Union bosses in Ohio and Washington, D.C. are – oddly enough – opposed to the sensible government union reforms in Ohio’s Senate Bill 5. Exactly how opposed? Combine yesterday’s cash and in-kind numbers from the Ohio Secretary of State with the figures from July, and you’ll see that unions have sunk more than $28 million into the campaign against Issue 2.

Out of $30.5 million dollars given to We Are Ohio since the union front group was created this spring, the overwhelming majority is directly from union bosses standing to lose power over Ohio taxpayers when Issue 2 passes. It’s been expensive convincing Ohioans that government union reform will destroy the middle class and return Ohio to the days of Jim Crow laws. Who has contributed the most to “We Are Ohio’s” dishonest smear campaign?

• Ohio Education Association (state NEA affiliate): $5.87 million
• AFSCME (D.C.) $3 million
• National Labor Table (D.C.): $3 million
  
• AFSCME Local 11: $1.94 million
• National Education Association  (D.C.): $2 million
• Communications Workers of America (D.C.): $1.5 million
  
• AFL-CIO (D.C.): $1.5 million
• AFSCME Local 4: $1.46 million
• Ohio Federation of Teachers (state AFT affiliate): $1.26 million
• SEIU 1199 (New York): $1 million
• SEIU 1199 (Ohio): $1 million

It’s also worth noting that more than $100,000 of the non-individual Ohio contributions are from the Ohio Democratic Party, and nearly every individual donor who lists a profession is a union rep. This could prove donors’ selfless dedication to the happiness of Ohio government employees (taxpayers and cruel “mathematics” aside)… but that isn’t what my past few months of Ohio Education Association research would suggest!

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You may recall that there has been an e-strike going on at the Huffington Post since March. In union parlance, a strike means, if you honor unions, you should not cross a picket line—even an e-picket line.

According to the Newspaper Guild (part of the Communications Workers of America):

In addition, we are asking that our members and all supporters of fair and equitable compensation for journalists join us in shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company.

Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line.

As a reminder, the company with the “unprofessional and unethical practices” that the union is referring is Huffington Post—Arianna Huffington’s website that AOL purchased in a $315 million boondoggle—you know, the one that “unfairly” exploits bloggers and children as young as 13.

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….Well, actually, it’s feces and other objects like “nails, glass, cinder block, spikes, feces, clubs, rocks, screws, or puncture devices of any kind, or other object or debris…”

On Friday, a judge in New Jersey granted Verizon some relief from its striking unions by granting an injunction against International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 827–one of the two unions that has pulled 45,000 union members out on strike.

While injunctions are often issued during strikes when there are instances of mass picketing and the blocking of entrances and exits, the New Jersey injunction is somewhat unusual in that it also specified the aforementioned feces.

According to the Toms River News, NJ Supreme Court Justice Marybeth Rogers ordered that there should be no vandalism, violence, harassment, obstruction, intimidating, threatening, blocking, or trespassing. (more…)

It’s only been a few days since 45,000 CWA and IBEW members walked off their jobs at Verizon, however, incidents of harassment, sabotage, and illegal picketing have already begun to pile up.

On Tuesday, Verizon obtained an injunction in Pennsylvania and filed for one in Delaware “to prevent ‘illegal’ and ‘reprehensible’ strike activities such as keeping managers out of buildings.”

In one deplorable incident, a foul-mouthed IBEW member in New Jersey put his young daughter in front of a Verizon truck turning into a driveway as he berated the driver using expletives.

[Language Warning]

[Note: After this video of an IBEW striker using his daughter as a roadblock was posted and began circulating the internet, it was removed by the user.]
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This Wednesday, Congress will have its first chance to look under the hood of the proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T. The Senate will hold a hearing on the deal, featuring representatives from AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Cellular South, the Communications Workers of America, and Public Knowledge.

The hearing is a kabuki dance of sorts because, though the Congress plays an important oversight role, it has no formal part in approving (or not) the acquisition.  That job rests with the FCC and DoJ.

While no one knows if, when, or in what form the resulting approval will look like (if approval in fact occurs), the hearing will help all sides begin to put forward their best PR case to the American public.

I believe that the acquisition – though complex and challenging for policymakers – will benefit the public interest.  Yes, it will pare the market down by one, resulting in three major nationwide providers.  But the market will remain effectively competitive.  Consumers will benefit through the roll out of new and better mobile broadband services from a stronger AT&T.  And this will in turn spur direct competition from the major and regional wireless players, as well as in services that are considered substitutes.

But, as the existence of the hearing reveals, the acquisition is not a done deal.  Many questions abound, which Congress and the American public have a right to know about.

So, if I were a Senator sitting up on the dais – one who could see consumer benefit as a result of this acquisition – what top five questions would I want answered?

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It seems Arianna Huffington has something in common with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker: They’ve both incurred the wrath of the Left. You may remember barely a month ago when, following Arianna Huffington’s $315 million sale of her website to AOL, a group of unpaid artists demanded their “fair share” of the pie. Arianna refused to negotiate—wouldn’t budge, in fact—so, the artists went on strike. Shortly afterward, the Writers Guild (an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America) called on the (paid and unpaid) writers and bloggers at Huffington Post to honor the e-picket line by withholding their work.

Well, the e-strike Huffington Post has failed—miserably.  Progressive bloggers have refused to honor their union brethren’s picket line. Apparently, “solidarity(!)” only goes so far outside of Madison’s city limits, which Ms. Huffington clearly knew when she dared progs to follow the union’s lead and honor the e-picketline:

“The idea of going on strike when no one really notices,” Huffington said. “Go ahead, go on strike.”

At first, it seemed as though Huffington and her fellow capitalists corporate heads had the union and the unpaid bloggers beat. However, on Tuesday, the unpaid bloggers did something that so many Americans do when they feel aggrieved…they filed a lawsuit. (more…)

There’s an internal war going on in one of the Communications Workers of America’s largest locals, New York City’s Local 1101.  Accusations of poor, absentee leadership has caused a group of rank and file stewards and chief stewards to start a campaign to reform the local. Now, the issues have involved the CWA International in Washington, which has placed a monitor over the local due to an investigation’s findings that revealed the local’s union bosses have been fattening themselves on their members’ dues.

CWA Local 1101 has nearly 7,000 members—most of whom work for telecom giant Verizon, as well as a handful of other companies. In 2010, local 1101 took in over $5.3 million in dues and agency fees. In addition, because New York is not a right to work state, Local 1101 is legally permitted to charge its members 1.9% of their pay as a condition of employment. If they don’t pay, the union can order them to be fired. As such, some members pay over $1400 per year in union dues to enable the local’s officers to rake in over $150,000 a year in compensation.

This is, perhaps, one of the reasons the local membership is up in arms over the alleged financial improprieties of a number of the local’s officers [via Labor Notes]: (more…)

Net neutrality supporters have long argued that institution of “open internet” rules is critical for job retention and creation.  However, according to some opponents of the proposed policy, a study released on Friday by Entropy Economics undercuts that assertion—just as much discussion in the political world is re-centering on the topic of job creation and as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) continues to move closer to a decision on controversial, proposed net neutrality rules.

The study, entitled “What Would Net Neutrality Mean for U.S. Jobs?”  analyzes comments submitted by companies within the Internet industry to the FCC as of January 15, 2010.  It excludes those submitted by trade associations, individuals, and academics, and breaks commenters down into two categories: Supporters and Skeptics.  It also attempts to exclude “non-U.S. employees of foreign-based Skeptics” but includes “any foreign employees of Supporters.”

The results are bound to unsettle net neutrality advocates: Even with the filtering out that Entropy conducted, Skeptics—many of whom have expressed concern about the negative ramifications of net neutrality on their businesses— employ nearly ten times the number of employees that Supporters do.  More specifically, Skeptics directly employ 1,440,021 workers, whereas Supporters directly employ just 148,936 workers.

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With the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set to make a decision on proposed net neutrality rules later this year, the fight between supporters of the controversial policy and its opponents continues to heat up.

Yesterday, a group of minority and women’s organizations reportedly called on the FCC to give serious consideration to the impact that net neutrality could have on what has been termed the “digital divide”—the widening of which, opponents argue, constitutes a potential unintended consequence of the policy, and one which has become a primary focal point of net neutrality critics’ concern.  In a letter and a proposal to the FCC, the groups—which include minority organizations that have previously spoken out regarding the net neutrality issue such as the Asian American Justice Center—have asked for a field hearing and workshop addressing the topic.

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On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission will consider “a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on policies to preserve the open Internet.” That’s a long way of saying that the FCC, led by Julius Genachowski, Obama’s old friend from Harvard Law School, will take its first steps towards forcing through net neutrality, a controversial policy that critics say would amount to a government takeover of the internet.

 
Internet Service Providers—the ones who have actually invested in the architecture and infrastructure that enables us all to access the internet—have long been opposed to net neutrality, as have conservatives and libertarians concerned about maintaining free markets and promoting innovation and quality service.  
 
But, with concerns that the FCC might now act to push net neutrality through, some voices less traditionally associated with opposition to the policy are speaking out regarding the proposed rulemaking, too.  In fact, a number of Democrats and groups typically aligned with the left—the online component of which has long treated net neutrality as a top three policy objective—seem to be feeling less than warm and fuzzy about increased government intervention with regard to the internet.

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