Archive for the ‘Unions’ Category

BY FRED BARNES – THE WEEKLY STANDARD

For the first time in decades, union power is under serious threat. Indiana is on the verge of becoming the 23rd state to enact a right-to-work law, liberating work­ers from being forced to join a union. New Hampshire may also adopt some form of right-to-work. Mur­murs about a national right-to-work law are growing. Public sector unions continue to face efforts to curb their power and trim their lavish contracts. And now there’s a shrewd new challenge to organized labor: the Employee Rights Act. It would take labor law in a new direction. Unlike right-to-work statutes, which help businesses escape unionization, the ERA would protect union workers from high-handedness and abuses of power by their union leaders.
The measure was formulated by Richard Berman, a Washington lob­byist and longtime foe of exces­sive union power in labor relations and politics. It’s been passionately embraced by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and 20 other Republican sena­tors. In the House, its chief sponsor is Tim Scott of South Carolina, a star of the freshman class of 87 Republicans.
Though it has dazzlingly high poll numbers, the measure is unlikely to be enacted any time soon. Unless Republicans capture the White House and the Senate in the November elec­tion while keeping control of the House, it’s a sure loser. Even if Republicans gain full control in Washington, passage is not guaranteed. As expected, labor leaders view the j ERA with dread. Indeed, it threatens to diminish their authority significantly. And when labor chief­tains feel strongly about an issue, con­gressional Democrats reflexively line up on their side.
Yet the ERA isn’t doomed to oblivion. In fact, depending on where you live, you may be hear­ing about it. Berman has pledged to raise and spend $10 million in 2012 on TV ads promoting the proposal. So far, ads have been aired only in Washington, D.C., but Berman says they will soon be broadcast in Las Vegas, a strong union town, and then in states like Missouri and Montana with tossup Senate races.
What the ERA would do is entirely sensible. The most striking of its seven reforms would force unions to face a “recertification” election every three years, allowing workers to decide if they want to stick with their current union. Hatch says that “less than 10 percent” of union members today have ever voted on whether to have or keep a union. Another part of the measure would prevent union leaders from “intimidating or coerc­ing employees from exercising their rights, including the right to decer­tify the union.”
That’s strong medicine. The rest of the ERA would guarantee secret bal­lot elections, give members the right to refuse to back their union’s political operations, require at least 40 days to hear both sides before voting to certify or decertify a union, require a secret ballot vote before a strike, and make it a crime for unions to use violence or threats to coerce members.
Notice the emphasis of all seven provisions. It’s on the individual rights of employees, not on economic concerns. Right-to-work laws let workers decline to join a union, but they are usually promoted as a tool for attracting business to a state and increasing jobs. By the way, 108 econ­omists have endorsed the act.
Berman hired the Opinion Research Corporation to survey union and nonunion households to gauge the ERA’s popularity. Only the secret ballot requirement drew less than 80 percent support. It was backed by 78 percent of both union and non­union households.
Here’s the most surprising result: Eighty-four percent of nonunion and 83 percent of union households favor an election every three years to recertify or jettison the union. And 85 percent of nonunion and 88 percent of union households back the need for a majority of members to approve a strike.
Hatch says he expects to be attacked as an opponent of unions. But he insists the ERA isn’t anti­union. “I don’t think it’s pro-busi­ness. It’s pro-worker.” Nor does he regard it as dead legislatively for the foreseeable future. “I would never count it out. The polls show union workers are with us.”
Berman sees the ERA as a long-term project. What matters, he says, is that the ERA puts the cause of union reform on the offensive. “Offense takes a long time to penetrate and become part of mainstream thinking.”
His goal for 2012 is for the issue to enter the campaign debate. With Dem­ocrats normally pro-union and Repub­licans usually critical of union power, one aim is to interest independents.
The ERA is “foundational,” Ber­man says. It’s not designed to nul­lify a ruling of the National Labor Relations Board. Nor would it affect the relationship between workers and management. Instead, it seeks to change the balance of rights and obli­gations between unions and employ­ees, a balance that now strongly favors union bosses.
If enacted, the ERA would be the most important labor legislation since the Landrum-Griffin bill in 1959, which dealt mainly with labor rack­eteering. Even today, most labor law was created in the Wagner Act of 1935. The Taft-Hartley law in 1947 legalized right-to-work laws.
So the ERA represents a dramatic step. But it would be a step in the right direction, with the twin ben­efits of vindicating individual rights and removing some of the drag on the economy imposed by union bosses. ♦

Supporters of Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker are attempting to spoil the recall effort against him with a campaign to get voters to write the governor‘s name in as a candidate in the state’s Democratic primary to seek an opponent for him.

Walker opponents officially filed petitions last month to force a recall election in an attempt to oust the governor from office.

According to the Menomonee Falls Patch, the write-in effort started as a conversation on Facebook, but in little more than a week the page “Operation: Write in Scott Walker in Democrat primary“ garnered more than 900 ”likes.”

“If we can gain a majority of the votes in the [D]emocratic primary we will have defeated the [D]emocrats at their game and save [sic] the tax payers millions of dollars,” the page states. In addition to Wisconsin-related news, recent postings on the page include anti-Obama and anti-Nancy Pelosi links.

Such a write-in effort is possible under Wisconsin’s open primary system, which allows voters to vote in a party’s primary even if they do not share its political affiliation.

Still, it’s not clear what would happen in the general recall election if the effort were successful, the Patch reported, and the Government Accountability Board — the body overseeing the recall effort — would not speculate.

“The law requires a space for write-in on the ballot,” spokesman Reid Magney said. “Beyond that, it would be premature for us to comment on something that involves so much speculation.”

John Willock, a volunteer with Friends of Scott Walker and a fan of the write-in page, said the plan is getting a lot of buzz.

“I go from one side of the state to the next during my work day, and I’ve heard people talking about it from Racine to Eau Claire,” Willock said. “It’s not really an organized effort, but there’s a lot of people talking about it.”

Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinksi dismissed the chance of any kind of Walker write-in campaign succeeding, telling the Patch his first reaction to it was “Surprise, then laughter.”

“Republicans seem frightened by democracy and the will of the people and, given what Scott Walker has done to ruin Wisconsin, they should be,” Zielinski said.

As The Blaze previously reported, efforts to recall Walker stem from anger over his successful move to effectively end collective bargaining rights for most public workers.

In 22 states in the Union, workers have the freedom under “Right-to-Work” laws to decide whether or not to pay union dues, and now Indiana is poised to become the twenty-third state on that list, bringing the workers there renewed hope in an economy that has seen few glimmers of light.

Last week, Indiana’s House and Senate passed a right-to-work bill after weeks of political maneuvering by pro-union politicians hoping to stop the proposal in its tracks. Today, the legislation returns to the state’s Senate for a final vote, and Governor Mitch Daniels (R) has promised to sign the bill into law. Meanwhile, a dozen labor unions have protested the measure, with threats to “occupy” the Super Bowl to be held in Indianapolis next week. Nationally, right-to-work states have become a target, as well. Last year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) took aim at the Boeing Corporation for its decision to locate a new factory in South Carolina, a right-to-work state. The NLRB attempted to stop Boeing from making fundamental decisions about where to do business — ultimately, it dropped the case after union negotiators reached a deal that benefited their members in a union state.

Proponents of Indiana’s measure — which protects workers from being fired for not paying union dues — say that the law will help the state attract more businesses and jobs, spurring economic growth. And there’s data that proves it. Heritage’s James Sherk writes that right-to-work states have lower unemployment rates (9.2 percent) than states without right-to-work laws (9.9 percent). And though critics say that could be a result of regional differences (right-to-work states are mostly in the South and West), research comparing counties across state lines shows that, “The share of manufacturing jobs in counties in right-to-work states is one-third higher than in adjacent counties in non–right-to-work states,” as Sherk explains.

It’s understandable that states would want the benefits that right to work brings, but it’s also understandable why unions oppose it so strongly. When Idaho and Oklahoma passed right-to-work laws, union membership fell 15 percent. Likewise, all the dues the unions collect plummeted right along with their membership. Sherk writes that in Indiana, right to work would save private-sector workers $18.4 million a year. In union-stronghold Michigan, where some are pushing for the law, workers would save $46.4 million a year. And though unions claim that right to work undermines their ability to keep wages high — truly the bread-and-butter of the union movement — most studies show that right-to-work laws have little effect on wages in either direction.

All that said, while workers are rejecting unions, they still want their voices heard in the workplace. Sherk explains how systems like these can operate in non-union workplaces:
Many employees (and employers) would like employee involvement (EI) programs and work groups in which workers and supervisors can meet to discuss workplace issues. These programs can take many forms. Examples include self-directed work teams, safety committees, and production committees. The essential element is advancing employee interests through employee involvement.

Polls show that 60 percent of workers prefer EI programs to improve working conditions over either more government regulations or labor unions. Examples of effective EI programs that advance worker interests abound.

The trouble is that current law prohibits non-union employers and employees to work together to improve working conditions. Sherk writes that Congress banned these kinds of programs in order to prevent companies from creating and negotiating with employer-dominated “company unions” to fight off organizing drives — a senseless prohibition today given that few workers want to unionize, anyhow.

Employee involvement programs can improve working conditions, help companies attract valuable employees, and create an environment that’s beneficial to the workers — and to the company. Congress should give employees and employers this kind of flexibility. And in states where employees are still forced to pay union dues, governments ought to give their employees the right to work without fear of big labor reprisal.

Indiana’s House of Representatives approved a bill that exempt nonunion employees from paying dues when working alongside union workers.
by Talla Ralph

Members of area labor unions and Occupy Wall Street demonstrators participate in a “March For Jobs and Fairness” in New York City. Indiana is slated to pass an anti-union law that would exempt nonunion workers from paying union fees. (Spencer Platt/AFP/Getty Images)
A right to work law, which exempts nonunion workers from paying dues when working with union employees, has been approved by Indiana’s House of Representatives.

The approval, which is a critical step in the law’s passage, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Next, the bill goes to the Senate, which has already approved a version.

Indiana will become to the first right-to-work state in the nation’s industrial belt, and the first state to pass such legislation since Oklahoma approved a similar measure in 2001, according to Businessweek.

“Adopting a right to work law will increase Indiana’s economy, bringing more customers and growth to Indiana’s small businesses,” Indiana’s National Federation of Independent Businesses director Barbara Quandt told CBS News.

More from GlobalPost: Newt Gingrich says poor kids have no work habits, suggest janitorial work (VIDEO)

Over the past year, Republicans have pushed for other anti-union laws in battleground states such as Wisconsin and Ohio, where many of the country’s manufacturing jobs are located, CBS reported. However, they have faced backlash from Democrats and union supporters.

“If you look at states that have enacted this policy, the average worker loses about $5,500 in salary per year,” Jeff Harris, of the state AFL-CIO, told CBS.

Indiana’s democrats boycotted some of the Republican-controlled chamber’s sessions for about three weeks, according to Businessweek.

According to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation,

The Right to Work principle…affirms the right of every American to work for a living without being compelled to belong to a union. Compulsory unionism in any form–”union,” “closed,” or “agency” shop–is a contradiction of the Right to Work principle and the fundamental human right that the principle represents.

Roughly 4.7 million Americans moved from forced-union states to right-to-work states between 2000 and 2008, according to a Cato Journal study by economist Richard Vedder. Per capita income also rose 23 percent faster in right-to-work states between 1977 and 2007.

Organizers of a drive to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said they have far more signatures than they need to file on Tuesday to force the controversial Republican to defend his seat in a special election barely a year into his first term.

Recall officials expect to turn in far more than the 540,208 signatures required on Tuesday to force a special election, a milestone in their effort to recall Walker and slow an agenda that has diminished the power of public unions.

If the state Government Accountability Board, the agency charged with validating the petitions, determines enough valid signatures have been gathered, it will set a recall election for Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch.

Only two governors in U.S. history have been successfully recalled — California’s Gray Davis in 2003 and Lynn Frazier of North Dakota in 1921.

No Democrat has emerged to run against Walker, although Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who ran for governor against Walker in 2010, and Secretary of State Doug La Follette have been mentioned as possible candidates.

Others include former congressman Dave Obey, state Senator Jon Erpenbach and former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk.By law, organizers had only 60 days to conduct the formal petition drive, which they launched in November with thousands of volunteers fanning out across Wisconsin.

The roots of the drive stretch back nearly a year to efforts by Walker and the Republican-controlled state legislature to pass a raft of controversial measures that included strict limits on the union rights of public employees.

The anti-union measures triggered weeks of mass protests in Madison and a fierce political backlash from Democrats and union supporters.

Walker defended the measures as necessary to address a budget gap and to make Wisconsin attractive to employers.

Backing his agenda, which also included passage of voter identification and looser gun laws, six Republican senators and Walker allies faced recall last summer. Three Democratic senators who opposed the measures also faced recall.

Of those, two lost their seats to Republican challengers.

Along with the governor and lieutenant governor, as many as 17 state senators — 11 Republicans and six Democrats — could face recall elections this year in Wisconsin.

The contests could tip the balance of power in the state senate, where Republicans hold a slim 17-16 majority.

On Friday, organizers of a separate effort to recall Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said they had enough signatures to force the Republican to defend his seat in a special election.

Fitzgerald has filed a complaint with the GAB, claiming recall organizers took too long to collect signatures.

According to a GAB report, processing the Walker recall petitions will cost the state more than $650,000, including the purchase of software and staff time. The total cost of recall elections for the state and municipalities may be more than $9 million, according to estimates from GAB officials.

Comment by Corkie Taylor-WashingtonWe already know that Obama is behind this. We know that AFL-CIO Union thug Richard Trumka is behind this and we know that state “outsiders” are behind this.
Governor Scott Walker NEEDS our help! Without our help he will lose his elected position from the onslaught of left wing lunacy that want to unseat him because of his conservative values and love for his state to bring it out of Obama debt! Don’t forget the Democrat elected officials who ran and hid in order to shirk their civil duties to create a budget that would bring Wisconsin out of debt. They along with their cheat and liar in Chief of the United States, Barack Obama are out for his head.
Please, do what you can do to help him even if it’s a word of encouragement. He has only been able to raise aprox. 5 million for his defence. Much of that from outside sources.
America NEEDS Scott Walker!

A misguided law enables the president’s union pandering 

The National Labor Relations Board has become a partisan issue of late. After trying—and failing—to destroy secret-ballot union elections via “card check” legislation, President Obama turned away from the democratic process, and toward the NLRB, as a venue for advancing Big Labor’s interests.

To date, Obama has placed three people on the NLRB. During a congressional recess, he installed Craig Becker, who’d served as a top lawyer for two of the nation’s largest unions (the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO), as a member of the board. He selected Mark G. Pearce—who had worked in “union side labor and employ­ment law,” as his official NLRB bio puts it—as another. And Obama chose Lafe Solomon, a career NLRB lawyer, as the board’s general counsel.

Solomon promptly filed a complaint against Boeing, claim­ing the company had illegally discriminated against a union­ized, strike-happy plant in Washington State when it chose to expand production in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, instead. And the board is trying to change the rules governing union elections so that companies have less time to mount anti-union campaigns.

These moves go beyond anything the NLRB has done in the past. But the current behavior of the National Labor Relations Board is only the outermost layer of the true problem: the National Labor Relations Act. In addition to creating a labor system that hurts non-union workers, forcing contracts upon unwilling participants, and engendering corruption, the 1935 legislation violates the Constitution, gives the NLRB the power to function as all three branches of government at once, and allows each president to stock the board with flagrantly biased nominees. President Obama may have abused the NLRA more than his predecessors did, but the NLRA is built for abuse. It should be repealed, or at least reformed.

Neil Cavuto showed us this disturbing video of an Occupy Wall Street protester vowing to burn New York City to the ground on November 17 and implying that violence is right around the corner.

When speaking amongst a crowd in Manhattan, he said, “Ain’t no more talking… They got guns, we got bodies. They got bricks, we got rocks. Let’s see what they got.”

The protester continued his rant, saying, “In a few days, you’re going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macy’s.”

The protesters plan to try to shut down Wall Street on Thursday.

OAKLAND, Calif. (The Blaze/AP) — A day of demonstrations in Oakland that began as a significant step toward expanding the political and economic influence of the Occupy Wall Street movement, ended with police in riot gear arresting dozens of protesters who had marched through downtown to break into a vacant building, shattering windows, spraying graffiti and setting fires along the way.

“We go from having a peaceful movement to now just chaos,” said protester Monique Agnew, 40.

KTVU-TV has more:

The confrontation began after protesters started a large bonfire in the middle of a downtown street. Dozens of police in riot gear moved in on hundreds of protesters as the flames leapt more than 15 feet in the air from several large metal and plastic trash bins that had been pushed together.
Police warned protesters to clear out before firing several rounds of tear gas and “flash bang” grenades to clear the area.
In the aftermath of the police actions, protesters with cloth wrapped around their faces to protect them from the stench of the gas marched through the area chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets.”
Some marchers wore gas masks.
Glass covered streets and sidewalks from windows of area businesses that were shattered.

Graffiti on the wall next to one of the damaged shops read, “This act of vandalism was not authorized by the general assembly. Peaceful protest.”

Occupy Oakland protesters pass a burning garbage heap during a confrontation with police on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011, in Oakland, Calif. (Photo: AP)
The far-flung movement of protesters challenging the world’s economic systems and distribution of wealth has gained momentum in recent weeks, capturing the world‘s attention by shutting down one of the nation’s busiest shipping ports toward the end of a daylong “general strike” that prompted solidarity rallies across the U.S.

About 3,000 people converged on the Port of Oakland, the nation’s fifth-busiest harbor, in a nearly five-hour protest Wednesday, swarming the area and blocking exits and streets with illegally parked vehicles and hastily-erected, chain-link fences.

Port officials said they were forced to cease maritime operations, citing concerns for workers’ safety. They said in a statement they hope to resume operations Thursday “and that Port workers will be allowed to get to their jobs without incident. Continued missed shifts represent economic hardship for maritime workers, truckers, and their families, as well as lost jobs and lost tax revenue for our region.”

Supporters in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and elsewhere staged smaller-scale demonstrations; each group saying its protest was a show of support for the Oakland movement, which became a rallying point when an Iraq War veteran was seriously injured in a clash with police last week.

The larger Occupy movement has yet to coalesce into an organized association and until the port shut down had largely been limited scattershot marches, rallies and tent encampments since it began in September.

Organizers in Oakland had viewed the day as a significant victory. Police said that about 7,000 people participated in demonstrations throughout the day that were peaceful except for a few incidents of vandalism. In fact, the city’s mayor called it a “good day” for the protesters and the “99 percent movement:”

One of the protest leaders, Boots Riley, touted the day as a success, saying “we put together an ideological principle that the mainstream media wouldn’t talk about two months ago.”

His comments came before a group of demonstrators moved to break into the Travelers Aid building in order to, as some shouting protesters put it, “reclaim the building for the people.”

Riley, whose anti-capitalist views are well-documented, considered the port shut down particularly significant for organizers who targeted it in an effort to stop the “flow of capital.” The port sends goods primarily to Asia, including wine as well as rice, fruits and nuts, and handles imported electronics, apparel and manufacturing equipment, mostly from Asia, as well as cars and parts from Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai. An accounting of the financial toll from the shutdown was not immediately available.

The potential for the chaos that ultimately erupted was not something Riley wanted to even consider.

“If they do that after all this …” He paused, then added, “They’re smarter than that.”

But the peace that abided throughout the day, did not last into the night.

Occupy protesters voicing anger over a budget trim that forced the closure of a homeless aid program converged on the empty building where it had been housed. They blocked off city streets with Dumpsters and other large trash bins, starting bonfires that leapt 15-feet in the air.

City officials released a statement describing the spasm of unrest.

“Oakland Police responded to a late night call that protesters had broken into and occupied a downtown building and set several simultaneous fires,” the statement read. “The protesters began hurling rocks, explosives, bottles, and flaming objects at responding officers. Several private and municipal buildings sustained heavy vandalism. Dozens of protesters wielding shields were surrounded and arrested.”

Protesters reported running from several rounds of tear gas and bright flashes and deafening pops that some thought were caused by “flash bang” grenades. Fire crews arrived and suppressed the flames.

Meanwhile, protesters and police faced off for the rest of the night in an uneasy standoff.

Protesters “Occupy” an Oakland building after breaking in, Nov. 3, 2011. (Photo: AP)
In Philadelphia, protesters were arrested earlier Wednesday as they held a sit-in at the headquarters of cable giant Comcast

In New York, about 100 military veterans marched in uniform and stopped in front of the New York Stock Exchange, standing in loose formation as police officers on scooters separated them from the entrance. On the other side was a lineup of NYPD horses carrying officers with nightsticks.

“We are marching to express support for our brother, (Iraq war veteran) Scott Olsen, who was injured in Oakland,” said Jerry Bordeleau, a former Army specialist who served in Iraq through 2009.

The veterans were also angry that returned from war to find few job prospects.

“Wall Street corporations have played a big role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Bordeleau, now a college student. He said private contractors have reaped big profits in those countries.

In Boston, college students and union workers marched on Bank of America offices, the Harvard Club and the Statehouse to protest the nation’s burgeoning student debt crisis.

They say total outstanding student loans exceed credit card debt, increase by $1 million every six minutes and will reach $1 trillion this year, potentially undermining the economy.

“There are so many students that are trying to get jobs and go on with their lives,” said Sarvenaz Asasy of Boston, who joined the march after recently graduating with a master’s degree and $60,000 in loan debt. “They‘ve educated themselves and there are no jobs and we’re paying tons of student loans. For what?”

And among the other protests in Oakland, parents and their kids, some in strollers, joined in by forming a “children’s brigade.”

“There’s absolutely something wrong with the system,” said Jessica Medina, a single mother who attends school part time and works at an Oakland cafe. “We need to change that.”

—
Associated Press writers Garance Burke and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco, Beth Duff-Brown in San Francisco, Mark Pratt in Boston, JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia, Jon Fahey and Verena Dobnik in New York and Christina Hoag in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Remember the violent and disgusting demonstrations over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doing away with collective bargaining for Teacher’s unions? The results are in. Some school districts went from a $400,000 deficit to a $1,500,000 surplus as a result. They are even hiring new teachers, not firing like the Liberals said would happen. Why?

It seems that the insurance company that provided all the “so-called” benefits to the teachers was an insurance company owned and operated by the teacher’s union. Since the outfit was guaranteed to get the insurance business from the teachers, and the State had to pay for it (not the teachers) the insurance company was increasing annual costs every single year to become the most expensive insurance company in the state. Then the company was donating millions and millions of dollars to its favorite democrat politicians who, when they got elected, guaranteed to keep funding the union’s outrageous costs. In other words, the insurance company was a “pass through” for Wisconsin taxpayer money directly to the democrat politicians.

Nice racket, and this is the racket that is going on in every single State that allows collective bargaining. No wonder the States are taking it away. Now the State of Wisconsin is free to put the insurance contract out for bids and, lo and behold, they have saved so much money it has turned deficits into surplus amounts. As a result, none of the teachers had to be laid off, everyone got a raise, etc., etc., and the taxpayers of Wisconsin don’t have to pay more taxes to fund the union’s political ambitions.

If you weren’t aware of the reasons Gov. Walker was fighting to take away collective bargaining, it gives you an idea of the problem
the Republican Party has. Outside of one or two, none of them know how to speak up and explain properly what the problem was. We could sure use a Ronald Reagan now, someone who could explain things for people to understand, since we know that people don’t like to read anymore.

Here is the article:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/07/wisconsin-schools-buck-union-cut-health-costs

PLEASE BE SURE TO SEND THIS ONWARDS ! ITS THE ONLY CHANCE OF STOPPING THIS CORRUPTION

NBC News and msnbc.com

updated 10/12/2011 11:45:07 AM ET

A labor leader in Chicago is expected to receive pension payments of nearly $500,000 a year, while another could get about $438,000 a year, according to reports Wednesday.

 

The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, which obtained information about union pension benefits during a joint investigation, said at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.

The news organizations said this was due to “a charitable interpretation” of Illinois law by officials representing two city pension funds.

“Can you name any place in the world where someone can get two pensions for the same job?” state Rep. Tom Cross, a Republican, told the paper. “Even by our standards here in Illinois, it’s beyond belief. It’s insane.”

Chicago and Illinois are facing financial trouble, in part due to pension shortfalls.

On Tuesday, state Sen. Mark Kirk released a report on Illinois’ debt that said it had the worst credit rating of any state and that its debt was rising, NBC Chicago reported.

Kirk said the state was nearly insolvent and said he doubted there would be any help from Washington.

“It’s highly unlikely that the federal government would ever bail out a spend-thrift state. Therefore, Illinois needs to fix this on its own,” he said.

Amid the city’s financial woes, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has reportedly proposed a budget that would see three of Chicago’s oldest police stations closed. The budget was due to be unveiled Wednesday.

 

$9 million over lifetime?
The Tribune said the official who was expected to get about $438,000 a year would do so from three pensions covering the same work period: a city laborers fund, a union district council fund and a national union fund.

It said an analysis showed that this 59-year-old union official, Liberato “Al” Naimoli, would get a total of about $9 million if he lived to his expected lifespan.

Another official, Charles LoVerde III, a former trustee of the city laborers’ pension fund, stood to receive three pensions for the same time period totaling nearly $500,000 a year, the investigation found.

The Tribune said he took leave of absence in 1998 from a job with the city’s water management department, which paid $44,000 a year, to work full time for the local.

The paper said the law states that union leaders with city pensions cannot “receive credit in any pension plan established by the local labor organization based on his employment by the organization.”

But pension fund officials say a union district council is not a local labor organization, the paper said.

“The Legislature never told us how to administer this thing,” the city pension fund directors’ attorney, Fredrick Heiss, told the paper. “They could have said ‘no second pension at all,’ but they didn’t say that.”

The Tribune said the joint investigation with WGN-TV found that Naimoli, president of Cement Workers Local 76, was receiving a city pension of about $158,000 a year. It said his city pension was based on his union salary.

Naimoli, who retired in 2010 from the $15,000-a-year city job, is also now eligible to receive a pension of about $60,000 a year, the paper said, from the Laborers’ Pension Fund for Chicago and Vicinity.

He also will become eligible for payments of about $220,000 a year from a third pension, provided by the national union, LIUNA, on his 60th birthday next year.

The Tribune said he had not worked his $15,000-a-year job with the city for a quarter of a century.

 

Radical labor organizer Stephen Lerner of SEIU intends to terrorize the families of bank executives in their homes as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

SEIU, a longtime ally of ACORN, has done it before, as ably documented by Big Government’s Liberty Chick.

The home invasions are scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Lerner, a prime architect of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, laid out the Left’s plans to his fellow Marxists at the left-wing Take the American Dream Back conference in Washington, D.C., on October 3, 2011.

Here’s the video of his remarks:

As the Occupy Wall Street protesters rally for a third week, social media sites such as Twitter seem to be spurring similar protests in other cities.
A Twitter account called Occupy Boston mentions a city-wide college walkout there Wednesday.
Meantime, the Massachusetts Nurses Association says “hundreds” of the city’s nurses will rally with the Occupy Boston protesters on Wednesday. The Nurses Association says the protest will be part of the opening day activities for a national nursing convention in Boston.
In New York City, several unions endorsed the Occupy Wall Street movement and plan to join the protesters’ street theater on Wednesday, labor leaders said.’Occupy Wall Street’ protests spread
The voices of #OccupyWallStreet
“It’s really simple. These young people on Wall Street are giving voice to many of the problems that working people in America have been confronting over the last several years,” said Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which has 20,000 members in the New York area.
“These young people are speaking for the vast majority of Americans who are frustrated by the bankers and brokers who have profited on the backs of hard-working people,” Hanley added in a statement. “While we battle it out day after day, month after month, the millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street sit by — untouched — and lecture us on the level of our sacrifice.”
Transport Workers Union Local 100 spokesman Jim Gannon said the Occupy Wall Street movement, which denounces social inequities in the financial system and draws inspiration from the Arab Spring revolutions in Africa and the Middle East, has advanced issues that unions typically support.
“Their goals are our goals,” Gannon said. “They brought a spotlight on issues that we’ve believed in for quite some time now … Wall Street caused the implosion in the first place and is getting away Scot-free while workers, transit workers, everybody, is forced to pay for their excesses.
“These young folks have brought a pretty bright spotlight,” Gannon added. “It’s kind of a natural alliance.”
President Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers, the sole bargaining agent for most nonsupervisory New York City public teachers with 200,000 members, said he was “proud” to support the Occupy demonstrators, who have been camping out in New York and elsewhere across the nation.
“The way our society is now headed it does not work for 99% of people, so when Occupy Wall Street started … they kept to it and they’ve been able to create a national conversation that we think should have been going on for years,” Mulgrew said.
The labor officials couldn’t provide a projection on how many of their members will take the day off from work Wednesday and join the protests.
View a high-resolution gallery of the protests
The demonstrators have bivouacked in the park in New York’s Financial District, calling for 20,000 people to flood the area for a “few months.”
The protest campaign — which uses the hashtag #occupywallstreet on the microblogging site Twitter — began in July with the launch of a simple campaign website calling for a march and a sit-in at the New York Stock Exchange.
Over the past two weeks, demonstrations have addressed various issues, including police brutality, union busting and the economy, the group said.
Open Story: Occupy Wall Street protests
Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless movement made largely of twentysomethings upset with the state of the economy, the state of the war in Afghanistan, the state of the environment, and the state of America and the world in general.
In less than three weeks, the movement has become a magnet for countless disaffected Americans at a time when an overwhelming majority of U.S. adults say the country’s on the wrong track.
Wall Street protesters inspired by Arab Spring movement
Occupy protests have been held in Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston.
Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots have clear strains of liberal economic populism — a powerful force in U.S. history during various times characterized by growing economic stress. That said, it could be a mistake to label or tie the movement to a specific agenda, said Susan Olzak, a Stanford University sociology professor.
“It’s difficult to classify a social protest movement early on in its history,” Olzak told CNN. “Clearer goals could eventually emerge, but there’s no guarantee.”
“Many movements fizzle out. Others become more organized,” she said. But “I think we run a risk (by) taking a snapshot at any one point in time, and trying to categorize the movement in any one way based on that snapshot. The only way to study these protest movements is to follow them over time.”

The president, you may remember, gave a speech this past January in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on how “only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation.” Some consider the speech to be the finest of his presidency, though history is likely to be less kind to it now that we know the president was completely insincere.

Early last week, President Barack Obama sat idly on the same stage while Teamsters president James P. Hoffa told the assembled union crowd, “We’ve got a bunch of people there that don’t want the president to suc­ceed, and they are called the Tea Party. … Let’s take these son of a bitches out, and give America back to America where we belong.”

Hoffa, of course, owes his current position as a powerful union leader to a family legacy of crime and cor­ruption. It may not have been a literal call to violence, but when your name is “Jimmy Hoffa,” you don’t deserve much in the way of the benefit of the doubt. Especially given that the Amer­ican left almost gleefully—and wrong­ly—accused the Tea Party of pulling the trigger in the Giffords shooting. The White House declined to com­ment on whether Hoffa’s remarks were appropriate.

But, believe it or not, that wasn’t the most offensive thing that the White House did last week to suck up to or­ganized labor. Last Thursday, a group of longshoremen in Washington state broke into a port. That’s when things got really ugly according to the Asso­ciated Press: “Hundreds of longshore­men stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the cen­ter of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha. Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours.”

Like most union disputes, getting to the bottom of International Long­shore and Warehouse Union’s (ILWU) grievance is as byzantine a process as programming Satan’s own VCR. Basi­cally, the port had an agreement with the ILWU, but a shipping consortium had recently built new facilities at the port. The shipping company was under the impression that the newly signed lease freed them from having to hire exclusively ILWU workers, and hired another union that negotiated more favorable terms.

It’s not clear whether ILWU has a case, and, if it does, whether the port or the shipping company is to blame for violating the contract. And the shipping company went off and hired union workers, anyway. It does seem clear that this is a matter for the courts to decide, and there’s utterly no justi­fication for violence. There’s a reason it’s called “collective bargaining,” not “collective hostage-taking.”

That was last Thursday. As you might recall, something else of significance happened that day—the presi­dent gave his long-awaited speech roll­ing out a $450 billion jobs package to a joint session of Congress. Shortly be­fore the president’s speech, the White House sent out an email announcing the official guests of the president that would be sitting in the first lady’s box.

Among the names was one Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO. Note that the ILWU is an AFL-CIO af­filiate. Not that it’s likely Trumka was troubled by the ILWU’s conduct— after all, Trumka once shrugged off the murder of a worker in the middle of a mine dispute, saying, “If you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned.” Trumka’s union then fought the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the victim’s wife and children for years.

So just hours after AFL-CIO workers were literally taking hos­tages, Trumka was being honored by the White House. Of course, Trumka figuratively took the Obama White House hostage a longtime be­fore the air in the port of Longview was thick with the heady smell of pepper spray. The AFL-CIO has spent more than $100 million elect­ing Obama and Democrats in the last two election cycles.

 

Obama may have refused to com­ment on union rhetoric last week, but the message came through loud and clear: Write enough campaign checks and unions can talk—and act—as vio­lently as they want to.   

 

From the Weekly Standard – www.weeklystandard.com

Western Washington ports shut down as longshoremen walk off

Labor dispute turns violent in Longview

Union workers at Western Washington ports did not show up for work Thursday due to a labor dispute.

The longshoremen who did not show up to work came after hundreds of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) members stormed a grain terminal at the Port of Longview, the Seattle PI reported.

ILWU volunteers on Wednesday blocked a train “carrying grain to a foreign-owned loading facility in Longview, Washington,” the union said on its website. “Workers took action to protest the failure by big grain companies to honor agreements with the local community to provide good jobs in Longview.”

The union claims police in riot gear arrested protestors and that some protestors were injured in the altercations.

“The Port of Seattle is aware that work is not occurring at our terminals today, as longshore workers are not present.  Port of Seattle terminals are leased to terminal operators who work directly with ILWU for staffing,” Port of Seattle spokesman Peter McGraw said. “We do not know when work will resume.”

The Everett Herald has reported that longshoremen in Everett left the docks Thursday as a show of solidarity.

Steve Ritchie of the ILWU told the Herald that workers believe they are being phased out in favor of automation. He added that the walkout was only for one day.

by Scott Baker
Tommy Christopher at Mediaite reports on a testy exchange between ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney at Tuesday’s White House briefing. Tapper took his time to press Carney on the WH’s response (or lack thereof) to heated comments made by Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa Jr. prior to President Obama’s Labor Day speech in Detroit:
Hoffa’s remarks are the toast of a bone-dry post-Labor Day news cycle, so Carney had to expect questions about it. The briefing was pushed back an hour-and-a-half, time likely spent fine-tuning for an already important messaging day.
The first reporter to ask about Hoffa’s remarks was ABC’s Jake Tapper, who pressed Carney on the President’s January call for civility, and in a heated exchange, tried to get Carney to set a standard for surrogate quote-ownership for the 2012 campaign.
Tapper began by reading President Obama’s January quote, then asked, “Did he mean that?”

On “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning, anchor Gretchen Carlson tried gamely to get DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to address to vitriol at the Obama Labor Day event without much success.

This is the only way they know how – is do the Vile Threat.
Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa had some profane, combative words for Republicans while warming up the crowd for President Obama in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.

“We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war,” Jimmy Hoffa said to a heavily union crowd.

“President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” Hoffa added.

Obama Says He Is “Proud” Of Hoffa After Union Leader’s Remarks 

 

Keep up the Vile Remarks Barry and it will drive you into the Ground

In previous years, Republicans have worked the parade route, but this year they will not be allowed to take part. The parade is organized by local unions, which said Wisconsin Republicans “have openly attacked worker’s rights.”

 

Wisconsin politics — which hasn’t been pretty of late — has made its way into a local Labor Day parade. The organizers of the Wausau Labor Day parade announced they would not let Republican lawmakers take part in the Sept. 5 display. The parade is organized by 30 local unions.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:

In a statement, [Randy Radtke, president of the council,] added that the parade is intended to celebrate working men and women and what the labor movement has given them: weekends, a 40-hour workweek, child labor protection and a safe working environment.

“It should come as no surprise that organizers choose not to invite elected officials who have openly attacked worker’s rights or stood idly by while their political party fought to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain,” Radtke said.

The background, if you don’t remember, is that after a protracted fight in which Democratic lawmakers fled the state, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, managed to pass a law that stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Since the law passed, the state has been embroiled in bitter recall campaigns.

WSAW, a local TV station in central Wisconsin, talked to Republicans:

The Republican Party of Lincoln County says the tradition of a shared event will now end over “petty and short sighted anger toward legally elected officials.”

Republicans are hoping to work with Wausau city officials to resolve the conflict before Labor Day.

 

The campaign should be – get rid of the Unions and turn labor day back to the people.

It seems Wisconsin labor leaders are still fuming over the recent collective bargaining bill signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker. Not only did they try to recall six state senators, but now one county labor council president in Wausau has banned Republican lawmakers from the city’s Labor Day Parade.
That leader, Randy Radtke, is upset GOP lawmakers supported the legislation signed by Republican Governor Scott Walker on issues Walker campaigned on in the 2010 gubernatorial election, where Walker won with 52% of the electorate.
According to WAOW-TV, Radtke says Labor Day is about honoring hard-working people and, in his opinion, “Republicans don’t represent those values:”
It seems Wisconsin labor leaders are still fuming over the recent collective bargaining bill signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker. Not only did they try to recall six state senators, but now one county labor council president in Wausau has banned Republican lawmakers from the city’s Labor Day Parade.
That leader, Randy Radtke, is upset GOP lawmakers supported the legislation signed by Republican Governor Scott Walker on issues Walker campaigned on in the 2010 gubernatorial election, where Walker won with 52% of the electorate.
They only want something to do with us one day out of the year,” Radtke told the outlet. “What about the other 364? What about those? Why now..why this one day?”
WAOW sums it up:
The council president says that after Governor Walker signed the bill, stripping most union workers of their rights to collectively bargain, a bill, he says was pushed through thanks to the support of area Republicans, he decided to ban them from the parade.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, however, Labor Day is about more than unions. Instead, it’s “dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers,“ and that ”it constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”
Gov.Walker signed a two-year $66 billion budget deal in June that will balance the state’s $3 billion shortfall without raising taxes. Democrats and organized labor have criticized the bill Gov. Walker signed in May which they claim eliminates nearly all collective bargaining for public unions.According to the Rockefeller Institute, state government employment has dropped 5.4 percent in Wisconsin over the past year, but local government employment has risen 2.7 percent. Both figures are the largest decrease and gain in each category in the nation.
The Marathon County Central Labor Council sponsors the Wausau Labor Day Parade, and Radtke has indicated that if there were Republicans from Central Wisconsin who supported laborers rights, they would have been invited to walk in the parade. The council is made up of about 30 local unions from the Marathon County area.
“Usually they’ve been in the parade, but it seems like they only want to stand with us one day a year, and the other 364 days they don’t really care,” Radtke told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“It should come as no surprise that organizers choose not to invite elected officials who have openly attacked worker’s rights or stood idly by while their political party fought to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain.”

Snubbed local Republicans include U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, state Sen. Pam Galloway and state Rep. Jerry Petrowski.
Considering the civility that liberal protestors have shown to those who don’t agree with them over the last year in Wisconsin, NewsBusters Tom Blumer asks why Republicans would even want to go:

“After all, memories of death threats (ignored by the broadcast media, of course), other threats, shoving, being chased down and trapped by hecklers, and other items detailed by Brent Bozell six months ago during the ultimately successful attempt to pass Governor Scott Walker‘s budget repair and collective bargaining reform bill are surely fresh in every state GOP legislator’s mind.”
WAOW reports that reactions to the council’s announcement have been mixed:
“‘We’ve had some negative comments but mostly it has been overwhelmingly positive,’ Radtke explains.
William Gau, a Wausau resident says, ‘I can understand the emotions and why the council would be upset. But, I don’t necessarily agree that them limiting the situation is right.’”
The usually fun, family-orientated parade is set for 4:00p.m. September 5.