LaborPains.org

Everybody does it. When you work for the government and your personal interests or background (or even future employment opportunities) conflict with your ability to do your job, you have to recuse yourself. End of story.

It’s commonly practiced; we could even say it’s ethical. Well, leave it to NLRB board member and union favorite Craig Becker to break with “tradition” and weigh in on cases involving the SEIU. See, it’s perfectly legal to weigh in on the goings-on of a particular local affiliated with the union that you worked for at a national level. And ne’er the two shall meet.

Back in February, here’s what was said during the hearing with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on February 2, 2010, according to Bloomberg:

“Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said he hoped Becker would recuse himself if confirmed from any case involving the SEIU, a labor union that spent $80 million to help elect Obama. Becker said he would recuse himself from such cases for two years if confirmed.”

You are more than welcome to listen to the entire hearing HERE to find the exact moment and the exact quote, but I’d say the promise is pretty clear.

Here’s the rub. Since February, Becker has apparantly changed his mind:

Craig Becker, former general counsel for the SEIU, was a controversial appointee to start with, owing to his radical and anti-democratic views on union power. But surely, Badertscher’s lawyers thought, he’d recuse himself from a case involving the SEIU. Becker refused to do so. In fact, he was part of a three-member panel that reviewed the SEIU/Pomona Valley case, and he has made it clear that he intends to continue involving himself in cases involving his former employer.

“There are 13 or 14 cases in which we’ve sought recusal for Craig Becker,” says Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF), which represented Badertscher.

If you are wondering where unions fall in President Obama’s hierarchy of people he needs to stay in contact with and phone calls he needs to return:

The night before Barack Obama became President of the United States he made two phone calls to a man named, Tom Balanoff. Balanoff is the President of SEIU (Service Employees Int’l Union) Local 1 in Chicago. Obama’s first call to Balanoff went unanswered because his number came up as “blocked” on Balanoff’s cell phone. Balanoff was in the middle of a fancy dinner with the former SEIU Int’l President, Andy Stern, at Shaw’s Crab House in downtown Chicago. When Balanoff listened to the voicemail, this is what he heard: “Tom, this is Barack. Give me a call.”

Later that night, Tom Balanoff was filling his car up with gas when he spoke to Barack Obama. Obama told Balanoff he had “two criteria” for the person who would replace him in the US Senate, after Obama got elected President. Today in court, Tom Balanoff testified Obama explained his “two criteria” this way: “One, they must be good for citizens of Illinois and two, the person had to be able to be reelected” (in 2010). Balanoff says, Obama told him there were a “number of good candidates” but Obama said he did not want to get involved in the process. Balanoff says Obama brought up the name of his close friend and campaign advisor, Valerie Jarrett.

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.

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.

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.

–The SEIU sees blood in Arizona, and a chance to cash in. They put together a hotline for anyone traveling to Arizona to call in and get travel advisories. The hotline, if set up by anyone not far left of center, would result in pejoratives being hurled at them by ….everyone.  But because the SEIU is in a category of scandal all its own, nothing has come of their activities….yet. Want to see how uncomfortable the hotline is? Call it at 1 (800) 958-5068 or just read the text here. Oh, I almost forgot to mention:  Call the hotline number from the cellphone of a coworker you hate.  The SEIU is using the hotline to collect phone numbers.

–Organized Labor has been particularly laborious and organized this primary season. Need a primer on today’s primaries? Check out the Daily Caller’s here. Pay attention to Arkansas.

–The SEIU has abandoned the “legalize pot” campaign [I-1068] in Washington State, and the head of the campaign had some terrible colorful things to say about the SEIU:

“F*** them all,” he said of the three groups his campaign is now directly or partially blaming. “I don’t know what happened or why they (SEIU) walked away,” he added. “But in the end… they’re afraid to support us because they’re either politically afraid or because they’re mommies will find out they smoke weed. A bunch of chickensh** rich people.”

–The SEIU workers who have been picketing the Red Cross have ended their 5-day work stoppage. Yay for sick people.

–Ohio’s home care and child care workers were effectively unionized by gubernatorial order. Now some workers aren’t so happy that dues are coming out of their pay checks:

“…some workers are not happy about joining a union, and other critics say Strickland is helping the Service Employees International Union and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees collect millions of dollars in dues and fees that can be used to support the governor’s re-election bid and other Democratic Party campaigns.

Patricia Griggs, a nurse from Loveland in Hamilton County, said she doesn’t want union representation, nor does she want money withheld from her paycheck for union fees to be used to support candidates or causes she might oppose. “I’m self-employed. Why do I want to be (in) a union?” Griggs asked. “The state will begin to take (union fees) out of our checks without us signing anything. … It’s stealing.” [...]

Griggs said she will pay $12 a week. Even though she hasn’t joined the SEIU, Griggs is covered by the union contract and must pay an assessment to the union.