Free Republic

HERE WE GO. The game's afoot. In 2007, a critical factor which torpedoed illegal alien amnesty was the failure of labor unions and the business lobby to reach a deal on a "guest worker" program. Now, the New York Times is reporting that the sinister cabal of the AFL-CIO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have reached a "deal". That's right, just what America's 20 million unemployed and underemployed need - MORE foreign workers to take MORE jobs and undercut wages even further. The Chamber could not give a damn if illegal aliens destroy American jobs and bankrupt schools, hospitals and...

No halftime show at Super Bowl 2014? That’s the word, according to planners who say the weather may prevent appearances at matchup XLVIII, set for New Jersey. “It’s because of the cold weather,” said one involved with next year’s Super Bowl planning, in a New York Post report. “It’s not only the acts and the singers, but also the crews that have to put the stage together. … You just can’t assemble the stage and break it down fast enough in the cold.”

Administration puts an expensive end to a disgraceful episodeGeneral Motors will no longer be “Government Motors.” The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced its intention to liquidate federal holdings in the automobile company over the next 15 months. The final tally will show this policy has been a disaster for taxpayers. Under the best case scenario, the public will wind up shelling out more than $13 billion by the close of this unfortunate episode. Though President Obama has portrayed the GM bailout as saving Detroit, it was really a reward for the auto unions. It was a celebration of bad management...

The media immediately accused the accuser, defaming me and supported the union thugs in intimidating/stifling free speech. This unedited footage REMOVES ALL DOUBT as to what happened that day. Please share to shine a light!

This article analyzes the history of labor union violence, and how Rep. Capuano's comments are a perfect continuation of this historical truth. Labor Unions: A History of Murder and Sabotage The New American 28 February 2011 The raging union-led protests in Wisconsin have resulted in many Americans taking a closer, more critical look at labor unions and their political clout and influence in shaping policy. With the ubiquitous announcement from AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka that he is granted an audience at the White House “nearly every day,” the American people have become more skeptical of unions and the role...

The four areas where organized crime reigns in America -- New York City, Dirty Jersey, Chicagoland and South Florida -- also account for the lion's share of corruption convictions by federal prosecutors against local officials as reported by Joe Palazzolo for The Wall Street Journal Law Blog. The U.S. Department of Justice has released the number of corruption convictions its prosecutors have won against public servants over the last ten years across the 93 federal judicial districts into which the country is divided, and at the top of the list is New Jersey with 429 convictions. Third on the list...

A federal court judge sentenced the former president of the Cincinnati Organized and Dedicated Employees union to more than four years in prison, Local 12 reported. Diana Frey pleaded guilty to stealing more than $750,000 from the union that covers mid-level managers in Cincinnati government. Frey has 60 days to report to prison. She has already repaid a small amount, but the court ordered Frey to repay the remaining $740,000 she embezzled. Prosecutors said Frey took money from three union accounts and used it to support a “more lavish lifestyle than she otherwise could afford.” Frey was also sentenced to...

APPLETON, Wis. - An Appleton native is the creator of the iconic "blue fist" graphic in the shape of Wisconsin used in spring protests at the state Capitol. Graphic artist Carrie Worthen graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She now lives and works in Los Angeles, but she kept in touch with members of the AFL-CIO and, in February, the union asked her to take the germ of the fist idea and make it stand out. "To me it needed to be bold and clear and loud and simple," Worthen told Wisconsin Public Radio.

Across the country, the interests of organized labor, elected officials and taxpayers are colliding over wages, work rules and the astronomical costs of retiree pensions and health care. As important as these specific issues are to resolve, there is another, more fundamental problem causing so many Americans to lose faith in their government: It is not government unions per se but progressive government itself—long celebrated in Wisconsin, New York and elsewhere—that no longer produces progressive results. In the early 20th century, the progressives championed a rule-based approach to public-sector management that was a big step forward from the cronyism and...

Organized labor is deeply worried about what happens after Tuesday. By many measures, labor unions have been the Republicans’ fiercest, biggest-spending opponents in this year’s campaign, laying out more than $200 million in hopes of safeguarding the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. So it should be no surprise that Republicans, who appear to stand a good chance of winning control of the House or Senate, are signaling that they plan to push bills and strategies to undermine labor’s political clout and ability to grow. “Republicans are likely to pursue a version of what Samuel Gompers often said: ‘Reward...

St. Paul employees targeted for discipline following allegations they were loafing on the job instead of filling potholes are getting less-harsh penalties than the city had initially announced, records show. Of the 59 days of suspension the city announced against 17 workers in May, a mere five days of suspension-without-pay have actually been served, according to city records, which are not being released for all 17 workers because the process isn't over. In May, Mayor Chris Coleman made the announcement, billed as the largest disciplinary action in the city's history, following a flap when TV cameras in March filmed pothole-patching...

Ground Zero Mosque: A grass-roots movement among construction workers and unions asks Cordoba mosque supporters: Who do you expect to build it? The same people who built the World Trade Center perhaps? In real estate, it's said the price of a property is based on three things — location, location, location. The price in blood and treasure America has paid for the gaping hole where the Twin Towers once stood is incalculable. The wounds are still fresh and the anger is still real, and it's something that supporters of the Cordoba mosque, named after a great Islamic victory over the...

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – As the story goes, former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa has attended every event at Giants Stadium since 1976, buried in a final resting place somewhere under the west end zone. As former New York Giants punter Sean Landeta once joked, "It gives a whole new meaning to kicking into the coffin corner." More than 20 years after a self-described mob hit man set the rumor mill in motion with an interview in Playboy magazine, the question lingers: Is the answer to one of the enduring mysteries of the 20th century buried beneath the stadium — and...

The number of union workers employed by the government for the first time outnumbered union ranks in the private sector last year, the result of massive layoffs that plunged the rate of private sector union membership to a record low. Local, state and government workers made up 51.5 percent of all union members in 2009, up from 48.7 percent a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Overall, union membership declined by 771,000 workers, to 15.3 million. But with the number of nonunion workers also shrinking, the rate of union membership fell only slightly to 12.3 percent of...

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park. Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union. Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park. "We'll be looking into the Cub...

Joe gets up at noon because six conservatives got up at 6am to go to work and are forced by the government to pay 40-60% of their wages in taxes so that Joe can sit on his fat ass all day and watch his big screen TV and play video games on his computer. Before Joe heads down to the union hall for his protest assignment that day, he’ll go to Starbucks to buy coffee and a Danish at 1pm. But before that, he’ll stop by the local medicinal marijuana shop to get high because a liberal legislature enacted a...

Adding to Obama's woes and his sinking poll numbers are his too-close connection to big union organized labor as their approval ratings continue to fall. On August 5, 2009, only 29% of the nation's voters strongly approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.

Advocates of legalization have crafted a plan that could alienate businesses and key Republicans, including Sen. John McCain. But it is designed to lure a powerful new ally -- organized labor. BY PETER WALLSTEN With their prospects in Congress sinking along with the economy, liberal advocates of giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship are launching a risky strategy to push lawmakers and the White House to take up their cause. They are devising a proposal in which millions of undocumented workers would be legalized now, while the number of foreign workers allowed to enter the country would be examined...

The carpenters union has hired dozens of homeless people to stand in for union members to wage a "shame" campaign against a nonunion contractor, a Tulsa World investigation shows. The Local 943 Carpenters Union has organized a 2-year effort to coerce Green Country Interiors Inc. to pay union wages and benefits to its construction workers, said David Hannagan, president and part owner of Green Country. Beginning in April 2007, the carpenters union began placing personnel and large banners at businesses that had hired Green Country for construction work. At the first site, Crowne Plaza Hotel, 100 E. Second St., the...

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

Unions spent more than $100 million getting out the vote, knocked on millions of doors and delivered Election Day support to Democrats running for the House by a more than 2-to-1 ratio. Now organized labor is spelling out what it wants from the new Democratic Congress. The priorities include raising the minimum wage, expanding health care and improving pension protections. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney sees the elections as a "mandate for a union agenda." Likewise, says Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO, "we have an opportunity to push our agenda... The AFL-CIO executive council is scheduled to meet Tuesday...

Defying Mayor Daley and challenging Wal-Mart and Target to follow through on their threats, a bitterly divided City Council voted Wednesday to require Chicago's big-box retailers to pay employees a "living wage" of at least $10 an hour and $3 in benefits by 2010. The 35-14, veto-proof vote is an overwhelming victory for organized labor and the latest in a string of legislative defeats for a corruption-weakened Daley. "They're afraid of candidates running against them. That's what it is. That was the real issue," Daley said, denying that the vote was a sign of his diminishing grip on a Council...

A storm is brewing in Surgut, the seemingly sleepy hometown of Kremlin-friendly oil company Surgutneftegaz. Discontent over wages and management tactics is driving thousands of workers onto the streets in protest. Managers at the closely held company may be sitting on a cash pile estimated at more than $13 billion from sky-high oil prices, but the sense of prosperity is not felt by many of the firm's thousands of workers, say workers at the company, who have set up a fledgling independent union to make their case for better conditions. The frustrations first broke out into the open during the...

(English-language translation) Nine hours of deliberations over two days were enough for a jury to unanimously find today 10 former leaders of the Authentic Independent Union (UIA) guilty of Federal charges of conspiracy, embezzlement, and money laundering. Federal judge José A. Fusté agreed to a request from prosecutors and ordered the immediate imprisonment of the 10 convicts. "A conviction of this magnitude requires extreme measures.....Society must get the message that this conduct is in no way acceptable," the judge stated. "This type of crime has serious consequences, so I am not of the mind that this can be permitted," said...

Hispanic groups in the U.S. are planning a major boycott of American life dubbed a ”day without Latinos” to protest proposed legislation that would criminalize illegal immigration.

'Take your dead child with' 15/12/2005 22:30  - (SA)     Related Articles Patient neglect to be punished Child with broken arm 'ignored' 'No ambulances are available' Woman gives birth on floor Mom's horror hospital ordeal 'Staff eat patients' food' Poor conditions at Bara 'Neglect and abuse' at hospital Nurse slams Gauteng hospitals   Marietie Louw , Beeld  Polokwane - "Take your child's body with you when you go home." This was the shocking instruction a couple got when their baby boy died shortly after birth in the Mankweng hospital, about 30km from Polokwane. Andries Krugel said the hospital staff refused to...

SOME Houstonians who plan on moving to Louisiana and points east to get work in the Katrina rebuilding effort may discover their wages won't be as high as they might have expected. That's because President Bush signed an executive order last week rescinding the rule that contractors on projects receiving federal money pay the prevailing wage in areas damaged by the hurricane. "It's so important to have decent wages for these workers," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. Sweeney visited the hurricane relief efforts in Houston and met with union leaders earlier this week. Without it, he said, contractors...

Other than a three-day weekend, most Americans don't give much thought to what they're supposed to be observing on Labor Day. In practice, it's become little more than the unofficial celebration of the end of summer. Back in 1882, when New York City's Central Labor Union inaugurated the holiday, the labor movement was quite a different thing than it is today. Once upon a time, workers had valid grievances regarding pay, hours, conditions and safety. Unions served a positive role in leveraging the collective influence of their members to pressure management to redress those grievances. But labor unions are political...

Lawyer's love of labor Richard Loccke laughs sheepishly when he's told what other lawyers say about his demeanor at the bargaining table. "I've never intimidated anybody," he says in his standard baritone. "I've never exploited anyone." As a labor lawyer who has thrived in the rough-and-tumble backrooms of collective bargaining for more than 30 years, Loccke knows full well what he brings to negotiations. His tenacious bargaining skills, mastery of the state's arbitration laws and vast client list have had an enormous impact on police salaries and municipal budgets, his friends, clients and critics say. "Rich is the best police...

Allowing government employees to unionize is a bad idea whose time is long past. I can understand, though not buy into, the logic of believing that people need labor unions to give them protection against the overwhelming economic and political power of their evil, greedy capitalist overlords. But even if one buys this argument, that logic breaks down with respect to government employee unions. I mean, given that government is the source of all good for all the people, what justification is there for believing that government employees would need protection from the power of their benevolent government? Who are...

Five labor unions that are highly critical of John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., are planning to announce this week that they are forming a coalition aimed at unionizing large numbers of workers, several union officials said yesterday. Labor leaders said they were planning this move because they want to form an aggressively pro-growth coalition and because they believe the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is doing too little to organize nonunion workers. This new coalition will be formed by the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the laborers, the food and commercial workers and Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and...

In recognition of his courage, sacrifice and leadership, we honor Brother Mikhail Volynets, President of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (CFTUU), with the 2004 George Meany & Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award. In the face of extreme political repression, employer interference and government corruption, Brother Volynets and the CFTUU are vigorous advocates for workers’ rights, democracy and social and economic justice.

NEW YORK, (AP) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Wednesday it will close a Canadian store whose workers are on the verge of becoming the first ever to win a union contract from the world's biggest retailer. Wal-Mart said it was shuttering the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, in response to unreasonable demands from union negotiators, that would make it impossible for the store to sustain its business. The United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada last week asked Quebec labor officials to appoint a mediator, saying that negotiations had reached an impasse. "We were hoping it wouldn't come to this," said...

Background: In 1931 the Davis-Bacon Act was adopted to create a "prevailing wage," usually the union rate, for any construction contract over $2,000 funded in whole or in part by the federal government. The benefits of the "prevailing wage," however, go to a very few at the expense of taxpayers and the Act is a prime example of unfunded mandates and government waste. Davis-Bacon inflates the cost of federally funded construction projects by as much as 15%, discourages economic growth, and raises federal spending. In fact, Davis-Bacon Act wages cost taxpayers over $1 billion annually, in addition to the $100...

Iraqi workers need a raise - desperately. For six months, they've been paid at an emergency level dictated by the US occupation authority, known as the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA. Most workers get $60/month, a small percentage $120, and a tiny minority (mostly administrators and managers) $180. This is the same wage scale that prevailed under the last few years of the Saddam Hussein regime.

U. S. Labor Against the War (also known as USLAW) met with British & Iraqi trade union representatives to reaffirm opposition to the Iraqi War and in support of Iraqi unionization. Here's a report by USLAW's Gene Bruskin on the August 4-7, 2004 meeting in London...and evidence of what American union dues are funding!

Labor Activists Invade Bush's Campaign Sites By ELLEN GEDALIUS and WILLIAM MARCH The Tampa Tribune Published: Oct 6, 2004 TAMPA - Labor activists stormed President Bush's campaign headquarters in Tampa on Tuesday, part of an orchestrated event nationwide involving thousands of people protesting his policies on overtime pay. No one was injured or arrested in Tampa, police said. Miami and Orlando also were among the 17 cities in swing- voting states where the AFL-CIO organized such events. Protesters, including construction and hospital workers, were armed with postcards and petitions expressing their disapproval of Bush's overtime policies. Some held signs reading:...

Goodyear workers voting to ditch their corrupt union! Can the traditional Dem voter base (and huge $$$ donor) be disintegrating? I LIVE for this stuff.

Wednesday, April 7, 2004Sandal whappers serenade Kerry Reporter's Notebook By Gregory Korte and Cindi AndrewsThe Cincinnati Enquirer Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is swarmed by admirers during his Tuesday appearance at Sawyer Point downtown. One of the homemade signs hoisted there read: "Outsource Bush." The Cincinnati Enquirer/STEVEN M. HERPPICH John Kerry had seen the tactic before - it emerged on the campaign trail last week - but few others seemed to understand what was going on. Young Republicans wearing cheap sandals got in the front row and started clapping them together almost as soon as the Democratic presidential candidate took...

What a field-day for the heat. A thousand people in the street. A-singin’ songs and carryin’ signs. Mostly say, “Don’t you dare cut any of our programs!” With apologies to Buffalo Springfield, the annual summer budget fight has started early in Sacramento. Welfare mothers, students, and a myriad of others are showing up at the capitol to beg us lawmakers to give them your money. Except: the story is mostly false. Most of these people are scared into protesting by people who make money from the system. Welfare bureaucrats, union bosses (who profit from the dues public employees pay), and...

<p>The UAW has asked Detroit's automakers to pay for voluntary abortions in its national contract talks, say officials at the union and the companies familiar with the talks.</p> <p>The potentially explosive request was made to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group during talks about health care coverage, those officials said. They did not know whether it was also made to Ford Motor Co. during contract talks, which began in mid-July.</p>

<p>Organized labor's election priorities include defeating a governor named Bush, ousting a Colorado senator with an anti-union voting record and electing a Democrat from a new district in Nevada where Palm Pilots may help determine the winner.</p> <p>With time and money dwindling as Election Day nears, labor is devoting its resources to pivotal races where it desperately wants Democratic victories.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Exotic dancers, left out of negotiations, plan to march on county next month Though strip club operators and politicians seem generally happy with new lap dancing rules adopted by the Clark County Commission last week, some exotic dancers say they are fed up with what they call greedy club owners, misguided politicians and overzealous police officers. And, they say, they are going to march on the County Commission next month to make sure their complaints are heard. "What we needed was a rallying point, a point where they pushed us too...