The Union Label - May 28th
Posted on May 28, 2006 at 7:34 pm by Chuck Muth
FEAR & SMEAR
The anti-Wal-Mart goons over at WakeUpWalMart.com have launched a new attack against the non-union retail giant. The group did a “study” which purportedly shows that police calls are higher at Wal-Mart than at Target stores in certain communities. So they’re calling on Wal-Mart to deploy roving security patrols and additional security cameras at every store. Apparently the group’s efforts to bring Wal-Mart down with smears about the company’s wage and health care policies isn’t working, so they’re now resorting to that old standby: fear.
Fear and smear. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
ALL IN FAVOR, SAY NEY
Rep. Bob Ney, Ohio Republican, is widely believed to be the most susceptible member of Congress to ballot box defeat or indictment over the Jack Abramoff scandal. In an effort to save his political career and win yet another term in November, Ney is turning to a group perfectly at home with scandal and corruption: The unions.
After winning his primary earlier this month against an unknown and unfunded challenger, Ney praised union bosses for not deserting him in his time of need. “Being battered and bruised with the Abramoff thing as I was, it would have been very easy for them to leave me, and they didn’t,” Ney told the Associated Press.
“I believe our members will stick with Bob Ney,” said Don Kaniewski, LIUNA’s national political director. “We have supported many people who’ve run into legal problems in the past.”
Birds of an ethical feather…
HYPOCRITE KINGS
“Part of UNITE HERE’s nationwide ‘Hotel Workers Rising’ organizing campaign is the claim that companies overwork their employees. So imagine our surprise to read this week that the First Circuit Court and the National Labor Relations Board have said a HERE local is guilty of an Unfair Labor Practice because they fired a woman who complained that she was overworked.
“According to the Bureau of National Affairs Daily Labor Report, HERE Local 26 fired employee Emma Johnson ‘after she complained about a seven-day workweek mandated by her supervisor in connection to the union’s leafleting campaign at several Hilton hotels in Boston.’ According to the BNA, Johnson attempted to trade shifts with other employees, but union president Janice Loux wouldn’t budge.”
- Center for Union Facts, 5/8/06
EVEN THE COMMIES DON’T LIKE THE SEIU
“The Ivy League labor aristocrats at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), folks who’ve never cleaned floors for a living, think they can solve workers problems. Andy Stern, the old New England money bags president of SEIU came out with a proposal for the labor movement called Unite To Win. This proposal called for a restructuring of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO). The main points of this proposal are centered on industry wide organizing, union density, and more money put towards organizing.
“…Sure, I would rather my union dues go towards organizing my fellow workers as opposed to fat cat salaries for union officers. Yet, I beg the question: what kind of organizing are we talking about here? SEIU is real fond of organizing the bosses, not workers. A case in point is their Justice for Janitors campaign. Instead of trying to organize all the janitors in a city, SEIU is pressuring building owners to give cleaning contracts to union janitorial companies.”
- North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists, 5/1/06
MAKE WORKERS PAY
“This week the Change To Win labor coalition, a group of unions that think the AFL-CIO isn’t militant enough, announced a new campaign called “Make Work Pay.” . . . The message of the website and the television ad focus on how much business leaders earn. But how much do the union leaders showing up to various protests make?
“Of those speaking at a rally in New York: Change To Win official Edgar Romney earned total compensation of $226,409 from UNITE HERE in 2005; Robert Bonanza, a Laborers district council business manager, totaled $172,123; Laborers Local 78 business manager racked up $118,124; and Laborers Local 79 business agent John Delgado earned more than $130,000. None of these people are connected to any profit-making enterprise that helps pay the bills.
“A rally in California was led by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 588 (recently merged to become Local 
president Jacques Loveall. In 2004, 588’s Department of Labor filings showed Jacques recorded $194,356, while his brother Adam made $149,937 in total compensation and his father Jack earned $425,392 in total compensation (plus another $20,000 as a vice president for the International union). Also speaking was Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president Andy Stern, who netted $249,599.”
- SOURCE: Center for Union Facts, 4/28/06
KILLING THE MESSENGER
“In an apparent response to the threat independent research and policy alternatives pose to labor’s dominant position in local government and education, union officials are increasingly turning to union-funded think tanks as front groups to attack independent proponents of government reform.
“…Independent proponents of reform can draw encouragement from one undisputable fact: union officials opposed to free market reforms are not irrational. Their efforts to use front groups disguised as independent policy groups…provides irrefutable evidence that despite having access to fewer resources than organized labor, free market groups are having a powerful influence on emerging government policy, to the detriment of those seeking to use the coercive power of government to extend their control over the lives of individual citizens.”
- Ron Nehring, Alliance for Worker Freedom
COOKING THE BOOKS
“The Montana AFL-CIO has been ordered to pay back $47,515 in disallowed federal job training spending, with state Labor Department auditors questioning how the union group spent an additional $332,574.
“Federal auditors had questioned $80,000 of the $2.9 million in federal funds spent by the AFL-CIO to retrain laid off workers in Missoula and Flathead counties in 2003 and 2004. The AFL-CIO was able to trim that amount to $47,515 after coming up with additional documentation for how the money was spent.
“These discrepancies prompted the U.S. Labor Department to order the state Labor Department to review every file in each of the AFL-CIO’s Project Challenge: Work Again offices around Montana. The state review found $332,574 in questioned costs.”
- Jackson Hole Star Tribune
