Chicago FOP standing behind cop on trial for murder...

The FOP is paying for his lawyer. Police unions are a big part of what is wrong with police departments in many communities. Most police are decent people trying to do a difficult job, but it's almost impossible to weed out the bad apples because of police unions. 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The main Chicago police union is standing behind the white officer who was charged this week with first-degree murder for gunning down a black teenager. It is facing a backlash from leaders of the city’s black community as a result.

On its website, the Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), has posted a bail fund appeal for the officer, Jason Van Dyke, who is accused of shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times just six seconds after emerging from his patrol car on a street in Chicago on Oct. 20, 2014. An earlier link on the FOP's front page to a GoFundMe campaign was removed after the fundraising site said it violated a policy against its use by criminal defendants.

The FOP also is paying the lawyer representing Van Dyke, Daniel Herbert, himself a former FOP member the union pays to represent Chicago cops in misconduct cases. Funding such a defense is a common practice among U.S. police unions. 

Obama's War On Coal Update: There Are No Union Mines Left In KY Anymore...

How is that "votin' Democrat" working out for you UMW workers? 

Kentucky coal miners bled and died to unionize.
Their workplaces became war zones, and gun battles once punctuated union protests. In past decades, organizers have been beaten, stabbed and shot while seeking better pay and safer conditions deep underground.
But more recently the United Mine Workers in Kentucky have been in retreat, dwindling like the black seams of coal in the Appalachian mountains.
And now the last union mine in Kentucky has been shut down.[...]
The union era's death knell sounded in Kentucky on New Year's Eve, when Patriot Coal announced the closing of its Highland Mine. The underground mine in western Kentucky employed about 400 hourly workers represented by the United Mine Workers of America.

Hero: Scott Walker wants to abolish unions for federal workers

Walker also wants a national "right-to-work law."

Las Vegas — Seeking to revitalize his presidential campaign, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker plans to focus Monday on weakening labor by proposing to abolish unions for federal workers, create a national "right-to-work law" and eliminate the National Labor Relations Board.
At a Las Vegas manufacturer, he also plans to call for requiring all unions to hold periodic votes so workers can decide whether they should continue to exist, according to his campaign. He will also cancel President Barack Obama's Labor Day order that federal contractors provide paid sick leave and work to end policies requiring some salaried workers to receive overtime — saying in some cases they should get time off instead.
"I will check the power of the big-government special interests, empower individuals, and protect taxpayers," Walker wrote in a paper spelling out his plans.
"It's time to address the problems with collective bargaining in public service rather than tinker around the edges. As president, I will work with Congress to eliminate big-government, federal unions on behalf of the American taxpayer."

Here is another reason to not support Hillary...

Teachers unions support Hillary...

Via Wall Street Journal:

While the media chase the Bernie Sanders rallies, keep your eye on the political crowds that matter. On Saturday the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) endorsed Hillary Clinton—16 months before Election Day.
This counts in the fight for the Democratic Party nomination because the 1.6 million member union boasts it can make a million phone calls and knock on 500,000 doors. Bernie’s Birkenstock irregulars can’t match that political power and money.
The endorsement is even more notable as another sign of Hillary’s left political turn. Democrats in New York and elsewhere have been debating education reform, but by embracing the AFT Mrs. Clinton is choosing the union status quo that opposes school choice and teacher accountability.
Keep reading…

Unions push for $15 minimum wage in L.A., then ask for exemption for themselves...

When restaurants asked for an exemption, the unions strongly opposed it. 

Via LA Times:

Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.
The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.
For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.
But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.
“With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them,” Hicks said in a statement. “This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is a good thing.”

Congratulations: You are footing the bill for federal employees doing union work all day...

Federal and state employees should be banned from unionization.

Via FOX News

When he arrived on Capitol Hill in January, freshman Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., discovered something he had no clue was going on. Hundreds of federal employees spend their entire workday — not doing the business of the government, but working for their unions.
Hice told Fox News he was shocked by what he found.
“Waste on an egregious level by federal employees who are taking taxpayer monies and using it for purposes other than the reason they were hired,” Hice said.
It’s called “official time,” and it was sanctioned into law by Congress in 1978. Lawmakers voted to allow federal employees who are union members to spend part of their day addressing union issues. The reason behind the law: Federal employees are not required to join a union even if they are covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The Civil Service Reform Act was designed to make up the financial gap of unions having to represent employees who did not pay dues, by allowing federal workers to “volunteer” time during their working hours to address grievances, work on collective bargaining and deal with other issues....

Follow Up: How are government employee unions doing in Scott Walker's Wisconsin...

Real change...

KING, Wis. — At the old union hall here on a recent afternoon, Terry Magnant sat at the head of a table surrounded by 18 empty chairs. A members meeting had been scheduled to start a half-hour earlier, but the small house, with its cracked walls and loose roof shingles, was lonely and desolate.
“There used to be a lot more people coming,” said Magnant, a 51-year-old nursing assistant, sighing.
The anti-union law passed here four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more transformative than many had predicted.
Walker had vowed that union power would shrink, workers would be judged on their merits, and local governments would save money. Unions had warned that workers would lose benefits and be forced to take on second jobs or find new careers.
Many of those changes came to pass, but the once-thriving ­public-sector unions were not just shrunken — they were crippled.
Unions representing teachers, professors, trash collectors and other government employees are struggling to stem plummeting membership rolls and retain relevance in the state where they got their start. Keep on reading...

Ambush: Obama's NLRB changes union election rules...

The new rules will allow unions to get a vote before the company has has time to properly react. also, the company could be required to give employee's addresses and emails to union organizers.

 Via Washington Examiner

The NLRB said businesses now have seven days after the board authorizes a workplace election to raise any concerns. It strictly limited the objections employers could raise and said the board’s regional administrators could defer questions about which workers should be allowed to vote until after the election.
The rule, which unions had long wanted, would allow most union elections to be held about two weeks after they are sanctioned, a process that currently can take months. Businesses typically used the interim period to make the case to their workers that unionizing wasn’t in their best interests. Under the new rule, businesses will have little time to do this.
The NLRB also required companies to turn over employee contact information to unions, including personal cell phone numbers and email addresses, regardless of whether the workers authorized the disclosure.

SCOTUS give two narrowly defined wins to the good guys...

Per @scotusblog, The Court recognizes a category of "partial public employees" that cannot be required to contribute union bargaining fees.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 30, 2014

Another narrow victory. "Closely held corporations" (whatever that is) cannot be compelled to provide contraception coverage under RFRA.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 30, 2014

Payback: Obama NLRB about to stack the deck in union elections...

This is what a half a billion in union campaign money will buy you.

Via The Daily Caller:

The Obama administration is poised to change regulations to allow for union “ambush elections” in which workers have less time to decide whether or not to join a union — and in which workers’ phone numbers and home addresses are provided to unions.
The administration’s National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposed rules would allow for union elections — in which workers at a company vote whether or not to unionize — to be held 10 days after a petition is filed. And what, exactly, would be happening to the unions during those 10 days? The new rules require employers to disclose workers’ personal information, including phone numbers, home addresses, and information about when they work their shifts.
Insiders close to the situation believe the new rules will almost certainly go into effect with few or no fundamental changes.
“The members of the Board went through two days of grueling hearings that went into the evening. They asked plenty of probing questions. But I wonder if any minds were changed at all,” Workforce Fairness Institute spokesman Fred Wszolek, who recently testified at an NLRB hearing in opposition to the rule, told The Daily Caller.
Keep on reading…

Stupid: Starving UConn basketball guard Shabazz Napier has access to unlimited food.

Via CNS News

University of Connecticut basketball guard Shabazz Napier says sometimes there’s “hungry nights that we don’t have enough money to get food.”

But all students have “unlimited access” to resident dining units that offer “all-you-care-to-eat.”

“We are definitely best to get a scholarship to our universities, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t cover everything. We do have hungry nights that we don’t have enough money to get food and sometimes money is needed,” Napier told Fox Sports while discussing the National Labor Relations Board ruling that athletes from Northwestern can unionize.

Napier said he understands why some athletes need a union. “Like I said, there are hungry nights that I go to bed and I am starving. So something can change, something should change.”

According to the UConn Student-Athlete Handbook, unlimited access to dining halls is available for students with a meal plan, even for those who live-off campus.

Dennis Pierce, director of Food Services at UConn, tells CNSNews.com that any student-athlete would have the option of choosing from a series of dining services (unlimited, value and custom), but all offer unlimited access during operating hours.

The dining services website for the university notes that “all residence dining units are all-you-care-to-eat facilities.”

Scary: Union president fighting for dozing CTA driver, "We’ve all dozed off driving a train"

This really inspires confidence. 

She is “torn to pieces’’ over the accident, Kelly said, and the union will fight any attempt to terminate her.

“She’s distraught over this. She is not happy with this. We don’t go out and say `Today we’re gonna take a train and ride it up a platform,’” Kelly said

The woman became qualified to operate a CTA train in January and admitted to investigators that she had dozed off and overshot a station just one month later, in February.

Two dozing incidents in two months “sounds bad. It sounds horrible in the public’s eyes,’’ Kelly said. “Each individual is different, and it all depends on what’s going on. Come on. We’ve all dozed off driving a train [or a car]. There’s a difference between dozing and falling asleep, in my opinion.’’

The operator had worked 69 hours in the eight days that ended with the accident shift, Kelly said. The CTA, apparently subtracting for lunch, put the number at 55.7 hours over seven days — still well over a 40-hour work week.

Amusing: Unionized Northwestern U. student athletes could have to pay taxes on their “full rides.”

If they are employees as Obama's NLRB has ruled, their  “full rides” of scholarships, room and board and free healthcare should be taxable as income.

Northwestern U. student athletes initiated the lawsuit and their financial situation provides a good example of what these athletes have to face in the near future.  Should the student athletes at NU become employees, they will face the prospect of having to pay taxes on their incomes.  Currently they enjoy a unique and privileged tax status: while their free college tuition is technically income they do not pay income taxes on it.  They are not only receiving a free ride on tuition but a free ride on the taxes. 
Should they have to pay taxes here’s a thumbnail sketch of how their finances will change.  At NU the tuition is about $65,000 per year.  If the student athletes receive this as pay, then they will have to pay Federal income tax, state income tax, local income taxes, and payroll taxes; which include social security and Medicare.  These are taxes paid by other residents of Evanston, Illinois where Northwestern U. is located. 
These amounts are not trivial and will add up to approximately one third of the value of the scholarship, roughly $22,000 per year.  Then they will also no longer receive free health care.  Currently most universities with big football programs also have medical schools and it is economical for them to provide free health care to their student athletes.  In the near future NU athletes may have to pay for their own ObamaCare health premiums.  But given that President Obama is fond of college basketball their union may receive an exemption from participating in ObamaCare. 
And since they are members of a union they will have to pay union dues.  This will bring the cost of being an employee to roughly $26K to $28K a year.

Laborers’ International Union president: if Obamacare is not fixed, then “it needs to be repealed.”

Obama is quickly losing labor support for his train wreck signature piece of legislation. Frankly speaking, they were idiots to support it in the 1st place. They trusted Obama and democrats to give them a sweet deal, but the quick underhanded way democrats had to pass the law didn't allow the time. 

(CNSNews.com) – Terry O’Sullivan, president of the 600,000-plus-member Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), often referred to as the Laborers’ Union, said that if Obamacare is not fixed, then “it needs to be repealed.”
At a convention in Las Vegas of the AFL-CIO, with which the Laborers’ Union is affiliated,  O’Sullivan took to the podium to endorse a proposition and then launched into a criticism of Obamacare, how it is hurting union members’ health coverage, and demanded it be fixed, adding that if it is not fixed, labor will make the issue a “big fricking deal.”
“If the Affordable Care Act is not fixed, and it destroys the health and welfare funds that we have all fought for and stand for, then I believe it needs to be repealed,” said O’Sullivan. “We don’t want it repealed, we want it fixed, fixed, fixed, and I commend Richard Trumka and the AFL-CIO for leading that charge. ”
Keep on reading…

Change: 40,000 International Longshore and Warehouse Union members quit AFL-CIO over Obamacare...

It's good to see some union members wise up. Obama and Democrats want their money, but don't really have their back.

Via Breitbart:

In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation's largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation.

In an August 29 letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, ILWU President Robert McEllrath cited quite a list of grievances as reasons for the dissolution of their affiliation, but prominent among them was the AFL-CIO's support of Obamare.

"We feel the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along," McEllrath wrote in the letter to Trumka.

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...

Interesting: Wisconsin's largest teacher's union has lost half it's membership since workers aren't forced to join...

Other public employee unions haven't fared any better. 

Via EAGNews:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says one of the goals behind Act 10, his landmark legislation that clipped the power of most public sector unions, was to give workers more freedom to decide if they wanted to belong to a union.
He’s apparently accomplished his mission. Several of the largest public sector unions in the state have lost thousands of members over the past few years, and a great deal of wealth and political power, as well.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, lost about half of its 98,000 members since Act 10 became law in 2011, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
That means WEAC has lot approximately half of its annual income from membership dues, which has impacted its ability to remain a force on the state political scene.

Shameful: Unions harassing non-union Hurricane Sandy clean-up crews...

Is there a good union anywhere in America anymore? 

Via Daily Caller:

Unionized local employees repeatedly harassed and intimidated non-union workers of a private disaster cleanup firm that won a government contract to restore Long Island, New York, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

The vice president of the union even made threats against the wife and kids of one of the workers. That worker felt it necessary to call the police and pursue other security measures to protect his family, a source told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

After Hurricane Sandy devastated the New York and New Jersey shoreline in late October, Looks Great Services (LGS) won a bid to haul away debris, clear roads, and remove damaged trees. New York’s Nassau County hired the company to complete $70 million worth of repairs.

Soon thereafter, representatives of Local 138, a union representing heavy equipment operators, began visiting construction sites, demanding that the company hire unionized employees to help with the job.

But LGS was paying its workers — some of whom came from out of state — market-based wages, rather than union wages, in compliance with federal law regarding disaster recovery jobs.
“If the contract is union, we are union, if it’s not, we’re not,” said Kristian Agoglia, president of LGS, in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.
His answer didn’t satisfy the union, which began making inflammatory statements to workers at LGS construction sites. [...]

Shameful: Trustees of $600 million underfunded Detroit school pension fund jetting to Hawaii for conference...

This story is typical of what's wrong with Detroit and public employees unions in general...

Four trustees of Detroit’s two public pension funds are heading to a Hawaiian beach resort this weekend with their $22,000 tab paid for by the funds, which are mired in claims of mismanagement and said to be at least $600 million underfunded.

Trustees say the conference provides the education they need to manage complex investments for the funds’ retirees and beneficiaries. But other major public pension systems, including the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions, avoided sending their officials to Hawaii because of concerns the exotic locale sends the wrong message at a time when pensions nationwide are contemplating or implementing reduced benefits to cope with rising retirement costs and shaky investment returns.

Records obtained by the Free Press under the Freedom of Information Act show the expenses cover airfare — including a first-class flight for one trustee — lodging at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort in Honolulu, registration fees, meals and a per diem for miscellaneous expenses. Keep on reading...

Amusing: Union health plans to get hit with 40% Obamacare tax...

Karma baby...

Via Washington Secrets:

Deep in the list of taxes that the president’s Obamacare plan will hit Americans with is a 40 percent excise tax on health plans typical union members have, especially in Midwest states, according to a new analysis.

The Obamacare tax won’t take place until 2018, but when it does it will smack high cost, or so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans, according to the group Americans for Tax Reform.
“This tax will most directly affect union families and early retirees, who are likely to be covered by such plans,” said ATR in a review of upcoming tax cuts in the health reform package set to go into effect in January. It will target plans whose premiums exceed exceed $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family.

Keep on reading…