Free Republic

<p>Matt Brandon, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents the aviation police officers, said he doesn’t understand why the officers are prohibited from carrying guns.</p> <p>He said the union has been unable to get the aviation department to change the no gun policy, which dates to the early 1990s.</p>

Kadner: Union tells retirees to repay pension Phil Kadner October 30, 2013 Imagine a retired man going to his mailbox one morning and finding a letter informing him that a mistake has been made in his pension payments and he owes more than $100,000. No joke. And it’s not some scam. “I darn near had a heart attack,” recalled Ron Kosinski, 79, a former sheet metal worker who was notified that he owes $105,500. His union, Sheet Metal Workers Local 73, miscalculated his pension payments when he retired 17 years ago. In fact, dating to 1974, the union’s pension fund...

It's not every day that an American labor union gets investigated for possible ties to two of the world's most lethal terrorist organizations. But Chicago's Service Employees International Union Local 73 isn't an everyday union. Last September 24, FBI agents raided residences in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan of more than a dozen radical activists in an effort to connect them to the Hamas (Gaza and the West Bank) and FARC (Colombia) guerrilla movements. Two of the occupants were SEIU Local 73 chief steward and executive board member Joe Iosbaker and former local board member-steward Tom Burke. Neither they nor anyone else has...