SEIU: Evidence Against Card Check
by Bret JacobsonAccording to the Wall Street Journal, a rival union to the Service Employees International Union is alleging the purple juggernaut “with changing ballots and threatening to report a worker to immigration officials,” which “experts say the feud is a costly and embarrassing distraction for unions as they lobby Congress to pass” legislation known as card check, which would allow for intimidation of workers.
BigGovernment.com has more on SEIU here and TheTruthAboutEFCA.com adds:
Don’t forget the long list of recent allegations against SEIU that directly relate to the fight over card check: accused of intimidation, threatening employers, muscling other unions and their own members, and making demonstrably false claims about EFCA, just to name a few. See more here.
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46 Comments
All those sheep in purple shirts! They look so proud of themselves. They will soon regret the day the donned those shirts for their rights when they realize they've lost their freedom. Paying dues to stay mediocre, so sad.
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Unions have no place in a modern society with such amenities as OSHA, child labor laws, federally mandated minimum wage…
The SEIU is the modern pimp. They take their cut by posturing between the employer and employee.
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historically, unions fought to get us these "amenities"
what entity will keep big business interests from lining the pockets of politicians and eroding them without unions?
i await your response.
"card check, which would allow for intimidation of workers"
union reps are elected from within. so it is important to know the each candidate rep's history and voting pattern.
how would you like it if your senator's vote were a state secret?
Careful now, B-Daddy is the head Pimp and the SEIU is the thug he uses to beat down the ho's with, you dont want B-Daddy thinking that the SEIU is making a move on his territory.
Check out George "evil is fun" Sorros and his SOS initiative, then couple that with ACORN voter fraud, and SEIU beatdowns, and Working Families Party prosecutors that fail to punish said beat downs.
If Soro's and Podesta have not committed sedition they are skating awfully close to the edge, of course with Holder in office the criminals are running the show for the time being.
There's lots of reasons why the amenities are here to stay:
1) OSHA isn't going anywhere. They are good guidelines, and most employers don't like to waste money on worker's comp claims. A good employer will strive to make its workplace a safe one, so they'll save money. Buying new safety gear is much cheaper than out-of-court settlements for negligence that leads to employee injury. It somewhat self-regulates. An employer that is seen as unsafe will lose employees, and ultimately go out of business.
2) Child-labor laws are on the books. Unions themselves don't even fight for this anymore, because they won that battle so long ago.
3) The minimum wage is never going to go down, because politicians like to get re-elected. (Also, I can't think of a single job that even pays minimum wage. Fast food joints maybe? I've worked entry-level retail, and even they paid $1-2 more than min wage.)
Maybe I'm being an idealist, but no one sticks a gun to anyone's head and says "You must work here." If an employer seeks to erode these laws, that employer isn't going to have any employees. If a politician is taking lobbying money from big corporations who seek to erode these laws, that politician is going to be seeking other employment himself, come election time. Companies that are good to their employees grow. Companies that exploit their employees, absent government intervention, fail.
Purple Peter Eaters acting like Idiots!
Hey look! It’s the purple people giving the international sign of the nitwit …geh…durrr….
May I answer your question with a question?
what entity will keep big business interests from lining the pockets of politicians and eroding them without unions?
What entity will keep big union from lining the pockets of politicians and eroding them?
Both sides play this game to gain political advantage. Neither side is without fault in this game. The politicians are the ones who gain.
Lining politicians pockets? Seriously? SEIU was and is the single largest donor to Barack Obama's campaign and the Democrat majorities in Congress. Oh, and SEIU's leader, Andy Stern, visited the White House more than any other individual in the first 6 months of 2009. Get your facts straight before you starting spewing your union/progressive talking points.
"laws are on the books"
laws are not written in stone. whatever laws are currently in place to protect the worker can and will be changed. it doesn't matter how much blood and sweat it took to get the laws enacted, or how long ago they were put in place. all it matters is how today's politicians view the matter. and if big business and lobby $$$ run unopposed and unchallanged, guess who's ear they will have?
"The minimum wage is never going to go down, because politicians like to get re-elected."
due to inflation and rising CPI, the minimum wage goes down every year a vote for an increase (or "adjustment" is not specifically passed. this is how they cop-out, and minimum wage has effectively declined for years.
"If an employer seeks to erode these laws, that employer isn't going to have any employees. "
if they succeed in eroding the laws, no other employer will have to follow the same rules. by exploiting the workers for less rights,lower pay, and benefits they will drive out of business those employers who choose to provide significantly more than the newly eroded law allows.
so in the end, you just end up with a bunch of lousy laws for workers,and a bunch of lousy companies that stick to those lousy laws.
it's a race to the bottom.
"Get your facts straight before you starting spewing your union/progressive talking points. "
my facts are completely straight. i never claimed SEIU and labor movement didn't lobby. What I did say, if you actually take the time to read my comment, is that if you take labor out of the picture, congress will ONLY have big business and corporate voices heard.
and that, to me, is not a good thing.
Hey … it's the Free Lunch crowd !!!
Gee is this the same SEIU that is curently going around and beating up citozenns who ask questions about health care? Or is it the same union that is part of ACORN the on going criminal gang that is trying to fleece America and every other country on the planet now. Or is it the union that buses union members aroundtthe country getting involved in politcal issues while ignoring their responsibilty to the peole they represent. Or is it the union ewho's boss is staying at the White House most weeekends helping Obama create a socalist state! Oh that's right it all the same union.
These are nothing but thugs that will not stop their violenece and criminal activities until we make them. We the people. The politians are all holding thier hands out for the cash. Campaign bribes so they won't stop them. They are even willing to prosecute the thugs who are caught on tape beating up people. How much longer do we wait before we return the violence on those who do it and condon it? I don't know but if SEIU wants to start a fight with me i hope they have good insurance cause they'll need it. Wake Up ameirca! Acorn and all of the sister organizations are crinaml enterprises, demand that your state prosecute them! Force an investigation of the corruption. Wake Up!
SEIU could CARELESS about it's members-they are indoctrinated to "think" they are there to help them! They ONLY use their members as a means to an end. They are asone poster put it-pimps! They take there fair share of union dues whether or not you are a member. It's called "association fees," only difference is you don't get to vote on contracts etc. AT FIRST-ONCE they "gain entrance" into a facility they are hard on the employer. Then-they start working with the employer! I am a former SEIU member, and since I have not been able to work- they have lost their income protection days(about 2 days a year), in case you are sick paid. They have gone from 3rd day sick pay to 5th day. And, loss of work hours will affect how many vacation days they get. This is your crappy SEIU! But, they make sure they get their dues(employees really don't get a raise-SEIU does!).
But companies exist to make money. If Company A exploits their workers, union or not, the employees will quit. Without employees, A can't make widgets to sell, and in a public company, the stockholders will demand changes occur to keep the business running, and in a private company, it'll go bankrupt. Whereas Company B keeps the workers happy, pays them well, and retains them. The profit margins are higher because there's low turnover, less need to train new employees, because the employees they haver are experienced, and a happy employee makes better widgets than an employee who is distracted by persecutorial chief executives.
No one will exploit workers unless there's a profit in it, or unless the workers allow themselves to be exploited. Workers don't need unions to be empowered. If they are exploited, they can leave and seek employment elsewhere, they can file a formal complaint using their company's mechanism for doing so, or they can become whistleblowers and contact the media. Despite unionization, nothing changed in the meat-packing industry until Sinclair published The Jungle.
Laws can be changed, but it's not unions that keep that from happening. It's voters. Lobbyists try to affect change without a vote, and a union is just a lobby by another name.
Nathan, I've had this exact same argument with Scott, and he's just copying his same arguments, he never acknowledges the truth of what you are saying. I even went so far as to tell him there's many beaurocrats, organizations (non-union) and even the lawyers that would not let these laws be unenforced or repealed. As an employer, I am not forced (yet) to give my employees medical and dental insurance, I do it because I have good employees and want to keep them, even in a rotten economy, our employees are highly valued. Scott always says it will be a race to the bottom without the unions, but he forgets that there's a lot of very ethical and good employers out there, especially in the small busines world.
"If Company A exploits their workers, union or not, the employees will quit."
not if company B,C,D, …, Z have the same policies. imagine if overtime pay laws were shot down for non-exempt workers. for the average company not named Google or Microsoft, they simply could not afford to continue to pay time and a half when all their competitors are not. All it takes is one company to drop benefits, and the others must to remain competitive.
also, especially in cyclical market downturns (such as this one), your assumptions are not sound. in some towns, people are lined up a couple hundred deep for a couple positions at wall mart. this begs exploitation of the worker, and the worker has no choice to accept whatever the employer dishes out.
"Laws can be changed, but it's not unions that keep that from happening. It's voters"
voters elect people based often on broad platforms that may or may not align with their view or priorities of fair labor practices. unions act on issues, specifically labor issues. for as long as there are strong big business influence in washington, i think it is important to have an opposition group.
i can see where you are coming from, but i am not there.
If company A drops time and a half, many employees will seek a job at B, C, D…. Company A will lose its experienced staff, and it will no longer be competitive, despite the decrease in overhead costs. Business competition happens on several fronts, and only one of them is pay grade.
In downturns, people may be lined up for one open position. It's life, and unions can't help with that. If there is no need for 10 new hires, it hurts the company to hire 10 new people. Forcing a company to hire more people (as unions have done in the past) may help the new workers, but it ultimately hurts the company. By mandating X new workers, or X % pay grade w/o commensurate % increase in productivity leads to higher overhead, and less profit. Profit is used for business growth, and without growth you end up hopefully with stagnation, but more often than not, shrinkage. Shrinkage leads to layoffs, which leads to bad press, which leads to consumer boycotts, which leads to dead company A.
I do agree that unions were useful at one time. However, that time is past. It's like steam-powered locomotion. It served us excellently during the last half of the 19th century. We learned from it, improved it, and now we have internal combustion jet engines, and steam powered locomotion is relegated to the museums.
The fact that we don't need unions anymore is a testament to their past success. But now, as they're becoming more corrupt, more apt to use strong-arm tactics and lobbying practices to achieve their ends– it's time to get rid of them.
we are arguing past each other.
it is my position that companies will race each other to the bottom as quarterly profits are of their main concern. the overhead of keeping a worker benefit may very well outweigh in the long run a lower paid, marginally less qualified worker.
this is evidenced by massive layoffs as the economy tanks, and a surge in (re)hiring as it recovers. Even (especially?) in white collar, technical engineering positions, where spin up and training is (in my mind) the highest.
but these are all theory. my main question is, who will stand up to big business to preserve erosion of worker's benefits. apparently your answer, if i understand correctly is:
* Elected politicians. But very rarely if ever are specific labor conditions a high priority in national elections, considering abortion, war, taxes, health care, etc, and the fact that if you were to be rid of labor lobby, big business would have their ear once elected, unopposed.
* The companies (big business themselves). But i find it dubious as they are pushed to post/beat quarterly profit targets, that employee happiness and retention would be very high on the list of priorities. I mean, "they" do in general actively fight minimum wage increases whenever they come up. "They" do in general fight additional government regulations when ever they come up.
again, we are arguing past eachother.
If elected politicians aren't standing up for what the electors want, it is our duty as voters to elect someone who will. It doesn't require unions to bend the ear of politicians. Voters do that by calling their representatives' offices, and in the voting booth. Change won't happen immediately, but they in DC will get the picture eventually.
If I had my druthers, corporations wouldn't lobby either. But as an employee of a company, if my employer pushed for fewer restrictions on how far they could exploit me, I could either seek other employment, or grumble silently and put nose to grindstone until the recession ends. In other words, I can either complain about the problem and do nothing, or I can do something to better my situation.
How 'bout this scenario: A company's employees all decided that they deserved more pay, even though their product wasn't selling as well as it had in the past. The company was forced to give them what they asked for, and its profits sank. Without profits to expand the business, they had to start laying off people. It was a choice between pay cuts, and layoffs, and it was clear that pay cuts were unacceptable. Layoffs happened, and people went to the bread lines. Meanwhile, Company B gave employees a choice: Across the board pay cut of 10%, from the CEO on down to the night janitor, or an indefinite number of layoffs. The employees chose the pay cut, every one kept their job, and while they had to cut down on flat screen tv purchases and 5 star dining, they survived.
Which is the preferable scenariofor the worker, and which one would unions fight for?
"Which is the preferable scenario for the worker, and which one would unions fight for?"
things are rarely that black and white in practice. but i think your answer is, "it depends", most likely on the profitability and success of the company in question.
unions agreeing to pay cuts to save their jobs (and the company) is certainly far from unheard of. common place, actually these days…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/new-york...
what if, purely in the interests of bettering your situation, you instead organized with your friends and co-workers and like minded folks to inform politicians and try to affect legislative action against what you feel to be unfair or exploitative?
what if you brought up your concerns in a staff meeting with your fellow workmates backing you up?
see where i am going with this
there are more options than just quitting or grinning and bearing it.
fair enough. agree to disagree, with mutual respect.
cheers,
scott
I know exactly where you're going with that. But at what point does it quit being about your job, and begin to be about weilding political power?
Nothing's wrong with organizing ad hoc meetings with your coworkers to get better situation at work. But why pay dues for the privilege?
Interesting picture there. If they just open their palms….. http://www.strongisrael.org/no_confidence/nazi%20...
I know, it's a stretch, but it is kind of interesting.
has anyone noticed that these seiu thugs most of them are was over weight ?
SEIU is not interested in their members. SEIU is about power and having it over their members and others. SEIU is about money and getting bigger. SEIU is using their members for their own self-serving purpose and agenda.
It may be time for the Justice Department to take a deep look at SEIU. Just like the Justice Department took a long look at the Teamsters years ago.
Just speaking to the women in the picture…and no one else…perhaps they should lobby for a few treadmills instead.
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"it's a race to the bottom."
Bullsh!t. But of course as a Lefty you know nothing of economics, and therefore don't understand why it's bullsh!t.
Christ, how did libs ever get the ridiculous idea they were the smart ones?
Purple is such a silly color for these thugs.
They don't look so tough to me.
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JEMC50-You are very right in your statement! One of my former co-workers who was a union steward at the time, was let go by our former employer. She was well within her rights due to set time limits. She was asked to take care of someone else and stated she did not have time to do so. And, that others needed help as well. In short we were always short staffed/understaffed after feeding time(residents/nursing home). The union did not stand behind her and get her job back. The union barely helped her into trying to get unemployment compensation. She had worked there almost 30 years. My former employer is very good at denying unemployment compensation to anyone. I know they have a high buck 200+ hour attorney as well. That’s OK-though as my work comp lawyer is re-opening my cases from 15 years ago. I am on SS disability-it doesn’t look good for them. They best bring their checkbook!
Christ, thats where all the ugly people are.
Unemployable, bad backs, faking injuries, looking for a hand out, scum of the earth.
God don't like lazy people.
Filth, all of them.
BOBPDX How ignorant are you??? Do you know that nurse’s, nursing assistant’s, emt’s have a HIGHER RATE of bodily injury (lifting other people continuously) than construction workers? They are just tossed aside by their employer like “trash.” There is NO SHORTAGE healthcare professionals-just USED ONES who are no longer able to work in that profession. That is a GOVERNMENT STATISTIC. I worked over 15 years legally disabled until 2 summers ago. I had to have surgery or otherwise I would be paralyzed. ALL OF THIS-as a result of working in the healthcare industry. Believe ME-the healthcare industry is BROKE! IN more ways than one! Personally-I will NOT let my daughter take ONE STEP into that profession to work. Over My Dead Body! My daughter, said-don’t worry MOM I won’t work that hard! You STOP- lifting babies when they weigh 30-40 POUNDS-what in the hell are you doing lifting adults? NOT SAFE! DON’T DO IT!
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