Category: Unions

SEIUs Anna Burger to Retire

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times gave a glowing review of Ana Burger’s career as a most divisive member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). But how could one be less arrogant and pushy than would seem natural for a union that set out to fashion itself an “international” union? Burger, 59, was supposed to be […]

 

Obama’s Favors to Unions

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

The Washington Examiner asks a few substantive questions about unions this Labor Day weekend. Why do they seem to have such an outsized power when their dues paying members are fewer than ever, when they work in fewer industries than ever, and when they have such money troubles? Ah, but the answer is what we […]

 

Majority of Union Members Now Work for Government

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

It is the most important hill that folks interested in good government have yet to conquer and that is the elimination of government employee unions. The Heritage Foundation reports the sad and disgusting news that the majority of union members now work for government, an intolerable situation to say the least. The BLS’s annual report […]

 

A Reminder of What Union Leaders Feel About Our Political System

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

Back in 2007 Andy Stern, the now former President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), attended a forum sponsored by the NDN Globalization Initiative and during the question and answer period after his remarks he said that he was “totally involved in distorting the political system.” Here the president of one of America’s most […]

 

SEIU’s Illegal Fund-Raising Scheme

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, has an interesting expose in the Washington Examiner revealing how the U.S. government has decided to allow an obviously illegal fund-raising scheme that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) invented to fuel its spending on political causes and campaigns. The SEIU has decided […]

 

Violence Soaked AFL-CIO Prez Calls Palin a McCarthyite?

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

For his Labor Day weekend trick, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka leveled the charge of McCarthyism at former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. This is a bit rich from a guy with blood on his hands — and I don’t say that figuratively, either. At a September 2 meeting sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Trumka claimed […]

 

Members of Oregon’s State Employee Unions Get 5% Pay Raises… as Taxpayers Lose Jobs!

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

-By Warner Todd Huston Unbelievable. In Oregon the reg’lar folks are losing their jobs right and left. And the bad luck for those actually paying the bills, the taxpayers, gets even worse because Oregon’s politicians have made sure that the state’s public employees unions get an automatic 5% pay raise starting this Wednesday! 5 percent […]

 

Liberals To Try Their Own National Mall Rally

Posted on by William Teach

This should all end in tears. Or hilarity. Whichever Labor leaders, liberal religious leaders and the NAACP will hold a rally on the National Mall on October 2, one month before the fall midterm elections, in an attempt to show they too have political clout and momentum in response to last Saturday’s massive gathering of […]

 

Calif. Unions Already Spent $14 Million In Elections

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times recently reported that in California unions have already spent $14 million to defeat Republicans in California’s coming elections. This is what any Republican has to face anywhere in the country, though not always at such a high spending rate. The fact is that when Republicans run for office they face not only […]

 

The Arrogance of The Public Employee Union Member

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

In a recent story detailing the efforts of 3,000 postal employee union members marching against USPS management in Detroit, one quote by a union member stuck me as wholly emblematic of the arrogance of government employee union members and it shows the disconnect between the real world and the cushy world of government workers. As […]

 

AFL-CIO Joins Communists, La Raza, ACLU, Other Unions in Voter Registration Drive

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

Looks like the AFL-CIO is no longer even trying to hide the fact that it no longer sports a traditionally American political outlook. The labor union has announced that it is joining a voter registration drive called One Nation Working Together. This coalition is filled with some of the most extremely leftist groups in America […]

 

Now Democrats Want Another $34 Billion to Bailout Teamsters Pension

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

When will Obama’s gifts to unions (at the expense of the taxpayers) ever end? On the heels of a $26.1 billion teacher union bailout, now Democrats are attempting to get Congress to give $34 billion of the taxpayer’s money to the Teamsters because that union has mishandled its pension funds. Senators Robert Casey (D., Pa.) […]

 

Video: How Teachers Unions Abuse Non-Union Teacher Paychecks

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

From the Independent Teachers for Colorado blog… Check out this new Independent Teachers video about what happens when a non-union school employee who is forced to opt out of paying union fees every year misses the deadline because of family medical emergencies: Due to family medical hardships, non-union Pueblo school employee Becky Robertson missed an […]

 

For the Third Time Obama Gives Unions A Break From Transparency Rules

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

The Obama administration and the Democrat Party has yet again instituted new rules to allow unions to get out of having to report their financial doings to the federal government by again rolling back reporting requirements. Obviously as far as Obama is concerned “transparency” is one of those things that only enemies should be forced […]

 

Calif. Teachers Unions Endangering Kid’s Lives

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

-By Warner Todd Huston Reason Magazine explores the appalling situation in California where teachers unions were able to strongarm the legislature to deny teacher training for the use of Diastat, an anti-seizure drug meant to keep kids afflicted with epileptic conditions from dying in school. The drug has been approved by the federal government to […]

 

$26.1 Billion Union Bailout Went to States that Didn’t Need it

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

As I mentioned in a previous discussion on the Democrats $26.1 billion bailout for unions that Speaker Pelosi pushed through Congress at the last minute this summer, there was no need for the money for the stated purpose of “saving teachers” jobs. After all many states still had $30 billion of the previous stimulus that […]

 

Pensions That Exceed Base Pay, Blame Unions

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

For the New York Daily News Eileen Norcross and Todd Zywicki penned a piece taking public employees pensions to task for being “too rich for America’s blood.” Of course, they rightly blame unions and compliant politicians for the disaster. The do, however, give the actual public employees a pass. On one hand you might think […]

 

As Fellows Lose Jobs Union Fights For Stiffer Drug Benefits: Free Viagra

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

Unions have for years been figuring out new ways to screw employers and in Madison, Wisconsin a teacher’s union is looking for yet another way to slam it to the taxpayers by insisting that they get a free Viagra drug benefit. In this bad economy, with states going bankrupt right and left, with teachers being […]

 

AFL-CIO Chief Pleading for Union Support of Dems in Nov.

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

The AFL-CIO plans to spend another $50 million coming to the aid of Democrats during this campaign season for the 2010 midterms. But all is not well in uniondom as many unions are very, very unhappy with various and sundry Democrat candidates across the country. Still, AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka has issued a call to […]

 

Even The Left Getting Tired of Teachers Unions?

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

An interesting article appeared in the Chicago Tribune lamenting the fact that teachers unions are standing in the way of good education for our kids by constantly and in knee-jerk fashion opposing school reform efforts all across the country. Penned by the Tribune’s Leonard Pitts, no arch righty he, the piece scolds teachers unions and […]

 

Good News: Big Money to be Made in Illinois. Bad news: it’s in Government

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

(Just like in nearly every state, the only people getting rich are those working for government…) With recent revelations that the city manager of the small, mostly low-income Hispanic community of Bell, California makes nearly $800,000 a year and that its police chief makes almost $500,000 yearly, the spotlight might be leveled at city employees […]

 

Schwarzenegger Again Orders Furloughs for State Workers

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

California has been ground zero in the war between over paid state employees unions and government budgetary concerns and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has leveled yet another salvo in that battle by again ordering more furloughs for state workers. After ending the previous program to furlough 200,000 state workers the Governor has introduced a scaled back […]

 

SEIU Attacking Fellow Union for Concessions

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

The Engineers and Architects Association, a 48,000 member public employees union in L.A., has come under attack from the politically active Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for having the civic sense to realize that the high times of ever rising pay at the taxpayer’s expense is coming to an end. In a deal about to […]

 

Bought and Paid For Gov. Finds Doing Right Thing Hard

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

The unions in New York have the idea that they own state government. It’s not too easy to deny their claim seeing as how unions (all of them) have been paying the bills and filling the pockets of ruling Democrats for decades now. But Accidental Governor of New York David Paterson is finding himself in […]

 

Teachers Unions Spent $100 Per Teacher on Politics

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

Education Next undertook for the first time an effort to find out how much of their members dues money that teachers unions spent on political action. The results are very interesting. The analysis discovered that, “national teachers unions and their state affiliates spent more than $100 per teacher in five states, with Oregon at the […]

 

AEI: More Unions Means Fewer Jobs

Posted on by Warner Todd Huston

In April Lee Ohanian of the American Enterprise Institute published a paper on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that is a must read. But this month he published a shorter piece that is just as interesting. In it, Ohanian claims that if we increased unionism as the Obamaites want to do, we’d actually lose […]