Free Republic

The Sacramento County Deputy Sheriff's Association is suing the county for laying off security workers and replacing them with employees from a private security company. The lawsuit, filed this month, alleges that the county's decision to hire Inter-Con Security Services to guard Department of Human Assistance facilities in place of Sheriff's Department employees violates county rules regulating outsourcing. "You cannot lay off a county employee of any type and backfill behind them with … a private contractor," said Kevin Mickelson, the union president. "Next thing you know, they're going to be laying off sheriff's deputies and hiring a security company...

Unionized city employees protesting layoffs and wage reductions marched from San Francisco City Hall to Market Street this afternoon, blocking off a busy intersection during rush hour.

When Mac Taylor, the Legislature's chief budget adviser, declared this week that the state budget enacted just four months ago is already billions of dollars upside down, no one in the Capitol should have been surprised. Anyone with half a brain and a hand calculator could figure out that many assumptions on which the budget was based, both spending and revenues, were unrealistic, some of them conjured out of thin air to "balance" an inherently unbalanced budget for political reasons. Taylor told legislators that the current budget is $6.3 billion out of balance and the 2010-11 budget has another $14.4...

Somewhere in the bureaucratic haze of Oakland city government, in a spacious office with views of Frank Ogawa Plaza, there is a holiday grinch who has actually succeeded in swiping a slice of Christmas spirit from city residents. Now I already know what you're thinking, so let's get it out of the way. It is not Mayor Ron Dellums. He has been out of town since Saturday attending to a death in the family, said Paul Rose, the mayor's overused, underinformed press secretary. On Monday, Oakland city officials informed Marco Li Mandri, executive director of two business community benefit districts...

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...

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.

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....

I was watching Glenn Beck yesterday and he was pointing out Andy Stern and SEIU and their involvement in getting Obama elected. I have posted this video before, but I feel it needs to be posted again. Often times Campaign Contributions are not directly contributed to the person running for office. In this video you will hear Andy Stern talking about the "War Room" and how they spent 71 Million Dollars getting Obama and other Democrats elected. I always feel remorse for anyone who has lost a loved one, but not for someone who uses their lose to push their...

Union Bullies Boy Scout for Dastardly Good Deed 17-year-old's 250 of community service angers Allentown union By TERESA MASTERSON Updated 12:30 PM EST, Tue, Nov 17, 2009 A 17-year-old Boy Scout worked more than 200 hours to clear a path in his local park so that people could enjoy walking and biking along the river. Bad move Boy Scout. Now grown men who didn’t get around to doing it for a paycheck are after you. Kevin Anderson, a junior at Southern Lehigh High School, a varsity soccer player and a Boy Scout hoping to get his Eagle Scout badge, spent...

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...

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been acting as the Presidents goons, attacking anti-Obamacare Protesters across the country. It was the SEIU who HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, reached out to when the administration needed "back up" for the town halls(H/T Michelle Malkin)....Why is the Democratic Party so interested in linking up with a team of goons like the SEIU? Part of the reason is that there has been an alliance between the SEIU, ACORN and President Obama since the POTUS' first campaign for Illinois State Senate 13 years ago. The two groups have a long history, ACORN and the...

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...

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...

FRESNO – A competing union has accused the Service Employees International Union of changing ballots and threatening to report workers to immigration officials in a contentious battle to represent more than 10,000 home health care workers in Fresno County. The National Union of Healthcare Workers filed charges Nov. 6 with the California Public Employment Relations Board. SEIU's United Health Care Workers-West narrowly defeated NUHW in a June election, winning the right to represent workers in the county's In-Home Supportive Services program. NUHW wants the board to throw out the victory. "SEIU not only tolerated but encouraged people to break the...

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 grim reality of San Francisco's gasping economy took center stage at City Hall this week when the Board of Supervisors failed to muster enough votes to protect more than 500 workers in the city's largest union from layoffs, pay cuts or job reassignments. Without last-minute intervention by Mayor Gavin Newsom - which his chief of staff has hinted is unlikely - the budget-balancing cuts aimed at nursing assistants and clerical workers will start to take effect next week. The cuts are a direct result of the city's chronic budget problems. This summer, the mayor's office and supervisors faced a...

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 allegedl 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. After he and a photographer walked in to the meeting, it didn't take long for Hamidi to be right out the door and on his way to the hospital.

Welcome to California government, 80 percent-style. This is the first of 12 weeks in a row that the state will shut down every Friday. Between unpaid furlough days and paid holidays off, most California civil servants won't work a five-day week again until Jan. 29. But how much will the public notice – or care? We've had nine months to adjust to a part-time state government. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger started furloughing workers two days per month in February and upped it to three "Furlough Fridays" in July. Meanwhile, the public's most acute fiscal pain is closer to home. "Cities, counties,...

PORTLAND, Maine — Voters on Tuesday repealed the state’s same sex marriage law after an emotionally charged campaign that drew large numbers to the polls and focused national attention on Maine. In a defiant speech to several hundred lingering supporters, No on 1 campaign manager Jesse Connolly pledged that his side “will not quit until we know where every single one of these votes lives.”

While Democrats have more than seven months left to choose their candidate for governor, one of the party's key constituencies has already made its preference clear, at least in the all-important money race. Unions all across the state and country have poured more than a million dollars into Attorney General Jerry Brown's campaign coffers – even though he has yet to officially announce his candidacy. That includes influential statewide bodies such as the California State Council of Labor and the California Nurses Association as well as out-of-state carpenters unions from New York to Honolulu. Meanwhile, the only declared Democratic candidate...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has made several significant concessions to organized labor in the healthcare reform bill he is preparing for the Senate floor, according to a source familiar with the legislation. Reid has increased the threshold of high-cost insurance plans that would be subject to taxation to pay for healthcare reform. Legislation passed by the Senate Finance Committee would impose a 40 percent excise tax on family plans costing more than $21,000, a provision estimated to raise $201 billion for healthcare reform. Under heavy pressure from unions, Reid has increased the threshold so that only family plans...

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka warned Senate Democratic leaders not to include a tax on high-cost healthcare plans in a bill that is expected to reach the floor in coming days. Trumka dismissed the notion that Democratic leaders could placate the powerful union by raising the threshold on plans that would be subject to the tax. Under the Senate Finance Committee’s bill, plans costing more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families would be hit with a 40-percent excise tax. “Working families struggling to pay for healthcare should not be required to pay even more in the form of a...

Just look at what has happened to state workers and their unions in 2009: Furloughs. Looming layoffs. Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday erased from the paid holiday calendar. New rules that make it harder to earn overtime. It's never a good sign when the court bench becomes labor's focus instead of the bargaining table. Unions are party to most of the 21 furlough lawsuits statewide arguing that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's policy is illegal or ill-conceived. If you think unions have ruined government, you're rooting for the governor to win. If you're one of the state's 200,000 or so union-covered employees,...

Tonight, Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate for the November 3 special election in the 23rd congressional district, spoke to about 100 Republicans at the Lewis County GOP dinner at the Elks Lodge 1605. After a dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, Scozzafava fended off criticism that she wasn't as conservative as third-party candidate Doug Hoffman and urged her supporters to vote for her in order to keep her Democratic opponent Bill Owens from serving as a rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama's agenda in Washington. It was a fairly typical evening--until the speech ended and someone with...

When California's government employees gained collective bargaining rights three-plus decades ago, thanks to then-Gov. Jerry Brown, it was depicted as merely giving those on the public payroll equality with private workers, but in fact it went way beyond parity. Yes, unions could bargain with public agencies on contracts. But unlike those in private business, public worker unions could try to select those on the other side of the bargaining table by contributing heavily to campaigns for state and local offices. Seeking contracts from those you've placed in office is a far cry from the arm's length bargaining over private sector...

A solid majority of California voters think state and local governments should make pension benefits for new hires less lucrative than the current system, according to a new Field Poll released Thursday. However, that same survey of 1,005 registered voters in the state indicated that only a third of those asked think that pensions for current employees are too generous. More than half believe that state and local government worker pensions are about right or not generous enough. Meanwhile, a majority of voters surveyed approve of somewhat more generous pensions for safety workers such as firefighters and police than for...

WASHINGTON - The nation's nurses have an idea for how to improve health care: Allow more of them to unionize. But as they press Congress to approve a bill that would make it easier to organize, nurses and other unions have identified a big obstacle in California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. While President Barack Obama and a majority of Democratic senators are behind the Employee Free Choice Act, Feinstein is not. And after she scored a perfect 100 rating from the AFL-CIO last year, many union activists are scratching their heads, wondering why Feinstein has parted ways with them on...

Several DMV offices closed, but state government escaped largely unscathed Monday from a Columbus Day contract dispute that had union leaders threatening to shut down operations. Government officials said the day was largely uneventful. "Of our 168 field offices, 164 opened and stayed open," said DMV spokesman Mike Marando. While some offices in San Francisco scaled back services, he said, "This was largely a non-event." Service Employees International Union Local 1000 offered a different assessment, saying eight Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Southern California and the Bay Area were closed. They said an additional 45 statewide opened late because...

We'll see on Monday how much pull the state's biggest public employee's union has - with its own members. The fight over whether Columbus Day remains a paid holiday for state workers "has become the hill that our union is willing to die on," said Angela Morales, a job steward for Service Employees International Union Local 1000. Yvonne Walker, president of the local, has told the 95,000 employees she represents to treat Monday as a paid day off. It's not, says Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Department of Personnel Administration. On Tuesday, DPA's Julie Chapman fired off a letter to the union...

Brian Walsh with the Heritage Foundation has this hilarious, ridiculous, depressing story at the Washington Times: “You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search. The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor. The six agents, wearing SWAT...

Six demonstrators were arrested Monday morning at UnitedHealth Group's corporate headquarters in Minnetonka after they blocked the doors and refused to leave during a protest over health care reform. About 110 protesters sang and spoke about the need to change the way health care is organized and financed in the United States, and said that insurers such as UnitedHealth are making people sicker because the system doesn't offer proper coverage for many patients. They cited what they said is UnitedHealth's practice of "denying care and claims in order to generate record profits." The demonstration was organized by a group called...

Needed: A 'clean line' to determine lawfulness"You don't need to know. You can't know." That's what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search. The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris' longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor. The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with - get this- the...

PHOENIX (CN) - A homeowner says a Phoenix police officer shot him six times in the back during a 911 home-invasion call, and the 911 tape recorded the officer's partner saying, "That's all right. Don't worry about it. I got your back. ... We clear?" The family says the officers were not aware that the 911 call was still recording as they spoke about covering up the shooting. In their complaint in Maricopa County Court, Anthony and Lesley Arambula say an armed intruder "crashed through the front window" of their home on Sept. 17, 2008 and ran into one of...

Just about everyone in Connecticut wishes Pratt & Whitney would keep its Cheshire and East Hartford plants open, with their 1,000 good-paying jobs, 3,000 to 6,000 jobs indirectly related to Pratt's operations, lavish tax payments to local and state government, and all of the other benefits such employers bestow on their communities. But do Connecticut residents really believe it's acceptable and appropriate to chain Pratt to the state? Is this the impression they want to give present and future businesses— once you're in our clutches, you have to stay here or we'll tie you up in federal court? Worse still,...

Occasionally, watching the hate speech of MSNBC provides useful information. Last night, the two most influential leaders of the American labor movement clearly laid out their plan to partner with the Democratic Party in foisting the “public option� on the American people. It sounds exactly like the one I outlined two weeks ago, and it may be unstoppable. The new president of the nation’s largest union demonstrated seriousness in his interview. Richard Trumka made his first television appearance as head of the AFL-CIO on The Rachel Maddow Show last night. Maddow introduced Trumka, whom she said had been “named”...

… and will your state government give them the power to do so? Kansas’s Democratic governor has just announced he’s thinking better of his decision to use the state’s resources to help the Service Employees International Union target home care workers as new union members. SEIU — part private sector union and part government union — grows by getting friendly Democratic governments to allow the union to collectively bargain for independent home care workers paid by state agencies. Sure, it’s a bad deal for taxpayers: rates go up and their side of the “negotiating” table is run by a union...

  From Pennsylvania Right-to-Work:Most readers are already aware of a growing scandal involving the pro-forced unionism Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in New York, Baltimore, Washington, and now, California. For those who missed it, ACORN representatives were caught on camera giving advice to undercover journalists on how to open an illegal brothel, launder its profits, and commit a host of other illegal activities.According to The Washington Examiner, teacher union officials have contributed over 1.3 million dollars (in mostly forced union dues) to ACORN since 2005.We decided to do a little digging into union financial disclosure forms on...

Statement of Andy Stern, President of SEIU WASHINGTON DC--Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union, issued the following statement today regarding recent attempts of right wing extremists to silence working families by attacking progressive individuals and community organizations: "This is a moment of profound change for this country--from kitchen tables to town halls to the floor of the Senate, this nation is engaged in a vigorous and heated debate about how we rebuild our economy, solve our national healthcare crisis and restore the American Dream. "As has always happened when progressive change is in the air, the backlash...

Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, has just released a statement vowing not to be "silenced" by "right wing attack dogs" targeting "progressive individuals" and "community organizations." Stern, whose union has sometimes been linked with the community organizing group ACORN, which yesterday suffered an enormous blow when the House of Representatives voted 345-45 to cut off all federal funds for the organization, said his union will not be intimidated by a right-wing "backlash" that is "fierce, ugly and anti-American." Here is the full text of Stern's statement:This is a moment of profound change for this country—from kitchen...

The plan for a series of grass-roots demonstrations Tuesday to promote President Obama's health care agenda calls for tightly scripted events and an "escalation" of efforts against "enemies" of reform. Organizers insist there is no comparison to rowdy summer town hall meetings and recent "tea party" protests that have challenged White House policies. But Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which is backed by a coalition of labor unions and liberal groups including ACORN and MoveOn.org, organized the protests to target insurance companies and drafted the plan, which describes the demonstrations as part of its "insurance enemies project." The document,...

Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) issued a poorly timed press release this afternoon that nevertheless blasts patriots with both rhetorical barrels.Anti-American, right wing extremists, right wing attack dogs, teab*****s, cruel, venomous, Glenn Beck, Fox News. Stern hurls every eptithet in the liberal handbook except racist. Maybe he's waiting to play the race card until next week. SEIU put out the press release at 1:33 p.m. this Friday, a time when official Washington and the media are trying to shut down for the weekend.Friday afternoon and evening is when pros try to release news they want...

Biggest surprise here: He accuses the right of pretty much everything except racism. Proof positive, I guess, that the backlash has finally reached the left-wing brain trust. Since, per Maureen Dowd and Michael Eric Dyson, it’s now kosher to put words in people’s mouths that they didn’t actually say, I’m going to imagine that Stern finished with, “Take my advice or we’ll send more of your guys to the hospital.” This is, after all, a man who once boasted creepily about the “persuasion of power.” As has always happened when progressive change is in the air, the backlash gets fierce,...

50 year old Jaime Enrique Feliciano was sentenced yesterday in Sacramento to 25 years in prison. He was convicted of child molestation, possession of child pornography, and manufacturing child pornography. Feliciano was working for the state of California when the Sacramento County's DA's office was tipped off to his illegal activity last September. They searched his home, where they found thousands of pictures depicting children in various sex acts, Also found were countless images and videos both on his personal laptop and his State owned computer. He also raped a young girl, then attempted to keep the woman from going...

President Obama's rally at the University of Maryland on Thursday was a highly choreographed campaign event that drew in college students and union members by the thousands. Instead of campaigning for an election, the President was campaigning for health care reform. Obama didn't quite fill the 18,000 seats in UMD's Comcast Center and appeared three hours later than the scheduled 9am start time. It didn't seem to bother the crowd, which performed "waves" around the stadium with their hands to the music of UMD's school band, which played hits like "Sweet Caroline," "Thriller," and "Let's Get Ready To Rumble." It...

President Obama gave a corker of a campaign speech yesterday at the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh, promising to deliver on his promise to ease the rules for union organizing. If you want to know what this means in action, consider the current Teamsters play to control California ports. The dispute concerns the Clean Truck Program announced in 2007 by the Port of Los Angeles to ban the dirtiest trucks from carrying port cargo. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former union organizer, seized on the program as an opportunity to help his Teamster friends. Current law doesn't let the Teamsters organize...

For one of Big Labor’s most notorious organizing partners, ACORN, the “chickens have come home to roost” thanks to the James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles continuously unfolding ACORN exposé. If you rely on MSNBC for your news, you may not have noticed ACORN’s very thin “community organizer” veneer being sanded away exposing the rotten termite-infested wood underneath. Part of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now’s (ACORN) rotten core includes a very cozy relationship with Big Labor. In fact, in many instances ACORN and Big Labor are one and the same. In 2008, Big Labor funneled ACORN millions of...

President Barack Obama’s address to the AFL-CIO on Tuesday will shed light on a precarious friendship that will be tested in the near future. Though the president is expected to celebrate his relationship with unions that fervently supported his 2008 campaign, differences between Obama and organized labor will be at the forefront during his address at the AFL-CIO’s convention. On healthcare, Obama has voiced support for a public insurance option but is not insisting on one. Organized labor wants a public option to drive down healthcare costs, and the AFL-CIO is expected to approve a resolution that backs a government...

An interesting admission by James A. Williams, president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Philadelphia, can be seen in an interview he did with the Philly Inquirer. It is an admission that conforms one of the things that anti-union folks have been saying for years, but one union officials are loath to admit. While discussing the hard economic times, the Philly Inquirer asked how the recession was affecting the union. In his answer President Wilson admitted that his union uses out-of-work members for "political events." Wilson mentioned that they lower dues to $1 a month after...