Unions: Forever War

You’re hoping for another 1994, eh? Well, you’re not going to get it if D.C.’s biggest union bosses have their say — and they don’t just have a say, they have a checkbook to put where their mouths are. And both words and munitions are taking on an overtly combative tone.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

The AFL-CIO plans to roll out its biggest political campaign ever, surpassing the $53 million spent in 2008 to help elect President Barack Obama, to try to avert a repeat of the 1994 midterm election when Democrats lost a majority in Congress.

If that sounds a bit aggressive, that’s nothing compared to the powerful head of the AFSCME public employee union, who is saying “The time has come to draw a line in the sand…Regardless of your party affiliation, if you’re not with us, you are against us.”

(We’re pretty sure we’ve seen other people get hammered for using the same language, but we digress…)

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Tags: AFL-CIO, AFSCME, mid-term elections, political contributions, union dues
Posted Mar 3rd 2010 at 9:01 am in Big Labor | 83210123 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bjacobson/2010/03/03/unions-forever-war/Unions%3A+Forever+War2010-03-03+17%3A01%3A19Bret+Jacobson

Proxy Access: The Obama-Dodd-Alinsky Shareholder Jujitsu

What would Saul Alinksy do?

In the wake of defeats for the Obama administration last month both with Scott Brown’s stunning Senate victory in the bluest of blue states and the Supreme Court Citizens United decision that will let thousands of groups speak more freely about candidates positions’ in the 2010 elections and beyond, that’s the question President Obama and his allies are probably asking. It’s also the question that proponents of limited, constitutional government and free enterprise must be asking in order to anticipate the organized Left’s next moves.

Alinksy was the father of left-wing community organizing. He wrote the book Rules for Radicals and other primers, which explained to would-be leftist organizers how to “search out controversy” and “fan the latent hostilities.” Seeing the world as a never-ending conflict between the “haves and have-nots,” Alinsky wrote In Rules for Radicals that “in war, the end justifies almost any means.”  One community organizer who took Alinsky’s words to heart was a young Barack Obama, who worked for an offshoot of Alinsky’s network of organizations in Chicago in the 1980s. Throughout his career, according to the Washington Post, Obama has “embraced many of Alinsky’s tactics.”

And one tactic in Alinsky’s arsenal dovetails almost perfectly with Obama’s new focus on so-called “financial reform” and his bashing of Wall Street to score political points. One of Alinsky’s most important rules for radicals was that “you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.” In this case, the “moral garment” is the supposed interest of shareholders.

Obama and Democrats are pushing legislation they claim would empower average investors against powerful corporate executives. They propose requiring a shareholder vote on everything from CEO pay to – in a move to limit the freedoms in the Citizens United decision — companies’ weighing in on political candidates.

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Tags: ACORN, AFSCME, Alan Hevesi, Barack Obama, Barney Frank
Posted Mar 1st 2010 at 7:01 am in Economics, Justice/Legal, Politics, Regulation | 8211854 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jberlau/2010/03/01/proxy-access-the-obama-dodd-alinsky-shareholder-jujitsu/Proxy+Access%3A+The+Obama-Dodd-Alinsky+Shareholder+Jujitsu2010-03-01+15%3A01%3A30John+Berlau

Union Bosses Target 86-Yr Old Volunteer Crossing Guard

First, they came for the Babysitter.  Then, they came for the Eagle Scout.   Now, they’ve come for the Crossing Guard.

Warren Eschenbach, an 86-year-old a retired Wausau Water Works employee volunteers his time as a crossing guard at the Riverview Elementary School in Wausau, Wisconsin.  After the Wausau School District built an area just outside an intersection at the school’s location for parents to pickup their kids from the school, the intersection became busier than usual for a short time every day.  So, Eschenbach did a noble thing.  He went over to the school and spoke with parents, kids and administrators, and he volunteered to patrol the area at pickup time to make sure kids got to their parents’ cars and that others crossed the streets safely.  After all, he worked for five years as a crossing guard at the Franklin Elementary School up until three years ago.  He lives two doors down and it’s for a half hour every day.  Who could take issue with that?

Well, apparently union bosses can.

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Tags: AFSCME, American Federation of State, and Municipal Employees, County, crossing guard
Posted Feb 11th 2010 at 6:59 am in Big Labor, News | 73510182 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/libertychick/2010/02/11/union-bosses-target-86-yr-old-volunteer-crossing-guard/Union+Bosses+Target+86-Yr+Old+Volunteer+Crossing+Guard2010-02-11+14%3A59%3A36Liberty+Chick

Obama NLRB Nominee Craig Becker’s Smoking Gun?

Contact Your Senators NOW and Urge them To Vote No on Radical Craig Becker’s Nomination.

The Senate is scheduled to vote TODAY on the nomination of radical union apologist Craig Beck to the National Labor Relations Board.

It’s vital you contact your Senators IMMEDIATELY to help derail this out of control union lackey from being on this board.

You can find your Senators direct lines through this link.

One recent piece of evidence to add to the growing Becker rap sheet:

In last week’s U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, Obama nominee Craig Becker clearly tried to put distance between himself and his former client ACORN:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Becker this question:

“Do you perform work for and provide advice to ACORN or ACORN-affiliated groups while employed by your current employers or on a volunteer basis?”

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN affiliate, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT
Posted Feb 9th 2010 at 12:04 pm in ACORN, Big Labor, Congress | 72654143 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dloos/2010/02/09/obama-nlrb-nominee-craig-beckers-smoking-gun/Obama+NLRB+Nominee+Craig+Becker%E2%80%99s+Smoking+Gun%3F2010-02-09+20%3A04%3A54Don+Loos

Unions Make Obama An Offer He Can’t Refuse

It’s amusing to watch President Obama try to stick it to his friends in organized labor by proposing a tax on union-negotiated health care benefits.

If it weren’t for the fact that the tax proposal would have a  devastating effect on the American economy, the situation would be downright hilarious.

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President

On Monday, a group of top leaders from the American labor movement gathered at the White House to share their concerns with the president.

The irony of the discussion was delicious. During the campaign, Obama and the Democratic Party (including the unions) attacked John McCain for suggesting that health care benefits should be taxed as income.

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Tags: AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Andy Stern, Anna Burger, Big Labor
Posted Jan 13th 2010 at 8:28 am in Big Labor, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 5901068 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/01/13/unions-make-obama-an-offer-he-cant-refuse/Unions+Make+Obama+An+Offer+He+Can%27t+Refuse2010-01-13+16%3A28%3A43Kyle+Olson

Obama’s Labor Department Ignores His Executive Order– The Ethics Pledge

Outrageously, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis and other DOL Obama appointees appear to have blatantly disregarded the President’s Executive Order #13490 – the Ethics Pledge.

According to a report by the National Right To Work Committee, Solis and several other appointees gave themselves unilateral waivers on the two-year moratorium in direct conflict with President Obama’s two-year mandate:

Revolving Door Ban [for] All Appointees Entering Government.  I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.

The White House Press Office

Solis’ only publicly available signed ethics pledge is provided by Olga Pierce and Christopher Weaver at Propublica.  National Right To Work reviewed it and other ProPublica provided ethics pledges. It is clear that other DOL appointees followed Solis’ lead and granted themselves ethics waivers in conflict with the presidential order.  The report identified Deputy Secretary Seth Harris, Assistant Secretary Phyllis Borzi, Assistant Secretary T. Michael Kerr (SEIU & AFSCME), and Assistant Secretary Jane Oates.

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Tags: AFSCME, Department of Labor, DOL, executive order, Executive Order #13490
Posted Jan 8th 2010 at 9:17 am in Big Labor, News | 5668250 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dloos/2010/01/08/obamas-labor-department-ignores-his-executive-order-the-ethics-pledge/Obama%E2%80%99s+Labor+Department+Ignores+His+Executive+Order%E2%80%93+The+Ethics+Pledge2010-01-08+17%3A17%3A18Don+Loos

21.1 Million Reasons Big Labor Pours Money into ObamaCare

The bosses of Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME), Andy Stern and Gerald McEntee, know that ObamaCare will hurt the very workers that they claim to represent.

But, it appears that they just don’t care!

These two union bosses who stand to gain the most power under ObamaCare are spending hundreds of millions of forced union dues promoting ObamaCare. A government run health insurance program is an SEIU and AFSCME “membership net” designed to eventually complete the capture of 21.1 million forced-dues paying government workers.

It is clear that Big Labor is banking on the probability that all healthcare workers eventually become federal, state, and municipal healthcare employees.

According to SEIU’s numbers submitted to the Obama transition organization (The National Heath Care Workforce Enhancement Initiative, 12/3/2008), public sector labor bosses like Stern and AFSCME’s Gerald McEntee have 21.1 million reasons to support ObamaCare. After the November election, Stern’s SEIU submitted the following health occupation numbers to Rahm Emmanuel et al. at Obama, Inc.:

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Tags: AFSCME, Andy Stern, Big Labor, forced dues, Gerald McEntee
Posted Jan 7th 2010 at 8:21 am in Big Labor, Healthcare | 5650679 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dloos/2010/01/07/21-1-million-reasons-big-labor-pours-money-into-obamacare/21.1+Million+Reasons+Big+Labor+Pours+Money+into+ObamaCare2010-01-07+16%3A21%3A13Don+Loos

Hijacking the Private Sector, the SEIU and Blago Way

The current state of the economy has placed a large burden on private business, especially on small businesses and the self-employed. Subscribing to a Keynesian tenet of financing debt and increasing government spending to boost output, lawmakers are repeatedly giving themselves cover for splurging.  After the first bailouts came the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, an urgent remedy that Congress and the White House insisted was all about “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”

And as spending has increased, so has the size of the public employment sector. Meanwhile, the private sector will soon be close to earning a coveted placement on the endangered species list.

As the union leaders’ plundering of the private sector has continued, this doesn’t mean that they have abandoned unionizing private sector workers altogether.  In fact, while the number of private sector jobs overall is down, the number of unionized private sector jobs is trending upward, right alongside the public sector growth.

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Tags: ACORN, AFSCME, Andy Stern, Anna Burger, Blagojevich
Posted Jan 2nd 2010 at 6:07 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Economics, Featured Story, News, Politics | 54326157 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/libertychick/2010/01/02/hijacking-the-private-sector-the-blago-way/Hijacking+the+Private+Sector%2C+the+SEIU+and+Blago+Way2010-01-02+14%3A07%3A12Liberty+Chick

SEIU and the Law of Intended Consequences

SEIU has made a good living off the law of unintended consequences.  Or so the labor union would have you think. The reality is, there’s nothing unintended about the consequences they reap.  And when it comes to local, state and federal lawmaking, SEIU banks on the propensity of the American people to respond to emotion rather than logic, and orchestrated concern that becomes a popular mantra.  Even some SEIU members (those brave enough to say so) plead for the public to investigate the union’s true intentions. But if you’re just an average citizen disengaged from the issues, before you know it, you’re ignoring the consequences staring you right between the eyes.

This past September Lisa Snyder, a 35 year old Michigan mother,  made the news when she received a disturbing letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services.  In it, the letter warned her that she was in violation of the law.  Her offense?  Watching a handful of neighborhood kids  each morning for about 20 minutes as they waited at the end of her driveway for the school bus to arrive, with the blessing of their parents. State law in Michigan prohibits the home supervision of unrelated children for more than four weeks in a year without a child care provider license.  Turns out a neighbor had complained and the Michigan Department of Human Services, the watchdog for home child care licensing, intervened by sending the warning letter.  In Michigan, state employees for the DHS are represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union.  Coincidentally, the union that represents the state’s home child care workers?  Also the UAW.

AFSCME: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
FCC: Family child care   |   FNN: Family, friend and neighbor
” Building a Union of Family Child Care and FFN Providers”
by SEIU & AFSCME members to the National Women’s Law Center

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Tags: AFSCME, Andy Stern, Blago, California Nurses Association, Child Care
Posted Nov 24th 2009 at 6:11 am in Big Labor, News, Politics, State Politics | 3569045 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/libertychick/2009/11/24/seiu-and-the-law-of-intended-consequences/SEIU+and+the+Law+of+Intended+Consequences2009-11-24+13%3A11%3A43Liberty+Chick

Illinois Home Health Care Workers to SEIU, AFSCME: Nope.

Illinois’s home health care workers have rejected an attempt to unionize providers under the auspices of SEIU and AFSCME. From CBS Chicago:

Illinois workers who are paid by the state to care for severely disabled people in their homes have voted down an effort to unionize.

More than 3,000 home health care workers mailed in their ballots this month; the ballots were counted on Monday and most of those workers voted not to join a union, according to Alan Symonette, an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, which counted the vote.

The workers could have voted to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees or the Service Employees International Union, but more than half of them voted to remain non-union.

Michelle Malkin has the vote totals:

SEIU – 293 votes
AFSCME – 220 votes
NO UNION – 1018 votes

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Tags: AFSCME, Evergreen Freedom Foundation, Gov. Pat Quinn, home health care workers, SEIU
Posted Oct 20th 2009 at 6:01 am in Big Labor, News | 1806235 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/krasmussen/2009/10/20/illinois-home-health-care-workers-to-seiu-afscme-nope/Illinois+Home+Health+Care+Workers+to+SEIU%2C+AFSCME%3A+Nope.2009-10-20+13%3A01%3A06Kristina+Rasmussen

From the Archives: ACORN Corruption Runs Deep

In what obviously was part of a concerted effort, former President Bill Clinton appeared recently on Sunday’s Meet the Press to discuss – wait for it – the “real” forces behind President Obama’s falling poll numbers and increasing opposition:

Former President Bill Clinton says the right-wing conspiracy that attacked him during his presidency now is after President Obama.

Democrats–no strangers to major scandal–do not hesitate to divert attention away from the corruption and “pay to play” tactics being exposed or simmering just under the surface. Clinton deliberately inserted himself into a critically important national debate and thereby unwisely opened the tomb of similar scandals, potentially more explosive than his unwise dalliances with Monica Lewinsky.

For most of the 1990’s, the White House, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Citizen Action and ACORN’s Project Vote were embroiled in what would become known as “Teamstergate.”

That scandal involved disgraced former union crusader and Teamster national president Ron Carey. According to New York Times Archives:

Three of Mr. Carey’s campaign aides have pleaded guilty to a web of illegal fund-raising schemes, including having the union donate $735,000 to three liberal grass-roots groups for a get-out-the-vote effort during the 1996 Congressional elections. In return, those groups and their supporters were to channel money to Mr. Carey’s re-election campaign…

Insisting that he delegated decisions on political gifts, Mr. Carey repeatedly denied knowing about the large donations to the three liberal groups: Citizen Action, Project Vote and the National Council of Senior Citizens.

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Tags: ACORN, AFSCME, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Carol Moseley Braun
Posted Oct 11th 2009 at 2:00 pm in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama, Politics, State Politics | 15474109 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amoncrief/2009/10/11/from-the-archives-acorn-corruption-runs-deep/From+the+Archives%3A+ACORN+Corruption+Runs+Deep2009-10-11+21%3A00%3A23Anita+MonCrief

2010 Census Still a Boondoggle for the Left

While there may have been a collective sigh of relief across America after the news that the Census Bureau severed ties with ACORN, it made me wonder who other Census partners were.

In short, ACORN or not, the 2010 census will be an organizing tool for the American Left.

Here is a partial list of other census partners, according to the Census website:

AARP

A. Phillip Randolph Institute

AFL-CIO

American Federation of Government Employees

AFSCME

American Federation of Teachers

Coalition of Labor Union Women

Coalition of Black Trade Unionists

Community Action Partnership

Families USA

International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Labor Council for the Latin American Advancement

League of Women Voters of the United States

National Black Justice Coalition

National Council of La Raza

National Education Association

Pride at Work

Rainbow Push Coalition

Service Employees International Union

Southern Coalition for Social Justice

United Workers Workforce Alliance

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Tags: AARP, ACORN, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers
Posted Oct 10th 2009 at 9:09 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama, Politics | 14966112 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/10/10/2010-census-still-a-boondoggle-for-the-left/2010+Census+Still+a+Boondoggle+for+the+Left2009-10-10+16%3A09%3A58Kyle+Olson