Free Republic

Greg Lalevee is standing in the midst of a truly epic collection of construction equipment at his union’s training center, just off the New Jersey Turnpike. This former sand mine, which his union uses to train workers in construction equipment, is bristling with cranes, pile drivers and dozens of other pieces of heavy machinery. But before showing off a construction arsenal vast enough to raise a skyscraper on the spot, Lalevee is enthusing about his union’s good fortune as Congress finally pays attention to infrastructure. “When President Biden announced his plans, for us to hear that — it was nirvana,”...

The AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a statement on racism and equality in response to the death of slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin, Thursday. Their statement, “A Call for Social and Economic Justice for Communities of Color” focused on the death of Martin and the “the sense of unrealized justice it left behind.” “Trayvon’s death — and the subsequent trial — have reopened the deep and unresolved wound of racism in our country,” the statement reads. “Nearly 50 years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, we have made tremendous progress, but we still have a long way to...

Americans have a “right” to full employment, housing, health care, collective bargaining and protection against old age, sickness and unemployment, according to AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. Trumka says Big Labor intends to push both the Democratic Party and the GOP to adopt what he called “The Second Bill of Rights” at presidential nominating conventions this summer. “America’s Second Bill of Rights is a broad-based statement of what the American people need and what they deserve. If some of it sounds redundant, it is because we once took many of these rights for granted,” Trumka said last Thursday at the National...

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Thursday that climate change deniers call the shots in Congress. “[I]t is clear that as long as Congress is effectively controlled by climate change deniers, all of us — investors, companies, workers and the broader public — must take action ourselves,” Trumka said. In a wide-ranging speech in New York at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk & Energy Solutions, Trumka made the case for creating jobs with the build-out of low-carbon infrastructure. He said the collapse of global warming legislation has prompted the labor federation to seek other means to spur investments in...

Bauer Hints At New Walkout Over Right To WorkRepublicans Adamant To Push Bill Through UPDATED: 1:07 pm EST January 4, 2012 INDIANAPOLIS -- The leader of Indiana's House Democrats hinted Wednesday that party lawmakers may walk out for the second year in a row to oppose the same Republican "right-to-work" bill blocked last year by their five-week boycott. But some lawmakers seemed split on whether to make such a move. House Democratic Leader Patrick Bauer told The Associated Press that his caucus planned to meet Wednesday to debate how to handle the GOP proposal that would make Indiana the 23rd...

Sources on Capitol Hill tell Big Government that SEIU has organized a major effort to ‘Take Back the Capitol’ this week with a collective of community, labor and Occupy groups that are dedicated to “show Congress what democracy looks like, shine a light on corporate greed and the human suffering it has caused, and demand justice for the 99%.” According to Congressional sources, Occupy protestors have been visiting one Congressional office after another and demanding to speak with representatives while loitering in their waiting rooms and chanting. ‘Trackers’ are also being spotted roaming the hills of various Congressional buildings.

Economic Systems: The former head of the Service Employees International Union says capitalism is on the ash heap of history and sees China as our role model. We have seen his future, however, and it doesn't work. President Obama once reportedly told aides, according to the New York Times, that things would be easier if he were president of China. Presumably he meant there would be no pesky things like a Congress, free elections and a free press to deal with. Former SEIU chief Andy Stern, who may still hold the record for visits to the White House under this...

Last week, the U.S. House Workforce Committee held a hearing on the Obama Labor Board's recent onslaught of Big Labor power grabs that undermine worker freedom. National Labor Relations Board Chairman and former union lawyer Mark Pearce offered his spin after the hearing, calling the Board's decisions "fair and even-handed." The outrageous complaint against Boeing hardly seems fair to the thousands of South Carolina workers who could be forced out of their jobs all because they can't be required to pay union dues or "fees" as a condition of employment. But don't just take my word for it. At the...

A Message from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka All of us will remember the horror and anguish we experienced 10 years ago. Whether we lost loved ones ourselves—family members, union brothers and sisters—or felt the shock of a society that lost nearly 3,000 people and was forever changed, we need no reminding. Instead, I would like to reflect on doors that were opened on Sept. 11, 2001, and what has come of them in the 10 years since. Working men and women rushed through doors to danger and became America’s everyday heroes. Firefighters, construction workers, nurses and EMTs—all kinds of professionals...

Thug. (TPM) — Teamsters union president James Hoffa would say it all again if he could, he told TPM Monday. Hoffa riled up Fox News and the right wing Monday with a Labor Day speech in Detroit in which he called Republican members of Congress “sons of bitches” and said union workers are ready to “go to war” with the tea party next year and “take out” Republicans at the ballot box. Hoffa said he’d say the exact same words all over again. “I would because I believe it,” he said. “They’ve declared war on us. We didn’t declare war...

With around 25 employees, John King owns one of the largest non-union electrical contracting businesses in the Toledo, Ohio area. As a non-union contractor, his business happens to be doing well at a time when unions in the construction industry are suffering. This, it seems, has made the usual animosity unions have for him even greater, making him a prime target of union thugs. So much so, that one of them tried to kill him last week at his home. John King didn’t plan on being an enemy of unions. In fact, he says all he’s ever wanted to...

The Service Employees International Union could have written the book on how to get corporations to surrender. In fact, it has written the book. Lawyers for Sodexo USA, a subsidiary of France-based food services and facilities provider Sodexo Inc., recently revealed as much during the discovery phase of the company's federal racketeering suit against the union: an SEIU manual on how to intimidate employers. By applying extreme pressure, the monograph argued, a union can extract concessions from management on virtually any issue. Section Three of the text, fully 88 pages, can be downloaded from www.workplacechoice.org. The lawsuit, filed in March,...

Pastor Harris Himes sent me this letter following the shocking verdict in the Gladney beatdown case. Pastor Himes and his wife Sandra witnessed the local SEIU thugs attack Kenneth Gladney outside a Russ Carnahan town hall event in 2009. They were there when the SEIU beat an innocent black man. Harris was obviously upset with the verdict yesterday. After a health care town hall meeting in August 2009 St. Louis native Kenneth Gladney was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Rep. Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters. Gladney spent the night in the hospital after the beating. Yesterday the two SEIU...

‘Forget About the Law’ Union Bosses & White House Advisors Bob Park & Rich Trumka Admitting They Are Overriding US Law & Sovereignty With The International Labor Movement http://www.theblaze.com/stories/forget-about-the-law-union-bosses-white-house-advisors-bob-park-rich-trumka-admitting-they-are-overriding-us-law-sovereignty-with-the-international-labor-movement/

Sarah Knopp, a Los Angeles teachers union leader (in the Tax the Rich shirt) and Megan Behrent a New York City teacher affiliated with the International Socialist Organization, explain how to push Marxism in the public school classroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDeXhmTz_0M&feature=channel_video_title

In the wake of changes to government employee unions’ power in Wisconsin and elsewhere, The Communist Party USA is working in conjunction with national labor unions and other left wing political groups to organize protests in Madison, Wisconsin and across the nation on April 4th. Scott Marshall, Vice Chair of The Communist Party USA said his organization is working with the likes of MoveOn.org, the SEIU, the AFL-CIO and others to make April 4th, the anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a national day of action. “Support is beginning to grow,” said Marshall in an...

“A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” ~ Mao We are currently in the midst of a battle for the heart and soul of America. This war is being waged at our schools, the workplace and in our communities. States struggling to moderate impossible debt and balance budgets are examining ways to free themselves from the fiscal and political shackles imposed by labor unions whose exorbitant pensions and benefits comprise the bulk of their debt. With the economy tanking and the fight over public union benefits and collective bargaining spreading across the...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America A former official of one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to "destabilize" the country. The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street's grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government. The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend. The Blaze procured what appears to be...

NJEA president at rally accuses Gov. Christie of trying to start a 'middle-class civil war' Published: Friday, February 25, 2011, 2:30 PM Updated: Friday, February 25, 2011, 3:25 PM Matt Friedman/Statehouse Bureau TRENTON — In front of a crowd of thousands of protestors, the president of the state’s largest teachers union accused Gov. Chris Christie of trying to foment a civil war within the middle-class. “All of New Jersey’s middle-class is hurting, but this governor and his right-wing supporters are trying to start a middle-class civil war,” said New Jersey Education Association President Barbara Keshishian. As she spoke, thousands of...

Communists, socialists rallying support behind Madison protestsBy John Rossomando - The Daily Caller Updated: 5:04 PM 02/25/2011 Communist and socialist groups — including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Communist Party USA, Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and the Democratic Socialists of America — are voicing their support for the public-sector unions protesting Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s plans to curtail their collective bargaining abilities. The communist and socialist groups have parroted many of the union talking points being used by the unions on their websites and in their publications, such as those accusing the governor of trying to break their...