Free Republic

1.) Who’s Fighting For 15? Workers Or Big Labor. A nationwide minimum wage protest planned for Wednesday is being called out by critics who claim the self-proclaimed grassroots movement is actually just a paid stunt by big labor. “This is an orchestrated effort,” Ryan Williams, media advisor for Worker Center Watch, said during a press call Monday. “The union has invested upwards of $20 million.” Additionally, as sources for The Daily Caller News Foundation point out, the SEIU has spent $637,243 in strike benefits to some groups involved despite them not reporting any members. The concept refers to when a...

The New Republic (NR) is trying a new approach to saving the Democrats’ ATM machine unions. NR is offering the novel argument that since the Republicans have been so successful in chopping away at the power of unions they should now stop their attacks because the weakened unions are finally not worth the effort to attack. This position sounds more than a little “please don’t throw me in the briar patch-ish.” Unions have not generally been a good thing for America’s workers for a very long time. They have been the Democrats’ “bagman” – collecting and sharing dues money from...

Members of the National Right to Work Foundation believe two German labor groups have failed to completely disclose their full level of involvement in the United Auto Workers’ attempts to set up shop in Chattanooga. As previously reported, the UAW wants to formally establish itself at Chattanooga’s Volkswagen plant. The UAW’s attempts have so far been unsuccessful. VW workers, by a tally of 712-626, for instance, voted in February not to join the UAW. Members of the NRTW represent an unspecified number of VW workers who oppose the union. They say that VW’s Global Works Council and IG Metall, a...

The just passed $1.1 trillion Cromnibus (Continuing Resolution and Omnibus) check float that successfully got through the Republican controlled US House contains language that could gut pension plans, according to analyses by both conservative and leftist web writers. “The pension provision was made public late Tuesday night,” says a web source that blasts efforts to write down public pension allotments. (1) Mike Adams of Health Ranger warns that “all the pension benefits that have been promised government retirees are about to be stolen back from retirees.” (2) Quoting a WaPo article, Adams also points out that “the proposal would torpedo...

Given that our Commander in Chief is a surprisingly decent firearm salesman, it’s a little odd that one of America’s most prolific gun manufacturers might soon be facing an agonizing financial death. But, that’s exactly where Colt is headed if things don’t change drastically. It takes a very specialized form of failure for a gun company to miss out on the Obama-inspired run on guns, the “assault weapon” craze of the 2000’s, and the proliferation of Concealed Carry in the 1990’s, but that’s exactly what happened. And, worse, this isn’t Colt’s first foray into fiscal failure. In fact, this...

Left wing groups are ramping up for “street theater” protests at retail stores this Black Friday. If prior years are any indication of the group’s projected success this year, we can expect a handful of union thugs showing up at a handful of Walmart stores, with a few mass-printed signs. As reported by the Free Beacon:“The fight against income inequality in this country starts at Walmart,” said Brooke Anderson of Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project. “we are proud to stand with Walmart workers this Black Friday to speak out for the fair pay and the respect workers deserve.”Before diving into the...

In 1950 America’s richest city was Detroit. Now it is nip and tuck with Cleveland as the nation’s poorest city. Today, in order to get into the sixth wealthiest spot on the list, the once wealthy and powerful New York City must be lumped in with Northern New Jersey and Long Island. By comparison Detroit was clearly better off 65 years ago than New York City is today. In 1950 Detroit relied on the auto manufacturing industry to fuel its economy and “See the USA in your Chevrolet” to keep the cars rolling off the assembly line. Sixty five years...

John F. Kennedy 1961 to Nov 23, 1963 Camelot? More like Potemkin Village on the Potomac! John F. Kennedy: was there anything about him that was NOT a fraud? From August 2, 1943 the day his PT 109 was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer the legend of John FitzGerald Kennedy was nurtured and carefully managed. [69] John Kennedy was not his father Joseph P. Kennedy’s first choice to make one of his sons the president of the United States. The old bootlegger had his eyes on Joe Kennedy junior for that designation. Unfortunately Joe junior – a genuinely...

Kaiser Permanente and other health providers are putting pressure on the powerful California Nurses Association (CAN) in negotiations for reductions in medical staffing and compensation due to the implementation of California’s version of Obamacare. Union nurses on Friday tried to launch a new initiative by demanding an extra compensation supplement and more staffing to be prepared to fight the Ebola virus. But just three years after union nurses won huge contract gains by striking, Obamacare rules that cut patient access to care could now result in huge nurse layoffs. ... the California Nurses Association and other labor unions that campaigned...

It isn't just Democrat voters who are uninterested in heading to the polls in November. There is one major political group missing from the 2014 midterm election conversation: labor unions. Labor leaders shamelessly helped re-elected President Obama in 2012, but after broken promises on job creation and the destruction of worker healthcare plans, they've taken a major step back from their traditional role of putting or keeping Democrats in office this fall. More from the Washington Times: Labor unions, long a rich source of ground troops for national Democrats’ Election Day victories, are less enthusiastic this year, according to some movement leaders...

An obituary in the Washington Post for Robert Poli provides a chance to look back at a decisive moment in Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Poli was the head of the militant Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), which launched an illegal strike in 1981. The Post describes the significance of the action: The strike by PATCO, Reagan’s subsequent breaking of the union and the hiring of replacement workers were among the most significant job actions of their time, said Joseph A. McCartin, a professor at Georgetown University and a specialist on labor and social history. They “helped to define labor relations...

Koch Brothers go on offensive to expose dark money in politics. The Koch brothers—taking a break from such nefarious endeavors as spending money in support of their political positions and, worse, donating to hospitals—are going on the offensive with a campaign to expose the vast web of dark money spun by the Democracy Alliance. The Democracy Alliance is a secretive left-wing organization which connects big-money progressive donors to a long list of progressive organizations. A chart mapping out all the groups financed by the Democracy Alliance was distributed by Republicans on the Senate floor on Monday, and it makes clear...

In the 1940s and 1950s, when unions were at the height of their extortionist power, it seemed like every year the Brooklyn Dodgers would fall short of a championship and, with the lament of “Wait ‘til next year!” would fill the bars on Flatbush Avenue. While “next year” finally did come in 1955, the Dodgers quickly moved to Los Angeles and “next year” never came to Brooklyn again. This Labor Day stirs memories of “wait ‘til next year,” for the remaining extortionist unions still stealing workers’ pay and giving it to the Democrats. The good news for America is that...

I’ve always been a great fan of Pope St. Leo XIII’s whose moves to protect the working man during the Industrial Revolution resulted in the rise of labor unions. It saddens me to see how unionism has fallen under totalitarian rule with the leaders thriving on power rather than the welfare of the workers – or the survival of the companies that employ them. More than one union has committed economic suicide by demanding pay and benefits beyond what an industry can support. They forgot it wasn’t only solidarity, it was also subsidiarity – well-stated in Pope Benedict XVI’s “Caritas...

In order to remain true to the Democrat Party, Black Americans have had to eat a lot of dirt. Barack Obama forced their religious leaders to put their bibles aside and tell their congregations that homosexuality is perfectly acceptable. Blacks have endured high crime, low living standards and drug infested neighborhoods because the Democrat Party has ignored their pleas for help. They are suffering the highest unemployment rates and poorest academic achievement by their young people. Their dreams have been reduced to pictures hung on greasy walls in public housing projects showing John Kennedy and Martin Luther King walking up...

He endured massive protests and a contentious 2012 recall election, but Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has been vindicated in his efforts to curb union power in the state. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld his collective bargaining reforms he enacted in 2011, ruling them constitutional (via Associated Press): The fight over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's signature policy achievement, a law effectively ending collective bargaining for most public employees, ended Thursday with the state Supreme Court declaring it to be constitutional. … The 5-2 state Supreme Court ruling is another major victory for Walker as he heads into the statewide...

yesterday's decision in a key Illinois Supreme Court case has set off a first-class explosion in state and local government, potentially punching tens of billions of dollars in holes in their collective budgets. Some elements of the court's decision are drawing intense debate. But if the overnight consensus is anywhere near correct, everyone from City Hall and the Capitol to your local village and school board will have little option now but to dig deep, cut services and raise taxes a lot — and labor unions little incentive to compromise. "The law in Illinois is now crystal clear: Politicians cannot...

As the old saying goes, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” Four years ago we saw the “fool and his money…” play out with a great flourish on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah did a show telling us what a great guy Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire owner of Facebook is for pledging to donate $100 million to the City of Newark. Zuckerberg naively believed the money would be used to improve Newark’s school system. Of course the then mayor of Newark Cory Booker was only too happy to take this White Liberal sucker’s money to complete the “..are...

Unions will extort disabled people; MoveOn.org will support Boko Haram. Unions and liberals make our world a little less livable every time they get a chance. Here are two stories that remind us of the depths these people will sink to in order to have their way. In Michigan the Service Employees Internal Union (SEIU) has recently seen an 80% decrease in its membership which was triggered as much by its own greed as the terrible economy Barack Obama has given us. In 2006 the Michigan SEIU was successful in their drive to forcibly unionize family members of disabled people...

Having won the right to decide for themselves whether to join unions, Michigan workers are opting to desert an organization that many never wanted to join in the first place: the SEIU. Michigan voters put an end to forced unionization by approving right-to-work in the 2012 election. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder also signed a bill that ended a fraudulent dues-skimming scheme, perpetrated by the SEIU, which had allowed the union to collect $34 million in mandatory dues out of the Medicaid checks of unknowing home-based caregivers. No longer obligated to pay money to the SEIU, 80 percent of home-based caregivers...