Free Republic

As Gov. Bill Ritter continues his efforts to make his coalition with Big Labor look reasonable, one Colorado union is showing just how out of touch with reality union bosses really are. United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 7 had introduced five statewide ballot initiatives that if approved for the November ballot and passed by voters, would collectively and significantly raise the cost of hiring new workers. At a time when the U.S. economy continues to shed thousands of low-skilled jobs each quarter, the timing of the Local 7’s proposal is extremely questionable. One of the initiatives would require...

Colorado will be turned into a union paradise under a proposed policy formalizing union access to state employees, angry Republicans say. The new guidelines, put forth by Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration Director Bill Gonzales, would require the state to provide employee organizations with space to hold meetings, e-mail addresses of all employees and use of state mailrooms. Gonzales, an appointee of Gov. Bill Ritter... Republicans, who read the draft rules obtained by the Rocky Mountain News, said Friday that they amounted to a back-room administrative fiat by a Democratic administration trying to pay back the public employee unions...

Labor officials try to lure employees into unionization with a simple (but unfair) process of signing a card, but then turn around and demand a formal election for employees to get rid of bad unions. True secret ballot elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board are clearly recognized as the most democratic means of choosing unionization. The D.C. Court of Appeals said in 1991 that "Freedom of choice is a matter at the very center of our national labor relations policy, and a secret election is the preferred method of gauging choice." And the Miami Herald recently editorialized that...

It's like watching a tragedy unfold, what's happening at the top of the auto industry. A happy ending, in any true sense, isn't in the cards. At best, after thousands are off the scene, survivors still may be standing on U.S. soil. But forget happy. The scene: bankruptcy court. No, General Motors and Ford aren't there yet, although their share prices seem to discount it, at about $20 and $8 respectively. But how grim it was for Delphi Corp, the nation's largest auto parts supplier, to ask a bankruptcy judge in Detroit to throw out its labor contracts and approve...

States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress. With the federal government's permission, schools aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found.

DEMOCRATS TRAP BLACK CHILDREN IN FAILING SCHOOLS For Immediate Release Contact: Frances Rice National Black Republican Association 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 900-S Washington, DC 20004 (202) 638-6940 (202) 639-8238 Fax NBRA websiteDEMOCRATS TRAP BLACK CHILDREN IN FAILING SCHOOLS Washington, D.C. - January 7, 2006 - On the heels of a protest rally by Democrats in Florida to shut down a privately funded program that gives school choice vouchers or "opportunity scholarships" to black parents, the liberal Florida Supreme Court ended the state-sponsored opportunity scholarship program, slamming the door in the face of black parents. The National Black Republican Association...

The U.S. attorney for the northern district of Indiana is being asked to investigate an alleged incident of voter fraud. The name of a man who died more than three years ago has shown up on paperwork requesting a mailed absentee ballot.The man's name is Stanley Grygiel. He was a staunch democrat, a UAW member and somewhat politically active. Up until now, it appeared that activity ended when he died in June of 2001.Mail from the Democratic Party still occasionally shows up at the home of the late Grygiel, according to a son who still lives there. The son expressed...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

WASHINGTON - The AFL-CIO is enduring a budget shortfall so severe that its own workers are taking two days of unpaid leave to avoid layoffs, even as the labor federation attempts to mobilize its largest-ever political campaign. Dubbed "solidarity days," the days off were agreed to this past summer in contract negotiations between managers and the union representing about 200 workers at the AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization of 64 international unions. Managers also have agreed to take the unpaid time. AFL-CIO spokeswoman Lane Windham said employees covered by the Newspaper Guild Local 32035 decided they would rather lose pay for...

CROSS LANES, W.Va. — To find the cause of the nation's three supermarket strikes, just follow Judy Ranson's shopping cart. An inveterate bargain hunter, Ranson used to chase down the best grocery deals at three stores: her local Kroger in Cross Lanes or down the road at a Fas Check in Dunbar and at a Poca Supermarket in Poca. Now she makes one trip a week, to the Wal-Mart Supercenter, which opened five years ago a mile and a half down the road and across Interstate 64 from Kroger. Ranson, who is 57, spends about $90 for herself and her...

Stolen Computer Search October 14, 2003 — The search goes on for a stolen laptop computer, a computer that contains sensitive information about security at all the commercial airports in the U.S. It happened during an airport security training seminar at the Embassy Suites near Philadelphia International. Police and the FBI have not located that computer nor have they made any arrests. I am told it contains sensitive information about security at the nation's 429 airports. A source tells Action News they do not believe this was the job of a professional who knew what was on the computer, but...

<p>HUNTINGTON -- Workers at the Special Metals Corp. nickel alloy plant in Huntington rejected a proposed contract offer Monday that their union leadership and company executives said was necessary to keep the plant open.</p> <p>The vote, announced at 8:30 p.m. after a full day of voting, was 236 workers for the new contract and 303 against it.</p>

<p>He said it was $7 million more than nonunion bids for his $46 million makeover of the Cherry Hill Apartments, a rundown landmark on the vital Route 38 corridor.</p> <p>He decided to go nonunion.</p> <p>Now Healey, 74, the son of a former union leader, said unions and their powerful allies in Camden County government are showing him what they think of his decision.</p>

<p>A former accounts manager for the California State Employees Association admitted to a judge Friday that she stole nearly $1 million from the labor union to feed her gambling addiction. Gail S. Jones of Citrus Heights, who has no previous criminal record, pleaded guilty in Sacramento federal court to six felony counts of computer fraud.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) - Teamsters union plans to endorse Democrat Dick Gephardt for president, union sources say.

Here we go again. Accounting shenanigans, lack of disclosure, misidentification of expenses, off-the-books enterprises, and embezzlement. Who's the corporate villain this time? It's not big business, but big labor. These examples of union financial misconduct investigated by the Department of Labor sound suspiciously like the accounting scandals plaguing corporate America. Last summer, fed up with such scandals, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to reform corporate-accounting practices. Its goals received wide support. As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has said, "transparency, accountability, and full and accurate disclosure should be central goals of financial regulation." He's right. Businesses should make regular, full disclosure...

Former Ullico exec refuses to testify to lawmakers (GLOBAL CROSSING, TERRY MCAULIFFE) Tue June 17, 2003 05:08 PM ET WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) - The former top executive of union-owned insurer Ullico Inc. refused to testify to lawmakers on Tuesday about a sweetheart stock deal that netted board members some $5.6 million and caused his replacement last month. Former Ullico Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Georgine invoked his constitutional right not to testify at a hearing by the House Education and Workforce Committee on the scandal, which is also being probed by regulators and prosecutors. Rep John Boehner, the Ohio...

<p>One of the more important hearings of this Congress will be held today, when House Education and the Workforce Chairman John Boehner airs some of the ugly details of the Ullico scandal. More than just another corporate scam, Ullico is an example of how today's union leadership fails its rank and file.</p>

<p>House Republicans are expected to confront a scandal-plagued former labor leader today in a hearing that will highlight a stock-selling scheme that lawmakers have compared to the collapse of Enron Corp.</p> <p>Robert A. Georgine, former chief executive officer of ULLICO Inc., will be forced to publicly explain for the first time how he and a handful of board members, mostly various union presidents, made roughly $6 million in profit at the expense of other shareholders in the pension fund.</p>

Murray Sisselman, 73 and dying of cancer, walked into the Rascal House deli near his home on Feb. 25 to meet with James Angleton Jr., the chief financial officer of United Teachers of Dade. Sisselman, who served as UTD president for 27 years, wanted to come clean in his final days. He directed Angleton to a file cabinet packed with records showing that longtime union chief Pat Tornillo and his wife were apparently reimbursed for at least $155,000 in personal expenses in less than three years, including: • More than $10,200 during the couple's short stay in St. Bart's and...

Federal and local investigators raided the powerful United Teachers of Dade headquarters Tuesday morning, hauling off boxes of financial records in a quest to prove that the union's autocratic leader of four decades, Pat Tornillo, had siphoned money to pay for homes, hotel bills and other perks, sources familiar with the criminal probe said. Investigators from the FBI and Miami-Dade's Public Corruption Task Force served a search warrant to UTD headquarters, on Northeast 22nd Street and Biscayne Boulevard, around 9:30 a.m. ''The search warrant is sealed,'' said Judy Orihuela, an FBI spokeswoman. ``No one was arrested.'' The search for evidence...

<p>The House of Representatives will hold hearings in the coming weeks to investigate a stock-selling scheme Republicans are calling Big Labor's Enron scandal.</p> <p>Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, will lead the hearings on accusations that members of ULLICO, a labor-owned insurance company and pension fund, took part in an illegal scheme in which shares in ULLICO were bought and sold based on inside information gleaned by the board's chief executive officer, Robert A. Georgine.</p>

As much as one-third of the tax-exempt National Education Association's yearly $271 million income goes toward politically related activities, according to union documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The documents show that the 2.7 million-member teacher's union spends millions annually to field what one critic calls an "army of campaign workers," while maintaining that it spends nothing on politics. The NEA has avoided millions of dollars in federal and Washington, D.C. income taxes every year for political activities that are not tax-exempt, says the Landmark Legal Foundation, a Herndon-based public-interest group that has asked the IRS to investigate and...

Court affirms teachers’ right to an independent audit of the union’s financial records FOR RELEASE: April 4, 2003 HARRISBURG, Penn. (April 4, 2003) — In a long-running civil rights suit brought by Pennsylvania teachers, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that local affiliates of the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) union must have their books independently audited to justify how they spend teachers’ compulsory union fees. The ruling came in a case brought by Marsha Otto and six other non-union Pennsylvania teachers who challenged how PSEA union officials were spending their compulsory dues. The teachers, who were...

<p>As much as one-third of the tax-exempt National Education Association's yearly $271 million income goes toward politically related activities, according to union documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.</p> <p>The documents show that the 2.7 million-member teacher's union spends millions annually to field what one critic calls an "army of campaign workers," while maintaining that it spends nothing on politics.</p>

As you all know, as conservatives, we believe it is good sometimes to spank our kids and our wife (ahem), as well as make love to the wife and tickle the children. Why? Because emotions of pleasure and pain etc, have a tendency to hard wire a learned fact. It is called the law of effect, and it is the enemy's strategy that aims at bypassing reason. The left is crude because the left is in a long range process of rewiring what people were taught at birth. They do not go beyond that, yet the scary thing is they...

The Massachusetts Teachers Association's former finance director is under investigation after the theft of $802,000 from the prominent labor union, in what association leaders described as a ''sophisticated embezzlement scheme.'' Union executives learned of the theft in September and fired the employee, who allegedly gave MTA officials a description of how he had concealed his actions for almost seven years through accounting methods, according to a letter sent to union members this week. State Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly's office is expected to announce charges against Richard Anzivino of Needham this week, according to two sources involved with the case....

National Legal and Policy Center -- Organized Labor Accountability Project   UNION CORRUPTION UPDATE   March 3, 2003 -- Vol. 6, Issue 5 For Influential Leaders & Important Decision Makers: Information on America's most corrupt & aggressive unions   AFL-CIO / PLUMBERS / ULLICOExec. Council Meets in Hotel Boondoggle Fed with Union PensionsWhat a tangled web they weave -- the AFL-CIO's Executive Council met the last week of Feb. in a Florida hotel that has become a boondoggle funded with union pensions.  And this boondoggle was made possible by the union-pension-owned insurance company now under criminal investigation for insider stock...

<p>As many as 40 mobsters and members of a union being probed for taking no-show jobs in the Ground Zero cleanup will be busted today for similar schemes at other city construction sites, sources told The Post yesterday.</p> <p>After a long-running organized-crime probe, FBI agents are planning to arrest members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Locals 14 and 15 in a series of early-morning raids.</p>

Officials charged with diverting $5 million in member dues Just before Christmas last year, federal officials raided the homes and offices of former officials of the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) in search of goods allegedly purchased with more than $5 million in union funds.The items listed in an FBI affidavit include $500,000 in custom-made clothing, a 288-piece antique Tiffany sterling silver set, a $6,800 ice bucket, furs, alligator shoes, jewelry, artwork, wine, wigs, a 50" plasma television, and computer equipment. Agents were investigating expenditures on a Bahamas vacation and bar and nightclub tabs.Police also found a double-barrel shotgun in the...

NEW YORK, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The National Education Association, with 2.6 million members, is the nation's largest union and one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. One of every 12 delegates to the 2000 Democratic National Convention was a member. In fact, the NEA member contingent of 350 was larger than the entire California delegation. Any way one looks at it, that number represents real political clout. In fact, it has so much clout that William McGurn of The Wall Street Journal contends, "Those of us who have long dismissed the National Education Association as a tool of...

1) IRS Auditing California Teachers Association 2) AFT Auditors Say $5 Million Missing from DC Teachers Union 3) Unions to Face Increased Federal Regulation 4) San Francisco Anti-War Resolution Watered Down; "Day of Discussion" May Not Be 5) District Consolidation Picks Up Steam in Arkansas 6) Quotes of the Week 1) IRS Auditing California Teachers Association. Multiple sources within the California Teachers Association and the National Education Association inform EIA that the California Teachers Association is undergoing a comprehensive audit by the Internal Revenue Service. EIA has received no evidence to corroborate rumors that other NEA state affiliates are also...

<p>A gaudy little scandal has broken open at the Washington, D.C., teachers union -- just in time to illustrate the virtue of new Department of Labor rules to make union spending more accountable to its dues-paying members.</p> <p>Late last December the FBI raided the homes of officials of the Washington Teachers Union, an affiliate of the politically powerful American Federation of Teachers. The agents seized luxury goods -- mink coats, alligator shoes and a Tiffany's silver service -- that investigators say were all bought with more than $2 million stolen from member dues.</p>

By Margarita Assenova (Rigor, the fourth R: Curricula in Europeon classrooms, such as this one in Aschaffenburg, Germany, have a far bigger dose of academic subject matter than those in the United States.) Because of their heavy curriculum requirements, European students regularly surpass their American counterparts on international tests. hen English is your second or third language, it's certainly not easy to take the college-admission Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)--let alone do well on it. Yet many European students score at the highest levels in competition with their American peers for admission to Ivy League schools in the United States. Western...

If you follow the link, you will see a breakdown state by state of the National Education Associaiton's professional and support staff salaries.

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEW townhall.comWalter Williams (back to story)January 8, 2003Washington's education establishment "Fiddling Whilst Rome Burns" was my column several weeks ago. It looked at the disastrous state of education in the nation's capitol, where at only one of the city's 19 high schools do as many as 50 percent of its students test as proficient in reading. At no school are 50 percent of the students proficient in math. At 12 of 19 high schools, more than 50 percent of the students test below basic in reading,...

<p>Last month the Labor Department proposed new rules that will require the largest labor unions to more thoroughly disclose how members' dues are spent. The reporting changes thus far have gone virtually unremarked upon, but the proposal promises to be one of the biggest shake-ups to organized labor since the governing legislation, the Landrum-Griffin Act, was first passed in 1959.</p>

<p>The Teamsters, National Education Association and other unions often are criticized for misusing their tax-exempt status and their members' union dues to lobby federal and state authorities. There also is the occasional union embezzlement story. Nothing, though, has hit as close to home as the fraud and embezzlement charges that have engulfed the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU).</p>

<p>Several months ago, auditors with the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers, made startling discoveries: The WTU was overcharging its members, and some of its officers were apparently lavishing themselves with furs, Tiffany silver and expensive goods from Saks and other upscale shops. Teachers and city officials are shocked and appalled at the allegations, the scope of which goes beyond the initial suspicions reported this fall.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is trying to pry open the books of labor unions to get much more detailed financial information in the annual reports they have to file with the government.</p> <p>Labor Department officials said Friday they are revamping reporting requirements for the first time in more than 40 years to force the largest unions to specify how much they spend on contract negotiations and administration, organization, strike benefits, general overhead, political activities and lobbying, and to identify those expenses.</p>

Transit Talks Continue Past Midnight Deadline DECEMBER 16TH, 2002 There will be no transit strike - at least not yet. With the morning plans of millions of commuters hanging in the balance, the MTA and New York City's transit workers are negotiating past the midnight hour in a last-ditch effort to avert a mass transit strike that could cripple the city at the height of the holiday season. Ed Watt, the secretary/treasurer of Transit Workers Union Local 100, announced at midnight that negotiators had made sufficient progess to continue their efforts past the midnight deadline. The progress, said Watt, had...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 9, 2002 PR 323-02 www.nyc.gov MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR ILLEGAL STRIKE BY TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined by Office of Emergency Management (OEM) Commissioner John T. Odermatt, New York Police Commissioner (NYPD) Raymond W. Kelly, Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Iris Weinshall, New York Fire Department (FDNY) Chief of Department Frank Cruthers, Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) Chair Matthew Daus and Department of Education (DOE) Chancellor Joel Klein outlined the City strike contingency plan in response to a potential illegal work stoppage by the Transport Workers Union (TWU)."A...

December 3, 2002 Union Head Cites Secret Report in Quitting InsurerBy STEVEN GREENHOUSE he A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney, resigned yesterday from the board of Ullico, an embattled union-owned insurer, because of concerns that an outside counsel's report into accusations of insider trading at the insurer might never be made public. Mr. Sweeney resigned on the day that Ullico's board met in Washington to consider an investigative report by James R. Thompson, a former governor of Illinois, into highly profitable stock trades by members of Ullico's board, which is made up primarily of former and current union presidents. Mr. Thompson...

<p>From the latest budget hearing/ forum we hear that some of the 40 people in attendance may be unable to afford the 20 cents or so per day that the proposed tax rate increase will cost.</p> <p>I wonder if those same people stopped and thought about what, if anything, they purchase each day that costs as little as 20 cents. Cigarettes, beer, candy, soda, milk and cell phones on average cost more that 20 cents a day. However, for this 20 cents a day Tompkins County resident will continue to get roads repaired and plowed, bridges maintained, children and families protected from neglect and abuse and 911 services maintained.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — A little known and privately-held firm that handles investment portfolios for union pensions is at the center of a federal investigation that even labor unions concede could generate some of the most scandalous charges to hit the labor movement in years.</p>

Union Leaders Accused of Profiting From Insider TradingJeff Johnson, CNSNews.comThursday, Aug. 15, 2002 WASHINGTON – A non-profit group that fights forced unionization and illegal political uses of union dues filed an unfair-labor-practices complaint this week against a company that provides life and health insurance products to union members. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW) alleges that Union Labor Life Insurance Co. Inc. (ULLICO) allowed top union leaders to profit from insider information through a "scheme" NRTW compared to the questionable accounting practices recently exposed at a number of U.S. corporations. The complaint was filed with the National...

At the same time that AFL-CIO president John Sweeney is telling the public that unions are the best protector of workers amidst the "corporate crime wave sweeping the country," "big labor" may well have a similar problem in-house to cope with.Today National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund (NRWLDF) attorneys are filing an administrative complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against ULLICO, a financial-services company run by union bosses that primarily invests money from union pension funds.The suit claims that ULLICO lined the pockets of some of the members of its board of directors — all current...

Aug. 9, 2002, 9:42PM No label on this hall Non-union construction workers used to cut costs on new Teamsters building By L.M. SIXEL Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Teamsters Union 988 is holding the grand opening this weekend for its new union hall, which is expected to feature Teamster President James P. Hoffa. But it has become a sour moment for other labor leaders because the Teamsters didn't use union construction workers. They were told by the Teamsters that union contractors cost too much. "No one is happy about it," said Paul Dunnam, organizer of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers...

<p>We have all heard of the corporate misdeeds at Enron, Global Crossing, Arthur Anderson and Citigroup. It's hard to miss. Screaming headlines in daily papers and breathless coverage by network and cable news programs have made sure everyone knows about these unethical and potentially criminal acts.</p>

<p>House Republicans are trying to expand questions about corporate malfeasance to cover labor unions, traditionally Democratic allies, through a bill designed to make sure unions report to members how their dues are spent.</p> <p>The bill, which passed the employee-employer relations subcommittee of the House Education and the Workforce Committee yesterday, would allow the Department of Labor to assess fines against unions who fail to report, or who report late. There are currently no sanctions in law for late- or non-filers. Of the 5,515 unions with annual revenue of $200,000 — the ones required to report to the Labor Department — 83 have not filed the most recent report, while an additional 2,447 filed late.</p>