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Conventional wisdom has Ohio being vulnerable to a Democratic rollback in 2012 after a GOP sweep in 2010. Approval ratings for Governor John Kasich have been low after his reforms of public-employee unions in a state where Big Labor is thought to have a wide reach. However, a new Quinnipiac poll on a proposed right-to-work reform may indicate that their power is not as broad as first thought: Despite the overwhelming victory by organized labor and its allies in repealing SB 5 in this past election, by 54 – 40 percent Ohio voters favor the idea of passing a “right-to-work�...

Wisconsin Education Association Trust, a not-for-profit health insurance company created by the state's largest teachers union. The union trust is doing this in a bid to retain its dominant position as the state government's largest health care insurance provider. The funds in question derive from the much-maligned Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. Obamacare created ERRP as a taxpayer-funded subsidy intended to lower the cost of early retiree health care. Instead, the Obama administration has used ERRP funds to give political payback to preferred special interest groups. Top ERRP recipients include the United Auto Workers ($206.8 million), state governments and government unions...

Union leaders are asking Democratic candidates for governor to veto the next state budget if it doesn't restore collective bargaining for public workers, and one leading candidate - Kathleen Falk - has agreed. Such a veto could lead to gridlock with the Legislature, particularly if Republicans continue to control one or both houses, and to possible layoffs of state workers, officials warned. Nonetheless, the move is a key strategy that union leaders are considering for undoing Gov. Scott Walker's repeal last year of most collective bargaining for public employees. Falk, the former Dane County executive, has committed to restoring collective...

....Miramonte will reopen Thursday with an all-new slate of teachers and administrators as well as custodians and cafeteria workers. But L.A.Unified will continue to pay the old staff even as they wait out the investigations at a high school under construction a few miles away. It remains unclear how long this arrangement will last; the investigations are expected to take months to complete. The new hiring alone will run $5.7 million for the remainder of the school year, said district spokesman... But those costs are likely to pale when compared to potential legal liability that experts said could run into...

Federal workers' union criticizes $260B House GOP transportation planBy Keith Laing - 02/08/12 02:31 PM ET A union that represents employees of numerous federal agencies accused Republicans in the House of Representatives of cutting benefits to fund their $260 billion surface transportation bill. The Washington, D.C.-based National Treasury Employees Union sharply criticized H.R. 3813, the Securing Annuities for Federal Employees Act of 2012, arguing the legislation would divert savings from spending less on federal employees' pensions to the Highway Trust Fund. The bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), was approved Tuesday by the House Oversight and Government...

Far more home healthcare providers were ensnared in Michigan's forced unionization of 2006 than previously believed, according to figures provided by the Department of Human Services. There are 60,190, which is more than 25 percent higher than the 43,000 reported up to now. It's probable that more than 80 percent of these workers were forced into the Service Employees International Union through a "scam" perpetrated while Gov. Jennifer Granholm was in office. Not only are the numbers involved greater than previously believed, the definition of a home health care worker is also murky. Assumptions that they are medical professionals providing...

LOS ANGELES — The entire faculty at Miramonte Elementary School, where two teachers were arrested last week on accusations of child sexual abuse, will be replaced by new teachers this week, the Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent announced Monday night. Speaking to hundreds of parents at a meeting called to address the crisis at Miramonte, Superintendent John Deasy announced the school would be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and when students returned on Thursday, an entirely new corps of teachers and staff members would have been hired to greet them. All current teachers, administrators and staff members will be moved...

INDIANAPOLIS -- With the controversial right-to-work legislation now law, protesters are moving ahead with plans to try to disrupt Sunday's Super Bowl. Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the bill Wednesday to make Indiana the 23rd state to prohibit labor contracts that require workers to pay union representation fees and the first to adopt such legislation in a decade.

I remember Daniels getting a lot of heat for not pushing RTW legislation last year. He and the Indiana House and Senate had a lot on their plates legislatively last year. Daniels wanted hearings on it last year and to look at RTW for this session. In December, Daniels came out in full support of RTW. Today he signed the bill into law making Indiana the 23rd RTW state in the nation. You gotta give Daniels credit. He is a man of his word. Great job Mitch!!!

The Virginia House and Senate on Tuesday voted to ban mandatory project labor agreements on state-funded construction projects, a move proponents argue will help protect the state's right-to-work laws and create a level playing field in contract bidding. Opponents say the ban is an unnecessary red herring. The Republican-led House approved its version of the bill on a 69-27 vote, and the Senate deadlocked on the measure 20-20.

Krauthammer: State of the union flopBy CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER January 28, 2012 - 12:24am Once upon a time, small ball was not Barack Obama’s game. Tuesday, it was the essence of his State of the Union address. The visionary of 2008 — purveyor of hope and change, healer of the earth, tamer of the rising seas — offered an hour of little things: tax-code tweaks to encourage this or that kind of behavior (manufacturing being the flavor of the day), little watchdog agencies to round up Wall Street miscreants and Chinese DVD pirates, even a presidential demand “that all students stay...

For more than two years, the Michigan Education Association has had a manual that urges its members to use students as propaganda in contract negotiations and also lays out how to organize strikes, which are illegal in Michigan. A 28-page manual, “Building Full Capacity Locals — Crisis Planning, It’s Never Too Early To Start!” has one section that reads: “Strikes: Aren’t They Illegal?” and follows with a civil disobedience quote from Mahatma Gandhi. The manual appears to have been created in July of 2009. “What’s really troubling about this publication isn’t what’s inside, it’s right there on the cover. This...

Following Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s reforming his state’s collective bargaining laws and breaking the stranglehold unions held on taxpayers (saving them $476 million so far), union bosses across the country laid siege on the dairy state’s capitol and declared war on Walker and his fellow Republicans. In 2011, union bosses and other outside groups spent tens of millions of dollars in a failed attempt to recall six Republican state senators and are spending millions more now trying to recall Scott Walker. The millions union bosses are now spending—paid for by union members throughout the country—has Democrats getting nervous that the...

After President Clinton took a drubbing from voters in the 1994 Congressional election, he realized his policies weren't working. He promptly declared, "The era of big government is over," and he then went about making good on that declaration: • He reduced spending by a miraculous 3 1/2 percent of GDP. • He attacked entitlement spending and abolished the ballooning open-ended welfare system. • He signed what amounted to the biggest capital gains tax cut in American history. • He delivered the only four budget surpluses in four decades. • And he produced a period of prolonged economic expansion. President...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's Republican-controlled House of Representatives cleared the way Wednesday to become the first right-to-work state in a traditionally union-heavy Rust Belt increasingly targeted by non-union foes. The House voted 54-44 to make Indiana the nation's 23rd right-to-work state after Democrats ended a periodic boycott which had stalled the measure for weeks. The measure is expected to face little opposition in Indiana's Republican-controlled Senate and could reach Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels' desk shortly before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl in Indianapolis...

INDIANAPOLIS -- A controversial church and Indiana union members could find themselves sharing the same stage before the Super Bowl. The Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, which is known for its radical demonstrations outside soldier funerals, has announced it plans to travel to Indianapolis to picket outside the Super Bowl. Teamsters upset over the divisive right-to-work bill that passed the House on Wednesday said previously they also plan to protest outside the big game to bring national attention to their issue. The Super Bowl Host Committee has set up two so-called free speech zones at South and Illinois streets and on...

WASHINGTON – It was a wish list, not a to-do list. President Obama's array of plans in his State of the Union speech was light on a key piece of context -- namely, that his hands are so tied until after the election that it is doubtful many if any of them can be done in the remainder of his term. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies -- something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today's divided Congress, much less in this election year. A look...

The Obama campaign has found its Joe the Plumber. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night is expected to emphasize economic inequality, appropriately timed coming off the Occupy Wall Street fall leading up to Tuesday’s release of frequent Republican front-runner Mitt Romney’s tax returns which reveal that the multi-millionaire pays an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent. To hammer home the political game that the Obama campaign has been playing, billionaire Warren Buffett‘s longtime secretary will be joining first lady Michelle Obama in her seating section during tonight’s speech. The guest choice is significant because Buffett’s secretary,...

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana's march toward becoming the nation's 23rd right-to-work state is once again in limbo. House Democrats here refused to return to the Indiana House floor Tuesday evening, abandoning a deal that was supposed to lead to a vote on right-to-work legislation by the end of this week. Indiana Senate Bill 269 and House Bill 1001 would make it a Class A misdemeanor to require an individual to join or remain in a union or to pay any dues, fees or other charges to that same labor organization. After the Democrats refused to come back from a recess in...

The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) left the BlueGreen Alliance on Friday, citing a disagreement with the group’s members over the Keystone XL pipeline. LIUNA, a vocal Keystone supporter, took aim at other unions for opposing the project. “We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said in a statement. The BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups and labor unions, confirmed LIUNA’s exit Friday afternoon. “The...

Dr. Edward C. Smith, respected African-American Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C., told the audience in Atlanta, Georgia during a 1995 Robert E. Lee birthday event, ‘Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert E. Lee were individuals worthy of emulation because they understood history.’

Continuing Contract Threatened Take Action! Write Your Delegate Today HB 576 denies experience teachers continuing contract, moving them to annual contracts. Thwart this attack on the teaching profession by writing your delegate now!

Employees at the Mercy Health Partners Hackley Campus in Muskegon recently voted themselves out of the Service Employees International Union by a 65-9 margin. Three members voted for nonunion status. The specific branch of the SEIU involved is Healthcare Michigan. The vote was taken last week. The employee group will now transition over to the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The loss of the Hackley employees, coupled with the loss of the employees at the Luther Manor skilled nursing facility in Saginaw in a September election, means SEIU Healthcare Michigan is even more dependent on dues from a “forced unionization”...

In November 2011, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reported $86 million in unused vacation pay, sick time, and other severance had been paid to departing state workers and MnSCU employees in the past three years. And the total is growing by the day. Now, the University of Minnesota has released its separate payroll records, showing it paid departing employees $30 million during the same time period. That brings the total to at least $116 million for all departing state workers in the past three years.

In November 2011, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reported $86 million in unused vacation pay, sick time, and other severance had been paid to departing state workers and MnSCU employees in the past three years. And the total is growing by the day. Now, the University of Minnesota has released its separate payroll records, showing it paid departing employees $30 million during the same time period. That brings the total to at least $116 million for all departing state workers in the past three years.

From the Diaries… As the Recall Walker effort submitted their signatures to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board today (claiming 1 million signatures), Wisconsinites deserve a serious analysis of this Big Labor, big money game to force a recall election on the people of this state. We will be shocked at what is yet to come. Evidence is already mounting to suggest that Big Labor has used underhanded, fraudulent and illegal tactics to pad their petition numbers. Major national labor organizations have dumped millions into Wisconsin to stop Governor Walker’s reforms and with the integrity of these petitions being questioned; they...

MADISON, Wis. -- Opponents of Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker submitted nearly twice as many signatures Tuesday as required to force a recall election, but still face the challenge of transforming public outrage over his moves against unions into actual votes to oust him from office.

You undoubtedly know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a progressive Christian and champion of civil rights and the social gospel. You may also know that he spoke out against the Vietnam War, harshly criticized U.S. foreign policy, and questioned the capitalist system that produced poverty. But do you know his theology? Right up until Dr. King's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had traveled to support striking sanitation workers, the civil rights leader worked—not as a secular activist but as a Baptist minister—to awaken the conscience of the nation. What was the meaning of Jesus for Dr. King?...

A Las Vegas attorney will launch a legal and political effort this week aimed at establishing and funding a parallel state budget, beyond the reach of the Legislature and governor. Kermitt Waters seeks to place on the November ballot a proposed constitutional amendment calling for a sweeping overhaul of Nevada’s tax system — abolishing property taxes on single-family homes among other things while identifying and allocating new tax revenue. Waters said last week his proposal is borne of frustration with the status quo in Carson City. The state’s 63 lawmakers represent the powerful interests who fund their campaigns, he said,...

United States Coast Guard. Image by U.S. Coast Guard President Barack Obama’s administration has ordered the United States Coast Guard to protect grain ships at the Port of Longview from violent “Occupy” protesters and dockworker union members, according to a local news report. The Daily News in Longview, Wash., reported that the Coast Guard will protect a grain shipment from an onslaught of “Occupy” protesters and members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The ship will be transporting grain to Asia. A date for the shipment has not yet been set. The group of leftwing activists had shut...

With teacher pay and benefits coming to the forefront in a heated political climate, the effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker has found its way into one Whitefish Bay classroom. Conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes reported Tuesday that a Whitefish Bay Middle School teacher wore a "Recall Walker" pin in the classroom — a cause for concern for some of the students' parents.

With the Jan. 17 deadline fast approaching for opponents of Republican Gov. Scott Walker to turn in petitions aimed at triggering a recall election, the Wisconsin Democratic Party is encouraging signature gatherers to wrap it up. "We don't want people holding on to petitions until the last minute," says Graeme Zielinski, spokesman with the Wisconsin Democratic Party. "So if you have them, turn them in. Don't hoard them." Zielinski says the party has imposed several "internal deadlines" for people to sign and to turn in petitions. He says the party is asking the petitions to be mailed in no later...

SEOUL — Unionised workers at South Korea's largest carmaker Hyundai Motor stopped work at engine plants in one factory on Tuesday after a union member set himself ablaze due to alleged bullying by bosses. The union said workers at the five engine plants in the southeastern city of Ulsan stopped production at 1 pm (0400 GMT) after management rejected their demands -- including an apology for the incident and punishment of those responsible.

The labor union of Hyundai Motor has threatened to suspend all engine output in the company's biggest production base from Tuesday, saying an employee set himself on fire to protest the company's alleged "suppression" of unionized workers. The incident indicates labor issues remain a potential vulnerability for the strongly performing South Korean carmaker, although it avoided strikes for a third year in a row last year. The worker and union member with the surname Shin was found in flames at a Hyundai engine plant in the southeastern city of Ulsan at around noon on Sunday, and is currently in critical...

A $409 million tab projected for retiree benefit costs looms for the cash-strapped St. Paul Public Schools. Some on the school board are urging the district to tackle the liability more aggressively. But officials say there's little they can do to put a dent in the costs, which have bumped up tax bills and diverted money from the classroom. St. Paul recently started socking away money to help cover the benefits, slated to sunset in 2014. But the investment came later and started out smaller than planned, and recent market turmoil chipped away at it. "I feel we're throwing a...

On Wednesday, Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf issued a search warrant for Florida SEIU organizer Clarence Haynes declaring there is “probable cause that Mr. H [Clarence Haynes] voted without the proper qualifications as an elector when he cast a ballot on April 5, 2011.”Documents exclusively obtained by Media Trackers revealed that Clarence Haynes, along with two other out-of-state SEIU organizers, voted using the address of a Residence Inn in Glendale, Wisconsin in the April 5, 2011 spring election. Media Trackers first uncovered these individuals on October 26, 2011, prompting Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf to investigate the matter. The...

“A lot of people take this job very seriously—any bag I open could be my last,” said Heydrich Thomas, a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) baggage screener who works at New York City's JFK airport and is also local union leader. TSA employees, who work to prevent explosives and other weapons from entering airplanes, have some of the most dangerous jobs in America. According to TSA employee Eric Wood, vice president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 1120, TSA employees find approximately 30 guns a week nationwide when searching people’s bags. But despite the dangerous nature of their jobs,...

Romney ad: Obama appointees to NLRB are ‘union stooges’By Josh Lederman - 01/05/12 09:17 AM ET Mitt Romney is calling President Obama’s appointees to the labor board “union stooges” who practice un-American political playback, in a new ad his campaign is airing in South Carolina. The release of the 30-second television ad comes the day after Obama installed three new members of the National Labor Relations Board, appointing them while the Senate was in recess to sidestep Republican opposition. A day earlier, Romney claimed victory in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, but his razor-thin margin raised prospects that the nomination fight will...

Thursday, January 19, 2012, is the 205th birthday of General Robert E. Lee, whose memory is still dear in the hearts of people everywhere.

State workers and their families will pay more for medical care starting Jan. 1 under the latest changes to emerge from a state law that wiped out most public employee union rights. The changes in the state health plan require 183,000 participants to pay 10 percent of their bills for doctor visits, tests, surgeries and hospitalizations up to an annual maximum of $500 for single people and $1,000 for families. Health plan administrators have explained the new system previously, but they expect to get a lot more questions when workers begin reaching into their pockets. "I think the reality will...

Denver police officer Derrick Curtis Saunders was arrested for speeding and driving under the influence. Before he was pulled over, he was driving at 143 mph in a 55-mph zone. That’s 88 miles an hour more than the speed limit. His blood-alcohol level was 0.089 percent, slightly higher than the 0.08 legal limit. Appropriately, the Denver Police Department dismissed him. (A judge also sentenced him to five days in jail, fined him $300 and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service.) Now, Saunders would like his job back — and the Denver Police Protection Association stands ready to...

LAS VEGAS – While the Great Recession has affected almost all Americans, Nevadans may be the hardest hit. The state leads the nation in unemployment (13 percent) and home foreclosures (three times the national average). Because of the faltering economy and slowed tax revenue, the Clark County School District needs to cut $78 million from its budget over the next two years. The district must do this either by freezing teacher pay and finding a more affordable employee health insurance carrier, or by laying off 1,000 educators as early as next month.

It’s so reassuring to have the intellectual elites in our nation’s teachers unions, like Sandy Hughes of Tennessee, looking out for us rubes. Hughes, a local union president, is pitching the idea that school board membership be limited to people who “have worked in the education field,” because the issues at hand are “so complex” and too complicated for average citizens.

Budget documents from 20 Colorado school districts show taxpayers spent more than $5.8 million over the past five years for the activities of teachers unions ... Some districts pay all or part of the salaries of full-time union leaders, salaries of teachers on leave to attend union-sponsored training and meetings and hiring substitutes for teachers who were attending union events. Critics of the practice say taxpayer money is being used to benefit unions, not children.

At least 10 doctors not previously disciplined by the state signed sick notes for Madison School District employees that the district considered fraudulent, according to a State Journal analysis of the notes submitted amid Capitol protests earlier this year. The newspaper also found that about 570 district employees submitted sick notes for at least one of the four days in February when teacher absences forced a school shutdown. The number presents, for the first time, a clearer picture of how many Madison employees sought an excused absence. The documents - obtained by the newspaper Friday as part of a settlement...

The obnoxiousness continues. Not content to picket the Capitol and petition for the recall of any and every state leader who had a hand in the passage of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill, union leaders are now harassing a teacher who appeared in an ad in support of Walker. In a basic black-back-dropped ad, Kristi Lacroix said she wasn’t in favor of a recall. “I’m not big on recalls and I think, at this point, in my opinion, and I’m only speaking from the ‘I,’ it feels a little like sour grapes,” she says in the spot. “It’s...

Yesterday the Occupy Wall Street Protesters, shut down Ports in the Oakland, CA area, Portland, OR and Washington State. The Union workers were sent home with no pay. How does that grab ya? The protest punks you've been supporting, Union dudes, just cut into your Christmas money. I hope you, your President Barack Hussein Obozo and the Dems who support them are happy. You friggin' meat-heads.

Union militants are threatening and harassing the courageous charter school teacher who is leading the fight to defend Wisconsin's new government-sector Right to Work law. With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Kristi Lacroix and two other civil servants filed an amicus brief and a motion to intervene against union lawyers' spurious lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin's monopoly bargaining reforms. WISN-TV in Milwaukee reported that "she has been blistered by negative and vicious emails and phone messages at school and on Facebook, including one suggesting she get protection."

In September, my colleague Mark Flatten released an investigative report showing that Phoenix and other Arizona cities spend millions of dollars every year to pay employees to perform union work on city time. Less than three months later, we are going to court on behalf of Phoenix taxpayers to put an end to the practice of union “release time.” Our case takes on the city’s contract with the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA), which provides an estimated $900,000 in annual release time for police union work, including lobbying. The provisions take six full-time officers off the streets – giving them...

Workers outraged at Caribbean junket As union bosses continued livin’ it up in the Puerto Rican sun yesterday, municipal workers getting soaked by New York’s cold rain were livid that their hard-earned money was funding the leaders’ Caribbean “convention.” “There goes our union dues!” fumed a furious Local 3 electrician. “They paid for that junket with union dues.” “I’ve worked for 10 months in the last two years. I’m getting laid off at the end of the year,” the electrician railed. “I have no use for the union. All I see is waste, corruption and hypocrisy.” At an Upper West...