LaborPains.org

I’ve written about labor backed “green” jobs before (like HERE and HERE),   It’s another way for unions to edge into jobs, harm companies and employees, and stomp their foot during contract negotiations.

Here’s the setup. The Hill explains:

“While the Obama administration’s embrace of nuclear energy has angered some environmental groups, it has won solid support from the labor movement. Each new nuclear reactor built could create hundreds of jobs for electrical engineers, pipe-fitters and construction workers. Based on industry statistics, most of those jobs will be union jobs, offering labor a way to boost membership rolls after years of decline.

The problem is that this is creating tension among labor’s blue-green bedfellows who are in the environmental fight because of their ideals. Since labor unions were really looking at this as a way to make jobs, get federal money, and bolster their reputation–well, you can see how this might be a problem with some environmental groups.  This is where the rubber meets the road. The Hill:

“We have adopted a smart strategy of talking about things we agree upon. That’s why we don’t talk about nukes,” said Stewart Acuff, chief of staff of the Utility Workers Union of America. Environmental groups see a dangerous and expensive fuel. [...] [L]abor officials argue the administration’s plan to provide $54 billion in federal loan guarantees to new nuclear plants will create thousands of “green jobs.” It’s more than a semantical distinction. Green job designations could beget ever greater federal support.

“Absolutely, we consider nukes green jobs,” said Charlie Mulcahy, chief international representative for the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association. The green job tag has more typically been applied to windmills and weatherization projects, and environmental groups seem to want to keep it that way. “The Sierra Club does not consider nuclear-industry jobs to be green jobs, because nukes are neither clean nor green,” Josh Dorner, a group spokesman, said. Greenpeace has opposed climate legislation in Congress in part because the bills provide “money for dirty technology,” including nuclear power.”

Image courtesy of Funky64.

Answer: Unions–and organizations getting money from them.

From the NY Post:

Five of the Top 10 lobbying and campaign-donating entities in 2009 were, broadly speaking, part of the health-care cartel. No. 1 was the Healthcare Education Project — an unholy alliance of the Greater New York Hospital Association and SEIU 1199, the health-care workers union — which spent $3.8 million in an ad campaign against mild cuts suggested by the governor.[...]

Separately, the hospital association spent another $2.1 million and 1199 tossed in $1.5 million in lobbying activities. Also in the Top 10: the teachers unions — the city’s United Federation of Teachers and its parent New York State United Teachers (No. 2).

Check out the original information from the New York Public Interest Group HERE.

Brad Peck from ChamberPost reports that the AFL-CIO is finally tearing down their “Faces of EFCA” campaign.

I wonder if this is in response to a union grievance citing the AFL-CIO’s employees right to offices with windows. I wouldn’t put it past them.

At the same, only a few minutes ago the AFL-CIO’s Trumka told ABC’s TopLine Webcast that they were working on getting EFCA passed before the election. Of course, it is more likely that we’ll see some semblance of EFCA “passed” by the National Labor Relations Board.

Washingtonians have grown accustomed to the Carpenters Unions’ merry band of bums marching around in circles.

If you’ve never encountered them before, the local Carpenter’s Council pays about 50 homeless people minimum wage to march and beat buckets all day long protesting non-union construction companies. The con, of course, is that the average passerby thinks that the hired-homeless are actually striking carpenters.

None of this is new, except that yesterday I saw them marching in front of an AFL-CIO financed building in 15th Street in Washington, DC.

So while perusing The New York Times slide show on entitled “Buying in Bulk”, I ran across the an image that caught my eye.  And the caption read as follows:

“PUSHING THE CART Joe Ruggiero, 46, a maintenance technician for Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, with his co-worker Robert Alfonso, 55

IN THE CART Multiple 20-bottle cases of Vitamin Water ($16.99 each)
AT THE REGISTER “Approximately $800″
We have Family Day, we have African American Day, Indian Day, Russian Day, Italian Day. We have cultural events, and that’s what these beverages are for. We keep it in stock and we get it from Costco.”

Are the Transport Workers Union in New York City perhaps trying to save money? Slightly out of character, I realize. This means at least one AFL-CIO affiliated union member recognizes the superior delivery mechanism in place at Costco that allows them to cut distribution costs and therefore pass along great savings to consumers.

Anyway, I just thought it was nice to see a union member darkening the door of a Costco, considering the accusations flying around last week against Coca-Cola and 7-11 and Costco working together to bring the same beverages to other customers more efficiently.

Image used at the courtesy of The New York Times.

Andy Stern had an eventful day.

He attended his first fiscal commission, hosted by President Obama. I am sure it was enlightening as he explained how to drive an entity with a large budget into massive debt.  His heir-apparent Anna Burger is looking anything but apparent at this point– but more on Mary Kay Henry later. In other news, according to Ben Smith, Andy Stern will be coming on the speaking circuit to a civic center or stadium near you. Based on the picture to the right, I hope he gets a better microphone.

When seemingly every New York City-based news agency saw fit to cover the impending doorman’s strike, “country folk” across the country were left scratching their heads. When the crisis averted at midnight last night, you could almost hear relief pouring out of the news agency’s offices. Twitter lit up with heartfelt relief.

I am not saying that if I had a doorman, I wouldn’t think the world of them.  I am saying that perhaps it’s an organized labor fight that doesn’t exactly help Americans outside of urban centers understand–or have any tolerance for–organized labor. It’s…..declasse.

Especially when The New York Times said this:

If the doormen and other service workers had gone on strike, residents of the affected buildings would have had to perform their own chores, like sorting mail, screening visitors, hauling garbage out to the curb and operating elevators. [...] A strike would have disrupted the daily routines of hundreds of thousands of middle-class residents from upper Broadway to Brownsville, as well as affluent owners of Park Avenue penthouses. Along with picket lines in front of many of their homes, they would have been confronted with the loss of the people who sign for their packages, carry their luggage and let the pizza deliverers and dog walkers into the building. Residents of many buildings had been asked to pitch in to sort the mail, announce visitors by intercom, operate elevators and haul garbage to the curb if necessary.

Or when Bloomberg explained:

“It’s going to be annoying because our building told us that if this does happen, there won’t be any collection of laundry, you won’t be able to pick up your packages at the front desk and you’ll have to throw away your own trash on the side of the building,” said Rajeev Sharma, a money manager at First Investors Management Co. who lives in the Atlas Building on West 38th Street. “It’s probably just going to be more stuff to do, more chores to do on the weekend.”

Even the Wall Street Journal couldn’t resist the urge to cover the resolution of the strike:

In reaching a deal, residents of about 3,000 city apartments and condos will see no change in their security, delivery and trash services, all of which would have been jeopardized had a strike occurred.

At least The New York Times was somewhat self aware as to how the whole thing sounded to “the rest of us”, prompting the piece “In Event of a Strike, How to Open the Doors“.

Image by Rennett Stowe.

If you want to know how Big Labor got its claws into California’s taxpayers pockets, then check out “The Beholden State: How public-sector unions broke California” by Steven Malanga.

Here’s a highlight from City Journal:

“Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.”

“How public employees became members of the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support.”

Watch the SEIU threat video below if you want a window into the union’s line of reasoning and sense of entitlement. It’s an oldie, but a goodie.