LaborPains.org

As we head into winter, things are heating up in Massachusetts– just as the Charles River begins to freeze up.

In the wake of the passing of longtime Senator Ted Kennedy, unions in Massachusetts are mobilizing for an “abbreviated” Democratic primary– a place where unions shine and shine and shine.

The Boston Globe reports:

“Special elections always play to our strength,” said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, which represents about 400,000 labor union members and has yet to endorse in the race. “We can organize our workforce, contact our membership, provide phone banks and literature on the job, knock on doors, and do mailings – and do each multiple times.”

The recipients of what the Globe calls “instant ground organizations” are Attorney General Martha Coakley, who has locked down most of the Teamsters, and US Representative Michael E. Capuano, who has locked down the United Food and Commercial Workers.  There are even major divisions between locals and between regional New England Boards and the state organizations.  While no union will deliver their membership en masse, they can deliver people and funds in a way no other group really can in such a short period of time.  It will be telling what policies Capuano and Coakley latch onto this fall, as it will no doubt be an indicator of which unions they are courting for an endorsement. The SEIU and the Massachusetts Teachers Association are expected to announce as early as next week.

Two democratic candidates have failed to attract any serious union backing, and therefore, are effectively irrelevant in this primary. Without union attention in Massachusetts, there is practically no reason to even name them.

Image courtesy of Craig Stevens.

With some locals formed as far back as 1887, the Teamsters were once known as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America.  They were men who drove teams of animals like mules or horses, pulling wagons, to transport goods.  Not to many mule drivers in modern America; and as unions across the country face declining membership, the Teamsters are starting to find opportunity in unlikely places, like libraries. To say that the teamsters are expanding beyond their traditional boundaries of members is an understatement.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The word “Teamsters” typically conjures up images of burly guys driving beer trucks or puttering around on forklifts in warehouses redolent of diesel fumes. But how about a Teamsters member staffing the checkout desk at a library, or processing an eviction notice at a county courthouse?

Well, the Teamsters union is in fights to represent workers at the Oak Brook Public Library and the Lake County Circuit Court. And these are the sort of nontraditional battles that increasingly have become common in the past decade or so as traditional industrial unions, their membership rolls depleting, aggressively court service workers. [...]

“It’s pretty widespread, and the reason they do it is because the sectors they represent have suffered significant job losses,” said Robert Bruno, associate professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

It’s a well-told tale: Organized labor has been in a free-fall for the past three decades, with 24 percent of workers counting themselves as union members in 1973, but only about 12 percent saying the same last year, according to federal data compiled by Barry Hirsch, a professor at Georgia State University. […]

And particularly when the Teamsters organize professionals, naysayers typically pipe in with, ” ‘These are truck drivers; what do they know about your issues?’ ” Rainville said. The union’s answer: It has a good track record delivering contracts that lead to better pay and working conditions, he said. Whether the Teamsters will succeed remains to be seen. But the union has clout on its side. It’s one of the largest and most powerful unions in the country. And while it has clearly lost significant membership in trucking, its core sector, it was one of the first unions to realize it needed to diversify, said Rick Hurd, a labor expert at Cornell University.

Image courtesy of Changing World Photography.

The public option seems to be dead in the Senate. Employers will not be required to provide health insurance to employees. The new health care bill won’t be too different from what we have now, aside from expanding coverage, says Ezra Klein in the Washington Post today, except for one major part. . . a part that just happens to scare union leaders beyond all reason.  A tax on Cadillac insurance plans.

Cadillac insurance plans are, apart from the fabulously wealthy among us, often held by another group of people—union members.

Bloomberg reports:

The Finance Committee’s draft legislation would tax so- called Cadillac insurance plans by imposing a 40 percent excise tax on policies valued at more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. Labor unions argue in their advertisement that the taxation discriminates against workers.

As for union opposition strategy, Bloomberg explains:

The Teamsters, United Auto Workers and other labor unions plan to oppose health-care legislation being considered by a U.S. Senate panel unless changes are made to the “deeply flawed” bill, according to a draft advertisement prepared for Washington newspapers.  The advertisement, circulated yesterday among the unions, calls for a so-called public option that would compete with private insurers, elimination of a proposed tax on health plans and requiring almost all employers to provide health care or contribute to a fund that would subsidize coverage.  The ad would run if the Senate Finance Committee approves draft legislation introduced by Chairman Max Baucus.

The public option and required employer insurance provision would have helped unions unionize more of the American workforce. Perhaps unions were somewhat more willing to accept the tax on Cadillac health care plans when they knew the rest of the bill sweetened the proverbial pot.  With those components knocked out in the first round, unions (more than 30) are left with a bill that scares them enough to hijack the entire thing.

Image courtesy of Strevo.

Detroit has faced mayoral scandal, the loss of thousands of automotive jobs, a lack of investment, crime, flights to the suburbs, and, over the last few decades, literally every other traumatic problem an American city can face. Even with bailout funds, Detroit, once a shining example of American leadership and innovation, can barely turn out a functional, affordable car.

The Motor City is a shadow of the city it once was.

It was once also an example of the power of America’s unions, with United Auto Worker’s membership peaking at 1.5 million in 1979.  But unpayable salaries, cheap labor overseas, a decline in innovation, and “globalization,” drove business from Detroit.

Unions have held America’s automotive industry hostage with contracts that were more than 1000 pages in length.  For a business were innovation and design are the keys to competitiveness, unions were a bane.   The city has become  poster child for what can happen if unions take the reigns of industry.

Now the city itself, like thousands across the country, is running out of money. But there is a glimmer of hope that Detroit is learning to deal with the unions that have caused it so much trouble. Mayor Dave Bing is not letting up against the city workers unions. Fox News in Detroit reports:

Mayor Dave Bing on Tuesday gave some of Detroit’s municipal worker unions 30 days to agree to new contracts that would include pay cuts or risk having the city impose new contract terms without their consent. [...]

Bing told reporters the city loses millions of dollars each day it operates without the pay cuts, and that he will have no choice but to terminate current deals and institute the cuts without union approval. [...]

Bing listed those unions during a Tuesday press conference and singled out negotiators for the 3,500-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union for refusing to accept the city’s proposals. [...]

“The mayor is not going to be able to settle a contract with his attitude,” Riehl said. “If he wants to settle a contract, he needs to make his demands something unions can live with. Our members can’t afford to be forced into poverty because the city can’t maintain it’s financial condition.”

His attitude?  Perhaps Mayor Bing is just interested in making sure Detroit doesn’t die twice.

Image courtesy of ithinkx.

Yesterday, it was the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Today, it is the New York Times. Major media outlets across the country are finally catching on to the growing outrage–not against ACORN (currently in stocks in the village square), but against the SEIU.

SEIU is one of ACORN’S closest allies.  They probably hoped that the attention of ACORN’s prostitute-brothel video scandal would never turn to them. Of course, the wildly political SEIU has more fingers in ACORN’s pie than they would like anyone to count.

Let’s count.

From the Washington Post:

The SEIU’s parent organization has paid ACORN for training, voter registration and other organizing work, and SEIU locals have paid ACORN affiliates for their services, according to union reports. ACORN founder Wade Rathke was a top member of the SEIU’s board until last year and founded two SEIU locals — in Chicago and New Orleans. SEIU President Andy Stern serves on an advisory panel that was supposed to help ACORN fix financial problems after an embezzlement was discovered last year. Other leaders have served both ACORN and the SEIU, including Keith Kelleher, who headed SEIU Local 880 and also held an ACORN staff position, and whose wife ran the ACORN office in Illinois.

From the New York Times:

“S.E.I.U. has a good deal of its finances tied up and entangled with Acorn, and since 2006 it has given nearly $4 million to Acorn,” said Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Republican Party of Virginia, which has asked the Democratic candidate for governor, Creigh Deeds, to return contributions received from the union. “Their activists work together, their directors and senior members are intertwined. With what we know about Acorn’s and the S.E.I.U.’s symbiotic relationship, it seems only right that this money should be returned.” [...]

Acorn’s founder, Wade Rathke, who has been forced out because of an embezzlement scandal involving his brother, helped found the service employees union’s local in New Orleans and long belonged to the parent union’s board. The union’s president, Andy Stern, belongs to an advisory panel created to help straighten out Acorn’s finances.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Republicans in Kansas, Virginia and Illinois in recent weeks have called on union-backed Democrats to return SEIU campaign contributions, citing the close connection between the union and the community organizing group, whose full name is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. [...]

“The close, almost symbiotic, relationship that SEIU and Acorn have call into question the propriety of being so closely involved with this union,” said Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for the Virginia GOP.

Image courtesy of myriorama.

Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) has been attacking ACORN and the SEIU hard lately.  Here are some snippets from a press release that coincided with his press conference last Monday. In it, he lays out an uncomfortable, yet unsurprising number of Illinois connections between the SEIU and ACORN. From the press release:

Official filings show that SEIU, referenced in the U.S. Attorney’s indictment of Governor Rod Blagojevich, contributed more than $4 million to ACORN and its affiliates since 2006.  According to recent Department of Labor filings, the SEIU employs ACORN Founder and ACORN International Chief Organizer Wade Rathke.  Mr. Rathke was recently exposed for running a cover-up of an embezzlement scheme run by his brother.

In Chicago, SEIU Local 880 and SEIU Local 1 contributed more than $230,000 to ACORN groups in Illinois and Texas since 2006 – the most recent to “support election efforts.”

SEIU Local 880, which until recently boasted it was founded by ACORN, used an ACORN e-mail address on its Web site and tax filings, was co-located with an ACORN “tax center” and employed the former president of ACORN Illinois, according to official records.   Recently, the IRS terminated is relationship with ACORN tax preparation offices.

In a 2006 end-of-year report issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, SEIU Local 880 recounted working with ACORN to reelect Governor Blagojevich and referred to ACORN as its “sister organization.”  A new report issued by the Committee in July reports SEIU and SEIU Local 880 are official members of the “ACORN Council,” according to whistleblower documents acquired by the Committee.

Earlier this year, SEIU Local 880 became “SEIU Health Care Illinois and Indiana”, located on the floor below ACORN Housing’s national headquarters and rents its own space from an ACORN front group called the “Chicago Organizing and Support Center” (COSC).

The Employees Free Choice Act has been “go” and “no go” many times over. Now it is both things at once.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) confidently supposes that EFCA will happen at some point this year or next. He thinks that Republican crossover votes, like his fellow Senator George Voinovich, are unlikely. He is part of the 6 person team creating the compromise bill, and says that he is unsure the new version of the bill even has enough to break the filibuster. In fact, he himself is unhappy with some of the changes. In The Hill, Brown is quoted as saying, “It has been pretty clear that it is very hard with card-check to get 60 votes.” Add to that the Specter that looms over the bill, Senator Byrd’s health problems, Senator Blanche Lincoln’s heels (dug in). The only thing it seems that Brown is confident of is that the Congress will eventually have to decide.

But the Democrat’s lead negotiator, Senator Tom Harkin, who continues to speak very positively about the bill, might as well be reading from different page on a different bill. From The Hill:

Now that Sen. Paul Kirk (D-Mass.) has taken the late Kennedy’s seat, Senate Democrats have 60 members in their conference and Harkin is sounding positive again about the bill. “Hopefully we’re going to get the bill through sometime this fall, now that we hopefully have the 60 votes,” Harkin said on the “Bill Press Radio Show” Tuesday.

Harkin’s “hope” is above and beyond what Sen. Brown is sensing, it seems. It is telling to note that newly minted Senator Paul Kirk is likely to (in tribute) co-sponsor the new EFCA bill.

Image courtesy of Kevin Steele.

The mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, is the mayor of a large, liberal, and lovely city– a city that happens to have active, vociferous unions.

This is California, after all.

It just so happens that Mr. Newsom despises the local SEIU.  And they him.

Here’s a round up of the increasingly nasty confrontations between Newsom and SEIU Local 1021, events triggered by his layoffs of 500 clerical workers and nursing assistants over the summer.  The mayor’s office says the layoffs were due to the economic recession, and by all accounts, that is the case.  San Francisco, just like every corner of California, is seriously strapped for cash.

A evening reception for a police chief was forced indoors thanks to screaming SEIU protestors outside.  They held a die-in around his SUV in June.  There is even a story about union members throwing ketchup at his wife during a pride parade in Jun, however SEIU Local organizer Robert Haaland let the Chronicle know that among all these activities, the ketchup incident was not SEIU. These were collected last week by a blogger.

On the 29th of September, a union member approached the Mayor with a flier stating he had reneged on a deal with the union.  Newsom said it was a lie (which by all accounts it was), was furious, and said “I hate Robert” i.e. the organizer for the Local. Now the SEIU wants to file a complaint with the labor board of California for the incident, which will certainly endear them to Newsom even more. The next morning he arrived to work furious and said negotiations with the union had broken down.

Angry much? Newsom better get used to the attention from the SEIU.  They have sworn to follow him wherever he goes. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Robert Haaland, an organizer for the union, said the gubernatorial candidate should get used to it. “We plan on dogging him on the campaign trail,” he said.

Even the Monday appearance in L.A. with former President Bill Clinton? “That’s the plan,” Haaland said.

As Mr. Newsom makes a bid for governor of the State, this fight becomes all the more interesting.  Were he to be elected, he would probably feel entitled to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Governor Schwarzenegger, who takes great pleasure in burning the unions who have burned him. Perhaps the unions should find every possible gubernatorial candidate in the state and stage a die-in in front of their car.  That will surely help the unions push their agenda through. Not.