LaborPains.org

There have been several times when I’ve discussed the alternate means of implementing some of the key tenets of the Employee Free Choice Act, like HERE and HERE. It’s just nice to have the President blatantly confirm this agenda in his speech to the AFL-CIO.  Basic story? EFCA will be a challenge in the lame duck session, but no worries, we’ve got other ways of making it happen. From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama reiterated that the administration will put its weight behind it. “We are going to keep on fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act,” he told the 54 executive council members and others in the room. “We also know what and who is standing in the way of progress,” he said, adding that it will be “tough” to get the bill through the Senate and will take time to reverse the impact of “at least eight years in which there was a profound animosity toward the notion of unions.”

Mr. Obama also reminded the labor officials of the ways in which the administration has already supported unions, in part by wielding executive powers for actions that don’t require legislation.

“There’s a reason why we nominated people to the National Mediation Board that would ensure that folks in the rail and air” industries can organize, said Mr. Obama, referring to the board’s overhaul in May of a decades-old rule that had made it harder for airline and railway workers to unionize. He also cited the Democrats he nominated to the National Labor Relations Board to “restore some balance” to the group, which supervises union elections and referees disputes between private-sector employers and employees.

As cities across California and moreover, the entire state face financial obligations they can’t meet, the city of LA was on the cusp of reducing costs when the SEIU stepped in to bully another union.

Heaven forbid that the city of LA should be able to reign in employment costs and that another union be able to accept a deal the SEIU isn’t happy with.

According the the LA Times:

“Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his top budget advisers thought they negotiated a labor contract last week that would begin to address the steadily rising cost of employee healthcare benefits. But that deal, reached with the 4,800-member Engineers and Architects Assn., has come under attack from members of another civilian employee union, which contends that the agreement contains “unprecedented and dangerous” concessions and should be rejected.

With the Engineers and Architects voting on the tentative agreement this week, organizers with Service Employees International Union Local 721 have begun warning that the proposed pact is part of a larger effort to “divide and conquer” the city’s civilian employee groups.”

The head of the beleaguered union says that behind the SEIU’s interest in the deal is their ongoing attempts to raid his union. So much for the “new directions” under Mary Kay Henry:

“Any move by one union to interfere with the negotiations of another union will ultimately backfire,” Szabo said, “because the city is likely to impose these healthcare provisions and more on those who opt out of the deal.” Michael Davies, interim executive director of the Engineers and Architects, said the Service Employees International Union is opposing the deal as part of its push to raid his union’s membership. Last fall, nearly 2,000 workers from his organization moved to the SEIU.

Remember the the Hollywood strike of 2007-2007 by the Writer’s Guild of America. Your favorite show probably had a strangely short season. Plot lines were truncated. Favorite shows on the cusp of being renewed were canceled.  It produced Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Colbert, Stewart, and Conan (remember him) fought. And we learned that some late night hosts aren’t funny; their writer’s are. It was a dark time.

It goes with out saying, then, that no one  wants to see another strike in Hollywood, except perhaps the Teamsters. They may shut down Hollywood in the coming weeks:

“”If they’re  [the Teamsters] counting on the producers caving, that’s the wrong strategy,” a studio-side source said. “A strike is entirely possible.” The low-profile Teamsters Local 399 represents several thousand drivers who move everything from production equipment to star trailers and electrical generators. No drivers means no equipment, and no equipment means no film or TV production. The Teamsters also represent casting directors and others, and the negotiations also include craft workers such as electricians. A walkout would idle these key workers as well as drivers. A strike would be the third Hollywood work stoppage in less than three years, following a 100-day writers strike in 2007-08 and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) stalemate in 2008-09 that led to a suspension of most movie production.

It would be the first Teamsters action since a series of strikes during the 1980s. Unless the producers hire replacement workers – a contingency they already are preparing for – production would grind to a halt.”

Sandwiched in the middle of a bit of NAFTA-hating, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka took the time remind everyone, anyone, who would listen that EFCA is still around. From the Wall Street Journal:

“Mr. Trumka said union leaders did discuss the proposed Employee Free Choice Act with Vice President Biden. The measure is a union-backed bill that would make it easier for unions to organize workers for collective bargaining. The bill is stalled in Congress, opposed by Republicans, conservative Democrats and business groups. Mr. Trumka said Mr. Biden assured labor leaders Wednesday that he and the White House were still committed to the legislation.”

I remember Richard Trumka’s battle cry last month at the UAW conference:

“We won’t quit until the EFCA becomes the law of the land and everyone who wants a union can have a union,” Trumka said.

Or a month before that in The Hill:

“The union leader was bullish on its chances of passage, saying there will be a vote on the bill this year and it will pass.”

Perhaps Mr. Trumka has alarm on his phone that reminds him to bring it up at scheduled intervals?  Like “Note to self: Harp on EFCA today. Be positive and aggressive. Smile.”

Sometimes I think there is never a more abrupt reminder that sometimes unions….stink….than when the garbage starts piling up in idyllic suburban neighborhoods. The Teamsters know this. From the Wall Street Journal:

A deal that would have brought laid-off sanitation workers back on the job was voted down by the Teamsters Union local that represents them Wednesday night. The city has been struggling to pick up its trash since the beginning of the month, when a union fight, budget cuts, the heat wave and the Fourth of July holiday all came together to hinder trash pickup. [...]

The city is trying to get more crews out, said David Simpson, the mayor’s spokesman.[...]  They also keep calling in sick. Forty-eight workers pick up trash on a normal day in Yonkers. Forty-six called in sick Tuesday. [...] “We are left to assume that members of the Teamsters union, individual members, have taken it into their own hands to protest the budget cuts that are going into effect,” Mr. Simpson said.”

They also don’t seem particularly eager to clear things up. The Teamsters seem set on letting the wound fester. From yesterday:

“The offer is still on the table for the Teamsters union, which voted down a deal Wednesday afternoon that would have restored twice-a-week garbage pickup and all sanitation jobs. The mayor tried to get in touch with the union but had heard nothing back from them yesterday, Simpson said, adding that the current administration offer on the table “may not be available for long.”

Image courtesy of TorontoCityLife.

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.