ACTION ITEM: Block Card Check By Fiat

Card check is looking dead at the ballot box because politicians know it makes for terrible politics. But President Obama’s administration is turning to clever, quiet regulatory efforts to push through Big Labor’s agenda — and the first item on the agenda is today’s hearing for the man who would impose card check by fiat.

What can you do? Call your Senator now (202-224-3121) to oppose Craig Becker for the National Labor Relations Board.

Why: Today’s hearing is for Craig Becker, a top SEIU and AFL-CIO lawyer who hates that employers can talk to their employees about little things … like union dues, unions punishing employees who don’t picket, things like that. BG blogger Rick Manning has noted previously:

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Tags: Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board
Posted Feb 2nd 2010 at 12:17 pm in Big Labor | 6872638 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bjacobson/2010/02/02/action-item-block-card-check-by-fiat/ACTION+ITEM%3A+Block+Card+Check+By+Fiat2010-02-02+20%3A17%3A46Bret+Jacobson

Transforming the U.S. Department of Labor to the Department of Organized Labor

In their first year in office, the Obama Administration has re-made the U.S. Department of Labor into the Department of Organized Labor, working hard to make certain that those who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to put them in office get a return on their investment.  While many dismiss the importance of the Department of Labor, virtually every person in America is directly touched by the rules and regulations that this federal bureaucracy creates and enforces, so changes at the top have real consequences for every working American.

As we evaluate the impact of the past year on the nation’s workforce, it is worthwhile to remember the accomplishments of President Bush’s Secretary of Labor, Elaine L. Chao.

When Secretary Chao left office, workers were safer in their workplaces than at any time in history, the Labor Department was focused upon encouraging private sector job creation, and created an enforcement environment that successfully protected workers from employers who egregiously violated the law while providing the necessary education to limit inadvertent violations.

Secretary Chao put an emphasis on clarifying workplace regulations to make it easier for employers to know the rules of the game.  Her efforts led to overtime requirements being more clear-cut for employers while explicitly guaranteeing overtime protections for blue collar workers, police and fire fighters, EMTs, construction workers and others.

The Labor Department under Secretary Chao brought transparency to the spending of Big Labor through regulations which for the first time shined a light upon labor union expenditures.  These reports revealed the massive labor expenditures supporting ACORN’s efforts,and were used by LA Times reporter Paul Pringle in his Polk Award winning series that brought down the SEIU powerbrokers in the California SEIU.

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Tags: ACORN, AFL-CIO, Andy Stern, Big Labor, Boston Big Dig
Posted Jan 20th 2010 at 12:17 pm in Big Labor, Economics | 6196268 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/rmanning/2010/01/20/transforming-the-u-s-department-of-labor-to-the-department-of-organized-labor/Transforming+the+U.S.+Department+of+Labor+to+the+Department+of+Organized+Labor2010-01-20+20%3A17%3A17Rick+Manning

Senate Sends ACORN’s Rathke Endorsed NLRB Nominee Back to Obama

Rather than carryover National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nominee and current AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union lawyer Craig Becker until next year like most of president Obama’s nominees, the U.S. Senate sent a message back to the President about his nominations. While not a severed horse head in his bed … it is like the canary in the coal-mine.

Right after the Becker nomination, The National Right to Work Committee posted this President Obama Personnel Alert video regarding Becker (link here) along with the Committee’s Becker Alert report (link here).

The report highlights the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Founder Wade Rathke’s ringing endorsement of Obama’s Becker nomination. Rathke wrote, “Here’s a big win no matter how you shake and bake it: Craig Becker being nominated for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)!”

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Tags: collective bargaining, Craig Becker, forced union dues, home healthcare workers, Keith Kelleher
Posted Jan 5th 2010 at 4:49 pm in ACORN, Big Labor, Justice/Legal, Obama | 5564293 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dloos/2010/01/05/senate-sends-acorns-rathke-endorsed-nlrb-nominee-back-to-obama/Senate+Sends+ACORN%E2%80%99s+Rathke+Endorsed+NLRB+Nominee+Back+to+Obama2010-01-06+00%3A49%3A39Don+Loos

Proft: Blago-Quinn-SEIU Scam Exposed

Dan Proft, Illinois gubernatorial candidate, released the following Thursday:

The plot thickens — as in SEIU’s pay-to-play plots in state government, including its most recent naked power grab: Its repugnant effort to intervene between children with disabilities and their parents by making home health care workers for disabled children in Illinois a closed shop.

In an editorial on President Obama’s nominee to head the National Labor Relations Board, the Wall Street Journal shines a light on Craig Becker, an associate general counsel at SEIU whose career is traced back to Gov. Rod Blagojevich:

One of the many accusations leveled against former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is that he accepted money from the SEIU in return for taking actions giving collective bargaining rights to Illinois home health-care workers. While Mr. Becker denies any knowledge of, or role in, contributions to the former Governor, he does admit that he provided “advice and counsel to SEIU relating to proposed executive orders and proposed legislation giving homecare workers a right to organize and engage in collective bargaining under state law.”

Gov. Pat Quinn picked up where Blagojevich left off when he issued Executive Order 09-15, which allows SEIU to try to takeover the Home-support Services Program. It is worth noting that Quinn is relying on SEIU’s political muscle and campaign cash in his campaign for governor.

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Tags: ACORN, Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board, Pat Quinn, Rod Blagojevich
Posted Oct 16th 2009 at 7:15 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama, Politics, State Politics | 1695821 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/krasmussen/2009/10/16/proft-blago-quinn-seiu-scam-exposed/Proft%3A+Blago-Quinn-SEIU+Scam+Exposed2009-10-16+14%3A15%3A18Kristina+Rasmussen

ACORN’s Ally at the National Labor Relations Board

Today’s Wall Street Journal has this story about an Obama appointee to the NLRB:

One of Big Labor’s priorities in Washington is to place allies in key government jobs where they can overturn existing labor policy without battles in Congress. This is a very good reason for the Senate to hold a hearing on the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Mr. Becker is associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is most recently in the news for its close ties to Acorn, the disgraced housing shakedown operation. President Obama nominated Mr. Becker in April to the five-member NLRB, which has the critical job of supervising union elections, investigating labor practices, and interpreting the National Labor Relations Act. In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, Mr. Becker argued for rewriting current union-election rules in favor of labor. And he suggested the NLRB could do this by regulatory fiat, without a vote of Congress.

Yet now that he could soon have the power to act on this conviction, Mr. Becker won’t tell Congress if this is what he still believes. In written responses to questions from Republican Orrin Hatch, Mr. Becker promised only to “maintain an open mind about whether [his] suggestions should be implemented in any manner.” That sounds like his mind is made up but he won’t admit it lest it hurt his confirmation.

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Tags: ACORN, Barack Obama, Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board, NLRB
Posted Oct 15th 2009 at 7:50 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama, Politics | 1671021 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/10/15/acorns-ally-at-the-national-labor-relations-board/ACORN%27s+Ally+at+the+National+Labor+Relations+Board2009-10-15+14%3A50%3A55Publius

ACORN’s Unseen Victims, Its Own Workers

You’d think for $53 million in federal funds — not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars from left-wing foundations — over the years, ACORN would be able to pay its own employees well. It turns out that while their employees have been caught treating taxpayer funds like trash, their own bosses have the same opinion of them.

The Washington Post, in a post mid-mortem of ACORN, took a moment to look at the group’s record as an employer and highlighted the group’s 2003 incident of busting a union drive by its own employees:

According to an NLRB case accusing ACORN of unfair labor practices, “field organizers were expected to work long hours each week — 54 hours — and were paid at a salary of $16,000 annually until January 2001, when the salary was raised to $18,000.”

The NLRB documented a high turnover rate for ACORN employees: In 2000, far less than 10 percent of Dallas office employees stayed in the job for six months, and “most did not even complete their training period, but quit within a few days or weeks of being hired,” according to the NLRB.

During the Clinton administration, the Labor Department accused ACORN arm Citizens Consulting Inc. of failing to pay workers overtime.

But wait, there’s more! There was ACORN suing to exempt itself from the minimum wage in California and repeated stories of it failing to pay its employees on time (see example):

It’s most ironic that ACORN has spent decades creating unions and telling everyone else how much to pay in “living wages” only to act as some sort of caricature of a bad boss from a 1920’s sweatshop.

Somebody, unionize ACORN! They deserve the union they get.

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Tags: Citizens Consulting Inc., Labor Department, mininum wage, National Labor Relations Board, President Clinton
Posted Sep 20th 2009 at 9:42 am in ACORN, Big Labor | 557045 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bjacobson/2009/09/20/acorns-unseen-victims-its-own-workers/ACORN%27s+Unseen+Victims%2C+Its+Own+Workers2009-09-20+16%3A42%3A43Bret+Jacobson

ACORN’s Lawless Ways

ACORN is not only a radical organization devoted to undermining the American system of government: It is a massive, ongoing criminal conspiracy that should be investigated for possible violations of federal racketeering laws.

With a long history of lawbreaking that is finally getting media attention, the poverty pimps of ACORN are currently in retreat across the nation, and an upcoming voter registration fraud trial may reveal embarrassing information that disrupts the operations of the embattled radical activist group. This is in addition to the undercover child prostitution sting videos revealed in recent days on this website.

The testimony will come soon from former ACORN Las Vegas field director Christopher Edwards. Charged with election fraud by Nevada’s Democratic attorney general, he cut a deal last month with prosecutors and has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 17.

ACORN stands accused of enforcing voter registration quotas with its employees and offering bonuses for extra registrations. Nevada law forbids the use of such incentives on the theory it encourages canvassers to file fraudulent registrations. No wonder: ACORN registers “Mickey Mouse” and various celebrities, out-of-state residents, and dead people, every election cycle.

As part of the plea deal, Edwards, whom state investigators consider to be the mastermind of the incentive program, has agreed to testify against former regional director, Amy Busefink, and against ACORN, which is a co-defendant. The Las Vegas Sun reported that Edwards acknowledged he conspired with Busefink and ACORN to create the “Blackjack” incentive program that gave canvassers an extra $5 for submitting 21 or more registration cards each day. The daily quota was allegedly 20 forms.

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Tags: ACORN 8, Amy Busefink, Amy Schur, Bertha Lewis, Christopher Edwards
Posted Sep 14th 2009 at 9:05 am in ACORN | 197066 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvadum/2009/09/14/acorns-lawless-ways/ACORN%E2%80%99s+Lawless+Ways2009-09-14+16%3A05%3A18Matthew+Vadum