LaborPains.org

This is quite embarrassing. From Politico:

President Barack Obama’s political director failed to disclose that he was slated to receive a nearly $40,000 payout from a large labor union while he was working in the White House.

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House.

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

As a reminder, Gaspard is one among an honored handful of former union employees who, after the election, found a safe place to land in the White House.

This falls under the “You can’t make this stuff up” catagory. From the Detroit Free Press:

City officials said that as many as a dozen rats were set loose in the [Yonkers] City Council chambers on Tuesday night, when union workers showed up to protest looming layoffs – a showdown that ultimately included expletive-filled taunts and squealing, scurrying rats. […] The incident came as dozens of Teamsters and other union members gathered outside City Hall to demonstrate against job cuts and included the appearance of a giant inflatable rat that is common at union rallies. Union members protested the cuts during the public comment portions of a council budget meeting and a subsequent regular board meeting.

Calls at Local 456 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters were not returned. Murtagh said he accepts assurances from union leaders who told him that they had no involvement in the release of the rats, an act he called “outrageous conduct by anyone, most especially employees of the city.” But he also said the incident raised questions about the union leadership. “If you take them at their word, then that shows to me that they have a complete lack of control over their membership, and indeed that their membership has a complete lack of respect for their leadership,” he said.

Image courtesy of Unknown User.

The Teamsters are contemplating a strike at funeral homes in Chicago, and I wish the good people of Chicago well. From the Chicago Sun Times:

The Teamsters and a funeral home chain are coming down to the wire in contract negotiations, raising the specter of a strike by funeral directors and drivers at 17 Chicago-area sites. The three-year contract between Chicago’s Teamsters Local 727 and Houston-based Service Corporation International expires at the end of the day June 30, and union officials said the two sides remain far apart on economics.

Now I won’t speak ill of the dead….but the Teamsters…..

I actually thought this was a joke when I first saw it.

Andy Stern has finally seen the cash and perhaps seen …the light?  He’s apparantly decided to bury the hatchet with an entire industry, and help sell antidotes for biological weapons to the Department of Defense. Again, let me repeat, this is not a joke. From the Wall Street Journal:

“Siga Chief Executive Eric Rose said Stern’s “insight, experience, and leadership, particularly his understanding of how our federal government works, will complement the skill sets” of the existing board. Siga applies viral and bacterial genomics and sophisticated modeling to develop products for the prevention and treatment of serious infectious diseases, with an emphasis on products for biological warfare defense.”

Yes, hilariously, part of the reason they hired Mr. Stern was for his intimate knowledge of how government works. I guess visiting the White House as often as Andy Stern makes all the difference.

Image courtesy of Justin.Scrappers.

While unions will not let their hopes and dreams for the Employee Free Choice Act, or EFCA, go, arguing for the “freest and fairest elections,” they seem quite content to deny taxpayers (the ones footing the bill) the ability to vote on pension reforms. I guess fairness isn’t what EFCA was about after all. From the Silicon Valley Mercury News:

Unions representing Menlo Park city workers are expected to file a lawsuit today in an effort to prevent a pension reform initiative from going before voters on the November ballot. The ballot initiative, spearheaded by Citizens for Fair and Responsible Pension Reform, would reduce pension benefits for new city employees. The organization gathered 2,788 signatures, more than the 1,884 needed to qualify for the ballot. The council in May approved the initiative for the Nov. 2 ballot.

Today at noon, representatives of the local chapters of the Service Employees International Union, which represents non-management city employees, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, along with some residents and city workers, are scheduled to hold a news conference outside Menlo Park City Hall after the lawsuit has been filed. An SEIU representative called the initiative unlawful, but wouldn’t elaborate on the legal grounds for the lawsuit against Menlo Park. In the past, AFSCME representatives have said the ballot measure violates a state law that prohibits amending retirement contracts through initiatives.

Image from Dean Terry.

From ABCNews:

“More than 500 decisions by the leading federal agency that referees disputes between labor and management will have to be reopened after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the five-member board had operated illegally when its membership dwindled to two.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling in which the court’s leading liberal — retiring Justice John Paul Stevens — sided with the court’s four most conservative members, said the law does not allow the National Labor Relations Board to operate while it is short-staffed because of political arguments. [...]

The decision means that more than 500 of employee-employer cases decided by the NLRB while its membership had dropped to two must now be reopened by the board, which currently has four members.”

Image courtesy of IslesPunkFan.

You cannot make up stories like this. Not if you try, and not in a thousand years.

From the New York Post:

A married, obese former president of a Port Authority union admitted yesterday in court to embezzling nearly $300,000 in member dues and using the cash for tawdry hook-ups with prostitutes, casino trips and lavish meals, sources told The Post. Daniel Hughes, 49, who resigned in disgrace from the local Field Supervisor Association, admitted to Judge Eric Vitaliano in Brooklyn federal court that he stole the cash from January 2005 to last December — bankrupting the account for his 250 members.

“This PA employee took advantage of his position as a president of a union and abused it in a calculated and egregious manner,” said PA Inspector General Robert Van Etten. “Hughes used his union’s funds as his own personal piggy bank,” added PA Deputy Attorney General Michael Nestor, the director of investigations for the IG’s Office.

In addition to paying restaurant bills and at least one trip to Mohegan Sun, Hughes used the union’s ATM card to withdraw cash for nearly a dozen sexual romps with hookers, the sources said. Hughes, who stands 5-foot-11 and weighs more than 350 pounds — after recent weight-reduction surgery — used a Queens-based escort service that billed him $400 to $500 an hour, a source said.

“He used an escort service quite often, nine or 10 times,” said the source. “They hooked up in cheap hotels,” the source added, including the Kew Motor Inn along the Grand Central Parkway, which bills itself on its Web site as “the most famous and exotic couples-friendly motel/hotel in Queens!!”

Oh, this post would have had an amazing image of Jabba the Hut were it not for Ben Yakas at Gothamist.com beating me to the punch. So I’ve included this image of the “Cupid’s Room” at the Kew Motor Inn where Hughes spent his time, lost the union’s money, and ruined his reputation.

This certainly reflects poorly on him.

To read the rest of the story, CLICK HERE.

Quinnipiac has released a new poll about the state of play in New Jersey, where new governor Chris Christie is attempting to fix the state’s budget gaps and bring the powerful public sector unions in line. Though the public has a mixed opinion of him overall — 44% describe Gov. Christie as a “leader,” while 43% describe him as a “bully” — he wallops the teachers unions.

From the poll:

New Jersey voters like their teachers 56 – 26 percent, but by a 50 – 24 percent margin they have a negative opinion of the teachers’ union. Voters with children in public school like their teachers 65 – 23 percent, but dislike the teachers’ union 53 – 22 percent. …

Teachers’ unions are doing the wrong thing in refusing to freeze wages or make other concessions, voters say 64 – 29 percent. Voters oppose 65 – 31 percent property tax increases to avoid cutting teachers and school programs in t

heir district.

Voters realize that we Americans already pay an absurdly high amount of money for absurdly lackluster returns, as P.J. O’Rourke points out in his latest piece for The Weekly Standard. As O’Rourke puts it,

we are spending $11,749 per pupil per year in the U.S. public schools, grades pre-K through 12. … If throwing money is what’s needed, American school kids are getting smacked in the head with gobs of cash aplenty. That $11,749 is a lot more than the $7,848 private school pre-K through 12 national spending norm. It’s also a lot more than the $7,171 median tuition at four-year public colleges. Plus $11,749 is much less than what’s really being spent. …

Schaeffer calculated that Los Angeles, which claims $19,000 per-pupil spending, actually spends $25,000. The New York metropolitan area admits to a per-pupil average of $18,700, but the true cost is about $26,900. The District of Columbia’s per-pupil outlay is claimed to be $17,542. The real number is an astonishing $28,170—155 percent more than the average tuition at the famously pricey private academies of the capital region.

School districts also cheat by simple slowness in publishing their budgets. The $11,749 is from 2007, the most recent figure available. It’s certainly grown. TheDigest of Educational Statistics (read by Monday, there will be a quiz) says inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending increased by 49 percent from 1984 to 2004 and by more than 100 percent from 1970 to 2005.

Money isn’t the answer. We already spend more than enough on schools. While O’Rourke’s preferred solution — namely, eliminating public schools altogether — might not be the best answer, it’s certainly better than pouring more money into schools overwhelmed by unions more interested in protecting terrible teachers than improving the quality of education students receive.

Photo via EricGjerde