Big Labor continues to demand more from you taxpayers

Big Labor continues to demand more from you taxpayers

A New York State law that determines arbitration awards for unions threatening to strike for more taxpayer money bases its outcome on the government's "ability to pay." With taxpayers footing the bill, Big Labor always seems to win greater benefits and pay -- all at the cost of taxpayers' "ability to pay" more.  From the New York Post's Nicole Gelinas: Last week, a set of arbitrators gave a union, covering Staten Island and Queens bus workers, the same generous contract that a different arbitration panel awarded to the Transport Workers Union three years ago. It’s a bad sign for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) future — including its near future, because the TWU contract is up again. At the heart of the problem is a gaping flaw in the state’s supposedly tough Taylor Law — namely, the way it forces the MTA into binding arbitration. New Yorkers don’t hear much about the 45-year-old Taylor Law unless transit workers are threatening to strike. But the law does much more than prohibit public workers from striking or threatening to strike, more even than imposing penalties for illegal strikes. It also orders that, when public unions and their employers can’t agree on contracts, “disputes over wages and other contract clauses shall be submitted to [so-called] impartial recommendations so that government workers will not be shortchanged by administrators chronically lacking funds.”  Basically, unelected bureaucrats give other bureaucrats raises.] A state panel, the Public Employment Relations Board, makes those recommendations. And, for the MTA, the law directs that these “recommendations” are binding — so, even if arbitrators devise a horrible deal, taxpayers are stuck.

Government Union Bosses Challenged in Arizona

Government Union Bosses Challenged in Arizona

But Big Labor-Appeasing GOP Legislators May Block Reform Measures (source: National Right To Work Committee April 2012 Newsletter) Arizona has had a Right to Work law on the books for over six decades. And it has no statewide statute handing union officials monopoly-bargaining privileges over state and local government employees. Nevertheless, today many government union bosses in Arizona enjoy special privileges you might expect to find only in notorious Big Labor stronghold states like neighboring California. For example, in Phoenix, as columnist George Will pointed out last month, taxpayers fork over $900,000 annually to pay for the compensation of police union officials as they "work exclusively performing undefined union business, including lobbying . . . ." Mr. Will, citing the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, added that all six of the top officers of the union "derive full pay and benefits from the city, although each is assigned full time to the union -- and each is also entitled to 160 hours of annual extra-pay overtime." So-Called 'Meet-and-Confer' Schemes: Monopoly Bargaining in Disguise

Michelle Malkin: Obama’s Big Labor ethics loophole

[stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D8ia-l1RASG8 img=x:/img.youtube.com/vi/8ia-l1RASG8/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=350 height=250 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false /] Michelle Malkin highlights the non-existent ethical standards applied to Obama Big Labor politcal appointees like  SEIU/AFL-CIO lawyer Craig Becker who Obama appointed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): Everything you need to know about President Obama’s fraudulent ethics pledge can be summed up in four words: SEIU lawyer Craig Becker. It’s no surprise that Becker now refuses to hold himself accountable for the ethics pledge he himself signed in April. As the past two years have taught us, Team Obama’s operational slogan is: Rules are for fools. The contractual ethics commitment states: “I will not for a period of two 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.” Yet, Becker has participated in numerous NLRB cases involving the SEIU and its affiliates — and is parsing the definition of “former employer” by arguing that local SEIU chapters are “separate and distinct legal entities” that don’t fall under the ethics rules. The National Right to Work Foundation, which has fought both national and local SEIU officials in court on behalf of rank-and-file workers’ rights, eviscerates Becker’s lawyerly blather. SEIU’s own constitution considers local affiliates “constituent subordinate bodies” of the national union, the foundation notes. “Moreover, in 2009 over 85 percent of the SEIU’s receipts came from a per capita tax on the locals’ membership dues and fees. The national union even has the power to assume control over its locals if they do not conform to International policies.”

New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

Government Union Monopolists Have Brought State to Brink of Ruin (Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) From 1999 to 2009, according to the U.S. Labor Department, New Jersey's private-sector employment fell by 2.4%, a percentage decline seven times worse than the national average. Over the same period, New Jersey's state and local public employment jumped by a whopping 15.2%, substantially more than the hefty-enough nationwide increase of 12.5%. For most hard-working Garden State workers and employers, these statistics sum up why New Jersey is in even worse shape, economically, than the nation as a whole. For years, the state's heavily unionized public sector has been sucking resources and vitality out of beleaguered private-sector employees and businesses. But for government union officials, the relentless expansion of the Garden State's public-sector employment from 1999 to 2009, even as the state's private-sector employment alternately stagnated or shriveled, is a magnificent achievement that must be preserved and built upon, whatever the cost. During his successful campaign for the state's highest executive office and since he was inaugurated in January, GOP Gov. Chris Christie has sided with the vast majority of New Jerseyans who appreciate that state and local government must now be rolled back to give the private sector room to grow.

New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

Government Union Monopolists Have Brought State to Brink of Ruin (Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) From 1999 to 2009, according to the U.S. Labor Department, New Jersey's private-sector employment fell by 2.4%, a percentage decline seven times worse than the national average. Over the same period, New Jersey's state and local public employment jumped by a whopping 15.2%, substantially more than the hefty-enough nationwide increase of 12.5%. For most hard-working Garden State workers and employers, these statistics sum up why New Jersey is in even worse shape, economically, than the nation as a whole. For years, the state's heavily unionized public sector has been sucking resources and vitality out of beleaguered private-sector employees and businesses. But for government union officials, the relentless expansion of the Garden State's public-sector employment from 1999 to 2009, even as the state's private-sector employment alternately stagnated or shriveled, is a magnificent achievement that must be preserved and built upon, whatever the cost. During his successful campaign for the state's highest executive office and since he was inaugurated in January, GOP Gov. Chris Christie has sided with the vast majority of New Jerseyans who appreciate that state and local government must now be rolled back to give the private sector room to grow.