Free Republic

Aides to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin improperly obtained her former brother-in-law's state police personnel files and cited information from those records to raise complaints about the officer, the head of Alaska's state police union said Thursday. "It's apparent to us that the governor or someone on her staff had direct access to his personnel file, as well as his workers' comp file, and those are protected," said John Cyr, executive director of the Alaska Public Safety Employees Association. Palin, now the Republican candidate for vice president, is battling allegations that she sacked her public safety commissioner in July because he...

The more we learn of the management style of President Andy Stern of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) the more we see that he is an authoritarian as bad as any top-down led corporation that he and his union might criticize. And this newest abuse of office that his protege in California, Tyrone Freeman, has been embroiled in is yet another window into Stern's undemocratic ways. As Freeman was wildly spending union members' dues to float little companies run by his relatives, and as Freeman's associate Rickman Jackson went to a Michigan union to try his own hand at...

A pro-family advocate is questioning the National Education Association's endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The National Education Association (NEA) has endorsed Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid and plans to spend $50 million to target swing states. The NEA also says they will micro-manage members and send sophisticated electronic individualized messaging to members. However, Bryan Fischer of the Idaho Values Alliance (IVA) thinks the money would be better spent on educating children. "I think most parents would think if the NEA has $50 million to throw around, why don't they invest it in the classrooms where our children are...

Many of you probably watched Sarah Palin accept the Republican Party's Vice Presidential nomination last night. Ironically, her husband - a member of the United Steelworkers (USW) union - is actually funding efforts to smear and defeat her.

Mercantilism [emphasis added]: An economic doctrine that flourished in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Mercantilists held that a nation's wealth consisted primarily in the amount of gold and silver in its treasury. Accordingly, mercantilist governments imposed extensive restrictions on their economies to ensure a surplus of exports over imports. In the eighteenth century, mercantilism was challenged by the doctrine of laissez-faire. When Barack Obama talks—and talks—about the future, does he really mean "back to the future"? You have to wonder after reading the column by one of his economic advisors in today's LA Times. In Renewing America's...

Agriprocessors, the Brooklyn-based company that is the nation’s largest kosher meat producer, is well known for the labor troubles at its meatpacking plant in Iowa — federal agents detained 389 of its workers as illegal immigrants in May, and labor officials in Iowa have accused it of employing 57 under-age workers. But Agriprocessors is also having labor troubles closer to home, with the company asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn a vote to unionize at its distribution center along the Brooklyn waterfront. If successful, the company’s appeal could have repercussions at companies across the country: it is trying...

Any speculation that Barack Obama will suddenly find it in his heart to accept ages old democratic practices can be put to rest with a letter he recently wrote urging a company to eliminate the secret ballot of workers being solicited for union membership. The Baker City Herald has the story of Beef Northwest, a food service company, that is undergoing union agitation. Employees of Beef Northwest are being urged to join the United Farm Workers union and Obama sent a letter in support of that initiative. Some of the employees that want the union openly signed cards saying they...

The Service Employees International Union's top California officer has taken a leave of absence, and her former boyfriend has been ordered to return tens of thousands of dollars he received from the state council and Los Angeles local that she heads. Annelle Grajeda is the third major SEIU leader to step aside following reports in The Times about the union's financial practices. The SEIU acknowledged Saturday that Grajeda was on leave as president of the L.A. local and the union's state council, and as an executive vice president of the national organization, because of allegations that she was improperly involved...

A growing financial scandal in the 2-million-member Service Employees International Union has prompted a federal criminal investigation into the labor organization's largest California local, sources familiar with the probe say. U.S. Labor Department authorities are examining payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the union and a related charity to firms owned by relatives of the Los Angeles local's president and expenditures of similar sums on a golf tournament, restaurants, a cigar lounge and entertainment companies, according to people with knowledge of the investigation. The investigators are also looking into allegations that some union staff members faced retaliation last...

Union bosses in this region of rural Mississippi have long grumbled that the largest factories here hire illegal immigrants, and that the immigrants were starting to get more overtime and supervisory positions. Friction between the union and immigrant workers, along with a tipoff at an electrical manufacturing plant, boiled over this week into the biggest workplace immigration raid in the nation's history. When the first of the 595 suspected illegal immigrants was taken into custody Monday, some fellow workers broke into applause. Union members said they resented immigrants, who were often allowed to work as much as 40 hours of...

First Amendment? Secret Ballots? Fuggetaboutit! Labor unions have a lot at stake in 2008. The AFL-CIO’s PAC is spending $53M to help elect Barack Obama. More is being spent on behalf of Democratic incumbents and challengers in House and Senate seat races. There is nothing dearer to the hearts of Big Labor than securing the White House and a filibuster-proof Senate majority to help them obtain their number one legislative priority: the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). And Big Labor will stop at nothing, not even the First Amendment, to achieve their aims....

This just gets better and better. You'll recall our recent focus on the abuse of funds and influence peddling by California Service Employee International Union (SEIU) head Tyrone Freeman being investigated in depth by the L.A.Times and how Mr. Freeman has been funneling union contracts to his family members. Now a related investigation in Michigan has revealed that one of Freeman's former associates has had to step down from a Michigan SEIU post because of similar financial misdeeds there. Once again the L.A. Times is the source for this sad tale of union bosses abusing the power so blindly handed...

Forget for a moment the media fascination with disgruntled Hillary Clinton delegates or Michelle Obama's makeover. One of the most underreported stories at this week's Democratic National Convention is that Big Labor is making a big comeback. Not long ago, the labor movement was in a state of steady, seemingly unstoppable decline. A global economy and the information age made unions less relevant to more workers. The fall of industrial trades cut into existing union ranks, while service workers saw less need to join. Union membership as a share of the American workforce has been falling since the early 1980s,...

You’d think, given their heavy dependence on union money, Democrats would treat labor leaders a little more respectfully at their National Convention every four years. But AFL-CIO president John Sweeney will have only a few minutes to address convention delegates today — squeezed in before prime time speeches by the first openly lesbian member of Congress, an Hispanic congressman from California, and an autoworker who is about to lose his job. Sweeney may not getting much TV exposure, but don’t be deceived. He’ll get his money’s worth from the Dems if Barack Obama is elected president and the Democrats expand...

In a vigorous, salty-tongued tirade, the leader of a powerful Democratic union acknowledged Tuesday that some of his members might not vote for Barack Obama because of his race. "You can't vote for Barack Obama because he's black?" Gerald McEntee, chief of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, demanded during a meeting of Illinois delegates to the Democratic convention. "That's his color, and that is bull . . . . " The delegates leaped to their feet in a standing ovation. Unions will be "in the [out] house" for the next four years if Obama doesn't win,...

I Have Had Enough Of You! ...that corrupt, Marxist, pro-infanticide, terrorist-connected, Chicago con-man whom they’re backing for the Presidency... Written by Bridget Geegan Blanton There’s a scene in a Star Trek movie where Captain Kirk is all-out stomping on the desperate grasp of a Klingon, while the space thug claws the side of a cliff in an attempt to hang on. When Kirk finally delivers a fatal blow and knocks the Klingon off the precipice and into a fiery pit, Kirk says, with obvious pent up anger and frustration: “I have had enough of you!” Exchange ‘Klingon’ with ‘Liberal’ and...

DENVER — A prominent union leader on Tuesday blamed racism for Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) failure to build a big lead over GOP rival Sen. John McCain. Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), said many workers are considering voting for McCain (R-Ariz.) because of his military service and status as a hero of the Vietnam War. McEntee said several union members had approached him, saying they could not vote for Obama because of his race. He also said some local union presidents have failed to support Obama out of fear. “There are...

When I listen to the AFT and NEA union thug bosses at the DNC two things POP out at me. 1) The teacher's Unions are firmly in the pocket of the Democrats, or vice versa. We will never have education reform until people understand the unions are political big government liberals, not interested in education, only interested in more pay for less work (smaller classes and thus the need for more dues paying teachers). 2) Their message alwasy goes unchallenged by the media. Thre is no connection with higher per pupil spending and educational outcomes - it's time to freeze...

A spending scandal at California's largest union local spread to a second state Monday as the head of a sister labor group in Michigan stepped aside because of a widening financial inquiry. The Service Employees International Union said that Rickman Jackson, who formerly served as chief of staff at the California organization, has taken a leave of absence from its biggest Michigan local less than a week after the president of the Los Angeles chapter relinquished his post. Both departures followed reports in The Times that the local and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms...

The kids at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill feel like they've been used and discarded by Andy Stern's Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and they aren't happy about it. They are so upset they've issued an open letter to the SEIU to air their grievances... not that it'll matter much. It seems that the SEIU swooped onto several college campuses and encouraged student activists to organize college foodservice workers and then, assuring the kiddies that all their work was a worthy effort, quietly worked with the colleges NOT to organize the same workers that the kids thought...

I recently said that America "would become France" if a certain bill now in Congress -- which would virtually guarantee that every company becomes unionized -- ever became law. Deceptively named the Employee Free Choice Act, this bill would in most cases take away an employee's right to a secret ballot in a union election and give unions the option to have federal arbitrators set the wages, benefits, hours and all other terms and conditions of employment. Countries other than France have suffered the consequences of bad labor laws. When I was CEO of Handy Dan, the precursor to Home...

A spending scandal at California's largest union local spread to a second state Monday as the head of the union's leading Michigan group stepped aside because of a widening financial inquiry. The Service Employees International Union said that Rickman Jackson, who served as chief of staff at the Los Angeles organization, has taken a leave of absence from its biggest Michigan local less than a week after the president of the Los Angeles chapter relinquished his post. Both departures followed reports in The Times that the local and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned...

Fox News setting up to cover the DNC in Denver got an unexpected shower early Monday after a sprinkler system discharged its water all over their equipment. Sprinklers went off in the Fox Network convention broadcast booth as the crew was setting up its equipment. Firefighters who responded believe the news crew’s broadcast lights were too close to the sprinkler heads and set off the system. The incident was caught on tape. The booth is now back up and working after the soggy incident.

OK, teachers' unions. Still ... Things We Thought We'd Never See: Democrats Rally Against the Teachers' Unions! I went to the Ed Challenge for Change event mainly to schmooze. I almost didn't stay for the panels, being in no mood for what I expected would, even among these reformers, be an hour of vague EdBlob talk about "change" and "accountability" and "resources" that would tactfully ignore the elephant in the room, namely the teachers' unions. I was so wrong. One panelist--I think it was Peter Groff, president of the Colorado State Senate, got the ball rolling by complaining that when...

With more on the card check battle, we have a rally against Unions set up in Portland, Maine where members of the SEIU and the AFL-CIO confronted the pro-choice advocates in a typically uncivil, even threatening, union manner. One union thug even turned over a display table, trying to prevent the pro-choice folks from setting up their displays. From reports from the scene (video here), the union thugs spat upon the pro-choicers, swore at them and generally impeded their ability to engage in free and fair debate. John Henke, From a participant at the rally, described what was endured.... Read...

Consumer prices are rising at their fastest pace in more than a decade in both the U.S. and the euro zone. But it's affecting workers on the two sides of the Atlantic in very different ways. Unions are more powerful in the 15-nation euro zone than in the U.S., and many laws and practices there are more worker-friendly. That's part of the reason why many European workers are keeping up with inflation better than their U.S. counterparts. Wages and salaries in the euro zone were 3.4 percent higher in the first quarter than in the year-earlier period, matching the first-quarter...

There’s not a single good reason for any worker—especially any union member—to vote against Barack Obama. There’s only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he’s not white.

Who are you voting for this fall? The answer to that question is none of my business. In fact, it is a fundamental American right to have your vote be as private as you wish. Unfortunately, Democrats and their financiers, Big Labor, want to abolish a worker’s fundamental, American right to a secret ballot. Why are they doing this? Maybe because Democrats have openly admitted they owe their 2006 electoral success to Big Labor and have promised the elimination of the secret ballot as a return on investment. That is why during this Congressional session every Democrat in the House...

The head of California's largest union local has stepped aside in the wake of Times reports that the organization and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by his wife and mother-in-law. Tyrone Freeman, president of a Service Employees International Union chapter in Los Angeles, said in a written statement late Wednesday that he was taking a leave of absence and that the local would be placed in a temporary trusteeship. --snip-- In addition to the payments to his relatives' firms, Freeman's local, the United Long-Term Care Workers, spent nearly $300,000 last year on a...

Members of the carpenters union in New York City have ruined any chance that authorities there will take their union out of government oversight by beating unconscious William Davenport, a union dissident running for office in the union. After an August 5 candidates forum, the candidate was beaten by members of the carpenters union audience outside a church. Outside a CHURCH! This thuggery along with continued Mob involvement, indictments and convictions on corruption of union members convinced Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. not to release the union from government oversight.... Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

[A] new political commercial from a pro-business group being shown in Maine suggests that the Democratic Senate candidate in a competitive race is trying to infringe on the privacy of workers. The advertisement, disputed by the candidate, is part of a large-scale effort by two independent advocacy groups to turn a relatively low-profile pro-labor vote in Congress into a major impediment for Democrats as they seek to expand their Senate majority. “We have a very simple strategy,” said Mike Murphy, media adviser to the group behind the advertisement in Maine and one in Minnesota about the vote on a measure...

A coalition of consumer, immigrant and civil rights groups warned Tuesday that a Port of Long Beach loan program to help thousands of mostly low-income truck drivers replace old, polluting rigs with newer, cleaner-burning vehicles could plunge the truckers into debt. Port officials counter that the loans are a bargain and that truckers would not be able to afford new rigs without them. But the coalition foresees a wave of "foreclosures on wheels."

HARRISBURG -- The legislator and the evangelicals fired dueling Bible verses. Canon law clashed with civil law. Olive branches were tentatively tossed, but it was hard to tell if there were really any takers. And state AFL-CIO President Bill George lit up a talk-weary room with his patented zeal but poured that passion into mostly empty seats. The state House of Representatives Labor Relations Committee held a hearing Monday on House Bill 2626 – which would give Catholic school teachers legal protection they currently lack – with an agenda of speakers longer than the time allotted: 18 people were expected...

Glenn Spencer, director of research at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, spoke to conservative bloggers at the Heritage Foundation about the left’s top legislative plan to pass “card-check.” Union numbers have been down in past years, and the passage of card check would mean violating a worker’s privacy at the voting booth when choosing whether or not to join a union. As of now, A worker’s vote is private, which means that the worker knows that neither a paid union official nor a supervisor will ever know how he voted. However, an Obama administration could very well change not only...

But says not telling employees how to vote. Presidential hopeful Obama backs a bill that would make it easier for workers to join a union Reuters Published: Saturday, August 02 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday it has warned U.S. store managers in recent weeks about the possible consequences of a labour-friendly bill backed by Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama that would make it easier for workers to form unions.

If your child's school were invaded by Columbine-style killers, methodically murdering students in cold blood, would you want teachers to shoot to stop them? Gayle Fallon wouldn't. For that matter, Fallon doesn't think teachers "have it in them" to even try to save their students' lives. Fallon, the president of a teachers union in Houston, TX, made her views known during an Early Show segment this morning conducted by Harry Smith. The topic was a decision adopted by a rural north Texas school district to permit teachers to carry guns in the classroom. Harrold, TX School Superintendent David Thweatt explained...

Currently, America’s 10 largest unions used an average of only 30 percent of their dues to represent their members and negotiate with employers. They spent the other 70 percent on activities like lobbying, political activities, gifts, grants, overhead, and compensation for their staff according to James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation.

If your child's school was invaded by Columbine-style killers, methodically murdering students in cold blood, would you want teachers to shoot to stop them? Gayle Fallon wouldn't. For that matter, Fallon doesn't think teachers "have it in them" to even try to save their students' lives. Fallon, the president of a teachers union in Houston, TX, made her views known during an Early Show segment this morning conducted by Harry Smith. The topic was a decision adopted by a rural north Texas school district to permit teachers to carry guns in the classroom. As Harrold, TX School Superintendent David Thweatt...

We take it for granted that a vote means a secret ballot, but it was not always that way. Moreover, it will not remain that way for workers who vote on whether or not they want a labor union, if legislation sponsored by congressional Democrats and endorsed by Sen. Barack Obama becomes law. Before there were secret ballots, voters dared not express their true preferences if those who watched them vote could retaliate — whether by firing them, beating them up or in other ways. Anyone who is serious about people being free to express themselves with their votes wants...

Long ago the Union movement served a noble purpose to end exploitation and unsafe working conditions at the workplace. Now they are being used to extort money from companies and drive our jobs overseas. In addition workers are involunatrily forced on these Unions and are now suffering from Union Bosses. Go to www.unionfacts.com to learn the politically correct facts about how unions are destroying our economy.

DENVER -- The Denver Public Schools' pay-for-performance plan to motivate teachers was hailed as a model for the rest of the country when it took effect three years ago. It now stands on the verge of collapse after months of contract negotiations have stalemated. Some teachers have staged sick-outs; others plan to welcome families back to school this week by handing out fliers denouncing the district's contract offer. There is even talk of a strike. National education experts are dismayed. If merit pay can't work in Denver, "future initiatives are destined to fail," said Matthew Springer, director of the National...

In a masterpiece of cynicism, American labor unions have come up with a scheme to bypass those federally supervised, secret ballot elections they keep losing ... and dubbed it the "Employee Free Choice Act"! What the unions want is for their organizers to be able to corner workers when they're alone -- in a break room, in the darkened company parking lot -- and "convince" them to sign a card saying they want to be represented by the union. What the unions need to make this scheme work is a new federal law directing that -- once a majority of...

Cinderella, Snow White, Tinkerbell and other fictional fixtures of modern-day childhood were handcuffed, frisked and loaded into police vans Thursday at the culmination of a labor protest that brought a touch of reality to the Happiest Place on Earth. ...Bewildered tourists in Disney T-shirts and caps, some pushing strollers, filed past the commotion and gawked at the costumed picketers getting hauled away.

The Washington Education Association recently sent an e-mail to educators at their school district e-addresses urging them to vote on which Barack Obama-Chris Gregoire T-shirt should be the union’s “official 2008 Election T-shirt.” That action was entirely legal. But it was also entirely rude, not to mention against the spirit of laws put in place to protect public resources from turning into partisan tools. State law bans public employees from using public resources for politics (RCW 42.17.130). But the state Public Disclosure Commission has decided the WEA is not a public employee. Ahhh. A loophole. While it’s true the union...

Qwest union contract expires SaturdayThe Associated Press Friday, Aug. 15, 2008 NEW YORK The labor contract with the largest union at Qwest Communications International Inc. expires Saturday, little more than a week before the company is to provide phone and Internet service for the Democratic National Convention. The Communications Workers of America has voted to authorize a strike, which could theoretically begin as soon as Sunday. The union organizes 20,000 Qwest workers in 13 states. The same union was involved in contract negotiations with Verizon Communications Inc. recently. The parties were unable to reach an agreement before the expiration of...

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Cinderella, Snow White, Tinkerbell and other fictional fixtures of modern-day childhood were handcuffed, frisked and loaded into police vans Thursday at the culmination of a labor protest that brought a touch of reality to the Happiest Place on Earth. The arrest of the 32 protesters, many of whom wore costumes representing famous Disney characters, came at the end of an hour-long march to Disneyland’s gates from one of three Disney-owned hotels at the center of a labor dispute. Those who were arrested sat in a circle on a busy intersection outside the park holding hands until...

The AFL-CIO and several union-friendly groups filed a formal complaint against Wal-Mart on Thursday, charging that the retail giant is pressuring employees to vote against Sen. Barack Obama. Citing a Wall Street Journal report, the complaint accuses Wal-Mart of pushing its workers to oppose Obama (D-Ill.), who supports a measure that would allow workers to form unions without a secret-ballot election. The complaint calls on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to investigate whether Wal-Mart has broken federal election laws. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) opposes the bill, called the Employee Free Choice Act. Among the groups filing the...

The medical files of three Boston firefighters who claimed career-ending on-the-job injuries disappeared from Boston Fire Department headquarters in recent weeks as federal investigators were pursuing an inquiry into dozens of questionable disability claims, according to two senior public officials. The possibility that someone removed the files in a bid to hamper the investigation has now spurred a parallel federal investigation of possible theft and attempted obstruction of justice, the officials said. But if thwarting the federal investigation of disability claims was the motive behind the files' disappearance, the officials added, it was a futile attempt; copies of all the...

A Detroit Emergency Medical Technician’s union grievance hearing abruptly ended this morning because his attorney refused to stop tape recording the proceeding. The hearing was to address the firing of Detroit EMT Doug Bayer, who is suing the City of Detroit, Fire Department Commissioner Tyrone Scott, and other supervisors. Bayer accuses the department of terminating him because he spoke to the media and the Michigan State Police about what he says he knows about the alleged Manoogian Mansion party.

(Reuters) - General Motors Corp (GM.N), looking to trim its nearly $5 billion-a-year health-care tab, is cracking down on workers who are collecting medical benefits for ineligible dependents, the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday. GM is giving its 67,000 hourly workers until Aug 20 to voluntarily remove ineligible dependents from their health policies, after which, they would have to prove the eligibility of covered-family members through an official document, the paper said.