Free Republic

From correctional, child support and security officers to program techs – about 900 members are trying to leave the Service Employees Union, but voter packets were inadvertently mailed out early two days early. (snip) We want to bring back the old way of representation which would just be for members wages and benefits, and get out of the Obama-care fight, the immigration fight, the Black Lives matter fight, the 15 fight – all these fights that are not associated with public sector employees.” – Eulalio Gomez, Fresno Sheriffs Correction Officer.

Under President Obama, federal agencies are doling out tens of millions of dollars to one of the Democratic Party’s most essential constituencies: big labor. The grants range from safety training to union membership recruitment to whipping up support for the president’s signature program called Obamacare, a Washington Times review of federal contracting records shows. Last week, for example, the Department of Energy awarded a $900,000-plus grant for the development of a safety regimen for workers facing hazardous duties in energy and waste jobs. It didn’t go to a safety firm or training school but rather to a labor union: Akron...

[picture of Robert Creamer] Looks like the Marxist architect of Obamacare also had a major say in putting forth the Iran Deal. Robert Creamer was convicted in 2005 for tax violations and bank fraud. He served time and was under house arrest. While in prison, he crafted the core underpinnings of Obamacare. Creamer is a political consultant who is very close to Barack Obama and is married to Jan Schakowsky, the Marxist Congresswoman from Illinois. While on the inside, he wrote, Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win. Obamacare was only the first major step in...

Exclusive video from Brietbart News outside the GOP debate Wednesday shows a candid moment as union official Alejandra Valles, Secretary-Treasurer of the SEIU chapter United Service Workers West, directed a group of young protesters to “punch and kick” a photo of GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump. “This is awesome! Awesome!” exclaimed the woman taking the photo, before jumping into the photo herself and saying, “I’m going to kick!” She then urged the group to make fists.

Powerful and well funded, 1199 SEIU has unprecedented reach into city and state government. ... Medicaid is one of the primary sources of funding for the hospitals employing workers from 1199 SEIU, the powerful hospital and nursing-home employees’ union. ... The union’s clout can be assessed by several measures: the sheer size of its membership, its spending on campaigns and lobbying, and the depth and breadth of its connections with New York’s ruling elite. With well over 300,000 members in Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, Washington, D.C., and New York (where over half of that total resides), 1199SEIU is the largest union...

Black Lives Matter protestors wearing pink Planned Parenthood shirts shut down a recent rally by Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, providing further evidence that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is not a marginal political group, but an increasing vital part of the institutional left’s community organized shock troop coalition.WATCH:(video at link)The YouTube video’s description makes it clear that the angry free speech haters came from a cross section of the left’s current flavors of special interest groups: illegal aliens, union members and the sexually confused. The description says: #BlackLivesMatter shut down a Jeb Bush presidential town hall in Las Vegas. Standing alongside...

People who pay union dues may be donating to Planned Parenthood whether they like it or not. The Free Beacon reported on Monday that three of the biggest unions in America donated a total of $435,000 to Planned Parenthood during 2014. The three unions were the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and Service Employees International Union (SEIU). AFSCME and SEIU both represent public sector employees.​ But the ties between Planned Parenthood and some of America’s biggest unions go far beyond donations. Almost all of the 2014 union-donated money was spent...

In 2012, teachers in the Roscommon area school district became the first in decades to "decertify" the Michigan Education Association — fire it — and start their own independent union. Now, three years later, the president of the startup local, called the Roscommon Teachers Association, said 64 of 65 eligible teachers have voluntarily paid dues as of the recently completed school year. It probably didn't hurt that the union's $500 dues are about half the amount charged by the MEA, the state's largest teachers union. “Roscommon teachers show that voluntary unionism can thrive if the union is proving its worth...

The union that exploited Michigan’s home-based caregivers for the best part of a decade has seen its revenue tumble since the scheme that enabled the exploitation ended. SEIU Healthcare Michigan reported $5,398,383 in dues and fees in 2014. That's just 48 percent of the $11,307,314 it reported for 2012, the last full year during which the union's dues skim was in place. The information was contained in a financial disclosure report the union submitted to the federal government 57 days after the March 31 deadline it is apparently required to meet. The disclosure finally took place shortly after Michigan Capitol...

Union members broke into cheers when Hillary Rodham Clinton said she supported a $15-an-hour national minimum wage. “Thank you for giving me this chance to tell you all how much I support your movement,” she told a conference organized by the Service Employees International Union. “I want to fight with you every day.” Clinton’s words last weekend weren’t quite the endorsement they may have seemed. The next day, her campaign clarified her remarks, saying while Clinton supported the general push for higher wages, she wasn’t backing the more contentious $15 hourly minimum. In the eight weeks since she announced her...

A hack announced last week affected all current and retired federal employees, and hackers got their hands on much more personal information than previously announced, the American Federation of Government Employees said Thursday.A December breach of government systems containing personal information of millions of federal employees was worse than originally thought. A union of federal workers said Thursday that the attack, announced last week, had stolen confidential information of every single federal employee, past or present -- far more than was previously revealed. The government disputes those claims. It's the latest in a spree of damaging hacks against the government,...

Clark County management has informed its largest union that employees won’t receive salary or benefit increases anytime soon, citing a new state law and contending that the contract between the county and Service Employees International Union Local 1107 has expired. The freeze is expected to end in August or early September, when the county expects to have a new contract in place with the union. The county and union go to arbitration on July 1. Both sides had already planned to go to arbitration before a new state law was passed, after two years of fruitless negotiations for a new...

Clark County management has ordered Martin Bassick, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1107, to report for work at a county job in a move that reflects the county’s interpretation of a new state law concerning paid leave for union representatives. The county’s human resources department notified Bassick in a letter Thursday to report at his county public works job at 8 a.m. Monday, according to correspondence obtained by the Review-Journal. The letter cites a bill that the Legislature passed this session and Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law. An attorney for the SEIU, the county’s largest union,...

Ballot initiative threatens state worker retirement security A coalition of anti-union, anti-public employee groups, including the National Right to Work Committee, launched their latest attack against public employee pensions and the hard-earned retirement security of state workers. Their misleading campaign, called the “Voter Empowerment Act of 2016,” would undermine collective bargaining and require voter approval for changes to pensions and other retirement benefits, including medical insurance. “This dangerous initiative is a real threat to the financial security of our members and all public employees,” said Yvonne R. Walker, Local 1000 president. “It is more important than ever to become a...

The AFL-CIO, along with some public sector unions, announced a campaign finance freeze in March. Unions hoped the threat of withholding contributions would scare Democratic lawmakers out of supporting President Barack Obama’s Trade Promotion Authority, or “fast track,” to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a trade agreement labor groups say would hurt manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

Loretta Lynch's DOJ looks to further federal control of elections in ways that benefit the Democrats. The Obama Justice Department has quietly launched an effort to erode traditional state powers over elections. In the first instance, Attorney General Loretta Lynch has drafted and sent a bill to Congress which would force state election officials to turn over power to tribal governments to determine the location and number of polling places on Indian reservations in state-run elections. In the second instance, the DOJ is seeking to erode the power of states to prohibit the mentally incompetent from voting, as long as...

Reflections on the "minimum wage hike" protests today at McDonald's Oak Brook headquarters... On a cool May morning, as McDonalds’ shareholders met to determine the fast food giant’s future course, some 2000 protesters, hailing from as far as Kansas City and New York, descended upon them to present a list of demands. Raise the starting wage to $15/hour, they threatened, lest the company be forever branded with such monikers as Exploiter, Villain, Robber Baron and Tyrant! The Chicago Tribune, newspaper of record in the blighted metro area that McDonald’s calls home, was happy to give front page coverage to these...

Let all decent human beings this day remember Werner Foerster, a New Jersey state trooper slain in 1973 - for tonight there will be a nauseating gathering to celebrate (yes, celebrate) the armed prison break that freed one of Foerster's convicted killers. An organization that should know better, the big public employee union SEIU Local 1199, has opened an auditorium at its headquarters to a group that lionizes fugitive Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, as a heroine whose "liberation" from prison 27 years ago it considers a bright moment in American history. Sponsors of the Hands Off Assata Campaign include...

While the term “school choice” is often perceived as a decision between public and private institutions, magnet schools offer an opportunity to introduce another option for parents and families within their public school district. With almost 3,000 magnet schools nationwide in 2012, the trend embracing more public school choice continues to rise. Originally conceived as an approach to decrease segregation in school districts, today magnet schools encourage more hands-on learning by tailoring instruction around a central theme. Various magnet schools focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); arts; business; culinary studies; medicine; languages and more. Magnet schools increase parental...

Jonathan Hoenig @JonathanHoenig Several folks protesting McDonalds pick up dinner from McDonalds. pic.twitter.com/iEWoZDh4c1