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.”

Unionized IRS employees in Cincinnati gave a pass to a labor 501(c)(3)?

Is anyone surprised?

Via Fox News:

The Restaurant Opportunities Center has slipped IRS scrutiny, and critics of the nonprofit are asking why.

A complaint filed by a coalition of restaurant owners with the federal tax authority alleges the 501(c)(3) labor nonprofit has received special treatment.

Florida Watchdog has obtained a copy of ROC’s tax exempt acceptance letter, dated June 1, 2010, and approved by Robert Choi, director of exempt organizations at the Cincinnati office of the Internal Revenue Service.

The Cincinnati office is blamed for much of the harassment and delay tactics incurred by conservative groups applying for similar tax exempt treatment, which is no fault of ROC.
What is of concern, according to a coalition of restaurant owners and workers calling itself the Restaurant Opportunities Center Exposed, is the multi-state “union front” continues to slip by the watchful eye of the IRS.

“It does raise the question of whether they’re receiving a pass because they’re ideologically in line with the administration. But we’ll have to see if the IRS will now investigate. We’ve presented them with some pretty strong documentation of lobbying and we’ve juxtaposed that with filings the IRS already has in their possession,” said Mike Paranzino, communications director for ROC Exposed.

Keep on reading…

Congressional testimony: ICE union chief Crane lays the smack-down on Gang of Eight immigration reform plan (Video)

Awesome...

“Never before have I seen such contempt for law enforcement officers as what I’ve seen from the Gang of Eight,”

The sad part is this guy is a union chief and likely voted for Obama...

Change: Union calls for repeal of Obamacare...

Obamacare was so poorly considered the unintended consequences are numerous...

United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers:

Our Union and its members have supported President Obama and his Administration for both of his terms in office.

But regrettably, our concerns over certain provisions in the ACA have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored. In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.

These provisions jeopardize our multi-employer health plans, have the potential to cause a loss of work for our members, create an unfair bidding advantage for those contractors who do not provide health coverage to their workers, and in the worst case, may cause our members and their families to lose the benefits they currently enjoy as participants in multi-employer health plans.

For decades, our multi-employer health and welfare plans have provided the necessary medical coverage for our members and their families to protect them in times of illness and medical needs. This collaboration between labor and management has been a model of success that should be emulated rather than ignored. I refuse to remain silent, or idly watch as the ACA destroys those protections.

I am therefore calling for repeal or complete reform of the Affordable Care Act to protect our employers, our industry, and our most important asset: our members and their families.

NEA teachers' union loses 70,000 members in one year...

Somehow this is good news for them because they expected to lose 130,000 teachers...

Via EIA:

This passes for good news these days when it comes to union membership, but the National Education Association is down 70,000 members compared with this point last year. The reason it is relatively good news is because the union budgeted for a loss of 130,000 teachers and 10,000 education support employees in the 2012-13 school year.

Amusing: SEIU staff threatening to strike...

Union management is demanding concessions on their pensions and health care. Does this sound familiar? 

Via Red State: 

There’s nothing more embarrassing for union bosses than their own unionized staff striking against them or, in this case, threatening to strike.

In San Francisco, SEIU staff, represented by the left-wing Communications Workers of America, has been without a contract since their contract expired last September.

SEIU boss Roxanne Sanchez, according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, is trying to get her union staff to give concessions on their pensions and health care.

Last week, after months without a contract, 94% of the SEIU’s own union staff voted to strike.

After several cancelled negotiating sessions between the two sides (which haven’t met since our story was published), CWA last week called for a strike authorization vote that was approved by 94 percent of voting members. CWA Area Director Libby Sayre and Nick Peraino, a CWA shop steward at Local 1021, say the vote repudiates Sanchez’s characterization that it is a small but vocal group that is unhappy with management.

“We’re very much united in our position and our willingness to do what it takes to get a decent contract,” Peraino told us. Sayre told the Guardian, “There is widespread sentiment they’re being low-balled by management.”

Keep on reading…

Firefighters may face discipline after appearing in Obama sequestration propaganda event...

The firefighters may be disciplined, but their union shares much of the responsibility.  Unions have become evil.

Via NBC:

Three local firefighters are facing possible disciplinary action after appearing with President Barack Obama during a press event.

Earlier this week the president was flanked by first responders as he spoke about the impact of sequestration. Kenneth Ellerbe, chief of D.C.’s Fire and Emergency Medical Service Department, told NBCWashington.com the three members of DCFEMS who participated in the event may have violated department regulations.

“I didn’t know about it, the deputy mayor didn’t know about it, the mayor didn’t know about it,” Ellerbe said. “There should be protocol followed anytime one of our employees representing the District of Columbia appears at a public event.”
Ellerbe says the three have each been ordered to file a special report on the event detailing how they came to appear with the president and who authorized it.

“How did they get there, why were they there and why didn’t we know about it before?” Ellerbe said.

Ed Smith, president of Local 36 of the firefighters union, said his office facilitated the appearance by the firefighters. “The request came through the International Association of Firefighters,” Smith said, adding that it’s not the first time D.C. firefighters have been asked to appear with the president.

But he said, it’s the first time it’s been an issue. “We’ve done this before. I would hope it doesn’t come to any discipline. They were supporting our president,” he said.

Keep on reading…

Blogger Sharp Elbows Infiltrates Union Protest With Sign (Video)

Blogger Sharp Elbows crashed a union protest for higher taxes at Roy Blunt's Office.

The sign said,

 “I Gotta FEEVAH & Only Prescription Is MORE DEBT”

Hilarity ensues...

Wisconsin Union Busting Law Saves School $1.9 Million

The Kaukauna School District in Wisconsin went from a $400 thousand deficit to a $1.5 million surplus because of the changes to public employee bargaining law in Wisconsin. They also reduced classroom sizes. Democrats claimed the changes a catastrophe. Schools need more catastrophes like this.

(Byron York) - The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it’s all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they’ll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to board President Todd Arnoldussen.

Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn’t Kaukauna’s money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?

“The monetary part of it is not the entire issue,” says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna’s outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.

In the past, Kaukauna’s agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust — a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. “It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them,” says Arnoldussen. “Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor.” This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. “With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, ‘We can match the lowest bid,’”... Read more here.

Union whistle-blowers beaten, dead rats put in their lockers

The whistle-blowers weren't blowing the whistle on company corruption. The corruption was in their own union. Unions have long outlived their usefulness. Most unions nowadays are only interested in padding the unions pockets.

(NYDN) — Unionized phone company employees say they were beaten or threatened after they accused their labor bosses of looting their coffers through various scams.

One member of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1101 said that after he reported a time-sheet padding scheme, a thug beat him so badly his spine was injured.

Another says he found a dead rat in his locker, while a third said a union officer warned that suspected informants should be brought off company property and “taken care of.”

The threats come to light as the U.S. Labor Department is probing charges that union bosses lined their pockets at the rank-and-file’s expense.

Union official, university professor caught on tape advocating violence and “overthrow of the bourgeois”

This video is shocking. Be careful where you send your kids for an education.

Oh My! Union Leader Pledges “Thousands of Dead Bodies” If Republicans Attempt Wisconsin-Style Union Reforms

Can you imagine a business saying something this outrageous?

“And to the Republican party of Massachusetts, if you think this is gonna happen here, it is going to be over thousands of dead people’s bodies. If you think Wisconsin was anything, we need to stop these guys in their tracks now and kill their bills at the State house.”

Shameful: Union Thugs Harass WI Tea Party Rally (video)

The Tea Partiers were collecting signatures to recall Democratic State Senator Holperin. They were overrun by Holperin supporters who used bullhorns, wrote profanity and tore up a petition.

Another Union Thug Assaults a Teapartier

 What eve happened to the new civility? Are only Conservatives expected to be civil?

KXTV-TV: An amateur videographer caught a shoving match on tape. The video showed a face to face argument right before Richard Andazola, 28, of Stockton, shoved a tea party activist.

“He bum rushed across the street, came right at us, swung his bullhorn at me, hit me in the hand and then put his hand around my throat and started choking me,” Rodney Stanhope of Placerville said.

The video doesn’t show the choking incident, but clearly shows the shoving. Because of it, Sacramento Police officers cited Andazola for battery…(Read more)

Angry Union Thug Arrested For Trying To Disable Tea Party Sound System In Wisconsin

There are lots of good people who are union members. I am married to one. The union members in the streets of Madison don't appear to be in that number. 

Obama's Organizing for America Instigating Teacher Unrest in Wisconsin

When you pull back the curtain on teacher protests in Wisconsin, you find Barack Obama's Organizing for America has been busy.

(Politico)- The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America arm — the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign — is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.

OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marraige, but it’s riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker’s plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA’s engagement with the fight — and Obama’s own clear stance against Walker — mean that he’s remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.

As an example, employees nationwide paid 13%~27% (see page 5) of the cost of their employer sponsored health care. Wisconsin teachers currently pay only 4%~6%.

UAW plans to tap strike fund in order to organize transplant automakers

The UAW has lost 1.1 million members since 1979. They are part of the reason taxpayers had to bail out GM and Chrysler. Now, they want to bring that pain to the transplant automakers such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan.

Also, the Wall Street Journal reported today that King is willing to tap the union’s $800-million strike fund for its push to organize hourly factory workers at foreign-owned car plants.

In December, King told the Free Press the union plans to begin with a friendly, cooperative approach to non-unionized automakers, but has made preparations for resistance.

Obama Administration Giving Corrupt Unions a Free Pass

The last Office of Labor Management report on union corruption dates back to the Bush administration. A report was supposed to be released in January 2010, but Team Obama has failed to do so.

(Daily Caller)- The Office of Labor Management Statistics (OLMS) was supposed to release an annual report tracking labor unions and evidence of corruption in union leadership in January 2010 but still hasn’t released the document.

OLMS, which falls under the Department of Labor, has released no such tracking report since George W. Bush’s administration, something that has the conservative nonprofit organization Americans for Limited Government (ALG) up in arms. ALG filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the 2009 report, and OLMS denied the group’s request by saying it needed more time to complete the report. Originally, however, those reports were publicly available on the OLMS website.

Truth Revealed: Nurses Union Was Behind Illegal Alien Maid’s Attack on Meg Whitman

It figures. California Nurses Association union was behind the maids attack on failed GOP California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported:

One of the most tantalizing mysteries in California’s 2010 gubernatorial election involved the connection between one of the state’s poorest women and one of its wealthiest.

How did an undocumented, Mexican-born housekeeper, Nicandra Diaz Santillan, end up in the national spotlight, boldly confronting her former boss, billionaire GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman?

The short answer: with the help of a union.

The longer answer is that at the height of the gubernatorial race, as campaign ads blared on Spanish-language television, the aggrieved housekeeper was determined to tell Californians her story of being abruptly fired by Whitman after nearly a decade on the job.

In early September, Diaz turned to a friend who knew a member of the powerful, Oakland-based California Nurses Association, The Chronicle has learned.

The union called in two lawyers for Diaz: Marc Van Der Hout, a longtime immigration attorney in San Francisco, and celebrity feminist attorney Gloria Allred, a fierce workplace rights litigator who arranged for Diaz to tell her story in a live-webcast news conference.

Asked to confirm her organization’s role in Diaz’s case, Rose Ann DeMoro, the nurses union executive director, said Monday, “I won’t deny it, but I prefer not to comment directly on the case.

Defeated Demo Iowa Gov. Culver Gets Even With Voters

He approved a union contract for some state employees without even negotiating. Gov. Culver accepted the first offer from the AFSCME. Culver lost by 10% November 2nd to former Republican Governor Terry Branstad. Gov. Culver's payback will cost Iowans over $100 million in the first year.

13WHOTV-Iowa union workers will see multiple pay raises over the next two years under a contract proposal approved by Governor Culver.

In a rare move Governor Culver accepted AFSCME's contract proposal as submitted and with no negotiation.