LaborPains.org

Unions like to play up the fantasy that they stand for “the little guy.”  But that illusion quickly fades when labor leaders have to deal with those little people, and especially if those people are members of the union.

The latest exhibit is Mariam Noujaim, an Egyptian immigrant and member of the 95,000-member SEIU Local 1000, which represents the state employees of California. Since 2010, Noujaim has been on a quest to take a look at the local’s books in order to determine if the union has been wasting member dues. Jon Ortiz of the Sacramento Bee, who covers labor in California, reports:

State employee Mariam Noujaim said the tussle with her union started with a question: Why does the state pay for crossing guards to work on a lightly traveled street between two DMV buildings connected by a tunnel?

“I really believe we can help solve our crisis by spending our money on monitoring the waste rather than bribing political and special interest (groups),” Noujaim wrote in an indelicate April 2010 email to her Service Employees International Union Local 1000 representative.

Under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) any private sector union member has the right to see his or her union’s required federal financial filings as well as the “supporting records” if there is “just cause.” But that’s no help to Noujaim—since she is in a public sector union, such disclosure is not required. Under federal law, public unions must provide an IRS Form 990 and a more detailed Hudson notice—an independently audited report showing how the union dues are calculated. Under California Corporations Code Section 8333, Noujaim has the right as a member of the union to inspect the books “for a purpose reasonably related to such person’s interests as a member.”

After spending $18,000 of her own money and months and months in court, Noujaim was finally able to view Local 1000’s records—with limitations, of course:

After two years of legal battles to force SEIU to open its books, Noujaim and fellow activist Lisa Garcia had half a day to riffle through credit card records and expenditure statements from 2009 and 2010. They were not allowed to take photos, make copies or take anyone else to view the documents.

What was it that helped Noujaim to earn the “suspicion” of the local?

“She supported Meg Whitman,” [union spokesman Jim] Zamora said, referring to the 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate whose name became a virtual epithet among state workers for her promise to cut 40,000 state jobs and tear down public pensions.[emphasis added]

This would be serious cause for concern for a private union. As far as we can tell, federal law doesn’t distinguish the rights of union members based on their political affiliation—despite what union political spending records may suggest.

Noujaim’s website www.helpsaveourstate.com, alternatively known as “OCCUPY SEIU,” has chronicled her journey to make the union responsible to its members. Noujaim said that what she was able to see on Tuesday showed large expenses for hotels, restaurants, and travel, which she viewed as potentially unnecessary, excessive spending. Noujaim believes that the union could and should work as a watchdog to fight waste throughout the California government, as its employees are on the front lines.

On its website, Local 1000 encourages members to blow the whistle on “wasteful private vendor contracts” in order to help the state save money (and to give the jobs to government union employees). But the union doesn’t want to be open to the same critique. You’d be hard pressed to find any detailed financial information on the union, and what you can find is only readily available through another website.

Accountability and transparency are near the bottom of labor’s priorities. Instead, unions prefer to focus on political activity and personal attacks. Noujaim would like to see labor improve:

“They’re becoming a special interest group so we’re trying to go back to the original goal and purpose of the union to work for their members not to be a special interest group and work for politicians.”

This isn’t the first time that Local 1000 has been in the news this year. Another California state employee, Dianne Knox, opposed a special fee for politics assessed against her, a “fair share” member. The case, Knox v. SEIU Local 1000, was decided 7-2 in her favor in late June after several years of litigation.

Only days later, Local 1000 agreed to cut the compensation of union members in exchange for more time off. The union’s leader, Yvonne Walker, had a tough go of it explaining those cuts to members, though eventually, 65 percent of them did. The bad times that labor has endured in November seem to pale in comparison to SEIU Local 1000’s bad year.

But Noujaim should count herself lucky, considering the only tactic used against her was stalling. Members of SEIU Local 1000 were accused of attacking another state employee-critic in 2009. The victim, Ken Hamidi, dared to question where dues were going, especially after a 50-percent increase.

Labor is getting noticed, but for all the wrong reasons.

While most Americans celebrated Thanksgiving last week, labor unions pushed what columnist Michelle Malkin called “Strikesgiving.” In a month that began with an election with mixed results for labor, November culminated with a complete failure for unions both at the bargaining table and in the press room. But this hasn’t deterred labor from pushing its agenda.

At this pace, any political capital labor gained on November 6 will be gone before Christmas.

As The Economist noticed, labor stumbled badly with its latest showdowns against Wal-Mart and Hostess. When Center for Union Facts Managing Director J. Justin Wilson appeared on Larry Kudlow’s program on CNBC, Kudlow asked if labor’s recent actions were “some kind of left-wing European-style general strike attempt?” Similarly, Investor’s Business Daily editorialized and asked, “Is the United States becoming another France, with daily strikes not a bug but a feature?” The IBD editors noted that unions’ recent “intransigence” that ignores the historical trends of labor action could lead to a serious problem: 

If this is the future of America, it doesn’t work.

With unions leveraging political power instead of their own merit as labor, both accountability and the checks or balances of the marketplace are being thrown out.

Not only will workers lose as unions make it all about themselves, so will voters, taxpayers, and consumers held hostage to unsustainable union demands.

It’s a way to make the U.S. a poorer, less globally competitive backwater economy. Is that what unions want?

Labor’s behavior shows that it is out of touch with reality. Unions are acting as though the economy is booming and their political gains have been resounding and sweeping. But let’s quickly review labor’s November losses.

• Michigan voters rejected Proposal 2 and several other pro-union ballot measures.
• Voters supported Alabama’s Amendment 7 and Washington’s Initiative 1240.
• Labor used its red tape to tangle up electrical support crews coming to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy.
• Brinkmanship by the Baker’s Union caused Hostess Foods to liquidate and resulted in the loss of thousands of union jobs. The dispute even led to a Teamsters/BCTGM showdown.
• The Wal-Mart strike amounted to nothing but a minor hiccup for shoppers.

So is labor thankful for its Strikesgiving actions? The fruits of the unions’ labor add up to a handful of people getting to the Los Angeles airport a little later than expected due to an SEIU march. It’s not exactly a popular uprising.

Unions have succeeded — but only if you actually believe that “any press is good press.” Labor continues to push at the federal level to stop compromise and deny fiscal realities, hoping that its election investment will carry the union agenda. Meanwhile, unions are losing ground in every American home that turned on the news this Thanksgiving — 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue excluded .

Labor wants everyone to “look for the union label,” but what if the union label isn’t real?

According to Gawker, that’s the problem with Unionmade clothing in San Francisco. Despite the name, the store doesn’t actually have many goods that are made by union members:

If you want to have an attractively curated store that sells insanely overpriced clothes designed to mimic the clothes that poor people wore a century ago, fine. But calling your store “Unionmade” (and modeling your logo on the AFL-CIO’s) while not selling union made goods is just as asinine and insulting as calling your store “Americanmade” while selling things manufactured in China. It’s blatantly misleading. It’s fraudulent.

Even the worst union labor costs could hardly justify some of the prices for Unionmade’s clothing. (Anyone want $155 long johns?) Needless to say, the AFL-CIO was particularly miffed, and perhaps it can’t be blamed, at least for its objection to the logo rip-off. But in the company’s response to Gawker, Unionmade claims that it meant no harm, calling the name part of the “overarching narrative of the store”:

You are correct, though some of the brands we carry are union made, many are not. The unfortunate reality is that there are not many unions left in the garment industry and so the name was cultivated as a signifier of well-made and aesthetically timeless goods.

In that regard, Unionmade has hit the nail on the head. All that’s left of labor is the aesthetic. At best, labor is quaint, and at worst–and perhaps more accurately–it is a relatively useless relic. The consumers who shop at Unionmade and places like it are trying to find ways to ironically adopt the ways of the past, and the name is indicative of that narrative. Sure, “unionmade” might have denoted something of values decades ago, but now labor is more well known for its big-money political spending than anything else.

If you went to a Wal-Mart this weekend, chances are that you had more trouble getting to the best deals thanks to obstructions from your fellow shoppers, not because of a much-ballyhooed, but little-attended labor action.

It turns out that the proposed strike, walkout, protest — whatever you want to call it — really didn’t amount to anything. And even if you spotted a few of these lonely folks, there was no guarantee that they were even Wal-Mart employees. And that’s even with the $50 gift card enticement that the organizers offered give out if you wanted to “sponsor a striker.”

The groups behind the effort, Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) and Making Change at Walmart are both efforts of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. The UFCW has long pined to get a foot in the door at America’s largest retailer, but to date, its efforts have resulted in complete failure.

And this weekend’s actions appear to be a repeat performance of the union coming up short.  Most reports found a handful of employees at a protest, if there were any at all. Regardless of the numbers, even the highest estimates wouldn’t make much of a dent in the 1.4 million people employed by Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart attempted to stop the proposed action last week, but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was unable to reach a decision before the non-events, claiming that it was “complex” and could not be decided so quickly. A recent paper published in Engage, the practice journal of The Federalist Society, takes a closer look at groups such as OUR Walmart and explains what types of issues the NLRB will likely have to address in its ruling.

Along with several other labor groups, OUR Walmart is classified as a “worker center,” not a labor union like the Teamsters or the United Auto Workers, for example. As authors Stefan Marculewicz and Jennifer Thomas explain, worker centers are able to avoid complying with the laws that affect labor organizations, including the protections given to workers by federal law.

We certainly do not take any position in this article with respect to the value these worker centers may offer to workers.  However, no organization, no matter how laudable its mission, is above reproach.  Just as corruption plagued the labor movement in the last century, and gave rise to the legislation that governs labor organizations and provides workers the basic protections enjoyed today, so too could similar malfeasance cloud the efforts of worker centers.  Compliance with the NLRA and LMRDA serves not only as a protection for workers, but also, perhaps, as a validator of the worker centers that claim to represent them.

A goal of many worker centers is to ensure that employers of their members comply with the basic laws that offer protections to the workers.  It is quite reasonable to expect worker centers to comply with them as well.

So what of OUR Walmart? The group is considered a subsidiary of the UFCW and its goals for how it plans to affect change at Wal-Mart include alterations to wages and hours of employment as well as other employment-related policies. The group has also directly demanded these changes on Wal-Mart’s management. For these reasons, Marculewicz and Thomas find that OUR Walmart should be considered a “labor organization” under federal law and must therefore follow the rules that they are currently avoiding.

Labor, in making a lot of noise about Wal-Mart and not backing it up with any real action, may damage itself by bringing more attention to its apparent end-run around federal labor law.

Twinkie the Kid was known for saving Twinkies from evil-doers in his classic commercials. Unfortunately, the Kid was no match for destructive union leadership. Will someone else come to the rescue?

Fans of Hostess snacks are hoping that other bakers will run to the brand in the same way they had a run on the products this weekend. And there’s plenty of speculation as to the fate of Hostess and its most iconic assets. Chief among those rumors is that Grupo Bimbo, a Mexican food company, will buy the product line.

So does that mean the striking members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) will be back at work soon? Not exactly.

Especially if a Mexican buyer is involved, production may go the way of the Brach’s and Fannie May candy concerns: south of the border. With US sugar tariffs set artificially high to protect Florida sugar-growing concerns, a non-unionized shop with access to lower-priced sugar in Mexico could be the Twinkie lifeline, economists suggest.

On the other hand, if Hostess’ problem is its legacy delivery system, which is what University of Maryland economist Peter Morici suspects, Bimbo may be able to squeeze profits out of the supply chain while still making Twinkies in the US, albeit probably not in union shops.

So much for the white knight that unions still think will ride in to save them. Despite the union’s contention that management should take 100% of the blame for the liquidation, prospective buyers are finding that the union workforce needs to be subtracted out of the equation in order to have a comeback of Ho-Ho’s. It’s the same thing that Hostess told the Teamsters, and why they agreed to work with management.

A new rumor today is that the only chance for the company to survive as one unit would be from the help of a private equity firm. You know, the “Bain-style” people that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka blames for the bankruptcy.

After engaging in what Bloomberg News called “brinkmanship,” members of the BCTGM really should not be happy with their union leaders. As J. Justin Wilson, Managing Director of the Center for Union Facts, explained on CNBC on Friday, there is little chance that many of these jobs will ever return. He said that “we should feel bad” for the union members who were duped into thinking that their jobs would be saved at the last minute:

Unions are out of touch with workers when it comes to issues like this. This is the worst case scenario—everyone is out of a job, including the CEO of this company. The union is the one that walked over the cliff.

BCTGM seemed to be more concerned with its negotiating power than it was about keeping its members at work just before the holidays.

Even while the union and Hostess were thrown a life raft by the bankruptcy judge on Monday, we learned more about the union’s efforts—or rather, the lack thereof:

“The bakers union did not object to the relief that was sought. I want to repeat that,” [the judge] said, calling its decision to remain silent when Hostess was on the verge of imposing labor cost cuts “somewhat unusual, to say the least, and perhaps illogical.”

So what is the point of the union—to protect its power and its talking points or to protect its workers against losing their jobs? Or as the editorial board of Investor’s Business Daily asks, “When are unions going to start caring about real jobs and real workers?”

J. Justin Wilson of the Center for Union Facts appeared on CNBC’s Closing Bell on Friday to face off against Heather Slavkin Corzo of the AFL-CIO.

This isn’t an argument: it’s a recycled talking point. Blaming the free market for every problem that befalls labor is how unions got into this mess (and will never get out of it). Hostess faced a difficult reality: restructure or cease to exist. Labor costs are a major part of the equation, and because the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) represents the company’s second-largest group of employees, Hostess needs its cooperation. The largest union, the Teamsters, obliged, and even asked the BCTGM to back down from the destructive strike. But BCGTM stayed on the picket lines through yesterday’s deadline, and Hostess announced this morning that it had to liquidate the company.

What the BCTGM did might be “brave” as Trumka claims, but it isn’t smart. And if you don’t think so, consider labor’s response: trashing an unrelated venture capital firm that used to be run by a guy who just lost the presidential election.

But don’t blame Trumka for having nothing constructive to say: there is no good argument for the bakers union strike.

After surviving a bruising reelection campaign, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) wants to reign in political spending by passing new campaign finance reforms. He’s targeting labor and Democrats’ favorite whipping boy, the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision. Brown said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday that in order to alleviate some of the problems of corporate political spending, corporations should be required to ask shareholders for permission before they spend treasury funds on politics.

Apparently one reporter pressed Brown about the same policy granted unions:

Asked if union members also should be required to approve political expenditures before their unions donate to campaigns, Brown said that unions hold elections for new officers every three years and members can make their views on such matters known through those elections. Brown said he “bristles” at the “false equivalency” between corporate and union political expenditures made by conservatives, contending union donations pale in comparison.

Citizens United allows corporations and unions to spend money from their treasuries—either gained by selling widgets or mandatory dues collection—on “independent expenditures.” Those are defined as political spending used to support or oppose a candidate for office, but that are not coordinated with a campaign. For unions, this means that dues money can be spent on politics, and the union leaders don’t need to ask for permission first.

So Brown is right, in a way: it’s a “false equivalency” to compare corporations and unions. Corporate shareholders voluntarily purchase stock in corporations. They don’t risk losing their job if they refuse to hold stock in a certain company.These shareholders can sell shares at any time if they disagree with what the company is doing. Beyond that, just like unions, corporation’s shareholders periodically hold elections to determine their board of directors.

Union members, the shareholders’ counterparts in this scenario, do not always enter a union voluntarily. There are still 27 states that have forced unionism, including Ohio, the state Brown represents in the U.S. Senate. The only way that those employees won’t be contributing to the union’s political spending is if they invoke their Beck rights and ask for a refund. This can be a long and complicated process.

Brown’s position is predictable. The EFCA-backing senator has done well with labor support in the past, and union SuperPACs spent millions on his campaign this year. The SEIU chipped in $1.27 million and AFL-CIO’s Worker’s Voice pitched in another $678,000.