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Being against labor unions is fine, but let's not distort the facts. If there really was such a powerful "big labor" lobby wouldn't they be able to accomplish something more than a minimum wage increase that was a decade overdue? Even with a Democratic majority in the Senate and House, I still don't think the "Employee Free Choice Act" has a chance of making it to the president's desk.
<div class="blockquote">
Fortunately for Schwartz, he had a sympathetic audience in the banking committee, whose members have received more than $20 million in campaign contributions from the securities and investment industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. "I want the witnesses to know, and others, that as a bottom-line consideration, I happen to believe that this was the right decision," Chairman Chris Dodd (D-$5,796,000) said before hearing a single word of testimony.</div>
"You made the right decision," Sen. Evan Bayh (D-$1,582,000) told the regulators who worked out the loan guarantee.
"The actions had to be done," agreed Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-$6,162,000).
Only a minority of senators, particularly those with smaller pieces of the campaign-cash pie, dissented. "That is socialism!" railed Sen. Jim Bunning (R-$452,000). "And it must not happen again."
And just think, that's only one business industry.
Bailing out those who made a business out of mortgage deals cannot be allowed - be they individuals with multiple properties or hedge funds. If that means they lose value on homes and are subject to paying property taxes then too bad - the debt holder had the responsibility to vet the risk and now they need to eat all the downside.
Back to right to work. Business chambers, politicians, and labor that are united to work against the individual right to choose is wrong and shameful.
Big corporate bosses, their chamber mouth pieces, politicians and big labor bosses are conspiring to deney the workers right to choose.
Their program seeks to free their special interest objectives of higher taxes, big projects, and no accountability.
When businesses, chambers, unions and politicians join forces to rally against the peoples right to work we will see again the red flags Truman warned against. The military-industrial complex united with labor and the politicans they have all conspired to put in office.
Sad.
Deny the right to one's control of their paycheck and free association - deny choice.
Maybe Truthteller is driven by her/is own values, beliefs and concern for fellow man's rights?
Can you explain why the AFL had to enter receivership or whatever it was this association entered when it went broke?
1. Is there a story about union pension money - was that in the mix? Did workers lose their pensions?
2. Are the AFL 'problems' associated with fraud and corruption?
3. Was there an investigation called for? Have you been notified by the DOJ or FBI of an investigation?
4. Or was the failure simply due to excessive spending of union cash to elect radical democrats, including putting paid union operatives on the street for GOTV efforts?
Oh say Tim, Why does the union supportted criminal business liability amendment fail to include unions, other NGOs or governments as organizations subject to the proposed remedies?
This measure would also eliminate existing unions. How? Here are two of the ways.
1. The people who have formed and belong to their union would have to carry the financial burden of freeloaders who enjoy the benefits of wages, hours, and working conditions, hard-earned and paid for by their fellow workers.
2. The company hires a new workers who do not join the union that tip the balance of membership, weaken the union, and then the company proposes onerous measures in contract negotiations. There are not enough members left to support the union, negotiations fail and so does the worker's union, leaving them with no protection and further declining wages and working conditions.
Companies like Coors would love to see this measure pass. Their workers, and other workers in this state, desperately need this measure to die a just death.
"With union memberships in decline nationally, a new Zogby International poll shows that just one-in-three (35%) non-union workers would consider voting to unionize their workplace, while a 56% majority would not. The poll also finds workers nationwide are generally content with their jobs and their employers.
The survey of 802 workers nationwide was conducted June 14 through 21, 2005, and has a margin of error of +/-3.6 percentage points. Polling was performed by Zogby International on behalf of the Public Service Research Foundation.
The poll found broad-based consensus among employees against unionizing, with 56% of all non-union workers in the survey saying they would vote against bringing a union into their workplace. One-in-three (35%) indicate they would consider voting for a union, but just half of that group (16%) say they would definitely vote to unionize, while two-in-three of all those who oppose unionizing (38%) would definitely vote against unionizing. These trends held for all age groups under 65, but was most noticeable among workers age 30 to 49, where three-in-five (60%) indicated they would not support unionizing.
This opposition to unionizing holds in every region of the country as well, with majorities in the Eastern U.S. (61%), South (50%), and Central/Great Lakes Region (60%) and a 49% plurality in the Western states all saying they would resist unionizing their workplace.
The survey also found men more likely to oppose unionizing their workplace, by a 61% to 50% margin versus women, and married people are more likely to oppose unionization than single people by a 61% to 51% margin."
But the CONSTANT illegality is what concerns me the most.
From a recent book review on the topic:
Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement | Book Reviews
Published by EH.NET (October 2006)
James B. Jacobs, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2006. xxxii + 320 pp. $33 (cloth), ISBN: 0-8147-4273-0.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Melvyn Dubofsky, Department of History, Binghamton University.
A quotation from the labor leader David Dubinsky that opens this book summarizes the author's purpose: "Racketeering is the cancer that almost destroyed the American trade-union movement." James Jacobs, the Warren E. Burger Professor of Law and Director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice, NYU School of Law, amasses the evidence to prove Dubinsky's claim. Jacobs asserts that the "Mafia," or as he prefers to label it, La Cosa Nostra (LCN), turned its penetration of trade unionism into its most profitable criminal activity and the accumulation of political power. In Jacobs' words, "the Mafia's unique political and economic position in American society derives from its base in the labor movement" (p. xii). The LCN's penetration of unionism explains organized labor's dwindling power (p. xiii). Indeed, in a twist on conventional explanations of "American exceptionalism," Jacobs cites the criminalization of trade unionism as the most singular feature of the United States.
Jacobs makes his case for the links between LCN and trade unionism not in the manner of an historian or a social scientist, but in the style of an attorney preparing a brief for the prosecution. He vacuums up every available scrap and shred of evidence to establish historical and contemporary connections between crime and unionism, seldom pausing to subject the evidence swept up with his vacuum to careful analysis or doubt. In building his case for historical connections between criminals and unions, Jacobs draws upon any publication that buttresses his point, whether or not the source is reliable, scholarly, or verifiable. For the contemporary connections between crime and unionism, he relies on his own investigative work for a state commission in New York that probed organized crime's penetration of unions, research and publications that he compiled with the assistance of other attorneys and legal scholars, and the findings of a presidential commission on organized crime (PCOC). Jacobs appears incredulous about what he has done and what he continues to do, observing in a footnote, "... studying racketeering in the labor movement is no more antilabor than studying family violence is antifamily" (p. xiv).
Nevertheless, there is simply no doubt that some unions and their officials cooperated with organized crime, that criminals gained control of many union locals and few international unions, and that criminals and corrupt union officials enriched themselves at the expense of rank-and-file unionists, exploited businesspeople. A recent book by Robert Fitch, Solidarity for Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise (New York, 2006), lays out a similar case with more sophistication. Anyone interested in the illicit activities that soiled such unions as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE), as well as many locals in the building trades, will find all the evidence they desire in the pages of this book or Fitch's.
So it seems like I'm far from the only person who's pointing out the long-time connections between labor unions, corruption, and organized crime. Guess that all of this presentation of FACT is just a "smear campaign," right? Yeah, sure
<p>According to www.unionfacts.com:
"When most people think of violations of labor law, they think first of "Big Business." But employees, employers, and labor organizations file thousands of charges each year-called "Unfair Labor Practices"-alleging violations of labor law by union officials.
The National Labor Relations Board's annual report for fiscal year 2005 included the number of Unfair Labor Practices alleged against employers and unions. Once again, union officials faced a disproportionately high number of allegations of wrongdoing, when compared to employers. The worst part: The vast majority of allegations said that members were the ones hurt by the union officials that are supposed to protect them.
The NLRB reported in 2005 that:
Unions faced a total of 6,381 allegations
82% of charges against unions alleged illegal restraint and coercion of employees (by comparison, the leading allegation against employers -- at 53% -- was for refusal to bargain)
594 charges were for illegal union discrimination against employees
The NLRB reported in 2004 that:
Unions faced a total of 6,917 allegations of wrongdoing
80% of those charges were filed by individuals
Unions filed more than 100 charges against other unions
81% of charges alleged illegal restraint and coercion of employees
More than 600 charges alleged illegal discrimination against employees, an increase of about 6 percent from 2003."