AFL-CIO can't decide if they want to endorse more corruption or more socialism in the Demo primary...

Well, the AFL-CIO is in favor of both.

Via Talking Points Memo:

In a win for Bernie Sanders, the AFL-CIO is delaying making it’s endorsement in the surprisingly close Democratic presidential primary.
The news of the decision came in an email from Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, to the union’s executive council. It was first reported by The Huffington Post Wednesday. A vote had been expected next week at the union’s annual winter meeting in San Diego.
“Following recent discussion at the AFL-CIO’s Executive Committee meeting and subsequent conversations with many of you, I have concluded that there is broad consensus for the AFL-CIO to remain neutral in the presidential primaries for the time being and refrain from endorsing any candidate at this moment,” Trumka said in the email.
Keep on reading…

West Virginia AFL-CIO is really upset over proposed right-to-work law.

If unions would provide a valuable service to their members, they wouldn't have to worry about right-to-work laws.  Instead, they just take the members money like a farmer would milk a cow.

Via Daily Caller:

A political advocacy group is calling out the leadership of a West Virginia union for attacking a new right-to-work proposal.
Since the midterm election, the Republican majority within the state government has been proposing ideas to help improve the struggling economy. Among these ideas is a right-to-work bill which was introduced Tuesday. However, leadership within the local AFL-CIO quickly condemned the idea with some fairly harsh words.

 If the bill passes, West Virginia will become the 25^th state to outlaw forced unionization as a condition of employment.

“They’re f—ing liars,” West Virginia AFL-CIO president Kenny Perdue told the Charleston Daily Mail.
“Workplace freedom is a line of BS,” he continued. “It has nothing to do with workplace freedom. It’s employer freedom to do at will what they want to do to employees — that’s all it is.”
Keep on reading…

Change: Firefighters union rebels against AFL-CIO because they are too liberal...

Good for the Firefighters union.

Via The Washington Times:

The AFL-CIO needs to stick with representing workers and stop trying to take on social causes for the far left, said the union head for the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Harold Schaitberger, who presides over the IAFF, said there is “great value” in aligning with political groups — but only as a secondary mission, he told The Hill. And the AFL-CIO’s recent push to bring in environmental groups and progressive-minded organizations to the union cause is leading the IAFF to express concerns about politics becoming the priority, over the representation of members.

“To say that we are going to grow this labor movement by some kind of formal partnership, membership, status, place in this federation, I am against. This is the American Federation of Labor. We are supposed to be representing workers and workers’ interests,” Mr. Schaitberger said in The Hill. “We are not going to be the American Federation of Progressive and Liberal Organizations.”

After helping Obama pass Obamacare, the AFLO-CIO is not happy the law applies to them

Karma, baby...

LOS ANGELES — Unions, after a contentious and difficult process, are on the cusp of issuing formal criticism of ObamaCare at the AFL-CIO convention.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council is expected to consider a resolution, subject to fierce internal debate, that will call for changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — setting up a potential floor vote this Wednesday before the convention closes. Frustration has grown within labor as the Obama administration has failed to offer a fix to temper union worries over the law.
A copy of the draft resolution, obtained by The Hill, praises aspects of ObamaCare and states that the AFL-CIO supports the law’s goal of providing healthcare coverage for all. But the four-page document lays out a laundry list of complaints against ObamaCare — at times taking aim at the administration.
The draft resolution says that “federal agencies administering the ACA” are “threatening the ability of workers to keep health care coverage through some collectively bargained, non-profit health care funds” under their interpretation of the law.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka admits businesses are trimming worker hours to avoid ObamaCare

Reality has set in for AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

RICHARD TRUMKA, PRESIDENT AFL-CIO: The Affordable Care Act does need some modifications to it, because as it does right now, what's happening is, you have employers that the law says if you pay your, if your employees work 30 hours or more a week, you've got to give them healthcare. So they're restructuring their workforce to give workers 29 and a half hours so they don't have to provide them healthcare. They’re also doing some taxing to nonprofit plans to pay for for-profit plans.

Amusing: AFL-CIO in Harry Reid's home state upset they can't keep their insurance plan under Obamacare....

You reap what you sow. They supported Harry Reed and Obamacare to the hilt, but it's fun to watch them cry a river...

WHEREAS, for two years we have sought from the Administration and Congress interpretations to the ACA that merely allows us keep the health plans we currently have: nothing more, nothing less. No special treatment. To date, the Administration has postured on proposals to address the problem, but no proposal to date will actually solve the problem. Our health plans only get worse;
WHEREAS, as a result of Administration inaction to fix the problem, the unintended consequences of the ACA will lead to the destruction of the 40 hour work week, higher taxes and force union members onto more costly plans–eventually destroying the Taft-Hartley Funds completely;
WHEREAS, we are only looking to keep the healthcare plans we have. Nothing more. Nothing less. We are not asking for any special treatment, no additions to what is currently provided by our Taft-Hartley Plans, merely to be allowed to keep the plans we have worked hard to secure for the 65 years we have been governed by the Taft-Hartley law; Read more here...

Shameful: AFL-CIO chief takes White House to task for supporting Walmart5 hiring veterans...

Trumka should be ashamed to pose in front of our flag

As if we needed another reason to dislike the AFL-CIO...

Via NRO:

From the “What On Earth Where They Thinking?” files: Union boss Rich Trumka, head of the powerful AFL-CIO, has taken the White House to task for the president’s support of a Walmart program to expedite hiring of military veterans,according to the Hill. Seriously.

You may recall that, in January, Walmart announced a hiring initiative to provide jobs (at least part-time) to any veteran who passed a basic background check. Iwrote supportively of the program at the time.

It may not be a comprehensive and enduring answer to the problem of veterans’ unemployment, but it’s a start, and it’s driven entirely by private-sector initiative. To their credit, the Obama administration offered praise for Walmart’s effort.

Enter Trumka with his ham-handed critique of this well-meaning initiative. Why would a union leader go on record criticizing a veterans’ hiring initiative? Could it be that he has a personal axe to grind with Walmart because they haven’t caved to his every demand? Either way, we wondered if maybe something had been lost in translation, so we checked out Trumka’s full statement at the AFL-CIO website.

Keep Shameful: on reading…

Sad: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka plays the race card on white union members who didn't vote for Obama in 2008

AFL-CIO members should revolt and fire Richard Trumka's sorry butt...

(Reuters) - ... A quarter of AFL-CIO members did not vote for Obama in 2008.

"Some of this I think was pure racism," said Trumka. "Some of them would be gun owners, some of them would be right-wing. Some of them would be ... died-in-the-wool Republicans."

Democrats acknowledge that Obama is unlikely to capture the white male vote, but say he can be re-elected if he minimizes the damage because of his huge edge with black and Hispanic voters.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: Complete Freedom is a Really Bad Idea...

To AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, “freedom” is a right-wing catch phrase. He is afraid freedom means people can choose to not join his union.

Via Beltway Confidential:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has a 4th of July-themed column in the Huffington Post musing on the word freedom and how it is interpreted by the Republican Party. His conclusion is that they use the word to con people.

Let’s call this right-wing “freedom” catch phrase what it really is: a grossly political strategy to dupe the public, which holds the word “freedom” as something sacred.

According to Trumka, giving people or groups complete discretion in how they conduct their affairs is a bad idea because they might make the wrong decision. That is, they might decide to do something that Trumka thinks is a bad idea, such as opting out of Social Security.

Keep on reading…

Good news: AFL-CIO cutting funding to Obama campaign

Rats abandon a sinking ship...

Via Washington Whispers:

The AFL-CIO has told Washington Whispers it will redeploy funds away from political candidates smack dab in the middle of election season, the latest sign that the largest federation of unions in the country could be becoming increasingly disillusioned with President Obama.

The federation says the shift has been in the works for months, and had nothing to do with the president’s failure to show in Wisconsin last week, where labor unions led a failed recall election of Governor Scott Walker.

“We wanted to start investing our funds in our own infrastructure and advocacy,” AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein told Whispers. “There will be less contributions to candidates,” including President Obama.

While there were “a lot of different opinions” about whether Obama should have gone to Wisconsin, according to Goldstein, “this is not a slight at the president.”

The AFL-CIO has been at odds with the president before Wisconsin on issues such as the public health insurance option and renewing the Bush tax cuts.

The shift in funding is significant due to the federation’s role in past presidential campaigns, where the AFL-CIO built up a massive political structure in the months leading up the election, including extensive “Get Out The Vote” efforts, as well as financial contributions.

Keep on reading…

Obvious: AFL-CIO super-PAC uses Communist affiliated name

President Obama seen nodding in approval.

Via Media Tracker:

Workers’ Voices, a front group for the AFL-CIO, has been billed as the “largest union super-PAC,” even though its own website declares it is not an exclusively union-oriented organization. “Workers’ Voice represents and fights for all working families, union and non-union,” the site proclaims. [...]

Their name, however, may not be the best-conceived political label for a group seeking to sway voter opinion in an election. As it turns out, Workers’ Voices is a fairly routine and common name for propaganda newspapers and broadsides affiliated with the Communist Party. In Detroit, a group calling itself the Communist Voice Organization has for a long time published the Detroit Workers’ Voice. Worker’s Voice was also the name of an Irish newspaper with ties to the Communist Party there. Other Communist Party groups in other nations have also used the name frequently.

Keep on reading…

AFL-CIO Chief rips Obama a new one over Colombia Free Trade Agreement

The AFL-CIO endorsed Obama before they even knew with certainty who the GOP candidate would be. Unionist and liberals shouldn't worry too much. They will be holding hands with Democrats and singing Cumbayá come election time.

Via WaPo:

Last month, the AFL-CIO endorsed Obama, quieting all the talk about any rift or lingering differences between the President and organized labor. Many Dems hope enthusiastic union support will help Obama limit losses among blue collar whites in the swing states — something that could prove decisive in the 2012 election.

Those hopes may have hit another snag: That rift has cracked open a bit once again.

In an interview just now, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka ripped into Obama for taking a key step this weekend towards the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement — which Trumka claimed would have domestic political ramifications for Obama. Trumka said continuing betrayal of labor would make it harder to turn out supporters this fall and was already muddying Obama’s efforts to draw a sharp contrast with Mitt Romney over who represents the 99 percent.

“The more these things happen, where workers interests are subjugated to other interests, it has a cumulative effect, making it harder for us to energize our members and get them out in the numbers necessary in the fall,” Trumka told me.

“The candidates have to decide whether they represent the 99 percent or the one percent,” Trumka continued. “Each time this happens, it obscures the clearness with which the president represents the 99 percent.”

Keep on reading…

Great News: The AFL-CIO may be coming to your door to tell you how great Obama is

If the AFL-CIO comes to my door, they should be prepared to be told to get their butts back on the street immediately.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Labor unions, saying they can’t hope to compete with the new breed of conservative fundraising groups, plan to spend less money this year on specific candidates and political party organizations and more on door-to-door canvassing, phone banks and registration drives to help President Barack Obama and other Democrats.

The shift, outlined at the AFL-CIO’s annual executive council meeting near Disney World, marks a change from two years ago, when roughly two-thirds of organized labor’s campaign spending went to political parties and candidates.

“We’re not going to ever raise anything like the kind of money that our opponents have,” said AFL-CIO political director Mike Podhorzer. “But the power of people talking to each other, friends talking to friends, friends talking to neighbors is always going to trump these cheap negative ads.”

Unions hope to take advantage of a landmark 2010 Supreme Court case allowing union campaign workers to stop at the home of any voter — not just those of union members. That’s the same ruling that allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited cash in support of, or against, candidates for elected office.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: Best way to Create Jobs is raising Taxes

President Obama is seen nodding in approval. The rest of us are dumbfounded.

(Yahoo! News) — What’s the best way to get Americans back to work?

Raise taxes, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Specifically, he wants to raise the federal gas tax as a means to fund infrastructure spending. “We need a dedicated source of revenue to create infrastructure in this country,” he tells Aaron Task in the accompanying clip.

“We need to create jobs. The best way to do that is through infrastructure development.” Simply maintaining the existing infrastructure in this country will cost $2.2 trillion over five years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. That doesn’t include Obama’s objective of high-speed rails and green energy projects.

AFL-CIO Hands Out "Made in China" Hard Hats

In what has to be one of the most embarrassing chapters in the history of the AFL-CIO union, they handed out "Made in China" hard hats to every office on capitol Hill. The should file a grievance against themselves.

From Politico:

The AFL-CIO is passing around these hard hats today to every office on Capitol Hill. Check out where they're made:

They are also passing around this cardboard hammer which says, "another bad corporate tool to beat down workers." Plus, there's a booklet detailing "the truth about the Employee Free Choice Act." (Card Check.) “Everyone should have the right to join the union,” the group says when they drop the goodies off, according to sources.