Arkansas’ Senate seat is just one battle ground against moderate Democrats who have not lived up to Big Labor’s EFCA expectations. Lt. Gov. Bill Halter released a press statement detailing more than $500,000 in campaign contributions by labor groups to Blanche Lincoln.

The same release calls Blanche’s accusations that Halter’s debt has been paid off to be “lies.” This was in retaliation for Lincoln’s statements that Halter’s previous campaign debt had been retired by the unions.

According to the AP in December:

“The Service Employees International Union said it is soliciting contributions to retire the debt along with the help of other labor unions. Halter reported in October that his campaign still owed him more than $444,000 that he had loaned it. SEIU has met with Bill Halter, and finds him to be a great voice for working families with an extremely bright political future,” said Jon Youngdahl, the union’s national political director. “That’s why we’ve solicited contributions to retire his campaign debt and support his re-election campaign.”"

The amount retired by the SEIU is nowhere near $444,000 thanks to a legal cap of $6,000, according to blogger Tolbert Report, but their “solicitation” of more aid hasn’t hurt at all.

In fact, maybe Halter has a “bright political future” because “Several unions and the liberal grassroots group MoveOn.org this week have pledged more than $3 million to Halter’s campaign, greatly boosting his ability to compete with Lincoln, who had $5 million in campaign cash at the end of December,” according to the Arkansas News.

Three million is well more that $444,000….and more than Blanche’s $500,0oo. I find amusing that union backing is being used as a weapon on both sides.

Anyway, labor’s promise to get very involved in Democratic primaries is proving to be very amusing. As I am sure will be the next two months in Arkansas leading up to the May 18th primary vote.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski of Oregon has nominated Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler to the position of State Treasurer, following the death of Ben Westlund on Sunday.

Want to know why Wheeler, and not another state representative Greg Macpherson, got the nod? According to The Oregonian:

“Kulongoski acknowledged that “part of it” was the opposition that Macpherson would face among the state’s public employee unions. Macpherson worked with Kulongoski on a 2003 bill aimed at reducing the costs of the Public Employees Retirement System that angered many public employees.

When Macpherson ran for attorney general in 2008, Service Employees International Union, the largest of the state employee unions, gave more than $300,000 to his Democratic primary opponent, John Kroger. The unprecedented union contribution to an attorney general’s race helped power Kroger to victory over Macpherson.

But see, it wouldn’t be classy to say that unions didn’t like MacPherson (who is actually a friend of the governor) because he wanted to reform the pension system. The reason that SEIU local gives for the reason that Kroger (see image) was so flagrantly funded and MacPherson so not? The Oregonian explains in another article:

Arthur Towers, political director for the SEIU local in Salem, wasn’t making any big pronouncements about his union spending heavily against Macpherson if he got in the treasurer’s race.  He  insisted that a big reason the union gave so much in the attorney general’s  race is that the “members fell in love with Kroger,” and that candidates don’t come along like that often.

That’s right. Far from some political agenda, it was love.

But hey, Oregon is a unique place. In January, at the behest of their public sector unions, Oregon voted to increase their taxes for the first time since 1931. During the lead up to the tax bill’s passage, it is interesting to note that the leading anti-tax politician was indicted by none other than John Kroger.

From ABCNews:

The Oregon Department of Justice said Monday that Sizemore and his wife, Cindy Sizemore, are each charged with three counts of evading Oregon personal income taxes. Each count carries a maximum punishment of five years and a $125,000 fine. [...] Bill Sizemore called the charges a “political attack” by public employee unions and state Attorney General John Kroger, a Democrat who had union support.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The New York Times spared few punches in their piece “Still with Obama, But Worried”:

“Because unions have been so crucial to the Democrats election after election, political experts say labor’s ambivalence, or worse, toward the Democrats could greatly deepen that party’s woes this fall.

“Labor is very disappointed, whether it’s about card check or the effort to tax Cadillac health plans,” said Charles E. Cook Jr., publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, referring to a bill that would have made it easier to unionize and to tax high-cost health plans that many union members have. “They’re really disillusioned. I think one by one unions will start getting engaged and helping out the Democrats, but it could be half-hearted.” [...]

“We’ve seen a decline in support among union members for both Obama and the Democrats,” Terry Madonna, director of the college’s Center for Politics and Public Affairs, said. “Part of it is that unemployment brings low job performance ratings, no matter what the party. And less enthusiasm means that union members are less likely to vote.”"

And my favorite line comes from AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka:

“It’s totally unfair to say that the president hasn’t done this or done that,” Mr. Trumka added. “He’s tried on the stimulus bill. He faces tremendous Republican opposition. On health care, I give him the highest marks for tenacity.”

Saying that someone gets “high marks for tenacity” is like telling your friend that their significant other  “has a great personality”.

Sometime there’s just a great sentence that comes along and captures the essence of what you are trying to say. From Daniel Griswold at CATO in the Washington Times:

“Unions are rapidly becoming an economic anachronism. In recent decades, barriers to international trade and investment have fallen, and domestic markets, including transportation, energy and telecommunications, have been largely deregulated. U.S. industries, on the whole, have accepted and even embraced the more competitive environment. Sectors such as steel, textiles and sugar continue to demand protection from foreign competitors, but they are now the exceptions and not the rule. But leaders of organized labor, on the whole, do not accept the new, more competitive environment.

A return to the era of more closed and regulated markets should be strongly resisted. Although it may be seen by labor leaders as a golden era, it extracted a heavy price on Americans in the form of lost consumer welfare, product innovation and freedom. The preferable policy alternative is to allow competition to work in labor markets just as it has been allowed to work more fully in product markets.”

Out of place, out of good ideas, and out of time, unions are indeed as anachronistic as they come.  At times it seems that unions are the Luddites at the tech convention, imploring everyone to replace their iPhones with a union made CB radios and their iPads with clipboards.

Image courtesy of Kenn Wilson.

Guess how long it takes for a public school teacher in California to be granted tenure?  Prepare to be shocked:

It takes two years, without so much as a substantive review.

Facing enormously powerful teacher’s unions, Governor Schwarzenegger’s efforts to change the tenure rules (extending the tenure threshold to five years) have–to date–been resoundingly defeated.  Unions like the California Teachers Association have spent millions to keep the two-year tenure rule in place.  The Wall Street Journal took time to count the cost of this today:

“Even when bad schools close, which happens all too rarely, teachers from those schools take jobs at replacement schools or are sent to work at other schools in the system. And union contracts typically allow those with seniority to bump younger colleagues from other schools, even if the younger teachers are getting better classroom results. […]

It’s not impossible to get rid of bad teachers, but it’s extremely hard and expensive. A report this month in LA Weekly noted that in the past decade the Los Angeles Unified School District “spent $3.5 million trying to fire just seven of the district’s 33,000 teachers for poor classroom performance.“

The result? Four were fired, two others were paid large settlements and one was reinstated. The paper also reported that 32 underperforming teachers were initially targeted for removal “but then secretly paid $50,000 by the district, on average, to leave without a fight.”"

So as governors across the country look for areas to cut their state budgets, they need look no further than the seemingly innocuous line item “Education”.  Turns out, education’s budget has nothing to do with children (at least according to the teachers unions).

As it is, the California Teachers Association is asking everyone to save the date (March 3th) and “Stand up for Schools.”  “It’s time everyone paid their fair share,” opines their plea that students and parents not let the state cut education funding.

We agree that it’s time for everyone to pay their fair share. It’s just that teachers who shouldn’t even be in a classroom are paying no price at all. And California’s children and their parents are paying the full price.

Image courtesy of DonBuciak.

The NUHW is furious after a letter began circulating among California health workers implying they would have “less favorable” benefits, i.e., lose benefits like health care if they left the SEIU, according to the Baltimore Sun.

A professor at the University of Maryland, College Park is facing conflict-of- interest questions after he used university letterhead to deliver a legal opinion in his role as a consultant to a labor union. Fred Feinstein, an adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy, wrote a letter saying that California health care employees could jeopardize their contract benefits if they left Service Employees International for a competing union. Feinstein received $240,000 in consulting fees from SEIU in 2007 and 2008, which he did not mention in the Jan. 12 letter that was distributed as a flier in the continuing union battle. Officials of the rival National Union of Healthcare Workers say Feinstein implied that he was speaking for the university and thus compromised its academic objectivity.

College Park officials said Feinstein violated university policy by writing the opinion on official letterhead. He signed the letter as a “senior fellow and visiting professor.” “Mr. Feinstein violated university procedures by improperly using university letterhead in the course of his outside work,” Donald F. Kettl, dean of the School of Public Policy, said in a statement.

The stakes could not be higher for the NUHW as they await election results in their battle with the SEIU to be announced Tuesday, according to the LA Times. The fact he was on the NLRB board, then consulted with the SEIU, and is now shilling for them against a union backed by the NLRB, further demonstrates the muddied waters of regulating big labor.

Image courtesy of InsideHigherEd.com.

The great dragon of corrupt labor bosses, scales and all, has reared its ugly head again. I mean, Chicago’s union-monster gets more airplay than Da Bears.

Chicago Teamsters Local 743 has ousted its “reform” leadership after the last group got themselves ousted a few years back over selling drugs on union property and election rigging. If you want to, you can read ONE of the indictments here.  The current batch of Teamsters leaders have allegedly demonstrated gross impropriety with the Local 743’s finances–and they think that, when compared to the people they overthrew (you know, the ones with the nose candy), they should be allowed to stay in office.

Seriously, Local 743′S leadership measures their own corruption on a scale of one to ten.

Here are the details, according to the Chicago Sun Times:

Richard Berg — who took the helm of Teamsters Local 743 on a reform plank, ousting an “old guard” regime rife with corruption — now is being booted out of office for alleged violations of union rules. Berg is accused of improperly firing a Local 743 organizer and, along with secretary-treasurer Gina Alvarez, signing off on a $20,000-plus severance check for the man, officials said.

The firing and the payout first should have gotten approval from Local 743’s executive board, a Teamsters official said. Berg also is accused of preventing two business agents from rejoining Local 743 — even though they apparently were entitled to do so. Some viewed the move as an attempt by Berg to undercut future political rivals. The alleged violations were brought by members of the group’s executive board to the Teamsters’ umbrella organization for the Chicago region, Joint Council 25, which made the decision to boot Berg from office and strip him of membership for five years, the official said.

Alvarez was kicked out for three years. [...] [Berg] also plans to appeal the Joint Council 25 decision to International Brotherhood of Teamsters general president James P. Hoffa, and ask that he and Alvarez be allowed to stay on the job while the appeal is being considered.

According to excerpts from Chicago Public Radio:

“Berg says even if he and Alvarez had broken the rules, they wouldn’t deserve the boot.

BERG: The people that were in office before us got caught dealing drugs out of the union hall, stealing union elections. The federal government prosecuted and put these guys in jail.”

Image courtesy of JoshWellington.com.

We’ve written before about the amount of money that California spends on prison personnel, at the expense of both the prisoners and the entire state’s budget. It’s pretty ugly stuff, and Schwarzenegger seems hell bent on righting some of these wrongs.  According to the Fresno Bee this week:

Prison, legal and financial experts generally praised Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to shift state prison funding to public universities, but said a constitutional amendment that ties the government’s hands in perpetuity could cause more harm than good. “The governor, some years ago, railed against autopilot budgeting,” said Steve Boilard, director of higher education for the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office. “This is just another set of restrictions that may not make sense in future years.” Beginning in 2014, the governor’s proposed amendment would dedicate at least 10 percent of the state general fund to the University of California and California State University systems and limit prison spending to no more than 7 percent – approximately reversing the amounts in those lines in this year’s budget.

That plan would have to roll back vast increases in prison outlays in recent years, used in part to underwrite rising wages and benefits, and new medical programs. […]

Schwarzenegger also proposed increased privatization – using private employees in state prisons or contracting out the housing of prisoners to corporate prisons – to cut costs. According to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation figures, California spends about $50,000 per prisoner annually, compared to a $32,000 average for the next 10 largest states. Department spokesman Gordon Hinkle agreed that costs could be reduced sharply by using more private prisons. Joan Petersilia, a leading prison expert and professor at Stanford Law School, said contracting out low-security prisoners to private prisons is a proven cost-saving measure. Currently, California sends about 8,000 of its approximately 170,000 inmates to private facilities in Mississippi, Oklahoma and Arizona. “It’s so cost effective because 70 percent of housing someone in a California prison is due to personnel costs, and our costs are higher in California,” she said.

Image courtesy of Funky64.