July 13, 2008 - 7:02 pm - Posted by WTH
It’s amazing to see how a Democrat so warps the word “right” these days. Last week California Democrat Rep. Brad Sherman was only the latest Democrat to take the word “right” and misuse it for his disgusting, partisan ends when he decided that it was a “right” to unionize, but NOT a “right” to eschew a union.
Sherman proposed last weekM that Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley act of 1947 be repealed. This section deals with a real right, that of being guaranteed that you can keep your job WITHOUT being forced by the state to join a union. With a warped sense of “rights,” Sherman wants that section repealed so that states can force employees to join unions.
Sherman wants to repeal a true right and substitute state coercion in its place. Sherman gives us a typical Democrat lie to explain himself saying, “It is time that we let unions organize and time that we allow workers who want to have a union, to enjoy that right.”
Time we “let” union organize? Is Sherman living in 1898? No, what it is really time for is for Americans to know that they have a democratic choice. Join a union if you feel so disposed, but don’t have the iron boot heel of Brad Sherman forcing you to join one just so you might have the privilege of earning a paycheck.
Rep. Brad Sherman is an oppressor of rights, not an advocate of them and unions are his storm troopers.
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July 12, 2008 - 7:00 am - Posted by WTH
We are reminded here on the blog that there is one aspect of the lie that is the Employee Free Choice Act bill that isn’t much discussed. That is the binding arbitration feature of this business/economy killing legislation. Besides the card check aspect where a union can dispense with the ages old democratic system of the secret ballot when employees are voting as to whether or not they even want a union in the first place — leaving employees open to union pressure and thuggery — there is the binding arbitration aspect of this legislation.
The binding arbitration will force business to decide their contract within 120 days of the card check vote should that vote favor the union. If the contract isn’t settled in 120 days, then a federal arbitrator steps in to decide the matter. In other words, it will be taken out of the hands of both union and business owners and will become another illegitimate, nanny state venue of government.
Now, since unionism adds at least 22% to the administrative costs of business that are forced into unionism, this far, far easier path to unionism will surely force many smaller business to fold as well as force thousands of workers into underfunded pension plans all across the state, and later the country if this debacle spreads.
So, there is more in the EFC Act that is detrimental to our economy and way of life than just the anti-democratic idea of card check.
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July 11, 2008 - 9:34 pm - Posted by WTH
Jay Ambrose of the Scripps Howard News Service gives us a nice broadside against “moribund” unionism in Colorado!
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I live in Colorado, where the very pleasant, personally appealing Mark Udall is running as a Democrat for the Senate while supporting a very unpleasant, unappealing plan to help subvert precious American principles and exploit workers.
His race against Republican Bob Schaffer is an important one that that could help give the Democratic party congressional control of a kind enabling it to do pretty much as it pleases, and there is no doubt about one objective. It’s to breathe new life into the near-corpse of unionism, to resuscitate a deservedly moribund movement that cannot do enough favors for a certain political party that then does favors in return.
Read the rest of this entry »
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July 10, 2008 - 2:20 am - Posted by WTH
It must be nice to be spending 85 million dollars on political campaigns yet refuse to fully fund your own member’s pension plan. That, among other things, is exactly the sort of hypocrisy that it was revealed that the SEIU has been caught indulging in this week. Diana Furchtgott-Roth did yeoman’s work in detailing the state of the SEIU’s underfunded pension obligations in the New York Sun yesterday.
The Sun’s Furchtgott-Roth details the SEIU’s latest campaign against New York financier Henry Kravis of the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts whom they accuse of all sorts of nefarious activities… none of which are actually breaking any laws. But as the SEIU attacks KKR, the Sun shows that they are not keeping their own house in order as they throw stones at others.
The pep rallies are another in a series of SEIU efforts to attack private equity firms. Apart from the silliness of making Mr. Kravis its target when its complaint really lies with Congress, the SEIU would do better to look in the mirror. In its own treatment of workers, especially worker pension plans, it falls short.
SEIU president Stern is trying to use the 30% stake that KKR has in the SEIU’s pension fund management as a club with which to beat KKR into accepting the SEIU political goals.
SEIU President Andy Stern is not above trying to use that business relationship as leverage to pressure KKR to embrace the SEIU’s political goals, either by threatening to harm KKR’s name, as with the July 17 rallies, or by controlling proxy votes in shareholder meetings.
One of the issues that the SEIU’s Stern is all in a dither about is worker benefits and how employees are supposedly not getting their due. So, since this is such a big, big issue who would imagine that the SEIU has a fully funded pension plan for its rank and file members?
You’d be excused if you might have assumed it was… but it isn’t.
Yet in 2006, the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, a plan for the rank-and-file members, covering 100,787 workers, was 75% funded. That is, it had three-fourths of the money it needed to pay benefit obligations of workers and retirees.
So much for the SEIU caring about their lowly rank and file members. But wait, it gets worse. The pension the SEIU has for their own union leadership and their employees is funded at 103%! So, they’ve taken care of their own pals in union leadership positions and shafted the rank and file membership.
The problem of poor funding occurs not only in the national SEIU pension plan. Thirteen local pension plans, whose beneficiaries are almost all rank-and-file members, were all less than 80% funded, and, of these, six were less than 65% funded. The Massachusetts Service Employees Pension Fund fell from nearly 110% to 70% funded in 10 years, and the SEIU 1199 Upstate Pension Fund fell from 115% to 75% since its inception in 1999.
This is an outrage. Not only have they given sweetheart deals for the union leadership and shafted the rank and file, but Stern and his union pals have the temerity to attack other people for doing the same thing (yet to a far lesser degree) that THEY are!
But, there is an even further level of hypocrisy from the SEIU. Not only are they doing what they accuse others of doing — namely shafting the employees’ pensions — they are attacking KKR even as the SEIU has its pension invested with KKR at the same time. OK, so if the SEIU finds KKR so eeevil, why are they doing business with them?
Were I a union member (perish the thought) I’d be asking the SEIU’s leadership how they can spend 85 million dollars on political activism while my pension is going underfunded. It’s some of the worst, gross hypocrisy I’ve seen for a long time.
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July 9, 2008 - 11:02 pm - Posted by WTH
The ex-girlfried of Governor John Corzine (D- NJ), Carla Katz, found herself in a spot of bother this week. It seems she was removed from the presidency of the largest state-worker union in New Jersey because an internal investigation revealed she had “misappropriated” union funds and violated Federal labor laws.
“An extensive internal review revealed probable cause to believe that the local is engaged in ongoing financial malpractice, the misappropriation of union funds, a failure to comply with state and federal law, as well as the CWA constitution, and the suppression of dissent,” CWA’s national board said in a news release. “The CWA national executive board has determined that it has no choice but to take this action to protect the rights and resources of the members of Local 1034.”
Naturally, Governor Corzine refused to comment on the news, but Katz is putting on the faux outrage in her statement.
“This action by the national union is appalling and the charges against our local’s leadership are completely false. It is a travesty that the retaliation against me, and my fellow union leaders, for our opposition to the bad state worker deal, continues in full force,” Katz said. “The national’s baseless and extreme action, done without any notice, tramples the democratic rights of the members of our union under the deceptive guise of protecting democracy.”
The guv and this union member have been in trouble before when gifts from Corzine to Katz were revealed raising the question of the propriety of the gifts.
Here is what the guv’s luv thug is accused of:
- Misappropriated union funds to support her own personal interests and her own union election campaign by using local dues to pay for travel and lodging and other expenses for people recruited to campaign for her.
- Authorized — with little or no oversight — the use of more than $700,000 in union funds to be used for political donations, some of which went to candidates in areas where the local has few members.
- Threatened the employment of an internal critic and retaliated against union members in violation of federal law and the CWA constitution.
- Failed to maintain mandated time records to establish what she has been doing as the top official of her local.
Looks like Katz is finally getting her comeuppance.
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July 8, 2008 - 12:11 pm - Posted by WTH
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July 1, 2008 - 11:10 am - Posted by WTH
There is an interesting little report about a city Supervisor in Amherst, New York and how the city employee unions have demonized him since being elected as a reformer 2 years ago. It is an object lesson in how unions will demonize instead of work with anyone.
When Mohan took office 2 years ago as a reformer, he clearly specified that he wanted union contracts — a huge financial burden for most municipalities — retooled to pare back rich pay packages and fringe benefits.
“Someone has to speak for the people,” he said at last week’s Town Board meeting, where he opposed a police union contract that ultimately passed with only Mohan voting “no.”
Sounds like a fine public official to me! And one thing is sure, the unions sure aren’t speaking for the taxpayers in ANY city in ANY state of the Union. All they want is to rip off the taxpayers as much as possible.
Naturally, Supervisor Mohan’s success at opposing union thugs and paring back thei ill-gotten gains has made him a target of unions.
But the town’s union leaders describe Mohan’s comments as outrageous, offensive and, in some cases, “outright lies.”
In any case, we here at the blog wish Supervisor a long, long, union agitating career.
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