LaborPains.org

–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.

Doubt the power of the National Labor Relations Board to create an environment for business that feels a lot like EFCA? Here’s a rude reminder.

Peter Kirsanow, a “labor attorney at Cleveland’s Benesch Friedlander Coplan &  Aronoff law firm and former pro-business member of the powerful five-member National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C” had a lot to say in a Crain’s Cleveland Business this morning:

Mr. Kirsanow isn’t even focused on EFCA these days — because he says the threats of EFCA-like changes in the relationship between business and labor now will come from the NLRB, which has rule-making authority over much of the unionization process. Card check is probably dead, he said, but that doesn’t mean the NLRB couldn’t tilt the playing field in favor of unions, possibly by speeding up the certification and election processes, Mr. Kirsanow said.

The U.S. Senate must confirm NLRB appointments, but after that they enjoy tremendous autonomy, Mr. Kirsanow said, so their rulemaking authority is a potent force. “For example, now it’s around 37 days (between when workers notify a company they intend to vote on a union and when an election is actually held). They could make it 21 days or even 14 days or less,” Mr. Kirsanow said. “That would effectively deprive employers, especially smaller ones, of the ability to communicate with their employees in advance of the election.”

From the Wall Street Journal:

The rise of the tea party makes Democrats even more dependent on organized labor. In this week’s Pennsylvania special election for the late Jack Murtha’s seat, the AFL-CIO alone sent out 80,000 mailers on behalf of Democrat Mark Critz, along with 100,000 robocalls.

In Arkansas, unions showed their clout by forcing Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln into a June runoff with labor-backed Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Unions decided to make an example of her after she opposed the “card check” bill that limits the use of secret ballots in union elections. Unions, especially the Service Employees International Union, spent more than $3 million against her.

In contrast to the tea party, there has been far too little scrutiny of the SEIU, whose membership of government and health-care workers is the fastest-growing of any union in the country. Andy Stern, the just retired head of the SEIU, was found to be the most frequent guest at the Obama White House last year, stopping by 22 times between January and September, more than all congressional leaders and cabinet members.

The SEIU’s close ties to the discredited group Acorn have largely been ignored. The same is true for the violence perpetrated by some of its members.

Image courtesy of gerlos.

Here’s a life lesson. If you are going to ignore conventional protesting practices and take a page from the play book of some of the most egregious protesters in modern times, make sure you check who lives next door. There could be a journalist nearby–a journalist with a camera and a website. And check that your “target” is home, not his frightened son hiding in the bathroom.

The SEIU probably couldn’t have planned it worse when they decided to protest at the house Greg Baer, the deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America.  Despite their own desire to minimize the coverage of the protest, by just bringing a sympathetic HuffPo reporter, Baer’s neighbor was none other than Nina Easton, the Washington Bureau Chief of Fortune Magazine. I’ll let her take it from here:

“Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that — in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action — makes his family fair game.”

“Waving signs denouncing bank “greed,” hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer’s steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him. Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly “outed” him, and slipped through his front door.”

“Excuse me,” Baer told his accusers, “I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.”

Those of us who watch SEIU protests know sort of what we should expect. This was outside of that. As Easton put it:

Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that’s not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.

I should add that there were no arrests, because the three officers on hand feared inciting the rabble-rousers.

Image courtesy of Nina Easton. I hope she doesn’t mind.

You know it’s not going to be nice article when the headline is “Andrew Stern departs the SEIU now weakened by infighting and expenses.” You know its going to be uncomfortable when the article is the Washington Post.

Worth your time, the article by Alec MacGillis offers a refreshing realistic to the legacy of Andy Stern, the man no longer the king in the Purple Palace. From the Washington Post:

“In celebrating her election last weekend to the head of the Service Employees International Union — the fastest-growing and most politically active union — Mary Kay Henry vowed to “build on the success” of Andrew L. Stern, the charismatic and ambitious labor leader who is taking his influence to new arenas, such as President Obama’s deficit commission. But the state of the union Stern is leaving behind is more mixed than Henry let on.”

“Even as Stern turns his attention to the nation’s spending problem, his own union’s spending — notably the multimillion-dollar tab from internal battles he has waged — is drawing sharp criticism from within the labor movement. Stern has expanded his union, but his decisions have left it, and the labor movement as a whole, financially strapped, according to disclosure reports that have received little scrutiny.”

Read more at washingtonpost.com.

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.

How low can you go? From the LA Times:

Labor unions representing California nurses are attacking key parts of a bill that would overhaul the state’s system for investigating and disciplining health workers accused of misconduct. The objections by the politically powerful California Nurses Assn., Service Employees International Union and groups for other health professions come days before a state Senate panel is set to vote on moving the bill forward. [...] Among the proposed reforms are safeguards that would bring California in line with other states, such as requiring that employers report workers who are fired or suspended for serious wrongdoing.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made fixing the system a priority since ProPublica and The Times reported last July that dangerous and incompetent nurses were able to keep practicing for years despite accusations of misconduct, abuse or neglect.

I understand not having standards, because then what is there to be held accountable too? I am positive that the damning line in this story is this:

“Among the proposed reforms are safeguards that would bring California in line with other states, such as requiring that employers report workers who are fired or suspended for serious wrongdoing.”

Californians take pride in being “first”–much like Texans take pride in being “bigger.”  Sorry California.  On this particular issue, your unions don’t even want you to come up to speed.

The LA Times explains:

“Unions have taken particular aim at the mandatory reporting requirement, which would oblige employers to notify regulators when workers have been fired or suspended for serious problems. The nurses association, with a membership of 86,000, said the requirement could punish whistle-blowers unfairly dismissed by their employers. Many states already require such reporting.”

That even reads like a lame excuse. This isn’t an endorsement of the legislation. It’s more a “Hey, California Nurses Association, you are starting to sound an awful lot like a teacher’s union.” Now that’s saying something.

Image courtesy of Steve Rhodes.

Here’s a snippet from an OpEd we had in today’s Washington Examiner:

“Thirty-seven states as well as the District failed to qualify for its share of President Obama’s $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” education fund. The reason? In a contest evaluating the state’s plans for educational reform, continued opposition from teachers unions has slowed reforms like charter schools, merit pay, and firing bad teachers.”

“This isn’t just a D.C. problem–teachers unions are responsible for similar setbacks around the nation. But if recent developments are any guide, the unions are finally running out of allies.”

To read more, go to the WashingtonExaminer.com.