The Union Label - November 1, 2006
Posted on November 1, 2006 at 9:08 pm by Chuck Muth
WHO YA GONNA CALL?
For the November 2006 elections, the Teamsters Union is launching a national voter hotline to assist members with problems or questions they may encounter on Election Day according to a Teamsters press release this week. Voters can call the toll-free number to report voting irregularities, intimidation or to request assistance.
The big question: What number do you call if it’s the UNION that’s violating the election laws or intimidating voters?
LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS
“(Teamster president candidate Tom Leedham) accuses (Teamster president James) Hoffa of reneging on a promise to cut positions that give union officials with various jobs multiple salaries. Instead, the number of multiple salary positions has increased from 16 to more than 160 during Mr. Hoffa’s tenure, a move that has cost the union $8 million annually, Mr. Leedham says. ‘All our money comes from dues. We’re not manufacturing refrigerators someplace,’ he said. ‘We’ve been spending more money now on officers. This has become the lifestyle of the rich and famous.’”
- Washington Times, 10/16/06
GETTING THE TEAMSTERS GOAT
“In another odd union tale, the Teamsters filed a complaint when they discovered that Mills College in Oakland, California, was using a herd of 500 goats to clear brush.
“The union says it has a contract with the college to clear brush and would file a grievance if one of three things were not done: 1) get rid of the goats; 2) compensate the union for lost wages and benefits at the rate of $10 per goat/hour; or 3) enlist the goats into the Teamsters.
“’If the college opts to have the goats become members,’ Teamster Secretary-Treasurer Charles Mack wrote, ‘we intend to represent them in the same aggressive manner we do every other member.’ No word on whether the goats will be forced to contribute to political campaigns through payroll deduction.”
- Education Intelligence Agency, 10/31/06
A TRULY DUMB IDEA
“The Department of Education recently announced its first grants in a new $94-million program to fund incentive-pay plans for teachers. The money itself is a drop in the bucket for a public school industry that spends more than $400 billion annually. And only a small portion of the nation’s school districts will be chosen to participate. But the idea — that a teacher’s pay should depend in part on how much his students actually learn — is revolutionary. It is also common sense.
“The current system makes no sense at all. Beyond a brief probationary period, teachers have lifetime job security (tenure) and are virtually impossible to dismiss even if their students learn absolutely nothing year after year. Their pay, moreover, is based entirely on a salary schedule defined by seniority and credentials, and takes no account of whether their students are learning anything. All teachers, good and bad, are rewarded equally — a truly dumb idea.
“…If incentive pay for teachers is practical, and if it makes good sense, then why is it so rarely used? The answer has to do with politics and power, not with what is best for children. By far the most powerful forces in the politics of education are the teachers unions, and they are opposed to incentive pay.
“The unions represent the occupational interests of all their members, not just those who are good teachers, and they have a deep resistance to any form of differentiated treatment that threatens member solidarity. Their demand is consistently for across-the-board-raises. Everyone benefits, no one surpasses anyone else.”
- Terry M. Moe of the Hoover Institution
DAY-CARE WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE
“A little-noticed but well-funded initiative buried near the bottom of the (Massachusetts) ballot on Election Day would allow unions to organize workers in some 9,000 mom-and-pop day-care centers run out of homes across the state,” reports the Boston Globe. “The initiative, which has the backing of prominent Democrats including Senator John F. Kerry, is part of a labor campaign to organize hundreds of thousands of day-care workers across the country.”
Here’s the problem: Daycare is expensive. So the government gives vouchers to the poor to help them afford daycare. What the union wants to do is organize a new “borg” collective of small, at-home daycare providers to get the government to increase the amount of the vouchers…thus making the cost of daycare even HIGHER than it already is.
And some people to this day still think unions are a GOOD thing.
Read the rest of this article here…
RIGHT TO WORK VS. PAYCHECK PROTECTION
A sure sign that conservatives are about to lose a fight is when their forces are divided on the right. Such is the case regarding a key labor union issue.
The Right to Work organization has been at the forefront of efforts to end forced unionism. Their anti-union bona fides are impeccable and unassailable. Ditto the Wall Street Journal. No one can say that either is an ally of John Sweeney or Jimmy Hoffa.
But on the issue of “paycheck protection” - legislation which would ban labor unions from taking money out of a member’s paycheck to be used for political purposes without the member’s permission - RTW and the WSJ are on opposite pages. Indeed, most conservative groups working on union-related issues are on the opposite side of the paycheck protection issue from arguably the nation’s leading anti-union organization.
What gives?
RTW certainly has a defensible position on this issue, I’m sure. But some on the opposite side blame the disagreement on pride of ownership; they say that since paycheck protection “competes” with right-to-work laws in the court of state legislative opinion, RTW is pooh-poohing it simply because it’s not their idea.
I’d hate to think something so childish is actually driving this public policy. Perhaps our good friends over at the American Conservative Union will put this issue on their agenda for discussion at next year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“They are in violation of the law, and if they do not report for work within forty-eight hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated.”
- Ronald Reagan laying down the law to the air traffic controllers union, 8/3/81
