Free Republic

Back in April the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation filed a freedom of information act asking the Department of Labor to release: * Records from communications and recorded events where specified Obama appointees and Big Labor official were present * Lists of lawsuits involving the Department of Labor and Deborah Greenfield within the past eight years. * List of any gifts received by Solis in the past 5 years from Big Labor or its officials * Provide in detail (a) notes, (b) agreements, (c) communications, and (d) agendas related to the regulations related to the labor union and...

David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric Co., said federal governmental policies are hurting U.S. manufacturing. He cited cap and trade, health care reform and labor rules as undermining the industry and its ability to expand and grow jobs domestically. He said that his company will continue to focus on growth overseas. Emerson, the maker of electrical equipment and InSinkErator garbage disposals with $20.9 billion in sales for the year ended September, will keep expanding in emerging markets, which represented 32 percent of revenue in 2009. About 36 percent of manufacturing is now in “best-cost countries” up from 21 percent in...

My column today provides context for the SEIU bullying of Boy Scouts in Allentown, Pa. As you’ll see, there’s a long history of Big Labor thuggery against volunteers who threaten the union racket. On a related note, be sure to check out the video of Fresno homecare providers exposing how SEIU staff threatened them and changed their ballots to secure a razor-thin advantage in a controversial union election this June. As I’ve been reporting over the last several months, the home health care power grab across the country gives you a glimpse of the SEIU-endorsed Obamacare future. When Big Labor...

A man owned a small ranch near Sheridan Wyoming. The Wyoming Labor Department got a tip that he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an investigator out to interview him. "I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the investigator.. "Well," replied the rancher, "there's my ranch hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $1200 a week plus free room and board. "The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $1000 per week plus free room and board. "Then there's the half-wit....

Considering the hike today at UC Board; why are they not defunding the millions directed toward their Labor Institute? Read more... The unions propaganda machine is alive and well, due to the mandates from politicians, threats from union bosses and the overall sock-puppets called the UC Board of Regents. The students that journey through these programs at Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses volunteer their time to benefit the liberal politicians, partisan political agendas, initiative campaigning and efforts of the public employee unions of California. I remember running across many of these students in 2003, organizing anti-recall protests at signature gathering...

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) formally requested an investigation by the acting United States Attorney Channing D. Phillips, Esq., into the potentially illegal lobbying activities of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern. In a letter hand delivered to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Senate Secretary and the House Clerk, ATR President Grover Norquist and AWF Executive Director Brian Johnson wrote: By this letter, we urge you to investigate the activities of Mr. Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), regarding meetings and other lobbying contacts with...

Just how deep the tentacles of communism reached into the heart of British government has now been revealed with the emergence of an extraordinary diary by Anatoly Chernyaev, the Soviet Union's contact man with the West at the icy height of the Cold War. Meticulously detailed and written by hand on lined notepaper, the diary has come to light in the U.S. National Security Archive.

"You need explosive growth to take the unemployment rate down," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for New York-based investment firm Miller Tabak & Co. Greenhaus said the economy soared by nearly 8 percent in 1983 after a steep recession, lowering the jobless rate by 2.5 percentage points that year. But the economy is unlikely to improve that fast this time, as consumers remain cautious and tight credit hinders businesses. In fact, many analysts expect economic growth to moderate early next year, as the impact of various government stimulus programs fades. Economists cite several reasons why job growth is increasingly...

Harriet Harman was yesterday slapped down by national statisticians over her claims that women are paid a fifth less than men. The Women and Equality Minister was told she must no longer use a single figure to describe the complex differences in the earnings of men and women. Instead she will have to give three measures - among them one which shows that far from earning less than men, women in part-time jobs are actually paid more on average than their male counterparts.

The White House may want to diffuse its spat with the Chamber of Commerce, but Big Labor clearly has no such intentions. Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union and chairwoman of the five-union federation Change to Win, slammed the big business lobby and its president, Tom Donohue, in a letter delivered today to House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and Rep. Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the committee.

A small but important group of workers at the Audubon Zoo has voted to join the Teamsters union. Audubon's zookeepers voted 17-14 to join Teamsters Local 270. Despite the close vote, the zoo's management has decided not to challenge the election results, and the union will now be certified as the workers' official bargaining agent. Zookeepers work directly with the animals in exhibits such as the Asian domain and primate center, but their ranks do not include animal curators, who are considered part of management. Audubon has a total staff of about 600, including 450 full-time workers. The Teamsters represent...

During the 1881 gubernatorial election in Mississippi, the segregationist Democrat, Robert Lowry, had nothing but disdain for his independent opponent, Benjamin King, and those who supported him...a coalition of “dissident farmers, Republicans, and blacks,” people who, from Lowry’s KKK-oriented perspective, were “gutter trash.” In his book, Political Culture of the 19th Century South, author Bradley G. Bond credits Lowry with one of the most profound statements ever made by an American politician. In his stump speeches he was often heard to say, in reference to his opponent and his opponent’s Republican supporters, black and white, “As the stream could not...

InsideHigherEd.com writes: In the last few years, a conservative legal organization [Ed. -- Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation] has filed complaints and extensive information requests to at least 11 colleges and universities with regard to labor centers that conduct research about and offer programs for unions. ... The [American Association of University Professors'] statement questioned the basis for the Landmark actions and said that the association was trying to undercut the labor centers by waging an ideological attack on them. Further, the statement noted that colleges and universities have a range of offerings for different organizations in society, and that...

The federal government is building a new $35 million Jobs Corps Center in Manchester, N.H. And true to its word, the Obama administration is requiring it to be built under a "project labor agreement," better known as a PLA. PLAs pervertedly are touted as giving taxpayers more bang for their buck. Union labor supposedly assures "greater quality" because "fair" wages must be paid, which promotes "labor peace" and efficiency. Actually, it's nothing but bribery, extortion, collusion, discrimination and restraint of free trade all rolled into one putrid ball

Delivering on President Obama's promise to boost the labor movement, the administration has announced a $35 million federal construction project in New Hampshire that requires union representation for the workers and forces nonunion employees to pay dues and contribute to a union pension fund.....

Is SEIU’s Purple Brand Fading to Pink?Posted By Don Loos On October 6, 2009 @ 7:46 am In ACORN, Big Labor, Economics, Featured Story, Politics | 25 Comments Stern’s New Big Labor Same as the Old Big Labor For the past four years, the highest profile Big Labor Boss was Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern.  Stern has deliberately parlayed his controlling style as that of a New Labor Boss, and he has painstakingly worked on the SEIU “purple brand.”  And yet, Stern and the SEIU union have failed to live up to the New Labor Boss identity...

Big business. Big labor. Big government. These are not entities in opposition but in balance, much like the three branches of the federal government. Each jealously guards its power from the other. They do not argue about acquiring power, but about how that power is divided or shared. Regardless of what any idealist on the Left may think, this is the inevitable ruling troika that socialism requires to govern and function in the future. Whether you choose to label this relationship as fascist, communist or socialist is irrelevant because above all it is totalitarian. Whether you choose to label its...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced nearly $59 million in grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor in fiscal year 2009 to combat exploitive child labor in 19 countries. The grants will help rescue more than 85,000 children from exploitive labor, and offer them hope for the future through education and training. The grants will also help improve collection and analysis of child labor data and support for the development and implementation of national action plans to address the problem.

Activist group ACORN started in 1970 to help the poor in Arkansas and quickly went national, growing into a multimillion-dollar conglomerate with a mission so far-flung that schools now bear its name, two radio stations are affiliates and a man it backed is the president. Oh yeah, it's also the unwilling star of a hot Internet video featuring a couple dressed as a hooker and her pimp. SNIP Many Democrats used to advertise their ACORN connections. Now, however, the Democratic-led Senate has voted to cut off its grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Democrat-dominated House...

The all-consuming debate over health care has effectively sucked all of the oxygen out of the policy world leaving little room for discussion, let alone action on other major elements of the progressive agenda—or so it would seem. The mammoth bills winding their way through Congress will certainly upend our health care sector, if they are enacted. Little known, however, are several provisions that will provide an enormous pay-off to one of the Democrat parties most loyal constituency—Big Labor.

Controversial legislation that would make it easier to organize unions will pass this year, Vice President Joe Biden said today. Appearing at a Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh, Biden praised the role of unions in building the middle class and said the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will make it through Congress before the end of the year, the Associated Press reports. That's a very optimistic timeline, considering that Democrats are already putting all their legislative muscle behind healthcare reform.

Happy Labor Day, hope you got the day off because chances are, you've really earned it. Productivity, the amount of output per hours worked is at a six-year high in America--it was up 6.6% in the second quarter and shows no signs of abating. It's the direct result of all the cost-cutting that brought the pleasant earnings news and helped fuel the summer's low-volume stock rally. Profits are up because companies have cut jobs, and for those who remain employed, wages have fallen. Sometimes productivity comes from technology, and sometimes it comes from clever new management techniques that help people...

"We continue to lose manufacturing jobs, government jobs, retail jobs, financial services jobs. The economy continues to contract," Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland More than 2.3 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus went into effect, and that's a big chunk of the 6.9 million jobs that have been lost since the recession started last year. Many economists believe unemployment is a lagging indicator during a recession and is often the last part of the economy to recover. Vice President Joe Biden said last week the stimulus is working better than the administration had...

This Labor Day brings word of a new Gallup poll showing that American public support for labor unions has taken a sharp dive in the last year and is at its lowest point since Gallup began polling in 1936. In response to the question, "Do you approve or disapprove of labor unions?" just 48 percent of respondents said they approve, while 45 percent said they disapprove. That's a steep fall from August 2008, when the numbers were 59 percent approve, 31 percent disapprove, and it's the first time approval of unions has ever fallen below 50 percent. Before this year,...

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated in 1882. Now every year, classes at any US university start just after Labor Day. The labor issues are interesting not only to economic department students; every student thinks about life after graduation. Hired workers are a large part of the population, and therefore, a question almost everyone asks himself from time to time is how to get job. "You should be able to sell yourself", career consultants usually say, when you go to them for advice. Then they move on to how to improve your appeal as a worker, speaking as if...

The national unemployment rate as reported Friday stands at 9.7%, about 15 million people or is it? In August, the total civilian workforce as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was estimated to be 154.6 million. However, that is down 0.16% from 154.8 million in August 2008. The decline of approximately 256,000 (rounding error) is highly unusual since the workforce population is ever increasing thanks to immigration and other factors (graduation, divorce or other catastrophe (e.g., Bernie Maddoff)). In August alone,1.09 million people entered the workforce according to the BLS. Population growth in the U.S. is a given....

President Obama has decided to reduce pay increases for civilian federal workers from 2.4 percent to 2 percent, citing the economic downturn and the ballooning federal budget as reasons for the cut... President Obama’s Defense Department wants to change, not eliminate, George Bush’s so-called “National Security Personnel System” for DOD civilian workers. The NSPS strips them of all collective bargaining rights, allows bosses to set pay amounts and rates, offers no protection for whistleblowers and eliminates most effective grievance procedures. The administration wants to fix these problems and freeze the NSPS at the current level of 205,000 workers it covers......

Washington, D.C., has too many people who wrongly think the supply of federal dollars -- taxpayer dollars -- is infinite... Buried in Capitol Hill's thousands of pages of health care reform proposals are provisions that would give $10 billion to union-backed retiree health plans. Many of those plans, such as the United Auto Workers', are woefully underfunded. So it's no surprise that unions that helped elect President Obama -- including the UAW and the United Steelworkers -- support this multibillion-dollar giveaway of public money. And the prospect of health care reform cutting costs for their retiree health plans surely is...

Never mind about those revised union financial disclosure requirements President Obama inherited from his predecessor. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis now says she won’t make union officials comply. Unions officials complained for eight years that regulations issued by Elaine Chao, President George W. Bush’s Labor Secretary, were more rigorous than required by the Labor Management and Reporting Disclosure Act (LMRDA), which calls for modestly detailed annual financial reports by unions with receipts of $250,000 or more.

(English-language translation) SAN JUAN - The Union Coalition will march on Thursday to alert Puerto Ricans about the continuing layoffs in the government, which they assure go beyond what was ordered in fiscal-emergency Law 7. Roberto Pagán with the Puerto Rican Workers Union complained on Monday that [Governor] Luis Fortuño's administration is continuing to rely on the layoffs to improve the Commonwealth's fiscal situation. "The reality is that Fortuño's government insists on laying off public employees despite the disaster this policy has caused," he indicated during a press conference by the Union Coalition, which brings together three labor unions. The...

As members of the U.S. House and Senate turn their sights from committee hearings and floor votes in D.C., to barbecues and luncheons back home, SEIU's Change That Works team is ready to ensure they don't forget the promises they made on the campaign trail to fix our broken healthcare system and support hardworking families. At more than 400 events, from nurse and doctor town halls to large rallies, canvasses and phone banks--wherever members of Congress are, SEIU members will be there as well. From an ambulance tour in Miles City, Mont., to bake sales in North Dakota, we are...

WASHINGTON -- How does the Obama administration love organized labor? Let us count the ways it uses power to repay unions for helping to put it in power. It has given the United Auto Workers majority ownership of Chrysler. It has sent $135 billion of supposed stimulus money to state governments to protect unionized public sector employees from layoffs and other sacrifices that private sector workers are making. It has sedated the Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards, which protects workers against misbehavior by union leaders. Cap-and-trade legislation might please unions with protectionism -- tariffs on imports from countries not...

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - The U.S. government will get tough with governments that don't live up to trade deals, including those with substandard labor practices, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk was set to announce on Thursday. The USTR and U.S. Labor and State departments will identify and investigate labor violations in countries with which it has free trade agreements and insist problems are fixed, instead of waiting for complaints to initiate enforcement, according to prepared remarks. "If they won't fix their labor problems, we will exercise our legal options," Kirk was set to say in a speech at a U.S. Steel...

Labor in the Driver's Seat By George F. Will July 15, 2009 How does the Obama administration love organized labor? Let us count the ways it uses power to repay unions for helping to put it in power. It has given the United Auto Workers majority ownership of Chrysler. It has sent $135 billion of supposed stimulus money to state governments to protect unionized public-sector employees from layoffs and other sacrifices that private-sector workers are making. It has sedated the Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards, which protects workers against misbehavior by union leaders. Cap-and-trade legislation might please unions with...

In a meeting with President Obama today at the White House, top labor leaders pushed for a second stimulus package to create more jobs. “Since the onset of the recession, this country has lost an astounding 6.5 million jobs and $14 trillion in wealth. We support the President's recovery and reinvestment program, and we believe it should be substantially reinforced with more stimulus, creating millions of good jobs that cannot be outsourced,” the National Labor Coordinating Committee (NLCC) said in a statement after the meeting. A labor official said Obama did not commit to any future stimulus package. The president...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A state bill up for a hearing today would require Wisconsin public schools to teach the history of organized labor and the collective bargaining process in the U.S. Labor unions support the requirement. But groups representing school boards and administrators have registered against it saying they don't want the curriculum micromanaged. The bill has been around for years. It passed the Senate in 1997 and 2001 but never the full Legislature. The Assembly in April passed a bill that would only require the history of organized labor and collective bargaining be included in the state's academic...

When we’re finally done with Obama his “Czar System” circumventing the constitutional confirmation process will stand out. Since he has a Czar for everything, count on a Labor Czar who will be his enforcer. Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will be Labor Czar. He’ll direct Obama’s ACORN brown shirts and intimidate workers into surrendering to Card Check and nobody will be able to stop them. Who is Commissar Stern? Stern’s a favorite son of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose name spells out its aims. Stern’s SEIU is ruthlessly lawless. More than 3820 Unfair Labor...

(WXYZ) - Workers in Michigan are again feeling the stinging effects of the struggling economy. According to Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth, Michigan's unemployment rate continues to worsen. The unemployment rate jumped from 12.9 percent in April to 14.1 percent in May. “Major events continued to unfold in Michigan’s auto industry in May, which had a considerable impact on the state’s unemployment rate,” said Rick Waclawek, director of DELEG’s Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives. “Curtailed production negatively influenced suppliers and other related sectors, resulting in further weakening in the labor market. Michigan’s jobless rate in...

While we were distracted by the dislocation of Erin Burnett's hairdo yesterday, we missed the news that she has fallen afoul of the labor movement. It seems that Erin comparing the situation in Iran to the impending Employee Free Choice Act, labor's favorite piece of legislation, during her "Stop Trading" segment with Jim Cramer. After Erin's comemnts yesterday, the SEIU instructed its members to bombard Burnett and Cramer with emails pilloring her “irresponsible journalism” and “reckless reporting.” SEIU says that thousands of emails have been sent. Erin's long been a favorite target for the left, accused by a Huffington Post...

The cost of hiring and retaining a federal bureaucrat may be going up for taxpayers.This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 626, the "Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act." This bill would give federal employees up to four weeks of paid (that is, by taxpayers) parental leave for the birth or adoption of a child.How generous of Congress with our money.What this bill would do (and it has yet to pass the Senate) is to increase the cost of hiring a federal bureaucrat.  Based on my calculations from May, it costs between $2 million and $11 million to...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The number of newly laid-off Americans filing for jobless benefits fell for the third time in the past four weeks, fresh evidence that companies are cutting fewer jobs.</p> <p>The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week by 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 601,000. That's below analysts' estimates of 615,000.</p>

One of California's most powerful [state employee] union groups is spending $1 million in a television advertising blitz to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature to solve the state's budget crisis with both spending cuts and new taxes. The ad flashes images of Schwarzenegger along with oil derricks, cigarettes and liquor - which the SEIU argues are appropriate targets for taxation to help resolve California's $42 billion deficit. Calling for balancing spending cuts with new taxes, the ad warns: "The politicians propose cuts that hit families with no sacrifice from the special interests. It means a million kids will...

A Labour minister has sparked controversy by claiming that an alternative symbol is needed for the Red Cross because of the logo's supposed links to the Crusades. Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant said that the historic emblem risked undermining the work of the humanitarian organisation. His intervention came as MPs debated the adoption of the 'red crystal' - a diamond

Gordon Brown today gave his personal backing to a written constitution and laid the groundwork for a possible referendum on introducing proportional referendum. The Prime Minister set out his plans for a historic shift in the voting and political system as he sought to relaunch his troubled premiership. After seeing off a concerted attempt to force him out of Number 10, Mr Brown promised

Two Florida farms have decided to participate in a deal to increase the wages of the state's tomato pickers in an agreement with a farmworker advocacy group and upscale Whole Foods Market, the grocery chain announced Thursday. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Whole Foods said the farms will pay pickers 1 cent more per pound of tomatoes sold to the Austin, Texas, based company. Whole Foods will foot the bill. Florida provides most of the nation's domestic winter tomato crop. Florida workers earn about 47 cents per 32-pound bucket. That can mean an average of about $12 an hour...

<p>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Jack Henning, a pioneering leader of California's labor movement who served under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, has died at his home in San Francisco. He was 93.</p> <p>Henning served 26 years as executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, which represents more than 2 million workers.</p>

The Heritage Foundation has a great analysis on how labor unions affect jobs and the economy. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/bg2775.cfm What I've done is pulled just a few facts that you should know about these unions. Read the linked study for more information. This one needs to be framed and put on a wall. Ready? OK .. here is what labor unions do for American business: Studies typically find that unionized companies earn profits between 10 percent and 15 percent lower than those of comparable non-union firms. Some unions win higher wages for their members, though many do not. But with these higher...

I don't know why I do it, but I do. I love perusing the liberal blogs to see what filth they're spewing. And today, Ms. Hamsher offers up a doozy. She loves the Employee Free Choice Act. In you don't already know, I don't. It's an insult to workers and is likely unconstitutional. But I can live with the fact that she disagrees with me - a lot of people who similarly refuse to live in the real world do. What gets me, however, is that she doesn't realize that her argument for supporting it is itself a real good...

Across the private sector, workers are swallowing hard as their employers freeze salaries, cancel bonuses, and institute longer work days. America's employees can see for themselves how steeply business has fallen off, which is why many are accepting cost-saving measures with equanimity -- especially compared to workers in France, where riots and plant takeovers have become regular news. But then there is the U.S. public sector, where the mood seems very European these days. In New Jersey, which faces a $3.3 billion budget deficit, angry state workers have demonstrated in Trenton and taken Gov. Jon Corzine to court over his...

Furlough fever is spreading to the Chicago Park District. One week after Mayor Daley ordered 3,600 non-union city employees to take 14 unpaid days off, Park District Superintendent Tim Mitchell upped the ante-by asking 1,700 park employees to take 16 furlough days. Mitchell said the unpaid days are needed to erase a potential $14 million shortfall in his $400 million 2010 budget caused by a precipitous drop in corporate income tax revenues. Mitchell claimed union leaders have been “pretty receptive” to the demand, adding, “They’ve heard from their rank-and-file that it’s important to keep people employed and have health insurance...