Free Republic

From time to time here on the blog we like to highlight the convictions, imprisonment and punishment of union thieves. It warms our heart here at the blog to see such criminal union thugs cut down by the law, to see them finally get their just deserts. We only wish that more of them found their proper ends sooner. But, when they are caught we rejoice at the justice done. Today we have what, if we were in an HBO TV series, might have been a member of Tony Soprano's bunch (is New Jersey sick of this allusion yet?) with...

The New York City teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit on Friday claiming that a policy banning political pins and signs in schools violates teachers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them from political expression. The lawsuit comes nearly two weeks after the Department of Education sent a memo to principals directing them to enforce the longstanding regulation, which requires that all school staff members show “complete neutrality” while on duty. The policy also prohibits teachers from using school property to promote a candidate. Randi Weingarten, president of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, said that while the policy has...

NEW YORK (AP) - The teachers' union for the nation's largest public school system accused the city on Friday of banning political campaign buttons and sued to reverse the policy, declaring that free speech rights were violated. United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten announced at a news conference that a lawsuit had been filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to challenge the enforcement of the policy. "We couldn't believe it," said Weingarten, who wore a Barack Obama lapel button. The American Federation of Teachers, including its UFT delegates, voted over the summer to endorse Obama's presidential candidacy. -snip-

I saw this yard sign go up on the corner of the drive for the pipefitter's union and wondered how long it would last. Answer, not long Not the tiretracks.

According to Reuters, the United Auto Workers (UAW) has announced that they are spending $3 million on TV, radio and Web ads to promote the election of Barack Obama this month. The ads, which feature UAW members talking about lost health care benefits and the loss of manufacturing jobs, will run on television, radio and Web sites in the key manufacturing states of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These union thugs have some gall to claim that increasing benefits is a good idea. Let's take a look and see how unions have already made American car manufacturers uncompetitive with others....

"Labor costs the Detroit Three substantially more per vehicle than it does the Japanese. Health care is the biggest chunk. GM, for instance spends $1,635 per vehicle on health care for active and retired workers in the U.S. Toyota pays nothing for retired workers - it has very few - and only $215 for active ones . . . Contract issues like work rules, line relief and holiday pay amount to $630 per vehicle - costs that the Japanese don't have. And paying UAW members for not working when plants are shut costs another $350 per vehicle." --Fortune magazine, January...

While the whole country is focused on the meltdown of the financial markets and the looming Presidential election, Congress is up to no good. Right now, under consideration on Capitol Hill is a union-supported “card check” bill (the Employee Free Choice Act, or EFCA for short) which would strip the American working man and woman of a number of their cherished rights and make it harder for companies to do business. You see, the whole point of this bill is to help unions recover some of the power and prestige they once had, but have in large part lost as...

The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has issued new reporting procedures for unions to report the details of what are called T-1 Trusts. These new reporting efforts should help bring light to these funds that have heretofore been shielded from transparency allowing unions to use many millions of dollars without accountability from its members or the government. A T-1 Trust fund is a nice bit of accounting sleight of hand that unions have used to fund what they claim is "retraining" of its members. But, millions of dollars end up in these funds and there are no rules to account...

What about those "real issues" that Barack Obama's supporters in the media say we should get back to, whenever some new unsavory fact about his past comes out? Surely education is a real issue, with American school children consistently scoring below those in other countries, and children in minority communities faring worst of all. What about Senator Obama's position on this real issue? As with other issues, he has talked one way and acted the opposite way. The education situation in Obama's home base of Chicago is one of the worst in the nation for the children— and one of...

The Employee Free Choice Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007, but Democratic backers couldn't end a Republican filibuster against it in the Senate. Democrat Mark Udall backs the act and Republican Bob Schaffer doesn't, making Colorado one of about eight states where dueling groups could spend a combined $40 million nationally to highlight issues raised in the legislation. Employees at private companies now can unionize by getting 30 percent of the work force to sign cards seeking union representation and then getting a majority of workers to back unionization in a secret-ballot election. The EFCA would allow...

At Issue: What Government Can Take Out Of Paychecks . "The government cannot take money from one group, funnel it, bundle it up and give it to another group that lobbies government back." said Amendment 49 supporter, Jon Caldara. "All this does is put a simple restriction on government. It says, 'Government, you will not be funneling money to lobbying organizations.' People want to give that to lobbyist, they should do that themselves."

Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, warns that this legislation is so harmful that it is nothing short of a “hostile takeover” of American business and will result in making the United States uncompetitive in the global world and will ship millions of jobs overseas: “When I asked CEOs if they had heard of this attack on principles that form the bedrock of our democracy -- secret ballots in elections -- only 7 out of 100 raised their hands. And yet, this plan has the potential to redraw the political and economic landscape of America. CEOs, and for that matter...

A British teachers’ union representative has come under fire after claiming that teachers who engage in consensual sex with students over the age of 16 should not be prosecuted, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported Sunday. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said in an interview to be broadcast in the U.K. on Monday that teachers who have sex with pupils over the age of consent are guilty of a mere “error in professional judgment,” and should not be placed on the sex offenders register, the Mail reported. “There is a real...

New York's dominatrixes have been getting spanked by the economy recently - and now, they're lashing back. Already reeling from a series of local prostitution raids, dommes have also had to grapple with disobedient clients who can't afford to pay for their punishments. To address the double-whammy hitting their industry, many of them want to form a political-action committee and union to represent their interests.

Government workers from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania have been finding unwelcome visitors at the doorsteps since mid-August. Union organizers from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) mysteriously found themselves in possession of the home addresses of every government worker in the county. This is, of course, illegal... yet, magically, the SEIU has the contact info anyway. Naturally, every department head in the county is saying their agency is innocent of leaking the information. But, regardless who which inside operative of the union was helping them, it is not legal for the union to accept such information. The law states that only...

Amendment 47 would prohibit mandatory labor union dues. "This simply says that regardless if you have a union or not, if you do decide to get unionized or you're currently unionized, you cannot force someone to participate in a labor union against their will." Supporters of the so-called Colorado Right To Work Amendment said government employees already have this right. The measure would extend it to the private sector.

Colorado's ballot just got a lot shorter. Union leaders agreed to pull their four ballot initiatives Thursday, hours before the deadline, in exchange for help from businesses for defeating three other amendments, numbers 47, 49 and 54. The pact calls for businesses to raise $3 million to help unions defeat the initiatives. Unions already have raised $6.7 million, and the $3 million from businesses would give the campaign more money than either of Colorado's two main U.S. Senate candidates has raised so far. The deal also represents a truce in the union-business battle that has raged throughout most of Ritter's...

One of Barack Obama's staunchest supporters and prized campaigners and film biographers from the motion picture and television business has just been accused of union busting, according to a complaint filed Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board. Before the exposé, writer/actor/director/producer Tyler Perry invited the presidential candidate to the grand opening of his entertainment studio on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, this coming Saturday night. But if Obama attends he will be met by picket lines thrown up by the Writers Guild of America with support from other unions including the Teamsters, even though the latter union has officially...

Woodbridge, Virginia (October 1, 2008) – Delegate Jeffrey M. Frederick, Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, called it an “outrage” upon learning that the Virginia Education Association (VEA) was coordinating political activities on behalf of Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama at Virginia public schools. A widely-circulated email originating from Doris Boitnott in the VEA government affairs department addressed to VEA President Kitty Boitnott, among others, asks teachers to wear blue for “Obama Blue Day.” The email further asks teachers to register or recruit two voters to support Obama, saying, “There are people out there not yet registered. You teach...

One of Barack Obama's staunchest supporters and prized campaigners and film biographers from the motion picture and television business has just been accused of union busting, according to a complaint filed Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board. Before the exposé, writer/actor/director/producer Tyler Perry invited the presidential candidate to the grand opening of his entertainment studio on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, this coming Saturday night. But if Obama attends he will be met by picket lines thrown up by the Writers Guild of America with support from other unions including the Teamsters, even though the latter union has officially...

Virginia Republicans are in an uproar after the state teacher's union sent an e-mail to its members encouraging them to wear blue-colored shirts to school to show their support for Barack Obama. State Republicans are calling it an undisguised attempt to influence students' political views. The Virginia Education Association sponsored "Obama Blue Day" on Tuesday. In an e-mail sent last week, it urged teachers to participate by dressing in blue. "There are people out there not yet registered. You teach some of them," the Sept. 25 e-mail reads. "Others, including our members, remain on the fence! Its time for us...

With jobs like mortgage broker, investment banker, stock analyst and others that once looked solid - and profitable - suddenly looking not so good in the wake of America's looming financial difficulties, a Daily News Special Report revealed what most of us already know despite heavy doses of conventional wisdom to the contrary: Teachers and other school employees do pretty darn well. Especially if they work for the Los Angeles Unified School District. According to information provided to the Daily News by the LAUSD, the average salary for teachers is $63,000 - not too shabby that. But more than 8,500...

Bill Fletcher is all about the wringing of hands over the corruption scandal of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and is afraid that it will get in the way of the upcoming presidential campaign. Fletcher, a long time union activist, pseudo "Africanist," anti-American, and anti-Jew agitator, who is also a self described "socialist,", and Barack Obama volunteer, was interviewed recently on the website of the extremist organization Democracy Now. Little of what he had to say is of much surprise or interest nor is there any truth to it. It is filled with your run-of-the-mill psychotic hate for business...

The L.A. Times has really got it out for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), I have to say. On September 26, the Times published another one of its investigations into the corrupt union activities, this time revealing that SEIU union bigwigs have funneled millions of dollars to little companies owned by family members for "services" being provided the union. The investigation also showed that union chiefs are starting their own side companies only to get millions of dollars in "contracts" from the union. It must be nice to be a chief directing budgets of millions upon millions of dollars...

When Mike Pyne and other union foot soldiers knock on doors to promote Senator Barack Obama, they often confront a tricky challenge: how to persuade union members to vote on the basis of their wallets rather than on issues like abortion, gun rights and race. In battleground states like this one, union voters could be vital to the outcome of the election, and the labor movement has mounted a huge push on behalf of Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, built largely around the message that with unemployment rising, the financial system reeling and gasoline and food prices soaring, the...

More inspiring, from a Hill Republican: 1. No ACORN money: All money goes to debt reduction 2. No blank check: Treasury is required to develop an insurance program 3. No union power grab: Dodd-Frank permitted unions to force themselves into the board room. This proposed compromise eliminates that. 4. No “cram down” bankruptcy provision (aka, trial bar giveaway): 5. No tax hikes: The proposed compromise simply requires a proposal to Congress to recoup any potential losses.

ANN ARBOR — Mark Gaffney, president of Michigan’s AFL-CIO, doesn’t have to work hard at telling union members that the last eight years have been bad for them. Few have much use for George W. Bush. Nor do they have any love for John McCain. But he knows very well there are white, blue-collar union workers who just won’t vote for a black man. He’s heard the stories. The guy who works in the mail room, who says he just isn’t going to vote for president this year. The electrician who says he isn’t biased, but some of his friends,...

The Service Employees International Union's headquarters has paid millions of dollars to consulting firms, political nonprofits and individuals with family ties and other personal connections to some of the labor organization's top officers, records show. One company partly owned by a union director also received more than $1 million in SEIU consulting fees. The nation's fastest-growing union, the SEIU bills itself a standard-setter in the drive to reform and modernize the labor movement. It has adopted a code of ethics that bars officers from directing business to their relatives, although a spokeswoman said no competitive bidding process is required when...

Hard hats, transit workers, machinists, teachers and other labor unionists railed against the U.S. government's proposed bailout of Wall Street on Thursday in a protest steps from the New York Stock Exchange. Several hundred protesters yelled their enthusiastic support as union leaders decried a proposed $700 billion plan aimed at reinvigorating the credit markets by relieving financial institutions of distressed debt. "The Bush administration wants us to pay the freight for a Wall Street bailout that does not even begin to address the roots of our crisis," said AFL-CIO National President John Sweeney. "We want our tax dollars used to...

“Employee Free Choice Act”, a piece of legislation, if passed as presidential candidate Sen. Obama has promised, union membership will be voted on using a public ballot rather than a private ballot.

The issue nobody's talking about, and it's not raceOK, you want to talk issues. You're tired of talking personalities, character, experience and Sarah Palin's eyewear. You've had it contemplating whether Barack Obama's or John McCain's campaign ads are more full of lies and distortions. You're above all this bunkum. You want to talk about some substantive difference between the two presidential candidates that could shape the way we live -- that could alter some basic American value -- in the decades to come. So here's the issue. It's a big one that's below the surface and not getting a lot...

Anyone following the print media will know that newspapers are falling on hard times everywhere in the country. The Internet has damaged newspaper's once dominant position as the source for daily local and national news. In this day when papers are folding everywhere and many more are firing people right and left (well, just "left" because there are few on the right in that business!) one would think that everyone involved with any particular paper would be bending over backwards to help keep the doors open and the printing presses rolling. Well, apparently, unions would rather see everyone lose their...

It's like some sort of spy novel gone bad where the Soviet Agents are somehow the good guys. A grocery store worker and union member that makes over $20 an hour "quits" his job and starts a job in another grocery store making only $10 an hour just so he can cajole his new workplace into joining the union from the inside, pretending to be one of them. In fact, the union "supplements" this activist's pay while he invades the other store to agitate for unions there. At issue is the organizing of the Fresh & Easy grocery chain in...

President Cecil Roberts says the United Mine Workers is planning a brief work stoppage at a Consol Energy mine after what the union contends was an attempt to get miners to badmouth Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on camera. Roberts said the union will call the memorial period at Consol's Blacksville No. 2 mine next week. UMW contracts allow the periods, which halt production by allowing members a day off. Roberts says Consol allowed a National Rifle Association camera crew to ask UMW workers at the Monongalia County mine leading questions suggesting Obama opposes gun ownership. NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam...

To understand what it’s like to work on the railroad — the Long Island Rail Road — a good place to start is the Sunken Meadow golf course, a rolling stretch of state-owned land on Long Island Sound. During the workweek, it is not uncommon to find retired L.I.R.R. employees, sometimes dozens of them, golfing there. A few even walk the course. Yet this is not your typical retiree outing. These golfers are considered disabled. At an age when most people still work, they get a pension and tens of thousands of dollars in annual disability payments — a sum...

  Dear Friend: I spoke to the Harrisonburg Rotary Club today and raised a very important issue that came up in my debate on September 18 with Mark Warner before the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce: The fact that Mark Warner supports the so-called Employee Free Choice Act being considered by Congress! You can view Mark Warner’s comments on this issue at the Fairfax Chamber debate – and my comments as well – and also Mark Warner’s remarks at a July 4th union rally in Northern Virginia at the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjvoT9elFbo The AFL-CIO has said that electing Mark Warner...

Abdiamar Bare, 21, walks up to the nondescript mosque in Greeley for noon prayers and pauses a moment to talk about his faith. He is asked by a visitor if he's seen the DVD "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." No, he says. He's asked if the principles of Islam allow other religions to coexist with it. "Every religion is the same. No religion is better than another religion," Bare says. "I believe in Islam. I like my religion, and I don't want it to interfere with other religions." Bare is one of about 120 Muslim workers recently fired...

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) donated nearly $5.5 million to three non-profit, leftist political groups to beat Republican politicians in Florida, Michigan and Ohio this year. AFSCME gave to Campaign Money Watch, Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority Midwest. AFSCME's role, however, was not well known until now. Detractors say that this shadowy financial support violates the spirit of campaign finance reform and open government. Allowing non-profits to raise and spend unlimited union or corporate funds violates the spirit of laws aimed at curbing special interests in elections, said Meredith McGehee of the non-partisan watchdog Campaign...

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- You just knew that when Joe O'Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters. "I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain," O'Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved "Another Democrat for John McCain" signs and roared its approval. O'Connell assured the energized crowd that "organized labor will have a seat at the table when John McCain becomes president." It's the kind of statement that Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President...

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- You just knew that when Joe O'Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters. "I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain," O'Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved "Another Democrat for John McCain" signs and roared its approval.

In most organizations where leadership positions are determined by democratic elections, there is a built-in self-preservation instinct to evade tough issues. But union leaders at a recent AFL-CIO meeting in Chicago did something very right, maybe even courageous. It was inspirational to see and hear honest, principled testaments about the union movement and race: where we came from; how instrumental we have been in the march for civil rights; how important it was for each of us individually within our unions and collectively to the public to speak out like never before against racism in all its forms.

To understand what it’s like to work on the railroad — the Long Island Rail Road — a good place to start is the Sunken Meadow golf course, a rolling stretch of state-owned land on Long Island Sound. During the workweek, it is not uncommon to find retired L.I.R.R. employees, sometimes dozens of them, golfing there. A few even walk the course. Yet this is not your typical retiree outing. These golfers are considered disabled. At an age when most people still work, they get a pension and tens of thousands of dollars in annual disability payments — a sum...

Sen. Barack Obama better not mess with his running mate Joe Biden's guns...or else. In an out-of-nowhere attempt to re-assure a southwestern Virginia labor crowd about gun owners' rights, Biden -- who regularly scores "F" ratings from the National Rifle Association -- warned Obama that if "he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem."

Reader SBD, who is one of the best researchers I have seen, has pulled together an exhaustive history of events and reports surrounding Palin’s battles with Walt Monegan and is allies. It is a comment worthy of being a post all on its own, and is being copied here. Not surprising, the records shows that at the time Monegan was asked to take another position (he was not fired, he quit instead of taking the other job) all the reporting and screaming from Palin’s opponents revolved around the budget issues.

Mohamed Rage, who leads the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said 80 workers were thrown out after an altercation late Thursday. He said when they tried to return for their shift Friday, they were fired, along with 70 others. Muslim workers have been asking for accommodations with break times to allow prayer at sunset. The issue led to walkouts this week -- not only from Muslims but from non-Muslims who protested such accommodations as preferential treatment.

OMAHA, Neb. — Officials at a meatpacking plant in Grand Island fired at least 86 workers Friday after they walked off the job amid a dispute over prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the company said. However, a Muslim leader and one of the fired workers disputed the plant's numbers, saying 150 people had lost their jobs at the JBS Swift & Co. facility, which employs about 2,500 people, not including management. About a fifth of them are Muslim. JBS Swift spokeswoman Tamara Smid, who confirmed 86 firings late Friday, said the action was taken against employees who...

First Swift Company tells Muslims that their demands for special break times would no longer be met. Now Swift has fired 150 Muslims who worked there. They were fired for being selfish and taking unauthorized work breaks to accommodate Islam. A few Muslim workers actually fainted on the job because of lack of food. Them fainting makes me wonder how much other Muslim workers slacked off this month due to lack of energy.

To head off claims by California Republicans that California State House Democrats are covering up for the fraud involved in a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spending and influence peddling scandal, it was announced that a criminal investigation is going forward against the union. One wonders just how hard the Democrat controlled House will pursue the matter, though? The Education and Labor Committee's top-ranked Republican, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), suggested last week that the congressional examination of an SEIU local in Los Angeles had stalled because the union is a key ally of the Democratic Party. The committee...

The walk out staged by the non-Muslims at Swift Plant has worked, at least for now. As the Muslim employees were told that their demands were causing too much trouble and they would not be met any longer. I applaud the non-Muslims at Swift Plant for not allowing Islam to be imposed on them. As for the Muslims there, they need to learn to keep their religion to themselves or move to an Islamic country.

GRAND ISLAND — About 50 to 80 Muslims quit at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant Thursday night. Dan Hoppes, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local No. 22, said the matter stems from the recent debate over break time for the purpose of prayer during the holy month of Ramadan. "There were some Muslim people who wanted to get the rest of the people to back them to moving their (dinner) break to an earlier time, and when that did not happen, the rest of the people went back to work and those people protesting...