Free Republic

A list of workers that was posted at Hurley Medical Center and named people who opted out of their union has been reposted at the hospital less than three weeks after it had been taken down. And it has a fifth name on it now. The list, which was posted by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1603 on a bulletin board in a public location near the cafeteria, was up for a day or two in February before being taken down after one of the workers whose name was on it complained. The workers whose...

Democrats and many in the media routinely complain about money spent in politics, and they regularly lash out at conservatives and big business. Turns out, unions are the top spenders in politics. Twelve of the top 20 political donors from 1989 to 2014 have been unions, which overwhelmingly support Democratic causes, according to an analysis done by OpenSecrets.org's Center for Responsive Politics. Seven of the top 10 donors overall give almost exclusively to politicians or groups on the left. ActBlue, a political action committee that raises money for Democrats and progressive causes and features Michigan Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer...

Gov. Scott Walker’s public sector collective bargaining reforms of 2011 have not prevented union officials from making hefty six-figure salaries even as some of their organizations struggle to retain members. A review of U.S. Department of Labor filings shows that at least 159 union officials in Wisconsin made six-figure salaries in fiscal year 2012. ... The SEIU has used its political clout to recently push for a minimum wage hike for some Milwaukee County employees and government contractors. While decrying the current minimum wage, the SEIU conveniently lobbied for a carve-out that exempted employers from the requirement if they joined...

AFSCME union officials posted the names of employees who opted out of the union at a Michigan hospital. EAG News reported: A top labor official told MLive recently that the public posting of names of union members who opted out of the union serves as a membership renewal reminder to other union members. Lawrence Roehrig, international vice president of AFSCME and secretary treasurer of Michigan AFSCME Council 25, made his comments in an MLive story that appeared after Michigan Capitol Confidential broke the news that AFSCME Hurley Medical Center Employees Local 1603 posted the names of workers who exercised their...

Paramedics and emergency medical technicians made it clear that they do not want to form a union at Huron Valley Ambulance. According to information obtained from the National Labor Relations Board in a Freedom of Information Act request, votes tallied by the NLRB showed that 221 EMS workers voted against forming a union while just 138 voted in favor of the petition to unionize. There were about 430 eligible voters, but only 359 votes counted and 10 others were listed as “changed ballots” and not counted in the total vote. In January, workers from HVA Workers – with the help...

Gov. Mark Dayton wants Minnesota to embark on one of the state's most ambitious and expensive public works construction programs ever. Dayton called Wednesday for borrowing nearly $1 billion this year to modernize state college and university buildings, revitalize downtown business centers and upgrade parks, prisons and other facilities while leaving enough money to complete the renovation of the deteriorating state Capitol building. He predicted his bonding bill would create more than 27,000 jobs in the state. "This jobs bill would address many of our critical infrastructure needs while strengthening Minnesota's economy and getting people back to work," the Democratic-Farmer-Labor...

It seems that the unions had good reason to fear Scott Walker. In news that is unlikely to receive wide play in the legacy media, it appears that a number of Wisconsin unions failed to achieve recertification as a result of year-end member votes. The recertification votes were a consequence of Act 10, the epoch-making collective-bargain reforms pushed through by Walker in the face of mass demonstrations, vandalism, death threats, and all but open rebellion by unions in 2011. One of act's provisions was that public-sector unions must be annually recertified by a positive vote of at least half their...

Like many northeastern cities, Harrisburg has a severe parking problem — unless you are one of about 3,200 state employees whose parking costs are picked up by state taxpayers. The little-known benefit was picked up by the Harrisburg Patriot-News in an article concerning the capital city’s manifest financial woes and its attempt to get out of state receivership. The Department of General Services rents 3,200 parking spaces at garages near the Capitol Building for some state employees. There are also 885 parking spots on two levels under the East Wing of the Capitol that are free to 253 state lawmakers,...

ATLANTIC CITY — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono issued a blistering attack on Gov. Chris Christie today, saying he lacks the political courage to address national issues of race and has failed to lift the state's economy from the recession. Buono chose a friendly crowd to deliver one of her most forceful challenges to the incumbent Christie: a ballroom full of members of AFSCME, which represents 30,000 public workers across the state and that has already endorsed her candidacy. Christie has yet to offer an opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down key portions of the...

Wisconsin's public employees are leaving their unions in droves, which should be no surprise: With passage of Act 10 in 2011, public unions in the Badger State lost many of their reasons for being. The "budget-repair bill" pushed through the Legislature by Republicans and signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker limited bargaining to wages only, and then only up to the cost of living; it also required unions to recertify each year and barred the automatic collection of union dues. Relying on federal financial records, the Journal Sentinel's Dan Bice found union membership has declined by 50% or more...

MADISON – While labor unions grouse about public sector pay, a state government job is a good gig if you can get it, according to the latest income data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Wisconsin, state employees earned on average $53,552 in 2012, nearly $12,000 more than their fellow workers in the private sector, based on BLS data tracked by Stateline, the news service of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The salary data was drawn from BLS’ Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages, through the fourth quarter of 2012. While Wisconsin state employees are coming off a two-year...

Opponents of the new Minnesota law that could allow thousands of child care providers and personal care workers to unionize are suing to stop it. The opponents say the legislation allowing the groups to vote on whether to bargain collectively with the state is unconstitutional. "What the suit says is that the Legislature can't set up an election procedure in which employers are represented by unions. It's just not allowed under federal labor law," said Douglas Seaton, attorney for a group of child care providers opposing the union effort. But home-based child care providers are exempt from the National Labor...

There is some very good news from Wisconsin. Republican Governor Scott Walker is winning his war with the state’s public employee unions. When Walker stepped into the political ring to battle his state’s powerful government workers’ unions no one gave him much chance of surviving, let alone winning. Walker’s efforts have been startling. He has succeeded beyond what anyone could have foreseen. Wisconsin’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 40 has seen its members steadily jump over its plantation walls since Walker...

The state agency revealed Friday that the employee who improperly accessed thousands of drivers license records, and ignited calls for stiffer laws, was an officer responsible for training his colleagues in proper data usage. The Department of Natural Resources said Captain John Hunt, who was administrative manager of the agency's enforcement division, viewed drivers license data on 5,000 people while off-duty and without a work-related purpose. Altogether, Hunt made about 19,000 queries of the driver and vehicle services (DVS) database over nearly five years -- 11,800 of them while off duty. The DVS database, which contains photographs, addresses and driving...

"The unbridled growth of crony unionism and government corruption will destroy the United States as we know it." This statement may strike many as sheer hyperbole. But its author, Mallory Factor, a political scientist at The Citadel, knows whereof he writes. His new book, "Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind" (New York: Center Street), makes a credible case, and a well-sourced one, that our country may be in the early stages of a ruinous dystopia, courtesy of public-sector unions. In pursuing their interests, argues the author, these labor organizations hold taxpaying citizens hostage to unsustainable wage/salary, pension,...

While the Board of Regents for Higher Education has pledged to immediately suspend all 21 pay raises granted illegally by its former president over the past 10 months, it won't be that simple for three of those salary increases. That's because three system office staff who received wage hikes are unionized employees, represented by an education professionals bargaining unit within Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. And changes both in compensation and in working conditions for unionized personnel cannot be made without negotiating with union representation. "Our union was not aware that our members...

Yesterday, AFSCME put out a rather silly ad featuring Mitt Romney’s former garbage collector in La Jolla, California. The ad begins: My name is Richard Hayes, and I pick up Mitt Romney’s trash. We’re kind of like the invisible people. He doesn’t realize that the service we provide – if it wasn’t for us, it would be a big health issue, us not picking up trash. Get the sledgehammer message? Mitt Romney doesn’t understand! Romney could have no idea about quotidien things such as trash collection because his wealth and detachment prevent him from having to know what life is like...

At first, the new campaign video from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees seems to be a dialed-back take on Priorities USA’s infamous “Mitt Romney gave my wife cancer” spot. Really, though, aside from the “victim” still being alive, it’s essentially the same line of attack. Mitt Romney’s garbage man, Richard Hayes, knows that his body’s going to break down from hauling Romney’s trash each week, and Romney just doesn’t care.

The tyrant, the bully, the corrupter and the corrupted are figures of shame. The labor leaders who became thieves, who cheated those whose trust they had accepted, brought dishonor on a vital and largely honest labor movement. . .Neither the labor movement nor our economic system can stand this paralyzing corruption. . .--Robert F. Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 1960Acting out the thug's reply to free speech, AFSCME President Lee Saunders slapped a chair representing Clint Eastwood off the stage while rallying the Wisconsin delegation to the Democratic National Convention, shouting "Dirty Harry, make my day!" (A video is online here.)...

Gerald McEntee had Michigan on his mind in June when he delivered his final address as president of the nation’s largest public employee union. “Our sisters and brothers in Michigan are on the front lines in the next critical battle,” McEntee told the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He declared that the imperative was “defeating Governor Rick Snyder's anti-worker and anti-American emergency manager’s bill. These managers are local dictators who rip up union contracts.” Focusing on an emergency manager bill in one state might seem an unlikely valedictory for a legendary labor leader who has served his...