When Big Labor bullies and volunteers collide; Update: SEIU leader who threatened Boy Scout quits
Scroll down for updates…Balzano and other SEIU executives in Allentown PA quit over Boy Scout thuggery…
Photoshop credit: American Power
My column today provides context for the SEIU bullying of Boy Scouts in Allentown, Pa. As you’ll see, there’s a long history of Big Labor thuggery against volunteers who threaten the union racket. On a related note, be sure to check out the video of Fresno homecare providers exposing how SEIU staff threatened them and changed their ballots to secure a razor-thin advantage in a controversial union election this June. As I’ve been reporting over the last several months, the home health care power grab across the country gives you a glimpse of the SEIU-endorsed Obamacare future.
When Big Labor bullies and volunteers collide
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
The Boy Scouts’ motto is “Be Prepared.” Who knew it meant preparing to defend themselves against Purple-Shirted union thuggery over community service? Kids, pay attention. This is a teachable moment for all of you on power, politics, and Big Labor’s culture of corruption.
Last week at a city council meeting in Allentown, Pa., a top official of the local Services Employee International Union chapter ranted about 17-year-old Scout Kevin Anderson’s park clean-up work. Anderson devoted some 200 hours to the job in order to earn an Eagle Scout badge. He picked up trash and helped clear a 1,000-foot walking path with fellow members of Boy Scouts Troop 301 of Center Valley.
But SEIU’s Nick Balzano gave them hell instead of thanks.
Balzano disparaged altruistic efforts in city parks and asserted that “there is (sic) to be no volunteers” since his union members were laid off. He then issued a witch hunt threat: “We’ll also be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails. We may file another grievance on that.” Citing union rules, he gave the Allentown city council, the Boy Scouts, and all potential volunteers an iron-fisted ultimatum: “None of them can pick up a hoe. They can’t pick up a shovel. They can’t plant a flower. They can’t clear a bicycle path. They can’t do anything. Our people do that.”
That’s right. Balzano was ready to bludgeon the Boy Scout because his gung-ho volunteerism posed a threat to the SEIU labor monopoly. The outrageous display of Boss Balzano’s union protectionism provoked a national furor. SEIU headquarters in Washington immediately blamed “the disreputable Fox News and other right-wing outlets like Michelle Malkin’s accuracy challenged blog” for the backlash. While decrying their critics’ “fiction,” SEIU distanced itself from Balzano, denying that he was a top union leader and dismissing his remarks as “unauthorized.”
Fact: U.S. Department of Labor records from 2008 (their most recent filing), show that Balzano is no rogue, rank-and-file member. He currently serves on the SEIU local’s Executive Board and previously served as president.
Fact: The union tried to minimize Balzano’s grievance threat as “inappropriate.” But the dirty open secret is that public-sector unions have routinely attacked volunteer workers who threaten their stranglehold.
Last June, union officials in Baraboo, Wisconsin filed a complaint against volunteer firefighters who built sandbag barricades to protect the city from record flooding. They whined that city Department of Public Works employees should have been called first and demanded overtime pay (for work they didn’t do) to compensate them.
Yes, kids, the city was knee-deep in water and the government union got mad that other people scrambled to work together in an emergency to put sand in bags, save homes, and help their neighbors. Public-sector unions aren’t about serving the public interest. They’re about serving their people, their power, and their self-preservation.
In Montpelier, Vermont, several years ago, the teachers’ union went after a superstar educator, Bill Corrow. The students, staff, and supervisors at his school loved the social studies teacher and Vietnam veteran. But the Vermont Educators Association hated him because he was a volunteer who did not accept payment for his elective course. Teachers’ unions are all for parents and schoolchildren volunteering their time to engage in political lobbying and power-expanding initiatives on the union’s behalf. But God help the community service-oriented individual with a passion for sharing his knowledge in their classrooms.
In California, union heavies in the Sacramento area sued a non-profit environmental group for using college-age volunteers on a state-funded project to clean up a canyon and build a community trail. Big Labor dusted off an old law to require that community service volunteers be paid prevailing wages for doing the same kind of clean-up that Allentown Boy Scout Kevin Anderson was punished for doing freely. The law was finally repealed, but not without a brass-knuckles fight.
As National Right to Work Committee president Mark Mix, whose group monitors forced union abuses, pointed out during the battle: “Discerning California union bosses’ real agenda…is not hard. Volunteer workers don’t have to pay compulsory union dues to serve their communities, but most paid workers on public projects in California do…[It] is yet another example of how government-authorized compulsory-union dues corrupt the political process and furnish unscrupulous union officials with an enormous incentive to act against the public interest.”
SEIU president Andy Stern in Washington speaks for all of Big Labor when he describes his organizing philosophy: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.” President Obama, who has made national service an administration priority, has been and will continue to be silent about the Big Labor bullies who make public enemies of Scouts with trash bags and hoes.
You see, kids, Obama owes Stern (his most frequent White House visitor) and his union brethren. SEIU alone poured more than $60 million in compulsory member dues into Obama’s campaign and leaned on its workers to “volunteer” to knock on doors, place phone calls, and send out mailers for the Democrat Party. No good deed goes unpunished by union bosses—unless it benefits their political empire.
***
Update: The Morning Call reports that Balzono and other SEIU execs in Allentown PA have quit…
Allentown union official Nick Balzano has been a political punching bag all week because he threatened to file a grievance against the city for allowing a Boy Scout to clear a walking path in a city park.
Three days of taking body blows nationally from conservative pundits, a rebuke from the Lehigh Valley’s congressman and even a lashing from his own union led Balzano to voluntarily resign his position Thursday as head of the local Service Employees International Union.
Balzano said he and seven other executive officers of the local SEIU stepped down.
”I am proud of the work I and the rest of the executive board have done over the years,” he said.
He had ”nothing against Boy Scouts” and was just ”trying to protect my jobs,” said Balzano, who had served as union president for nearly a decade.
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Categories: National Service,SEIU
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Who does he think he is-Anita Dunn?
In case he hasn’t noticed there quite literally millions of illegal aliens doing those things and more for around $8 an hour or less which is probably less than half what his union members would make. But what really bothers him is a lone Boy Scout performing community service to earn a badge. Democrats are so screwed up it is almost impossible to parody them.
No point, they’re doing a fine job of it all by themselves. The only thing to do is sit back and enjoy the show.
communism always starts out as a great theory (equality/needs met) and always ends as imprisonment and suffering. russia built a wall to keep it’s productive people in, cuba has the ocean and people risk their lives daily to get out. china flees to hong kong and now to the u.s. and britain. it’s simple, NO ONE WILL WORK TO SUPPORT HIS NEIGHBOR FOR LONG!
Once when I was a police captain, I saw an officer of mine in a thunderstorm having to close some gates near a processing area. It was one of those chores like unlocking the tennis courts in the morning and raising the flag that doesn’t make it onto cops.
Anyway, it was a terrible downpour and I stopped to help him close these gates to keep him being out in the weather to a minimum. We both of course got soaking wet.
A few days later, I got my thanks. He and the Union had filed a grievance against me. He tried to tell me it was nothing personnel.
I told him to get out of my face or I would break the law myself at that moment.
From my long ago days in collage, I took a “Labor Relations” coarse that defined modern Unions as Corporations who’s Capital is their members labor. It is time for “if it is good for the goose, it is good for the gander.” It is time for Unions to have to follow the same rules as any other privately or publicly held corporation. If not, then allow any privately or publicly held corporation to follow the same rules as a union.
Good article.
So much for Hope, Change and Volunteerism in Obama’s world, especially when the volunteers are not sucking tax dollars and expanding government.
Hope the cheeky lad never needed your support on something critical.
Oh well no good deed goes unpunished.
I’ll never forget the day I got dressed down by a union shop steward for changing out a broken light bulb on my food processing line. Seems that was the electrician’s job. Good luck getting ahold of the electrician when you needed him. That was along time ago, but even then I knew that unions had outlived their usefulness. When I used to play in bands over the years I always got in a tussle with the union hacks insisting they touch my stuff.
Psycho: “And I don’t like nobody touching my stuff. So just keep your meat-hooks off. If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you. Also, I don’t like nobody touching me. Now, any of you homos touch me, and I’ll kill you.”
Hope and Change – I hope the liberals are run out of office and the change from that comes quickly.
I hope we have some change left by the time we run the liberals out of orafice
Precisely – teachers’ unions use their ability to sway parents and the heft of their deep-pocketed dues to wield unprecedented influence on state legislatures.
In KY, all classified employees – substitute teachers, support staff (aides), clerks, secretaries, even janitors and cooks – must not only pay into their own social security but also teacher retirement! This despite the fact these employees receive no added benefits from the certifieds’ plan, and certainly no representative assistance from the union itself.
See the thing is, when barry hussien says “volunteers” he means slaves, as in people who are forced to do the work and are generally miserable about it and will do as little as possible. This Boy Scout was doing this work out of sheer generosity and set to do the best job he could. Can’t have that among the smallfolk ranks showing up the purplebellies, now can we?
—
Limit all US politicians to two terms.
One in office
One in prison
Illinois already does this
Lighten up, Frances.
— Hulka-burger
Shhh…There’s a nearby state park that has “volunteer days” for trail maintance and clean up. Those criminals…
Since the Federal government is “in” on this corruption, does anyone on this thread know if it is possible for state attornys general to collaborate on RICO-style prosecutions of SEIU and similar surrogate criminal/partisan political operations?
The federal justice system is so malfeasant and compromised, it appears that only state governments can counter this lawlessness.
Picking on a Boy Scout for cleaning a park?!? If the union had cleaned it, he would have had nothing to do. What a bunch of thugs! They disgust me.
Did you see where Chicago is losing huge amounts of money because of the unions? This is but one recent story in a local newspaper:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-restaurant-show-nov19,0,7307087.story
Next they won’t let the girl scouts sell cookies. I want my Tag-a-longs now!
Now that I have spit coffee all over my keyboard I will have to call the union housecleaning personnel to come clean it up and the union IT guys to come and ensure there is no damage to the keyboard. Of course I could do this on my own as it would be quicker and easier of course, but I would do it at the risk of possibly having a grievance filed against me.
Unions were a good thing. . .once. Now, they are a bunch of archaic rice-bowl clutching fanatic groups that serve no constructive purpose. Let’s disband the unions in favor of people who volunteer their services for America and want nothing in return.
A loooooonnnng time ago, after I got out of the Navy, I worked at a manufacturing plant for a couple of months as Personnel Secretary. It was a union plant and I worked with the union leaders almost daily on grievances filed by various workers against the big bad owners and bosses.
One day I became the subject of a grievance because I went out to the plant and got a coke 2 minutes before noon (their lunch hour was specifically noon to 12:30). My lunch time was whenever I could grab a bite. They filed a grievance against me for taking a break outside of their break times. I was not a union member, being in management, but I was subjected to being berated and harassed after that. I quit soon after.
I have never forgotten my first taste of union thuggery, albeit non-violent.
Did my Personnel Boss stick up for me? No… didn’t want to upset the union. What a joke.
Perhaps, but public employee unions were always a completely idiotic idea.
Wrong. He still would have had to do it because it wasn’t done right the first time.
Psycho: “And I don’t like nobody touching my stuff.
Lighten up Francis!
Well of course SEIU breaks the law with out fear, the Democrats have granted them immunity and the republicans have not objected ( whether out of fear or agreement? Who knows). You can charge them all you want nothing will be done, by this government….they are going to, as the man said, Kick our A$$…..if they attack me, I will defend myself even though I know I will be the one charged and sent to jail.
Sorry, looks like somebody beat me to the punchline.
Living in Texas which is a right to work state and decidedly NON UNION, I’ve never encountered a union thug in the workplace, but if one ever does mess with me, he’ll be pulling back a bloody stump.
Sometimes I believe we need to fight fire, with fire.
As Rorschach said, you don’t see this kind of thing in Texas… much.
A few years ago SEIU tried to organize illegal alien janitors in Houston, going so far as to handcuff themselves together across a street outside of Houston’s Galleria at rush hour. The police did arrest them, but not some irate Houstonians meted out a little justice of their own.
Union thuggery isn’t tolerated here.
Oops, I meant to say “not before some irate Houstonians” in the last sentence.
The unions don’t even care much about the worker bees they represent (ask a teacher). It’s all about their power and money.
I have a feeling there will be a huge anti-union backlash coming down the pike; it’s started already. Last night on Glenn Beck’s show, he talked about SEIU’s international membership. How would you like to have your job replaced by an SEIU member from Canada or Mexico at half of what you were making? There’s a reason why Obama and Co. are gearing up to shove “amnesty” down our throats.
It’s just breathtaking (in a bad way) to watch Obama and his allies continue to shoot themselves in the foot. If Obama was governing in an admirable way, I would support him, Democrat though he may be. But their determined destruction of the American way of life is beyond outrageous.
Oh oh. My wife and I volunteered to do some trail maintenance at a nearby park which is called something very similar to “Garden of the Dieties”. I hope we don’t get in trouble!
Well done Michelle and all who got these bullies to step down per your update!
L
It used to be prisoners and/or those consigned to performing “community service” would do that as part of their sentence. And there are those who “adobt” a highway or a road to pick up litter. Not any more or the union thugs will come out in force.
Three cheers for Michelle!!!! Thank you, Michelle, for all your hard work!
I don’t buy the story that this Nick Balzano jackass “quit”.
I wonder what his severance package was. Probably a big fat check and benefits for life.
The SEIU is *Already* physically assaulting people for various reasons and seeing no punishment for it. How long before they start killing people?
Okay, here’s my union shop anecdote:
Years ago, I left an IT job at a small company for a job at a very, very large communication company. At small company, we all pretty much did everything. Keyboard sticking or printer jammed? I’d take it apart and repair it. Coffee pot empty? The VP would wash out the pot and make more.
So, at very, very large communication company, I was trying to make copies before a meeting when the copier ran out of toner. In a rush, I asked someone, “Where’s the toner? I need to get this done.”
“Oh, you can’t do that. Call maintenance,” I was told.
“Sure I can. I’ve done it many times.”
“No, you can’t do that. Call maintenance.”
“No need to bother with that. It’s not broken — it just needs toner. I have a college degree. Honest, I can put toner in a copier.”
“No, you aren’t a member of the union. You can’t do that.”
I gave up and used a copier on another floor of the building.
I don’t get it. If, as the SEIU claims, Balzano, is not a union official and this whole thing is nothing more than a right wing smear, why is anybody resigning?
The left is so full of it they can’t even distinguish their own lies from reality. They also think the rest of the country is as delusional as them and nobody will notice. By next week they’ll be claiming the whole story was invented on the internet, Balzano was never in the union and think everybody will believe it. Their side will.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Great job, Michelle!
I bet he has already accepted another head positions in another state, or elsewhere in this state.
What an absolute a$$. I hate liberal Yankees.
I wonder if anyone has interviewed the soon to be Eagle Scout and his troop leader? I’m sure that his future degree will be in law, with a focus on management-oriented labor law.
These crap weasels don’t understand that if the union members haven’t done the work, in all likelihood, they won’t do the work in the future.
Welcome to the alternative universe of D’oh One!
I doubt that Balzano was ever a Boy Scout, with the necessary duties to God, Country, Community and Family, its pride and ethic of work, and sense of purpose.
What is NOT being talked about is how much that same work would have cost the city and how this kind of extortion is bankrupting our cities, states and nation. If you want to save your country, start by dismantling the unions. Any of you union thugs has a problem with that, tough, You can not intimidate some people.
This is very, very scary. The SEIU and ACORN are what nightmares are made of. With Eric Holder and Obama on their side, they are emboldened.
Take pictures, videos. We have to fight them by exposing every wrong thing they do!
More power to the people. Thugs are going to have their come-uppance!
Unions stopped being relevant when the leadership’s power and influence became more important than representing their membership. Just like our elected officials, these thugs collect money from the people they represent and then do everything they can to advance their own positions.
Balzano quit??? For some reason my Friday is a much better day! Hey dude, when you make a guy in Houston’s day your are taking a beating aren’t you? mmm, mmm, mmm
wckelly60 ~ I remember the “janitor strike.”
Idiot college kids and paid union members blocking a major intersection. Totally set up scene to garner media (an police) attention. DISGUSTING!
What a wuss.
Sarah Palin is way tougher than this sissie.
Now, on to Andy Stern…
AlohaGuy,
Rats don’t like the light!
Compare and contrast the SIEU thuggery with this:
DOH! I meant “SEIU thuggery.”
Compare and contrast Balzano with Sarah Palin. “Three days of body blows” did this Balzano weenie in, while Sarah continues to smile and shine as a beacon of light and optimism.
OT
I have not been bale to call my Sens in the last two hours. All circuits are busy message or the “Sen. Voicem Messaging System” enter you VM box number message.
Vicki ~
SEIU motto?
S ~ Steal
E ~ Evade
I ~ Intrude
U ~ Undermine
Even local offices for my sens Lieberman and Dodd are busy or have full VM boxes. Got a email message to fail. Only luck was faxing a letter to the DC offices using a “free fax” website.
I like it, rightwingmom!
Unions are how the lazy, the unethical, and the criminal survive. Without the union, they would have no job, no paycheck, nothing (which is what they deserve).
I’m sure there are honest hardworking individuals out there who are part of a union, but I have yet to meet any of them.
Well I’ll be doggoned. Baraboo is my home town. Never heard about this, but not really surprising. This much I know, if you want to tell those folks they can’t protect their own homes you’d better bring a gun.
My Dad worked for the Local 49′ers heavy equipment operators. My first lesson about that union was my father’s statement, “Unions are a necessary evil.” They once went on strike for three weeks, only for the union to negotiate a 10 cent decrease in their hourly wage. You can’t feed a family of 8 when the union doesn’t pay squat while you strike. They never did one thing for my dad. Heck, they even lost a ton of money with their scam investments and forced my widowed mother to pay exceptionally higher deductibles/premiums for Union health supplemental insurance. That was not in the contract. Union thugs taking members for a ride.
When I was in college in 1990, I got a job as a janitor/maintenance at a local Nissan dealer. I was never told it was a union position, thought only the mechanics fit that category. My first paycheck was a huge shock. They took $300.00 out for initiation fees and another $150.00 for the dues. Back then it was 75% of my paycheck. I walked up to the general manager and told him, “You never said it was a union position. I’d never belong to a union because my Dad was screwed over by them.” He apologized and said no one would work if he told them about union wage rates, deductions and fees. If the mechanics strike, it wouldn’t include me striking but I would have to sit at home penniless while they shut down the shop. Ridiculous.
Lastly, in early 2000 I was called in to the St Paul MN Ford assembly plant for an emergency breakdown of a machine. I knew how to repair the machine, but only the union electricians could do the work while I pointed out what to do. They even screwed that up! They laughed about creating work for themselves, if you know what I mean. SABOTAGE.
Just like cockroaches, shine the light on their activities and they scatter.
When I was in highschool we ran into a similar problem with the school union. We wanted to collect money and fix certain problems in our highschool. Shot down, unions said no way. Job security was at risk.
“Fact: Nick Balzano is with the Allentown chapter of SEIU Local 32BJ”
Good luck trying to find his name anywhere on a SEIU website. I spent a good amount of time yesterday doing that and it is like he does not exist. Maybe they have done some fast deleting of their sites.
If Nicky hadn’t been caught with his audio ACORN’s hanging out the mother ship would still be denying he ever existed.
Hey, Balzano —
DLTDHYITAOTWO!
It’s because of crapweasels like you that I always “look for the union label” and then choose the alternative non-union solution. Invariably, it’s the better and cheaper way to go. Why settle for lose-lose when you can have win-win?
This doesn’t sound “exactly” like New Orleans but boy the sentiment and the results sure seem the same.
It is too bad in so many ways the unions helped to create the US Economic Machine that has made us the envy of the world. And, then lost it all to the Union Bosses, this group of people define the words criminal and greedy. Few if any could withstand a full blown RICO investigation than or now.
That was then, and now is now. I have not seen a “positive” action attributable to a union in at least 50 years. Could it be, oh could it be, that the only labor movement of consequence today is that associated with the rapid Socialist Conversion of the US Government at all levels, Federal, State and Local. Of course one must add the UAW, the latest Union to join those that are unions in a government enterprise/bureaucracy.
PC is Thought Control
LEE
There have been quite a few of these type bullying activities. One where the fat woman kicked over the bags of trash. Another one involved Boy Scouts cleaning up a river (the environment) and union-types objecting! Disgusting.
I’m sure that Hitler would’ve said the same thing about the Jews if he had made it to Nuremberg…and don’t try throwing any of that lame “Godwin’s Law” crap at me.
Unions. The perfect landing spot for guys who do not possess the balls to make it on their own.