LaborPains.org

As an Eagle Scout, I take this one personally.

Nick Balzano, president of the SEIU local in Allentown, PA, didn’t kick a puppy, or salt the earth, but he did attack an Eagle Scout.

Remind me again who attacks an Eagle Scout for community service? Remind me again who chooses to bring the wrath and fury of the Boy Scouts down upon them?

First, here’s what an Eagle Scout named Kevin Anderson decided to do for his town.  The Allentown Morning Call reports:

Anderson, a junior and varsity soccer player at Southern Lehigh High School, is a member of Boy Scout Troop 301 of Center Valley.  He got the idea for the trail while taking hikes along the partially complete, 165-mile Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor. He noticed there were a few missing connections to the trail in Kimmets Lock Park, which is on the Lehigh River near Dauphin Street. He already has logged 250 hours trying to carve out a walking and biking trail along the river.

“I decided to do my part in completing this part of the trail. In that way, others could enjoy walking along the river, without having to walk on the busy road,” Anderson said in an e-mail Friday.

A perfectly innocuous this to do for one’s post-industrial town suffering in the current economy.  But local union leader Balzano was furious. The Allentown Morning Call explains:

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city’s largest municipal union.  Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

“We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails,” Balzano told the council. Balzano said Saturday he isn’t targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city’s decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said “‘there’s to be no volunteers.’ No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.“

Balzano said Saturday the union is still looking into the matter and might cut the city a break.

“We are probably going to let this one go,” Balzano said.

Probably should, Balzano, probably should.  It might stave off people salting your front yard or kicking you in the Balzano.

As for my Eagle Scout Project, I’m happy to report that it was a union-free affair. In fact, you can still see it on Google Maps (the picket fence with elevated planters behind it allowing handicapped seniors to garden):

View Larger Map

Image courtesy of robotbrainz.

From the Wall Street Journal:

More than a 150 people gathered outside Goldman Sachs’ offices here on Monday to demand that the investment bank donate billions set aside for employee bonuses to families at risk of foreclosure.  The event was organized by the Service Employees International Union and the community group National People’s Action, which staged a similar protest outside the Chicago offices of Goldman and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) last month. [...] Protesters chanted, “Too big to fail, too big to exist,” as they held posters proclaiming “Wanted: Lloyd Blankfein” that were emblazoned with a photo of the Goldman CEO. [...]

After SEIU President Andy Stern and various community and religious group leaders whipped up the crowd with speeches, the protesters pushed toward the doors of the building where Goldman’s offices are located. They demanded that people inside accept a letter, blown up and mounted on poster board, addressed to Blankfein. The letter called on Goldman to donate its entire 2009 bonus pool to people facing foreclosure, asserting that just 10% of the money could prevent 200,000 families from losing their homes and lift 10,000 families out of poverty.

The building that the SEIU decide to grace with its presence yesterday is 101 Constitution Ave. NW, where Goldman has its DC headquarters. Funny thing is, the building is actually union-owned by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, and Goldman Sachs actually rents space in the building. It’s one of the most coveted slabs of real estate in Washington. See below:

I wonder if McCarron enjoyed the view (and the noise) yesterday. Andy Stern sure owes him one.  That is if Andy Stern can pull himself away from White House dinners.

My vote is no.

Frankly, Andy Stern could probably care less about the ruckus he caused yesterday (he never does anyway).  Did I forget to mention that the carpenters union was with the Change to Win Coalition, until it disassociated itself from the SEIU this summer?

Perhaps this protest had two goals. Here’s a link to a photo slide show from the event.

Image courtesy of The Business Insider.

We may have already blogged about last Thursday’s protests in San Francisco, but more images and videos have finally showed up on the inter-webs and the google-boxes, and we naturally want to share them with you. Here’s a nice chant for your Monday afternoon:

A few more videos:

If you don’t feel awkward and embarrassed for your fellow man after watching those videos, call you doctor. And check out some more images, courtesy of the blogs.

For a slide reel of the entire event, click here. And for more on the story, check out this piece in the SF Bay Guardian.

SEIU President Andy Stern is NOT a socialist. He wants to make sure you know this….in case there was any doubt.

Then why is he sweating so much?   OK, we admit it.  We just like watching Andy Stern squirm.

It begins like a horrible joke:

What do a 14-foot puppet, incense, a woman dancing to funk music, a group of Native Americans, and a gaggle of people in purple shirts have in common?

Answer:

They all showed up at Gavin Newsom’s homecoming meeting at City Hall yesterday in the city of San Fransisco.

Wow, the mayor disappears leaves for two weeks (He even stopped tweeting!!!!), and he comes back to this?  In his absence, the City Council upheld some wildly unpopular firings of some 500 city workers.  The unions (read: SEIU) feel that Newsom didn’t do enough to “raise funds” (read: higher taxes) to keep the workers on. Newsom refused and has been the recipient of a whole lot of hate. A great deal of it happened yesterday afternoon.

So here’s how yesterday’s event went down, according to SFWeekly blog.  As tired and cliche as it may be, you just can’t make this stuff up:

“… the protest quickly heated up when a phalanx of union members stormed the mayor’s office chanting “We’re fired up! We can’t take it no more!”

The doors to Gavin Newsom’s Room 200 were soon locked, with two guards barricading the door and refusing entry to the press and SEIU Local 1021 President Damita Davis-Howard. The officials even asked the handful of folks outside the door to back away from the area immediately in front of Newsom’s door when a mass of 150 protesters flooded up the steps to continue the protests with megaphones.

“The mayor says cut back, we say fight back!” they shouted, a team of police officers moving in to block the door from the angry SEIU masses.

After about five minutes of chants, a man attending the American Indian Heritage Day ceremony that was about to begin in the rotunda below stood at the front of the protestors and motioned for them to quiet down, which they did, only for him to start screaming at them: “You are disrupting our event! Can you guys please get the fuck out of here?!” Police moved in to try to talk the man down, as he continued yelling “They come up here and disrupt our land! You’re disrespecting our honoring!”

The SEIU leaders then decided to low-key the demonstration, instructing everyone to sit on the floor outside Newsom’s office for a “silent protest.”"

I’d like to see the headline: SEIU ignores irony and human decency, disrespects Native Americans.

Image courtesy of SFWeekly.

These days it seems like the Service Employees International Union is involved in more controversies that I can keep track of. To remedy that, I made the helpful map.

Click here to download a handy printable PDF.

California’s labor wars continue bloody and unabated between the SEIU and the UHW.  The Wall Street Journal couldn’t even paint this turd– so much so, they covered it twice. From November 11:

“Unions are competing for shrinking turf and members, and the most ferocious intramural battle today involves Mr. Stern’s union here in California. For the past 10 months, the SEIU has fought to hold on to 150,000 members in its Union of Healthcare Workers affiliate, or UHW. The challenge comes from a group of former UHW leaders and Stern confidantes. Pushed out by Mr. Stern after a prolonged power struggle, they started a rival outfit, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, or NUHW, in January and immediately moved to build it up by wooing away members from the SEIU’s local, UHW.

Now these upstarts charge that the UHW threatened workers with deportation and tampered with secret ballots to narrowly win a pivotal election last summer in Fresno, Calif. The NUHW allegations, contained in a complaint filed last Friday and previously not made public, take the battle to a new level. [...] When the secret ballots were mailed in and counted, the SEIU won that vote by a sliver, 2,938 to 2,705.

The NUHW immediately called for a re-run of the election, challenging voting irregularities. The two unions have traded accusations since. But now, Carlos Martinez, an immigrant from El Salvador who was on the SEIU’s staff during the campaign, has come forward—so he says—to blow the whistle on his employer. Mr. Martinez went door-to-door canvassing the home-care workers during the 15-day election. Like him, many of them are native Spanish speakers; some are illiterate.

Speaking in an interview over a sandwich at a hotel in the Bay Area late last month, Mr. Martinez says he was instructed by superiors to tell the workers that if they voted against the SEIU, they could lose their medical benefits, see their green cards or citizenship revoked and possibly be deported. He says he and other staffers were also told to pressure voters to spoil ballots that had been filled out for the NUHW. In other instances he filled ballots out for them. He says he even took some to the post office, as did other SEIU campaign workers.

Image courtesy of Chris Campbell.

No one ever accused the SEIU of being a class act, sometimes they can play the class clown (like when they ask us to believe that Labor Day was  a labor of love), but more and more people are realizing the SEIU might just be the bully on the playground.

The LA Times:

Carmen Padron, a commercial laundry worker in Pomona, said a rival union tried to persuade her to abandon her longtime local. “They should be organizing workers who don’t have a union, not harassing us,” Padron said. George Ibarra, a hotel worker in Texas, said an organizing drive in San Antonio collapsed when a competing union swooped in and made a deal with management. “That was completely underhanded,” Ibarra said. The two incidents are among numerous episodes in a vicious civil war that is roiling the U.S. labor movement and diverting attention from its core goals — better contracts for workers, new organizing drives and a far-reaching political agenda in Washington. Occurring mostly below the public radar, the ferocious battle ripped apart the union known as Unite Here, with tens of thousands of workers nationwide, and assumed a tumultuous center stage in labor circles. Each side in the schism has accused the other of trying to raid its ranks and steal members.

The dispute has cost organized labor millions of dollars to fight and dealt pleased employers an upper hand as union shops battle each other. A broad swath of contested terrain ranges from commercial laundries in California to school cafeterias in Philadelphia. The war has featured a blitzkrieg of leafleting, prerecorded phone calls, direct mailers, home visits and, according to court papers, “coercive interrogation techniques” used to strong-arm members. Both sides have alleged threats, harassment, lockouts, misappropriated funds and back-room deals with employers. [...]

“This is a conscious effort by SEIU to hijack our members, our jurisdiction and our assets,” said Unite Here’s president, John W. Wilhelm, who is known for his organizing efforts among casino employees in Las Vegas. “They’ve launched an attack on our membership totally unprecedented in American labor history.” Wilhelm has gone so far as to advise employers to deposit union dues into escrow accounts, warning that to do otherwise could be illegal. Many employers have done so, depriving locals of operating funds.

SEIU President Andy Stern has repeatedly denied any effort to steal members or challenge jurisdictions. “SEIU is not interested in raiding Unite Here members,” Stern declared in calling for a “cease-fire” in the struggle. But Unite Here stalwarts reject Stern’s protestations of innocence. [...] But a lot of assets are also in play. Both sides claim a bevy of contested holdings, including prime Manhattan real estate, considerable cash reserves and a majority stake in Amalgamated Bank in New York, which has more than $4 billion in assets. The right to the treasury is playing out in federal court in New York.

Image courtesy of jessyparr.