An investigation into the visitor logs of the White House show that union bosses and lobbyists have visited the White House 500. No surprise there — the Obama Administration has done everything they can to prop up the union bosses and things promise…
United States attorney Loretta E. Lynch: Hector Lopez turned the union members’ benefits fund into “a personal piggy bank, lining his pockets with the fruits of their labors.” The former boss of an International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) union local in Long Island City, Queens, was arrested on Tuesday and accused of abusing his position through a host of illegal schemes, including taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from a company he contracted to run the union’s health benefits plan, the New York Times reports: Hector Lopez, the former president of Local 8a-28a, which represents metal polishers, sign painters and other tradespeople, set up an elaborate money-laundering operation involving several companies that funneled secret payments to him, according to a 29-page indictment that was unsealed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. In the most serious kickback scheme, Mr. Lopez, 54, is accused of accepting $740,000 over a seven-year period in exchange for guaranteeing one company the contract to administer the union’s benefits fund. The indictment did not name Mr. Lopez’s alleged accomplices or the names of the companies involved.
A union-funded front group Voters First Ohio canvasser was arrested August 14 by the Cincinnati Police Department. Timothy Noel Zureick was booked on 22 counts of signing false signatures and one count of election falsification, both fifth-degree felonies. [stream flv=x:/youtu.be/LlbKaPdacLE img=x:/nrtwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/trumka.png embed=false share=false width=640 height=360 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high…
But Forced Union Dues Can Fix That Richard Trumka has found his purpose. He wants to use his forced-union dues treasury to help solve President Obama’s “white guy problem.” Adding insult to…
But Forced Union Dues Can Fix That Richard Trumka has found his purpose. He wants to use his forced-union dues treasury to help solve President Obama’s “white guy problem.” Adding insult to…
[media-credit id=7 align="alignleft" width="300"][/media-credit]Margaret Thatcher once quipped that the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money. The same can be said for the union bosses -- after taking advantage of so many workers for so long, eventually you run out of people who want to be taken advantage of. That's why it is not surprising to see AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka begging students to become part of Big Labor. Red Alert Politics reports "Trumka practically begged liberal students to join the labor movement in a speech this morning at Campus Progress’ annual national conference in Washington, D.C. 'The American labor movement truly needs you,' Trumka told attendees of the conference." They continue: Trumka tried to explain every which way to Sunday why it would benefit the college students to team up with the teamsters. The union boss even admitted that he could see why unions would turn off young people. “You probably think we’re a bunch of stodgy, old school people with outdated ideas, too interested in what’s good for us and too disinterested in what’s good for the others in our community,” said Trumka. “And I’ll be perfectly frank with you, there’s a grain of truth to that.” Trumka admitted that unions were often seen as self-serving and as slow-to-change institutions, thus young people might not necessarily consider joining a union to be in their best interest.
The Wall Street Journal reports that big labor “spends about four times as much on politics and lobbying as generally thought.” Generally thought? …
Union bosses in Indiana are pressing for a judicially imposed bailout, arguing that the state's new Right to Work Law will reduce revenues to the union since membership is no longer compulsory. The LibertyLawSite looks at the lawsuit and the impact the law has had on job creation in the state: Amidst a series of setbacks at both the ballot box and the court house, the fate of the compulsory union movement may depend in large measure on the outcome of two lawsuits currently pending in Indiana. In early 2012, Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a bill that made Indiana the nation’s twenty-third right-to-work state. Unions have filed two challenges to that law, one each in state and federal court. The outcome of those lawsuits will help to determine whether Indiana remains a right-to-work state and whether other states follow Indiana’s lead. In its first few months of operation, the right-to-work law has, by almost any measure, helped to attract new businesses to Indiana. Indiana has only 2.2 percent of the nation’s population. In April, the first full month after the law took effect, more than one in eight jobs created around the country were created in Indiana – more than in states several times the size of Indiana. According to the state’s economic development arm, almost fifty out-of-state companies cited the right-to-work law as one reason that they were considering opening a location in Indiana.
Peter Schweizer of the Government Accountability Project has discovered that the biggest funder of the Occupy Wall Street movement is receiving millions of dollars from Wall Street. The SEIU has an exclusive deal with Visa that is putting millions into their pockets. Here is the story: With the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and AFL-CIO spending tens of millions on political activism, including the recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, union members might do well to see where the money is coming from. Big unions are morphing into the kinds of big businesses and banks they decry, hawking to their members everything from high interest credit cards to home loans. And contrary to Big Labor’s claims, these products offer no real benefit to union members—only to the union bosses. As the collection of union dues have dipped, union bosses are increasingly looking for ways to bend the revenue curve in their favor by profiting off loans and credit extended to their members. Consider, for example, the "SEIU New Rewards Visa Card" and the AFL-CIO "Union Plus" card. With each new enrollment and subsequent swipe of the card, the union bags a fee and a percentage respectively.