Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, is holding EFCA over newly-minted, long circulated Dem. Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter and publicly considering supporting Rep. Joe Sestak.  Specter’s reticence to support EFCA (despite his recent statement that he would support a “modified” version of the bill) has done nothing to assuage the union’s fears that he thinks for himself.  If he does it this time, he may do it again, a risk that Hoffa is unwilling to take—hence the posturing. Bloomberg News reports:

James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said his union may not support Senator Arlen Specter in his re-election bid because the Republican-turned-Democrat hasn’t fully supported legislation making it easier for workers to organize. “We’re looking at both candidates right now” and “it’s time for him to stand up,” Hoffa said in an interview yesterday, referring to Specter and his Democratic primary fight in Pennsylvania with Representative Joe Sestak.

Hoffa said Specter, who switched to the Democratic Party in April, needs to do more to help pass the so-called card-check legislation that is one of organized labor’s top priorities. […]

His defection from the Republican Party gave President Barack Obama and the Democrats the 60 votes needed in the Senate to force action on legislation over Republican objections. Specter will face Sestak in the Democratic primary in May 2010. Obama has said Specter would have his “full support” in running as a Democrat.

Image courtesy of MichaelTRuhl.

The New York Times today profiled Dennis Rivera, the man behind the man behind the SEIU’s push for health care legislation.  Never heard of him?   Rivera used to be New York’s preeminent labor leader, responsible for the state’s 300,000 healthcare workers.  After he stepped down from his post two years ago, he was out of the lime light and off the radar. . . until now.  Rivera is the lead on SEIU’s effort to push through the health care bill; the guy who’s been sending people to town halls; the man seeking out the politician who will be vote number 60; and oh—the man who forged the coalition of strange bedfellows supporting the health care bill.  In the health care debates, he might be the most important person you’ve never heard of.  The New York Times reports:

Mr. Rivera is the point man on health reform for the nation’s most politically powerful union, the Service Employees International Union, which is doing more than any other union to push for health legislation. In many ways, the White House is looking to the S.E.I.U. to lead labor in doing the blocking and tackling necessary for Mr. Obama to carry the ball forward.

At the same time, Washington insiders are impressed and surprised that it was a union leader — Mr. Rivera — who forged a coalition including giant drug makers, the health insurers, the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association that helped secure their pledges to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in costs.

This summer, as high-decibel opponents have crowded into town hall meetings to denounce Mr. Obama’s reform effort, Mr. Rivera, working with other unions, has sent hundreds of labor activists to such meetings to counter opponents. […]

Mr. Stern said his union picked Mr. Rivera to oversee its health care campaign because “we needed our General Petraeus to win this war.”

Mr. Rivera commands a much smaller army: 400 union staff members working full time for health care reform, an unusually large lobbying force that is part of the tens of millions of dollars the union has devoted to the campaign. In Maine, Montana, North Dakota and a dozen other states, the union’s activists have held news conferences and written op-ed articles decrying America’s health care system, all to push lawmakers to back reform. […]

In June, Mr. Rivera took his friend Mayor Michael Bloomberg to meet with Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, to urge her to support health reform. Mr. Rivera has urged her to back a public plan, hoping she might be the 60th Senate vote needed to overcome a filibuster. To win her over, he is considering her proposal for a trigger mechanism that would create a public plan, perhaps when one health insurer dominates a state or when premiums are unusually high, as is the case in Maine.

Image courtesy of LitLinx.

United Auto Workers isn’t afraid to say what everyone else is thinking.  Props to them.  Sec. 164 of the health care bill will help to bail out various union’s failing and/or bankrupt and/or ponzi-scheme pension funds for retirees–to the tune of $10 billion dollars. The Detroit News reports:

The United Auto Workers is urging its members to back efforts in Congress to reform health care coverage, citing a provision that includes $10 billion to defray the medical costs of union members and others in retiree group health care associations.

The bill, approved by a House committee late last month, includes Section 164, a reinsurance program for retirees, according to a summary of the bill from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. It sets aside $10 billion to establish a temporary reinsurance program to provide reimbursement to participating employment-based plans for part of the cost of providing health benefits to retirees age 55-64 and their families. A Senate version has nearly identical language.

(more…)

The last two years have been anything but kind to state budgets across the country, and cash strapped governors and politicians often finds themselves working to balance the unbalanceable, putting state employees at risk for layoffs, pay cuts, and reduced hours.  California’s budget crisis has a lot to thank unions for, something this blog has never failed to mention, but they are not the only state being held fiscally hostage by unions.  Illinois is facing its own round of lawsuits by unions.  The Chicago Tribune reports:

State government’s largest employee union filed suit Monday in hopes of preventing up to 2,600 layoffs threatened by Gov. Pat Quinn to deal with the state’s fiscal crisis. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 went to court in Johnson County, home to the Vienna state prison in southern Illinois, seeking an injunction against the Quinn administration to stop the layoffs. Prison workers are among those targeted for cuts. Quinn has said he would like the union to skip pay raises in exchange for keeping more workers in place. A Quinn spokesman declined to address the specifics of the lawsuit but said the governor’s cost-cutting requires “shared sacrifice” by state agencies and workers.

As the budget crisis looms even larger, the “shared sacrifice” will most likely be felt by the citizens of Illinois.

Image courtesy of Today is a good day.

In California this month, prisons have been under lockdown after rioting at one facility. Prisons in California are overcrowded, the system costs $10 billion dollars a year (70% goes to salary and benefits; 5% to educational and vocational programs), and the state boasts the highest recidivism rate in the country.  It is an understatement to say that the cost of prisons are unsustainable given California plethora of programs going into the red.  NPR recently sent Laura Sullivan to Folsom Prison, site of Johnny Cash’s legendary concert, to figure out how the state that was once a fine example of a functioning correctional system is now the “model every state is trying to avoid.”

When Johnny Cash came to Folsom:

The morning that Cash played may have been the high-water mark for Folsom — and for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.  The men in the cafeteria lived alone in their own prison cells. Almost every one of them was in school or learning a professional trade. The cost of housing them barely registered on the state budget. And when these men walked out of Folsom free, the majority of them never returned to prison. It was a record no other state could match.

Today, things could not be more different:

Folsom was built to hold 1,800 inmates. It now houses 4,427. It’s once-vaunted education and work programs have been cut to just a few classes, with waiting lists more than 1,000 inmates long.  Officers are on furlough. Its medical facility is under federal receivership. And like every other prison in the state, 75 percent of the inmates who are released from Folsom today will be back behind bars within three years.

How did California’s prison system become the utter failure that it is today, and how are unions involved?  Here follows the damning tale:

In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support “three strikes” and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law. And the result for the union has been dramatic. Since the laws went into effect and the inmate population boomed, the union grew from 2,600 officers to 45,000 officers. Salaries jumped: In 1980, the average officer earned $15,000 a year; today, one in every 10 officers makes more than $100,000 a year.

Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the union, says it does what is best for its members. “We have advocated successfully for our members,” he said. But he disputes that the union has purposefully tried to increase the prison population. “The notion that we are some prison industrial complex, or that we are recruiting felons or trying to change laws, is a misnomer,” he said. Campaign records, however, show much of the funding to promote and push for the passage of the laws came from a political action committee the union created. It is run out of a group called Crime Victims United of California.  Its director, Harriet Salarno, says the committee is independent from the union. But a review of the PAC’s financial records shows the PAC has not received a donation from another group besides the union since 2004. Corcoran does not deny that the two are closely connected.

“We support a number of victims’ rights groups,” he said.  When asked why the correctional officers union is involved in victims’ rights at all, Corcoran said: “There are people that think that there’s some sort of ulterior motive, but the reality is we simply want to make sure [the victims'] voices are heard.” But Corcoran acknowledges that the union has benefited from the increase in the prison population after these laws passed.

“We’ve had the opportunity to grow,” Corcoran says, “and that has brought with it both success and criticism.”

The union’s “opportunity to grow” has cost billions of dollars to the taxpayers of California, notwithstanding the egregious human cost.

Listen to the full story here

Image courtesy of theburied.life.

Joe Sestak

It’s that time again.  Endorsements are beginning to roll in as unions position themselves for the 2010 election cycle.

From Teamsters’ press releases:

• “Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today announced the union’s endorsement of Democrat Steve Shannon for attorney general of Virginia as the best candidate to improve the commonwealth’s economy. . .  H. Joseph Ayers, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Joint Council 83 in Richmond [said] “Our union is confident that Shannon will hold businesses accountable for their actions, ensuring that workers are not misclassified and contracts are awarded fairly.”‘

• “Today Teamsters Joint Council 32 officially endorsed Tarryl Clark, candidate for Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District. The vote was unanimous by the Teamsters Joint Council DRIVE Commission and immediately affirmed by the Joint Council Executive Board. The early endorsement commits one of the largest labor organizations in Minnesota for an anticipated hard-fought battle for a Congressional District that has heavy Union propensity. “We will do everything in our power to assure that workers in Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District will finally have a voice that understands what the real issues are that affect working families,” Sue Mauren, Teamsters Joint Council 32 President said.”

And from the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago, regarding Arlen Specter’s seat:

• “One hurdle arose Tuesday when Rep. Joe Sestak, a 57-year-old former Navy admiral, announced he will run against Mr. Specter in the Democrats’ Pennsylvania primary next May.  The matchup is likely to be among the most closely watched and expensive in the nation. Some Democrats, including union leaders, suggest they prefer the more-liberal Mr. Sestak. . . Some labor leaders in Pennsylvania aren’t yet sold and say they would consider backing Mr. Sestak after years supporting Mr. Specter as a Republican. Voters from union households hold big sway in the state, accounting for about three in 10 Democratic voters last November, according to exit polls. “Maybe it’s time for a true Democrat,” said Bill George, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. He said unions had supported Mr. Specter in the past because there was no better candidate. Over a roast beef sandwich and Tater Tots at the Dodge City Restaurant event, Michael J. Fedor, an AFL-CIO representative in central Pennsylvania, said union members would be watching to see how Mr. Specter “behaves.”"

Both EFAC and health care reform have made enemies of politicians once assumed to be relatively in line with (or at least traditional sympathizers of) the union political agenda.

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the unpaid furloughs applied to Prince George’s County, Maryland, employees were unconstitutional.  Unpaid furloughs have been liberally used across the country in the past year by city and county officials to cut costs from their already cash-strapped budgets, in order to provide sufficient city services—something which unions have universally opposed.

There is no word on how broadly the ruling may apply, or even whether upper courts will uphold the ruling, but union leaders didn’t even wait for the proverbial paint to dry before they cracked the champagne—and went looking for a fight in the most union-beleaguered of states, California.

The Washington Post reports today:

Its legal fate aside, the ruling energized union heads looking for ways to evade the carving knives of budget shapers. A large union that is battling state-imposed furloughs in California said the case provides a potential “angle of attack.” “Our attorneys are reviewing this decision to see how it applies to Gov. [Arnold] Schwarzenegger’s malicious furlough of state employees,” said Jim Zamora, spokesman for Service Employees International Union Local 1000.

At a national convention for Fraternal Orders of Police in Long Beach, Calif., Vince Canales, president of the Prince George’s chapter, which was a plaintiff in the suit, said he was mobbed by other union heads who were excited about the ruling and hoped it could aid their battles. “I’ve been going all night and all morning with it,” Canales said. Union leaders are “definitely sitting back and looking at this decision. They know it may not directly affect their issues, but they’re looking for some guidance.”

Image courtesy of davespilbrow

With Richard Trumka the heir apparent at the AFL-CIO, it looks like Sweeney is letting him lead the campaign for card check and government run health care program. That explains why he’s willing to attack any Congressman or woman who opposes the union’s demand to pass EFCA and a so-called “public option” health care program.

Here’s his statement:

STATEMENT BY AFL-CIO SECRETARY TREASURER RICHARD TRUMKA ON PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION IN HEALTH CARE REFORM

A quality public health insurance option is a crucial part of health care reform to keep private insurance companies honest, hold down costs and ensure that everybody has a health care choice available. Key to holding down costs for families, for businesses, and for the federal budget is forcing insurance companies to compete. And the only way to force real competition on the insurance companies is a strong public plan option.

Unfortunately, the usual suspects opposed to reform are trying to hijack the reform process and attacking the public health insurance plan option because they are afraid of competition and they want to keep gouging working families. But unless we take decisive steps to stop the crippling rise of health costs, we will have squandered this moment of opportunity.

We will continue to relay that message forcefully to Congress and the White House.

We will be looking at every one of their votes and whether they are holding to their campaign promises. If they are against the public option and other key issues to working families such as the Employee Free Choice Act it is going to be tough for them to get support from working people.