Union Leaders on Trial for Racketeering and Extortion Plead Guilty [Where's Hillary in this?]

The NY Times ^ | Aug 1, 2006 | David Staba

[summer]

BUFFALO, Aug. 1 — ....“This has been the most significant F.B.I. criminal investigation in western New York in the past 20 years,” said Laurie Bennett, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s office here. “I say that because of the widespread violence and the significant and devastating economic loss to the community.”

...Witnesses in the first days of the trial described threats against themselves and their relatives, slashed tires, vandalism at construction sites ...

...On Thursday, Goran Stevanovich, who was a nonunion worker at an asbestos-removal project in the spring of 1997, described how Local 91 pickets threw steel pipes and other objects at him and his co-workers and shouted threats. He testified that the most chilling one came from Mr. Bellreng.

“ ‘Do you ever ask yourself where are Alexander and Daniella right now?’ ” Mr. Stevanovich quoted Mr. Bellreng as asking him, referring to his two young children.

Several weeks later, Mr. Bellreng said, “Goran, don’t worry. I’m coming tonight to take your head off,” Mr. Stevanovich testified.

That night, two bricks with explosives taped to them crashed through windows at the apartment where Mr. Stevanovich and three others were sleeping. One landed about a foot from his head, with the explosion causing permanent hearing loss in his right ear and burning his bedding, he testified. ...

Mr. Stevanovich testified that the next day, Mr. Bellreng said, “Goran, how was sleeping in the fire last night?”

Shortly after Mr. Stevanovich’s testimony and cross-examination, defense lawyers approached prosecutors and asked to make a plea deal...

“I believe they saw the strength of his testimony and became aware of his appeal to the jury and to the public,” Mr. Flynn said....

[summer]

Whoa! What a creepy scenario described in this trial's testimony! And this violence went on for THREE DECADES!!!
Also, where is Senator Hillary Clinton in all this? I thought she was busy revitalizing all of upstate NY for new business. Apparently she forgot about doing something to get rid of this incredible union violence going on in Niagra Falls.

It's times like this when I find it very hard to support the concept of a union. I am sure someday there will be studies on all the damage they did to education -- keeping highly qualified teachers out while hiring their unqualified relatives, and someone finally connecting the dots: Duh! Maybe this is often why student achievement is so low and why so many highly qualified teachers flee the profession so quickly!

[bpjam]

Like she would have any idea of what is going on in New York......

[summer]

Also from article:

On Tuesday, prosecutors declared victory in their long-running war against the union, Local 91 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, when three of its former officials abruptly pleaded guilty to racketeering charges and a fourth to extortion. Their pleas came in the third week of a federal trial that was expected to last as long as two months and followed vivid testimony of intimidation and violence.

I think fighting this kind of crime is something GW will also be remembered for in history, in terms of the FBI and the USDOJ, with other important prosecutions and trials happening on his watch. (I am thinking of all the white collar guys who were convicted, too.)

[summer]

Yeah, she is always giving speeches up there, but it's difficult to believe she has a clue as to what is actually happening in that region.

[jimmyray]

Yeah, she is always giving speeches up there, but it's difficult to believe she has a clue as to what is actually happening in that region.

Same can be said for most >1 term politicians, regardless of where they actually are from!

[2banana]

Union goons and thugs - they act just like the communists

[Al Gator]

Just another fine example of "Thugs-R-Us".

Prerequisite for a union? Raw knuckles; raw from being dragged on the ground behind.

These rent-a-riot types are brain dead dolts who don't realize that lack of work in an area can be blamed on them.

[HawaiianGecko]

 

Use of Dues for Politics

http://www.unionfacts.com

 

Every day, millions of union members have money taken from their paychecks to support some union presidents' political agenda. In 1996, Rutgers economics professor Leo Troy estimated that union political expenditures totaled about $500 million in each election cycle. More recently, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research estimated that total union political expenditures reached $925 million in the 2004 cycle. Over time, this has added up: According to The Center for Responsive Politics, eight of the top ten all-time political contributors are labor unions. Labor leaders have made the use of employee money for political causes a popular practice — but it's far less popular among the public and the members themselves.		Union members who don't want their dues used for a political cause with which they disagree or consider offensive should learn more about their "Beck Rights" and how to kick out bad leadership. To learn more about the political donations of a specific union, click here.

Use of Member Money for Politics is Unpopular and Misunderstood

• Use of members' money for political goals was second only to corruption as the reasons Americans disapproved of unions, according to a 2004 Zogby poll.
  
   
• That poll also found that 63 percent of all employees, and 61 percent of unionized employees, agreed that union members shouldn't be forced to contribute.
  
   
• A McLaughlin & Associates poll indicated that 67 percent of workers were unaware of their right to withhold mandatory dues for politics (to see how to keep your dues, learn more about resigning your union membership).

Against Members' Politics
 

• CNN exit polls showed that 38 percent of union members voted for President Bush in the 2004 election, but more than 95 percent of union funds went to support Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.
  
   
• A 1999 Zogby poll found a majority of union members—nearly 55 percent—thought people should be given a choice of investing their Social Security taxes in some form of personal retirement accounts. But union officials spent millions of dollars to oppose private accounts in the Social Security system.
  
   
• The San Francisco Chronicle reported: "California unions spent $88,000 (public employee unions' share was $68,000) in opposing Proposition 22, a 2000 ballot initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman"; a Los Angeles Times exit poll found that 58 percent of union households had voted yes on the measure. The Chronicle added: "California unions spent $32.7 million (public employee unions' share was $25.7 million) to oppose the recall of former Gov. Gray Davis, yet exit polls found half of union members voted for the recall and 56 percent voted for a Republican candidate to replace him—43 percent for Schwarzenegger and 13 percent for Tom McClintock."
  
   
• In 1992, the Teamsters reportedly gave a massive amount of political money to the presidential candidate it knew its membership did not support. According to author Duke Zeller, "As for the actual amount of Teamster money poured into the Clinton-Gore campaign, Gene Giacumbo, a former elected member of [former Teamsters president Ron] Carey's board, believes the total figure to be even higher. 'Carey himself bragged to me that the union gave $56 million to Clinton,' he confirmed, 'and this was after an independent, outside poll the union paid for showed the membership responses preferred Perot, then Bush, with Clinton in third place.'"

Do Teachers Have a Lot to Learn?
 

• Between 1990 and 2004, 94 percent of donations made by National Education Association political action committees and individual officers went to Democrats, according to OpenSecrets.org. According to the NEA's own "Status of the American Public School Teacher 2000-2001," only 45 percent of public school teachers are Democrats.
  
   
• A Wall Street Journal editorial revealed that the National Education Association -- the nation's largest teachers union -- "is spending the mandatory dues paid by members who are told their money will be used to gain better wages, benefits and working conditions. According to the latest filing, member dues accounted for $295 million of the NEA's $341 million in total receipts last year. But the union spent $25 million of that on 'political activities and lobbying' and another $65.5 million on 'contributions, gifts and grants' that seemed designed to further those hyper-liberal political goals."
  
   
• The Journal added that the NEA's financial disclosure forms "expose the union as a honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students."

 

 

[summer]

Very interesting. Thanks.