Free Republic

After four years of negotiations, American Airlines has reached a tentative contract agreement with the unions representing its mechanics and fleet service workers. The tentative deal, valued by unions at $4.2 billion, includes five separate agreements covering mechanics, fleet service and related groups including maintenance trainers. It requires ratification by union members

"Supreme Court of Canada says 7-2 decision will ensure open access for LGBT students" A B.C.-based evangelical Christian university has lost its legal battle over accreditation for a planned new law school, with a Supreme Court of Canada ruling today saying it's "proportionate and reasonable" to limit religious rights in order to ensure open access for LGBT students. In a pair of 7-2 rulings, the majority of justices found the law societies of British Columbia and Ontario have the power to refuse accreditation based on Trinity Western University's so-called community covenant. The mandatory covenant binds students to a strict code...

The Supreme Court of Canada will deliver a landmark ruling Friday in a closely-watched case that weighs religious freedom against LGBT rights. The judgment effectively could determine whether Trinity Western University (TWU) — a private, evangelical Christian post-secondary institution — can operate a law school at its Langley, B.C. campus. Law societies in B.C., Nova Scotia and Ontario have refused to accredit Trinity's program, arguing that the school's "community covenant" — which requires students to abstain from sex outside heterosexual marriage — discriminates against LGBT people. In B.C. and Nova Scotia, the courts have sided with TWU, ruling the university...

Nearly 5,000 JetBlue flight attendants will start voting Monday in an effort to join the Transport Workers Union. Ballots will be cast electronically or by phone in an election that will run until April 17. The National Mediation Board is overseeing the election. According to the TWU, an “overwhelming majority” of flight attendants last year signed cards declaring they wanted to unionize. […] JetBlue was not receptive to the TWU’s efforts to unionize its flight attendants. Inviting a “third-party” union was a bad idea, the airline wrote in flyers and emails to staffers in September. “TWU is an opportunistic and...

The city’s crippling weeklong transit strike ended early Monday, ensuring that all buses, trolleys and subways will be up and running by Election Day. […] Democratic city leaders had feared the strike could weaken turnout at the polls on Tuesday and hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who needs a big haul of votes in the city if she is to win the battleground state instead of Republican Donald Trump. The big concern was people were spending so much time getting to and from work that some wouldn't have time to go to the polls. …

Jessica Smartt Gullion, an assistant professor at the Texas Woman’s University, has decided that allowing students to carry concealed weapons would force the school’s educators to give students higher grades than they deserve. On August 1st, the state’s campus carry law goes into effect, allowing individuals with a concealed carry license to carry a firearm in all 4 year colleges and universities throughout the state. University of Texas professors Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter decided to file a lawsuit, asking for an injunction to prevent the law going into effect. They contend that the presence of guns in...

B.C.'s Minister of Advanced Education has revoked his consent for the proposed law school at Trinity Western University. . . .The school, which would be built at the university's Langley campus, had become a lightning rod for controversy because of a line in the university’s covenant that requires all students, administrators and faculty to abstain from "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman."A legal challenged launched against Mr. Virk and TWU by two Canadian law firms said the minister had "created a two-tiered system of legal education" when he granted consent. After some deliberation, the law...

Here’s a bit of Labor Day irony. The man who led the historic 2005 bus and subway strike—which forced millions of commuters to squeeze into packed cabs, pedal bicycles they hadn’t used for years and hike to work like intrepid Boy Scouts—is now a licensed cab driver. Roger Toussaint, the fiery former president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, got his permit in December to drive a taxi in Cobb County, Ga., where he now lives, records show. “Driving a cab is a dignified profession,” Toussaint, 55, said during a telephone interview last week. …

DENTON — An Army veteran whose remarks led to a 90-minute lockdown on the Texas Woman's University campus in Denton on Tuesday is now speaking out from behind bars. Police said Christopher Gillette made threatening remarks, prompting the emergency action. "What I basically said is that I'm extremely angry; I have specific military training; and I feel like tearing Washington down brick-by-brick," Gillette told News 8. Following his remarks, security officers swept the TWU campus, fearing a man with a gun could do harm.

Leave it to the transit workers to make the absolutely worst possible move for all the wrong reasons at every turn. In rejecting the deal negotiated by Transport Workers Union President Roger Toussaint by just seven votes, the rank and file yesterday snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They had blackmailed New York by shutting down the city for three days in an illegal strike, but they just couldn't take yes for an answer. So now they're going to demand heaven knows what behind a leader they have emasculated. The best Toussaint will be able to muster at the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Transport Workers Union, which shut down the New York subway and bus system for three days during the Christmas shopping season, has narrowly rejected the contract offer recommended by union leaders. The offer from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which required a simple majority vote to ratify, was rejected by just seven votes out of more than 22,000 votes cast, a union official who asked not to be identified told Reuters on Friday. The tally was 11,234 against and 11,227 in favor, he said. Union leader Roger Toussaint told a televised news conference the contract failed...

NEW YORK (AP) The union that crippled New York City's transit system last month with a three-day strike has rejected its contract.

I just suffered through a transit strike. I'm ticked off about it. It didn't hurt me much, actually -- I ride a bike most days -- but New York's Transport Workers Union tortured a million commuters by going on strike. And going on strike for what? Their employer wanted to raise the retirement age for new workers -- not even current union members, people who haven't been hired yet -- to a ripe old 62, or make them pay more of their pension costs. Big deal. Some 30 people apply for each of these jobs, according to Steven Malanga of...

Patricia and Santana Bonilla live a half-block from the staircase to an el that had no trains Tuesday. The el stop is at Knickerbocker Avenue and Myrtle Avenue. Without the life of the city on its rails, the el was desolate at a place that is usually throbbing. In this strike, you follow the silent tracks into places where most are without money and find so many being strangled by landlords. The Bonillas are on the first floor of an old frame house on Himrod Street in Bushwick, in Brooklyn. The husband and wife are both 48, from Mexico and...

PARIS, 24 Dec. (IPS) In its first major social challenge and in continuation of the crackdown of all freedoms in Iran, the new Government under the Islamo-populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrested at least 14 members of the Single Bus Company of Tehran and Suburbs (SBCTS), informed sources reported on Saturday. The order for the arrest, detention and seizure of all documents of the arrested men was issued by Judge Sa’id Mortazavi, the Prosecutor for Tehran and Islamic Revolution Tribunals. A protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the leader of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Mortazavi is better known by the public,...

I've never had much use for unions, even when I belonged to one. Now, I'm just weary of their methods of holding the public hostage to get what they want, and the Transit Workers Union's strike in New York is the best example in recent memory. In more ways than one, the TWU leaders have damaged the city they claim to love, and they don't really seem to care so long as they get their way. What the terrorists did on 9-11 was simple. They took people's lives, crushed the city's economy (and by extension the nation's) and demonstrated...

<p>Putting New York through hell for three days, just before Christmas?</p> <p>Just what exactly did you gain for your members by doing that?</p> <p>Everyone knows you couldn't give a hoot about what you did to the city.</p> <p>But what about your own members?</p>

12 Drummers Drumming 11 Pipers Piping 10 Lords a'Leaping 9 Ladies (?) Dancing 8 Maids a'Milking 7 Sweans a'Swimming 6 Geese a'Laying 5 Golden rings 4 Calling Birds 3 French Hens 2 Turtle Doves And a Liberal in a Pear Tree Here's the link for the last one: http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_3297424

December 23, 2005 -- No more freezing walks, no more being a sardine inside Penn Station and no more Scrooging cabdrivers. It's o-o-o-ver! Facing the fury of straphangers, stupendous fines and the possibility of spending Christmas in jail, transit-union leaders voted overwhelmingly yesterday to end a crippling three-day illegal strike and go back to the bargaining table. In return, The Post learned, the MTA agreed to remove from the table a demand that new hires contribute to their pensions — the thorny issue that triggered the first transit strike in 25 years. With the announcement of the cease-fire, the 33,700...

We noted in this space yesterday the inevitability of serious injury, or worse, to innocent people as a result "of the illegal, immoral strike engineered by [TWU President Roger] Toussaint and his merry band," warning that "soon he will have blood on his hands, too." Little did we know. At 52nd Street and Third Avenue yesterday morning, a private bus struck 39-year-old city firefighter Matthew Long — who was riding his bike to work thanks to the subway shutdown. Critically injured, he's now fighting for his life at New York Weill-Cornell Medical Center. Mayor Bloomberg asked that "New Yorkers pray...