August 31, 2008 - 7:14 am - Posted by WTH
Any speculation that Barack Obama will suddenly find it in his heart to accept ages old democratic practices can be put to rest with a letter he recently wrote urging a company to eliminate the secret ballot of workers being solicited for union membership.
The Baker City Herald has the story of Beef Northwest, a food service company, that is undergoing union agitation. Employees of Beef Northwest are being urged to join the United Farm Workers union and Obama sent a letter in support of that initiative.
Some of the employees that want the union openly signed cards saying they want the union and want to eschew a secret ballot. Beef Northwest is maintaining that the “card check” vote is not legitimate and wants a secret ballot taken. For his part, Obama sent a letter against the ages old democratic process of the secret ballot.
Obama’s letter is dated Aug. 4, two days after the Oregon Farm Worker Ministry group, picketed a Whole Foods Market in the Portland area to put pressure on Beef Northwest owners to accept the cards collected by union organizers and to negotiate a union contract.
…Davies said he sees the Obama letter as an important document revealing the candidate’s willingness to substitute union cards for a secret ballot vote.
Obama stands against one of the oldest democratic practices in history; the secret ballot.
We are in for major anti-democratic actions by government if this dangerous man becomes president.
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August 30, 2008 - 2:22 am - Posted by WTH
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August 29, 2008 - 12:17 am - Posted by WTH
State labor board allows teacher to give union dues to charity that fights sex-trafficking
Union objected to the selection of this charity
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation
OLYMPIA—The Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) has ruled that Susan Wiggs, a Vancouver middle school teacher, is free to send her union dues to a charity that fights sex-trafficking, despite the union’s objections to this charity. On August 22, 2008, PERC upheld an initial ruling that said individuals who object to union membership for religious reasons are permitted to select the charity that will receive their dues.
In August 2005, Susan Wiggs requested to resign from the Vancouver Education Association (VEA). State and federal law allow teachers and other workers to leave their union on religious grounds and send their dues to a charitable organization. Wiggs indicated her dues would go to Shared Hope International, a 501(c)3 organization that works internationally against sex trafficking and slavery.
VEA Executive Director Roy Maier refused the teacher’s charitable selection, saying the organization was “not acceptable” to the VEA. Wiggs provided the union with documentation of Shared Hope’s non-profit, non-sectarian status, but the union refused to accommodate her selection, and failed to provide a clear explanation for the denial.
On October 18, 2006, the VEA filed a petition against Wiggs with the Public Employment Relations Commission. Wiggs contacted the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF), and EFF obtained legal representation for her PERC hearings, where she was represented by attorney Thomas F. Klein. The main issue was who has the final word on the choice of charity. The union argued it had the authority to approve or disapprove any nonreligious charity Wiggs designated.
The PERC examiner issued an initial ruling agreeing with Wiggs on January 22, 2008. In his decision Examiner Joel Greene said the law “requires the union to agree to Wiggs’s designation of an organization to receive her alternative dues payments once she proves the designated organization is both nonreligious and a charity. Wiggs met her burden of proof.”
The VEA appealed this ruling to the full commission. PERC unanimously upheld the initial ruling on August 22. “We find that the Examiner’s decision accurately states the law. Where a union agrees that an employee’s closely held religious beliefs qualify that employee to assert his or her right of non-association, as long as the employee designates a qualified non-religious charity, there is no legal issue for the Commission to adjudicate. Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s decision.”
“This decision has state-wide impact,” said Michael Reitz, general counsel of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. “The union cannot exercise veto power over a teacher’s legitimate choice. Susan selected this charity because of her interest in rescuing children from exploitation. Unfortunately, she’s had to fight her own union for three years to send her money to this charity.”
The VEA has 30 days to appeal the ruling to superior court.
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August 28, 2008 - 12:05 am - Posted by WTH
(From our friends over at Union Free America comes this year’s Most Decertified Award.)
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is the winner of Union Free America’s 3rd Annual “Most Decertified Union Award.” This honor is awarded to the labor union that lost the most decertification elections during the preceding 12 months.
The judging was based on an analysis of the reports of election results on the National Labor Relations Board’s web site for the period August 2007 through July 2008. During that time the NLRB conducted 330 decertification elections. Employees seeking to rid themselves of a union won 201 or 61 percent of them.
The Teamsters union won the “Most Decertified Union Award” by being decertified 64 times during that period. The Teamsters were involved in a total of 84 decertification elections of which they lost 76 percent.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) came in a distant second by being decertified15 times.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) won honorable mention by being certified 9 times. This may seem paltry compared to the Teamsters, but IBEW deserves recognition for being decertified in 9 out of 10 elections.
The Teamsters outstanding performance helped the Change to Win unions soundly defeat the AFL-CIO affiliates in the competition, despite the fact that the AFL-CIO is a considerably larger federation. Change to Win unions participated in a total of 164 decertification elections and lost 97 of them compared to just 132 elections with 80 losses for the AFL-CIO.
Colorful certificates commemorating these achievements have been sent to the Teamsters, Service Employees and Electrical Workers unions.
The number of union certification elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board has been declining for quite some time. Between August 2000 and July 2001, the earliest comparable period for which data is available online, the NLRB conducted 2,726 certification elections and unions won 1,445 of them. Between August 2007 and July 2008 the NLRB conducted only 1,604 certification elections and unions won just 995 of them. That’s a decline 40 percent.
The same isn’t true of decertification elections. Between August 2000 and July 2001 the NLRB conducted 360 decertification elections a decline of only 8 percent.
The decline in the number of certification elections is generally attributable to the unions inability to convince workers to vote for union representation in a secret ballot election.
Labor union officials are pressing for legislation to deny employees the right to a secret ballot vote on union representation. This bill is ironically named the “Employee Free Choice Act.” The undemocratic scheme the unions would use to replace elections is called a “card check” in which a union is certified by a bare majority of workers signing authorization cards.
David Denholm, the founder of Union Free America, observes that, “The so-called ‘free choice act’ is a completely one sided proposal. It has no provision for allowing employees to rid themselves of unwanted unions through a card-check.”
Union Free America was founded in 2002 to provide advice and encouragement to workers fighting to stay, or become, Union Free. The “Most Decertified Union Award” was established in 2006 in response to the growing number of requests from workers for information about how they could rid themselves of unwanted union representation.
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August 27, 2008 - 12:54 am - Posted by WTH
Bernie Marcus came out strongly against the inaptly named “Employee Free Choice Act” this week in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Worried that we will destroy our already delicate economy, Marcus said we’d “become France” if this disastrous bill passes.
He couldn’t be more right…
++++++++++
Bad Labor Law Is a Path to Economic Ruin
By BERNIE MARCUS, founder and first CEO of Home Depot
I recently said that America “would become France” if a certain bill now in Congress — which would virtually guarantee that every company becomes unionized — ever became law. Deceptively named the Employee Free Choice Act, this bill would in most cases take away an employee’s right to a secret ballot in a union election and give unions the option to have federal arbitrators set the wages, benefits, hours and all other terms and conditions of employment.
Countries other than France have suffered the consequences of bad labor laws. When I was CEO of Handy Dan, the precursor to Home Depot, I traveled to England in the 1970s to take a look at a chain of stores we were considering for acquisition. When I arrived in London, the airport workers, bus drivers and garbage collectors were all on strike. The major shareholder of the company asked me to interview three employees. He informed me afterward that he wanted me to hire them at Handy Dan “because the U.K. was finished.” He explained that his tax rate was 75% and there were no incentives to grow.
When I asked what he and his company were doing about it, he told me that the media would attack the company if it got involved politically. I jumped all over him and the company’s CEO for letting this happen without a fight. Needless to say, Handy Dan did not buy these stores. Fortunately for Britain and thanks to the courage of Margaret Thatcher, both tax rates and the power of labor unions were reduced in later years.
My advice today about the Employee Free Choice Act is the same as I gave in England: You better fight to stop this undemocratic bill. I’m not the only one who thinks the proposed law violates long-established principles of democracy. In these pages, George McGovern, a former Democratic senator and a champion of organized labor, called this bill what it really is — “a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor.”
Read the rest of this entry »
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August 26, 2008 - 1:29 am - Posted by WTH
This just gets better and better. You’ll recall our recent focus on the abuse of funds and influence peddling by California Service Employee International Union (SEIU) head Tyrone Freeman being investigated in depth by the L.A.Times and how Mr. Freeman has been funneling union contracts to his family members. Now a related investigation in Michigan has revealed that one of Freeman’s former associates has had to step down from a Michigan SEIU post because of similar financial misdeeds there.
Once again the L.A. Times is the source for this sad tale of union bosses abusing the power so blindly handed them by the rank and file.
It appears that Rickman Jackson, former chief of staff for the California organization headed by Tyrone Freeman, had to step down from a Michigan SEIU local when it was discovered that he and Freeman had set up a shady housing corporation that was improperly getting business from Freeman’s California organization.
Both departures followed reports in The Times that the local and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of its president, Tyrone Freeman, and spent similar sums on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, restaurants such as Morton’s steakhouse, a Beverly Hills cigar lounge and a Hollywood talent agency.
The Times also disclosed that a housing corporation Freeman helped launch used the address of a Bell Gardens home that property records show is owned by Jackson. Freeman, Jackson and housing corporation representatives have declined to say whether Jackson was paid for any use of his residence.
This scandal is getting bigger by the week.
For his part, SEIU President Andy Stern claims to be shocked by all these illicit actions of his protege, Freeman and his web of corruption.
Stern has used the cover of this scandal to move against one of his chief rivals in his own union by announcing that the officers under Sal Rosselli will be dismissed and his local put in trusteeship by the SEIU’s national offices.
The president of the Oakland organization, Sal Rosselli, denied the allegations Monday. He said the trusteeship move was an attempt to deflect attention from the spending inquiry in Los Angeles and now Michigan, and to punish him for fighting the 2-year-old proposal to transfer his members to Freeman’s local.
So, on top of exposing the corruption of Freeman and his associates and relatives, we find Andy Stern indulging in his favorite pass time as iron-fisted SEIU ruler from the top down.
Scandals to the right of me, scandals to the left of me, into the valley of tyrants rides the president of the SEIU!
Go on over to the L.A. Times for all the dirt.
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August 25, 2008 - 8:22 am - Posted by WTH
The kids at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill feel like they’ve been used and discarded by Andy Stern’s Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and they aren’t happy about it. They are so upset they’ve issued an open letter to the SEIU to air their grievances… not that it’ll matter much.
It seems that the SEIU swooped onto several college campuses and encouraged student activists to organize college foodservice workers and then, assuring the kiddies that all their work was a worthy effort, quietly worked with the colleges NOT to organize the same workers that the kids thought they were enrolling in a union.
At that point the student groups got a tad upset that all their energies went for nothing and who can blame them? After all, they thought that they were striking a blow for “the workers” against those evil “corporate slave masters” in their typically naive, young idealistic enthusiasm.
Some of you readers out there may be a tad confused at this point. Why would the SEIU, one of the most powerful unions in the county, seem to mislead these naive kids and refuse to organize supposedly willing new members? Well, its all a piece with SEIU President Andy Stern’s newest tactic wherein the union works closer with the employer to determine who will be “allowed’ to organize and who will not.
Stern’s process has been to act a little less antagonistic with potential new corporations that might find their employees come under the SEIU’s wing. The SEIU has made many closed door, back room deals with potential corporate members, deals that few of their potential or existing members are allowed to be a part of because these deals are made at the highest level of the SEIU.
The deal is that the SEIU will organize a certain section of a corporation’s workforce, but agree with the corporation not to organize others. The SEIU also agrees not to allow the local unions to enter into scorched earth, vitriolic campaigns against the corporate heads.
What’s in it for the union? Well, for one thing new membership has greatly enlarged for the SEIU. It has also made organizing quite a bit easier and less contentious. The union grows with less pain, the employers seem to feel more a member of the union team and are less antagonistic… seems like a win, win, right?
Wrong. See, to complete these secret back room deals, the locals are completely cut out of the negotiations. And this is what happened to the kids. They were not included in the back room deals that assured several college campuses that their workers would not be included in the new membership enrollments.
So, all the kid’s efforts were left ignored causing these young activists to feel used and abused. This is the same feeling that union locals all across the country have been feeling as the SEIU national office in Washington D.C. has undercut their efforts and swept in behind the scenes to cut secret deals as per Andy Stern’s agenda.
It turns out that these kids are learning a rough lesson that politics isn’t beanbag. They are also finding that there is no pure ideology in activism and compromise will happen no matter how “righteous” they think their little cause is.
Of course, it is quite amusing that a union has forged ahead with a top down, iron-fisted mode of leadership, completely cutting out the local organizations. This tactic seems to be a reflection of the top down, corporate leadership that unions constantly claim makes the business sector so anti-worker, doesn’t it?
Stern’s action rightfully seem heretical to most rank and file union members. But, in the end, if the SEIU gets as powerful as Andy Stern imagines in his wildest dreams they might, who doesn’t realize that all these tender tactics will be thrown in the dustbin and the usual, thuggish, union behavior will once again become de rigueur.
In other words, Stern is playing for chumps every corporation that works with him under these delicate new rules. They are laying the groundwork for their own demise as Stern slyly builds his trap.
Still, Stern’s is a cynical and anti-intuitive agenda and it is worrying most union rank and file organizers. Stern’s gambit could reap a bounty or the whirlwind. I’m rootin’ for the later.
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August 23, 2008 - 1:00 am - Posted by WTH
With more on the card check battle, we have a rally against Unions set up in Portland, Maine where members of the SEIU and the AFL-CIO confronted the pro-choice advocates in a typically uncivil, even threatening, union manner. One union thug even turned over a display table, trying to prevent the pro-choice folks from setting up their displays.
From reports from the scene (video here), the union thugs spat upon the pro-choicers, swore at them and generally impeded their ability to engage in free and fair debate.
John Henke, From a participant at the rally, described what was endured.
I just came from a press conference held by the US Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the Maine State Chamber of Commerce. It was held in Portland and dealt with the EFCA [Employee Free Choice Act - i.e., Card Check]. …
After the news conference we went on the US Chambers special bus to Monument Square in the center of Portland. There were at least 75 union members holding a protest rally against the Chamber and in support of the EFCA. The interesting thing is the protest was organized by the Maine Democratic Party.
There were about 15 of us on the bus and nobody wanted to get off, so I led the way. We were heckled, swore at, and called some names. One of the young ladies from the chamber tried to set up some tables and put leaflets and information on it and the protesters kicked the tables over on the lady who was not hurt. …
[T]his protest is exactly why businesses have to work to defeat this bill. When you disagree with organized labor they resort to bullying, intimidation, and peer pressure. Why would any business want to subject their employees to that type of intimidation and bullying …
All, in all, pretty much what we expect from violence prone unions. And the fact that it was the Maine Democratic Party that organized the union thugs must not go without notice. If this sort of behavior isn’t a perfect example of why unions and their lapdogs in the Democratic Party are against democracy and our business community (you know, that business community that makes this country one of the strongest economies in the world?) then nothing does. It also shows what will happen to people who want the American freedom of being able to chose for themselves should unions get even more power.
Again, I remind one and all, that Barack Obama is in favor of giving unions untrammeled power to intimidate workers, eliminate the ages old democratic process of the secret ballot, and cause our businesses to further fall behind the rest of the world in competitiveness. And from the thuggish behavior we’ve seen in Portland, we can see what is in store for us should Obama win the White House.
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August 22, 2008 - 7:00 am - Posted by WTH
With continuing coverage of the Tyrone Freeman investigations (see Here and Here) in L.A., here is an entry from the Heritage Foundation Daily Bell updating us.
Can Our Economy Afford More Union Corruption?
The president of California’s largest union local, the 160,000-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Los Angeles, yesterday announced he would take a leave of absence and the local would be placed in a temporary trusteeship. Tyrone Freeman’s departure comes after an in-depth series of Los Angeles Times articles detailing how Freeman fleeced union members — who make about $9 an hour caring for the infirm and disabled — of over $1 million in 2006 and 2007 alone.
Freeman did not go quietly. Union staff members report Freeman’s lieutenants pressured them to sign a petition backing the union boss. When many refused, about 10 workers had their union-provided cellphone service discontinued. Requesting to be anonymous out of fear of retaliation, one SEIU employee told the Times: “It’s essentially a loyalty oath. … There’s a lot of intimidation.”
SEIU President Andy Stern has claimed complete ignorance about ongoing corruption at the core of the largest successful unionization drive in the nation since the 1930s — a drive that “symbolized the success of the Service Employees International Union, the nation’s fastest-growing union.” But, the Times also reports, SEIU headquarters “was informed six years ago of allegations involving Freeman’s finances and personal relationships. It is unclear whether a review was undertaken at that time.”
Despite the success of this one corrupt union in organizing, the threat posed by unions to our economy has declinied. Over the past 25 years, union membership in America dropped dramatically: 21.4 percent of all workers belonged to a union in 1981; today, only 12.5 percent do. The numbers are even more dramatic in the private sector: 19 percent of of private sector workers belonged to a union two years ago compared to only 8 percent. Today, 48 percent of all union members work for the government.
Liberals are desperate to reverse this trend, and want to give corrupt bullies like Freeman all the tools they need to grow unions as fast as Freeman grew his local. To that end, Barack Obama supports “card check” legislation to end the democratic tradition of workers voting in secret-ballot elections on the question of union representation.
Under current law, workers can vote their consciences because the secret ballot allows them to vote in private. Obama would allow people like “Freeman’s lieutenants” to intimidate or force workers to sign cards, in public, saying they support unionization. They can corner employees at work, in parking lots, even at home. Strange, then, that one of the first acts of the liberals after taking over Congress was to cut funding for federal oversight of unions.
Unions simply are not needed in our 21st-century economy
Union-negotiated, seniority-based promotions and raises feel like chains to workers who want to get ahead. More importantly, no union ever has created a dime of wealth. Unions use their bargaining power to take wealth from someone else. American companies can’t afford the parasitic, corrupt influence of labor unions and still compete in the global marketplace.
Posted in Unions Revealed, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments »
August 21, 2008 - 2:54 am - Posted by WTH
Forced unionism is one of the issues that galls right to work advocates the most. How can we, as a free people, be forced by state laws to join a union just to keep a job? Worse, how can one be forced to pay union dues without even joining a union just to keep a job? Is this not America where one has free choice?
Well, the National Right to Work organization has been asking that question for some time and is now attempting to put the question to the courts. At UPS facilities in Dayton, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky, NRTW is assisting several drivers for the United Parcel Service to sue the Teamsters and UPS for having been forced to pay dues to a union they do not wish to support.
Louisville, Kentucky, and Dayton, Ohio (August 19, 2008) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, three UPS employees in Kentucky and two UPS employees in Ohio filed federal lawsuits Friday and Monday, respectively, against national and local Teamsters officials for illegal extraction of forced union dues.
In the lawsuits, the nonmember employees claim that the national and local unions breached their duty of fair representation and violated the employees’ First and Fifth Amendment rights by charging and collecting fees used for organizing nonunion workers throughout the United States and financing a members-only “Strike and Defense Fund.”
This is a situation where these drivers are forced to pay union dues and are also forced to be represented by the Teamsters despite their personal wishes, preventing these employees from being able to represent themselves before their employers.
The fees paid by these drivers also seem to have violated Federal laws.
Since March 2006, the union charged and collected from the nonmembers compulsory fees greater than 80 percent of the full dues and fees paid by union members. Union bosses failed to provide a required notice of Beck rights and disclosure detailing the basis of the fees until this year. The financial disclosure reveals that Teamsters’ compulsory fees include disallowed expenditures for the national union’s efforts to help organize nonunion employees in both the private and public sectors nationwide. The employees have also been forced to contribute to the “Strike and Defense Fund,” which bars benefits flowing to nonmembers.
“It’s bad enough that employees who exercise their right to refrain from union membership are forced to pay fees to a union they do not want,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “But Teamsters bosses are violating the law by compelling nonmembers to fund strikes and organizing activities which seek to corral even more workers into forced unionism.”
Good luck to these brave drivers for taking on the Teamsters, well known for their violent tendencies.
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August 20, 2008 - 5:47 pm - Posted by WTH
-By Soren Dayton, NextRight.com
Paul Pringler of the LA Times has running a great series of stories about the corruption of the LA local of SEIU. The most recent places them all in context. The basic idea is that the head of LA local, Tyrone Freeman, appears to be using union funds to route money back to his friends, family, and even spouse.
This story adds three important components. First, Freeman appears to run corrupt elections. Second, he is a "protege" of Andy Stern, the head of SEIU, and there is evidence that Stern and the (inter)national organization is covering up for Freeman. And, third, Stern has a strategy for using Freeman and his corrupt elections and embezzling to take over all of the California SEIU. If these facts hold up, it could lead to some very danger places for Stern and the SEIU.
The details from the story are all above the fold. The key point here is that these stories suggest a need to continue these investigations and examine both national and local SEIU expenditures much more closely.
The basic story is that Tyrone Freeman used funds from the local to pay his family lots and lots of money from the union treasury:
In addition to the outlays to the firms owned by Freeman’s wife and mother-in-law, the union paid a combined $219,000 in 2006 and 2007 to a video firm whose principals include a former employee of Freeman. A now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by Freeman’s brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations, according to records and interviews.
The union also paid about $106,000 to a firm called The Filming, for which no incorporation record, business license, address or telephone listing could be found.
In addition, he appeared to run corrupt elections:
The election of a Los Angeles union leader under fire for his labor group’s spending practices is the subject of a government review that could force a new vote because of complaints that the contest was unfair to challengers.
The U.S. Labor Department is investigating allegations that Tyrone Freeman’s union local made it nearly impossible for candidates not on his slate to qualify for the ballot, according to people familiar with the probe.
These are neat and good stories for demonstrating union corruption and why unions shouldn’t have more power over the votes to unionize by giving them card-check.
But the real story is that this crook, Tyrone Freeman, is a central part of Andy Stern’s plan to centralize power:
Trossman’s efforts succeeded, the source said. Freeman’s local continued to expand as part of SEIU President Andy Stern’s much-celebrated campaign to organize entire industries state by state. The local and an affiliate ended up representing about 190,000 workers, most of them in the field of home healthcare. …
Lichtenstein said the union clearly had an "investment" in Freeman, a Stern protege who has been a high-profile loyalist in the SEIU push to consolidate regional locals into statewide chapters. That effort is being resisted by a handful of dissidents, notably the president of a 150,000-worker Oakland affiliate.
Not only is Stern trying to give this guy Freeman power, but Stern appears to be covering up for him:
In response to the July inquiries, Trossman had issued a statement on behalf of Stern that said the union had received no allegations about Freeman’s local. Freeman denied any wrongdoing.
The source, who said he was party to internal conversations about Freeman in 2002, told The Times last week: "The international knew that there were allegations of impropriety many years ago. This is not news to them."
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August 19, 2008 - 2:40 am - Posted by WTH
James Hoffa, Jr. is trying to make it look like he is reforming the Teamsters by forcing out Robert Hogan, former President of Teamsters Local 714, a member of a long time, corruption prone union family.
The IRB alleged that Hogan had acted against the best interests of union members by hiring Robert Riley as a business agent and organizing director, even though Riley had been barred from the union. The IRB also charged that the local union was failing to represent its membership, had corrupt relationships with companies where members worked, and was using favoritism and nepotism to secure jobs for associates of the Hogan family.
Hogan’s family have been union thugs since the Depression era, but he has at last signed an agreement with the Independent Review Board (IRB) of Teamsters National that he will leave all union activities behind and never again attempt to become involved with the Teamsters.
Naturally, Hogan claims he is a victim of Hoffa’s political triangulation and that he is totally innocent.
Local 714 has been under the control of the national union since June of this year, with Hoffa claiming he is making inroads into eliminating the corruption of this long-time, troubled local.
Time will tell, but it would be shocking if it turned out to be true instead of just a turn over from one group of corrupt officials for the newest set of corrupt union officials. Here’s the new boss, same as the old boss.
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August 18, 2008 - 1:22 am - Posted by WTH
Members of the carpenters union in New York City have ruined any chance that authorities there will take their union out of government oversight by beating unconscious William Davenport, a union dissident running for office in the union.
After an August 5 candidates forum, the candidate was beaten by members of the union audience outside a church. Outside a CHURCH!
This thuggery along with continued Mob involvement, indictments and convictions on corruption of union members convinced Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. not to release the union from government oversight.
The assault last week on the dissident union candidate, William Davenport, undermined the union’s assertions of a change in its internal culture. Mr. Davenport, according to several accounts, was heckled when he spoke at the union meeting, which was attended by about 500 members. Despite the presence of two retired police detectives hired to maintain order, a group of men stood up in the front rows and screamed, according to one longtime union dissident who was there.
One union member said that “It was disgraceful — thugs took over the meeting.” I’d say that thugs are more common in unions than not.
In any case, the carpenters are outta luck to get control of their union back. The judge did mention that the union had done better since it originally went into government oversight, but that it is way too early to claim that the Mob influence and corruption is excised from the union. We may all have a long, long wait for that to happen.
In the meantime, the corrupt, mob infested, thug populated New York City carpenters union will stay under the control of government watchdogs. Good thing, too.
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