As president of the Services Employee International Union (SEIU), Andy Stern has presided over a union that has grown impressively while at the same time just about every other union in the country has diminished in size and power. Some might think this a tremendous victory for president Stern. But how he has achieved this feat is certainly a matter of concern for everyone, a concern that should cast a pal over this claimed victory.
Question: do unions have a reputation of being transparent with their members? Well, unions in America certainly have the reputation of being run by the worker, for the worker, so transparency is an ideal they all claim to live up to, for certain — graft, embezzlement, mob infestation and corruption aside.
So, why has the SEIU been making secret pacts with other unions as well as employers, the natural enemy of unions? Andy Stern says that it is all in the pursuit of growth. His detractors in the ranks say that his is a growth-at-any-cost effort that places them all at a disadvantage.
Why, Stern has even made secret deals with employers, the full details of which are not being made public even to his own membership. He has made deals that stipulate that the SEIU will give up the right to go on strike. In return, the employers agree with the union which of their plants and businesses will be “allowed” to be unionized as well as how many employees will be organized with the employer making a pact of non-interference of the process.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Andy Stern was impatient with the “old ways” and wanted to grow his union at an accelerated pace.
The SEIU’s president, Andy Stern, said the unions sought the agreements after realizing that traditional organizing campaigns at individual sites were proving ineffective. “The old ways aren’t working, and we’re trying to find different relationships with employers that guarantee workers a voice,” he said. He dismissed the idea that the new agreements are undemocratic. “These workers have no unions; that’s where we start from,” he said.
One of those newer, faster ways to organize will be to get rid of the ability of a prospective union member’s traditional right to a secret ballot where he can vote his conscience free of harassment when asked if he wants to be unionized. The so-called card-check system would find a prospective member forced to reveal to all his coworkers if he voted yes or no for unionization. This leaves the prospective union member open for pressure to vote yes or harassment if he insists on voting no, situations that could not occur if it were a secret ballot.
Naturally, this card-check idea and Stern’s penchant for secret deals and top-down leadership have brought forth accusations that he is anti-democratic in his policies.
It’s hard to fault anyone who’d think so, too.
The Journal summed up the current direction of Stern’s leadership.
The unions gave up the right to strike and to post derogatory language about the companies on bulletin boards. With Compass, the unions agreed to these restrictions “anywhere in the world.” In exchange, the companies agree not to oppose union organizing at the designated locations.
Labor experts said it was highly unusual for unions to give employers the ability to choose which employees a union can try to organize. “That’s not widespread,” said Robert Bruno, associate professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “When you agree to these kinds of conditions the question is what is lost and what is gained?”
The agreements enable the unions to organize workers through a simple card-signing process in which the companies agree to remain neutral, rather than a secret-ballot election. The companies agree to provide the unions with lists of employees and access to workers. The unions give up the ability to strike and agree that they will present issues before a labor-management committee before engaging in leafleting or rallies.
It all seems rather cozy, doesn’t it?
Many union supporters as well as many SEIU members on the inside are afraid that Andy Stern has given away the store just to assure growth. They say he is slighting the future of the union, giving away too much power. But, there is an unrecognized soft underbelly to what is being perceived as the iron clad position that Stern is giving employers here.
Does anyone think, once the SEIU amasses the power of mass membership in the services industry, that the union will stay true to its agreement not to strike and to resort only to the arbitration systems between union and employer that current agreements have created?
Does ANYONE imagine that any union is trustworthy enough to stay within their agreements?
Anyone who believes that the SEIU will continue to abide by any agreements is a fool. The second the SEIU imagines they have enough power, all past agreements will be thrown on the scrap heap and strike signs will be raised anywhere the union wants to blackmail these foolish employers into buckling under to further demands — agreements or no.
In any case, it is rather interesting that the SEIU is pursuing secret deals, trying to take away the right of their members to strike as well as to take away their right to the common democratic process of the secret ballot, isn’t it?
No wonder SEIU president Stern is facing stiff resistance even among his own members.
Remember, Teachers are all about the kids… but too bad their union isn’t. The Daily News in Longview, Washington
That $13.2 million grant Washington state won last year to enhance the teaching of Advanced Placement courses in math and science is history. It’s lost because of the financial incentives it would have provided for teachers who improve test scores. The Washington Education Association didn’t much like the idea of tying teacher pay to student performance on exams. Neither did the teachers union like the involvement of an outside party, the grant provider, in teacher-pay decisions.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided $10 million for the grant, couldn’t understand why a compromise couldn’t be worked out. Other states receiving similar grants had teachers unions and found ways to accept the grant money, said foundation official Steve Seleznow. “Honestly, I can’t figure out why they couldn’t solve this.” Neither can we.
Yeah, to heck with the ids if the union has to give up even the tiniest bit of their undeserved power! Screw the kids. Compromise? NEVER!
Of course, no one could expect less of organized labor but to attack Republicans, even John McCain. But the amount of money proposed to be spent to destroy McCain really makes one wonder if every last union member would approve of such vast expenditures of their dues money?
To answer that question, the AFL-CIO, for its part, intends to “talk to their members,” at least according to the Associated Press. In fact, if one weren’t paying too close attention, one would think that the union is asking permission about who to endorse — and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you…
The AFL-CIO, which has not endorsed anyone in the Democratic primary, announced Wednesday that it is sending more than 6,000 of its people to more than 22 states during the next two weekends to talk to more than 200,000 union voters about McCain.
As if their not endorsing anyone at this time is meaningful? Hardly. Besides, what does it matter if it is so obvious that they are attacking McCain? By process of elimination, if the unions don’t support McCain, who might they support? Answer: ANY Democrat! So, their specific endorsement is pretty meaningless.
The SEIU is also “focusing on McCain.”
Meanwhile, the nation’s largest union, the Service Employees International Union, is increasing its focus on the likely Republican presidential nominee. The union’s political action committee is already running commercials critical of McCain’s health care plan.
So, the unions are gearing up to attack McCain. The sort of massive union spending we always see against Republicans could be made a bit less overwhelming, though, if we could get laws passed all across the nation so that members can opt out for their dues to be spent on political efforts of which they do not agree. But, these sorts of laws, while making headway in places like Ohio and Washington state, have made headway, a landslide Democratic victory in November will put a major crimp in the success of future efforts and further step on the rights of individual union members.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) suffered a stinging rebuke when nearly 47% of the nurses at three St. Rose Dominican hospitals in Nevada voted to join a rival union this week. It wasn’t enough to decertify the SEIU — 50% was necessary — but with nearly half of the members voting against the union, this shows quite a widespread dissatisfaction with the SEIU.
Asked to explain why this vote against the SEIU was so large, SEIU Nevada Executive Director Jane McAlevey said, “Smart people do stupid (expletive).”
While this might explain why people who are claimed to be so “smart” would join a union at all, it doesn’t necessarily serve as a satisfactory explanation of why the SEIU has lost so many members’ confidence. McAlevey went on to posit that the SEIU isn’t really being rebuked and that this large anti vote was really only a result of the “dirty campaign tactics” of the California Nurses Association (CNA) SEIU’s rival union.
For her part, CNA chief Rose Ann DeMoro said, “This historic vote is a window to a rebellion brewing among SEIU nurses across the nation.”
Troubles for the SEIU have been plenty over the last several years with SEIU chief Andy Stern facing a stiff challenge to his leadership from within his own union as well as assaults from other competing unions. Charges have been made that Stern rules the union with an iron fist from the top down and has gerrymandered local union boards to rubber stamp his own presidency.
It could all come to a messy head in Puerto Rico at the SEIU convention the first week of June where members will be able to cast their vote on Stern’s presidency.
The Dept. of Labor (DOL) has announced that it is changing the requirements for internal financial disclosures of unions requiring more details on finances and spending, the AP report on the 8th.
Unions are required annually to submit forms to the DOL detailing their financial information, but Federal officials have decided that the current forms lack enough detail to assure that unions aren’t engaging in fraud. The DOL is also proposing that smaller unions can use the less detailed forms unless they fall under indictment or other legal troubles which then will find them required to fill out the more detailed forms.
The full info on the proposed changes will be released next week. But the AP detailed some of those changes.
Asking union officials and employees making more than $10,000 to itemize their benefits like life insurance, pensions and deferred compensation. The current form allows benefits to be combined and disclosed as one number, leaving the amount of individual benefits undisclosed.
Requiring disclosure of expenses when the money is not reimbursed directly to the union employee or official. Labor officials say indirect reimbursement, when payment for expenses goes to the vendor instead of to the employee or official, currently does not have to be disclosed on the forms.
Requiring unions to disclose who bought or sold any union asset worth more than $5,000. The current form only requires disclosure of the sale.
And requiring itemization of certain cash receipts of $5,000 or more.
These are the kinds of oversight actions against unions that will cease once Democrats get into a controlling majority in Congress, of course. These sorts of things will certainly be rolled back allowing unions, traditionally steeped in corruption and criminal action, to have far more leeway to go about their business unrestrained by government.
There will be dark days ahead for American business and the economy if Barack Obama becomes the president. Especially if his coattails brings an avalanche of Democrats into Congress. All because the first order of business for the next Congress will be passage of the “card check” ideas that unions have been pushing for since 2003. Once Obama and his cadre of anti-business, anti-democracy associates get in place, the card check idea will be good as gold. And the safety of prospective union members everywhere will be endangered.
Deceivingly called the “Employee Free Choice Act,” it is an effort by unions to allow them to use intimidation to force new union voters to agree to union organization and representation. David Weigel of Reason Magazine has a short explanation in the current issue.
What’s the Employee Free Choice Act? If you aren’t a lobbyist in Washington, a union worker, or an employer nervously trying to prevent your staff from organizing, you might not have followed the twisty history of the latest attempt to increase private-sector unionization. “Card check,” as it is usually known, would allow employees at a company to bypass secret-ballot elections and declare their intent to unionize by simply signing cards.
In other words, the secret vote will be taken away from prospective union members. This means, if an employee votes against agreeing to unionize, his no vote will be instantly obvious to everyone with whom he works. This also means that union thugs will be able to know exactly who stands against them. This opens the employee up to harassment by union thugs who want to push through unions because they will know the identity of every single worker that voted against them.
Now, secret balloting, the security of a vote known only to the voter, is the single most important aspect of a free, democratic electoral system. And here we have unions proving that they don’t care a whit about democracy and want to be able to rely solely on coercion and thuggery to force their way into businesses that might very well be filled with workers who don’t want to be unionized.
But, with the card check system in place, workers could easily find themselves voting for a union they don’t want because of the pressure of their vote being openly known by everyone.
So, what we have here is a simple fact: unions hate democracy.
And if Obama becomes president, we will see LESS democracy in this country.
Seattle schools were dealt a devastating blow today as a result of state-forced collective bargaining practices. A Dallas-based nonprofit, National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), was prepared to award a $13.2 million grant to assist Seattle schools with their Advanced Placement programs in math and science, allowing students to earn college credit while still in high school
A full 22% of that grant money was to be merit-based pay to teachers who participate in the specified Advanced Placement programs – that’s $2,640,000!
The problem? NMSI wanted to pay the money directly to participating teachers, but Washington state law mandating collective bargaining between the UNIONS and school districts would not allow for such a pay scheme. Negotiations to resolve the conflicts between the grant and the law failed.
So, Barack Obama claims he is a reformer. He claims he wants to clean up Washington D.C. He acts as if he just wants the truth told to the people. Well, here is some truth. According to the Wall Street JournalBarack has promised the Teamsters that if they give him their support he will kill the current Federal oversight agency that was created to root out union corruption in the workplace.
Yes, Barack Obama has said that he wishes to protect corruption, not eliminate it. Has he agreed to turn his back on fighting corruption merely so that he might be able to count the votes of union thugs in his column?
It has been revealed by inside sources that Obama secretly promised the Teamsters that he will end the strict oversight that the Federal government has through an independent oversight board that was set up in 1992 because of the mob influence rampant in the Teamsters. Obama has claimed that he favors “examining” the review board, but refuses to state publicly what that means.
However, the Wall Street Journal claims that they have found out that Obama means to scale back the board and this isn’t too hard to believe since the Democrat controlled Congress has also been slow to approve funding of the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) of late, paving the way to defund it and let it lie fallow. If Obama follows suit with the Democrats in Congress who are trying to give corrupt unions a free hand to indulge in more corruption with no government interference, it would seem to fit the Democrat agenda. This also shows that Obama is no “reformer” and not interested in changing anything in Washington but the party of the President.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama’s secret promises are a bit “unusual.”
It’s an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.
You bet it seems an “unusual stance” especially from the so-called candidate of “change.” After all, a secret deal to eliminate an agency that has been very effective at rooting out union crime and corruption does not ring true with a candidate who claims that he wants a “new day” of truth in Washington D.C.
Obama has said, though, that his promises to the Teamsters is not a “blanket commitment.”
But, what Obama is quoted as having said is just another example of his penchant of say nothing at all and using a whole lot of words to do it.
“I wouldn’t make any blanket commitments,” the Illinois senator told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“What I’ve said is that I would examine what is going on in terms of the federal oversight that’s been taking place but it’s been in place for many years.”
Obama said the Teamsters had done “a terrific job cleaning house” and suggested it could be time for the Teamsters “to get treated just like every other union.”
“That’s something that I’ll absolutely examine when I’m president of the United States,” he said.
This is all stuff and nonsense. Has he made a commitment to let the a corrupt, Mob infested union off the hook or not? No one can say because he talked out of both sides of his mouth once again.
It should be noted, too, that this oversight of the Teamsters is independent of politics and is a venue of the Justice Department. But, if Obama really does end up trying to eliminate a review board that has been successful in rooting out criminals in unions, how does this make him a “fresh voice” in Washington? It looks more like he is just another Democrat that panders to unions and turns his face from their criminal activities.
Looks like the union chief of the electrical workers in Philadelphia has been getting “free” work by union members, big gifts, and sudden piles of cash from union coffers of late. It also looks like the authorities have taken notice, too.
In a new court filing, prosecutors investigating John J. Dougherty’s extensive home renovations disclose what they say is the labor leader’s explanation for how he paid for some of the work: His father-in-law provided $200,000.
That Gus Dougherty gave John Dougherty a $5,533 ladies’ Cartier watch that the union leader, in turn, gave to a “personal friend” as a birthday gift in 2004.
That Gus Dougherty improperly collected $900,000 from a special union fund even as he failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars into a separate union health and welfare account. Prosecutors say this is additional evidence that the contractor had a motive to do free work for John Dougherty.
In their new filing, prosecutors say Gus Dougherty’s firm, Dougherty Electric, got $892,000 between 2001 and 2005 from a special fund intended to subsidize contractors who hired union workers to help them compete against nonunion shops.
He withdrew most of this money as cash, and spent it on such items as a $40,000 entertainment system for his Shore home, prosecutors say in the documents.
Remember, unions are only there for the little guy. And, heck, if the union bosses happen to get a Cartier watch, or a $40,000 entertainment system once in a while, well, what’s the harm, eh?
Here is a good piece by the Heartland Institute explaining the transparency and reporting laws that unions have been fighting in the US.
-By Scott Dilley, Heartland Institute
A U.S. District Court judge has ruled federal financial transparency laws apply to certain public-sector unions, traditionally exempt from such regulations.
If it stands, the decision will allow workers across the country to have increased access to records of their unions’ financial dealings.
The case, Alabama Education Association v. Chao, has worked its way up and down the court system for several years. The most recent decision, issued in late March, requires state-level public-sector unions to disclose their finances to the federal government if those unions are affiliated with a national union that must comply with the federal reporting laws.
Is national security policy any business of a dock workers union? Just think about that for a second. Should some union, just because they have the power to shut down a vital business, take advantage of that capability for ANY reason outside of their direct concerns with their jobs? What other reasons beside their actual business should they be allowed to inconvenience the whole country for? Should dock workers be able to cost the country billions of lost business because, say, they are upset that the L.A. Lakers aren’t doing so well this season? Maybe they’ll shut down the entire west coast because the right person didn’t win on “American Idol”?
In any case, a protest of the Iraq war (something that is not the union’s business either directly or even indirectly) is why union thug Bob McEllrath said that the dock workers all walked off the job today.
All 29 ports on the West Coast, including the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, have been effectively shut down this morning as thousands of dockworkers stayed home to protest the Iraq war. The walkout comes two months before the contract between dockworkers and and port operators expires. Louis Sahagun has the story:
“We are supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq,” union president Bob McEllrath said.
What the government does in Iraq is NONE of the union’s business. Certainly as American citizens it is the business of each member. but this has nothing whatsoever to do with union business. This is an illegitimate strike and each and every one of these “workers” should be fired immediately.
This is an unconscionable misuse of the power of a union.
And for another perfect example of why teachers unions is antithetical to the welfare of the kids AND the budget of the state, we have a union that has forced the State of New York to spend $81 million dollars to pay teachers NOT to teach!
The New York Times gives us the wasteful tale of money paid for NO work.
The New Teacher Project, which estimates that the city has been paying $81 million over two years in salaries and benefits for teachers who have not been able to find permanent jobs.
Under the new free-market system, teachers who lose their jobs because of budget cuts, program curtailments or school closings are supposed to go into a reserve pool for a short time before they are hired elsewhere in the system. An overwhelming majority of more than 2,700 teachers sent into the pool in 2006 did just that.
So, these teachers are paid even if they don’t work?
This is the ultimate union job. Get paid a high salary, free health care, pension…. but not have to work AT ALL!
It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that the solution is to fire teachers that you have no job for?
