Archive for January, 2008
January 30, 2008 - 7:29 pm - Posted by WTH
Back in November, we mentioned that Colorado Governor Bill Ritter slighted his legislature and the people of the state by slipping in through the back door a sop to the SEIU labor union. Ritter was paying back his big union thug pals in the typical way that Democrats do, via fiat as opposed to through the legitimate, democratic process.
Now, the unions are taking Ritter’s illicit gift and running with it… hard.
Ritter’s unwelcome executive order allows unions to force public workers to vote on unionizing with only 30% of the workers petitioning for organization. With that tiny hurdle to jump, unions are flooding Colorado’s public workers with ads to sign these petitions.
Naturally, the unions are starting to push for more from Ritter.
CPEA has taken issue with recent fliers that Colorado WINS has distributed to state workers. In the materials, Colorado WINS tells state employees that it can negotiate health care benefits on the employees’ behalf, a statement that CPEA president Jo Romero questions.
Romero said CPEA began getting phone calls over the weekend from state workers and CPEA members who were concerned about Colorado WINS’ fliers.
She doesn’t think Ritter’s order allows unions to negotiate with the state on health benefits or salaries, and her group is asking the governor’s office for clarification.
So, before they even get their first member, before their petitions are even filed, the unions are lying to the members and using that lie to push for more power.
All this will do nothing positive for the people of Colorado, for sure. All this will result in more expensive and more expansive government which will cause taxes to rise to meet those new expenditures. Colorado can thank Gov Billy Ritter for bloating government and making government harder and more costly to operate.
And this seems to be beginning to sawn on state workers that oppose unions.
Kathy Zamperini, a CAPE/SEIU member and state worker, said she has gotten signatures from fellow employees in support of Colorado WINS, but reaction is often mixed.
“We’re having a difficult time with some of our employees,” she said. “I think some people are just apathetic. A lot of people don’t know what the governor has done.”
Others, she said, don’t want to be saddled with union dues.
Raymond Hogler, a professor of management at Colorado State University, said he is not surprised that some workers are resisting.
“This is a not a very pro-union state, and employees may decide they don’t need a union,” he said. Others may be afraid to join a bargaining group for fear of retaliation from a manager, Hogler said.
The guv’s backdoor, underhanded payoff to unions is beginning to see the light. Let’s hope that the light is shinned on the Ritter’s perfidy soon enough to stop these unions.
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January 28, 2008 - 7:56 pm - Posted by WTH
First term Kentucky House member Tim Moore (R, Elizabethtown) tried to start a debate on the efficacy of Kentucky’s prevailing-wage laws last week, but union flacks on the floor of the Commonwealth’s House would have none of it. He was quickly shut down when he tried to re-visit the idea of whether or not contractors that work for the gov’t should be forced to pay union scale even if they are not a union shop.
The Herald-Leader gives us the scoop:
The prevailing-wage law requires contractors who are building government facilities and schools to pay the typical wage for similar construction work done in the region. Two years ago, when former Gov. Ernie Fletcher suggested repealing it, union workers marched on the Capitol several times.
Some Republicans, however, say the law is fiscally irresponsible and unnecessary.
So, Moore brought it up and wanted it debated. Union lovers were aghast.
So Moore decided to talk about the issue instead. But his brief floor speech was immediately met with sharp criticism, mostly from Democrats who represent union districts.
“Mostly from Democrats”… imagine that?
Then, as Democrats are wont to do, Moore was accused of having ulterior motives and that he was not interested in the debate at all but having a “political reason,” one more interested in helping his brother. It seems that Chris Moore is running for the House in the district that sent Bob Damron (D, Nicholasville) to Frankfort, the man who’s bill gave Tim Moore the opportunity to bring up his debate on the prevailing-wage law.
Anything to divert attention to the real debate, the Democrats will do.
But Moore said his motives were purely philosophical, and he vented his frustration at having been slapped down on the House floor without an exchange of facts.
“That wasn’t a debate. That was animosity,” he said. “What I hoped was that we would have a conversation.”
You can tell the Rep. Moore is a freshman because there is no such thing as a debate with Democrats. Its yelling and demagoguery that is their speciality, not reasoned debate.
In any case, kudos to Rep. Moore for giving it the old college try. If we ever get more Moores like him we might actually get that debate!
No, I won’t hold my breath, either.
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January 26, 2008 - 6:00 am - Posted by WTH
We’ve mentioned the little problem with the organized crime infested New York Transit Workers union Local 1181 a few times here on the Union Label. Well, we can report that another indictment in this growing and embarrassing scandal has been handed down.
Joseph Fazzia, owner of Jofaz Transportation was charged with making false statements to the FBI.
And that isn’t all…
But that union’s corrupt president, Salvatore Battaglia, last week pleaded guilty to taking payoffs and said several bus company owners have made regular payments to his union for decades.
The union has been controlled by the Genovese crime family since the 1970s, helping private bus companies milk the taxpayers and pumping millions into mob pockets.
Prosecutors identified three owners who said they had made payments to the union: Domenic Gatto, owner of Atlantic Express; Ray Fouche, owner of Rainbow Transit and Robert Dimino, owner of Safe Coach.
These companies currently have millions of dollars in DOE contracts to transport tens of thousands of New York City students.
It is a huge embarrassment to the New York Department of Education and no end seems to be in sight yet.
We’ll keep our eye on this mounting scandal and the corruption it reveals.
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January 25, 2008 - 4:22 pm - Posted by WTH
Here is a great explanation on why the new card-check idea that the dems are trying so hard to institute as a sop to their union thug pals is so bad: worker intimidation will be increased because of it.
By Lawrence B. Lindsey, Union Leader.com
AS OUR DEMOCRATIC process grinds toward selecting the next leader of the free world, it is also shedding light on the values a democracy should hold dear. Last weekend in Nevada, former President Bill Clinton said he witnessed voter intimidation firsthand. According to Clinton, a union representative was telling workers to agree to caucus for Sen. Barack Obama or expect to get a work schedule making it impossible for them to attend at all.
We all know that things like this happen and that our electoral process isn’t perfect, though it is the best available. One benefit of the secret ballot is that it minimizes incidences of such pressure because those doing the intimidating can never be sure if their threats worked. But in a caucus there is no secret ballot, so these union leaders would be able to tell how their members voted if they participated.
I wonder if, having seen such voter intimidation, the Clinton campaign will change its position on doing away with government-supervised secret-ballot elections for union representation. Under the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, secret-ballot elections to decide whether a plant is unionized would be replaced with a public “card check” system, under which both employers and union organizers would know how each worker voted. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama and former Sen. John Edwards all support this bill.
But a card-check system would offer even more room for intimidation of workers. A union card can be signed by workers at any time during an organizing campaign, which can take many months. Union organizers can pursue workers in their homes, at churches and civic clubs, and at watering holes after hours. Workers’ family members can also be intimidated during this process. So much for a “free choice” for employees.
The bill assaults workers’ rights in other ways, too. For example, it would make it a crime for management to raise pay or improve working conditions while a plant is being organized. So the only way to get a raise would be to get the campaign over with and bring the union in. Such an arrangement might strike some as government-mandated intimidation.
Now that Bill Clinton has seen for himself that union leaders can and do intimidate employees over whom to vote for in a party caucus, he might want to think about whether union leaders might do the same things when something even more relevant to them is at stake — such as whether their union can win an organizing battle and begin forcing workers to pay dues. Hillary Clinton may have lost a few votes in Nevada because of union intimidation, but the Clintons should keep in mind that workers have a lot more to lose from a bill she is supporting.
We must keep the light of truth focused on this dangerous card-check legislation winding its insidious way through Congress.
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January 24, 2008 - 5:54 pm - Posted by WTH
The Cincy Enquirer gives us the inspiring story of a regular Joe just looking out for his own best interest. And his best interest, as far as he and many other of his coworkers are concerned, is to stay OUT of the United Auto Workers union.
Brian Howard is the operator of the website NoUAW.com where he helps keep his coworkers informed on the latest union machinations and news. But, he is often portrayed by the UAW and the media as, “big, bad Toyota preventing the union.”
But, Howard is not “Toyota,” he is just a worker that doesn’t want to be forced into a union. And he isn’t alone. The majority of the Toyota employees in Williamstown, Kentucky agree with him.
Fewer than 20 percent would vote to join the UAW, he said. “Hard-core, dead-set against it, I’d say 40 percent or more.”
“The UAW knows they do not have and will never have the votes to win an election,” says Howard’s co-worker Marvin Robbins. “So they want to take the rights of the workers away and not have an election.”
And, even more to the point the employees are getting sick of the UAW’s harassment.
“The majority are sick of the harassment,” Robbins said. “You would think the UAW would get the message after 20 years, but they are so desperate for membership they continue to show up where they are clearly not wanted or needed.”
The unions have little support in the Toyota plant. The employees are important to the management and the two work hand in hand.
But, the Cincy story gives us the problem that these happy employees face…
The UAW has been unable to get even half of Toyota’s Georgetown workers to sign cards in support. But the union could win anyway if Congress eliminates secret ballots.
The doublespeak “Employee Free Choice Act” introduced by Democrats would force companies to accept a union if 51 percent of workers sign cards in support. And it’s too easy to bully workers into signing cards.
Once again, I am struck with the hostility that unions and Democrats show “the people” that they claim to represent. You see, Democrats and unions aim to take away your freedom of choice. They hate your ability to decide for yourself.
Let us hope that these vicious measures can be defeated. It will be folks like Brian Howard and his NoUAW.com that will lead the charge.
Good luck, Brian. You’ll need it.
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January 21, 2008 - 4:28 pm - Posted by WTH
Friend of the Union Label Blog, David Denholm, posted a short history on how union corruption caused Congress to institute disclosure laws, and also how they have been all too often thwarted.
Corruption Sparked Disclosure Law
In 1959, after extensive hearings into labor union corruption, Congress enacted the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act. Among other things, the act required labor unions to file annual financial reports with the U.S. Department of Labor.
The original union financial disclosure forms required by LMRDA, LM-2, provided little information of real value and for all practical purposes were inaccessible to most union members.
While the original purpose of union financial disclosure under LMRDA was to allow union members to monitor their union’s finances, in the case of government employee unions there is a broader need. Government employee unions, particularly at the local government level, have a significant impact on the political process.
In recent years the Office of Labor-Management Standards, the office in the U.S. Department of Labor responsible for enforcing LMRDA, has made significant improvements in the content of the reports and in making them available on the Internet. Organized labor has resisted these needed reforms.
In 1974, after the Watergate scandal, again in an effort to prevent corruption, Congress enacted the Federal Elections Campaign Act, requiring candidates for federal office to file financial reports.
I’d like to add one thing here. These are the sorts of transparency in financial dealings that the unions are against for the simple reason that it makes it all too easy for people interested in holding union thugs accountable for their actions to see the union’s perfidy. The unions want these records secret and they claim that it is somehow an invasion of privacy to have these records open for all to see. But, let’s contrast that attitude with their newfound desires to institute card check laws so that their own members (and members to be) will no long have the same right to any privacy when they vote on whether a union should be brought into the work place or not!
With a contrasting of these two issues, we once again see that unions have no interest in “helping the little guy” and are far more interested in furthering their own power, self aggrandizement, and their own self enrichment.
Thanks David for a great post.
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January 19, 2008 - 4:42 pm - Posted by WTH
Wouldn’t it be nice to get a break on your property taxes? Florida’s Governor Crist is trying to give the folks there just that with his Amendment 1 plan that will see a five-year, $9.3 billion property tax reduction to homeowners. But, guess who is against if. Yep, it’s unions.
Apparently AFSCME and the AFL-CIO aren’t too happy with the tax cut. And, it isn’t just unions in Florida, either. Apparently, unions from outside the state are poking their nose into the state’s politics.
Behind the uniformed army of public servants fighting Amendment 1 are lesser-known but powerful labor organizations, such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the national and state chapters of the AFL-CIO.
AFSCME donated $100,000 and the group claims 1.4 million members nationwide. The state chapter claims more than 110,000 active members, with seven regional offices and a professional staff of 33.
Another labor group, the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, claims 1.9 million members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. It gave $200,000. Teachers unions, through either the Florida Education Association or the Florida Public Education Defense Fund, gave more than $400,000.
The AFL-CIO, both the state and national, gave about $2,000 in in-kind donations.
So, national union organizations are flooding money into the state to defeat a proposal that will save the tax payers money.
What is it that unions always claim? That they are for the “little guy”?
I guess the unions don’t feel that the ‘little guy” should have their bloated taxes cut so that they can afford to won a home!
Yep, it’s great that these caring unions are out there tryin’ to help all them “little guys,” isn’t it?
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January 17, 2008 - 6:05 am - Posted by WTH
Over at Freedom@Work.com, we all get a pertinent reminder that Nevadans don’t have to stay in the Union to keep their jobs.
A Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial today highlights the importance of the National Right to Work Foundation’s Beck U.S. Supreme Court victory:
That ruling — Communication Workers v. Beck — is soundly grounded in the First Amendment. No one can be required to hand over money to someone else, if those funds will then be used to promote political views or causes which are anathema to the person whose money is being used.
Unfortunately, union officials commonly ignore and violate that principle, as borne out by the number of Beck enforcement cases the Foundation has. However, the article recognizes that as a Right to Work state, employees can go beyond cutting off union dues for politics.
Because no Nevadan can be required to join a union just to get or keep his or her job, disgusted union members here have an even more effective option. They can keep their jobs and quit the union.
With union officials in this context squabbling over which candidate to support, employees in Nevada deserve to know that they can not only cut off their dues going towards union political activities- they are free to pay none at all.
Exactly right. We should all be working toward assuring that every American worker has the legal ability to join a union or not without having their livelihood put in jeopardy.
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January 15, 2008 - 2:45 pm - Posted by WTH
December Criminal Enforcement data
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) on January 15 announced its criminal enforcement data for December 2007. During the month, OLMS obtained eight convictions, eight indictments and court orders of restitution totaling $202,228. The office’s totals for fiscal year 2008 (which began on October 1, 2007) now stand at 22 convictions, 36 indictments and court-ordered restitution of $754,397. The bulk of the cases involved the embezzlement of union funds.
“The eight convictions this month represent a continuing reminder that OLMS serves a vital role in protecting America’s union members,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Standards Don Todd. “We are proud of our efforts to eliminate wrongdoing against unions, and our work has resulted in the successful prosecution of more than 820 individuals since 2001. We also have obtained 877 indictments and obtained court orders of restitution for more than $103 million during that time.”
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January 13, 2008 - 1:17 am - Posted by WTH
Now this is funny. The Nevada teachers union has just gone to court to try and make it harder for the union members in Las Vegas’ hotel districts to vote in the upcoming Democratic primaries. Why would that be, you might wonder? After all, aren’t the union members in the Vegas hotels and the union members in the teachers union both controlled by Democrats?
Good question! And the answer is: the teachers union is supporting Hillary and the hotel workers union is supporting Barack Obama!
LAS VEGAS — Nevada’s state teachers union and six Las Vegas area residents filed a lawsuit late Friday that could make it harder for many members of the state’s huge hotel workers union to vote in the hotly contested Jan. 19 Democratic caucus in Nevada.
Ooops… cat fight!
The 13-page lawsuit in federal district court here comes two days after the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada endorsed Senator Barack Obama, a blow to Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama addressed the Culinary Union at their hall earlier Friday.
So the teachers union is tryin’ to take the hotel workers to school, eh? So much for the teachers being interested in democracy and allowing the hotel workers their say, huh?
,blockquote>
“This could shut down those precincts in the casinos and keep culinary members from voting,” said Jon Ralston, a political pundit with The Las Vegas Sun, who broke the story on his blog. Mr. Ralston said it is unclear whether there are ties between the lawsuit and the Clinton campaign but, he predicted, “Even if they’re Hillary supporters, the campaign’s going to say they had nothing to do with it.It is unclear when the court will hear the matter.
Yep, them thar teachers is all about that “democracy” thang!
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January 10, 2008 - 2:07 pm - Posted by WTH
Over at the American Spectator, Carl F. Horowitz has a great, detailed report on one scandal that the news media has ignored. It involves the outrageous story of “insider trading, corruption and abuse of power” with the ULLICO.
Read on…
——
Let’s Make a Deal
By Carl F. Horowitz
Whatever happened to ULLICO? From 2002 to 2004, it was hard to avoid the headlines. The Union Labor Life Insurance Company was organized labor’s version of Enron.
The company’s board members and upper management had made millions and possibly tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars from what appeared to be flagrant insider trading, leaving the company dangerously close to collapse. Worse, the workers whose assets were tied up in union benefit plans bore the ultimate cost.
The U.S. Department of Labor, the House of Representatives and the Senate each launched investigations. The House and Senate reached damning conclusions, which were a precursor to a settlement, announced by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in November. Without admitting formal wrongdoing, ULLICO agreed to pay $20 million in restitution, back taxes and penalties. Given the evidence, taking the government’s offer seems like a smart move.
The Washington, D.C.-based ULLICO is a privately-held company that was established in 1925 to provide modest-cost life insurance for union members and their families. In recent decades, ULLICO has diversified into a full-service financial network, organized labor’s equivalent of Citigroup or Prudential.
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January 9, 2008 - 10:16 pm - Posted by WTH
Ooopsie…
Continental ramp workers decline union invitation
Continental Airlines’ field service workers have voted not to be represented by the Transport Workers Union of America, the carrier said today.
“Once again, we are pleased that our co-workers recognized the value of our direct working relationship,” said Bill Meehan, senior vice president airport services for Houston-based Continental. “We’ll continue to work together to honor the commitments and promises we’ve made and maintain our culture of trust and success.”
Employees the TWU sought to organize included ramp, operations and cargo agents.
Unions are losing their power more and more. We are winning, folks. But now is not the time to slacken pressure for the right to work.
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January 8, 2008 - 1:21 pm - Posted by WTH
The “Undercover Brother” screenwriter defends his move to return to work.
By John Ridley, L.A.Times
Last week, when people started talking about an A-list writer going “financial core,” I was surprised to find they were speaking of me. I don’t work in day-to-day television anymore and have completed exactly one studio movie script in the last 24 months.
Doesn’t take much to get on the A-list these days.
Nevertheless, yes, I’ve gone fi-core. (If you need a primer on what “financial core” means, refer to this Op-Ed and this Times story on soap opera writers making the switch.) Since I was conscripted into the Writers Guild of America a decade and a half ago — and membership in the guild is mandatory — I’ve found myself politically opposed to it on any number of issues. Not long after, I wrote an Op-Ed about the woeful lack of diversity in Hollywood and what little the guild was doing to rectify the situation. I got a personal call from then-WGA President Frank Pierson ripping me a new orifice for daring to take my disappointment public. The gist of his argument: If you haven’t anything nice to say about the union, then shut up. But, hey, what did I expect? If you shake the tree, you can’t get upset when the apples fall.
And mostly I didn’t. Until the strike.
I don’t blame the union for the direction the strike has taken. It was the Assn. of Motion Picture and Television Producers that walked away from the bargaining table. And when you get into a fight with a passive aggressor, you can’t help but look like a bully.
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