The National Labor Relations Act, considerable legislation, and consistent court opinions all prohibit the use of union dues to support political causes, candidates and parties without a strict accounting to the membership of the funds along with some sort of agreement from the individual member that the dues may be used for this purpose.
Many, many union members are Republicans, conservatives, or Reagan Democrats and have never consented to such a use of their dues. But the National Labor Relations Board, whether Republican or Democrat controlled, tends to look the other way until a member sues the union for misuse of union dues for unauthorized political purposes. Nearly every suit against the unions on this issue has been successful, occasionally resulting in large awards of money damages to the membership. But the thieves and thugs who run the unions are always willing to take that risk. The law be damned, they have their agenda and nobody had better stand in the way.
Yesterday, the largest union organization in the nation, the AFL-CIO, through its political director issued a memo to his troops natiowide that is breathtaking in its scope. Can't wait to see how the MSM will bury this leaked memo, or ignore the illegality of the use of union resources forced out of the wallets of its members. The memo is aimed at defeating Republicans, conservatives, any candidate from any political party who supports right-to-work, and all candidates who are opposing card check, forced union membership and the reprehensible Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill.
Here are some of the jewels in this union crown of dirty politics:
Producing or funding TV ads that are last-minute ambush ads containing half-truths, legal distortions or outright lies. Can you say "foreign money in Chamber of Commerce pro-Republican ads?" What the Chamber is doing is perfectly legal (protecting its supporters by maintaining confidential donor lists), while what the AFL-CIO is doing is not (using union dues without specific permission for political purposes).
Suspending union activities such as organizing, ministering to its members, conducting labor arbitrations and contract negotiations, and supporting its members (all legal and the alleged purpose of unions). To what purpose? To put 2,000 of the national staff and 3,000 union local officials out on the hustings to campaign for leftist/liberal/Democratic candidates and against conservative Democrats and Republican candidates.
Making a goal of tens of millions of phone calls specifically attacking pro-right to work candidates (they have already made 23 million such calls on the membership's dime).
Sending four million mail hit-pieces every week until election day smearing candidates who oppose card check, forced unionism and union thuggery.
If this were not such a nefarious activity, the AFL-CIO would have trumpeted it to the public. But outside the halls of Tammany and the union offices, nobody would have known what they were up to if some fed-up union member had not leaked the memo. While demanding to know the names of each and every legal donor to the Chamber of Commerce ad campaign, the Democrats and the union bosses use sneaky and illegal tactics such as those listed while trying desperately to fly under the radar of public opinion. And if you don't believe me, I'll be sending two large SEIU thugs to your house to instruct you on the error of doubting the representatives of the oppressed workers of the world.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. Thomas Jefferson
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Unions Again Attack Conservatives--Illegally
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9 comments:
Articles like this make me glad I live in a "right to work" state.
TJ
Anon: I envy you. California's economic decline and burgeoning government began when it became unionized. The worst possible combination exists here: public employees unions combined with civil service protection. It's nearly impossible to get rid of public employees for incompetence or insubordination.
This is one of the reasons why unions are a dying animal. We need to focus cleaning out government unions because that's the only real support they have left.
Repeal Executive Order #10988! I know how difficult it to repeal things, but! If we don’t rip some of this crap out by the roots it will never change. Unions have become a disease of this great country.
Andrew: The public sector unions are the worst of the worst. Government is already too large, and its workers are populated by employees who can't be hired, fired, promoted or rewarded based on performance. And on the national level, the government that can't move its arthritic workforce now controls major corporations that were already crippled by union demands.
Stan: Executive order 10988 was clearly a sop to the unions for their support of Kennedy in 1960. He would be horrified by the result. The problem is that it was a camel's nose under the tent. The whole camel is now inside, contracts are in place, and the Supreme Court has declared collective bargaining constitutional. Elimination of government unions could and should be done, but with all the machinery in place, it would be a near-impossibility.
The most reasonable current solution is to elect representatives and presidents ("management") who aren't beholden to the unions they are managing. As long as Democrats control Congress and the White House, that isn't going to happen. Any move by the Republicans to eliminate the unions, given the current status of the electorate, would be as futile and foolish as the idea of impeaching Obama that I discussed the other day.
The executive order allowing collective bargaining for public employees cannot simply be undone by a countervailing executive order. Too late. The damage is done. All we can do now is try to minimize that damage. And like everything else we're talking about this year and in 2012, we need an experienced Chief Executive who knows business and has dealt with labor in a major way so that he or she can put experienced executives in place to run the unionized jobs-for-life bureaucracy.
Growing up around Philly, I got to see firsthand what thugs so many union leaders are. Probably back in the day of the Molly Maguires, I could understand it. They have a right to collective bargain, but not physically intimidate.
I happend to see John Stossel rip apart a union leader on his show the other night. It was extremely entertaining.
Tennessee: I always understood the logic behind the growth of twentieth century industrial unions. Workers were paid next-to-nothing in jobs that put their lives at risk. Federal and state regulations and statutes are now in place that prevent most of the predations of the last century, and unions have become a very different animal--demanding outrageous wages and retirement benefits for dangerous occupations such as federal file clerks who might suffer a debilitating paper-cut.
The unions used to protect their workers from slave-wages and unsafe working conditions. They don't even do that now. The goal is to get money, money, money. Fat cat union leaders live like kings, and don't care what ultimately happens to their members as long as their own pockets are lined. The United Mine Workers Union is a perfect example. They have huge income from dues, the workers are relatively well-paid, but the mine disasters just keep on coming and dangerous working conditions are regularly covered up with the complicity of the union and the blindness of the state and federal bureaucrats who are supposed to protect the workers.
In less hazardous industries such as automobile manufacturing, the union honchos got rich by getting unsupportable wages and retirement benefits that are totally unsustainable, thus killing two of the big three manufacturers.
In the public sector, they should be allowed civil service or unions, but not both. Grossly overpaid employees who are surly, incompetent and lazy doing jobs that could be done better by a machine or a computer are the norm.
I can't put my finger on it but it seems to me that public employee unions are guilt of conflict of interest.
All in favor of paying ourselves more – say aye. Ummm…aye.
A gov’t pays employees, the unions force dues from employees, the union uses the money for political campaigns, and the same union votes to force citizens pay higher taxes to have the gov’t increase pay & benefits and employees (that can't be removed).
Rinse, wash, repeat.
If the conditions are bad, they already had power to address them by voting. We the employees (people) are the “boss”.
Perhaps COI is the wrong description – but whatever it is, unions have a sweet set-up.
Until they kill the host.
That's the ratchet.
Would it take a Constitutional amendment to get rid of them?
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