The Obama Ethics Executive Order requires appointees to pledge that they will refrain from involvement in matters involving their former employer or clients.  The AFL-CIO and other unions are former clients of John Lund , and these unions remain clients of his former and current employer, the University of Wisconsin School for Workers (Lund is currently on unpaid leave while at DOL).  The Wisconsin School for Workers’ primary mission is to train union officials; the very officials that Lund now purportedly investigates for corruption.

Now, even more disturbing details have surfaced. Lund is purportedly telling union officials they can bypass Department of Labor investigators and instead work with him personally. And a new U.S. Department of Labor internal document seems to back up the claim of Lund’s flagrant abuse of power. Don Loos explains the dirty details:

[B]y going to Lund, union bosses can work out deals to avoid jail time or criminal charges.  He can personally advise them how to “clean up” their reports to avoid consequences.  On the other hand, if pesky Department of Labor investigators get involved, then government investigative records will be made, facts will be verified, and falsehoods will be documented.

Loos also points out that had the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman similarly invited corporate presidents to deal with her directly and ignore SEC investigators, it would be breaking news with investigations to follow. Instead, Big Labor will continue to reap the rewards of Lund’s appointment at the expense of their dues paying members (who the OLMS department is supposed to protect). A thorough investigation should be made into the abuse of power at the Department of Labor, and specifically into Lund’s actions while at the DOL. When the fox watches the hen house, the village always goes hungry.

“In a worst-case scenario, your union organizer comes to you, offers you a deal to unionize, you say, ‘no,’ and, the next thing you know, OSHA’s [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] at your door,” Todd said in a phone interview. “Then, Wage and Hour show up, and they want to publicize it. They always find something wrong – it’s like with bed-checks in boot camp in the army.”

Todd said some companies will fight the DOL’s intimidation tactics, but many will give in to unionizing forces.

“It makes it the path of least resistance,” Todd said.

There’s much more where that came from. Click here to read the full story.

The core problem is that the ideologues at DOL see their role as solidarity with, not enforcement of, organized labor.

Image courtesy of gfpeck.

Employers can expect the new board to grant much broader protections to union-related activity. An Aug. 27 board decision on “bannering” highlights this point. Bannering refers to the display of large signs, often containing misleading claims, at job sites belonging to neutral parties. It is a union tactic often designed to threaten and coerce neutral businesses to avoid dealing with non-union contractors or suppliers.

Although the law expressly prohibits unions from engaging in coercive or threatening actions toward neutral businesses, the new board has ruled that bannering is protected. Under this new rule, unions can now target your business or job sites with large banners — or use giant inflatable rats signifying the presence of “scabs” — even when you have no labor dispute with that union.

The case before the NLRB began in Arizona where representatives of the Carpenters Local 1506 (consisting of non-union temp workers  being paid to play the part of “picketer”) held 16-foot-long signs outside two medical centers and a restaurant. The signs read “Shame on…(the name of the establishment)” with the words “Labor Dispute” nearby. The catch? The establishments had no conflict with the union. The dispute was with construction companies doing work for the establishments’ owners.

This should have been a no-brainer for the NLRB. The National Labor Relations Act forbids conduct found to “threaten, coerce, or restrain” secondary businesses not involved in the primary dispute. But chalk one up to the labor-stacked NLRB, i.e. Craig Becker and Co.: They found a way to rule in the union’s favor.

To what extreme’s will unions take this new rule?

Recently the [United Brotherhood of Carpenters in Salt Lake City] has taken its bannering a step further by targeting companies that don’t do business with the Contractors. The banners are the same. But the handbills reveal that the company named is a potential tenant in a building where one of the Contractors is slated to perform work. According to the Union, the company being bannered is guilty of “thinking about profiting from unfair labor practices.” By this measure, most of the population might be subject to bannering.

A “potential tenant” where a company “is slated to perform work”? How far will bannering go? Could a union pressure the company that employs the aunt of the owner of a plumbing company that services an office building that houses a paper company that sells supplies to another company with which the union has a dispute? Or perhaps just thinking about selling supplies is enough to put a company in the unions crosshairs. Thanks to Craig Becker’s NLRB, it’s certainly possible.

This video drives home the point. Despite being about NFCW, not the Carpenters, it’s the same practice of creating a deceptive union picket line.

Trumka, the nation’s top union official, said that the anti-Obama views aired by conservative commentators like Glenn Beck constitutes “hate” in his mind and that he fears it could incite violence in these frustrating economic times.

“Our country’s been there a couple of times before, and with one exception, we’ve always taken the high road,” Trumka told National Journal. “You remember when John Kennedy got off the plane in Dallas, Texas, there were people on the airwaves talking about doing violence to the president. And what happened? That kind of stuff didn’t help our country, and we want to make sure that the anger gets turned into action, and it becomes unifying and not dividing and that we get hope and not hate.”

Go ahead and add that to Trumka’s Greatest Hits, which also includes a metaphorical threat to “burn” coal companies that replaced striking union workers, and accusing recalcitrant businesses of “economic treason.”

Of course, the real reason for Trumka’s desperation is that Congress failed to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, item number one on the unions’ wish list. And with Congress looking like it will be less sympathetic to Big Labor after the election, EFCA is as good as gone.

“The FBI and the U.S. Labor Department are investigating prominent labor leader Andy Stern in their probe of corruption at the Service Employees International Union, according to two people who have been interviewed by federal agents. The two organized labor officials met with federal agents this summer to answer questions about a six-figure book contract that Stern landed in 2006 and his role in approving money to pay the salary of an SEIU leader in California who allegedly performed no work. [...]

One person who spoke to federal agents twice, in May and June, said they asked about a 2006 contract in which Stern received a $175,000 advance from Simon & Schuster to write the book “A Country That Works.” The SEIU and its locals bought thousands of copies of the book after it was published. The union also paid thousands to fact-check and promote the book, but Stern pocketed the advance.

As the article notes, Andy Stern left the SEIU because he “wanted to focus more on his personal life.” In Washington, that could mean any number of things, but there is one thing it rarely means: the individual wants to focus more on their personal life.