LaborPains.org

Doral Desert Princess Resort, where
the UAW spent $94,000 on a leadership conference

Today, amidst further negotiations between General Motors (GM), the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the federal government, the UAW filed its yearly financial report which shows hard times for auto workers did not translate to the UAW’s lavish expense accounts and salaries.

Every UAW officer made in excess of $141,000 in total compensation in 2008. More than 550 employees (over half of the staff making above $10,000 annually) made more than $100,000 in total compensation. Over the course of the year, the union expensed $98,775 on golf courses, another $75,492 at casinos, and over $150,000 at resort conference centers.

The $33 million UAW-owned Black Lake Golf Course came with its own costs. The union spent $23,488 in member dues in a tax assessment dispute regarding property taxes for the course, and $28,000 transporting people to the resort. Unlike years past, the union did not file an auditor’s report revealing how much the course lost in operations.

The excessive spending doesn’t end there. Towels ($7,842), puzzles ($7,617), ponchos ($9,015), 35 “handcrafted computer bags” ($5,394), and bowling tournaments ($29,867) were all paid for with money from union members’ salaries. They also spent $172,641 on what must have been extremely luxurious briefcases and another $149,592 on t-shirts!

You might expect that the UAW spent 2008 getting its financial priorities in tune with the the dismal state of the domestic automotive industry, but you’d be wrong. At a time when the entire automotive industry is making deep cuts, the UAW continues to spend members hard-earned dues on frivolous expenses. With leadership like that, it is not surprising that the UAW’s membership fell to a record low not seen since before World War II.

Click here to read the UAW’s complete LM-2 report filed with the Department of Labor.

There are many moderate Democrats in the Senate that are looking to have it both ways on the Employee Forced Choice Act. They know the polling shows that voter support for EFCA is in the crapper (no matter how hard the unions try to create push polls to prove otherwise), but they also don’t want to make their sugar daddy–big labor–mad.

Their solution? Say that they’re in favor of reform, but have some reservations about EFCA. They also say that out of fairness the Senate should be allowed to debate and vote on the bill. (See the attached constituent letter from moderate Virginia Senator Mark Warner after the jump.) They imply that when given the chance they would vote against the actual bill.

Here’s the problem. Because of the current makeup in the Senate, a vote against a filibuster (or for cloture) is the same as a vote for passing the bill. They can’t have their cake and eat it too. Or, as John Kerry once famously tried to explain, you can’t vote for it, before you vote against it.

That’s why Steven Law at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce proposes an acid test for Warner and other mealy-mouthed Senators (I’m looking at you Sen. Ben Nelson).

I propose asking Warner, Nelson, and others this very simple question: Can you describe your vote for or against cloture on EFCA in less than two words?

(more…)

Martin Sheen and other actors from “The West Wing” are coming to D.C. to show support for EFCA.

It is telling that unions had to turn to a fictitious president and his fictitious staff rather than garnering any visible support from the real President of the United States. The actors support is appropriate however, since the Employee Free Choice Act is built on the fictitious belief that employers routinely fire pro-union employees (they don’t), and the equally fictitious argument that the bill would not effectively eliminate employees right to a secret ballot election.

This is just another case of EFCA supporters having one standard for themselves and another that they want to force on the rest of the country. As you might remember, Rep. George Miller and other EFCA supporters in Congress sent a letter to the Mexican Government urging them to use secret ballots in union organizing campaigns to prevent intimidation.

House minority leader Boehner writes in an op-ed that “Republicans will accept no compromises on this issue and have no false sense of security.” Let’s hope so.

Lastly, the Wall Street Journal prints an excerpt from a classic economics book stating that the belief that labor unions raise wages is one of the “great delusions of the present age.”

The Heritage Foundation put together a video interview with former UFCW organizer Rian Wathen. Wathen describes the intimidation and deception unions routeinely employee to obtain union cards.

Under the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act, the cards Wathen describes would be the standard method of forming a union.

According to the LA Times, Sen. Feinstein is backing off of EFCA. Also interesting is this quote farther down from Christy Setzer of the SEIU: “Passing the Employee Free Choice Act would be like a mini-economic stimulus package — pumping approximately $49 billion into the economy each year at a time when working families need it most.” I think she meant to say “unions” instead of “economy.”

Citing a Supreme Court case, who is behind the following quote? The “representation election system provides the surest means of avoiding decisions which are ‘the result of group pressures and not individual decision.’” If you guessed the AFL-CIO, you’re right. Doug Bandow analyzes this and more labor hypocrisy here.

There’s a good op-ed over at the American Thinker that explains how unions are undermining their own members. Some members might be figuring this out, as we’ve seen over the past few weeks when SEIU members were protesting SEIU.

A friend of mine passed this along, and I’m not sure what to think of this. Enjoy.

“How do you spell hypocrisy? SEIU!”

That was the chant today in front of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The SEIU “broke their union contract,” and laid off 75 unionized staff members. Those workers picketed the union today with slogans like “EFCA’s First Violator Who? SEIU” and “Stop Union Busting.”

For now, here are some photos.

More photos after the jump. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal responds to ARAW’s blatant twisting of the Journal’s March 20th editorial: “These guys must really be desperate.” We couldn’t have put it better.

Also in the WSJ, Kimberley Strassel writes that “the business community just moved into a far more dangerous phase.” Definitely a piece worth reading and passing along to anyone who is thinking about letting the guard down. The challenge will be continuing to keep a united front in opposition, when the temptation will be to take the easier, “moderate” road and sign onto a compromise that writes away worker freedoms.

Meanwhile, the Governor of Tennessee, a Democrat, says he is opposed to EFCA and alludes to this costing him a cabinet post.

In a follow up to yesterday’s news, a U.S. Rep from Wisconsin questioned the claim from a local business leader that EFCA stalled a project that would have created 800 jobs.