Right to Work laws prohibiting the termination of employees for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union are sound policy. No worker should be fired for supporting a union, and no worker should be fired for refusing…
In the Golden State, union bosses proudly wield their monopoly-bargaining and forced-dues privileges, and seem to have everything they want. They control lopsided majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. Statewide officeholders from Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown on down…
Looks like Mexico also has Big Labor Kingpins as well. From Forbes’ Kenneth Rapoza: Elba Esther Gordillo. Mexican Teahers’ union Kingpin..(Photo credit: Wikipedia) Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the…
In Michigan, UAW Boss Bob King admits that the overwhelmingly voter rejected Big Labor sponsored “Proposition 2” was an attempt to modify the state constitution to prevent Right to Work freedom from ever coming to Michigan. From Jack Spencer at…
"There is no legitimate purpose of labor law served by making a criminal who maliciously discloses someone's name and social security number together to intimidate that person into joining or not joining a union liable to only a wrist slap at most. Especially when a perpetrator of the same offense with any other motive faces a multi-thousand-dollar fine for every count. "The court ruling that ITPA violations by union bosses are preempted by the NLRA is, therefore, preposterous. "But ID theft need not become yet another, to borrow the words of eminent 20th Century American legal scholar Roscoe Pound, 'wrong' labor unions and their officials may 'commit to person and property . . . with impunity.' "In an essay penned back in 1958, this former Harvard School of law dean observed that labor union officials 'now stand where the king . . . stood at common law.' "Over the past five-and-a-half decades, Big Labor has acquired even more legal immunities. But Fisher could prove to be a great opportunity to begin rolling back court-created union special privileges."
Investor’s Business Daily editorializes about how the federal government is ripping off taxpayers to pay $100,000+ salaries to union officials who do no work whatsoever for the government. This scam, which is especially maddening at a time when the U.S.
[media-credit name=” ” align=”alignright” width=”150″][/media-credit]From the November 2012 issue of the Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch: Battle Plan of the Shadowbosses: The strategy to unionize government employees who aren’t government employees By Mallory Factor with Elizabeth Factor (PDF here)…
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.
Shikha Dalmia of Reason looks at big labor's effort keep Michigan a second rate economic state through a series of referendums on the statewide ballot next month: We've seen Gov. Scott Walker's battle in Wisconsin and the Chicago Teachers Union strike next door. Now in Michigan comes another Midwestern political showdown that will carry enormous implications for the role of unions in American life. [media-credit name=" " align="alignright" width="300"][/media-credit]The Michigan Supreme Court recently approved the placement of a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot. If passed by voters, the so-called Protect Our Jobs amendment would give public-employee unions a potent new tool to challenge any laws—past, present or future—that limit their benefits or collective-bargaining powers. It would also bar Michigan from becoming a right-to-work state in which mandatory union dues are not a condition of employment. The budget implications are dire. Michigan public unions began pushing the initiative last year, shortly after Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder—facing a $2 billion fiscal hole—capped public spending on public-employee health benefits at 80% of total costs. This spring, national labor unions joined the amendment effort after failing to prevent Indiana from becoming a right-to-work state. Bob King of the United Auto Workers said that Michigan's initiative would "send a message" to other states tempted to follow Indiana's example. The UAW, along with allies in the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters, poured $8 million into gathering 554,000 signatures—some 200,000 more than needed—to put Protect Our Jobs on the Michigan ballot.