The Union Label - November 25, 2006
Posted on November 25, 2006 at 9:17 pm by Chuck Muth
HOFFA WINS ANOTHER FIVE YEARS
“Teamsters President Jim Hoffa on Friday declared victory in his bid for another five-year term as head of the 1.4-million member union. Hoffa, who took office in December 1998, defeated his opponent Tom Leedham, the head of a Teamsters local in Oregon. With most of the votes counted, Hoffa had 120,215 votes — or 64 percent — to Leedham’s 6,069 votes.”
- Detroit News, 11/18/06
UNION BOSS ALL MOBBED UP
“Federal prosecutors announced racketeering, extortion and bribery charges yesterday against the president of the 15,000-member city school bus drivers’ union, who is already facing trial on charges that he tried to hide Mafia involvement in the union.
“The new charges against the president, Salvatore Battaglia, 60, of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, were contained in an indictment unsealed in United States District Court in Manhattan that says he is a member of the Genovese crime family. The new charges came just weeks after the union’s longtime secretary-treasurer, Julius Bernstein, pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and began cooperating with prosecutors and the FBI, law enforcement officials said.”
- New York Times, 11/21/06
YOUR UNION DUES AT WORK
“The president of a national labor union based in Dania Beach (Florida) twice rigged union elections to ensure his victory and then used members’ money as his personal piggy bank, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday. The accusation opened the Fort Lauderdale racketeering trial of Michael McKay, 59, president of the American Maritime Officers union, and his brother Robert McKay, 56, the union’s treasurer-secretary. The men are charged with a long list of crimes, including theft, fraud, and a conspiracy to cover up illegal campaign contributions from the union.”
- South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 11/22/06
CRIMINAL HYPOCRITES
“Four voter registration recruiters for the union-affiliated Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) were indicted November 1 on charges of submitting false voter registrations to the Kansas City election board. The indictments include two felony counts against each individual. According to the election board’s directors, as many as 15,000 voter registrations submitted by ACORN could be ‘questionable.’ . . . The ultimate irony about ACORN is that while it often acts as a union front group, it has tried to avoid paying its own employees minimum wage and has repeatedly blocked its employees’ attempts to unionize.”
- Center for Union Facts
MONEY WELL-SPENT
“The AFL-CIO spent $40 million on this year’s elections, and it claims voters from union households accounted for more than 80 percent of the Democrats’ total margin in congressional races. ‘It was money well-spent,’ (union boss John) Sweeney says. The results were ‘clearly a mandate for a union agenda,’ he adds.”
- BizJournals.com, 11/20/06
BIG LABOR EYES BIG PAYOFF
“Labor unions poured more money than ever into this year’s elections and finally got what they wanted: Democratic control of Congress. Now they expect a return on their investment: not only an increase in the minimum wage, but also legislation that would make it easier to organize workers.
“The AFL-CIO’s top five ‘must do’ list for Congress includes a bill that would force employers to recognize a union if a majority of workers sign cards favoring representation. The legislation also increases penalties for employers who violate labor laws. This legislation never got anywhere under Republicans, but the bill’s two main sponsors, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., will chair the committees that handle labor issues in the new Congress.”
- BizJournals.com, 11/20/06
FIRST UP ON THE AGENDA
“The Employee Free Choice Act certainly would help unions organize. We have been hamstrung by the Bush (National Labor Relations Board), which tries to thwart the organizing of unions. Right-wing judges have done everything they can to thwart the American labor movement.”
- Teamsters president James Hoffa
APPEASEMENT LOSERS
“Fifteen Republican Congressmen thought they were buying labor peace by signing onto H.R. 1696, the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act,” notes the Alliance for Worker Freedom.
“This bill, which had the support of 201 Democrats and 15 Republicans, would have stripped workers of their right to a free and fair secret ballot election to choose union membership. These 15 Republicans thought they were buying peace from organized labor by cosponsoring this anti-democratic legislation. Union thugs, though, view appeasement as weakness and respond with overwhelming force. That’s what happened here.”
Indeed, six of the Republican co-sponsors of the EFCA were flushed down the electoral toilet this year…and four of them saw the unions contribute money to their opponents! Ain’t that a fine howdy-do? The six union appeasers who got handed their congressional pink slips this year:
Rep. Sherry Boehlert (R-NY)
Rep. Joe Schwartz (R-MI)
Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT)
Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY)
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA)
“The lesson?” concludes AWF. “Don’t try to
appease unions even if you have a tough election - they will smell blood in the water and come after you with everything they’ve got. Victory for them is beating Republicans.”
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“While unionized postal workers can’t strike, they can collectively bargain for increased wages and benefits. Union leaders know full well that USPS is not a private company. It’s a government agency, and Uncle Sam is not going to let the Postal Service go under. So unions push for deals that would sink a publicly traded firm.”
- Sam Ryan of the Lexington Institute
