The Washington Post just issued an email news alert to their subscribers. Did a national leader die? Did war breakout? Did a natural disaster occur? No. The breaking news was that the District of Columbia had fired 241 teachers…
California Union Bosses, Marijuana Dealers Embark on Joint Effort (Source: June 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) From 1999 through 2009, the U.S. population increased by nearly 28 million. And, as dietary scolds often remind us, the average American is eating more all the time. Since 1996, purveyors of "medical" marijuana have generally been able to ply their trade in California without worrying about the cops. But now forced dues-hungry UFCW union bosses are hot on their trail! Credit: Monkey Muck blog Nevertheless, the number of U.S. grocery workers under union monopoly-bargaining control fell sharply over the past decade -- from 666,000 to 531,000, or 20%, according to the respected, Washington, D.C.-based Bureau of National Affairs. How could the empire of grocery (overwhelmingly, United Food and Commercial Workers, or UFCW)
Big labor bosses hate outsourcing of jobs to the private sector, unless they are the ones doing the outsourcing. In order to get union protestors on the streets, the unions have been hiring non-union labor to “march around…
Without fear of stating the obvious, the Weekly Standard looks at how the Obama Administration have given labor union bosses the keys to the White House.
In Traditional Big Labor Stronghold, Union-Only PLA's Under Fire (Source: July 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) If you want to make a Massachusetts taxpayer shudder, just say the words "Big Dig." Onetime "Big Dig" enthusiast Charlie Baker is touting his opposition to union-only PLA boondoggles as he campaigns for the Massachusetts governorship this year. Bay State voters may conclude: "Better late than never!" Credit: John Tlumacki/Boston Globe For years now, the "Big Dig," officially referred to as the Central/Artery Tunnel Project, has been widely recognized as a poorly constructed, extraordinarily expensive boondoggle. The "Big Dig" tunnel system was conceived in the 1970's to replace Boston's aging elevated six-lane Central Artery and improve access to Logan Airport and Boston Harbor. In 1987, Congress voted to furnish federal taxpayer funds, and ground was first broken in 1991. To the dismay of independent construction employees and firms and Right to Work advocates, Massachusetts politicians announced that the "Big Dig" would be subject to a union-only "project labor agreement" (PLA). Construction firm owners who wished to bid on the project, whether unionized or union-free,
In Traditional Big Labor Stronghold, Union-Only PLA's Under Fire (Source: July 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) If you want to make a Massachusetts taxpayer shudder, just say the words "Big Dig." Onetime "Big Dig" enthusiast Charlie Baker is touting his opposition to union-only PLA boondoggles as he campaigns for the Massachusetts governorship this year. Bay State voters may conclude: "Better late than never!" Credit: John Tlumacki/Boston Globe For years now, the "Big Dig," officially referred to as the Central/Artery Tunnel Project, has been widely recognized as a poorly constructed, extraordinarily expensive boondoggle. The "Big Dig" tunnel system was conceived in the 1970's to replace Boston's aging elevated six-lane Central Artery and improve access to Logan Airport and Boston Harbor. In 1987, Congress voted to furnish federal taxpayer funds, and ground was first broken in 1991. To the dismay of independent construction employees and firms and Right to Work advocates, Massachusetts politicians announced that the "Big Dig" would be subject to a union-only "project labor agreement" (PLA). Construction firm owners who wished to bid on the project, whether unionized or union-free,
Union-Label Academics Inadvertently Scrub Excuse For Forced Dues Union bosses like AFL-CIO czar Richard Trumka and Service Employees International Union czarina Mary Kay Henry have long cited a bogus rationale for forced union dues. Now even Big Labor admits it's phony. (Source: July 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Under both federal and state law, union officials have always had the option to negotiate "members-only" contracts with employers that do not affect the terms of employment of workers who do not wish to join or pay dues to a union. But from the early 1960's until recently, Big Labor rarely if ever tried to exercise its members-only option. Current Law Authorizes Monopolistic Unionism Instead, union organizers have focused their efforts on imposing monopoly bargaining on all the employees in a so-called "bargaining unit." (The National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, vaguely defines a "bargaining unit" as "a group of two or more employees who share a 'community of interest' and may reasonably be grouped together for collective bargaining purposes.") Monopoly bargaining in the private sector is authorized and promoted by both the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Railway Labor Act (RLA), and in the public sector by numerous state laws. Under monopoly bargaining, employees lose the individual right to bargain for themselves
'Electronic' Voting Would Facilitate 'Card Check'-Style Abuses Three of the four current NLRB members who were appointed or reappointed by President Obama are veteran union lawyers. All three are expected to vote in lock-step to expand Big Labor's forced-unionism privileges. (Source: July 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Since the beginning of 2009, Big Labor has had a cheerleader in the Oval Office. At the same time, ample majorities of both chambers of the U.S. Congress have been willing to vote for virtually any power grab sought by union officials, as long as they could do so without running into intense, across-the-board constituent opposition. Consequently, top union bosses have expected to see enacted in the current Congress legislation that would help them sharply increase the share of all private-sector workers who are under union monopoly-bargaining control. Their original vehicle for achieving this objective was S.560/H.R.1409, the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act." Sponsored by union-label Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.), S.560/H.R.1409 would grease the skids for Big Labor workplace takeovers in several ways. Most famously, it would effectively end secret-ballot elections in union organizing drives, replacing them with so-called "card checks." That means, if S.560/H.R.1409 became law, union organizers would have far more
The Oregon teacher’s union, using their forced unionism privileges, spent a remarkable amount of money fighting educational reform. “. . .the nation’s two large teachers’ unions and their state affiliates contributed $357 per teacher to elections,” making it the biggest spending teacher’s…