Free Republic

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is proposing that the national labor union become partners with the Sierra Club and the NAACP, even accepting their ranks as members of the AFL-CIO. "What we've been doing the last 30 years hasn't worked real well," Trumka said on Capital Download. "We need to do things differently... None of us are big enough to be able to change the climate out there, whether it's economic, political or legislative. And all of us realize it takes all of us working together to get it done." Trumka has said of the labor movement, "We are in crisis."...

"Comprehensive immigration reform," like virtually any initiative containing the magic word "comprehensive," looks good on the surface. But the details of the comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate in June by a 68-32 margin reveal a lot gone wrong underneath. Oblivious to this, top union leaders are gearing up for an all-out blitz this fall to secure passage of similar legislation in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (in photo), they are obsessed with providing 11 million or more persons living illegally in this country with amnesty and eventual citizenship, and with enabling millions...

L.A. Unified and seven other California school districts on Tuesday won relief from some strict and costly provisions of federal education law. Besides Los Angeles, the school districts are Long Beach, Santa Ana, Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Sanger.

This is how Democrats say thanks– Today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went on KNPR in Las Vegas to discuss current affairs. One question he faced was about union uproar over Obamacare. Harry Reid said it’s time for them to give up their Cadillac plans and “put some skin in the game.” “Let’s understand where we are with the unions. One of the things we’ve learned with all of the hearings we held, dozens and dozens of them, is that if you have insurance you have to be able to have some skin in the game as we say in...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Nevada Public Radio on Friday that Obamacare will fundamentally change their health insurance plans. “You can’t just keep running to the doctor with no deductible,” Reid told KNPR Friday when asked to respond to union criticism of President Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment.On July 12, International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James Hoffa, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union President Joseph Hansen, and UNITE-HERE President D. Taylor, all co-signed a letter to Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., demanding major changes to Obamacare, which they said was already hurting their members.“We have a problem; you...

NEW YORK (MainStreet)—Will today's 20- and 30-somethings continue to be required to join a union or pay union dues to a union to represent them even if they do not want to join? Well, not if some people get their way. There is a movement called Right-to-Work (RTW) that wants to change this. Indeed, some...

Like many northeastern cities, Harrisburg has a severe parking problem — unless you are one of about 3,200 state employees whose parking costs are picked up by state taxpayers. The little-known benefit was picked up by the Harrisburg Patriot-News in an article concerning the capital city’s manifest financial woes and its attempt to get out of state receivership. The Department of General Services rents 3,200 parking spaces at garages near the Capitol Building for some state employees. There are also 885 parking spots on two levels under the East Wing of the Capitol that are free to 253 state lawmakers,...

With a national debate still going on as the new national health care plan (Obamacare) is taking effect, what do federal employees think of the new system? This week, we asked their views on being included in the new health care exchanges. There is apparently little debate among the federal workforce. Federal employees do not want to be part of the new system. Instead, they prefer to keep their current health plan based on a survey with about 2500 readers responding. Employees who are already retired have a much stronger negative reaction to being moved to a new system. Those...

The hits from Obamacare just keep coming. As is typical with progressive liberal policies, us meek peasants have to live in the nightmare world that they have created while the liberal elites and their allies do not have to adhere to the same laws and rules. This was hammered home again this week when it was announced that the federal government would be subsidizing the health insurance premiums of Congressional staffers. The Office of Personnel Management has stated that members of Congress and their staffs would get the federal subsidy on the new government-run "exchanges", but not be "eligible for...

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan has directed the state's Rapid Response Team to provide assistance to over 1,1100 workers losing their jobs with the closing of six Stop & Shop supermarket stores and six Shaw's stores last week. The team, led by the Department of Resources and Economic Development, coordinates with companies and will hold in-person sessions to connect affected workers with services and job opportunities. "New Hampshire is an all-hands-on-deck state, we pull together and pitch in to help those in need, and I will work to ensure that state government does its part," Hassan said in a statement...

NEW YORK (MainStreet)—"Be careful what you wish for," goes the old saying. After all, you might just get it. Apparently, this choice advice was was forgotten by some major labor union leaders. These union bosses campaigned vigorously for President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be passed by Congress into law. They did so despite warnings from those opposed to the ACA – commonly referred to as Obamacare - that the plan would be problematic. Nonetheless the chiefs of the ...

The Wisconsin school teachers protests and attempts to recall Gov. Walker resulted in not only losing the battle but instead helped to further new laws across the US that allow teachers to drop union membership. Now the National Education Association (NEA) and other teacher unions are seeing a decline of those willing fill the coffers of these organization.

Detroit, you're not alone. Across the nation, cities and states are watching Detroit's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy filing with fear. Years of underfunded retirement promises to public sector workers, which helped lay Detroit low, could plunge them into a similar financial hole. A CNBC.com analysis of more than 120 of the nation's largest state and local pension plans finds they face a wide range of financial burdens as aging work forces near retirement. Thanks to a patchwork of accounting practices and rosy investment assumptions, it's not even clear just how big a financial hole many states and cities have dug for...

The big revelation in the GAO’s Obama Stimulus “Green Jobs” audit is that much of the 500 million dollars set aside for Green Jobs was really handed over to allied liberal non-profits and labor unions.

<p>WASHINGTON — With union membership on the decline, labor leaders are getting more creative - and some say more desperate - to boost sagging numbers and rebuild their waning clout.</p> <p>Unions are helping non-union fast food workers around the country hold strikes to protest low wages and poor working conditions. They are trying to organize home day care workers, university graduate students and even newly legalized marijuana dealers. Members of a "shadow union" at Wal-Mart hold regular protests at the giant retailer, which long has been resistant to organizing.</p>

The MBTA’s retirement board is defying the law and keeping a lid on its secret pension records — and has gone so far as to hire a lawyer, in a move watchdogs say is a slap in the face to taxpayers who help fund the monthly checks to retired transit workers. “This isn’t stonewalling. This is breaking the law,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, adding that the debt-plagued T just hit up state taxpayers for $115 million to balance its books. “It is amazing to me that the T will come to the taxpayers and say...

A bill that would help local governments wind down their unsustainable “defined-benefit” pension systems is causing unions to rev up their spin machine to stop it. House Bill 4804, sponsored by Rep. Pete Lund, R-Shelby Township, would make such systems a “prohibited subject” in collective bargaining negotiations, meaning that once a city council or county board has decided to close their existing defined-benefit pension system to new employees, the decision could not be overruled by future collective bargaining agreements. The bill is pending in the House Local Government Committee. These defined-benefit pension systems were a contributor to the mountain of...

ATLANTIC CITY — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono issued a blistering attack on Gov. Chris Christie today, saying he lacks the political courage to address national issues of race and has failed to lift the state's economy from the recession. Buono chose a friendly crowd to deliver one of her most forceful challenges to the incumbent Christie: a ballroom full of members of AFSCME, which represents 30,000 public workers across the state and that has already endorsed her candidacy. Christie has yet to offer an opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down key portions of the...

This sort of thing ought to be left to the Westboro Baptist Church. The Washington Free Beacon reports that a Chicago judge has intervened on behalf of SCI Illinois Services, Inc., a national funeral-home chain, and ordered the local Teamsters chapter to suspend picketing at 16 funeral homes in the area. What prompted the legal action? The company testified in its filing that union members blocked grieving family members from leaving its parking lot, used bullhorns to shout obscenities at workers and mourners, and unleashed a German Shepard on a dead woman’s daughter and husband. The funeral home was eventually...

A judge ordered one of Chicago’s most politically powerful labor unions to suspend picketing against 16 funeral homes last week after receiving reports that striking Teamsters had, among other things, disturbed a child’s funeral. SCI Illinois Services, Inc., one of the nation’s largest funeral home chains, asked a district court to intervene after striking funeral directors and drivers with Teamsters Local 727 allegedly harassed grieving families. The funeral home was eventually forced to call the police when picketers allegedly disrupted a child’s funeral with laughter. The officer asked the Teamsters to leave, but protesters returned when he drove away.

So I guess going to a New York McDonald’s isn’t a good idea right now. Videographer and conservative blogger Adam Sharp of SharpElbows.net attended one such demonstration and interviewed an SEIU member, easily identifiable as such by his purple shirt. When asked whether the union member supported the $15 per hour wage increase the McDonald’s workers were demanding, he admitted, “I’m not sure.” He also said he was there to show his support for the workers rather than the company and expressed a fear that, “if they’re [the McDonald’s employees] pissed off, they could be doing something to that food.”...

Health reform is now causing job turmoil across the country in three key groups that the White House has depended on for support—local government, school workers and unions. School districts in states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Utah, Nebraska, and Indiana are dropping to part-time status school workers such as teacher aides, administrators, secretaries, bus drivers, gym teachers, coaches and cafeteria workers. Cities or counties in states like California, Indiana, Kansas, Texas, Michigan and Iowa are dropping to part-time status government workers such as librarians, secretaries, administrators, parks and recreation officials and public works officials. This growing trend comes as three...

Obamacare has few friends, if any, and hardly anyone likes having it around. Obamacare is like an ugly, socially awkward kid who transfers into grade school at mid-year and then spends the rest of the semester eating alone in the cafeteria while being giggled about by all the other pupils. Obamacare is now so unpopular that even the IRS’s workers have turned on it. Amid the political-profiling, lavish-expense, and undeserved-bonus scandals plaguing America’s most hated federal agency, one would think the IRS would welcome any friend it could find. But even America’s federal tax-collection bureaucracy is bailing on Obamacare. The...

Activists are pushing for an hourly wage of $15 and the ability to organize. Cinnamon Tigner, an employee there who took part in the protest instead of working Tuesday, described the work as "modern day slavery" "I love my job, I love what I do," she told Patch by phone, but Tigner said she felt disrespected by restaurant management who she said act like they have power over employees.

Some of the most serious violations include: Employees sleeping on the job, letting family and friends go without being screened, leaving work without permission, and stealing. The Government Accountability Office report released this week says more than 9,000 cases of misconduct were documented over a three-year span. More than 1,900 of the incidents were deemed significant enough to be possible security threats. "There's not even a way to properly report some of the offenses, so this may be just the tip of the iceberg of some of the offenses," said Rep. John Mica, a longtime critic of the TSA who...

After a contentious fight over some of President Obama’s nominees, the Senate confirmed five members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On Tuesday, the Senate voted to clear all five nominees — Harry Johnson III, Philip Miscimarra, Nancy Schiffer, Kent Hirozawa and Mark Pearce. Republicans agreed to hold up-or-down votes on the NLRB nominees as part of a deal to avoid Senate rule changes limiting the minority's right to filibuster executive branch nominations. Two of the NLRB nominees confirmed were GOP picks — Johnson and Miscimarra — and Schiffer, Hirozawa and Pearce were Obama's nominees. As part of the...

President Obama doubled down Tuesday on his claim that the Keystone XL oil pipeline would create just a handful of jobs, despite being hammered by Republicans and fact-checkers alike for the claim. The president addressed Keystone during a speech in Chattanooga, Tenn., as he challenged Republicans to come up with new jobs proposals. "They keep on talking about this -- an oil pipeline coming down from Canada that's estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs. That's not a jobs plan," Obama said.

The Senate voted 64-34 Tuesday to end debate on the nomination of Kent Hirozawa to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). That vote sets up eight hours of debate time, which could be waived to allow a quick vote on the nomination. After Hirozawa, the nominations of Nancy Schiffer and Mark Pearce to join the NLRB will follow. More than 10 Republicans voted with Democrats to advance Hirozawa's nomination. Republicans agreed to hold up-or-down votes on President Obama’s NLRB nominations as part of a deal to avoid Senate rule changes limiting the minority's right to filibuster executive branch...

"Does anybody think it's OK to have 40-year-old trees growing through the roofs of dilapidated houses?" -- Detroit's Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr "A few years ago, the nonpartisan Bay Area Center for Voting Research rated Detroit as the most liberal city in America." -- Michael Tanner Detroit was once one of the world's great cities. It was the 4th largest metropolis in America, jobs were plentiful because of the auto industry, and Motown even kept it on the cutting edge musically. Unfortunately, from 1962 until the present day, the mayor of Detroit has been a Democrat. The result? Detroit's...

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver Speaking at a podium set up on the Troost sidewalk, Terrance Wise, who works two part-time jobs at a Burger King and Pizza Hut, said the rally was organized because “these billion-dollar companies aren’t magically going to make our lives better overnight.” Nationally, protest organizers are calling for pay of $15 an hour, which would be more than double the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. . . U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who spoke at the Kansas City rally, said it was unlikely that the current Congress will vote to raise the minimum wage, but...

“We’re building a movement of fast food workers in a way that has never really existed in the fast food industry,” said Jonathan Westin, an organizer for New York Communities for Change, who noted that this week is the first time the strikes have been coordinated across cities... The Congressional Progressive Caucus launched a campaign called “Raise Up America” which has taken efforts to associate itself with the fast food workers. Several members of the caucus, including its co-chair, Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, were present at Monday’s actions in New York... Similarly, Brooklyn-based McDonald’s employee Kareem Starks...

The lack of transparency from the Obama Administration continues as leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee continue to try and persuade the Treasury Department to hand over documents relating to the Administration's involvement in the termination of non-union Delphi retirees' pension benefits. Non-union Delphi retirees saw their benefits lost while unionized UAW retirees at the company had their benefits "topped off" and preserved with taxpayer dollars funneled through General Motors during the 2009 auto bailout process. Evidence surfaced about a year ago that the Obama Administration played a role, once again, in choosing winners and losers by...

Nancy Pelosi recently spoke publicly on the need for a minimum wage increase. After that, at a recent rally, Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage. During this time, liberal pundits seemed to echo these sentiments. Trying to stoke the base? And then - behold - the rallies demanding an increase in the minimum wage at fast food restaurants are called for. Astroturf? Secondly, is this Union-backed and conducted to take attention off how disastrous Obamacare is to unions and how it has divided big unions in the U.S., many of whose leaders appear to have publicly expressed...

... Workers at the nation’s best known fast-food restaurants in seven cities across America are planning to walk off the job Monday to protest what they say are wages that are too low to live on. In a move orchestrated with the help of powerful labor unions and clergy groups, the workers plan to strike for a day to demand their wages be doubled. ... The workers are calling for wages of $15 per hour, more than double New York's current minimum wage of $7.25.

Noted American terrorist and left-wing radical Bill Ayers is among the signatories of a letter calling on the United Nations to probe the closing of 49 Chicago elementary schools based on claims that it is causing massive human rights violations. ... In 2009, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution adopting the international body’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, notes WBEZ. The resolution instructed all city agencies to develop policies consistent with it. Kalantry told the public radio station that the nation and the city must now act in accordance with these covenants. ... The Chicago Teachers Union,...

Roughly 200 so-called "worker centers" across the country are representing employees who work in everything from the fast-food industry to the taxi business. But some key Republican lawmakers are asking if those centers are actually acting more like labor unions. The concern is that the rise of these groups has become a way around the rules that govern bona-fide unions -- like requirements to submit financial filings to the feds every year. House education committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., sent a letter this week to newly confirmed Labor Secretary Thomas Perez requesting that he clarify...

About 100 neighbors, labor union members and politicians attended a rally Thursday to protest Walmart's plan to open a supercenter on Whiting Farms Road. "Walmart, Holyoke isn't for you. We don't want it. Holyoke can do better," said Jason Garand, business manager of Local 108, New England Regional Council of Carpenters. A 160,000-square-foot Walmart would clog already traffic-congested streets in the area near the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside, especially at the holidays. It also would add light and noise pollution, said Gordon Drive resident Terri Laramee, of the anti-Walmart group Holyoke First. "This is all combined to be an increased...

Every other story about Obama’s union pals and government employees demanding waivers from the health-care disaster they supported pale in comparison to this one. ObamaCare is all about expanding the power of the Internal Revenue Service – that’s the only promise it has actually kept, the only part of the 11,000-page program that’s actually working the way it was supposed to. The IRS became as important to health care as any doctor or hospital when ObamaCare was passed, because they are its enforcement arm, and like all central planning schemes, there’s a huge amount of enforcing to be done. And...

Union leaders are calling on Congress and President Obama to provide a federal bailout to the city of Detroit. The executive council of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, called for an “immediate infusion of federal assistance for Detroit” to be matched by the State of Michigan, which they say has not done enough to keep the city from going through bankruptcy. “Bankruptcy must not be used as a tool to impoverish City of Detroit workers or retirees. City workers have already made severe concessions to keep the city afloat,” the executive council said in a statement. “They are...

IRS employees have a prominent role in Obamacare, but their union wants no part of the law. National Treasury Employees Union officials are urging members to write their congressional representatives in opposition to receiving coverage through President Obama’s health care law. The union leaders are providing members with a form letter to send to the congressmen that says “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”

Retired city workers are asking a judge to block Mayor Emanuel from making them rely on Obamacare for their health insurance. It could cost Chicago taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. This affects most city retirees and it underscores how, after decades of grotesque financial mismanagement, the only choices left are painful ones. A spokesman for the lawsuit was a retired cop, wounded several times in the line of duty. Public employee unions hope that angry taxpayers staring at a doubling or even tripling of City Hall’s property tax will empathize with Mike Underwood. … When Mayor Emanuel sent letters...

Federal judge blocks lawsuits against Detroit’s bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes stopped three lawsuits threatening to undo the city’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing. Detroit retirees had argued that the bankruptcy could dimish their pensions. DETROIT — A federal judge agreed with Detroit on Wednesday and stopped any lawsuits challenging the city's bankruptcy, declaring his courtroom the exclusive venue for legal action in the largest filing by a local government in U.S. history. The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes was a major victory for Detroit, especially after an Ingham County judge last week said that Gov. Rick Snyder ignored the...

Remember all those dire predictions about the damage Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s public employee union contract reforms would do? Remember the angst of Wisconsin’ teachers and other “vital workers” over what they saw as the end of the line for their cushy jobs and control over their state? Well they were right to be worried. They are getting crushed and put out of existence. Now that two years have passed and the dust has settled, it’s safe to say the union protestors who filled the legislative offices and camped out in Wisconsin’s state capital were actually optimistic. The results of...

"We are a democracy, we operate by majority rule. Therefore we can force you to give us your money." Such is the message from unions justifying forced dues and opposing laws that protect worker freedom. It is liberty, not democracy that is the highest form of society. Make no mistake, democracies, direct or representational, are better than any other form of government. However, they are only as good as the extent to which they protect the liberty that individuals enjoy. These liberties exist in spite, rather than because, of government institutions. Many opponents of right-to-work laws justify their ability to...

Wisconsin's public employees are leaving their unions in droves, which should be no surprise: With passage of Act 10 in 2011, public unions in the Badger State lost many of their reasons for being. The "budget-repair bill" pushed through the Legislature by Republicans and signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker limited bargaining to wages only, and then only up to the cost of living; it also required unions to recertify each year and barred the automatic collection of union dues. Relying on federal financial records, the Journal Sentinel's Dan Bice found union membership has declined by 50% or more...

Discord over President Obama's health care law is forging strange alliances, with top Republicans reaching out to union bosses who helped Democrats muscle the legislation through Congress three years ago but now say the reforms will "destroy the very health and well-being of our members." Presidents of three unions, including the powerful Teamsters, sent a letter this month accusing Democratic leaders of breaking promises. "Right now, unless you and the Obama administration enact an equitable fix, the [Affordable Care Act] will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week that is the...

Melissa Harris Perry forgets that Detroit has been run by unions and big government Democrats for over 5 decades, and was then bailed out and over-regulated by the current administration…how convenient

Biggest Bankruptcy in US history. Excerpt:Reason Foundation senior analyst Shikha Dalmia says even bankruptcy can’t save Motown.Detroit had been living on borrowed time and borrowed money for about two decades now with accumulated debt of about 18 times its annual budget, so something had to give so the issue only was detroit needed to restructure through bnkruptcy or an emergency manager.

Some unions' finances also suffer after Scott Walker curtails powers Gov. Scott Walker's signature plan to slash collective bargaining has set off a Darwinian struggle for survival among Wisconsin's public employee unions. In the two years since Walker's plan became law, tens of thousands of teachers and state and local workers have dropped out of their unions, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of little-used federal financial records. No labor group has been hit harder than the one representing Milwaukee city and county workers. In 2010 — the year that Walker was elected governor — the American Federation of State,...

Senate Bill 556 is another sad example of how legislative Democrats can't say no to their main benefactor, public employee unions, even at the expense of the voters they represent. This bill is costly, unnecessary and meddlesome — a legislative solution in search of a problem. Authored by Sen. Ellen Corbett of San Leandro, SB 556 would require contract employees working for state or local governments to affix notices to their uniforms or vehicles that identify them as "not a government employee." According to the Assembly Judiciary Committee analysis, Corbett thinks "this bill is needed to ensure that members of...