Free Republic

The Boy Scouts' motto is: Be prepared. Who knew it meant preparing to de fend themselves against union thuggery? Kids, pay attention: This is a teachable moment for all of you on power, politics and Big Labor's culture of corruption. At last week's City Council meeting in Allentown, Pa., a top official of the local Service Employees International Union chapter ranted about 17-year-old Scout Kevin Anderson's park-cleanup work. To earn an Eagle Scout badge, Anderson devoted some 200 hours to picking up trash and helping clear a 1,000-foot walking path with fellow members of Boy Scouts Troop 301 of Center...

A brouhaha over a Boy Scout and his Eagle Scout project has brought down a local union leader. Nick Balzano has stepped down as head of the local Service Employees International Union. Balzano was roundly criticized for crying foul over a Boy Scout's effort to clear a walking path in a park in Allentown. He said the project was taking work away from union workers. Six other high-ranking members of the union have also resigned.

Nov 19 2009, 11:20 am by Chris GoodHoffman Wants Recount, Blames ACORN, Unions For "Tampering" With Election Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman has seen his chances slip away of overtaking Democrat Bill Owens in the vote tallies in New York's 23rd congressional district, but he's now circulating an email to supporters announcing he's revoked his concession and that "ACORN and the unions" tampered with election results to prevent him from winning. The email, which is pretty long for a campaign fundraising note, lists all the regularities Hoffman has counted, and it reads sort of like a manifesto of all that's fishy...

GOUVERNEUR, NY - The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus - tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines

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...

Why do so many typical Americans hate labor unions, even here in union-dominated Massachusetts?  Because of stories like this: In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park. Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union. Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing...

The plastics industry trade show on Tuesday said it is moving to Orlando, Fla., for 2012 and 2015 after nearly four decades in Chicago. The announcement follows a decision by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society last week to move its 2012 annual meeting to Las Vegas. Both shows cited the high cost of doing business in Chicago. The plastic show's decision to leave is "a very serious loss," Mayor Richard Daley said, calling on unions and others working at the convention center to change fee structures and onerous work rules so Chicago can better compete for major shows....

Last winter when Chrysler was groveling and crying about having to go bankrupt the Obama Administration took control of the company and struck a deal to justify putting $12.5 B of our tax money in its bank accounts. Chrysler promised it would produce a 500,000 vehicle fleet of practical “electric” cars in just four model years! Chrysler was merely the United Auto Workers’ bagman. Chrysler got our money then funneled it to the very unions that are killing the American auto industry. Last week these thieves quietly announced the end of the “electric car” scam which they knew was a...

Unions standing in the way of progress? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you! The Boston Herald reports that a plan that rewards teachers whose students receive passing grades on Advanced Placement tests — and offers incentives for the students, too — is, predictably, being opposed by the Boston Teachers Union.

23 projects statewide affected by bill. The 2010 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill that was signed into law on Oct. 30 by President Barack Obama has reached the Western Slope, and has brought the Glenwood Springs wastewater treatment facility project, and many more around the state, to a screeching halt. the word came last week that the project would have to be put on hold, indefinitely, awaiting further clarification from the Environmental Protection Agency. Hecksel said that he was unsure as to why the Glenwood project would be included because the project was not seeking federal funding... The intent of...

Union ramps up efforts to organize T-Mobile Posted on November 18, 2009 at 11:37 AM Updated today at 12:05 PM WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. union officials are teaming up with their German counterparts in a bid to organize workers at wireless carrier T-Mobile USA.Leaders at the Communications Workers of America say the new arrangement with German union ver.di will help show a "double standard" between how European companies treat workers in their home countries compared with the United States.T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom AG is known as a union-friendly model in Germany, where cooperation with unions is encouraged by labor...

Supporters of President Obama's Amnesty plans attacked Tea Party Against Amnesty & Illegal Immigration demonstrators in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Sat. November 14, 2009. One of the men attacked is 62 years old. Dave Caulkett of FLIMEN (Floridians for Immigration Enforcement) is assaulted and then kicked in the face while he is down. The other camera man from the Tea Party is hit with several signs. Those attacking the Americans that oppose Amnesty for illegal aliens were organized by ANSWER Florida.

Union blocks teacher bonuses By Edward Mason  |   Wednesday, November 18, 2009  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage Photo by Matthew West Grinchlike union bosses are blocking at least 200 of Boston’s best teachers from pocketing bonuses for their classroom heroics in a puzzling move that gets a failing grade from education experts.The Boston Teachers Union staunchly opposes a performance bonus plan for top teachers - launched at the John D. O’Bryant School in 2008 and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Exxon Mobil foundations - insisting the dough be divvied up among all of a school’s teachers, good and bad.“It’s insanity,” said Jim...

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park. Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union. Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park. "We'll be looking into the Cub...

NEW YORK (AP) - Investigators in New York City raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers Tuesday as part of a union corruption probe, a law enforcement official said. Police officers working with the Manhattan district attorney's office searched circulation offices of The New York Times in Queens, the New York Post and the Daily News in Manhattan, and El Diario in Brooklyn, the official said, speaking to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Investigators were seeking paperwork related to the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union, which packages and delivers...

Investigators in New York City raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers Tuesday as part of a union corruption probe, a law enforcement official said. Police officers working with the Manhattan district attorney's office searched circulation offices of The New York Times in Queens, the New York Post and the Daily News in Manhattan, and El Diario in Brooklyn, the official said, speaking to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Investigators were seeking paperwork related to the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union, which packages and delivers newspapers across the region....

17-year-old Kevin Anderson wanted to add another Eagle Scout badge to his well-earned collection and so spent some 200 hours over several weeks to clear a walking path along the river in east Allentown park in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Little did young Mr. Anderson know it but he was about to prove once again that unions have a pernicious influence on governments everywhere. After Kevin's good deed the city's public employees union went gunning for the poor kid with threats and gyrations meant to shake down the city and scare off any citizen that might dare to imagine that they could...

A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose alleged corruption within the union. Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting. "We had every right to be here, very simple; it wasn't anything private or anything exclusive," said Hamidi. But Hamidi says the union members did not want him there. "Three, four...

More mischief from the SEIU? SEIU members think they are entitled to work and make money. Of course, if there is no government money to fund projects and volunteers step in and take up the slack, union thugs are demanding all work stop. It’s not fair! Cry me a river. From Jarrett Renshaw of the Morning Call. In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park. Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him...

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...

It's no secret higher-education costs have risen three times faster than inflation in the last 30 years. For perspective, President Obama proposes to nationalize one-sixth of the economy to address "skyrocketing health-care costs," which have gone up only twice as fast as inflation in 30 years. But even as more middle-class American families are priced out every year, ivory-tower school officials maintain a bachelor's degree is still a good investment — a bargain, they say — based on the gap between the average lifetime earnings of high school and college graduates. U.S. Department of Education data show the difference is...

Another trade show is leaving Chicago this time for Atlanta, Georgia. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting which has been held in Chicago's McCormick Convention Center for quite some time is leaving the city due to the high costs that unions force upon its exhibitors. In October we posted that the Plastics Industry Trade Association is also contemplating fleeing Chicago for southern hospitality for the same reason. The HIMSS reports that 2009 attendance in Chicago's McCormick Center was down by 5 percent compared to 2008. Attendance also dropped from 29,100 in 2008...

Advocates of overhauling California's troubled pension system for public employees couldn't have chosen a more providential moment to launch their reform campaign. The huge California Public Employees' Retirement System is in deep financial doo-doo, having lost tens of billions of dollars in often-speculative investments, and is telling state and local officials it will need more "contributions." Meanwhile, investigations are under way into multimillion-dollar payments to placement agents who arranged some investments. With a public pension scandal simmering and their private pension benefits shrinking, voters will resent a CalPERS bailout. Indeed, a recent Field Poll indicates that voters are inclined to...

The NEA’s (National Education Association’s, a.k.a. Nefarious Elitist A****’) recommended reading list includes two books by Brother O mentor and communist community organizer Saul Alinsky that advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. The Democrat-controlled teachers’ union praises Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals as “an inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!” The following book quotations are from the NEA website: “The Radical does not sit frozen by cold objectivity. He sees injustice and strikes at it with hot passion. He is a man of decision and action. “Society has good...

The New York Times News Service will lay off at least 25 editorial employees next year and will move the editing of the service to a Florida newspaper owned by The New York Times Company, the newspaper and the Newspaper Guild said Thursday... The plan for the news service calls for The Gainesville Sun, whose newsroom is not unionized and has lower salaries, to take over editing and page design. Ms. McNulty said new jobs would be created at The Sun to handle the work.

More city kids are graduating from high school, but that doesn't mean they can do college math. Basic algebra involving fractions and decimals stumped a group of City University of New York freshmen - suggesting city schools aren't preparing them... "These results are shocking," ... "They show that a disturbing proportion of New York City high school graduates lack basic skills." During their first math class at one of CUNY's four-year colleges, 90% of 200 students tested couldn't solve a simple algebra problem... Only a third could convert a fraction into a decimal. The lack of math skills means the...

Within the last year and a half, the federal government has provided hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up otherwise failing corporations and financial intermediaries. This mating of economics and politics, inevitably steeped in favoritism, justifiably has earned denunciations from many sources, including National Legal and Policy Center. Labor unions also have been among the critics. Yet their leaders habitually put high principle aside when their own hides need bailing out. Case in point: a bill introduced in late October by Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. (see photo), the Preserve Benefits and Jobs Act of 2009 (H.R. 3936). This legislation...

The Associated Press had an interesting article reporting that women are fast becoming the majority of union members and will be the majority in 10 years if current trends continue. As it stand now, women make up 45 percent of union members today, up from 35 percent in 1983. Apparently white men now only make up 38 percent of the union workforce, down from almost 52 percent in '83. The AP notes that this preponderance of women is changing the goals of union negotiators. Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

Conservatives win many votes saying that liberals are elitist. I am here to tell you that the liberal movement is indeed very elitist. Its organization's staffs are composed mainly of Ivy leaguers whose life experiences are dramatically different than the 70 percent of Americans that never graduate from college. Very few of them have any actual experience living with or knowing working-class people. As a graduate of Bucknell, I still feel out of a place and most glaringly underdressed when I get in a room with the Ivy Leaguers running our movement. As garbageman turned United Electrical Workers (UE) in...

Many of the President's Policies are designed elusively to help the Unions. In the case of the Auto Bailouts he ignored the contractual obligations of GM and Chrysler to the primary investors and handed the company to the UAW. His selection to run the TSA Erroll Southers was picked to run the TSA partially because of his stance on unions. The word is if he is confirmed to run the TSA, Southers will allow the TSA Workers to Unionize. More than the money it would cost this will give the Unions the power to collectively bargain over security procedures. Collective...

Hard as it may be to believe, the recommending reading list of the NEA — the powerful, Democrat-controlled teachers’ union — includes instruction manuals for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Two books by radical Communist activist Saul Alinsky advocate violence (“Radicals [must break] the necks of Conservatives”), destruction and revolution. Incredibly, the following quotes are not cherry-picked from the midst of Alinsky’s texts: they are highlighted on the NEA’s website.

Oakland, Calif. Flexing his influence, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern turned up at the White House 22 times in the first six months of the Obama administration, more than anyone else on the visitor logs released last month. But the good vibes in Washington contrast with the troubles inside the house of labor itself. Unions are competing for shrinking turf and members, and the most ferocious intramural battle today involves Mr. Stern's union here in California. For the past 10 months, the SEIU has fought to hold on to 150,000 members in its Union of Healthcare Workers...

OLYMPIA — State Democratic lawmakers have a revolt on their hands among major labor groups that provide the party crucial support during elections. The Washington State Labor Council, the Service Employees International Union and unions representing teachers and state workers have either stopped or sharply reduced donations to Democratic caucus political-action committees that back candidates for the state House and Senate. "I think the labor movement is more serious about withholding support from Democratic candidates this year than I have seen in my 30 years in politics," said Dwight Pelz, chairman of the state Democratic Party. There's even talk of...

In a victory for free labor, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has cancelled its solicitation for bids to build a new Jobs Corps Center in the state of New Hampshire. Why is it a victory? Because initial plans to receive bids would have discriminated against non-union construction companies per President Obama's orders. Over 80% of all construction companies are non-union. Executive Order 13502, signed early in Obama's term, was applied to the New Hampshire construction project and instituted what is known as a Project Labor Agreement (PLA). A PLA is a way to force all companies working on a...

Unions are pushing state lawmakers to pass legislation that would make organizing workers easier, as efforts to rewrite federal organizing laws remain stalled in Congress. Oregon passed the Worker Freedom Act, which prohibits companies from holding mandatory employee meetings to talk about organizing. Employers say mandatory meetings, known as "captive audience meetings," are necessary to counter misleading information disseminated by union organizers. Unions say employers use the meetings to gauge worker sympathies and pressure workers not to join the union. It is unclear if the bill -- which was signed into law in June but doesn't take effect until January...

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are the folks in the airports who check your luggage, etc. Honestly they are much more than that, the TSA consists of 50,000 security officers, inspectors, directors, air marshals and managers who protect the nation's transportation systems so we can travel safely. On first the President's Appointment of Erroll Southers to run the TSA made sense. He's a former FBI agent and the LA Airport Police's Director of Homeland Security and intelligence. But on second glance there are many concerns for example his stance on Unions. If he is confirmed to run the TSA, Southers...

Paul Ingrassia's "How Ford Is Making Its Comeback" (op-ed, Nov. 5) is encouraging in illustrating that industrial America can succeed with the proper leadership. The disheartening aspect is the failure of the United Auto Workers to give the same contract amendments to Ford that it gave to General Motors and Chrysler. This puts Ford at a competitive disadvantage versus its government- and union-owned competitors. The UAW is behaving in the same shortsighted and greedy manner that contributed to the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler. One could conclude that the UAW has learned nothing from the near-death experience of the American...

Prepare to hear the Obamanites scream their rebuttals...

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose alleged corruption within the union. Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting. "We had every right to be here, very simple; it wasn't anything private or anything exclusive," said Hamidi. But Hamidi says the union members did not want him...

Ford Learns The Price Of Solvency Logan Robinson, 11.07.09, 12:00 PM EST But what has the UAW learned? In plant-by-plant voting over the last few weeks a large majority of the 41,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) workers employed by the Ford Motor Company voted to reject modifications to their collective bargaining agreement negotiated by their own national union. The modifications were designed to bring the Ford-UAW agreement into parity with concessions the UAW gave to GM and Chrysler as part of their government-brokered bankruptcies. They included a wage freeze for entry-level workers until the 2015 contract, a commitment to binding...

There's not much that union supporters and I can agree upon. But here is one incident where I can wholeheartedly support the aggrieved members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who have found themselves victims of their own union. The SEIU wanted to renegotiate a contract with officials of Sonoma County, California for its in-home healthcare workers supported by county funds. SEIU representatives met with and crafted a new contract with the assistance of County officials. This was all done behind closed doors without the general knowledge of or the assistance of the workers themselves. But that isn't the...

If you were watching television on Tuesday night as the election returns came in showing Republicans capturing the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, you probably missed seeing the biggest losers of the evening. You may have caught the concession speech of Creigh Deeds, who ran 12% behind Barack Obama's winning percentage of the vote in Virginia, and that of Jon Corzine who, after spending over $100 million of his own money on three campaigns, ran 13% behind Obama's winning percentage in New Jersey and got evicted from Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion in Princeton. But you missed seeing the guy...

Seattle Cartoonist Blasts South Carolina Workers It’s one of the funniest cartoons we’ve seen in a long time, even if it is nothing but sour grapes. Cartoonist David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer – miffed that Boeing Corp. chose North Charleston, S.C. over Everett, Washington to assemble its second line of 787 Dreamliners – took pen to paper (well, not paper, really) to vent some of his frustration against the Palmetto State. “How many non-union South Carolinian workers does it take to attach a wing to a Boeing airplane?” Horsey’s cartoon asks, portraying several dim-witted rednecks attempting to attach a...

More than half the 14,000 jobs created or saved by the federal economic stimulus in Minnesota are in public schools. Federal and state officials are reporting about 7,400 full-time teaching and school support staff jobs linked to the stimulus through the end of September. The U.S. Department of Education issued a report Monday detailing 7,421 stimulus jobs in the state's education system. Minnesota Management and Budget officials counted 7,380 K-12 school jobs created or saved by stimulus spending of $634 million.

Labor bosses remain committed to coercive measures that could be used to reinvigorate flagging membership and underfunded benefit plans, despite inaction on Capitol Hill. But the idea now is to secure legislation by way of subterfuge and misdirection. The National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) has identified a number of schemes buried within House and Senate versions of the proposed government-run health care program that would open the way to forced unionization. These obscure provisions have been largely overlooked in the midst of an intense national debate over the merits of a public option. But the "employer mandates" and "cooperative...

On Wednesday, Boeing announced it would put a second 787 assembly line in Charleston, S.C., rather than Everett, WA.

Do I detect a bit of payback in this story? The UAW rank-and-file rejected a renegotiated contract from Ford intended to bring themselves into parity with GM and Chrysler, as has long been the practice for the Detroit automakers. In doing so, the workers also rejected the counsel of their own union, which had endorsed the new contract. Ford will have to operate at a disadvantage for the next two years in terms of compensation as a result:

Boeing's decision to build a new airplane-assembly plant in Charleston, S.C., will change the shape of the company and dramatically alter how both the state of Washington and the Machinists union approach Boeing. Washington state must accept a future where it competes for every new Boeing airplane program, with low-wage South Carolina as a certain rival. The Machinists must accept that if Boeing doesn't like their demands, it can direct future work to its nonunion Charleston plants. A defining moment could come about 2015, when Boeing will choose where to build the successor plane to either the Renton-built 737 or...

... The Great Depression was caused by misguided government policies adopted to avoid the "unsatisfactory conditions" signaled by the crash. The run-of-the-mill recession that ought to have followed the crash was magnified by the policies of the federal government during the administration of Herbert Hoover. In a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research published last August, Lee E. Ohanian examines a continuing mistake during the Hoover administration that helped transform difficulty into calamity. An economics professor at UCLA, Ohanian has written numerous papers on the Depression. In one earlier paper, he pinned the persistence of high unemployment on...

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co.'s rank-and-file union members rejected a concessions agreement, leaving the auto maker at risk to higher costs compared with competitors Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. Although some locals are still voting through Sunday, the United Auto Workers national leadership has accepted the defeat, said three union sources who asked not to be identified since they don't officially speak for the UAW. The leadership is now reviewing other options, these people said. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told Dow Jones Newswires on Friday he will not continue bargaining or conduct a re-vote. Ford will now have...