Posted on 12/22/2008 1:20:30 PM PST by St. Louis Conservative
What accounts for the sudden decline in the fortunes of America’s labor unions? Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that labor leaders helped elect the most liberal chief executive in modern times? Even before he’s sworn in, the debates over the automaker bailout and Card Check are making clear that as important as the White House is, you can’t succeed if your policy goals are so unpopular that they have a hard time passing Congress.
We’ve seen how unpopular the UAW bailout is, and blackhedd today explains that the bailout debate may well dominate Barack Obama’s first 100 days. The unions may ultimately get the bailout they’re aiming for, but if they do it’s likely to require tens of thousands of job losses, and it may require Obama to spend a lot of political capital.
It seems that the effort to pass Card Check is running into similar trouble. Specifically, most Democrats seem to recognize that it’s not very popular, and they’re running from a difficult vote. Last week, Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln aired her doubts about Card Check. With a re-election campaign coming up in 2010, she seems uneasy about the prospect of defending a vote to eliminate the secret ballot for union organizing. But if Lincoln’s concern is her re-election bid in 2010, what explains the similar unease about Card Check from her home-state colleague Mark Pryor — who coasted to re-election unchallenged just 6 weeks ago?
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
**** Did you know that its almost 2009.***
Do you know that I have been a paid up member of the IBEW for the last thirty years? I was there at the beginning of the Union, I saw the problems from both sides.
We didn’t need union thugs, the PLANT MANAGER FROM HELL convinced us a union was needed, then the company resorted to such skulduggery as letters to the wives,private “talks” with pro union employees and other devious means.
We got the union in on MY vote, but the contract only after we hit the company with 250 violations (by the company) of the labor relations law.
The other place I was involved in a union fight was 1976 it New Mexico. I saw and was unimpressed with the union methods because we did have a fair company there. That union was turned down.
The union tried to get into a steel shop I worked at in Tulsa, Ok back in 1972. They failed. Again the union was not needed there. Oklahoma was at that time a closed shop state.
-—Do you know that I have been a paid up member of the IBEW for the last thirty years?
And you are proud of that? A compliant un-thinking lackey?
So did you threaten to beat people up?
How’s your pension doing?
The Ullico case is important because it involves the heads of some of the largest unions in the country improperly, if not illegally, enriching themselves at the expense of union members and retirees.
It’s also important because it illustrates the growing trend of union corruption involving pensions.
http://www.nlpc.org/olap/congress/020501.htm
Yet in 2006, the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, a plan for the rank-and-file members, covering 100,787 workers, was 75% funded. That is, it had three-fourths of the money it needed to pay benefit obligations of workers and retirees.
http://www.poorandstupid.com/2008_07_06_chronArchive.asp
On Tuesday, state attorney general Eliot Spitzer announced a settlement with NYSUT that includes a union agreement to reform its pension practices and a modest fine for the union. From Mark Johnson’s Associated Press story:
http://www.knickerbockerblog.com/labor-issues/on-the-teachers-unions-pension.html
For years, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) failed to protect the members of its Washington, D.C. affiliate. According to a March 2003 AFT publication, Washington Teachers Union president Barbara Bullock — along with a small group of co-conspirators — illegally diverted $5 million from the union between 1995 and 2002. That amounts to $1,000 per teacher stolen, laundered, or used for the personal expenses of union officials.
http://teachersunionsexposed.com/embezzlementexcess_scandal.cfm
Against all expectations, the corruption scandal at New York City’s largest municipal union could end up transforming the union into a more formidable adversary in coming contract negotiations with the city, labor experts say.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E1D9173CF933A15751C1A96E958260
Another Nabbed in Mob Controlled NY School Bus Union Scandal
Posted on January 30th, 2008
by Warner Todd Huston in All News
Read 981 times.
We’ve mentioned the little problem with the organized crime infested New York Transit Workers union Local 1181 a few times here on the Union Label. Well, we can report that another indictment in this growing and embarrassing scandal has been handed down.
Joseph Fazzia, owner of Jofaz Transportation was charged with making false statements to the FBI.
http://www.bloggernews.net/113472
Embezzlement, False Reports, Violence, And More
Most people don’t know just how many crimes are committed every year through which union officials hurt their own members. The number of reputed and verified crimes is staggering. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the hundreds of indictments of union officials for violations of the Labor Management and Reporting Disclosure Act. According to the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), those crimes include “embezzlement, filing false reports, keeping false records, destruction of records, extortionate picketing and deprivation of rights by violence.”
http://www.unionfacts.com/articles/crimeFraud.cfm
United States Attorney Terrance P. Flynn announced today the unsealing of an 8-count Superseding Indictment, returned by a federal grand jury, charging 12 members of Operating Engineers Local 17, based in Hamburg , New York , with engaging in a violent scheme to extort jobs and compensation associated with those jobs from both local and out-of-town, businesses and their employees. The Superseding Indictment specifically accuses the defendants, including high-ranking officers of Local 17, with conspiracy to commit racketeering, and 7 counts of extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, and attempted extortion. Charged in the Superseding Indictment were:
http://buffalo.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel08/extortion040808.htm
Laborers’ Union official indicted on conspiracy charge
07:28 AM EST on Tuesday, November 25, 2008
PROVIDENCE — A ranking official of the Laborers’ International Union of North America yesterday became the third person to face criminal charges in an ongoing investigation into kickback payments on a development in the city’s Olneyville neighborhood.
http://www.projo.com/news/content/LABORERS___ARREST_11-25-08_HUCD7C7_v14.3d4ff63.html
Former Employee of Florida Ironworkers Union Indicted For Embezzling $30,000 From Welfare Plan
Atlanta, Georgia - The former office manager of the Ironworkers Local Union No. 808 Joint Apprenticeship and Training Fund in Orlando, Florida, has been charged with 42 counts of embezzling approximately $30,000 in assets from the fund, based on an investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/pr1022a03.html
After a Decade of Clean-Up, Another Union Indictment
Back to the Mob
by Tom Robbins
Last Wednesday, exactly 10 years to the day after federal prosecutors filed a civil racketeering lawsuit aimed at ridding the powerful New York District Council of Carpenters of corruption, the union’s long and tortured relationship with organized crime was once again on public display.
http://www.thelaborers.net/newspapers/The%20Village%20Voice%20CityState%20Back%20to%20the%20Mob.htm
***And you are proud of that? A compliant un-thinking lackey?****
I wish you had to work under THE PLANT MANAGER FROM HELL. Even the shift supervisors privatly encouraged a union while publicly opposing it. It was that bad!
Un-thinking lackey? I have NEVER voted for a political candidate backed by the union.
There are several other Freepers who worked under that MANAGER FROM HELL. They agree it was bad!
***So did you threaten to beat people up?****
We never tried. The PLANT MANAGER FROM HELL was the best union organizer the company had. Without him the plant would still be non union.
How bad was he? Wehn he died we hoped he would be buried locally so we wouldn’t have to charter a bus to go all the way to Louisiana just to pi$$ on his grave.
Even his grandson became a union stewart.
How’s your pension doing?****
We have company pensions but never applied for union pensions. Didn’t want any.
How much do you pay in Union dues per month? Are you getting your money’s worth?
I have been non-Union for 30 yrs and haven’t paid one dime in dues and not missed them.
Pray for W, America and Our Troops
***How much do you pay in Union dues per month? Are you getting your money’s worth?***
One hour’s pay per month. Yes, we got our money’s worth, a wall between the PLANT MANAGER FROM HELL and us.
***I have been non-Union for 30 yrs and haven’t paid one dime in dues and not missed them.***
I was non-union at my jobs before I got this one. never voted or signed cards, till I ran up against the PLANT MANAGER FROM HELL, and his little toady.
We gained NOTHING with our unionizing except protection from the PLANT MANAGER FROM HELL. That is all we wanted.
Everybody has had the Boss from Hades, so what?? You think you need a union to stand up to him? The best thing that happened to me was that boss and getting fired. A month later I had a raise and the 2nd best job I ever had. If the boss is that bad go find another one.
Is that worth $1000/yr? You just think you need a union, too bad. They have brainwashed you into believing it is you against the company/manager. If your a good worker they need you worse than you think.
Pray for W and Our Troops
***Everybody has had the Boss from Hades, so what?? ****
No they don’t. You have never met one like ours. His bad reputation was company wide encompasing three states. He HATED everyone. He just did not hate everyone equally.
Like I said, even his own grandson became a union steward to oppose him.
He was given our isolated plant 300 miles from the others to manage because everyone at the plants where he used to work hated him, including the higher management. Many who were to be transfered up here withdrew their applications when they found he would manage the plant. He even managed to insult many of the local people around here.
A few of the names for him...
Mr Wonderful.
The Mongloid m*****r.
Short man.
the psycho.
He was running this plant like a prison.
There are others instances when he insulted local people and higher management ordered him to apologize.
We even considered leaving the union contract as it was for several years if the company would remove this man from the plant. They didn’t. He had connections.
One of my religious friends almost took the step to kill this worthless piece of s**t but at the last moment figured the fall from the top just might not kill him.
My friend later said that he only hated two people in his entire life and the plant manager was one.
We made 4 times the minimum wage in an area where agricultural minimum wage was normal, yet we still had a 60% turnover. Three people I worked with walked out in one day because of THE PLANT MANAGER FROM HELL. Within four years we lost all our origional operators exept me, all the maintainance people but two, half the electricians and two chemists, all because of the plant manager.
The union prevented several men from being fired for no reason and it got several others reinstated. Several who were fired for no reason but decided no to come back received decent severance pay when the union filed suit.
The union refused to help others who deserved to be fired.
I just hope you never have to work for a person like that. You will get your eyes open real quick.
Is it possible that taking away your right to a secret ballot is too unAmerican for even the Democrats?
Nope.
Must be some other reason because nothijng is too unAmerican for Democrats.
At a plant I worked at years ago, we had 30 employees. Union organizers put pressure on them to vote union and got 16 people to sign cards. I did not sign a card.
When the vote was held the union got exactly 2 votes. 28 opposed.
With today’s Dem standards, when 16 people signed cards it would mean the company would be forced to recognize a union.
You don’t need a union unless the company is really bad!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.