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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
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.
-By Jim Kouri
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.
Eric Odom (Media Director)
Vanguard of Freedom
Warner Todd Huston