SEIU in Bed With Wall Street

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.
Why Illinois is Going Broke

Why Illinois is Going Broke

The Chicago Tribune has published a remarkable editorial about the depth of coercive unionization has taken hold among government employees in the state: Across the country, union membership has plunged during the last few decades. Just 6.9 percent of the private-sector workforce is in a labor union today. Organized labor is stronger in the public sector, with unions representing 37 percent of the government workforce. And then there is Illinois. Try to find a state worker who isn't in a union. It's almost impossible. Nearly 96 percent of the state government workforce is unionized. Yes, almost everybody. Bosses, middle managers, front-line workers. Gov. Pat Quinn exacerbated the situation by cutting an election-year deal in 2010 with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The deal guaranteed union workers would not be laid off through June 2012. That meant nonunion workers got stuck with forced furlough days, layoffs and no pay raises. In some cases, they watched the union employees who worked beneath them pass them up on the pay scale. (Recall that, as the ink was drying on this agreement, AFSCME rewarded Quinn with its election endorsement. Don't you love coincidences? Those moments when like-minded people find one another?)
NRTW Lawyers Win Big at Supreme Court; SEIU & Big Labor Lose Another Forced Politics Scheme

NRTW Lawyers Win Big at Supreme Court; SEIU & Big Labor Lose Another Forced Politics Scheme

National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys lead by W. James Young fought to stop SEIU abuses of Dianne Knox and her fellow employees right not to be compelled to "subsidize a [SEIU] political effort designed to restrict their own rights."  The U.S. Supreme Court 7-2 Opinion written by Justice Alito sets back another Big Labor easy political money scheme right before the 2012 elections.  This decision should lead to new challenges to Big Labor's compulsory actions in the future. Two of the Justices, Breyer and Kagan, who opposed the right of individuals to voluntarily spend their own money on politics in the Citizen United case, both supported the notation that unions could compel people to unwillingly support politics that they oppose. From the Opinion: .... When a State establishes an “agency shop” that ex- acts compulsory union fees as a condition of public employment, “[t]he dissenting employee is forced to support financially an organization with whose principles and demands he may disagree.” Ellis, 466 U. S., at 455. Because a public-sector union takes many positions during collective bargaining that have powerful political and civic consequences, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 48–49, the compulsory fees constitute a form of compelled speech and association that imposes a “significant impingement on First Amendment rights.”
NRTW Lawyers Win Big at Supreme Court; SEIU & Big Labor Lose Another Forced Politics Scheme

NRTW Lawyers Win Big at Supreme Court; SEIU & Big Labor Lose Another Forced Politics Scheme

National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys lead by W. James Young fought to stop SEIU abuses of Dianne Knox and her fellow employees right not to be compelled to "subsidize a [SEIU] political effort designed to restrict their own rights."  The U.S. Supreme Court 7-2 Opinion written by Justice Alito sets back another Big Labor easy political money scheme right before the 2012 elections.  This decision should lead to new challenges to Big Labor's compulsory actions in the future. Two of the Justices, Breyer and Kagan, who opposed the right of individuals to voluntarily spend their own money on politics in the Citizen United case, both supported the notation that unions could compel people to unwillingly support politics that they oppose. From the Opinion: .... When a State establishes an “agency shop” that ex- acts compulsory union fees as a condition of public employment, “[t]he dissenting employee is forced to support financially an organization with whose principles and demands he may disagree.” Ellis, 466 U. S., at 455. Because a public-sector union takes many positions during collective bargaining that have powerful political and civic consequences, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 48–49, the compulsory fees constitute a form of compelled speech and association that imposes a “significant impingement on First Amendment rights.”