Free Republic

Workers represented by Los Angeles County's largest employee union voted to approve a tentative agreement with county management that would give them a 10% raise over three years. Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents more than 57,000 county employees, including nurses, social workers and clerical workers, tallied ballots Thursday after a month long voting process. Apart from the pay increase, the new contract would make Cesar Chavez Day an official county holiday starting in 2017, provide as much as an additional week of annual vacation every year and put some temporary workers on a path to full-time jobs....

No surprise here. The Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) is planning their annual Black Friday strike at Walmart centers around the country with a twist. This year, more than 100 Walmart workers plan to fast for 15 days prior to protesting on Friday, in what's sure to be an interesting PR stunt, but what's dramatically different this year is that it's unclear who is captaining the ship. OUR Walmart has been in disarray for months, torn apart by internal bickering and conflicting leadership. Originally, OUR Walmart was established by the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW)...

Thousands of airport workers in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, and Fort Lauderdale are expected to strike on Wednesday night and into Thursday. The workers, mostly cabin and airport cleaners, are subcontracted by outside companies to work with various airlines, including JetBlue (JBLU), Delta (DAL) and United (UAL). They will be striking for new contracts, which include medical benefits and higher wages of $15 an hour.

Sanders wins backing of American Postal Workers Union, his largest labor endorsement. WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders secured the endorsement of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union on Thursday, marking the largest labor union to back his Democratic presidential campaign. The union's decision gives Sanders a boost heading into the second Democratic debate in Iowa on Saturday and comes as the Vermont senator has sought to halt a string of labor endorsements to Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton...

It’s time for a new approach to dealing with the scandal plagued offices of the Internal Revenue Service. It’s become obvious by this point that you can’t fire anyone. And until there’s a change in personnel at the highest levels in the Justice Department you can’t prosecute anyone either. Despite plenty of lip service by everyone from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton, it would seem that it’s just going to be business as usual at the tax collector’s office and they can essentially thumb their noses at us.But perhaps there are some alterations which could be made from the...

The main union for construction workers is accusing President Obama of throwing them "under the bus" by rejecting the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) is one of the few labor unions that broke with the majority of Democrats and supported the project, which Obama rejected Friday after a seven-year review. "We are dismayed and disgusted that the President has once again thrown the members of LIUNA, and other hard-working, blue-collar workers under the bus of his vaunted 'legacy,' while doing little or nothing to make a real difference in global climate change," Terry...

<p>Mona Davids, head of the reform-minded New York City Parents Union, is a major thorn in the side of the teachers unions. So the unions and their allies in the city school system are striking back.</p> <p>Most notably, Davids is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the state’s teacher tenure law. Last week, a state judge rejected (for the second time) a motion to dismiss that suit — and the union empire struck back by moving to push her and her allies off her son’s school’s Title I Parent Advisory Council, which oversees how the principal spends nearly $1 million a year in funds. The parents had been questioning use of the money to pay two teachers-union offices to be “floaters” in the school.</p>

Jack Lessenberry, a columnist for Michigan Radio, wrote an Oct. 23 column that called for shutting down all of Michigan’s charter schools. Lessenberry makes a number of demands and assertions that deserve a closer look. Here are some of them. Lessenberry wrote: “That’s right — get rid of them, all of them. Many or most of them don’t work, and all of them are draining resources from our conventional public schools and helping further destabilize education.” A Closer Look: “All of them?” That would include quite a few charter school success stories. For example, in Benton Harbor, parents of about...

It's a not-so rosy report card for the nation's schoolchildren. Math scores slipped for fourth and eighth graders over the last two years, and reading grades were not much better, flat for fourth graders and lower for eighth graders, according to the 2015 Nation's Report Card. ... Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged parents, teachers, and others not to panic about the scores as states embrace higher academic standards, such as Common Core.

A new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the personal income of Michigan residents grew 3.7 percent between the second quarter of 2014 and the second quarter of 2015. Even more impressive, from 2012 through the second quarter of 2015 personal income here has increased by 9.2 percent here (from $382 billion to $417 billion). Nationwide, income growth during this same span was 8.3 percent. Michigan became a right-to-work state in December of 2012. The law became effective in March 2013. ForTheRecord says: When Michigan’s right-to-work law was enacted at the end of 2012, unions attacked...

A lawsuit seeking to have New York's teacher tenure protections ruled unconstitutional will advance, thanks to a judge's ruling late Friday afternoon. Teachers unions filed a motion to dismiss the case, but their motion was denied. ... The parents seeking to invalidate the teacher tenure protections argue the law robs children of their right to a basic education. "Teachers in New York City are more likely to die on the job than be replaced because of poor performance," according to the Partnership for Educational Justice, which is backing the case. Roughly 30 percent of New York students are proficient in...

http://clashdaily.com/2015/10/liberal-chick-asks-dumb-americans-who-this-ben-ghazi-guy-is-watch/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:19815131&utm_campaign=Liberal%20Chick%20Asks%20Dumb%20Americans%20Who%20This%20%E2%80%98Ben%20Ghazi%E2%80%99%20Guy%20Is%20(WATCH) Liberal Chick is on a mission to find out who this ‘Ben Ghazi’ guy is. Someone please forward this to Hillary, because she apparently has no clue either.

Los Angeles actors sue their labor union to preserve small theaters. On Saturday in federal court in Los Angeles, a group of actors and other workers sued Actors’ Equity Association to stop the union from forcing theaters with fewer than 100 seats to pay union members at least $9 per hour. The rebels, who seem to have a better grasp of economics than the union leadership, warn in their lawsuit that forcing the rules on theaters that used to be exempt will force many to “close altogether ... just as young, unskilled workers in the restaurant industry are willing to...

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.

Colorado’s pension plan is on track to be fully funded by 2055 — 14 years after the 2041 target date set by the Colorado Legislature in 2010. Now, lawmakers will need to decide if they want to stick to the 2041 target date, or agree that it will take longer than they planned for the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association to have the money to pay for the promised benefits to PERA’s 529,000. The probability of the financial projections, as well as other variables, were discussed today with members of the Colorado Legislative Audit Committee, who heard the results of...

No wonder Tom Minerath is angry. Sixty-eight years old and retired since 2007, the Town of Merton man is about to have about $20,000 taken away from his annual pension — money he earned, money that was promised him, money guaranteed in contracts negotiated by one of the country's strongest labor unions. "I'm going to make it through this, but it's just not right," he said. "It's just not right." Which probably sums up the feelings of more than 270,000 people, including thousands in Wisconsin, who have been told by the financially troubled Central States Pension Fund that their pension...

It may come as a surprise to many that Donald J Trump’s support from Blue Collar Americans (those involved in trades, manufacturing, industry, and labor) is the highest since any candidate since FDR in 1936 since Gallup began polling. Trump has consistently shown his appeal to the blue collar sector of the economy, pulling ahead of even Clinton and Sanders in “rust belt” states like Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Pennslyvania. These states have the highest share of “Blue Collar” voters in the nation, and many of them have not voted Republican in over 20 years. Trump’s appeal to blue...

A recent caller to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show highlights the size and scope of Donald Trump’s supportive base: CALLER: I just wanted to let you know, I wanted to talk about the Trumpster. I think he’s tapped into some of the Democratic voters because I’m a Teamster back here, and I was working with 30 Teamsters last night. We put shows in conventions and load trucks up, and these guys, now, mind you, only three of the 30 of us are Republicans, one’s a Libertarian, and the rest voted for Obama. And these guys love the Trumpster, they love him....

We’ll never see anything like this go through at the federal level while Barack Obama is president, but the Keystone State is is mounting an effort to protect public sector workers from having dues automatically deducted from their pay and then used to fund political campaigns. It comes in the form of a bill which has passed the state senate and now moves on to the House. (Fox 34 News) Pennsylvania’s state senate approved a controversial bill Wednesday which would prevent unions from taking money from workers’ paychecks and using it for political purposes.Senate Bill 501, dubbed the “Paycheck...

Donald Trump speaks at the Saginaw/Genesee County Lincoln Day in Michigan Reports say that the influential Teamsters union may snub Hillary Clinton in favor of endorsing a Republican candidate such as Donald Trump for the White House in 2016. Such a move would likely be a notable boost for Republicans with Independents and “Reagan Democrats,” a critical segment of swing-voters that candidates spend millions trying to woo. These “middle of the road” type voters are crucial to winning bellwether regions like Michigan’s Macomb County. Clinton also faces snubs from other powerful unions like the AFL-CIO and AFSCME, refusing to...