Free Republic

The Congressional Workers Union announced today eight Democratic offices will be the first to unionize. "For far too long, congressional staff have dealt with unsafe working conditions, unlivable wages, and vast inequity in our workplaces," a Monday press release stated. "Having a seat at the bargaining table through a union will ensure we have a voice in decisions that impact our workplace." The Congressional Workers Union’s website says the unionization effort was prompted by "problematic work conditions," including insufficient pay, high turnover, and "pervasive" sexual harassment. Eighty-five staffers from the offices of Reps. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), Chuy Garcia (D.,...

President Biden on Monday praised workers at an Apple store near Baltimore that voted to form the first American union at the Silicon Valley tech giant. “I’m proud of them,” Biden told reporters “You know, workers have a right to determine under what conditions they’re gonna work or not,” he continued. “And I think the thing that everybody kind of misunderstands about unions, they tend to be, especially in the trades, the best workers in the world.”

ISIS terrorists will be seeing a cut in pay. The treasury minister for the terror group ISIS, Bayt al-Mal, announced a pay cut for terrorists affiliated with the group due to what he called "exceptional circumstances." The Jerusalem Post reported terrorists could see their pay cut by as much as half because of circumstances that weren't elaborated upon, but that are being seen as a sign by some military analysts of the terror group's dwindling influence, Fox News reported.

The Environmental Protection Agency released a grim report Friday that said it must start planning for the worst possible effects of climate change, and predicted a future world filled with rising sea levels, raging wildfires and more severe storms. All of these factors will combine to create droughts, expose humans to dangerous chemicals and create other conditions that will put the human race at risk.

Last year, the city of Camden decided to can its unionized police force in favor of ununionized county cops who hit the streets this April. ... The city has been run exclusively by Democrats for several generations, and some local leaders openly worried that Camden, which already had the highest crime rate per capita last year, would get worse. But it hasn’t. In fact, crime’s gone down

Connecticut child care providers will be unionized following a vote announced Tuesday. The providers voted 1,603-88 to join the union, according to Matt O'Connor, a spokesman for CSEA/SEIU Local 2001. The American Arbitration Association, a neutral group, on Tuesday counted the secret ballots that had been returned through U.S. mail. O'Connor noted that the union had been trying for six years to organize the providers who care for children in providers' private homes. Nationally, 15 states have similar unions. Overall, about 96 percent of the Connecticut workers are women, O'Connor said. There are about 4,000 providers, covering all 169 cities...

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, is pushing for a Right-to-Work law that would allow unionized school teachers to leave their union. As a teacher in the Grand Ledge Public Schools and a former teachers union president, John Ellsworth says the various education reforms coming from Michigan’s Republican-led government are “despicable.” He thinks the much-talked about “right-to-teach” legislation for public school employees, which would make joining a teachers union voluntary, is part of “a continued attack” blaming teachers for school woes. Yet, even Ellsworth says he would drop his Michigan Education Association membership if right-to-work for teachers became a...

Even as state battles rage, the Obama administration has been facilitating the largest federal union organizing effort in history. Tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners are now casting votes to choose a union to collectively bargain for cushier personnel practices on their behalf. Liberals are calling it a "historic" vote. It is. Henceforth, airport security will play second fiddle to screener "rights."

The Employee Free Choice Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007, but Democratic backers couldn't end a Republican filibuster against it in the Senate. Democrat Mark Udall backs the act and Republican Bob Schaffer doesn't, making Colorado one of about eight states where dueling groups could spend a combined $40 million nationally to highlight issues raised in the legislation. Employees at private companies now can unionize by getting 30 percent of the work force to sign cards seeking union representation and then getting a majority of workers to back unionization in a secret-ballot election. The EFCA would allow...

MBTA officials say rampant absenteeism is hurting bus and subway service, discouraging riders, and eating away at the agency's finances by forcing it to pay overtime. ...about 35 percent of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's roughly 6,000 employees were absent for 11 or more days in 2004, and 16 percent were absent 26 or more days. Khalida Smalls, coordinator for the watchdog group called the T Riders Union, said yesterday that excessive absenteeism directly affects passengers. ''People stand at their bus stop at 4:45 waiting for a bus that doesn't show up," ...

Should we (the TAXPAYING Public) stand by as our government employees are allowed to foul up by the numbers and never be held accountable? In the most recent example of government employees ineptitude, 2 of the now deceased 9/11 hijackers were awarded (posthumously) student visas by our wonderful and "dedicated" INS. An INS employees was dispatched (with a prepared subpeona) to the Florida flight school to retrieve the documents. The lastest news out of Washington is that some INS employees are going to be reassigned rather than fired for this SNAFU. My question is simple. Why the devil are government...