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State of the unions: How public opinion turned so sharply and suddenly against worker groups
The New York Post ^ | September 4, 2011 | Maureen Callahan

Posted on 09/11/2011 5:12:05 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Um, no—a lunch break is required for nonunion employees as well.


21 posted on 09/11/2011 6:21:13 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ruling: Boeing’s Carolina plant is illegal retaliation against union

WASHINGTON – The top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling Wednesday claiming that Boeing violated federal labor laws in deciding to start manufacturing a new line of its 787 planes in South Carolina – and seeking to force the firm to make the Dreamliner aircraft at its current plant in Everett.

Boeing executive vice president Michael Luttig blasted the ruling as “frivolous,” said the company will fight it in court and expressed confidence that production of the 787’s will begin as scheduled this summer at its new Charleston plant.

“Boeing has every right under both federal law and its collective bargaining agreement to build additional U.S. production capacity outside of the Puget Sound region,” Luttig said.

Lafe Solomon, NLRB’s acting general counsel, alleged in his complaint that Boeing’s decision to open a non-union factory in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, discriminated against its Washington state employees who belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

“A worker’s right to strike is a fundamental right guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act,” Solomon said. “We also recognize the rights of employers to make business decisions based on their economic interests, but they must do so within the law.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, delivered a scathing indictment of the NLRB move.

“This is one of the worst examples of unelected bureaucrats doing the bidding of special interest groups that I’ve ever seen,” Graham said. “In this case, the NLRB is doing the bidding of the unions at great cost to South Carolina and our nation’s economy.”

The Machinists’ union, which represents 25,000 Boeing workers in Washington state, hailed the NLRB decision.

“Boeing’s decision to build a 787 assembly line in South Carolina sent a message that Boeing workers would suffer financial harm for exercising their collective bargaining rights,” said Rich Michalski, the union’s vice president. “Federal law is clear: It’s illegal to threaten or penalize workers who engage in concerted activity.”

The union claims that Boeing rejected new labor agreement in accepting almost $900 million in incentives and tax relief from South Carolina to build the Dreamliner line in Charleston.

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/04/20/1634171/ruling-boeings-south-carolina.html#ixzz1XeLGKwJ9


22 posted on 09/11/2011 6:23:58 AM PDT by Brilliant
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To: Sacajaweau

EDITORIAL: Public-sector unions bankrupting America

Usually it takes a national government to spend itself into a debt measured in the trillions. Yet it comes as little surprise that the same profligacy that pervades the corridors of federal power infects this country’s 87,000 state, county and municipal governments and school districts. By 2013, the amount of retirement money promised to employees of these public entities will exceed cash on hand by more than a trillion dollars.

That’s according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, which earlier this month released a troubling analysis of 126 state and local pension plans. The center’s researchers found in the wake of the stock market collapse that measures of pension program solvency hit a 15-year low with no signs of improvement on the horizon. This means taxpayers will be left picking up the tab.

The reason pension plans are headed toward financial disaster is simple. Ever-expanding public-sector unions have flexed their political muscle and larded up with lavish benefits to be be paid out decades from now. In a properly run,private-sector business, future retirement benefits are paid for using present-day contributions. This is not the case when lawmakers have the power to boost public-employee benefit packages while using accounting gimmicks to conceal and pass on the debt to future generations.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/23/public-sector-unions-bankrupting-america/


23 posted on 09/11/2011 6:28:58 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
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To: C. Edmund Wright

When union members picket fill in repairmen in front of customers’ houses, hindering repairs, they don’t get the sympathy of the customers.


24 posted on 09/11/2011 6:35:26 AM PDT by tbw2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Obviously the public doesn’t understand the good they do.

Maybe they need to carry the communist flag and beat up a few bystanders at their street riots where they demand more, more, more.

What?

They already do that? Hmmm.......

/s


25 posted on 09/11/2011 6:35:55 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Muslims who advocate, support, or carry out Jihad give the other 1% a bad name)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

People striking while 20% of America is out of work is just plain stupid.


26 posted on 09/11/2011 6:50:37 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

During these recent economic times, people have had to make sacrifices. People cut back on their budgets at home. Small business owners did likewise as well as not hiring that extra person. Large businesses cut budgets and laid many people off. But for unions, especially public ones, were a conspicuous exception. The would wave their contract in front of the public saying that they have an “agreement” which means they have to have pay increases every year and they are complete immune to budget cuts. The USPS contract with their unions, I believe, has a No Layoff cause.

When the public sees this display from unions, sympathy evaporates in my opinion. The public realizes that the unions are devoid of reality and are the last places one should go to see examples of work ethic and efficiency.

Lastly, the “displays” of unions at town hall meetings last year, the demostrations in Wisconsin this spring, and most recently the riotous behavior of the Longshoremen in Washington have had a accumulative effect in confirming the public’s view of unions.


27 posted on 09/11/2011 6:55:55 AM PDT by TMA62 (Al Sharpton - The North Korea of race relations)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet


28 posted on 09/11/2011 6:57:51 AM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Workers” is a Marxist term. They are employees.


29 posted on 09/11/2011 7:14:04 AM PDT by MNnice (Showing fresh signs of liberalitis, the strain of the orbital muscles due to excessive eye rolling)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

For me, it is the fact that unions use coercion and compulsion, not to mrntion violence, to attain their ends


30 posted on 09/11/2011 7:45:22 AM PDT by chesley (Eat what you want, and die like a man. Never trust anyone who hasn't been punched in the face)
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To: Sacajaweau

I agree, here in Wisconsin public sector unions especially the teacher’s union behavior may have set back unions for decades (at that’s my hope). The day Governor Walker visited a Catholic elementary school in Milwaukee someone glued the locks on the doors and then a mob of white teachers tried to blockade the doors of a predominately black school. Reminiscent the segregationist Democrat governors in the 1960’s. A PR disaster for the unions.


31 posted on 09/11/2011 8:51:47 AM PDT by Hamilcar_Barca
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To: qaz123
because they are NOT really conservative, except on law and order issues. Such folks tend to support big government, as long as it benefits "the working man," and not "the bums." They tend to have a very Catholic view of government and corporate paternalism, which is foreign to much of the rest of the country.

The people you are speaking about are a small minority of the population of NY as a whole, as shown by both local and state elections. They believe Pataki and Giuliani are "conservatives," but do not generally vote or turn out for anybody who threatens the paternalistic government that gives them their livelihood.

32 posted on 09/11/2011 9:03:28 AM PDT by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Unions became irrelevant for economic betterment after WWII. All public unions using public funding should certainly cease. The public, not beholden public administrators, should be the real determiners of public employees take of tax monies. I’ve seen much of unions, good and bad, since the early 1930s. Thugs and leeches have become the body of unions.


33 posted on 09/11/2011 10:16:38 AM PDT by noinfringers2
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To: Cboldt

“Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered.”

And we’re just a bunch of meanies.


34 posted on 09/11/2011 11:05:47 AM PDT by jivin gene (Breakin' up is hard to do)
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To: Anti-Bubba182

Yes, the power must be given back to the voters...our law makers use a end run to raise their own wages...they raise the presidents pay so they can raise their own...see we are payed mush less than we deserve compared to x...

Our power as citizens must be taken back...term limits!


35 posted on 09/11/2011 2:15:19 PM PDT by Turborules (`I am Proud to vote for Palin, anytime anywhere!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

A mostly whiney, pro-union article. Not one mention of the thuggery that unions perpetrate such as just happened in Washington state or what we were treated to in Madison.


36 posted on 09/11/2011 5:23:33 PM PDT by prairiebreeze (Hurricane Irene is Obama's fault because he hates people in general. Fair's fair.)
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To: Anti-Bubba182

Public sector unions need to be completely abolished. Past, current, and future pensions need to be brought into line with the private sector. The same applies to benefits and medical. Public sector unions are evil baaastids.


37 posted on 09/11/2011 5:30:17 PM PDT by MasterGunner01 (To err is human; to forgive is not our policy. -- SEAL Team SIX)
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To: MasterGunner01

It will take localities and states filing bankruptcy to do that, but it may be necessary because there is no way those benefits can be maintained.


38 posted on 09/11/2011 6:23:53 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It’s said private-sector unions are necessary to protect workers against eeeeevil corporations.

Does that mean that the purpose of public-sector unions is to protect workers against eeeeevil taxpayers?


39 posted on 09/11/2011 6:53:39 PM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: DuncanWaring
Does that mean that the purpose of public-sector unions is to protect workers against eeeeevil taxpayers?

You know better than that.

Actually, the purpose of public-sector unions is, quite literally, to reward Democrat office-holders. As part of the deal, union leadership gets their share, too.

But nobody else benefits.

40 posted on 09/11/2011 7:00:24 PM PDT by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance On Parade)
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