Unions are gunning for Republicans this election cycle at an accelerated rate due to the blood in the water of a supposed Democratic landslide ostensibly to be led by Barack Obama.
Not only are unions openly supplying millions to campaigns that oppose the GOP, but they are also doing so by hiding behind organizations that do not “bear their name,” as USA Today put it.
Some big labor unions are spending millions to attack vulnerable Republican senators who have long opposed their agenda in Congress, sometimes channeling their money into non-profits that don’t bear their names, federal records show.
Citizens for Strength and Security, for example, has spent more than $1 million in recent weeks to attack North Carolina’s Elizabeth Dole, who is locked in a contentious battle with Democrat Kay Hagan. Unions are among the group’s major financial backers, including the 2-million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which contributed $220,000 in September.
Mostly this is over the woefully inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act that most Republicans oppose.
One of the GOP candidates that unions are trying to oust by hiding behind these shell organizations is North Carolina’s Liddy Dole.
Dole spokesman Dan McLagan said the outside advertising in North Carolina is hurting the Republican but said he remains optimistic about her prospects. He called the ads “deceptive.”
If unions “were up front about who was paying for the ad, it would scare the hell out of people in North Carolina,” he said. “They can make up a name. We have to put our name on our ads.”
Ah, but “deceptive” is a union’s middle name, now isn’t it?
Check out the Foundation’s latest Right to Work Video Report on compulsory unionism in the workplace. John McHenry, a Philadelphia worker and union member his entire life, never knew he could resign his formal union membership and stop paying full union dues. But when union bosses rammed a corrupt pension plan down his throat, he turned to the National Right to Work Foundation for help:
Michael Sandler over at The Hill has some ominous warnings about what a landslide Democrat victory next week will mean to unions and the economy.
Sandler warns that unions will find a resurgence in influence in government, especially with an Obama presidency.
With those obstacles removed, Democrats could quickly push forward with legislation allowing labor unions to organize without secret-ballot elections and a bill expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Other possibilities include the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would overturn a Supreme Court decision restricting equal pay lawsuits; a measure that would narrow the role of a “supervisor” for collective bargaining purposes; and a mandate for paid sick leave for companies with 15 or more employees who work at least 30 hours a week — all left over from the last Congress.
“I think they want to strike while the iron’s hot and grab everything they can,” said Marc Freedman, director of labor law policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The “card check” plan of destroying the ages old democratic concept of the secret ballot will irreparably harm the safety and integrity of employee’s vote on union matters. Instead of the secret ballot, employees will have to openly sign “cards” in public so that their vote is open for all to see. This will surely enhance union thugs’ ability to identify employees who vote against the union line in order to spotlight them as an “anti-union” employee and, therefore, to be targeted for attention and union intimidation.
But that is exactly what unions want. They WANT to be able to more easily intimidate workers that might find their safety and comfort more important than a “no” vote on a union. To avoid being attacked, the easiest road to take is acquiescence to union thugs and since everyone can see your vote, well, who can blame people for taking the easiest path?
Sandler has more.
“They are going to be focused on turning around the economy and anything that contributes to that,” said Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO. “A pro-jobs agenda.”
Business leaders are anticipating an early push of union-backed bills. At the top of the list is the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which would eliminate the right of employers to demand secret-ballot elections before a union can be certified. Instead, a majority of workers could sign petition cards certifying a union — a process known as “card-check.” The bill passed the House in March 2007, but failed three months later in the Senate to get the 60 votes required for controversial legislation.
Sandler has several other points to make other than the union issues, so go on over to The Hill and read his excellent piece. These are important and worrisome matters, certainly.
We’d best “gird our loins” for the worst, anti-business onslaught we’ve seen since the anti-capitalist FDR administration if the Dems win big next week.
We have been asked to pass this on from the folks at Americans for Prosperity. This is a great and educational editorial.
-By Joe Calomino
From day one of his administration back in 2003, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich told the people of Illinois it wouldn’t be business as usual. He was right. It’s been business worse than usual. Calling himself a reformer and promising to shake things up, Blagojevich has found new and creative ways to benefit his own campaign chest while doing nothing to eliminate the perception of Illinois as the Wild West of politics.
Under the guise of extending union protection to individuals who work as home health care personal assistants and home daycare providers, Blagojevich created a whole new pool of people from which the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) could collect dues, a portion of which is used for campaign contributions – a union which at the time of his taking office had already given Blagojevich more than $800,000 in campaign contributions.
Less than two months into his first term, Blagojevich signed Executive Order 2003-8 to give collective bargaining rights to home health care personal assistants, which in turn chose the SEIU to represent them. Since that time, contracts negotiated for these workers have increased wages by more than one-third in five years. In Fiscal Year 2008 alone, the wage increase was 60 percent of the total increase in the home services line of the Department of Human Services (DHS) budget.
Then less than two years later, Blagojevich gave home daycare providers the same right to collective bargaining (Executive Order 2005-1). Again, the workers chose the SEIU, which has represented them well. In Fiscal Year 2008, home daycare providers saw $31.6 million more in wages and $7 million more for health benefits. And again, this increase is almost 60 percent of the entire child care line item increase in DHS’ budget.
It is not our argument that unions don’t play a role in the American workplace. Nor is it our argument that these workers, who previously were not considered employees under state law but rather contractors, did not merit a change in status. However, when a union which has so heavily contributed to the Governor’s campaign in turn negotiates such generous contracts for its employees – all at a time when state government can’t pay its bills – we believe taxpayers should be demanding answers. Why are hard-earned tax dollars, in the form of union dues pulled from state employees’ wages, underwriting the political war chest of the very same elected official with whom the contracts are negotiated? At the very least, these maneuvers put a new face on pay-to-play politics.
While the link between generous contract negotiations and generous campaign contributions seems obvious, the injury to taxpayers doesn’t stop there. According to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal (July 28, 2008), the SEIU is requiring every local give an amount equal to $6 per member per year to the union’s national political action committee on top of regular dues. Unions that fail to meet the requirement must contribute an amount in “local union funds” equal to the “deficiency,” plus a 50 percent penalty. According to the union, this formalizes policy that has always been in place, yet some believe the policy violates federal law. Contributions are supposed to be voluntary, and it is illegal for unions and corporate PACs to use money secured by the “threat” of “financial reprisal.” The Wall Street Journal states: It’s hard to see that an SEIU mandate enforced by financial penalties of 50 percent isn’t a “threat” or would qualify under any definition of “voluntary.”
Again, what does this mean for Illinois taxpayers? Will members of the SEIU in Illinois see their dues increased to cover the mandate from the national union? Will taxpayer dollars be used for campaigns across the country – campaigns which don’t affect the lives of the nearly 13 million people in Illinois?
In a similar vein, the SEIU is part of a coalition lobbying federal lawmakers to overhaul America’s health care system, moving it away from a free market enterprise. Health Care for America Now announced a $40 million national public awareness campaign this past summer. Again, we have to ask ourselves, are Illinois taxpayer dollars laundered as union dues being used to push this agenda? Americans for Prosperity strongly believes the nation’s health care system needs to be reformed, but feels changes can be made to the existing system to improve health care delivery and rein in costs without creating another government bureaucracy – or by using taxpayer money to promote a political agenda.
Americans for Prosperity isn’t anti-union nor are we anti-reform. In fact, we believe reform is exactly what Illinois needs: wide-sweeping reform of a system that allows a Governor to negotiate generous contracts with a union that pays him back just as generously; wide-sweeping reform that calls for transparency and accountability; and wide-sweeping reform that puts Illinois’ Wild West reputation for anything-goes- government squarely behind us and puts people before politics.
————— Joe Calomino is State Director of Americans for Prosperity-Illinois. Americans for Prosperity is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. For more information visit www.afpil.org.
The Pacific Justice Institute reported that teachers in California are outraged that over one million dollars of their dues money has been spent by union leaders to promote gay marriage and to fight Proposition 8, a proposal that would restore the traditional definition of marriage in Calif.
Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, recently claimed that if gay marriage becomes recognized in California, school kids will be confronted with increased pressure to accept gay marriage as normal behavior and will be propagandized in school.
“If CTA has its way, we can expect to see more first-graders taking field trips to lesbian weddings, more elementary-age students subjected to transgender teachers and events like ‘Coming Out Week,’ and more students taught that gay marriage is normal. We do not believe those values represent most Californians, or even most teachers. There is a way teachers can say ‘Enough’ to CTA’s radical agenda. Under federal and state law, teachers and all other unionized employees whose religious values are not honored by their unions have the right to disassociate and divert the full amount of their union dues to charity.”
As I’ve said before, donations to extremist causes like this by unions is further proof that the political agenda of union leaders has strayed far from their proper venue of their worker’s rights and needs. The issue of gay marriage is none of a union’s business, yet here is the CTA donating over a million dollars of its members’ dues to a cause that is completely outside its purview.
Unions are no longer interested in the workers and are only interested in gaining political power to wield without benefiting members.
Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa will be visiting Teamster worksites around the Philadelphia area on October 27-28 to help get out the vote for Sen. Barack Obama in this crucial presidential election, according to a press statement from the union’s press office.
Hoffa will meet with members at their job sites, discussing important issues affecting their lives and their families, including the country’s financial crisis, the job-killing trade policies backed by Sen. John McCain, the failing Bush-McCain economy and affordable health care.
Hoffa is the son of Teamsters honcho Jimmy Hoffa whose connections with organized crime are believed to have led to his disappearance.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that last summer, Illinois Senator Barack Obama told officials in the Teamsters union that he favored ending the Independent Review Board (IRB) that was created in 1989 by the federal government to rid the union of organized crime.
t pTommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama, confirmed the story, saying that the candidate believed that the IRB had “run its course” because “organized crime influence in the union has drastically declined.”
The Teamsters subsequently endorsed Obama for president, in late February.
Obama and the Teamsters bristled at suggestions that any deal was made.
The Obama campaign also circulated a tape of a speech that Senator Hillary Clinton made last March to the Teamsters saying “at some point the past has to be opened,” but Clinton’s statement, like those made by Senator John Kerry in 2004, stopped well short of committing her to end oversight of the Teamsters.
“So what do you expect from a Chicago politician,” quips former NYPD detective Mike Snipes who investigated organized crime in the 1970s.
“Obama wants to use the Teamsters as his foot-soldiers to get out the vote. The Teamsters want Obama to call off the watchdogs so they can return to their cozy relationship with organized crime,” said the decorated detective.
As we’ve discussed before, Colorado has several Amendments on its ballot this election season. One of them is Amendment 54. (See full text in PDF format here)
Basically, Amendment 54 is a corruption fighter. It prohibits any company that holds a no-bid government contract from donating to political campaigns. This law would stop politicians from taking kick-backs from companies that receive contracts from the state.
Naturally, the unions in Colorado oppose this Amendment. They are not happy to be told they aren’t allowed to fatten the larder of the politicians with whom they negotiate. It makes it easier for unions to get politicians to do what they want them to do when those politicians have a pocketful of union cash at hand. (this law does not, by the way, stop individual union members from donating to the political candidate of their choice.)
Here is where the Denver Chamber of Commerce comes in. As reported earlier this month, unions made a few backroom deals with ostensibly pro-business groups in order for the union promise of pulling off the ballot Amendments 53,55,56 and 57, all of which were anti-business measures. That being the case, the Denver Chamber has pledged to help the unions defeat Amendment 54.
News is, however, the agreement to lend money to the fight against Amendment 54 is not going well for Colorado Businesses for Sensible Solutions. So far, with only a week or so to go before the elections, CBSS has only raised $2.3 million of the $3 million they promised for the effort.
In any case, it is bizarre that an organization that should be fighting against the union efforts (and has in the past) is now working with them to defeat a measure that would tend to curb corruption and graft. But this is where Colorado has come, anyway.
The U.S. Labor Department last month surpassed 900 criminal convictions for union corruption dating to the start of the Bush administration. The milestone is incredible evidence that union bosses continue to lie, cheat and steal despite greater transparency of their finances.
For the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) obtained 102 convictions and 130 indictments for cases mostly involving embezzlement of union funds. Restitution totaled more than $3.2 million — money that will be returned to dues-paying union members.
Since 2001 the office has secured court orders of restitution totaling more than $91.5 million. Deputy Assistant Secretary Don Todd made this statement upon releasing the latest numbers:
The triple-digit numbers of indictments and convictions obtained by OLMS in the 2008 fiscal year demonstrates that criminal activity in unions is still a major problem. This problem points to the critical role performed by OLMS in prosecuting those who steal from their members.
Throughout the course of the past eight years, the Bush administration has made transparency of union finances a priority. The department established an excellent website, UnionReports.gov, which contains a vast amount of information about union financial reports and other documents required under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. Democrats responded by cutting the office’s budget last year.
Here’s a complete list of criminal enforcement actions in 2008 alone.
Keep in mind that the top priority of a Democrat administration and Democrat-controlled Congress will be passing the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, better known as card check. As the new ad from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce so effectively demonstrates, this legislation will eliminate secret ballot organizing elections. Given the type of corruption that has taken place over the past eight years, do we really want to give union bosses the power to bully workers into publicly signing union authorization cards?
As the Washington Post reports, it seems that in these tight economic times, big labor is admitting that it cannot wait until President Barack Obama comes to its aid by signing the Employee Free Choice Act, thereby dooming many American businesses to economic ruin.
The Post’s story was mostly just re-hash of items we’ve talked about here on the blog for many a month. But one paragraph stuck a chord. After revealing how undemocratic the union’s “card check” ideas are, the Post talked a little bit about what big labor wants to do once Barack wins election.
Aside from the card-check proposal, organized labor leaders say they plan to soon pursue measures that would result in expanded paid leave and health-care benefits, which small-business advocates say could cripple some struggling firms. With allies in Congress and the White House, union officials would also likely push for tougher workplace safety laws and enforcement, tighter restrictions on trade agreements and increases in the minimum wage.
In other words, in these shaky times, labor plans to destroy businesses. And they expect Barack Obama to help them do it.
Yet another reason to oppose this most socialist of candidates.
It the investigation into the corruption of Calif. SEIU head Tyrone Freeman keeps getting better… well, actually worse. Now it is being revealed that Service Employees International Union chief Freeman regularly forced employees of a charity he headed to do political hack work — a practice barred by law.
Six people who worked for either the union or the charity told The Times that Freeman, and others at the labor organization acting on his behalf, ordered the nonprofit’s staffers to join partisan get-out-the-vote drives and other campaign efforts during and after their regular hours. The former employees spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation and legal jeopardy.
The former workers say that employees were required to distribute fliers, walk precincts and staff phone banks for individual candidates and the Democratic ticket during the days leading up to primary and general elections.
Naturally, Freeman is giving that innocent look of “what, me?” He is denying all allegations despite the several workers and other witnesses saying the opposite.
Like the old saying goes, deny, deny, deny.
The many scandals surrounding Freeman has resulted in several firings by the SEIU.
In the meantime, the SEIU has fired four of Freeman’s top managers and assistants. Two other employees either were fired or resigned after being accused of threatening colleagues suspected of speaking to The Times, according to an SEIU official.
I’ts sure to get messier before it’s all over. Freeman had direct ties to SEIU head Andy Stern in Washington D.C.
In an op-ed on newsblaze, Brad O’Leary gives us news of the testimony of a former union organizer that saw the intimidation of workers that the “card check” concept fosters and it pretty much confirms the common sense worries over the institution of the woefully incorrectly named “Employee Free Choice Act.”
As we’ve discussed before, the EFCA includes provisions for “card check,” a plan where union organizers can do away with the secret ballot prospective union members have always had the benefit of having in the past. The secret ballot, a most standard of democratic practices, will be eliminated giving the unions full reign to intimidate workers into agreeing with union desires since the employee’s vote will be open for everyone to see as it is cast.
As O’Leary says, “Workers questioning or unwilling to side with union organizers have been subjected to a wide range of harassment, including fear of losing their jobs, identity theft and having their families targeted.”
O’Leary also notes the testimony of a previous union organizer:
Jen Jason, a former UNITE HERE union organizer, testified before the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions on such practices. According to Jason, “In jurisdictions in which ‘card check’ was actually legislated, organizers tended to be even more willing to harass, lie and use fear tactics to intimidate workers into signing cards.”
O’Leary provides a few other facts of note.
According to the Center for Union Facts, “Seventy-five percent of Americans think secret ballots are the most democratic method of choosing a union.” Yet Democrats in the Senate are likely to push for passage of EFCA, given their deep-pocketed support from Unions. According to USA Today, “The Democratic majority in Congress, which was elected with the help of $57.6 million in campaign contributions from unions, has pushed measures to increase wages on public projects, ease rules for unionizing workplaces and cut funding for corruption investigators.”
An Associated Television News / Zogby poll of likely voters also shows that a clear majority (78 percent) of Americans support workers’ rights to a secret ballot when deciding whether or not to unionize. According to the poll, only 15 percent side with the union bosses who want to do away with secret ballots.
Lastly, we will note that Barack Obama fully supports this undemocratic bill and has promised to make it a major item of focus for his presidency. If he gets in, workers all across the country will lose their democratic rights to the secret ballot.
James Jacobs has released his latest in a series of exposes on Organized Crime in the USA. This time in “Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement,” he focuses on how the Mob has infiltrated and distorted the labor movement in the U.S. to its own illegal, violent ends.
Jacobs meticulously chronicles the connections between the Mob and unionism and makes those connections irrefutable. Several reviews out there praise Jacobs for his effort, but a few complain that he isn’t “sensitive” enough to the ostensible goal of unionism, the workers. Of course, worrying about the supposed plight of the workers was NOT the goal of this book. The purpose of this book was to chronicle the Mob’s ties to unions. The “plight” of workers is a wholly other subject.
NYU law professor Jacobs further burnishes his reputation for advancing the study of organized crime in America with his latest work of scholarship, billed by the publisher as “the only book to investigate how the mob has distorted American labor history.” This worthy successor to Gotham Unbound and Busting the Mob is an exhaustive, albeit sometimes repetitive, survey of the grip La Cosa Nostra has exerted on the country’s most powerful unions. While many will be familiar with the broad outlines of the corruption that riddled the Teamsters, which is recounted by the author, his summary of some lesser-known examples of pervasive labor corruption help illustrate his thesis that the entire American union movement has suffered from the intimidation and fear the mob used to gain and maintain control of unions. Especially valuable is Jacobs’s examination of the relatively recent use of the RICO law to bring dirty unions under the control of a federally appointed independent trustee, and the book’s posing of hard questions about the mixed success those monitorships have had. (Jan.)
From Booklist
Jacobs, legal scholar and expert on the Mafia, sets out to show how the Mob has distorted American labor history, explaining the relationship between organized crime and organized labor, as well as recent federal efforts to clean up unions. Unions are susceptible to organized crime because they receive a constant flow of funds from members automatically deducted by employers; AFL-CIO rules prohibit challenges to representation once a union has been recognized; and oversight of unions is difficult for both insiders and outsiders because few union members are interested in governance and because violence, intimidation, and control of information make monitoring costly and risky. Jacobs insists the book is prolabor and notes that unions do not have exclusive claim to fraud and corruption, given the well-known examples in corporations and the government. Jacobs concludes that union problems are difficult to solve because “the most distinctive feature of corruption in the labor movement is its association with the infiltration and exploitations of the Cosa Nostra organized crime families.” Mary Whaley
Permit me to take a moment away from our usual coverage of union activities to have a word about this upcoming presidential contest…
This essay by Mark Alexander of The Patriot Post is an important resource upon the subject of presidential character and how John McCain and Barack Obama measure up in that respect. It is full of great insight and important links to the candidate’s respective records. Please be sure and have your friends who may be on the fence read this essay. It may help convince them of which way to go.
Presidential Character, By Mark Alexander
“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” –Samuel Adams
In his Inaugural Address on 20 January, 1961, President John F. Kennedy closed his remarks with these famous words: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
With those words, JFK, considered by many to be the most exemplary leader of the Democrat Party in the 20th Century, asked Americans to put country first, a bedrock principle of the Party until the last few decades.
However today, the current slate of Democrats have turned Jack Kennedy’s national challenge on end, essentially proclaiming, “ask what your country can do for you, not what you can do for your country.”
In 1963, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said for all to hear, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Has his dream been realized, or have Democrat leaders divided us up into constituency groups, where we are judged by all manner of ethnicity and special interests rather than the individual and national character King envisioned?
James Jacobs has released his latest in a series of exposes on Organized Crime in the USA. This time in “Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement,” he focuses on how the Mob has infiltrated and distorted the labor movement in the U.S. to its own illegal, violent ends. 
