LaborPains.org

Here’s a great video explaining EFCA in under 4 minutes.

In a brazen but not all too shocking move, the union for Los Angeles police officers is demanding the owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune to “change the paper’s editorial stance on labor issues or to fire its editorial writers.”

To provide some context, the police officers’ pension fund invests with Platinum Equity, a private equity firm that recently purchased the Union-Tribune. The Union-Tribune‘s editorial board has consistently called for the city of San Diego to cut back on costs (re: salaries and benefits) to reduce the city’s chronic budget woes. This of course does not sit well with the union.

So what do they do? The union wants the newspaper to fire writers because they happen to have a policy disagreement.  Not to mention that they want to fire people whose job is to articulate and express those very opinions.

When asked about the matter, the union president didn’t even bother to offer a sound argument as to why the Union-Tribune editorial writers should be fired. Instead, he complains that “it’s just these people on the opinion side. There is not even an attempt to be even-handed. They’re one step away from saying, ‘these public employees are parasites.’”

Compare his response to the editor of the Union-Tribune‘s editorial page: “We are not anti-public safety or public employee. … All of this has to be considered within the context of what the city can afford. A bankrupt city can’t provide any public safety very well.”

We don’t need to sermonize on the virtues and necessity of free speech in a democratic society. But we are obliged to point out that we are headed down an unpleasant and unprecedented road if a union can dictate the content and messaging of a newspaper simply because it disagrees with the union.

This is almost as funny as the Onion News Networks Onion-SPAN segments.

Here’s the list of “Heavy Hitters” from OpenSecrets.org:

Earlier this month YRC–the conglomerate of Roadway and Yellow trucking companies–requested TARP funds to pay off a portion of its Teamsters pension debt. The problem, YRC’s CEO explained, is that only half of YRC pension liability is going towards former YRC employees. The remaining $1 billion is subsidizing their now-banktupt competitors’ retirees.

A few years ago, UPS saw the writing on the wall and left the failing fund in exchange for a one-time $6.1 billon payoff. More than $3 billion of that went to pay for non-UPS employees pensions.

The Teamsters Central States fund is one of the most notorious multi-employer pensions in the country. Before the economic meltdown it was less than 70% funded, which put it in the “red zone.” Now, after losing 9 billion in the economic meltdown, it has $17 billion in project assets and an estimated $33 billion in liabilities. To make matters worse, it has more than 200,000 retirees, but only 93,000 active contributers.

This graph, from an internal Teamster report, couldn’t be clearer.

Oh, and by the way, I was on CNBC last night to talk about this with “labor lover” Phil Dine. Here’s the video:

A federal judge in Manhattan sentenced Brian M. McLaughlin, the former president of the New York City Central Labor Council, to 10 years in prison for racketeering charges.

McLaughlin, who had also been an state assemblyman from Queens, pleaded guilty in 2008 to racketeering charges that included embezzlement, fraud, and bribery. The former labor leader/assemblyman swindled his own election committee, labor union, taxpayers, and even a Little League team.

McLaughlin managed to serve as both a state assemblyman and the head of the labor council made up of 400 union locals and more than one million members. His dual capacity as legislator and labor boss was described as “unusual, and lucrative.” He reportedly earned at least $263,000 a year.

A document released showed McLaughlin agreed to foreit more than $3 million in “illegal proceeds from his crimes.” Prosecutors had charged McLaughlin with misappropriating more than $330,000 from his re-election committee, $185,000 from the labor union, and more than $35,000 from the New York State Assembly.

No, we’re not making this up.

The union representing state prison guards – the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association – is paying $100 to every member who attends a rally at the state Capitol in Albany.

In an internal memo obtained by the Daily News, the union’s treasurer John Telisky wrote, “Please be advised that all members who attend the June 2, 2009, rally at the Albany Capitol will be paid $100 for their participation.” To receive the $100, members have to get a union representative to sign an expense voucher proving they attended the rally.

When asked about the $100, Telisky claimed it wasn’t meant to persuade members to show up, but to cover travel expenses. But as the Daily News pointed out, Telisky’s memo specifically noted that mileage reimbursements would not be provided.

Telisky expects about 1,000 members to show up at the June rally. Just for good measure, we did the math: 1,000 members x $100 = $100,000 in hard-earned members’ dues. We wonder how the rank-and-file would feel about this.

Prominent fund managers across the country are wary of future lending to union-dominated companies after their last bout with the Obama administration, UAW, and Chrysler.

President Obama put Chrysler under bankruptcy protection after lenders objected to the proposal requiring them to take 29 cents on the dollar for the $6.9 billion in debt that they held. The UAW’s retiree medical fund received far more favorable terms (55 percent equity stake in Chrysler), despite ranking be low lenders in the repayment hierarchy.

Schultze Asset Management LLC, Pacific Investment Management Co., Barclays Capital and Fridson Investment Advisors have all expressed skepticism and hesitation on any future lending for unionized companies with “underfunded pension and medical obligations, such as airlines and auto-industry suppliers.” This reluctance could make it more difficult for borrowers to seek capital amidst the current economic downturn. George Schultze of Schultze Asset Management said that lenders will either not lend at all or be forced to charge a much higher rate of interest “because you may be leapfrogged in bankruptcy.”

GM debtholders will likely be squeezed in the same manner as Chrysler’s lenders. Under the proposed terms, GM debtholders would be forced to swap $27 billion in debt for a 10 percent equity stake, compared to the UAW’s retiree health care fund would receive $10 billion in cash  plus 39 percent equity stake for only $20 billion in unsecured claims.

The UAW has received generous terms amidst restructuring and bankruptcy discussions.  If private capital continues to be forced out thanks to heavy-handed federal intervention on behalf of the UAW, it will be the taxpayer who ends up bailing out the union.

The Wall Street Journal profiled the UAW’s financial assets, highlighting the  union’s $33 million luxury golf resort.

The UAW, which is the wealthiest union in the nation, had $1.2 billion in assets. Some of the noteworthy items: $700 million in U.S. Treasury securities, $321 million in investments, $100 million in fixed assets, which includes a $3 million townhouse in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. and of course, the $33 million Black Lake golf course/resort.

The resort is formerly known as the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center, which features the Black Lake Golf Club and up to 1,000 acres of forest in Onaway, Michigan. The “education center” features a gym with two full-sized basketball courts, an indoor Olympic-sized pool, pool tables, a sauna, hiking and biking trails, athletic fields, and for good measure, a boat-launch ramp.

Despite the luxurious amenities, most union members never actually experience the resort’s wonders. In times of economic turmoil, the center has become, as the article frames it, a “sore point for many members.” And just like the union’s effect on the auto industry, the resort has been a “drain on the union, losing an estimated $23 million in the past five years.”