Today, unions have amassed significant economic and political power into the the hands of a few union bosses who see the unions purpose as political activism. For example, Big Labor spent more money on the political process during the 2008 election cycle than did presidential candidate Sen. John McCain!

Union bosses don't ask the rank and file members how they want their money (taken through compulsory dues) spent either, the decisions are made by a handful of union bosses only. This deprives the worker of choosing to spend his/her money differently, or not spend it on politics at all. There are more important things in life than politics.

Big Labor has a monopolistic stranglehold on our economy and wields excess influence on our political process. Unions have become defacto-socialist governments within our system, lead by a handful of dictators at the top.

Teachers Unions Oppose Education Reform

Regardless of one’s view of any particular method of improving America’s struggling public schools (whether it's school choice, charter schools, or rewarding better teachers with better pay), the tactics and rhetoric that teachers unions employ to block any meaningful reform is remarkable. Their motivation is simple: maintain the status quo -- and the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in dues. Meanwhile, union leaders’ suggestions for reform are best summarized as “more money to hire more teachers,” who are then likely to become dues-paying union members.

How Teachers’ Unions Handcuff Schools

When Tracey Bailey received the National Teacher of the Year Award from President Clinton in a festive Rose Garden ceremony in 1993, American Federation of Teachers chief Albert Shanker called to say how pleased he was that a union member had won this prestigious honor. But Bailey, a high school science teacher from Florida, is an AFT member no more. Today he believes that the big teachers' unions are a key reason for the failure of American public education, part of the problem rather than the solution. The unions, he thinks, are just "special interests protecting the status quo," pillars of "a system that too often rewards mediocrity and incompetence." Such a system, he says, "can't succeed."

Bailey is right. In the final analysis, no school reform can accomplish much if it does not focus on the quality of the basic unit of education—that human interaction between an adult and a group of children that we call teaching. The big teachers' unions, through the straitjacket of work rules that their contracts impose, inexorably subvert that fundamental encounter. These contracts structure the individual teacher's job in ways that offer him or her no incentives for excellence in the classroom—indeed, that perversely reward failure.

So as Tracey Bailey and many other dedicated teachers have learned, schools can't improve until reformers confront the deadly consequences of the power that teachers' unions wield over a monopolistic industry, not only through contracts but also through the unions' influence on the elected officials who regulate the education industry. Until then, any reform—whether more money for the schools or smaller classes or high national standards or charter schools—will get short-circuited from the very outset.

Time to Play Hardball with the Chicago Teachers Union

[T]he Chicago Public Schools faces the worst budget deficit in anyone's memory. Yet the Chicago Teachers Union is willing to sacrifice 2,700 of its members -- thereby forcing its remaining teachers to lead classes of 35 -- in order to preserve a 4 percent pay hike that comes on top of the standard step increase that teachers will receive anyway.

Chicago Public School teachers are already among the best compensated in the country. Right now, starting Chicago elementary teachers earn $45,450 for teaching a 5 hour and 45 minute instructional day, 174 days per year -- the minimum allowed under Illinois law. First-year New York elementary teachers, by comparison, earn $45,530 for teaching a 6 hour and 30 minute instructional day, 180 days per year.

Well-Funded Schools, Teachers Don't Need Bailout

It wasn't long after American Federation of Teachers' president Randi Weingarten wrote in the Wall Street Journal that public schools needed a bailout that the administration dispatched Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, to make the case for billions of new stimulus dollars to avoid public school layoffs.

Given that even clear-eyed economists tend to go weak in the knees when discussing "our commitment to our kids," it wasn't surprising that Romer's piece in the Washington Post, like Weingarten's before it, contained no actual facts about public school spending, teacher pay or student performance, but instead largely rested on clichés like, "Let's ... do what we need to do now...and prepare our students for the challenges of the future."

Is Hollywood Turning on Teachers Unions?

It's time to break the union monopolies and restore unions to their roots.

The midterm elections were already going to be tough for Democrats, thanks to rising public revulsion over federal spending and the unpopularity of the one bill Democrats took nine months to shove down the throats of a nation deeply opposed to it.  In red states like Arkansas, the only hope would be to keep centrists on the ticket in order to minimize the damage.  Blanche Lincoln, the incumbent, would have a tough time getting elected anyway, but for the hard-Left union activists, she did reluctantly support ObamaCare and has not yet had to cast a single vote on Card Check.  That wasn’t enough, however — and now the unions just spent a fortune attempting to unseat her in a race that Democrats are going to lose in the end anyway ...

I wonder what the union members would have done with all that money?

We spend an abusive amount of money on the political process in America these days. What's for sale? What is everyone trying to buy?

Candidates will Spend $5.3 Billion on 2008 Election

The country will spend a record $5.3 billion on federal candidates during the 2008 election cycle, a 27 percent increase from the 2004 cycle, according to a report today from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Spending on the presidential race alone tallied $1.5 billion as of Tuesday, double the spending in the 2004 cycle, and the first time more than $1 billion has been spent on a presidential campaign. By the end of the campaign, spending on the presidential race will total $2.4 billion, the Center reports.

The largest group of donors came from the sector the Center categorizes as Finance, Insurance and Real Estate, giving a total of $373 million. Employees of firms that gave the most were Goldman Sachs with $5 million, Citibank $4.2 million, JPMorgan Chase $4.1 million and the National Association of Realtors with $3.2 million.

$5.3 billion in productive capital flushed down the political toilet.

Minimum Wage Cruelty: Update

By Walter Williams

"Minimum Wage Cruelty" was my column about the unemployment effects of Congress' 2007 minimum wage increase on the canning industry in American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the far Pacific Ocean. The 2007 legislation mandated 50 cents annual increases in Samoan minimum wages until it reached the U.S. mainland's hourly minimum of $7.25. In response, Chicken of the Sea International moved its operation from Samoa to a highly automated cannery plant in Lyons, Ga. That resulted in roughly 2,000 jobs lost in Samoa and a gain of 200 jobs in Georgia. Prior to minimum wage increases, Samoan wages were about $3.25 an hour. With the legislated increases, Samoa's minimum wage is $5.25. So the question is: Which is preferable for the Samoan worker — being employed at $3.25 an hour or being unemployed at $5.25? Which buys more of life's essentials?

The Samoa News (April 10, 2010) reported that American Samoa's Gov. Togiola Tulafono warned Congress more than once that American Samoa is "destined for very serious economic difficulties" if nothing is done to change provisions of federal law which mandate annual minimum wage increases.

On May 14th, the governor's warnings bore distasteful fruit. StarKist, the island's remaining cannery, announced that between 600 and 800 people will be laid off over the next six months, reducing the company's Samoan workforce from a high of more than 3,000 in 2008 to less than 1,200 workers. StarKist CEO Don Binotto said it's difficult to compete when Samoan workers' wages are nearly 10 times those of its competitors in Thailand and other countries.

Labor unions are the major supporters of increases in the minimum wage. Even though the overwhelming majority of their members earn multiples of the minimum wage, they spend millions upon millions lobbying for minimum wage increases. They do it because higher minimum wages protect their members from competition with low-skill, low-wage workers ...

Read the whole thing here: Minimum Wage Cruelty: Update

A recess appointment would signal that the President has an antidote to Republican obstructionism that he does not fear using. Craig Becker is a qualified nominee who falls in with the normal set of Democratic appointments to the NLRB. He should get his appointment.

Who is Craig Becker?

Craig Becker: Big Labor’s Big Ally

Union leaders were further outraged by last month’s bipartisan Senate vote against Craig Becker, President Obama’s nominee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Rather than accept another setback, however, Big Labor and its partisan allies in the White House are going on the offensive: Obama is planning to use a recess appointment to place Becker on the NLRB. Doing so would not only disregard the Senate’s constitutional responsibility of advice and consent, but, according to all 41 Senate Republicans, would “institute far-reaching changes in labor law policy far exceeding the Board’s authority and by-passing the role of Congress”—changes that, coincidentally, happen to mirror organized labor’s stalled legislative agenda.

The fact that Obama must resort to a recess appointment for Becker is itself a sign of weakness. When Becker was nominated in 2009, Democrats held 60 seats, a filibuster-proof majority. Yet Becker’s confirmation mustered only 52 votes for cloture in February, leaving him in limbo. Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D–AR) and Ben Nelson (D–NE) both voted against Becker.

A review of his writings, especially his article, “Democracy in the Workplace: Union Representation Elections and Federal Labor Law,” reveals that, if appointed to the NLRB, Becker would change America’s labor laws in ways that even the most labor-friendly legislator could only dream of. For instance, think EFCA’s elimination of the secret ballot via “card check” would hurt employees? Becker doesn’t. In fact, he would extend EFCA’s philosophical foundations to an eye-popping extreme: Becker doesn’t only support “automatic certification by ‘non-electoral means’ (e.g. card check) or eliminating the option of ‘no union’ from the ballot—he would leave employers with “no role in union organizing campaigns and in union representation elections.”

Like EFCA, the RESPECT Act has also failed to garner legislative—let alone public—support. Becker, however, in an article predating the introduction of the RESPECT Act, has signaled that he favors limiting which workers the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) classifies as supervisors. This limiting would be done, of course, not through Congress and a revision of statutory language but through the NLRB.

Even if Becker’s policies were remotely mainstream, his role as ALF-CIO/SEIU super lawyer, his prior work for Obama, and his associations with ACORN all raise questions about his nomination. Becker is currently associate general counsel for the SEIU, the same position he held when, as part of the Obama transition team, Becker drafted Executive Order 13496, “requiring government contractors and subcontractors to post a Notice of Employees Rights under Federal Labor Laws.” Although Becker claimed he was on “vacation” while working with the Obama transition team, allowing a high-ranking, paid member of organized labor to draft executive orders benefiting (surprise!) organized labor contradicts the President’s pledge to enforce a high standard of government transparency.

And then there is the ACORN issue. Although Becker rejects charges that he has ever done work for ACORN, he did admit he “worked with and provided advice to” SEIU Local 880 in Chicago. Yes, that SEIU Local 880 in Chicago. In fact, ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke has praised Becker for his “contributions.”

Why You Should Know About Craig Becker (and Why You Need to Be Worried)

Craig Becker is President Obama’s nominee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and you should be afraid…very, very afraid.

In Becker’s opinion, business owners, many of whom are small business owners that collectively employee 50 million Americans, have “no legally cognizable interest” in one of the most significant decisions impacting the potential future success of their company. But Becker takes his views one step further and would even deny employers the ability to alert authorities to illegal union activity during an election campaign ...

To suggest that employers should have no role in the unionization process, as Mr. Becker does, is a point of view that is outside of the mainstream and one that puts him at odds with the current practices of the NLRB.

Just as Mr. Becker views employers as obstacles to increased unionization, he similarly views workers ability to democratically choose union representation as problematic:

“Just as U.S. Citizens cannot opt against having a congressman, workers should not be able to choose against having a union as their monopoly-bargaining agent.”

Mr. Becker wholeheartedly believes that employers and workers preferences are second to union goals, namely increased membership. The NLRB is entrusted with interpreting and enforcing the NLRA, laws which apply to nearly every American business. As a member of the NLRB, Mr. Becker would be able to implement his radical ideas and shape labor laws for the indefinite future.

Craig Becker: By Hook or By Crook, Big Labor Wants Card Check

It appears Big Labor will stop at nothing to impose card check forced unionism on American workers and job-providers. Public opposition from energized Right to Work supporters and other concerned Americans to the draconian card check bill -- which eliminates the secret ballot in workplace unionization drives, opens up workers to intimidating "home visits," and allows government bureaucrats to impose contracts on workers -- has thus far stalled the legislation in the Senate.

On Tuesday, in what may have been a test vote on card check, the Senate rejected an attempt to move President Obama's nomination of radical union lawyer Craig Becker to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the quasi-judicial agency that administers federal labor law.  Becker's writings indicated a willingness to impose the card check forced unionism mechanism through NLRB rules, without even a Congressional vote.

But despite this setback union officials aren't giving up on card check, and neither are the forced unionism proponents in the Obama Administration.  The Daily Caller reports that White House staffers are considering a new executive order that could effectively require all federal contractors to submit their workers to coercive card check campaigns ...

Meet Craig Becker, labor's secret weapon.

Current law on organizing provides advantages and restrictions for both sides. Employers are required to provide union reps with a list of employees and their addresses. Union organizers can visit employees at home, but companies cannot. Organizers can also make promises to employees (such as obtaining raises), which employers cannot. Companies can argue their position at a work site up to 24 hours before an election, but they are barred from coercing employees. Both sides get a seat at the table during NLRB hearings about the scope of an election or complaints about how it was conducted.

Mr. Becker has other ideas. In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, he explained that traditional notions of democracy should not apply in union elections. He wrote that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings about elections, and from challenging election results even amid evidence of union misconduct. He believes elections should be removed from work sites and held on "neutral grounds," or via mail ballots. Employers should also be barred from "placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots."

More extraordinary, Mr. Becker advocated a new "body of campaign rules" that would severely limit the ability of employers to argue against unionization. He argued that any meeting a company holds that involves a "captive audience" ought to be grounds for overturning an election. If a company wants to distribute leaflets that oppose the union, for example, Mr. Becker said it must allow union access to its private property to do the same.

Mr. Becker isn't clear about which of these rules can be implemented by NLRB fiat, and which would require an act of Congress, but his mindset is clear enough. He's willing to push NLRB discretion as far as possible to tilt today's labor rules in favor of easier unionization.

Radical SEIU lawyer’s NLRB nomination clears Senate committee

Inside SEIU president Andy Stern’s culture of corruption

Andy Stern rallied the Illinois delegation to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in August 2008 with an impassioned salute to the working man Flanking Stern on stage at the Denver celebration: Chicago political machine kingpins Rahm Emanuel and Richard Daley. Stern roared about “rebalancing power between wealth and work” to “make sure everyone shares in the wealth of a growing economy.” Echoing Obama’s 2007 speech to the SEIU political action conference, union boss Stern condemned the old way of doing business and called on American to “turn the page” on behalf of hard-working Americans and their families.

But just two weeks before Stern and company gathered in the Mile High City to celebrate Obaman’s coronation, the Los Angeles Times published an explosive investigative series about the SEIU ...

[Tyrone Freeman who, like Barack Obama, began his career as an urban community organizer] had piped $600,000 in union contracts to his wife’s video production and entertainment ventures. The local also paid his mother-in-law $8,000 a month to babysit his daughter and other union employees’ children; footed a $13,000 bill for membership at a Beverly Hills cigar club; covered $12,500 in tabs at upscale Morton’s restaurant in Burbank; and forked over $8,000 in union dues to cover expenses for Freeman’s Hawaiian wedding. Freeman’s spending orgy didn’t end there.

* The union spent at least $123,000 more on the fund-raising tournament at the Four Seasons Resort in Carlsbad than it received in reimbursements, according to Labor Department filings and interviews. Freeman said the event made money for the charity. The union’s expenditures included $100,000 in payments to entities associated with former professional football star Eric Dickerson, which have been suspended from doing business in California. The payments were listed as donations to nonprofits, not as fund-raising expenses.

* And a now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by Freeman’s brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations.

Freeman’s local also paid nearly $106,000 to a company called “The Filming Inc.” –— for which the Times could find no state incorporation record or IRS nonprofit listing, no business license, and no legitimate address –— and another $106,000 to Hollywood talent agency William Morris for “advice and counsel” in such areas as media and “membership awareness.”

Even more troubling, Freeman allegedly rigged his own election. In August 2008, the Labor Department began investigating charges from rank-and-file members that Freeman’s union local “made it nearly impossible for candidates not on his slate to qualify for the ballot, according to people familiar with the probe. The FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office also opened investigations. Former employees of Freeman’s nonprofit charity also alleged that the Stern protégé forced them to work on campaigns of political candidates in violation of federal law.

Michelle Malkin: Inside SEIU president Andy Stern’s culture of corruption

Union fat cats livin' large off the workers coerced dues. Sweet, uh? Who' looking out for the little guy again? Cuz it sure ain't unions!

UAW Boss to Members: 'Shut the F*ck Up, You Motherf*ckers...'

On March 31st, NUMMI, the UAW-represented joint venture between Toyota and General Motors, will be closing its doors in California, throwing another 4,700 United Auto Workers out of work.

With 80% of the UAW members upset with their union, this past Sunday, the Union of Ailing Workplaces (aka UAW) held a membership meeting that turned into a shouting match between rank-and-file members and their union leadership.

At one point, one UAW leader (identified as Javier Contreras) yelled at the crowd, telling them to "...Shut the f*ck up, you motherf*ckers!..."

LaborUnionReport.com: UAW Boss to Members: 'Shut the F*ck Up, You Motherf*ckers...'

The union members wanted the UAW to do what they're supposed to do - represent them! They wanted the union to negotiate severance packages for them ... but instead, the union bosses told them to STFU!

Hey, little girl! Want a lollypop?

I remember my dad telling me horror stories about having to deal with union thugs when he owned his first store. As a new entrepreneur, my dad was so proud that, after years of working for someone else, he was finally going to get the opportunity to own his own business! My dad is an electrical engineer by trade, so he was going to do some wiring to his new place... until union thugs came over and threatened to destroy his business if he didn't allow their slugs to perform the work. If I remember correctly, these lazy pieces of rancid crap took twice as long to perform the work my dad could have done himself in several hours, took several union-mandated work breaks, and cost my dad much more than if he had done the work himself.

Nice.

Not.

Want more proof?

Try this guy.

If this guy doesn't look like a child molester, I don't know who does.

Except this particular child molester was a substitute typing teacher in New York, was accused by several kids of being a perverted creep, and he can't be fired. That's right. This scumbag draws a handsome salary sitting on his ass, and he can't be fired. All thanks to unions.

Darling Nicki: Hey, little girl! Want a lollypop?

Millions of good, honest, hard-working folks are in desperate need for a job these days. But the union protects the filth instead. A multi-millionaire piece of filth to boot.

SEIU Executive: Amnesty For Illegals Will Ensure ‘Progressive’ Rule

The Daley Gator: *VIDEO* Obama Adviser/SEIU Executive: Amnesty For Illegals Will Ensure ‘Progressive’ Rule

Represent workers? No. It's all about politics! Today's unions are nothing but giant progressive political machines!

SEIU fatcats behind First Lady’s anti-obesity campaign

Behind every seemingly good deed in the Obama White House, there’s a deep-pocketed, left-wing special interest. Take First Lady Michelle Obama’s crusade against childhood obesity. Who really benefits from the ostensible push for improved nutrition in the schools? Think purple – as in the purple-shirted army of the Service Employees International Union. Big Labor bigwigs don’t care about slimming your kids’ waistlines. They care about beefing up their membership rolls and fattening their coffers.

Mrs. Obama earned a State of the Union Address shout-out from her hubby for taking on the weighty public policy issue of students’ physical fitness ... part of the Obama administration’s self-proclaimed “cradle-to-career” agenda for America’s youth.

What’s in it for Big Labor? SEIU Executive Vice President Mitch Ackerman explains: “A more robust expansion of school lunch, breakfast, summer feeding, child care and WIC [the federal Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program] is critical to reducing hunger, ending childhood obesity, and providing fair wages and healthcare for front line food service workers (emphasis added).” There are 400,000 workers who prepare and serve lunch to American schoolchildren. SEIU represents tens of thousands of those workers and is trying to unionize many more. “More robust expansion” of the federal school lunch law means a mandate for higher wages, increased benefits, and government-guaranteed health insurance coverage (the more luxurious the better now that SEIU has negotiated its Cadillac Tax exemption from the Democrats’ health care takeover bill).

Michelle Malkin: SEIU fatcats behind First Lady’s anti-obesity campaign

Workers? Nope. The White House. Politics my friends ... Unions are all about politics.

We don't need no stinkin' private sector

It's now official: In 2009 the number of unionized workers who work for the government surpassed those in the private economy for the first time. This milestone explains a lot about modern American politics, in particular the paradox that union clout with Democrats has increased even as fewer workers belong to unions overall.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently that 51.4% of America's 15.4 million union members, or about 7.91 million workers, were employed by the government in 2009. As recently as 1980, there were more than twice as many private as public union members. But private union membership has continued to decline, even as unions have organized more public employees.

Overall unionism keeps declining, however, with the loss of 771,000 union jobs amid last year's recession. Only one in eight workers (12.3%) now belongs to a union, with private union employment hitting a record low of 7.2% of all jobs, down from 7.6% in 2008. Only one in 13 U.S. workers in the private economy pays union dues. In government, by contrast, the union employee share rose to 37.4% from 36.8% the year before.

The Union News: We don't need no stinkin' private sector

Yep. Despite their shrinking memberships, unions are taking over the government!

Unions are political machines.

UPDATE:

Obama’s Purpleshirt goon squads are taking the offensive in his War on America

Organized labor may be putting their dollars behind an online effort to take down Tea Party groups and their “radical ideas.”

A new Web site, TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, has connections to unions, including the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

So look for the beatings to continue, I guess. And be ready to swing back at Il Douche’s jackbooted commie thugs ...

Cold Fury: Let’s roll

Like I said, unions are all about politics ... They're progressive political machines!