Two union goons, armed with crowbars, sat at the foot of the elevator all day in lawn chairs, sipping coffee, reading newspapers, or listening to the Howard Stern Show on the radio.  Their job was to tell the crews that the elevator was unavailable — at least that's what they told my friend when he needed to lift his workers.  But after his boss arrived from Queens with $500 in cash for the goons, the elevator became readily available to their crew for the duration of one week. How Obama Cronyism Threatens Rail Security.  [Scroll down]  Biden, in turn, is tight with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the powerful union that represents the Amtrak Police Department.  According to OSSSO sources, the APD brass have been aggrieved over the non-unionized counterterrorism unit's existence from its inception.  A West Coast OSSSO team member told me that union leaders blocked police credentialing efforts by his office for more than a year.  An East Coast OSSSO team member told me that the FOP recently filed a grievance against one of its counterterrorism officers for assisting a train conductor who asked for help in ejecting a ticketless passenger. AFL-CIO Hard Hats:  The AFL-CIO is passing around these hard hats today to every office on Capitol Hill.  Check out where they're made:  China. Alan Grayson to introduce Paid Vacation Act.  Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney World when it hit him: What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.  So on Thursday [5/21/2009], the Florida Democrat will introduce the Paid Vacation Act — legislation that would be the first to make paid vacation time a requirement under federal law. 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.] 10,000 autoworkers get paid without working.  About 10,000 autoworkers in the United States and Canada are getting full wages and benefits not to work, a Detroit Free Press survey shows.  All are hourly workers on long-term layoff at the traditional Big Three automakers and their biggest supplier, Delphi Corp., who are in so-called "jobs banks."  Most of the companies refused to say how much they are spending to pay all these workers, but it's likely well over $1 billion this year, given the number of workers and typical union wage-and-benefit packages. Union Wants to Be Paid for Work It Didn't Do.  Volunteers from the Blackhawk High School recycling club removed illegally dumped tires from Buttermilk Falls State Park in Pennsylvania.  Now union employees of the Beaver County Public Works Department want to be paid for the cleanup. A Slackening Nation of Work-Avoidance Wimps:  The AFL-CIO's support for federal ergonomics regulations is less about worker protection than union self-preservation. Bad Coworkers Seem Safest From Layoffs.  In the age of layoffs, survivors often fall into one of two categories:  folks at the bottom who don't do a lick of work and superstars at the top who behave atrociously. These people would rather have a union than a job. United Auto Workers Local Costs 650 Jobs in Indiana.  Talk about chutzpah.  In what only can be described as pure stubborn selfishness, a United Auto Workers (UAW) local in Indiana voted this week to close a General Motors (GM) parts supplier employing 650 workers.  The closure is a harsh blow for a state with 10.2-percent unemployment and a unionized auto industry that has been in free fall for decades -- UAW membership has fallen from 1.5 million in 1979 to only 300,000 in 2009. Union rejects concessions at GM plant in Indianapolis.  A months-long battle to save a General Motors Co. stamping plant here that pitted rank-and-file UAW members against top union officials over whether autoworkers should accept pay cuts to keep jobs ended bitterly today [9/28/2010].  Addison, Ill.-based JD Norman Industries said it is dropping its effort to buy the factory after an announcement late Monday that United Auto Workers members had voted 457-96 against accepting the concessions. She'd rather have a union than a job. Verizon union members say strike worth hardship.  Claudia Slaney did something that many people would consider unthinkable in this economy:  give up her paycheck.  She did just that on Sunday [8/7/2011] when she walked off the job, joining about 6,000 Verizon Communications Inc. employees in Massachusetts after the unions and the company failed to reach an agreement on a new contract. These people would rather have a union than a job. Mercury Marine:  Union rejects changes, so we'll move south.  Following a union vote this morning to reject contract changes that company officials say would have kept Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac, Mercury Marine issued the following statement:  "Union workers at Mercury Marine voted this morning to reject a contract proposal that company officials said was necessary to keep Mercury in Fond du Lac. ..." On the other hand, these people would rather have a job than a union. Key Boeing factory goes non-union.  Even as unions revel in their access to political power with Barack Obama, actual workers handed the union movement a stinging defeat. Boeing workers vote to decertify union.  Boeing Co. workers voted overwhelmingly Thursday [9/10/2009] to disband the union at the North Charleston factory, boosting prospects corporate officials will consider the Lowcountry for a second assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner.  Of the fewer than 300 International Association of Machinist organized workers at the local plant eligible to vote, 199 voted to decertify the union and 68 voted to keep it in place, Boeing spokeswoman Candy Eslinger said. Unions Seem Determined to Kill Michigan Film Industry.  A lot can be said about unions supporting wage earners and creating a middle class.  However, a lot can also be said about unions ruining this country.  Case in point:  Michigan.  You would think that after the UAW destroyed the auto industry and the tax base in Michigan, the people of the state and the unions based there would have learned.  However, this is not the case.  In the latest union disaster for the state of Michigan, the IATSE has decided that the blooming film industry in the state must be stopped before it even gets started. Inspector General: City wastes $18 million a year on truck drivers.  Chicago taxpayers are wasting $18 million a year on 200 motor truck drivers who shuttle city crews to work sites, then get "paid to do nothing more than sit in a vehicle" waiting for crews to finish the job, the city's inspector general has concluded. Mail carrier who defecated in yard gets to keep job.  A mail carrier who was caught using a yard as his personal toilet will not be fired.  The incident happened last month at a home in southeast Portland and a neighbor, Don Derfler, captured the man in the act with his camera. Absent Teachers, Untrained Substitutes.  About 5.2 percent of teachers miss any given school day, many more than in our peer countries.  In Australia and Great Britain, for example, the figure is near 3 percent.  The rate is also much lower among other professional employees in the U.S., around 1.7 percent.  Teachers most often miss Mondays, Fridays, and the days surrounding holidays — a pattern that suggests illness is not the main cause for their absences. Look for the Union Label... Courtesy of the Smoking Union Brand.  It is simply amazing how obnoxious the UAW is, and how shameless.  It drove two of the three U.S. automakers into bankruptcy by its ceaseless efforts to extract ever more ridiculous increases in compensation for ever more obscene decreases in work.  It reached the acme of asininity when the union forced the automakers to pay workers who should have been laid off when their plants closed — and this to sit around in cushy halls and play cards. Unionized government workers People make jokes about postal workers, TSA goons, and the pencil-pushers at the DMV all the time.  They work by the hour.  Many (if not most) of them are keenly aware that "it all pays the same" if they get any work done or not.  They don't care.  Why should they? Public-Sector Unions:  Labor unions play a diminishing role in the private sector, but they still claim a large share of the public-sector workforce.  Public-sector unions are important to examine because they have a major influence on government policies through their vigorous lobbying efforts.  They are particularly influential in states that allow monopoly unionization through collective bargaining.  Collective bargaining is a misguided labor policy because it violates civil liberties and gives unions excessive power to block needed reforms. Video: Unhinged Lefties Heckle Scott Walker During Major Speech.  This is the game government unions play.  Their members' paychecks are extracted from public funds, and a portion of each paycheck (prior to Walker's reforms) went directly into the unions' pockets.  This was mandatory and automatic.  Those unions, in turn, donated generously to Democrats to protect their interests.  Democrats, in turn, steadfastly opposed any Republican effort to break the vicious cycle — even going so far as to flee the state to block votes. California pays prisons guards for attending Las Vegas convention.  The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has set aside about $350,000 to pay several hundred corrections officers while they attend their union's annual convention later this month in Las Vegas.  The arrangement with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association is unique among the state's collective bargaining agreements. The feds are hiring — and never firing.  A new analysis of federal workforce data shows that even in this time of retrenchment and downsizing, the federal government almost never fires or lays off workers.  In fact, in many corners of the federal government, it is virtually impossible for an employee to be fired.  "Federal employees' job security is so great that workers in many agencies are more likely to die of natural causes than get laid off or fired," writes USA Today, which conducted the survey. 14 Cities That Are Being Eaten Alive By Public Sector Workers.  Public employee costs account for a large share of municipal budget woes.  While worker compensation accounts for just 30% of state spending, personnel costs tends to eat up between 70% and 80% of local government funds.  Skyrocketing employee costs — the result of overly generous union contracts, an aging workforce, and bad pension investments — are now pushing several municipalities to the brink of fiscal ruin. Close the door on public-sector unions.  Massachusetts government is almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, so there was no chance that a law limiting collective bargaining for municipal employees would resemble the recent laws passed in Wisconsin and Ohio. Gimenez takes oath, then asks for union cuts.  Just hours after officially taking office as Miami-Dade County's new mayor Friday [7/1/2011], Carlos Gimenez sent eight key county unions a letter making a bold request:  Give up pay raises, benefits hikes and bonuses to help cover a swelling $400 million budget gap. Connecticut Unions Have Trouble Reading Hand Writing on Wall.  Unions just don't get it, do they?  Their day of organized theft of the taxpayer's money is over.  It must be over if our governments are to stay solvent.  After this initial era of major cuts and layoffs is over, the next important step will be to eliminate the government employee unions entirely.  They should never have been allowed to exist in the first place.  And remember, they've only been around for about 50 years, so they are NOT some ages old American institution. A San Francisco pension pays more than the average worker earns.  The average retiree from San Francisco city government earns an annual pension of $46,272, according to the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System.  The average retiree who worked at least 30 years in city government earns an annual pension of $76,981.  The average pension for a retiree from the Fire Department is $108,552.  From the Police Department?  $95,016.  And everybody else?  $41,136. California makes huge payouts for some workers' unused time off.  Contracts cap unused vacation balances at 80 days but allow exemptions for those who are needed in emergencies or who perform 'critical' work.  Some have retired with six-figure compensation checks. Office of Management and Budget Employees to Push to Unionize.  Peter Winch, deputy director of field services and education for the American Federation of Government Employees confirmed to ABC News that his organization, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, has been meeting with employees of the OMB in the past few months to discuss their work conditions and desire to have more say over the conditions of their employment. Seven Lessons Still Not Learned from the Battle of Wisconsin.  [Scroll down]  Public workers essentially cannot be fired.  They're entitled to their jobs forever, at least theoretically, and their rage in the Wisconsin matter stemmed from the fact that they might not be entitled to permanently expanding benefits and salaries, forever.  "How dare you question our right to freebies!" is the whole underlying attitude and premise of today's labor union movement. SEIU drops mask, goes full commie.  A May Day rally in Los Angeles, co-sponsored by the SEIU and various communist groups, as well as other unions, reflected yet another step in the normalization of self-identified communist and socialist ideologies in the Obama era.  Not only did the SEIU help to organize the rally in conjunction with communists, they marched side-by-side with communists, while union members carried communist flags, communists carried union signs, and altogether there was no real way to tell the two apart. Commies on parade.  Blogging at Ringo's Pictures, the blogger Ringo provides scores of remarkable photographs detailing the events at the annual May Day parade held in downtown Los Angeles on May 1, 2011.  The images are frightening and illustrate the latitude we have allowed serious hate-groups and espousers of virulent anti-Americanism to move about freely and publicly call for the overthrow of the American political system.  Right smack in the middle of the reds we find a passel of disheveled, seriously overweight thugs from Barack Obama's favorite labor union, the SEIU. Unions in Familiar Fight With New Foe.  Unions are facing off against an unlikely foe over a now-familiar issue, as Democrats in Massachusetts move to limit municipal workers' power to negotiate their health benefits.  The effort is the latest by lawmakers in a budget jam to roll back public-union rights.  In a state where Democrats control the House and the Senate as well as the governor's office, it shows how the pressures of skyrocketing health care costs on state and local budgets are undermining labor's political clout even in traditional union strongholds. The Bell May Toll for Jersey Toll Collectors.  It was one of those little stories, a three-sentence job on inside pages of last Saturday's local newspaper.  But it illustrates a mentality that is so outrageous — yet so thoroughly typical of the government union mindset — it deserves far wider dissemination than it has received so far.  Last Thursday [4/21/2011], a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit in which union workers were seeking to prevent New Jersey from privatizing toll collector jobs on the New Jersey Turnpike, unless those workers got the "right of first refusal" to keep their jobs.  But it gets even better:  the suit argued that privatization violates workers' First Amendment rights. A Government Union Shakedown.  "Raise our taxes!"  Can you imagine chanting such a slogan at a public rally?  Neither could most Americans.  There is one notable exception, however:  government-union activists.  They're pretty explicit these days about their desire to see taxes go up.  If that surprises you, you may be unaware of how dramatically the face of organized labor has changed over the last few decades. The left begins to realize their welfare state is unsustainable.  Europeans are not the only ones that are beginning to notice that liberal social welfare states are unsustainable.  The citizens of the bluest state in the union, California, are also beginning to question the size and scope of their government.  The Los Angeles Times released a poll today [4/25/2011] showing 70% of Californians said they supported a cap on pensions for future government workers, 68% approved increasing government worker contributions to their pensions, and 52% support raising the retirement age for government workers. Don't equate public, private unions.  When one criticizes public-sector unions, it doesn't imply at all that one is critical of labor unions per se.  Because public services are mostly monopolistic — one first-class postal service, one Medicaid, one DMV and road system, one public school system — and funded from involuntary taxes, public-sector labor unions are, basically, legally protected monopolies. AFSCME Union Threatens to 'Weaponize' Government Jobs.  It's becoming clearer that the "public service" mentality is quickly slipping way from government employees, if it didn't hit the exits a long time ago.  Instead of government employees serving the public, it's clear now their belief is that the public exists to serve them. Redistributing from the 'Have Nots' to the 'Haves'.  The Democratic Party and their union co-conspirators have been running a scam that takes the tax payments of the "have nots" and redistributes them to the "haves." ... Just who are these "haves"?  They are the 22.5 million public sector employees of city, county, state and federal government.  These are individuals who have close to life-time employment, pay that is often twice the level of an equivalent private sector employee, generous sick leave, annual leave, annual cost of living increases (even during recessions), great pension benefits, and health care benefits that private sector employees can only dream about.  The "have nots" are the private sector employees who pay the taxes that subsidize the public sector employees. Gimme Gimme: A Tour of the Entitlement Mentality.  In the comment section of a recent NRB post regarding public employee unions and the related protests in Wisconsin, one of our readers demonstrated a curious inability to distinguish force from choice.  The exchange was instructive of the entitlement mentality propagated by the Left.  It is a worldview which includes relativism so extreme that it disputes the definition of words. Public School Teachers and Unions are Failing Children and Bankrupting America.  Corruption, greed, incompetence, bureaucratic bungling:  Those are the things most likely to be found when the charade of public union outrage is peeled back to reveal the inner workings of collective bargaining.  There is no doubt America is engaged in an ideological battle.  On one side are the public sector unions and "workers" demanding the taxpayers cough up more to fund their fat paychecks and bloated pensions.  On the other side are the majority of Americans who work in the private sector, fund their own retirements and health care, and have no entitlement programs they haven't designed themselves.  The public sector is asking for more blood while the private sector is beaten unconscious and bleeding from every major artery. Stop paying public unions to haggle for more money.  The Office of Personnel Management, a government agency that, among other things, tracks federal-employee efficiency, surveyed 61 executive agencies and departments for fiscal 2008 to assess how much official time was lost to union activity.  They reported that 3 million official hours were used for collective bargaining or arbitration of grievances against an employer during that fiscal year at a cost of more than $120 million to the U.S. taxpayer. Unions vs. the little guy in Wisconsin recall fight.  If you're a Republican, it's a scenario straight out of "Alice in Wonderland."  Fourteen Wisconsin state senators, all Democrats, flee the state for three weeks, bringing government to a halt in an effort to stop Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill.  After three weeks, the fugitive Democrats return in failure.  And then, when a rich and highly organized effort to punish lawmakers is launched, it's directed not at the Democrats who ran away but at the Republicans who stayed home and did their job. Writing on the wall for public unions.  The American public at last has come to realize — and is demanding that our elected officials address — the terrible consequences of public-sector unions:  Union health and pension plans are bankrupting state and local governments left and right. Labor thugs threaten murder to preserve payola.  Public employee unions are bankrupting local and state governments, including Wisconsin's.  They have it cushier than the folks who are taxed to pay for it all.  A Spectrum Research Group report found that public employees make up 15 percent of the work force but lay claim to more than a third of the nation's $9.3 trillion in pension assets.  Many retire in their 50s and then double-dip with new jobs. Why I do not have Solidarity with the Public Unions:  My wages are less than 50% of a few years ago, and that is when I can find work.  No guaranteed hours here.  Should I feel guilty for thinking the Wisconsin people, who are angry over a wage freeze and benefit cuts that are still way above average should suffer like the rest of us.  The rest of the country has had to adjust, why should not they?  It is not as if they are being asked to take these cuts for without reason.  Their state is bankrupt. Ready for Unionized Airport Security?.  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made some progress this week in rescuing his state from the public-sector unions holding it hostage.  Ever wonder how Wisconsin got into trouble in the first place?  Washington is providing an illuminating case study.  Even as state battles rage, the Obama administration has been facilitating the largest federal union organizing effort in history.  Tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners are now casting votes to choose a union to collectively bargain for cushier personnel practices on their behalf. Wisconsin's Walker Has His PATCO Moment.  Remember the Patco strike of 1981?  The air traffic controllers' union had walked out, illegally shutting down the nation's air transportation system.  Their attempt at extortion was President Reagan's first big test, and the unions seemed to hold all the cards.  But Reagan held firm.  He fired the strikers, hired replacements and, despite claims by unions and their supporters on the left that it would lead to disaster, it didn't. Obama's Edifice Complex.  Obama's justifies his plans by touting "green jobs".  This is a fiction.  Any green jobs generated come at great cost and are often temporary.  A fringe benefit for Obama is that these federally-funded projects often go to union members and are subject to the Davis-Bacon act that requires high wages be paid on federally-funded projects, a subtle method of replenishing the union coffers for the next election cycle. 5 Reasons Unions Are Bad For America.  Let's put it plain and simple: Government workers shouldn't be allowed to unionize.  Period.  Why?  Because you elect representatives to look out for your interests.  It's obviously in your interest to pay as little as possible to government workers, to keep their benefits as low as possible, and to hire as few of them as possible to do the job.  However, because the Democratic Party and the unions are in bed with each other, this entire process has been turned on its ear. Who's to Blame for Union Woes?  The labor union movement is in deep trouble.  Only 6 percent of private-sector employees are union members.  Voters are beginning to realize, thanks to governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, that public-sector unions have negotiated unsustainable levels of pensions and benefits — and that public-sector unions are a mechanism for involuntary transfers of money from taxpayers to the Democratic Party. Terminal Ingrates Showing Their Terminal Ingratitude.  As much as I'd like to be sympathetic to the "plight" of public sector employees, it's just never going to happen.  The reason is simple:  in my entire life, I've never had a job where I got paid when I didn't work.  I never had one where I got automatic raises or had may health care paid for by somebody else.  And I've [certainly] never had a job where, after a certain period of time, I would be granted a "tenure" of guaranteed lifetime employment. Ohio union bill speeds toward passage.  With barely a whimper of the protests that have convulsed Wisconsin, legislation to curb public employee unions is speeding toward passage in Ohio, an even bigger labor stronghold. Union protests are a symptom of what ails America.  Unionized government workers who have taken to the streets to protest moves in Wisconsin and Ohio to limit their power are doing us all a favor.  How?  Our great nation today is sick and badly in need of therapy.  The screams and protests of these government union workers should help all Americans identify these public unions as a major symptom of the sickness that is dragging us down and what we need to do to fix it. Union 'Rights' That Aren't.  There is no "fundamental right" to collective bargaining in government jobs.  Indeed, labor leaders themselves used to say so. Economists: Government pension funds underestimating shortfall by $1.5 trillion or more.  The pension funds for state and local workers in the United States are understating the amount they will owe workers by $1.5 trillion or more, according to some economists who have studied the issue, meaning that the benefits are much costlier than many governments and taxpayers thought. A General Strike In Wisconsin?  While it's not being widely discussed in the mainstream press, union activists in Wisconsin have begun mulling over the possibility of a general strike as their next move in the War On Taxpayers. The Editor says... Fire them all, I say.  Let those people work who really want to, and let all others starve. A Union Education.  Unlike in the private economy, a public union has a natural monopoly over government services.  An industrial union will fight for a greater share of corporate profits, but it also knows that a business must make profits or it will move or shut down.  The union chief for teachers, transit workers or firemen knows that the city is not going to close the schools, buses or firehouses.  This monopoly power, in turn, gives public unions inordinate sway over elected officials. Public unions must go.  Government workers were making good salaries in 1962 when President Kennedy lifted, by executive order (so much for democracy), the federal ban on government unions.  Civil service regulations and similar laws had guaranteed good working conditions for generations.  The argument for public unionization wasn't moral, economic or intellectual.  It was rankly political.  Traditional organized labor, the backbone of the Democratic Party, was beginning to lose ground. ... The plan worked.  Public union membership skyrocketed and government union support for the party of government skyrocketed with it. Yes, They're Overpaid.  President Obama's late November announcement of a two-year pay freeze for federal workers has been poorly received by unions and left-wing activists, who see it as the end result of a year-long campaign to reduce federal salaries.  Taxpayers should hope it is just the beginning. ... Some politicians have accused federal workers of making double what they deserve, while government unions maintain they are underpaid by around 25 percent. Public Employee Unions.  Given the relationship between politicians and public employee unions, we should not be surprised that public employee wages and benefits often average 45 percent higher than their counterparts in the private sector.  Often they receive pension and health care benefits making little or no contribution.  How is it that public employee unions have such a leg up on their private-sector brethren?  The answer is not rocket science.  Employers in the private sector have a bottom line.  If they overcompensate their employees, company profits will sink.  The company might even face bankruptcy. Will TSA Unionization Jeopardize Air Safety?  I don't know about you, but when I see a slow, rude Transportation Security Administration agent going through granny's purse at airport security, I think to myself:  "What the TSA needs is more bureaucracy — if only they were unionized!"  Well, we might get our wish. The good life (for unions especially).  Here's a quiz:  Who said that the prospect of a strike by a government union is "unthinkable and intolerable?"  Who said, "It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government"?  Was it Reagan?  Palin?  Did Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker utter these provocative words?  No, no and no.  The first quote is from Franklin Roosevelt — that champion of working people.  The second is from George Meany, the AFL-CIO's legendary first president. Public Unions & the Socialist Utopia.  Unionized public-sector employment is the distilled essence of the left's moral ideal.  No one has to worry about making a profit.  Generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided to everyone by the government.  Comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat.  The work rules are militantly egalitarian:  pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance.  And because everyone works for the government, they never have to worry that their employer will go out of business. Even FDR Understood: No Collective Bargaining for Public Servants.  Public servants — meaning government employees — don't work for greedy miscreants exploiting them for personal profit.  They work for democratically elected officials representing the will of the people.  This is just one reason why there is no legitimate role for government unions, and there should be no collective bargaining rights for public servants. Desperate Wisconsin Unions Resort to Alinsky Tactics.  Public sector unions have grown in power, and are now the biggest contributor to political campaigns.  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) spent $87.5 million last year to help Democrat politicians and influence their votes.  The number of government jobs rose even while unemployment during the recession tipped 10%.  Many public employees in Wisconsin can retire at age 55 with close to full pay, much earlier than the average private sector employee.  Schoolteachers in Madison are some of the best paid teachers in the country, earning an average of $56,000 a year in salary plus benefits totaling over $100,000 in compensation. Unionized Public Servants Meet Their Enemy.  Upon reflection, we find that the liberal policies that led to these generous civil service compensation time bombs are in many ways the very reason that that they have become unaffordable.  Consider:  [#1] To fund a huge civil service, you need a huge tax base, but the crippling red tape and rules produced by this huge civil service of regulation-generators have driven employers and jobs overseas at a frenetic pace, stunting the growth of that critical tax base.  [#2] To finance a pension plan, you set aside money every year, and invest it in the stock market; but the recent assault on the private sector has robbed those Wall Street investments of their expected growth... Collective Bargaining Doesn't Work In the Public Sector.  California enacted pension reforms in 1991 which limited the impact of pensions on the state budget.  But in 1999, Gov. Gray Davis and the state's Democratically controlled legislature wiped out those reforms, retroactively putting everyone who had joined the state's workforce in the 1990s into a new, richer system so that today California has unfunded pension liabilities ranging from $200 billion to $500 billion.  That's become a strategy of public worker unions.  They fight reforms, but if they lose they wait 'till they can elect a new set of more sympathetic legislators and then reclaim their gains.  Public unions are bolstered by the fact that government never goes away, unlike private businesses where unions overreach.  In the public sector, there are always taxpayers to turn to when a pension system or health care plan needs to be bailed out thanks to rich giveaways to unions. The Showdown Over Public Union Power.  Government workers have taken to the streets in Madison, Wis., to battle a series of reforms proposed by Gov. Scott Walker that include allowing workers to opt out of paying dues to unions.  Everywhere that this "opt out" idea has been proposed, unions have battled it vigorously because the money they collect from dues is at the heart of their power.  Unions use that money not only to run their daily operations but to wage political campaigns in state capitals and city halls.  Indeed, public-sector unions especially have become the nation's most aggressive advocates for higher taxes and spending. Public unions force taxpayers to fund Democrats.  Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle.  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle.  Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say.  The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. Top ten ways to tell if you might be a member of a public-sector union.  [#9] On a snow day when they say "non-essential" people should stay home you know who they mean.  [#8] You get paid twice as much as a private sector person doing the same job but make up the difference by doing half as much work.  [#7] It takes longer to fire you than the average killer spends on death row. The Public Worker Gravy Train.  [Scroll down]  State and local pensions effectively guarantee employees an 8% return on both their contributions and those made by their employer.  By contrast, a private-sector employee with a 401(k) can achieve a guaranteed return of only around 4% by investing in U.S. Treasury securities.  Most economists believe governments are foolish to base their funding decisions on the assumption of high investment returns, but the benefits for public employees are guaranteed in any case.  Over a career, the difference between a 4% and 8% return is significant. Government pensions, an obesity epidemic.  In New York City, the No. 2 guy in the fire department retired on a pension worth $242,000 a year.  In New York State, a single official holding two jobs and one pension took in $641,000.  A lieutenant with the Port Authority police retired with an annual pension of $196,767, and 738 of the city's teachers, principals and such have pensions worth more than $100,000 a year. Government Worker Unions: The Long Good-bye.  The Democratic Party has sold its soul to the public sector unions.  In the 2010 mid-term election, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees poured over $87 million dollars into the election.  (A new spending record).  AFSCME's $87 million was greater than the campaign spending by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($75 million) and American Crossroads ($65 million).  Other public sector unions also ratcheted up their spending such as SEIU ($44 million) and the National Education Association ($40 million).  The three major public sector unions spent over $171 million in the 2010 election plus an estimated $250 million equivalent value of so-called volunteer activity such as get out the vote efforts, door-to-door campaigning and poll watching. The War On Taxpayers.  The War on Taxpayers is under way, and if you are not a union member, the Democrat Party is your declared enemy.  President Obama is a general in the opposing army.  As the Associated Press puts it, "President Barack Obama and his political machine are offering tactical support, eager to repair strained relations with some union leaders upset over his recent overtures to business."  The New York Times calls the protests "more organized than organic," and says the unions and Democrats see this event as "an opportunity to begin rallying troops for the next election."  Union machinery is already plowing a similar field of Astroturf in Ohio, where another broke state government is trying to gain control of crippling public union benefit costs. GOP must be clear in Wisconsin labor fight.  In an American sequel to the demonstrations that swept Greece in the aftermath of that country's virtual default and necessary cutbacks on its bloated and unaffordable public sector, thousands of public-employee union members and their supporters swarmed Madison, demanding that their life styles, their medical benefits and their retirement payments be supported by taxpayers who are already paying for their own expensive health insurance and 401(k) plans.  The networks love the crowd shots.  But the voters love Walker.  And not just in Wisconsin, but across the country. Labor faces a moment of truth.  The six days of protests against Walker's bill to curb collective-bargaining rights have mesmerized cable news viewers and shown a fighting spirit and cohesion that labor groups have rarely displayed during 12 months of serving as public enemy number one in the eyes of tea party insurgents and newly empowered budget cutters. No Special Treatment for Government Workers!  There's no doubt that the government-union protests taking place in Madison, Wisconsin are about fiscal responsibility, and the public sector learning to live within its means.  But they're also about much, much more.  Above all, the conflict is about whether Americans will continue to be divided into two different classes:  Government workers, and the rest of us. How Wisconsin Could Save The Democratic Party.  Public employee unions have become the kudzu of government — growing fast and choking off everything else in its path.  That liberal vision of high-speed rail, renewable energy, health care for all, more money for universities?  Sorry, that money is going to government workers and retirees. 64% say government workers should not be represented by a union.  I was shocked when I saw this number.  The gravy train is really over for public employee unions.  Citizens are sick to death of their strikes, threats of strikes, whining, caterwauling, and incompetence.  It wouldn't be this bad probably, if government, at any level, worked.  But Americans look at the [mess] that government has become and wonder why we are paying these bozos so much? End Public Sector Unions... Period.  When you acknowledge the coming battle, you realize that Governors Walker and Christie — courageously as they are behaving — are only nibbling at the edges of the real issue.  And the real issue is whether public sector unions should even be allowed to exist.  Frankly, when even a modicum of common sense is infused into the equation, the answer is a resounding no.  And the foundational reason is simple.  There is no one at the bargaining table representing the folks who are actually going to pay whatever is negotiated. Federal fraud:  Healthy workers took disability.  It's always good to see federal employees hard at work.  That is, unless they're collecting a check for being totally disabled at the same time.  That's fraud. Wisconsin Labor Unrest Could Go National.  The grassroots political operation of President Obama, who on Wednesday denounced the austerity legislation as an "attack on unions," has swung in behind the government workers.  Organizing for America, the activist organizing wing of the Democratic National Committee is helping keep the pressure on Republican lawmakers who plan to pass the legislation today.  Members of the Service Employees International Union, the most influential union in national Democratic circles, have also joined the fray in support of the government workers.  The SEIU is helping man an around-the-clock occupation of the central halls of the state capital. I Stand with Scott Walker.  Governor Walker is tackling this problem head on, rightly proposing to bring public employees' compensation in line with the private sector.  In response, President Obama, national Democrats and their union allies have gone on the attack, helping organize protests that have flooded the Wisconsin capitol and shutdown public schools in Milwaukee and Madison.  They're even lending moral support to the state Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to avoid a vote.  The nation's governors don't need a lecture from a President who has never balanced a budget. More about the teachers' unions and the Wisconsin protests. Labor union stronghold rethinking its position.  The nation's Rust Belt once ran on union power, its factories and steel mills employing Democratic-voting union members who got regular pay raises and good pensions.  Now the region is at the vanguard of a national backlash against organized labor, as newly elected Republican governors and legislatures try to control costs by weakening — or virtually eliminating — unions of government workers. Is This How a President Should Act?  We are witnessing the logical conclusion of the Democratic Party's philosophy, and it is this:  Your tax dollars exist to make public sector unions happy.  When we run out of other people's money to pay for those contracts and promises (most of which are negotiated outside of public view, often between union officials and the politicians that union officials helped elect), then we just need to raise taxes to cover a shortfall that is obviously Wall Street's fault.  Anyone who doesn't agree is a bully, and might just bear an uncanny resemblance to Hitler. Wisconsin bill ending collective bargaining will pass, Gov. Scott Walker says.  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he has the votes to pass a bill removing collective bargaining rights for public employees.  Walker says he is open to making changes to the measure, but that he will not "fundamentally undermine the principles" he is proposing. Jurassic Unions Breathe Fire Against States.  As states struggle to slash budgets, Big Labor's two major confederations are spending big for a new PR campaign and recruiting drive to defend public employee unions.  Their act shows why they've got to go. Laboring through airports.  There are many ways to improve air travel.  Unionizing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) isn't one of them.  Until recently, the TSA was operating under a very sensible policy:  no collective bargaining.  Why introduce the possibility of strikes and protracted negotiations to an agency in charge of ensuring the safety of millions of air passengers? Big Union to Step Up Recruiting.  The Service Employees International Union is planning a major campaign to recruit members and counter political pressure on public-sector unions, according to an internal union memo and an SEIU board member.  The campaign — called Fight for a Fair Economy — will focus on mobilizing mostly low-wage minority workers in 10 to 15 cities, including Cleveland, Milwaukee, Miami and Detroit, according to the memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Unionizing the TSA.  After a mere nine years in existence, the Transportation Security Administration rivals the DMV and the Postal Service as a played-out comedy cliché.  And now the TSA is adding union bureaucracy to the mix.  Second-rate standup performers are licking their chops; the rest of us should be much less delighted.  The agency's head, John Pistole, recently gave its 40,000-plus employees the right to argain collectively on "non-security employment issues."  Two unions, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), will compete in an election tentatively set to begin March 9. Labor unions seen as winners in TSA move.  The Transportation Security Administration is blocking airports that want to use private screeners instead of federal employees in a move the agency's critics say is a sop to labor unions.  Several dozen airports around the country are considering opting out of TSA screening and hiring private-sector firms to search passengers and luggage under federal supervision.  At least six airports already have applied for permission to hire private screeners, as they are allowed to do under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001. TSA Chief "Willing" To Fire Employees En Masse If Need Be.  Trying to quell concerns over his decision to let security officers vote on whether they want unions to represent them, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole told lawmakers Thursday [2/10/2011] he would be "willing" to fire TSA employees en masse should they go on strike or cause a slowdown in operations. The Editor says... Yeah, right.  That's what he says.  But Obama is no Reagan, and once the TSA goons are unionized and have the support of all the other unions, there's no way they will ever be teminated in large numbers. Will Dems put unions ahead of air safety?  Air travelers and taxpayers alike are the biggest losers in Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief John Pistole's decision to allow airport screeners to collectively bargain.  That may be why the decision was made public late Friday when it was bound to attract minimal media coverage.  Conversely, Democrats in Congress are the biggest winners. Look who makes RomneyCare/MassCare's waiver decisions.  Before there was Obamacare, there was RomneyCare/MassCare.  Before there were Obamacare waivers, there were RomneyCare/MassCare waivers.  And just as the SEIU Purple Army is smack dab in the middle of exempting itself from Obamacare, it is smack dab in the middle of deciding who does and who doesn't have to follow the RomneyCare/MassCare rules in the Bay State. The TSA Two-Step.  The tale of two Friday afternoon announcements as part of a plan to unionize TSA screeners and keep the process quiet until it's complete. Safeguards must be installed to prevent voter fraud.  In the last presidential election, there were numerous reports of electoral irregularities, in particular of dubious actions believed to have been engaged in by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Some toll takers raking in $100G.  The dismantling of the Mass Pike authority didn't detour some toll takers from collecting $100,000 or more last year, state payroll records show.  The toll booth workers were among a select group of about 6,400 state employees who earned six-figure payouts in 2010, a Herald payroll analysis shows. Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere.  For the last 30 years, politicians outbid each other to offer more lavish retirement packages to union members and public employees — more eager for their votes than for ensuring the payment of what they had promised.  Receiving a generous retirement package was considered a right rather than an investment predicated on past savings coupled with modest interest and dividends.  There may already be an immediate $1 trillion shortfall in meeting what is owed current retirees. Unions Head for Showdown With Senate Over TSA Representation.  Unions that want to represent thousands of airport screeners are heading for a showdown with the Senate as early as Monday, with some lawmakers looking to revoke the collective-bargaining rights the Transportation Security Administration just granted them. A Case Against TSA Unionization.  [Katie] Gage voiced three main concerns with the decision:  1) that a unionized TSA would be less efficient, 2) that already-maligned TSA workers would only become more so, and 3) that TSA workers wouldn't get to hear the case against unionization as they decide whether to join/form one.  "If you want to see larger lines at TSA checkpoints, then let's bring a labor union in to run the show, because that's what they've brought us in the other places.  I don't think anyone would look at the Big Three as a model of efficiency and customer service," Gage said. Call The Unions' Bluff — Or Perish.  It's well past the time for federal, state, county and city leaders to grow a spine and call the bluff of the public employee unions.  How?  By ending all pensions for new-hire public-employees. Go Bankrupt, California, Please.  We're now 25 billion dollars in the red in California.  The governor along with his Democrat controlled legislature will never do the right thing.  They're the same folks who brought you this mess.  When Governor Brown was previously the governor he signed the Dills Act in 1978 that gave civil servants the right to collective bargaining.  He did this on his very first day in office as governor.  This revolutionary enactment was the beginning of the end or our state. Ignore the Union Leader Behind the Curtain.  As discontent with public employee compensation grows, the latest fashion from the Left is to claim that public workers are being scapegoated.  Yesterday [1/4/2011], Gawker even ran a piece called "The Plan to Blame Unions for Everything," arguing that the real causes of states' fiscal woes are failures to properly fund pension plans and a financial collapse caused by greedy bankers.  Without problems caused by other people, there would be no crisis in employee compensation — so don't blame the unions.  The problem with this account is that it is false. New York City's No-Show SEIU Snow Jobs.  Big Labor and politicians across the United States have transferred union costs to taxpayers.  For example, SEIU Local 444 (The Sanitation Officers Association) has six full-time union officials who are paid full-time city benefits and salary, yet work 0.00% of the time for New York City.  These Sanitation Officers are working on everything but New York City business — including political activities and golf outings — all on the taxpayers' dime. New York's Union Snow Job.  New York's fierce winter storm that left snow-clogged streets unplowed for days, preventing emergency medical crews from saving lives and rescuing stranded residents, appears to be the result of a union slowdown to protest city budget cuts. ... The chief of the Emergency Medical Service was replaced amid warnings of further reprisals to come.  And a federal and city investigation was underway to determine whether Sanitation Department workers deliberately slowed down snow removal operations, leaving countless streets unplowed to protest demotions, worker layoffs and budget cutbacks. New governors usher in era of labor union reform.  The AFL-CIO, the New York Times reported, recently distributed an internal memo warning its members that in several states around the country, Republicans may pursue new laws with the goal of financially starving labor unions.  This trend has public employee unions worrying that lawmakers will finally scale back the extent to which unions eat up state budgets. East St. Louis Cops Get a Bad Case of the Blue Flu.  If they had been paying attention, criminals in East St. Louis could have had run of the streets on New Years Eve when nearly an entire shift of police officers came down with something highly contagious called a strike.  However, since police aren't legally allowed to strike, it's not called a strike.  Instead, it's called the "blue flu" and, like other union-related illnesses, it sometimes comes on all at once. A Union Boss in Charge of Procurements — What could possibly go wrong?  If you're anything like me, until today, you probably had very little idea what the Government Printing Office is all about.  And, because there are more important things in life than keeping track of every little-known governmental agency and the administration's various political appointees, you might have missed the White House press release letting us know that President Obama just made a whole bunch of recess appointments on Wednesday [12/29/2010].  One of those recess appointments, as it turns out, is the appointment of William Boarman, one of eight sector vice presidents with the Communications Workers of America.  The President, it seems, has opted to bypass the Senate (again) and appointed Boarman to head the Government Printing Office as the Public Printer of the United States. 90-Year-Old Post Office Workers Still Getting Workers Comp?  Years after most Americans retire, in fact years after the federal retirement age of 68, more than 100 U.S. Postal Workers in their 90s are still getting 75 percent of their salaries (tax free, yet) of federal workers compensation payments instead of having been graduated to the cheaper retirement payments at 60 percent of their salaries. Union Snow Sabotage in New York City?  In New York City, the Department of Sanitation, aka "New York's Strongest," are tasked with clearing the streets of snow.  The sixth most powerful storm in city history pounded New York on December 26, leaving as much as twenty inches of snow covering the Big Apple.  Three days later, hundreds of streets remained completely unplowed. The case against public employee unions.  John Hinderaker at Powerline makes a powerful case against the existence of public employee unions.  This, in the wake of the news that the New York sanitation workers may have slowed down snow removal last weekend to protest budget cuts. Bloody Snow.  A New York City councilman has exposed that labor bosses don't need "On the Waterfront"-style corruption to kill innocents.  Sometimes all it takes is a snowstorm. Time to Rethink Public Employee Unions.  In New York, sanitation workers have reported that their union ordered them to sabotage the city's blizzard cleanup efforts.  If that claim is true, the union may be responsible for at least one death.  Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to investigate.  It remains to be seen what will come of this particular controversy, but the broader point is coming into ever-clearer focus:  it is time to ban public employee unions. Big Labor's Snowmageddon Snit Fit.  Come rain or shine, wind, sleet, or blizzard, Big Labor leaders always demonstrate perfect power-grabby timing when it comes to shafting taxpayers.  Public-sector unions are all-weather vultures ready, willing, and able to put special-interest politics above the citizenry's health, wealth, and safety.  Confirming rumors that have fired up the frozen metropolis, the New York Post reported Thursday [12/30/2010] that government sanitation and transportation workers were ordered by union supervisors to oversee a deliberate slowdown of its cleanup program — and to boost their overtime paychecks. Chicago Firefighter 'Priest' Uses Fellow's Funeral For Union Speech.  Father Thomas Mulcrone made [a fool] of himself at the funeral for fallen Chicago Firefighter Edward Stringer on Tuesday, Dec. 28 by delivering some union-like hectoring of the city from the pulpit during his dead comrade's eulogy.  Mulcrone's union-centric address was as disgusting a display as I can imagine and at the most inappropriate time imaginable. As governments go broke, public employee unions must share the pain.  Michigan authorities aren't alone in facing years of collective bargaining agreements that promised public workers far more pay and benefits than taxpayers could afford. Union Rollback.  A guest on Fox Business Network said last week that public employee unions are bankrupting state governments.  Isn't it time that legislators outlaw collective bargaining for public-sector workers? The Public-Sector Ponzi Scheme is Collapsing.  You've been hearing for quite a while now that public-sector unions are a threat to the economic survival of the United States.  With an estimated unfunded liability of up to $3 trillion (and perhaps much more), public-sector pensions are a noose around the neck of America's taxpayers and it is threatening to strangle the nation.  More specifically, you've been hearing that the expensive wage and benefits packages that union-bought Democrats have given to their union benefactors could collapse our economy.  The question is, can we stop it before it it too late, or at a minimum, contain the damage? Democrats diverging from unions.  Government employee unions have long been one of the Democratic Party's most loyal and dedicated constituencies.  For years, Democratic politicians have supported public employee unions' agenda of increased government spending, leading to more government jobs and thus, more potential union members.  For teachers unions — among the most politically powerful government unions — such support has paid off as Democrats have helped them resist popular school reform efforts that could threaten the government school monopoly, including school choice and charter schools. Cuomo:  I'll spend more than $4M on union war.  Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo said he was girding for a multi-million-dollar war with public employee unions to defend his efforts to close a projected $9 billion budget deficit without raising taxes. Eliminate Public Sector Unions!  Labor union dues are a huge factor in donations for an election cycle.  Of the top five contributors to the 2010 elections, unions claimed three of those spots.  The #1 big spender on the 2010 midterm elections happened to be:  The American Federation of State, County, and Municpal Employees (AFSCME) with $87.5 million in donations to Democratic campaigns.  All three of these powerful labor unions had a mission of electing Democrats to office with a sum total of $171.5 million to spend. California Dreamin'.  The public employee unions are the most powerful political force in the state.  They got that way because, in 1978, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed a law allowing public-sector workers to unionize.  These unions funded Brown's recent campaign and own nearly every elected official in California.  And that's the (relatively) good news.  The really bad news is the exodus of private employers who have been driven out of California by high taxes, an anti-business culture, excessive fines and fees, and oppressive regulations. Unions are hijacking our democracy.  Unions are spending like their very existence depends on liberals holding on to power in the U.S. government — which it does.  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), in fact, "has spent more than any other outside group this election," according to Vincent Vernuccio, Labor Policy Counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  In the 2010 election cycle, the AFSCME has given nearly $90 million, "almost exclusively to left-wing candidates," says Mr. Vernuccio.  (Unions have long operated as little more than liberal re-election slush funds.  In the 2008 election cycle, labor unions spent a combined and whopping $400 million to elect their pet liberals, who could be counted on the vote for union-friendly legislation like card check and ObamaCare.) Dependency, the Liberals' Natural Resource.  As the government workforce comes to outnumber those in the private sector, the constituency for even more government relentlessly expands.  In fact, as of 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a majority of all union members now work for government. ... When you add the ease of creating public versus private jobs, the march toward everyone being on the public payroll seems inexorable. The sad story of how public employee unions have all but ruined California.  City Journal's Steve Malanga offers the most detailed and succinct history yet on how public sector unions grew from being toothless employee associations to having a virtually lock on all of the key power levers in California and how they've used that power to enrich themselves while all but ruining a once-goldern state.  As Malanga explains, what has already happened in California is well underway across the rest of the nation and in Washington, D.C. TSA union to distribute leaflets at airport.  Informational pickets from the union representing security screeners at Indianapolis International Airport are expected today [6/17/2010] to begin passing out leaflets outside the passenger terminal.  The union that has limited rights to represent the 40,000 employees nationwide of the Transportation Security Administration is trying to win full recognition for collective bargaining. The Enormous Cost of Public Unions.  Last year, it was widely noted, public sector unions pulled off a stunner, gathering in more union members than the total in the much larger private sector.  More than a third of all public employees are now union members, compared to the private percentage of 7.2.  Abetted of course by irresponsible office holders often eager for their political support, these public sector unions have done far more to indulge their members than helping to concoct pensions of a kind hard to locate in private employment. Reid's Push To Nationalize Police Unions.  In an effort to please union backers ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is quietly trying to nationalize rules governing every police, fire and first responder union in the nation. Their clout in peril, public employee unions push back.  Public employee unions are pushing Congress for $23 billion to extend stimulus payments to school teachers, including an ad campaign that shows children dressed as Wall Street bankers asking for a bailout.  But the union pressure may not be enough, as lawmakers reject new spending amid rising public anger over the nation's staggering deficit. Tide of PR battle turns against public employee unions.  [Scroll down]  Unlike President Obama, who can use up 15 minutes and say nothing, [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie needed less than five minutes last week to rebuke the standard media narrative about what is unfolding in the Garden State.  Christie's pushback at the assumptions in reporter Tom Moran's question about the governor's alleged "confrontational" tone instantly shot across the country's many forms of media. Government Funded Front Groups.  [Scroll down]  The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is the government Union whose president boasts "We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we're proud of it."  Apparently they've reaped windfall profits from their investment.  They're the nation's fastest growing union which isn't surprising since under the Progressives the government is the only sector of the economy that's growing. Sounds like a win-win situation. SEIU announces Arizona boycott.  One of the nation's biggest labor organizations announced today it will boycott Arizona.  The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) said its 2.2 million members will not attend any meetings or conventions in Arizona as long as the new immigration law is in place. Public unions make a private sector power grab.  Public employee unions are getting fired up about the financial regulations chugging through Congress. ... Rallies and marches for a bank bill?  What does that have to do with working for the government?  Stephen Lerner, who is spearheading the movement for the Service Employees International Union, summed it up for Peter Dreier of the Huffington Post:  They want the banks' money. Stern's Possible SEIU Successor Could Make Union Peace Elusive.  At a time when the nation's fastest-growing union is starting to fall victim to its own aggression, some question whether Anna Burger — who may be in line to replace SEIU President Andy Stern — can deliver anything but more of the same. Andy Stern's debts.  Purple may be the official color of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), but Andy Stern is leaving the union deep in the red.  Last week, he surprised the labor community by announcing his resignation as president of SEIU.  Mr. Stern has claimed victories in helping pass health care legislation and getting President Obama elected, but his impact within his own organization shows gaping budget deficits and massive underfunding of pensions. Rebuttal: Seeing Red.  On Monday in the Washington Times, Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger — a protégée of outgoing SEIU President Andrew Stern — defended her and Stern's time in leadership at SEIU, claiming that the union is financially healthy.  Burger's letter to the editor was in response to my April 23 article in which I showed the poor state of SEIU's finances — and the even poorer state of its pension funds for rank-and-file members. Public-sector unions bankrupting America.  California's public-employee retirement system stands in the most perilous condition, facing a half-trillion in unfunded liabilities.  That's not surprising when you consider a California highway patrol officer can retire at age 50 and collect up to 90 percent of his salary for the rest of his life.  According to the agency's website, a typical officer's pay will reach $109,147 after just five years on duty — an amount that can rise significantly with overtime benefits.  That means a fit and healthy 50-year-old "retiree" who began work at age 20 would receive $98,232 a year from taxpayers for the rest of his life, and nothing prevents him from taking another government job to collect two paychecks.  This form of double-dipping is rampant. SEIU and the 'Cheapest Emotional Denominator'.  To an Alinskyite, "the end justifies almost any means" and an additional 12 million votes could usher in permanent Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress.  What happens thereafter to the nation's social fabric and our treasury is merely collateral damage. Unions Now Starting Their Own Political Party.  Apparently the Democrats in North Carolina aren't sufficiently leftist enough for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  It appears that the SEIU, one of the largest and most powerful public employees unions in the nation, don't have their hand deep enough in the taxpayer's pockets so it is starting its own political party in the Tar Heel State, bypassing the Democrats altogether. SEIU starts third party in North Carolina.  Apparently statewide Democrats aren't sufficiently pro-union in North Carolina.  So the nation's most politically influential union has decided to start a third party to run their own candidates in the state.  It's also being done to punish moderate Democrats that voted against health care. Investigation shows Oregon taxpayers pay for union activities.  In 2009, Oregonian taxpayers paid $152,317 for Service Employees International Union activities, according to records provided by the State Controllers Division at the request of Oregon Politico.  State workers represented by SEIU are given paid time-off for certain union activities.  This time amounted to a total of 6,706.17 hours in 2009. Federal Workers Aren't Feeling the Pain.  While the President touted the 160,000-plus job gains in February, it should be noted that this year government union workers will exceed private-sector workers in unions.  When the largest union membership represents federal workers, how do you cut the budget? Denying the Truth at all Costs.  The facts are well known.  Government at all levels has grown faster than any other segment of the economy.  Government, also, pays far more than corresponding workers in the private sector and has lavish benefit packages unmatched by any private worker.  As the Cato Institute detailed in their January, 2010 Tax & Budget Bulletin # 59, the compensation scales and benefits of government are simply unsustainable.  They cannot continue; there must be an adjustment.  But blocking that "adjustment" is the primary goal of labor unions. Unions Killing U.S. Post Office.  Union contracts are killing the U.S. Post Office, making it uncompetitive and driving costs through the roof according to the Government Accountability Office.  The U.S. Post Office lost $12 billion between 2007 and 2009 and has reached its borrowing limit of $15 billion already. Public Sector Unions Tarnish the Golden State.  It's an ugly fact of life in California.  Public sector unions are slowly, painfully and inexorably choking the life out of the (once) Golden State.  Fully 54% of state government workers — that's almost 1.8 million people — are unionized.  And the unions' primary reason for existence is maintaining the privileges that state employees enjoy, at any cost to the rest of the state. Jumping When Unions Holler.  Obama's promise of a better, cleaner, and more transparent brand of politics has not been fulfilled.  Not by a long shot.  The president appoints the SEIU boss to the deficit commission.  Congress behind closed doors churns out colorfully named sweetheart deals on ObamaCare.  And then they really reveal the depths of their dependence on special-interest patrons. Portland firefighters union sticks it to the city.  Even Tom Hurley, it's safe to say, figured there were limits on how much you could milk the Portland Fire and Police Disability Fund.  For 12 years after an independent medical examiner ruled he could stop playing hurt and return to work, Hurley received a monthly disability check at the taxpayers' expense.  But even Hurley — the latest, and laziest, in a long line of firefighters — eventually decided the jig was up. History of public sector unions shows why they should be banned.  Unions can make sense in the private sector where the purpose of an enterprise is to provide products and services needed by people who can pay for them and in the process allow the firm to generate a profit to be shared in mutually agreeable proportions among owner and employees.  The profit is the essential measure of whether the enterprise is viable.  But in the public sector, there is no such measure because the state can only tax wealth created by others. Sinking By The Stern.  The White House picks its most frequent visitor to sit on its deficit commission.  He believes in big government, in big spending, and that the workers of the world should unite.  What could go wrong? Obama Draws Fire for Appointing SEIU's Stern to Deficit Panel.  President Obama's decision to appoint his close political ally, union leader Andrew Stern, to the newly created National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has set off a firestorm of criticism from business and conservative groups who charge he is a political radical who should be investigated for failure to register as a lobbyist. Andy Stern and Barack Obama:  Fiscal Responsibility Fraudsters.  Everything you need to know about President Obama's commitment to fiscal responsibility and cost containment can be summed up in two words:  Andy Stern.  The profligate, corruption-coddling head of the powerful Service Employees International Union was named to the White House debt commission last week.  If Obama thinks Stern holds the cure for our government spending woes, you can be certain his latest health care prescription will be fiscal hemlock. USA Today: Average federal employee makes $38,000+ more than private sector worker.  [Scroll down]  Throw in benefits, and the average federal worker makes $38,000+ more than the average private sector worker — the very same one who's ultimately paying his salary. For feds, more get 6-figure salaries.  The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.  Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Obama Names SEIU's Stern to Deficit Commission.  President Obama has named four members to his bipartisan deficit-reduction commission, including Andy Stern, the influential president of the Service Employees International Union. Obama and the Government Employees:  Public-sector unions have amassed great power to extract taxpayer dollars from politicians.  Politicians reward government workers with our dollars, and they in turn are rewarded at election time by donations, free labor (phone banks, people who pass out flyers), and votes.  "Fully one-third of the 'stimulus' money went to state and local governments — an obvious payoff to public employee unions that contributed so much to Democrats," as Michael Barone noted. Obama's federal jobs:  Employment is up, wages are up, and job security is as firm as ever.  Unfortunately, this is only true for federal government workers.  President Obama is presiding over the largest federal work force in decades.  In the current fiscal year, the number of civilian workers will grow by 153,000, to 1.43 million. SEIU Boss Open to Serving on Obama Deficit Reduction Commission.  Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern said he was open to serving on President Barack Obama's proposed deficit reduction commission, after it was reported that the White House was considering him for the post. SEIU PAC Spent $27 Million Supporting Obama's Election, FEC Filing Says.  The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) political action committee made more than $27 million in independent expenditures in support of President-elect Barack Obama's presidential campaign, according to a filing the PAC made with the Federal Election Commission. Hijacking the Private Sector, the SEIU and Blago Way.  As the union leaders' plundering of the private sector has continued, this doesn't mean that they have abandoned unionizing private sector workers altogether.  In fact, while the number of private sector jobs overall is down, the number of unionized private sector jobs is trending upward, right alongside the public sector growth. SEIU Fat Cats Behind First Lady's Anti-Obesity Campaign.  Behind every seemingly good deed in the Obama White House, there's a deep-pocketed, left-wing special interest.  Take first lady Michelle Obama's crusade against childhood obesity.  Who really benefits from the ostensible push for improved nutrition in the schools?  Think purple — as in the purple-shirted army of the Service Employees International Union. Public-sector Unions Bleed Taxpayers to Help Dems.  Last month, the Labor Department reported that private-sector unions lost 834,000 members last year and now represent only 7.2 percent of private-sector employees.  That's down from the all-time peak of 36 percent in 1953-54.  But union membership is still growing in the public sector. GDP Is Up, But Government Unions Ate Your Raise.  Figures released today [1/29/2010] by the Bureau of Labor Statistics provide less encouragement than today's GDP report.  Total compensation increased by only 1.5 percent in 2009 (without adjusting for inflation) — the lowest increase on record.  If a turnaround has begun, workers are not feeling it in their wallets. This should prove, to those who had any doubt, that the SEIU is primarily a political organization. SEIU's Stern:  Dems may not get labor's full support in fall midterms.  A highly influential labor leader Friday [1/22/2010] suggested congressional Democrats might not the full support of unions in the upcoming midterm elections should they not pass a full healthcare reform package. SEIU:  Building a New American Health Care Empire?  Most average Americans know little about the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  Some know them as the people in purple shirts that beat up attendees at the town halls this summer.  Some equate them to ACORN, or to the Obama administration.  While there is some truth to all of the above, there is for certain one title that every voting American should be bestowing upon SEIU, and that is the title of "special interest". Obama's Jobs Summit:  The Invisible Hand of SEIU and ACORN.  As President Obama concludes his first jobs summit, almost a year into his presidency, the nature of the guest list hints at a deliberate initiative that's been underway for over 15 years — and it's not one of the obvious presumptions that most would make.  Notice that of the list of leaders invited, the majority are labor union leaders, leaders of businesses with government contracts, or leaders of businesses that operate on partial public funding. Ban government employee unions.  There was a time in America when the typical union member was a blue-collar guy sweating in a Pittsburgh steel mill, screwing together Chevies in Detroit or loading and unloading ships on the San Francisco docks.  But things are radically different today because Joe Lunchpail has been replaced by white-collar Todd and Margo Yuppiecrat processing Social Security checks in Baltimore, conducting environmental audits in Denver or keeping the lines moving at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Tuesday's Biggest Loser:  the Union Agenda.  [Scroll down]  That man is Andy Stern, who has boasted that the Service Employees International Union, which he heads, ponied up something like $60 million for Barack Obama and other Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle.  Altogether, Mr. Stern and other labor union leaders reportedly gave Democrats some $400 million last year.  This was, to borrow a word from Mr. Obama, an audacious gamble.  Unions these days represent only 8% of private-sector employees (and that's counting General Motors and Chrysler as private sector) and some unions went into debt to make these contributions. Big Labor and Big Government — there's little difference.  A new Heritage foundation study shows that while the percentage of the American workforce that is unionized is holding steady, there's actually a huge difference in the composition of those union workers.  Private sector unions continue to dwindle, but public sector unionization is on the rise. Obama puts union strings on federal jobs.  Delivering on President Obama's promise to boost the labor movement, the administration has announced a $35 million federal construction project in New Hampshire that requires union representation for the workers and forces nonunion employees to pay dues and contribute to a union pension fund.  Mr. Obama issued an executive order in the first weeks of his presidency that would make the requirement, known as a "project labor agreement" or PLA, the norm for all government contracts on large-scale construction jobs. Some Criticize SEIU for Its ACORN Connections.  A rapidly growing union that represents nurses, janitors and other low-wage workers is coming under fire from conservatives because of its long-standing financial and leadership ties to ACORN, a liberal organizing group recently embarrassed by videos filmed covertly.  Some Republicans say federal agencies that recently cut ties with ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — should also consider severing their relationship with the Service Employees International Union. SEIU Hit by ACORN.  As the full extent of ACORN's corruption and criminality is revealed, we are also learning about ACORN's special friend, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the most militant and active unions in the country.  It turns out that the two organizations are quite chummy. Not Far From the Tree.  While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they've hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they've never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation's largest unions.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans. Did someone mention ACORN? Read the Union Health-Care Label.  In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions — or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.  Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large. More about Obamacare. And You Thought This Was All About Health Care...  The all-consuming debate over health care has effectively sucked all of the oxygen out of the policy world leaving little room for discussion, let alone action on other major elements of the progressive agenda — or so it would seem.  The mammoth bills winding their way through Congress will certainly upend our health care sector, if they are enacted.  Little known, however, are several provisions that will provide an enormous pay-off to one of the Democrat parties most loyal constituency — Big Labor. Labor Unions on Health Care:  Their True Motives.  Unions across the country are campaigning hard for Obamacare over Labor Day weekend.  The AFL-CIO has made creating a government run "public plan" their top priority.  Yet polls show that most Americans strongly oppose this.  So why have the self-proclaimed advocates for America's workers made government-run health care their top priority? ACORN's "Muscle for Money" does the bidding of SEIU.  Corporate and political officials who defy workplace and community organizers risk being made objects of scorn by bright red-clad protestors in public and private, courtesy of an activist union and its close allies in the nation's most controversial liberal non-profit advocacy group.  It's officially called the "Muscle for Money" program within the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) where it was started, and unofficially by the same name among activists of Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). Back to ACORN General Hospital.  Unlike 98.4% of you nurses out there, I have actually belonged to a union.  Years ago, after accepting a new hospital position I was filling out the obligatory HR paperwork.  Among the forms was an index card.  "What's this?" I asked.  "It's for the union."  I handed it to her.  "You don't understand.  I am an RN.  A professional.  I won't be joining a union."  She handed the card back to me.  "No, you don't understand.  This is a closed shop.  Fill out the card."  Except for irritation at the dues deducted from my paycheck, the union had no effect on my life.  Then, a few months later, the hospital informed us that they were in dire financial straits and needed concessions from all employees.  So, I made plans to attend my one and only union meeting.  We gathered to hear how our union was going to fight for our rights.  The representative got up to the microphone and said — I swear I am not making this up — "We've looked over what they're asking and we recommend you take it."  End of meeting. State's budget crisis opens rift between unions and Democrats.  The Capitol's usual political alliances are being tested by the state's severe financial problems as interest groups scramble to hold onto as much as possible of the state's shrinking coffers.  The relationship between Democratic leaders and some of their labor benefactors has turned particularly frosty:  Many of the programs union members rely on for paychecks — and the unions rely on for dues — have been slated for deep cuts. An obvious payback to the unions who supported Obama... Davis-Bacon Wage Provisions Depress the Economy.  Congress has included a little-known provision in the economic stimulus legislation that wastes tax dollars and costs jobs.  All $188 billion worth of construction projects funded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1) must pay Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates.  This requirement will inflate construction costs by $17 billion and depress the economy. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. How to Save $40 Billion:  President Obama said in his Inaugural Address yesterday that government must spend to rebuild roads and bridges, but that those "who manage the public's dollars" must also "spend wisely" and "reform bad habits."  With that ambition in mind, here's an idea to save tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in the months ahead:  Repeal Davis-Bacon superminimum wage requirements for construction projects. 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. 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. 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. Taxpayers are footing bill for union work.  In the wake of a controversy over a police union official who received a city salary while working full time for the officers union, a survey of city government, Muni and BART unions reveals a handful of other officials with similar arrangements, including a San Francisco sheriff's union chief who earned $60,000 a year but worked as little as one shift a month. Union influence:  Bill Clinton's memoir will hit bookstores later this month, but one story you're not likely to read in its pages involves Clinton's friendship with Arthur A. Coia.  The debonair former president of the Laborers International Union of North America was one of the Democratic Party's biggest contributors when Clinton was in office.  In the first four years of the Clinton administration alone, LIUNA gave $4.8 million to Democrat candidates and the Democratic Party.  Although Clinton had contact with Coia no fewer than 120 times, their association is an awkward memory for the former president given the latter's ties to organized crime and that of the union he once headed. Union politics:  President Bush's new campaign ads, which feature fleeting images of firemen removing the remains of victims from the attack on the World Trade Center, have ignited a firestorm of criticism from the union representing New York firefighters.  The union's complaints should come as no surprise since the IAFF was an early supporter of Sen. John Kerry; in fact, they were the only union to endorse Kerry before the New Hampshire primary.  Less well known, however, is the IAFF's own exploitation of those fallen heroes of September 11 to advance the cause of forced unionism for all public safety workers. Watching over the unions:  Howard Dean wasn't the only loser in the Iowa caucuses.  Two of the nation's biggest, most politically powerful unions, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Union), endorsed Dean.  AFSCME and SEIU are estimated to have spent $2.6 million in Iowa trying to win the state for Dean, who ended up with only 18 percent of the vote. Is it safe?  President Bush tried to get rid of lazy, burned out, incompetent, uncaring or corrupt federal employees when he set about to establish a Homeland Security Department, but he met solid resistance from leftist union-loving Democrats who claim that if Bush can hire, fire or promote federal employees on merit alone, we'll be "headed back to the bad old days."  Most of us are realistic enough to realize that these are the bad old days. Are Unions A Detriment To A Good Work Ethic? You Betcha!  One thing that the Wisconsin protests prove is that FDR was right about public unions.  In a National Affairs magazine article Daniel DeSalvo wrote:  "Meticulous attention," the president insisted in 1937, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government...  The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service."  The reason?  FDR believed that "[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied.  Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable."  Roosevelt was hardly alone in holding these views, even among the champions of organized labor.  Indeed, the first president of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, believed it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government." The illegal New York City transit strike of 2005: Struck by the Strike.  One of the principal elements of civil society is the rule of law.  Society depends upon most people obeying the law most of the time, together with tough sanctions for violation.  In this spirit, the full strength of any and all sanctions of the Taylor Law should be imposed upon the leadership of New York's illegally striking bus and subway workers. You see, The Taylor Law  prohibits strikes by public employees. Screws Tighten on NYC Transit Union.  The contract covering 33,000 New York transit workers expired last week, and the union called the strike Tuesday morning [12/20/2005] despite a state law banning public employee strikes. Court Fines NYC Transit Strikers $1M a Day.  The city's subway and bus workers went on strike Tuesday [12/20/2005] for the first time in more than 25 years, stranding millions of commuters, holiday shoppers and tourists at the height of the Christmas rush.  A judge promptly slapped the union with a $1 million-a-day fine. Despite an Illegal Strike, New York Transit Workers Win.  Barely a week after New York's 34,000 transit workers illegally walked off the job for three days near the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays, the union received a contract offer many people saw as a victory for the union. Judge Ends Automatic Rake Of Dues for Transit Workers.  The Transport Workers Union must pay $2.5 million for the strike that brought subway and bus service to a standstill for three days last December, a Brooklyn judge ruled yesterday [4/17/2006].  State Supreme Court Judge Theodore Jones also penalized the union by halting its automatic collection of member dues. Update: NYC Mass Transit Local Makes Unorthodox Plea to Avoid Fines.  When Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) went on a three-day strike during last year's Christmas shopping season, it did more than disrupt the lives of millions of New York City bus and subway commuters; it also broke the law.  And in doing so, it opened itself up to roughly $3 million in fines.  On Friday, April 7, lawyers for the local argued before Justice Theodore Jones of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn that the fines, if levied, would bankrupt the union.  Therefore, stated the defense, the fines should be waived. Back to the Organized Labor Page Back to the Home page

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