Are Unions Completely Overrun by Radicals?

The New American ^ | 09 June 2010 | Raven Clabough

[VitacoreVision]

The behavior of large unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), indicate the power of the radicals and Marxists in the unions.

Are Unions Completely Overrun by Radicals?


The New American
09 June 2010


On yesterday’s episode of the O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly asked, “Is corruption seeping into America’s big unions?” Fox News analyst Charles Krauthammer claimed, “The labor movement has always had its radicals and Marxists, but in America we’ve never had them take over the unions and become the dominating force.” However, in consideration of the behavior of large unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Krauthammer might have underestimated the power of the radicals and Marxists in the unions.

SEIU members disrupted a banquet hall dinner where leaders from the California Nurses Association (CAN) held a Labor Notes Conference addressing 800 various union members in August 2008. SEIU members had a bone to pick with CAN, accusing them of “busting an Ohio union drive,” according to the Union News. Unionized Baltimore dockworker Roland Day stated that the SEIU protestors “were banging on the doors like a marching band base drum. Real quick they rushed through the door.”

Of the event, the Union News explained, “Things quickly got out of control in the lobby, as fliers spilled to the floor and a cacophony of chants, noisemakers and screams ensued from the SEIU group’s push towards the banquet doors.” Retired union member Dianne Feeley was pushed to the floor by an SEIU member, hitting her head and requiring stitches.

In August 2009, at a forum on aging called by Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-St. Louis), a black conservative activist, Kenneth Gladney, was physically attacked by SEIU members after he handed out yellow flags that read “Don’t tread on me.” One of the union members, who was also black, called Gladney a racial slur. In this video, you will see that those involved in the violent outburst are wearing SEIU t-shirts.

On May 16, approximately 500 SEIU members were bussed to the home of Bank of America’s senior executive Greg Baer to indicate their opposition to banks. While this went on, Baer’s son was home by himself and frightened so severely that he took refuge in the bathroom of his home while his father attended his youngest son’s baseball game. The event was witnessed by Nina Easton, a journalist and one of Baer’s neighbors.

Ronald VanTilburg of Associated Content analyzed the “communist behavior” of the SEIU. VanTilburg described the SEIU’s protest outside of Baer’s home as “not surprising when one knows the background of the organizations Marxist philosophies as described by its recently retired President Andy Stern.” Behavior such as that of the protest outside of Baer’s home is similar to that described in The Black Book of Communism, where Pascal Fontaine describes Fidel Castro’s “Committees for Defense of the Revolution” (CDRs). The CDRs were expected to “marginalize and break the resistance of opponents … and their families,” says VanTilburg.

While the SEIU members protesting outside of Baer’s home were not violent, as opposed to the CDRs, they did in fact violate the property rights of a citizen, “another attribute of Marx’s Communist Manifesto”; their presence alone was intimidating, which seemed to be the goal.

VanTilburg also pointed to Andy Stern’s remark that alludes to Karl Marx: “Workers of the world united! It’s just not a slogan anymore. It’s a way we’re going to have to do our work.”

About the SEIU, Bill O’Reilly noted, “The SEIU has a tremendous amount of money that they get from dues and give to people like Barack Obama. They have a lot of power and they purport to be the spokesperson for the working American. We underestimate their power.”

According to the Chicago Daily Examiner, union workers in Illinois resorted to violent tactics to indicate their disapproval of Illinois-based LyondellBasell plant’s decision to hire out-of-state workers to “perform temporary ‘turnaround’ work at the facility.” The Chicago Daily Examiner noted, “According to eyewitnesses and other sources, the unions have been damaging company and personal property and even hurling stones at individuals working at the plant.”

In 2009, when two members of the Communications Workers of America union (CWA) blew the whistle on other union workers who were paid for work that they did not actually perform, they faced intimidation tactics from their “union brothers” that led to violence. One of the whistleblowers, DiStefano, found a dead rat in his locker, and was later called a rat while being hit in the face and head by another union member, resulting in two herniated discs. Instead of the CWA taking action against the attacker, DiStefano was terminated for “starting the fight.”

Glenn Beck has asserted that many of the anti-Arizona immigration law rallies were led by the SEIU, AFL-CIO, Workers World Party, Socialist Party USA, etc., the very same rallies where protestors were caught on video throwing bottles at the police. In Pheonix, Arizona, protestors spray-painted “Burn this Racist City” on sidewalks.

World Net Daily points out that John Sweeney, leader of the AFL-CIO, “repealed language in the federation’s bylaws barring members of the Communist Party from full participation.” WND adds that the leadership of the AFL-CIO has “either been completely compromised by the extreme left or they are hopelessly naïve or desperate for members no matter what rock they might crawl out from under.” Not surprisingly, the change in the AFL-CIO’s bylaws was not covered in the mainstream media.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), California Faculty Association, California Federation of Teachers, and California Teachers Association came out in support of SB 1322, a bill that would have allowed the promotion of communism in public schools. Capitol Resource Institute spokesperson Karen England explained, “SB1322 would delete the requirement that an individual or organization wanting to use the school property is not a Communist action organization or Communist front organization” and would also “strike the law that a public school or community college employee may be fired if he or she is a member of the Communist Party.” Above all, SB 1322 would allow teachers to provide instruction that indoctrinates in students a preference for communism. Luckily, this bill was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Now, Congress is currently considering a $165 billion bailout of union pensions. The unions have already pledged their full-fledged support of President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, as well as the upcoming 2010 elections. The incestuous relationship between politicians and the unions continues to deepen.

It is becoming indisputable that unions transformed from their original origins as a force against corruption in the workplace to a powerful, and often violent, ally of Washington. Unfortunately, the normally level-headed Krauthammer afforded unions the seemingly undeserved “benefit of the doubt.”


SOURCE:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/3143-are-unions-completely-overrun-by-radicals

[dragnet2]

What they don’t want ya to know?

There are now more unionized government employees in the U.S. than in the private sector.

[gleeaikin]

Union members rightly worry about corruption at the top, but they are also concerned that those who pay dues and negotiate contracts that result in decent pay also benefit those who do NOT pay dues in the “right to work” states. Is it fair to enjoy the same pay and contract rights as dues paying members or should non dues paying members have a lower salary rate?

[Repeal 16-17]

Are Unions Completely Overrun by Radicals?

Duh! Next stupid question.

[5th MEB]

The headline was a rhetorical question, right?

[dagogo redux]

Bolsheviks.

[GeronL]

I think the union members will have the lower salary after they pay union TAX.

Being forced to join a union to get a job is SLAVERY

[GeronL]

Yes. Many of them started off as commie fronts and haven’t changed much since

[dagogo redux]

And more stuff they don’t want you to know (and passed by our elected representatives!):

http://www.nrtw.org/en/d/big_labor_special_privileges.htm

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks VitacoreVision.

Bill O'Reilly asked, "Is corruption seeping into America's big unions?"

Yeah, it's a plot run by the US soldiers who carried out the Malmedy massacre, you moron.

Corrupt unions, they're like a freakin' four-leaf clover.

[gusty]

Is it fair to force people to hand over their hard earned money to Democrat Party hacks. Because that is were the dues go. I wish once when a pinky ringed thug is interviewed on the news, the reporter asks which crime family is his union affiliated with. I know, it will never happen. Another fact of union life is the bags of money union leaders get from contractors to allow the contractors to use non-union labor on jobs. For a certain price, you can use sometimes more than 50% non-union labor. I bet a lot of people are unaware of that fact of union life.

[VitacoreVision]

Yes. It’s a rhetorical question. :-)

[gusty]

Corruption is what America’s big unions do best. Tommy Lucchese should be in the AFL-CIO hall of fame.

[Haddit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlXwV_QNrE
YouTube title: Andy Stern: Justice for All

Andrew Stern, from the SEIU YouTube page dated April 10, 2008.

Listen to this guy as he lays out the Obama administration’s agenda for a union governed America, a union governed world, with free healthcare for all. This is before Obama was elected. This shows you that the unions are running the country.

3:30 “We affirm SEIU’s commitment to changing this country as well as the democratic and free debate”.

4:06 “If we adopt the Justice for All program, by the end of four years, we will have won healthcare for every man, every woman and every child in the United States and Puerto Rico.”

“If we adopt the Justice for All program, We will rebalance the power between big corporations and people that work by adopting the Employee Free Choice Act.”

“If we adopt the Justice for All program, we will finally have a pathway to citizenship for every immigrant in this country”.

5:08 “Ten percent of our members, nearly two hundred thousand people will be trained as leaders of our union to be the engine of change.”

5:48 “The gap between the rich and the rest of us is growing far too wide. Our candidate Barack Obama has seized on the opportunity of change.”

6:45 “Because if we’re going to win healthcare for every man, woman and child, and the employee free choice act in the first 100 days after we elect a new president, then we’re going to have to take this SEIU effort to a new level.”

7:06 “That’s why we are going to put ten million dollars in a bank account, to have accountability to every single politician who chooses to defy us on the pledges they made when they were running for office.”

8:27 “Its your talent, your skill, your passion, your dedication to help us elect Barack Obama and then win the changes we need for our country.”

9:12 “Many of you came here, not just to take care of our members, but to be a part a movement to change our country. We are on the verge of building that movement for justice for all, when we are on the verge of changing our country, we all come together and unite, and fight.

And if not us, if not us, then who?

And if not now, at this incredible moment of opportunity, an incredible moment of hope, then when?”

[goat granny]

Usually the leaders and president are pinko’s some full fledge marx’s in this day and age..or just plain gangsters like Hoffa....

[dalereed]

Almost all labor unions were started and run by communists.

Unions are nothing but flat out socialism.

Everyone gets the same wage and incentives are forbidden creating a situation where all production is quickly reduced to the level of the slowest person in the crew.

At least in construction we had the ability to hire and fire in order to keep up some level of production, most unionized industries don't have that ability.

[babyfreep]

“Non dues paying members” are not members, are they? They should be able to get the pay they, as individuals, negotiate and deserve.

In my opinion, it just makes unions pretty obsolete.

[dalereed]

“’I bet a lot of people are unaware of that fact of union life.”

I spent 8 years on the carpenters joint adjustment board and any contractor caught trying it got fined enough to put themn out of business in most cases!!!!

[noinfringers2]

As for me unions lost their respect and much of their necessity in a free economy after WWII. They were bad enough in the 1930s when as a young boy I saw the thuggery going on for my mother who was trying to feed and cloth two young boys by a piecework job. Even Roosevelt was against unions for federal employees. I would have no public unions of any kind that are not under actual public control/discretion. My wife and I were talking about unions today relative to the Michigan situation. I came to a thought that private industry unions of workers might be appropriate and from my experience sometimes useful. I could buy the arrangement that employees of private companies have a right to collectively be organized for their betterment. Any employee not wanting to share the burden of union membership would not be benefited by any union obtained gains. I realize this sets up a complex working system and environment but I believe it could make for a more balanced societal participation and objectives compared to where situations stand today.