Blowing the whistle on Big Labor
The Center for Union Facts is marking Labor Day by reminding Americans of union fatcats and the corruption of Big Labor. The state of the unions is…not good:
* Union membership is down to 7.4 percent of private sector employees and down to 12 percent overall (government employees are highly unionized, at a rate of 36.2 percent) – that’s down from a high of 20.1 percent in 1983
* Union bosses continue to be criticized for their lavish salaries, even while their membership declines
* Even after several major unions split from the AFL-CIO to improve their growth, some have found little success
Things are so bad with one carpenters’ union that it outsourced picketing duties to homeless people.
As I noted a few days ago, Big Labor is busying itself these days suing the government to protect illegal alien workers instead of American workers, lobbying for amnesty, and working to undermine employer sanctions for businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
In NYC, the traditional Labor Day parade has been cancelled amid massive corruption charges leveled against the head of the parade’s organizing union. The NYPost editorial board notes the symbolism:
The parade sputtered out entirely for most of the ’70s due to sparse attend- ance, and hasn’t even been held on Labor Day for the past decade.
Then again, this hasn’t exactly been a stellar year for the sponsoring organization, the Central Labor Council: Its former head, Brian McLaughlin, is under indictment for racketeering, embezzlement and fraud, to the tune of $2.2 million.
As U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said in announcing the indictment - which includes 44 counts and runs to 186 pages (here’s the PDF): McLaughlin’s alleged larceny “lends new meaning to the term ‘hand in the till.’ ”
Besides which, the fact remains that the only real growth in the American labor movement - especially in New York - has been in the public sector: Government workers whose power derives from their unions’ ability to shake down elected officials, particularly during an election year.
The labor movement, in other words, really doesn’t have all that much to celebrate. We can’t think of any other reason why the CLC would voluntarily give up an opportunity for politicians to show up and display their fealty to organized labor.
Other than the likelihood that no one would have shown up to watch it.
On the Left, E.J. Dionne marvels: “At a moment of organizational weakness, labor’s political influence and ideological appeal may be as strong as at any time since the New Deal. Every Democrat running for president seems to know this.”
Shrinking numbers, growing Beltway power. Only a movement sustained by forced dues and an expansive political agenda far beyond its core mission could make that formula work.
NRO editors look at The Union Party:
Notwithstanding their professed interest in oversight and accountability, the House Democrats passed a Department of Labor appropriations bill this summer that cut $2 million from the budget for the Office of Labor and Management Standards, which oversees how unions spend dues money. During the Bush administration, this office has finally gotten unions to start complying with decades-old laws requiring itemized disclosure of their spending and their officers’ conflicts of interest. No wonder union leaders don’t want it funded.
More and more, union leaders are also putting their organizations on the record on issues unrelated to labor or collective bargaining. The National Education Association spends less than 15 percent of its dues money representing members in the workplace, according to disclosure forms filed with the Department of Labor. It gives its leftover millions to groups that do such things as resist Social Security reform and litigate to prevent restrictions on abortion. It has also declared its support for a government-controlled and taxpayer-funded health-care system. Other unions advocate such causes as same-sex marriage, higher taxes (which their workers would have to pay), retreat from Iraq, and an amnesty for illegal immigrants that would adversely affect the wage growth of many union members.
In ages past, when the worker’s lot was much worse than it is today, union leaders stuck to what they did best: collective bargaining and improvement of work conditions. They fought for the well-being of their workers, but frequently opposed government intervention in the workplace, understanding that a free market would create jobs and opportunities for all. Today’s labor leaders simply fight to preserve their power, often at the expense of both the workers they represent and the country as a whole. Unfortunately, their closest political friends hold a majority in Congress.
And check out the NLPC’s union corruption update newsletter for another reminder of labor leaders lining their pockets at workers’ expense.
Happy Labor Day!
***
One issue where a labor organization has taken the right side: those Mexican trucks that will start chugging across the southern border beginning on Sept. 6. The Teamsters and others tried to block the Bush plan via an emergency petition. The 9th Circuit handed a win to the open borders mob on this one:
The Bush administration can proceed with a plan to open the U.S. border to long haul Mexican trucks as early as next week after an appeals court rejected a bid by labor, consumer and environmental interests to block the initiative.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco late on Friday denied an emergency petition sought by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and consumer group Public Citizen to halt the start of a one-year pilot program that was approved by Congress after years of legal and political wrangling.
The Transportation Department welcomed the decision and said in a statement that allowing more direct shipments from Mexico will benefit U.S. consumers. The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement approved broader access for ground shipments from both countries but the Clinton administration never complied with the trucking provision. A special tribunal ordered the Bush administration to do so in 2001.
“This is the wrong decision for working men and women,” Jim Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, said in a statement after the court ruling. “We believe this program clearly breaks the law.” The Teamsters represents truckers that would be affected by the change. The emergency stay was sought on grounds the administration’s pilot program had not satisfied the U.S. Congress’ requirements on safety and other issues. But the appeals court ruled otherwise.
Hey, like Mexican President Felipe Calderon says: “Mexico does not end at its borders.”
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- Maggie's Farm
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- Maybe We Need a Lazy President | Hennessy's View
- monoblogue » Blog Archive » A good place to go for Labor Day
- Quiglag.com » Do unions hurt America? Part 3
- shyspeak.net » Blog Archive » el Presidente Not Happy With U.S.
- Right Voices » Blog Archive » Big Unions Are Not Fighting For You
- First Round | Sept. 4, 2007 : The Shot! @ shotpolitics.com
- Word Around the Net
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- September, 2007 Archive « Right Minded Online
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If they have all that leftover money, maybe they could buy a few books for needy students instead.
And naturally the 9th circuit is for wide open borders. Guaranteed it’s part of a larger scheme. Once everyone gets used to thousands of Mexican trucks on the road, Bush and his buddies will propose shutting down the ports in LA and Long Beach, and building new ones in Mexico.
Wow, this is a tough one to decide. Mexico one side, union thugs and environmental wackos on the other. What to do, what to do? Well, if the ninth circuit favors it, there must be something wrong with it. I decide in favor of the thugs and wackos.
Time to leave the soon to be former US of A.
This is not the same country it was even five years ago. What has happened to common sense?
If I want Mexico, I’ll move there.
It sickens me to see our late great country being taken over by gangs, illegals, lefties, thugs, and criminals.
I’ll be danged if I’ll give the crooked government another dime other than what I pay when making purchases and paying bills. Time to strike back people! It is long past due.
Something is wrong with this country when the largest LABOR union left is the Teacher’s union…
fixed.
Seems like Gore would have his boxers in a wad.
Imagine the pollution from those trucks…..gee…..global rice/beans warming.
GM AJ!
How’s the smell outside this fine day?
lol gayle good morning happy LD!, thankfully I’m about a two hour drive from there, but here is one story of several (and its been ongoing for more than a decade.) So I guess with all the raw poop coming over what the heck might as well send some trucks too.
El poopo from TJ
I guess battling the US Navy over Sonar testing is more important than millions of gallons of raw sewage spewing over their border each year. Maybe we can load the trucks up for their return trip and give it back to them. One question I have is what has Mexico done to earn “those Mexican trucks to start chugging across our border”???
Just imagine the bacteria once eradicated - creating diseases that once again, will reinvent themselves.
Is their a hidden agenda to wipe us out?
Hidden? lol.
One of the stories I hear most from teachers is $$$ out of their own pockets for school supplies. I guess putting this money to good use is common sense and we cant have any of that now can we, sheesh.
Question for any attorney:
If I get hit by a Mexican truck driver, and they don’t carry insurance, I get to sue the Mexican government because this is their program, backed with their dollars. Correct?
ask Geraldo, he’s the attorney for Mexicans………….
One of the worst unions of all time is the NEA. They don’t work for the teachers, they work to keep the Union powerful and hand the teachers crumbs which they are cowed enough to accept. And, I was a member for many years–forced by the agency shop policies to either join or have to pay anyway without representation. I came to really resent them and would not even consider joining now.
morning all …
Thanks Michelle for finally putting this out there for all to see the truth about modern unions …
There are times in life when we all wish we could be proven wrong … unfortunately this is one of those times I was proven right …
I have said for over 25 years that unions had outlived their usefulness in this country … they long ago stopped being the pro-worker organizations they started as and have become greedy political and often criminal pariah …
how many people realize how much of the exploding increases in costs of anything you care to name can be directly attributed to some of the ridiculous union contracts? …
everyone in the unions wants to beat their chests over those 15% union pay raises every 3 or 4 years … never understanding that all of that gets passed on to the consumer in the end … the companies go forward and simply raise the prices of their products to make up for the increased costs of doing business …
a simple example from the late 60s and early 70s …
the steel ore miners went out on strike because they couldn’t buy the new cars being made with the steel from the ore they mined … they got a large raise … this increased the cost of the ore which increased the costs to make the steel which increased the costs to make the car … all 3 cost increases were passed on to the consumer in higher prices for the car …
the following year the steel workers struck and got a big pay raise … now their pay raise is added to the cost of producing the steel which again added to the costs to make the car … 2 more increases passed to the consumer …
the cycle continued the next year when the auto workers went on strike and got a big pay raise … 1 more increase passed on to the consumer for the price of that car …
this made a total of 6 increases in the cost of the car …
this cycle continued for about 15 years with these 3 unions each time their contracts came up for renewal … each got a big raise and the same cycle repeated itself …
in the end the miners still had difficulty buying that new car but no one had sense enough to understand all any of them were doing was adding to the cost of making the car by their actions …
perhaps many do not know that it is the union that decides who among its memebers does and does not get a job … not the companies with the jobs to be filled … and it is based on seniority in the union not on how good a worker someone is … the union tells you if you will work and where you will work … and as a union member you have no say in the matter …
and have you ever tried to fire an incompetent union worker … pretty much impossible to do …
unions have outlived their place in society …
Employment law sucks in America though’ so I can understand why people join unions.
I miss the mandatory four weeks paid holiday a year full time workers get in the UK
jeanie
I have a daughter that is a teacher and she hates being in a union but she wants to try to make a difference in kids lives so she puts up with it …
I agree that teachers should be paid better … but I also feel it should be based on performance in the classroom … not on some union contract that bases everything on union seniority …
Gayle, gangs have been around for decades and there have been numerous efforts to combat them. Illegal alien populations have been a political hot topic for a long time (references to Reagan’s decision in the ’80’s are often repeated here). Last time I checked, Republicans were in power for over 10 years in Congress and 6 years of the Presidency since 1996. I assume you weren’t saying that the country was being taken over by “righties.” I am wondering that when you find people condemning others while practicing the same type of behavior (Foley, Vitter, Haggert, etc.) if you feel they are criminals as well?
And where exactly would you want to move to??? Every country has issues they are dealing with.
Fly Fishing Cottage in New Zealand.
The Judiciary is not supposed to just hand wins to people, and I suspect that they didn’t do any such thing in this case. I suspect this because it seems that the policy for our borders is the responsibility of our legislative and executive branches, and that it’s not for the judiciary to over-rule such laws—even if they are poorly conceived—unless they are somehow derived in a manner that is unconstitutional.
If I’ve guessed correctly (and maybe someone familiar with both law and the ruling could comment) that the 9th was reasonable in it’s ruling, then the blame should rest squarely with the executive and legislative policy makers, and not with the court, and the implication that the court was remiss in its ruling is false.
The labor unions served a useful purpose once, perhaps a century ago. One of the things to reduce the appeal of communism and socialism among the American labor force was the availability of unions as a means of redressing poor work conditions and abusive employer practices.
But those functions have largely been incorporated into the body of federal and state labor laws. Which has reduced the unions to doing what any bureaucracy does best: fighting to ensure its survival, regardless of whether it serves any useful purpose.
There’s a UN report out today (see FOX News online) that claims American workers are the most productive in the world. Who believes that unions have anything to do with this? It’s amazing, for example, that American auto manufacturers are able to stay in business at all given how uncompetitive the UAW makes them.
And teachers unions? The SEIU? Please. These are nothing but forced-donor front organizations for the DNC.
For all the bad things that happen to unions in this country, all I can say is that it can’t happen to a more deserving bunch. They’re as anachronistic as an 8-Track tape player and as useful as an appendix.
As for the Mexican truckers….the question is how many Americans they’ll kill and maim through shoddy vehicle maintenance and poorly trained drivers hopped up on drugs before we reconsider giving them carte blanche access to our highways.
My guess is quite a few.
I have absolutely no use for Labor Unions these days. All I see are organizations that need to be prosecuted under the RICO statutes. Once upon a time Labor Unions were very important in the American work place, but have out lived their purpose. If unions were for the American worker they would be raising holy hell with employers going overseas to bring in high tech workers and illegal invaders. Instead they contribute to keeping wages depressed while aiding and abetting those whom break our Federal employment laws.
I quit riding my road racing bicycle on our local counties roads due to the risk of meeting drunk illegal drivers (one almost took me out last summer) and started riding on the shoulder of interstate 84 (it is legal in Idaho). I always feel a little safer with the wider shoulder (there is none on the county roads) and get a little help from truckers passing me especially when riding into our normal 20 mph head winds. Now it looks like I won’t be going on the interstate any more due to the invasion of unsafe Mexican commercial trucks. It’s bad enough illegal drunk drivers are killing Americans every day, and many invaders are committing the crimes Americans won’t commit. I dread this new policy and the increased body count it will provide. Why is the MSM so interested in the body count in Iraq while many more Americans are killed and maimed by illegal invaders every day?
I work as a speech pathologist in a school district–am not forced to join a union; never have and never will. However, a few colleagues in my department have been badgering us all to join the local NEA because “it’s the only way we’ll have a voice.” Well…about two years ago the district planned to give all the special ed personnel a bonus for performance on one particular hellish year we had in achieving compliance with new regs. Extra money was brought in, and the decision was made to split it up as “incentive” to stay. That fell flat–the union opposed it. Yeah, that’s it–we sure had a voice, didn’t we?
Kimmer
my point exactly … my daughter does not go to any union meetings or take part in any way … she just didn’t want to deal with the harassment you mentioned …
as I mentioned before … unions are not interested in seeing people commended for doing a good job … because that goes against their seniority mantra as the guiding rule for everything … just pay your dues and stay out of the union’s political agenda way …
Mexican trucks…bringing in contraband, WMD’s. terrorists & illegals that American trucks won’t bring in.
I’m a municipal employee that is partially unionized. The union bargains for my “unit,” but actual union membership is optional and no fees are taken out of my paycheck. And I will do everything I can to make sure it stays that way. If the union did nothing but negotiate for benefits, etc., that would be one thing but since it pretty much supports everything I’m against and is against everything I’m for, why the hell should I have any involvement with them or surrender any of my money to them?
How will they get those trucks back to Mexico?
Touche.
Alphonse said
Hopefully they will return to Mexico full of fleeing illegals …
But will it benefit U.S. citizens? The radical political change of the last few years is that government is seeking to replace citizens with consumers.
The link to the Mexican trucks story above is not working. Here is another.
Big Opps….didn’t mean to boldface everything! LOL!
Sorry ’bout that!
gayle said:
Welcome to my world. he he
and I’m not talking about Mexico this time another great waste of money and time so far is the Salton Sea and on occasion we are close enough to smell that one.
I had thought the unions split on the recent amnesty bill.
SEIU supported with the Chamber of Commerce; the AFL-CIO rejected.
The notion of “big labor” is pretty much a joke. I think you have to go back to the mid-1880s to find a time when they represented a comparable number of American workers.
Just pathetic. The unions are now Internationalists as well as socialists. Virtually every union has gone back to old fashioned 1930s style socialism as the cure to falling membership. In other words, European style compulsory unionism. Popular in Red China too.
Fox news just announced 200 immigration agents are protecting Presidential candidates. Bush will do anything to destroy our immigration laws. He really should be impeached before it is too late.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “work for the teachers.” The NEA’s about getting teachers more money for less work and making it impossible to fire lazy and incompetent teachers (I’m pretty sure the only way a teacher can lose their job is to have sex with a student, and even it depends on the state).
OTOH, the NEA doesn’t work on behalf of the children teachers are meant to be education.
I am so glad that I moved to, received my undergraduate and graduate degees in and taught in South Carolina, a Right to Work state. I joined the NRTW committee in the early 1970’s when the unions were pushing for “common situs picketing” which meant that any union could shut down a construction site and even police/fire/schools if one union had a disagreement. That was the straw that broke their backs.
Speaking of “unions” and Mexican trucks -
What do y’all figure on the “north American Union”?
“A goofy conspiracy theory”
“The NAU is for real”
“Somewhere between those two”
“Both”
“Neither”
Or?
i think the unions might be an ally in this whole north american union thing. they don’t want it either.
I’m not sure right now what to make of the NAU thing, derel. So thought I’d see what folks here have by way of opinions about it.
BTW, thanks for removing my post that I bolded in error. Seems it could have been “fixed”?
Teachers are at the mercy of the admininstration who are in the bag with Big Government.
I never joined the NEA in the years I was teaching. It was all a racket…just another way to get money into the pockets of the big spending liberals.
Teachers in NC have NO rights. It is an at will employee relationship. Most of you believe this is fine. Well, it isn’t exactly what it is supposed to be. If your principal doesn’t like your clothes, age, style, personality, etc., they do not rehire you. You think; well, work at another school. Not so fast. You are on the “Blacklist”. All principals are banned together. You are “marked”.
So there goes your 4 year degree down the toilet. Yet the very teachers that are truly NOT quality material, do not care about the students are firmly planted.
Many new teachers will teach for one year and then quit. There is not incentive in THIS state to stay in an occupation where teachers are the low end of the totem pole. You are at the mercy of an incompetent school board, superintindent who makes a huge salary, and principals who enforce the socialistic rule of “law”.
There is always a teacher shortage here. They even hire people not qualified to fill positions regularly. Not to mention that classes are over-run with illegals in some counties.
The unions do not work for NC. Teachers cannot go on strike and have less rights than common criminals.
They just quit or deal with the insanity of big government.
I left the profession because I refused to teach socialism and got frustrated with students who had severe behavior problems. Most principals are not true educators - just another political ploy drawing a nice paycheck. In the old days, principals disciplined - no longer the case. The teacher does it all or is expected to do so.
There is no incentive to stay in this profession any longer. I had much to offer my students but it goes unappreciated by the system, regardless of what they claim to care about.
I deserved a better life even with less pay. Off my podium!
Just wanted you to get an inside view of the way schools are truly run. It should be about the students but there’s more going on that most do not know about. The morale in NC school systems is one of the worst- other than inner city schools perhaps.
Big Labor’s only hope for a future is to lobby for a guest worker program and then organize those workers to demand more rights and higher pay.
But they have to make sure that any guest worker program that passes restricts workers rights so there will be a reason to organize later.
Thus endeth today’s conspiracy theory.