Posted on 06/20/2007 5:44:08 AM PDT by jirwin08
Big Labor bussed thousands of activists to Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby for the Employee Free Choice Act—an act union leaders have called their top legislative priority for the 110th Congress.
Event organizers claimed they brought 2,000 participants on 62 busses from the Campaign for America’s Future’s “Take Back America” conference to the Upper Senate Park.
There, a parade of Democratic congressmen and senators delivered hard-line progressive rhetoric to their pro-union advocates.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D.-Mass.) furiously ripped up a full-page advertisement sponsored by the Center for Union Facts that was published that morning in the New York Times, USA Today and Roll Call.
The Center for Union Facts opposes the act, and their advertisement featured a large quotation: “There’s no reason to subject the workers to an election.” This quotation appeared with the question, “Who said it?” and displays photos of the former President of Uganda Idi Amin, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees Bruce Raynor.
Kennedy held the advertisement high and said, “Here is that advertisement! They say there is no reason to subject the workers to elections. [It asks,] 'Who said it?' And then it says union bosses are pressuring the Senate to change the rules on union organizing. Learn about their scheme to eliminate workers’ right to a secret ballot at Union Facts.com. This is what I say to that!”
At that point Kennedy tore the advertisement into shreds-- an act that drew wild applause from the crowd.
Small print at the bottom of the Center for Union Facts’ ad reveals the quotation came from Raynor. The quotation was published in a May 31, 2003 article by the New York Times titled “Labor Turns to a Pivotal Organizing Drive.”
Brett Jacobson, a senior researcher at the Center for Union Facts, watched Kennedy’s outburst. Responding to this, Jacobson said: “Ripping up the ad tells you how desperate labor leaders and their politicians are to only have one side of the story told.”
The Employee Free Choice Act would allow unions to organize places of employment through a public petition-like process called “card check.” Currently, in order to organize, the majority of workers must cast votes of support to unionize their workplace in a secret ballot process. Opponents of “card check” believe eliminating secret ballots would encourage union bosses to intimidate workers into supporting Big Labor.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) also appeared at the rally in support of the bill. She told participants: “We [politicians] work better when you [labor] work for us!”
Other Democrats who addressed the crowd included Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Sen. Richard Durbin (Ill.), Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio).
Before the activists were bussed to Capitol Hill, Democratic candidate for President and former North Carolina senator John Edwards spoke at the “Take Back America” conference. He said, “If you can sign a card to join the Republican Party, then you can sign a card to join a union.”
Brendan Steinhauser, grassroots manager of FreedomWorks, a non-profit that also opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, protested the rally with signs. He was physically confronted by union workers. Steinhauser said he was pushed and that one of Freedomworks’ female interns had her hair pulled. [View related photos here.]
Steinhauser said, “It’s ironic that the unions claim they were rallying against worker intimidation when they sought to intimidate FreedomWorks supporters by trashing our signs, pushing us, and threatening us with physical violence. They were not interested in any democratic debate, and only representatives from the Socialist Workers Party would actually talk to us.”
FreedomWorks plans to post video footage of their confrontational interactions with union supporters.
On Wednesday, Majority Leader Harry Reid interrupted debate on energy legislation to file for a cloture vote in the Senate on the Employee Free Choice Act. A vote to end debate on the Employee Free Choice Act and proceed to a final vote of passage on the bill, called cloture, could occur as soon as Thursday.
The Employee Free Choice Act passed in the House on March 1, mostly on party lines. Only 2 Democrats voted against the bill. Thirteen Republicans crossed party lines to vote for it.
Greg Mourad, who specializes in legislative affairs for the National Right to Work Committee, said he does not expect the Senate to pass a cloture vote on the bill. He said Democrats just need to “throw a bone to their labor union bosses.”
He also said it was “obscene” that Democrat leadership would “interrupt important debate in immigration and war issues to have a throw away vote they know is going to lose on an issue as evil as card check.”
He was not hopeful that defeat on a cloture vote would discourage Big Labor from continuing to pressure members of Congress to pass bills favorable to unions. “They [unions] have spent a billion dollars each election cycle for the last 10 years,” Mourad said. “They want a massive return on that massive investment.”
To see more photos of the rally try this link: http://www.freedomworks.org/newsroom/press_template.php?press_id=2235
* Until they couldn't take it any more, US film production companies had to suffer under a 50-100% "union surcharge" on all their work in the US.
If unions are so concerned about their members, why are they not fighting the effort to allow 12 million illegals in country that will drive their member wages down? They dont give a rats @$$.
There was a time when I would have said that President Bush would never sign anything like this into law. Now I don’t know if he would or not.
Does anyone else notice that while paying lip service to Unions ,the Dems are steady sneaking in illegal aliens to work for low wages and not pay Union dues.
Do the Unions notice this or are they stupid?
How long before Auto manufacturers discover the Mexican Illegal option for cheap labor.
The Teamsters are worming their way into the public education business as well. Not just laborers, they are organizing school administrators as well.
Next up...
The Poll Monitor Union.
To insure that the public votes correctly.
Idiots. Anyone can forge a bunch of union card signatures. In fact this fraud has been tried and exposed many times when a union tries to force it's way into a place that doesn't want it.
Taking away the employees democratic right to vote via secret ballot as to whether or not they want a union is pure stupidity, but it shows you what "Democrats" (a deceptive name for a Marxist dictatorship party) and some Republicans think about your democratic rights.
This growing "one world view" and damn everyone who disagrees with it, is growing to a dangerous level in this country, and throughout the world. This 'global warming" scam is just a front behind which global governance by these single minded, one world view mental case Marxists hope to destroy America's sovereignty and free capitalist society.
Do the Unions notice this or are they stupid?
Union bosses are apparently still hoping to sign up the illegals in large numbers to increase their dues-paying base. The union members who are being replaced may have a very different opinion on the issue.
Ergo, more money for the union bosses, and more money for the rat socialists.
This is the setup for the Democrat-Union crusade to free the serfs currently known as "undocumented workers" and soon to be "guest workers". We should expect Union organizing efforts coupled with the most massive expansion of social welfare programs ever visited upon this country. The demands for public housing alone will outstrip every other program on the books now and those Fed Housing projects will be built by Unionized contractors. but it doesn't stop there.
They are stupid, or rather, the pawns they get to carry signs and protest are stupid. Union bosses and politicians are in bed with each other. It's all about the money they stuff in their own pockets.
What's more, Democrat governments are usualy quick to legislate stiking unions back to work should their stike either effect government services, or one of their political pals, plus they are famous for implimenting wage controls and roll backs on government workers, as well as contracting out their jobs.
But, the suckers keep lining up to carry picket signs, swallowing that marxist BS hook line and sinker.
Ahh yes, the leftist public housing dream, which has been shown to be a complete failure in every north American city (including Canada). Yet they keep on doing the same crap over and over again, only to be called government slum landlords a few years later after ungratefull welfare tenants and drug dealers, whore houses (all one and the same really) bash the crap out of them.
That dream quickly falls apart when the economy goes downhill however, and it is looking more and more like that is going to happen. Just watch what happens the day after the next election.
Because they are concerned about their membership numbers, not their members.
Large numbers of legalized, unskilled laborers that they can potentially unionize is ideal for the unions.
Happy, satisfied workers also have little need for a union, so it really isn't in the union leadership's best interests to do too good of a job of looking after the interests of their members. They are better off just finding ways of blaming everything on the employers and evil corporations, while not really solving problems.
LOL, where's Cesar Chavez when you need him to call immigration.
Excuse me, Senator, but exactly who should be working for who here? It seems to me that YOU are supposed to be working FOR US, not the other way around........
Movie stars get paid millions, but a Teamster should take a hit to support them. Yeah, right.
“Does anyone else notice that while paying lip service to Unions ,the Dems are steady sneaking in illegal aliens to work for low wages and not pay Union dues.
Do the Unions notice this or are they stupid?”
We notice, but what can we do about it? Most Republicans hate us, and force us into the arms of the Democrats.
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