Tag Archives: Organized Labor

Organized Labor

Union Blues

For 50 years, the number of union workers on the private sector payroll has been decreasing. Today, the majority of union members works for government, at the local, state, or federal level. One out of every three government workers belongs to a union. In the private sector it’s one-in-fifteen.

Men with skilled trades once dominated unions. Now, most union jobs are held by women who run offices, are in the food or service sectors, or education.

The largest union is the National Education Association, with over three million members. The SEIU is second, with two million members. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees is followed by the American Federation of Teachers, and then, the Teamsters.

So along comes the Tea Party, or any conservative group, advocating that the growth of government be contained or even worse, scaled back. They are smeared and vilified! To this crowd, it is heresy to want to eliminate even one government job. Government union members owe their government jobs to liberals who grow government by design, as they take million of dollars in union dues as campaign donations. It’s a circle, it’s a scheme.

The private sector had to shed union jobs in order to be competitive and grow. The only thing liberals grow is government. That’s why Obama keeps talking about private sector jobs, but does nothing to help create them. While all the while, he keeps adding layer upon layer of more government bureaucracy. Got it? That’s how it works.

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The above was graciously lifted from Rush Limbaugh in its entirety. In a way that only Rush can do, he covers so much ground, in so little space.

Immigration, Organized Labor, Politics

What’s Behind The New Surge Of Illegals?

This phenomenon of illegal immigrants, including minor children with no accompanying adult, that are flooding the Texas border will come as a complete surprise to President Obama. That is, until he reads about it in the paper. That’s been the meme so far with everything wrong with his administration.

This surge is no accident. Especially so in the eve of mid-term elections. And now that Eric Cantor was swamped by a real conservative that, unlike Cantor, believes in legal immigration and secure borders, you can bet that President Obama will be on a full court press to swamp resources in Arizona and every other state with illegals.

Why has the flow gone from 6,500 to 90,000 in one year? Something happened. Like this, Central America Newspapers Tout Open US Door for Illegal Minors. This has Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett and Andy Stern’s (SEIU) fingerprints all over it. If I had to guess that this is not an accident, I’d guess that these people are involved. It is the orchestrated crisis that Cloward and Piven wrote about. And a strategy that all three players take to heart.

And did you know that the lawless Obama administration, aside from not enforcing current immigration laws, is now committing child abuse en masse. If you or I dropped a minor child on a street corner or a bus station without an adult, you would be charged with child abuse. But when President Obama and ICE do it, no problem. Let’s dump these kids on Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. “Serves the bitch right.” That’s where this administration is coming from. The country be damned. Oh well, of course. That is his goal you know. Tearing this country apart from everything it was founded on is part of what fundamental change (to him) looks like.

“Violating state law is something federal officials can still be held accountable for,” says Montgomery. “Kids are being dropped off in the middle of Phoenix, in June, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. I sent a letter to ICE, saying that if those circumstances are occurring, or did occur, would be a violation of Arizona laws against child abuse.”

This is why no one should be calling for impeachment. We should be calling for prosecution.

Links: Central America Newspapers Tout Open US Door for Illegal Minors | County Attorney: Did immigration authorities violate child abuse laws? | Illegal Immigration And Orchestrated Crisis

2014 Election, 2016 Election, Organized Labor, Politics

UAW Backs Off Of Tennessee VW Plant Organizing Loss

The United Auto Workers union on Monday said it was withdrawing its objection claiming undue outside political interference to the result of a February election it lost among workers at the Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee.

UAW President Bob King, in a statement issued by the union Monday morning, said the process of objecting to the National Labor Relations Board could have dragged on for months if not years.

There’s never been a more big-labor-friendly administration than the current one. So why would they back down so quickly? With the fear of losing the Senate and maybe The White House in two years, maybe attacking a growing company on the behalf of Big Labor isn’t a winning proposition from a political standpoint? UAW President Bob King got the message, we’ll have more flexibility after the election. Which means using the federal government to make sure that the union is the only player in the game.

Link: UAW withdraws objection to lost election at VW Tennessee plant

Organized Labor, Politics

Obama Admin Quid Pro Quo’s v2.0 To Big Labor, Action Alert

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Dear Concerned American,Through Monday, April 7, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is accepting public comments on its proposed rule changes to union certification election procedures.The new election guidelines would make union certification elections as one-sided as possible by ambushing workers with quick-snap elections and invading workers’ privacy by forcing companies to hand over their addresses, phone numbers and shift schedules to union bosses.The bureaucrats at the Obama Labor Board are out of control. Demand they stop acting as an organizing tool for Big Labor.I hope you’ll act right away by signing the petition below opposing the ambush election scheme.

Sincerely,
Mark Mix
Mark Mix, President
National Right to Work Foundation

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Stop the Obama Labor Board’s Ambush Election Scheme Petition

  • Whereas:   Ambush elections allow aggressive union organizers to conduct one-sided, intimidating unionization campaigns; and
  • Whereas:   Under the new rules, workers wishing to remain independent may only have days to counter years of union-boss propaganda before a quick-snap election; and
  • Whereas:   The new rules would force companies to turn over every worker’s address, phone number, and e-mail address to union operatives, who can use that information to make intimidating “home visits” just before the election; and
  • Whereas:   Union organizers may withdraw the election petition but keep the list of employees’ personal information to launch an abusive card check campaign at a later date;
Therefore: I urge you to withdraw the proposed rule amending representation-case procedures at docket NLRB-2011-0002.

Sign your petition today HERE

 
Obamacare, Organized Labor, Politics

Obamacare, What Could Go Wrong?

Time for a recap on the success, or lack thereof, of the greatest piece of legislation (if you ask a Democrat) since the New Deal, Social Security, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Section 8 Housing combined. Universal health care, said President Obama, is what Americans have wanted. And they wanted it so that the 15 percent of Americans that didn’t have health insurance could then have it. After all, we are a generous and compassionate America. Not only that, but average family policyholders would see a $2,500 decrease in their premiums because everyone would now be insured.

Now, three years since the bill’s enactment, and with less than two weeks to go before the mandatory sign-up period ends, the circus of all legislation, Obamacare, is tumbling down and taking Americans, the economy, with it.

Remember when Big Labor and businesses complained of the cost and burden the ACA would put on them, and were granted delays of implementation through 2014? They couldn’t afford it. That left the individual mandate to fund the program on its own, since big businesses got the delay they wanted. Then Republicans asked for the individual mandate to also be delayed, because people, including Congressional employees who make six figure salaries, couldn’t afford it. They filibustered for the delay and got no where. Now, the administration is doing what Republicans wanted to do last year because, ta daaa, it is creating “hardship” on people. People can not afford to buy it. Now, since the individual mandate has been pushed back two years, until October 2016, the Affordable Care Act has no one mandated to participate. Which means that the Affordable Care Act now has no mandated funding. And what funding it does have, is no where near what it takes (by demographic) to survive, let alone reduce anyone’s premium. What a brilliant plan?

Delaying Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Due to ‘Hardship’ — Caused by Obamacare

It’s getting difficult to take any part of Obamacare seriously.

The Obama administration has altered or delayed it so many times—who can be sure what the law is at this point?

The individual mandate stating that every American has to purchase government-approved health coverage or pay a fine is supposed to kick in on March 31. That’s the deadline to sign up for coverage, supposedly to avoid this year’s penalty.

But Obamacare is never “settled law,” as the president and others have called it, because Health and Human Services (HHS) keeps writing more regulations.

Most recently, the administration extended the “hardship exemption” from the individual mandate for those who had their previous policies canceled because of Obamacare until October 2016.

To qualify, your plan must have been canceled because it wasn’t compliant with Obamacare, and you just have to tell the government you “believe” that other insurance policies are unaffordable.

The exemption means people who meet these criteria are free from the individual mandate. But if they want to buy coverage, they are given the special option to buy a “catastrophic” health insurance plan, which is not eligible for subsidies and typically would be available only to those under age 30.

When the exemption was first announced in December, Heritage experts Alyene Senger and Robert Moffit said this “is not going to simplify anything. Rest assured it is going to create even greater confusion for health insurers trying to sell these products. Also, don’t expect the unhappy consumers who’ve just lost their previous coverage to understand clearly which plan they can pick and be legally qualified to pick it.”

Due to the utter confusion and the underperforming signups on HealthCare.gov, reporters asked HHS this week whether the agency would simply extend the deadline for people to buy coverage. An HHS official responded that, “In fact, we don’t actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014.”

This administration hasn’t let a detail like legal authority stop it from overstepping its bounds multiple times. And as Heritage’s Senger and Moffit put it, “issuing more government rules to correct the consequences of their unworkable government rules is the only thing they seem to know how to do.”

Repealing the ACA would be way better than what we now have. Replacing it with the House version would be better, and, would deliver in the private sector all that the ACA was promised to do in the public sector but can’t.

H/T Amy Payne 

Economy, Politics, War On Terror

‘Austerity’ Isn’t What It Appears

In what could qualify for the MRIOD award where the defense budget is concerned, if President Obama really does cut the military back to pre-WWII levels, don’t think for a second that you won’t hear how that so-called ‘saving’ is going to be spent on something other than paying down the national debt.

We heard this before. Like when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to an end (win or retreat lose), we can spend that money ‘saved’ (actually borrowed) on ‘roads, bridges,  infrastructure, and schools.’ But he’s got so many more special interests to pay off now. Unions wanting relief from Obamacare, businesses wanting relief from Obamacare, people wanting relief from Obamacare, unemployment compensation fund backfilling, and of course, those green technology ‘investments.’ The list goes on. So don’t think for a New York second that whatever phony numbers this administration says it can save, it will spend, in spades.

Imagine the chutzpah of this administration to claim they’ve been austere in spending the people’s money when they’ve grown our national debt from $9 trillion to $17.3 trillion in the first six years of his term. Projected to be $26 trillion in 10 years. Then imagine the wisdom of cutting our national defenses instead of cutting the size of the government.

Organized Labor

Tennessee Volkswagen Plant Votes NO To UAW

In a stinging defeat that could accelerate the decades-long decline of the United Auto Workers, employees voted against union representation at UnionNOVolkswagen AG’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant, which had been seen as organized labor’s best chance to expand in the U.S. South.

Continuing the obsolescence of labor unions that are no longer needed or wanted. That’s good news for the workers, the company, and the local economy. And it will be instructive to see how much coverage and the interpretation the media gives this. Where Big Labor is concerned, this is a big defeat.

Link: Tennessee Volkswagen plant votes against union in UAW defeat | Reuters.

Organized Labor, Politics

Government Labor Unions, And You

In real life, when an employer that pays bonuses to its employees does so, it is a reward for either goals met or a job well done. In either case, it is performance based. In government life, that employer-employee relationship is much different. In fact, that kind of relationship does not exist, because of Labor Unions and their contracts.IRS-Building1

Government (public sector) labor unions instead have an incestuous relationship with their employer. Public sector unions provide the greatest percentage of union employment, more than five times higher than private sector. Not surprisingly, Big Labor also supports and provides the greatest percentage of campaign contributions, including boots on the ground, to democratic candidates and incumbents. In short, that relationship becomes a huge money laundering operation, quid pro quo, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. The difference is, the employer, the government, doesn’t pay for it all. You do.

If you already know how this scheme works, it should come as no surprise then that the IRS union, the National Treasury Employees Union, will be getting bonuses. Not based on performance like you and I would expect. The IRS is supposedly under investigation for targeting political opponents of the democrat administration, and, there’s not a whole lot to crow about where the performance of our country is concerned. Nothing seems to be working, including its people.

us-department-of-homeland-security-office_tombstoneBut the union ridiculousness doesn’t stop there. The union that has its grip on Homeland Security (a Labor Union in Homeland Security should make you feel really, really safe) is fighting the the halting of “administratively uncontrollable overtime” for headquarters and training personnel, as well as workers who have been found guilty of abusing the overtime system, responding to a federal investigation that found many employees have boosted their pay with unnecessary and unearned overtime.

Who’s pays this overtime? Not the government, it’s you.

China, Economy, Media, Organized Labor, Politics

Pollution from China Reaches U.S., Our Fault?

One of the best kept secrets from the global warming crowd and the so-called environmentalist movement is that the great majority of pollution going into the atmosphere comes from China and India, not the United States.

But now that pollution from China is blowing across the Western United States, the meme changes to it’s our fault because we buy too much stuff. Not only that, but the pollution we’re getting is because of what China exports to the U.S., as if  pollution generated from what they export to other countries around the world what, goes no where, or goes somewhere else?

China’s contribution to pollution is the result of the process of their manufacturing and electrical generation, not from the products we buy. That “process” being they don’t give a flip about using clean technology as is used in the United States. 

Two facts, it is the political, labor, and tax policies in the U.S. that have driven the manufacturing and related jobs overseas. And, although the U.S. is the cleanest industrial nation for its size in the world, no amount of industry strangulation here is going to make up for countries like India and China who have no desire to clean up their act.

Here are a couple other fun facts:

• China emits more CO2 than the US and Canada put together – up by 171% since the year 2000
• The US has had declining CO2 for two years running, the last time the US had declining CO2 for 3 years running was in the 1980s

Links: Pollution from China Reaches U.S., According to New Study – weather.com. | World carbon dioxide emissions data by country: China speeds ahead of the rest

Organized Labor, Politics

“Just Say NO” To Card Check

The quid pro quo President Obama owes Big Labor isn’t complete yet. Card Check is still on his bucket list and dovetails nicely with his collectivist philosophy. An ideology that couldn’t be more un-American. Nevertheless, that’s who he is and that’s why Card Check must be defeated. PERIOD!

Read on and be part of the solution.


Dear Ross:”I owe these unions.”President Barack Obama couldn’t have stated it any more clearly.And after spending an estimated BILLION dollars to re-elect Barack Obama and maintain control of the U.S. Senate, the union bosses couldn’t agree more.They’re wasting no time demanding PAYBACK.

Top AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka has already made clear that he expects Big Labor’s Card Check Forced Unionism Bill to be a top priority in Obama’s second term.

Not only that, Trumka threatened to use his forced-dues political warchest to oust any member of Congress in 2014 who stands in his way.

That’s why it’s vital you sign the petition below putting yourself squarely on record OPPOSED to the union bosses’ Card Check Forced Unionism Bill — and the rest of Big Labor’s agenda — IMMEDIATELY.

Since Barack Obama doesn’t have to face the voters again for re-election, the union bosses understand this may be their last — and best — opportunity to make Card Check Forced Unionism the law of the land.

That’s why it’s vital you act today!


As you know, if “Card Check” passes, workers would no longer be able to vote for or against union boss “representation” in a secret ballot election.

Instead, the union bosses would intimidate workers one-on-one — or three-on-one — into signing so-called “union authorization cards.”

And, of course, Big Labor has yet another ticking time bomb hidden in the “Card Check” legislation.

If the union bosses can drag out negotiations with an employer past 90 days by making outrageous demands, Obama Administration bureaucrats will have the power to use this so-called “problem” as an excuse to write a new labor contract and force its terms and conditions of employment upon those workers.

So you see, not only does Big Labor want to strip workers of the right to a secret ballot but also of the right to vote on their own contracts as well!

Can you imagine the kind of damage that would do to our already-fragile economy?

I know I can.

In fact, some folks ask me from time to time, “Senator, how could the President and Congress even consider a bill like ‘Card Check’ with the economy the way it is?”

What I tell them may be hard to stomach, but it’s the truth.

If “Card Check” passes, it would mean billions more dollars for the union bosses’ coffers.

Billions more that will be spent on politics.

We’re talking permanent political power.

I hate to say it, but that’s why the union bosses, Barack Obama and Harry Reid aren’t going to let up one bit.

And with too many Republicans scared that standing on any principle will bring another attack in the media, I’m very concerned that what may happen.

That’s why it’s important you sign the petition to oppose Card Check Forced Unionism IMMEDIATELY.


Should “Card Check” pass, this dangerous power grab would:

*** Force millions of additional working Americans to pay union dues under the threat of losing their jobs, filling Big Labor coffers with hundreds of millions of forced-dues dollars;

*** Dramatically increase the wasteful work rules, hate-the-boss propaganda, slowdowns and bitter strikes that shut down businesses and destroy jobs, ensuring that even more plants are closed and more jobs are shipped overseas or lost forever;

*** Enable Big Labor to pump even more campaign cash into the coffers of its radical, tax and spend politicians who, in turn, will look for even greater ways to increase the union bosses’ forced-dues empire.

That’s why I’m counting on your help IMMEDIATELY.


After failing to pass most of Big Labor’s agenda — including “Card Check” — during his first term, President Obama is anxious to payback his Big Labor benefactors.

As he told the former Russian President, “I’ll have more flexibility after the election.

And you can be sure the union bosses are going to double-down in their efforts to make sure “Card Check” happens during Obama’s second term.

So we can’t wait.  We have to mobilize NOW.

The good news is, the National Right to Work Committee has developed a massive plan to stop the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill dead in its tracks.

Grassroots mail. Phone calls. Newspaper, radio and TV ads.

But it’s all VERY expensive — especially since everything is “last minute.”

That’s why it’s vital you act TODAY!

And that’s why, in addition to your signed petition, I hope you’ll agree to make a generous contribution to help stop the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.


After signing your petition, please make a generous contribution of of $500, $250, $100 or $35.

This is not a battle you and I can afford to lose.

I’m convinced that with the Committee’s plan to mobilize Americans against the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill, you and I can stop this bill — and the rest of Big Labor’s agenda — dead in its tracks.

But we don’t have much time.

Please sign this petition and make a generous contribution of $500, $250, $100 or $35 — or whatever you can — to help defeat Big Labor’s Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.

It’s vital you act TODAY!

Sincerely,

Rand Paul, M.D.
U.S. Senator

P.S.  When Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012, top AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka was already thinking ahead for this year’s midterm elections and threatening to take out any members of Congress who opposed the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.

That’s why there’s not a moment to waste!

Please sign this petition demanding your Congressman and Senators OPPOSE Big Labor’s Card Check Forced Unionism Bill before it’s too late.


After signing your petition, please also make a generous contribution of $500, $250, $100, $35, or whatever you can afford, to the National Right to Work Committee — IMMEDIATELY!

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