LaborPains.org

As part of their never-ending anti-corporate campaign against Wal-Mart, those wascally wabits at UFCW have announced they’re going to spend a cool million in TV ads accusing the company of … wait for it … doing business with China. I reckon these ads will do just about as much good as the million bucks UFCW bosses paid for themselves to attend this resort over the last two years.

(BTW, I haven’t seen anywhere that the ad’s script mentions the recent trip to China by UFCW’s Change To Win union allies.)

• Union officials are hoping to hit the jackpot by organizing new members at a major Connecticut casino
• Teamsters president James Hoffa finally notices that Michigan is “going down”
• SEIU may not be co-op-erating in New York City
• SEIU has hired a lobbyist for healthcare issues
• Among others, an airline pilot is suing his union for colluding to discriminate against him based on age

We told you recently about some misstatements from blogger Chicago Carless, who’s pushing the mischieviously misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act,” which would end secret ballots for working Americans who are deciding whether to join a union. It turns out there’s a little more to the story, with another blogger dropping an interesting statement in his post:

I received an email from a Chicago Carless, a progressive blogger helping to organize support for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800, S. 1041) in the Senate in June. He discloses he’s doing this for the AFL-CIO, but I agree completely with his message, and will pass it along. [emphasis added]

That’s an important disclosure that was sent along in an email, but not in the blogger’s original post. Why was Chicago Carless hiding this from his readers?

P.S.: The blogger in question recently amended his original post to thank the Center for Union Facts for linking to his error-prone message. As in this case, we’re always happy to link to a document showing the folly of Big Labor’s rhetoric. We assume he will again update his post with an appropriate disclosure.

Labor Notes is a great resource for anyone concerned with where the labor movement is headed. Earlier this year they had a great piece on bloated salaries for union officials. Now they’ve analyzed the dues structure of 15 major unions in 2004, and — to no one’s surprise — the cash is rolling in! The return on this windfall, though, remains in doubt.

As you might expect, Labor Notes found that the highest dues were paid by the Operating Engineers members, who are highly skilled, “[b]ut even unions with a reputation for organizing low-wage workers, most notably the Service Employees (SEIU) and UNITE HERE (which represents hotel and restaurant workers), have higher than average dues.”

Interestingly, the report found:

Adjusted for inflation, the biggest increase among major unions was in the Teamsters, where dues went up by almost 20 percent. But the Teamsters were not alone raising dues significantly in recent years. AFSCME, SEIU, CWA, UFCW, and the IUOE all posted double-digit dues increases between 2000 and 2004.

Where’d the money go? Toward fixing the problems created by union bosses in the first place:

For example the Teamsters dues hike came in response to a budget crisis inside the union, while the UFCW belatedly raised dues following the 2003-2004 Southern California grocery strike.

But the worst part is how members are left feeling. Labor Notes finds:

“Dues have been going up pretty steadily over the last couple of years,” remarked Russ Blunden, a Meijer’s grocery stocker and member of UFCW Local 951 in Sterling Heights, Michigan. “People are upset…The way the union is run my co-workers feel powerless. They just throw their hands up and say, ‘Why bother?’”

The bosses at the United Auto Workers really know how to polish their public image, don’t they? As their national leaders watch members slip away like sand through an hourglass, Pennsylvania officials are proving that charity doesn’t start at home.

In Allentown, the local UAW chiefs have decided that they are dropping their participation in the United Way because clerical employees there want to kick another union out as their representative. The Morning Call reports that the union’s leadership has decided to take its ball and go home:

The conflict began when a group of clerical employees at the United Way’s Bethlehem office petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to remove United Steelworkers Local 2599 as its collective bargaining representative. The Steelworkers have alleged [United Way President Susan] Gilmore was behind a plot to remove the union, though the union withdrew an official complaint to the NLRB and the United Way has vigorously denied the charge.

Carl Breininger, president of UAW Local 677, said Tuesday that [UAW representative on the charity board Ed] Shelton’s decision to resign was an organizational decision and that the union also may consider abandoning its support of the annual United Way fundraising campaign at Mack Trucks Inc. in Allentown.

The Boston Globe‘s Steve Bailey weighs in against ending secret ballots for working Americans:

Labor has also made its war on the secret ballot among its top priorities in Congress. In March, Democrats in the US House passed the cynically named Employee Free Choice Act, which would do in the private sector what the Massachusetts bill would do in the public sector. Democratic presidential contenders like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are tripping over themselves to support labor’s anti-democratic initiative.

“There is no reason to subject workers to an election,” Bruce Raynor, president of the union UNITE HERE, infamously said. (Raynor, by the way, was elected by a secret ballot vote.)

The Wall Street Journal‘s Alan Murray has a great column this morning shedding some light on the motivations and machinations of SEIU president Andy Stern, who “may be the most perceptive, peripatetic and puzzling labor leader in the world today.” There’s plenty of important information to glean from the article if you want to understand where union bosses are heading.

Murray notes the new style of tactics, which is to pressure companies and expect a big settlement:

His effort to blaze a new trail appears to be modeled less on labor leaders of the past than on a civil-rights leader: Jesse Jackson. Their common tactic: Attack first, then engage — with a hand out for the ultimate payoff.

For some on the receiving end, this feels like a shakedown, though none of the private-equity leaders I spoke with will say so on the record.

Murray then turns to an interesting bit of the-voices-made-me-do-it logic from Stern, who says that union bosses would behave better if only mean ol’ employers would kowtow a bit better:

But Mr. Stern is unapologetic. Indeed, he blames business for encouraging labor to behave badly. “They’ve trained us wrongly,” he says. “We tend to get ignored or caricatured, and sent to the human-resources department when we call. The CEO says, ‘Will someone take care of these guys?’ Not until we do something they find ‘unfair’ will they talk to us.”

“It’s like your children,” he adds. “If they behave and get no reaction, then they’ll cry.”

It certainly feels sometimes as if “it’s like your children.” Of course, Stern is revered/loathed for finding a new way of labor and management co-existing. But Murray gets to the heart of the matter:

Mr. Stern says he is trying to find a new way for labor to engage with business. “We get it. We understand,” he says. “All this global competition means America needs a new economic plan. We have a 20th century model of employment relationships in a global economy.” But those who have met with him say Mr. Stern mainly wants one thing: more members.

I supplied the emphasis because it’s worth noting: the people who know him know Stern is all about adding more members, which equals more power.

The record certainly bears that out. Stern is a leading advocate for ending secret ballot elections for employees deciding to join a union — because he knows that his preferred process allows union organizers to harass, intimidate and confuse employees during “card check” organizing drives. His own union was recently busted by the federal government for bad organizing practices.

Call it what you like: clear, concise … maniacal. We just came across a letter (predating the Center for Union Facts’ existence) illustrating how UFCW officials view their members. Described by labor reformers this Sunday as “recent,” it carries the signature of UFCW 324 president Greg Conger, who has been mentioned on our blog before for his dubious representation of members. UFCW’s message to members considering their rights to distance themselves from the union ahead of potentially destructive strikes: “we can and will retaliate.”

The whole thing is worth reading, but here’s the heart(lessness) of the letter:

While we have not yet established any picket lines, you can rest assured that if you, or any other employee, should cross a Local 324 picket line at any struck or locked out store, we can and will retaliate.

You have our guarantee that Local 324 will retaliate and discriminate against any of our members (including “dues paying only” members) who scab in the following ways:

1. This Union will fine you for crossing the picket line and, if you do not pay, this Union will sue you in State Court to collect the fine and our attorney’s fees;
2. This Union will put you on trial for your misconduct before a special Trial Board, consisting of your fellow members, that will be established to punish scabs;
3. This union will publicize what you are doing by publishing your name, and the fact that you are a scab, on the front page of its newspaper, which is mailed to all of our members;
4. This Union will send a letter informing all of our members that you are a scab; and/or
5. This union will place your name on an “Official Scab List” and will post that list on every Union bulletin board in our jurisdiction.

As they say, membership has its privileges.