Free Republic

In the first year since the Wolverine State adopted a right-to-work law in 2013, SEIU Healthcare Michigan lost a staggering 80 percent of its members. The case illustrates a dirty secret of the modern labor movement: A lot of its rank and file members don't want to be in a union in the first place and will leave if given the chance. What right to work did in Michigan, the Supreme Court might soon do nationally: In the case of Harris v. Quinn, the justices must decide if Illinois state government can force its own public sector employees to participate...

Of all possible causes of the Veterans Affairs Department’s front-page woes -- corrupt managers, funding shortfalls, an exploding population of veterans, a poor communications culture -- there is one that has drawn perhaps the least attention. Too many highly paid VA employees spend their time on union organizing, some say. On May 29, Kimberley Strassel devoted her regular column in The Wall Street Journal to an essay titled “Big Labor’s VA Choke Hold: How Democrats put their union allies before the well-being of veterans.” Stating that two-thirds of the VA workforce is unionized, she said, “That's a whopping 200,000 union...

Big Labor's VA Choke Hold How Democrats put their union allies before the well-being of veterans. By Kimberley A. Strassel May 29, 2014 We know with certainty that there is at least one person the Department of Veterans Affairs is serving well. That would be the president of local lodge 1798 of the National Federation of Federal Employees. The Federal Labor Relations Authority, the agency that mediates federal labor disputes, earlier this month ruled in favor of this union president, in a dispute over whether she need bother to show up at her workplace—the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Martinsburg,...

SNIP To lead the Republican majority staff, Gowdy selected Philip Kiko, a key aide to Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., when the latter served as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and more recently a registered lobbyist for the Smith-Free Group, a K Street lobbying firm with a diverse roster of clients. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, swiftly welcomed Gowdy’s choice, calling Kiko “a man of unquestioned integrity with a record of distinguished service” in and out of Congress... SNIP However, emails obtained by Fox News show that some conservatives are unhappy with Kiko’s appointment, chiefly because of his recent lobbying...

Earlier this week, House and Senate conferees agreed to final language for the Women’s Economic Security Act (WESA). While most of the attention has focused on the bill’s family and sick leave provisions, one particularly bad policy provision has attracted little attention. Specifically, WESA lays the groundwork for a “state-administered retirement savings plan” for employees in the private sector. Yes, this would essentially be a government-run retirement plan controlled by the State Board of Investment. The ramifications of such a plan could be devastating for private sector employees as well as taxpayers who would likely be on the hook for...

The fast-food worker strikes are expanding to more U.S. cities and going global. Workers in up to 150 cities across the country are planning to strike on May 15, according to labor organizers. The movement is also headed overseas, with plans for workers to join protests in 33 countries. On Wednesday, the workers announced the protests outside a McDonald's in New York City, and delivered a letter that called on the fast food giant to raise wages and respect workers' rights worldwide. However, security guards didn't allow the workers to bring the letter inside the restaurant. So, they posted the...

Several thousand contract workers employed at the New York City area’s major airports voted Monday to join a union after campaigning for better pay and benefits. The workers cheered as representatives from about a dozen major airport contractors stood and announced their support for joining the union in a packed room at Riverside Church in Harlem. About 4,000 workers signed cards expressing their wish to join the 32BJ Service Employees International Union, including baggage handlers, security officers, cabin and terminal cleaners and others. …

Unions will extort disabled people; MoveOn.org will support Boko Haram. Unions and liberals make our world a little less livable every time they get a chance. Here are two stories that remind us of the depths these people will sink to in order to have their way. In Michigan the Service Employees Internal Union (SEIU) has recently seen an 80% decrease in its membership which was triggered as much by its own greed as the terrible economy Barack Obama has given us. In 2006 the Michigan SEIU was successful in their drive to forcibly unionize family members of disabled people...

A trio of liberal groups is looking to mobilize liberal voters on ObamaCare.  Planned Parenthood Action, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and MoveOn.org are teaming up in an effort to boost the law, and to boost officials who backed it. The groups are launching campaigns that will highlight popular parts of the law, according to The Washington Post. That includes the law's expansion of Medicaid, free contraception coverage and the ban on insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

The SEIU has always been all about using dirty tricks and shady lobbying to accomplish their only real goal- to grow at any cost. But what SEIU Healthcare Michigan did to home healthcare workers in their state has to be one of the dirtiest tricks ever used. SEIU Healthcare Michigan exploited a legal loophole using the Michigan Quality Community Care Council (MCQ3) to force parents and family of sick children into their union. Families who saved the state thousands of dollars a month by taking care of adult children with disabilities had money taken out of their pockets as they...

There’s absolutely incomprehensible black-hearted rotten-souled evil. And then a step beneath that, there’s SEIU. Melissa and Kevin Haynes were born with hypertonic cerebral palsy, a severe disability that impaired their cognitive development, leaving them functioning as infants. For more than 30 years, their devoted parents, Robert and Patricia, have cared for them in their home in Macomb Township, Mich. The two disabled adults received Medicaid checks each month, money that went toward their care. But in 2006, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) began collecting 2.75 percent from each of these checks, claiming that Robert and Patricia were employees — not only...

Having won the right to decide for themselves whether to join unions, Michigan workers are opting to desert an organization that many never wanted to join in the first place: the SEIU. Michigan voters put an end to forced unionization by approving right-to-work in the 2012 election. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder also signed a bill that ended a fraudulent dues-skimming scheme, perpetrated by the SEIU, which had allowed the union to collect $34 million in mandatory dues out of the Medicaid checks of unknowing home-based caregivers. No longer obligated to pay money to the SEIU, 80 percent of home-based caregivers...

Media Matters employees are furious that their bosses are trying to keep them from unionizing. A union-organizing committee at the liberal group released a statement Monday slamming their employers for “the unexpected and unexplained path our leadership has taken in response to our efforts to unionize,” adding that “the actions of Media Matters executives have placed employees in the impossible position of continuing to produce content espousing pro-labor values for an employer who is challenging our right to unionize.”

Democratic Congressman Mike Honda, (D-CA), from the high-tech 17th congressional district in Silicon Valley, has a rather curious place for his campaign headquarters, the San Francisco Chronicle reports: inside the headquarters of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521. That address, 2302 Zanker Road, San Jose, is not listed as the campaign’s address on Honda’s campaign website; instead, 2050 Gateway Suite 100, San Jose, is listed. Honda is running for reelection in the "jungle" primary June 3 against Democrat challenger Ro Khanna and Republicans Vanila Singh and Joel Vanlandingham. The reason that the false address came to light is that...

Democratic Congressman Mike Honda, now engaged in a contentious fight for re-election in a Silicon Valley House race, has made the unusual move of locating his 2014 campaign office inside the headquarters of a major South Bay labor organization — the Service Employees International Union Local 521. The details about Honda’s campaign office emerged after the Chronicle reported last week that Honda can’t vote for himself in the 2014 election because his home is located outside the 17th Congressional District he represents.

Mayor Ed Murray’s minimum wage advisory committee is “deadlocked,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant said Friday, with the socialist officeholder pledging she will now work to “build a strong coalition in the streets.” Sawant and two other left-leaning City Council members sit on the panel, which is co-chaired by business leader Howard S. Wright III, CEO of Seattle Hospitality Group, and Service Employees Union leader David Rolf, the city’s most able labor leader. The statement by Sawant comes amids increasing indications that Seattle voters will have the final say on on the minimum wage issue. And, like Washington voters...

One for the hypocrisy hall of fame: Media Matters for America is apparently resisting an effort by Service Employees International Union Local 500 to unionize its staff.Last week, the union filed a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board, indicating that the nonprofit media watchdog organization rejected an effort by the union to organize MMFA’s staff through a Card Check election.A filing with the NLRB does not necessarily mean that the union and management are in direct confrontation. For example, although Volkswagen tacitly backed the United Auto Workers’ recent effort to organize its Chattanooga, Tenn., plant, the company still...

The hypocrisy could not be more evident as reports indicate Media Matters for America is resisting efforts by Service Employees International Union Local 500 to unionize its employees. Heck, next thing you know, they'll be asking them for a higher minimum wage. "...Last week, the union filed a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board, indicating that the nonprofit media watchdog organization rejected an effort by the union to organize MMFA's staff through a Card Check election..."

Media Matters for America is apparently resisting an effort by Service Employees International Union Local 500 to unionize its staff. Last week, the union filed a representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board, indicating that the nonprofit media watchdog organization rejected an effort by the union to organize MMFA’s staff through a Card Check election. […] MMFA has regularly presented itself as a supporter of organized labor. It has argued that “economists point to declining union participation as one cause of the growing economic rift in America” and claimed it was a fact that “unions increase productivity [and] do...

Get your popcorn… The SEIU is petitioning the National Labor Relations Board to unionize the employees the employees at Media Matters. In response, Media Matters has hired a high priced law firm to represent the company. And, here we thought they supported unions? Weird, huh?