The Union Label - September 16, 2006
Posted on September 16, 2006 at 5:40 pm by Chuck Muth
SORRY RECORD
“(Teamster President James) Hoffa has a record to run on and it is a record of very weak contracts, the first pension cuts in the history of our union and the biggest dues increase in the history of our union that happened without a membership vote.”
- Tom Leedham, who is challenging Hoffa for the union boss’s seat in November, Associated Press, 9/12/06
TEACHING THEFT
“The Colorado Springs Gazette reported on another case of a public sector union official stealing member dues, and an effort by union officials to keep members quiet about the scandal.
“In another example of why comprehensive financial disclosure information is needed, Falcon Teachers Association Treasurer Kristen Prevedel is accused by police of stealing $90,750 in dues money. According to news reports, Prevedel is accused of writing checks from the union treasury to her self, then falsifying reports to indicate the monies were actually paid to the Colorado Education Association.
Union officials reacted in the usual fashion: providing members with only “vague” information on what happened to their dues, then telling members to not discuss the matter with people not also members of the union.”
- Labor Reform News, 9/15/06
WHY SECRET BALLOTS ARE CRITICAL
“By using the undemocratic method of union organizing known as ‘card check’ (in which employees have no opportunity for a private vote), the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies) claimed that a majority of the employees at the East End Co-Op in Pittsburgh supported unionization. When a secret ballot election was held on August 30, it turned out that a majority in fact opposed unionization.”
- Center for Union Facts, 9/13/06
EXPAND PAYCHECK PROTECTION
“If your pastor supports Candidate A in the local dog- catcher election, does he have the right to use money you put in the collection plate to support that candidate — even if you prefer Candidate B? Of course not. But if your union supports Candidate A, in most cases, your dues will end up in the campaign war chest of Candidate A. Unless you live in a state with paycheck protection laws.
“Unions spend 70 percent of the dues they collect on activities other than organizing or bargaining on behalf of their members. That figure includes overhead and compensation for staff, to be sure. But it also includes the more than $60 million worth of union dues in the 2004 election cycle that went to support political candidates favored by union leaders.”
- James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation
YANKING THE DONKEY’S LEASH
“Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel.
“A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation’s productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Wal-Mart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation. Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion).
“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 this store.”
- Columnist George Will
UNION’S MINI-WATERGATE
“The home of (Pottstown, Pa.) borough union leader Jerry Stick, which is slated to be torn down by the borough authority which owns it, was recently broken into and documents relating to borough activities were stolen. According to West Pottsgrove police, Stick came home from work Monday and found his home office in disarray, with papers spread on the floor.
“Stick, who heads the Pottstown local of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, told police that union financial reports, previous union contracts and ‘memos regarding corruption at the borough and actions described as whistle-blowing’ were missing, police said.”
- Pottstown Mercury, 9/15/06
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE KING
“According to the latest financial disclosure figures contained in LM-2 forms released by the Department of Labor (2004) as a union member your dues have helped to build an average salary for the Biggest ‘Fat Cat’ union bosses averaging $239,106 a year up from $223,691 (2002) and 220,399 (2001). The continuing upward trend where the richer Union Bosses are only getting richer at the expense of the average worker is clear in these examples:
“President Douglas Dority of the United Commercial and Foods, who waged a pernicious 141 day strike and lockout affecting 59,000 Safeway employees in Southern California, took a huge slice of members’ dues with a gross salary of $633,793. The Union knocked Dority’s gross salary down to $329,000 a year plus retirement benefits and accrued vacation; still this hardship comes off the backs hardworking union members.
“President Terence O’ Sullivan of the Laborers International union has the largest gross salary of them all at $405,620 - though this number only tells half the story. Mr. O’ Sullivan refuses to tell us what he really makes preferring to hide behind ‘no comment’ from his spokesman Richard Greer. Ostensibly, Mr. Greer tells us in the same breath that Mr. Sullivan’s role at Union Labor Insurance Co. is only ‘ceremonial’ and that Mr. Sullivan is not being paid for any services at ULLICO.
“Rounding out the top five Union Bosses making themselves richer off the largest unions in 2004 are President Douglas McCarron of Carpenters and Joiners of America, whose gross salary was $348,923, and AFSCME President Gerald McEntee’s $316,916. Lastly, John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO took from union members $247,500.
“It is an outrage that union presidents on average (2004) make 6 to 15 times what the average union worker made in that same year.”
- Will Fine, Executive Director National Alliance for Worker and Employer Rights
September 19th, 2006 at 4:47 am
You folks take the cake. The only people who would oppose card checks and complain of union officials’ six-figure salaries while ignoring corporate execs’ seven- and eight-figure salaries are corporate wealthy people who don’t care whether we have a middle class, believe in tax cuts for the rich, and are pleased as punch when union busters have their way.
Card checks are necessary because employers have done the math, and know that with a little bit of intimidation and a few well-selected firings, they can reduce a 70% union majority to a minority, and they use the time between filing a petition with the NLRB to the time of the election to prey on their employees to reduce that majority to a minority. Do you really think it’s an accident that unions won’t even attempt an organizing drive ordinarily without a huge super-majority? What do you think would happen if Republicans could actually make examples of Democrats by having them fired if they continued to vote Democratic?
But employers’ countless unfair labor practices intended to thwart unionization are OK with you, because they are in the interest of those you serve, right, Chuck?
September 19th, 2006 at 4:54 am
It’s a flat out lie that unions spend 70% of collected dues and fees on activities other than collective bargaining and representational matters. Not even close. What do you think salaries pay for?
Insofar as the unions spend money on political activities, that is done in the interest of the working and middle class, too, and is the only countervailing force against corporations, which outspend unions in the political sphere by at least 10 to 1. What paycheck deception advocates want to see is a vast increase in that ratio, because overwhelming unions’ political spending is not enough; they want to eliminate unions as a political force altogether. Without unions as political players, what legislation would pass and what would fail? Minimum wage? Workplace safety? Environmental protection? Civil rights? Distribution of the tax burden? Do you want to leave these kinds of issues to the “market” controlled by corporations? If you do, then you don’t care about middle and working class people, not one whit.