LaborPains.org

In what is being described by CNN as a landslide by women, Blanche Lincoln managed to hold off labor-backed Bill Halter in the hotly (and nastily) contested Democratic primary race in Arkansas. The AFL-CIO called the loss a “tremendous victory” for working families, and SEIU stood by their man as well. If this is what a “tremendous victory” looks like and feels like, I hope that labor unions get “tremendous victories” more often. Reminds me of how they called losing to Scott Brown a “victory”. I see a pattern.

Labor groups poured about $10 million dollars into the primary run off after the May primary results. They spent the last few weeks hemorrhaging cash. The Hill ran through cash and boots by numbers yesterday:

“The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has spent more than $3 million on the race, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, while the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has spent more than $1.5 million. Labor groups are also putting activists in the field for what is expected to be a close election. The AFL-CIO has sent staff from its Washington office to help Halter supporters get to the polls, as has Working America, its community affiliate.

Working America’s 41 paid organizers in Arkansas have made 315,000 phone calls and knocked on 120,000 doors, canvassing voters in 27 cities and 17 counties in the state, according to spokeswoman Alison Omens. The group has also spent more than $1.3 million on ads…”

Politico’s Ben Smith got the most damning quote of ‘em all from the Lincoln-backing White House:

“Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise,” the official said. “If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November.”

Sorry. No matter how many times these unions burn through their coffers, lose, and call it a “victory,” I don’t think that Lenin’s “A lie told often enough becomes the truth” applies. If I want to see some real victory, I think I’ll just watch the World Cup.

–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.

Um.

Sometimes things just don’t make sense. Racine County has grass in its road’s medians. The Teamsters can’t and won’t mow it, but that doesn’t stop them from asking the County not to let local inmates do it for free.

Teamsters leaders filed a grievance in 2009 after county officials began using volunteers from the Racine County Jail to cut the sprawling grass. For budget reasons, the state government had announced that it would only pay counties to mow the full length of the medians once during the year.

The policy is back for a second year, with state officials hoping to save $2.5 million by minimally mowing. That means the inmates will be back, too, unless the union gets its way. We would be more sympathetic to their beef if the Teamsters, filled with law-abiding members, were actually losing work to the prisoners. They’re not. County leaders have repeatedly said the government can’t afford to pay anyone to do the extra work. The only reason to choose the inmates – all nonviolent offenders – is their willingness to work for free. Well, other than little time off for good yardwork.

If they don’t do it, nobody will.

According to the editorial, the Teamsters say that the contract violations extend beyond the “grass” issue. Sorry Teamsters, there’s no middle of the road on this one.

Image courtesy of boodoo.

Today an article entitled “Illinoid Department of Transportation to hire 170 new workers” in the Herald-Review gave me cause for pause. Aside from coining my new favorite word “illinoid,” which while I am sure was a Freudian slip by the person who posted it, it lays out the next chapter in the strange saga that is Teamsters in Illinois:

“The state may be broke, but that isn’t stopping officials from putting out a “Help Wanted” sign. Under an arrangement between the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Teamsters union, the state is gearing up to hire at least 170 new highway maintainers over the next six weeks.“

“Once in place, the workers will mow interstate right-of-ways, pick up dead animals and operate snow plows. But, given the state’s massive budget woes, some lawmakers find the mass hiring puzzling. “Seems a little strange,” state Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, said Tuesday.”

“DOT spokeswoman Marissa Kollias said the agreement inked with the Teamsters last year gives the state a $3 million financial incentive to boost the number of new maintainers from last year’s level of 1,737 workers to more than 1,900 by July 1. Base pay for a highway maintainer is about $47,700 annually….”

If my state—well, my city, considering that I live in the District of Columbia—were broke but struck a deal with the Teamsters to spend more tax payer dollars even with “financial incentives,” I’d be “illinoid” too.

For your amusement, here are the correct uses of the word “illinoid”:

“I am so illinoid because labor is stalling the new Walmart in Chicago.”

Or…

“I just get so illinoid everytime I see Rod Blagojavich, or someone with his hair.”

Washingtonians have grown accustomed to the Carpenters Unions’ merry band of bums marching around in circles.

If you’ve never encountered them before, the local Carpenter’s Council pays about 50 homeless people minimum wage to march and beat buckets all day long protesting non-union construction companies. The con, of course, is that the average passerby thinks that the hired-homeless are actually striking carpenters.

None of this is new, except that yesterday I saw them marching in front of an AFL-CIO financed building in 15th Street in Washington, DC.

So while perusing The New York Times slide show on entitled “Buying in Bulk”, I ran across the an image that caught my eye.  And the caption read as follows:

“PUSHING THE CART Joe Ruggiero, 46, a maintenance technician for Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, with his co-worker Robert Alfonso, 55

IN THE CART Multiple 20-bottle cases of Vitamin Water ($16.99 each)
AT THE REGISTER “Approximately $800″
We have Family Day, we have African American Day, Indian Day, Russian Day, Italian Day. We have cultural events, and that’s what these beverages are for. We keep it in stock and we get it from Costco.”

Are the Transport Workers Union in New York City perhaps trying to save money? Slightly out of character, I realize. This means at least one AFL-CIO affiliated union member recognizes the superior delivery mechanism in place at Costco that allows them to cut distribution costs and therefore pass along great savings to consumers.

Anyway, I just thought it was nice to see a union member darkening the door of a Costco, considering the accusations flying around last week against Coca-Cola and 7-11 and Costco working together to bring the same beverages to other customers more efficiently.

Image used at the courtesy of The New York Times.

When seemingly every New York City-based news agency saw fit to cover the impending doorman’s strike, “country folk” across the country were left scratching their heads. When the crisis averted at midnight last night, you could almost hear relief pouring out of the news agency’s offices. Twitter lit up with heartfelt relief.

I am not saying that if I had a doorman, I wouldn’t think the world of them.  I am saying that perhaps it’s an organized labor fight that doesn’t exactly help Americans outside of urban centers understand–or have any tolerance for–organized labor. It’s…..declasse.

Especially when The New York Times said this:

If the doormen and other service workers had gone on strike, residents of the affected buildings would have had to perform their own chores, like sorting mail, screening visitors, hauling garbage out to the curb and operating elevators. [...] A strike would have disrupted the daily routines of hundreds of thousands of middle-class residents from upper Broadway to Brownsville, as well as affluent owners of Park Avenue penthouses. Along with picket lines in front of many of their homes, they would have been confronted with the loss of the people who sign for their packages, carry their luggage and let the pizza deliverers and dog walkers into the building. Residents of many buildings had been asked to pitch in to sort the mail, announce visitors by intercom, operate elevators and haul garbage to the curb if necessary.

Or when Bloomberg explained:

“It’s going to be annoying because our building told us that if this does happen, there won’t be any collection of laundry, you won’t be able to pick up your packages at the front desk and you’ll have to throw away your own trash on the side of the building,” said Rajeev Sharma, a money manager at First Investors Management Co. who lives in the Atlas Building on West 38th Street. “It’s probably just going to be more stuff to do, more chores to do on the weekend.”

Even the Wall Street Journal couldn’t resist the urge to cover the resolution of the strike:

In reaching a deal, residents of about 3,000 city apartments and condos will see no change in their security, delivery and trash services, all of which would have been jeopardized had a strike occurred.

At least The New York Times was somewhat self aware as to how the whole thing sounded to “the rest of us”, prompting the piece “In Event of a Strike, How to Open the Doors“.

Image by Rennett Stowe.

Yesterday, SEIU Local 26 became the latest local in the country to create a local protest, highlighting big bank’s profits.

From the SEIU blog yesterday:

“To symbolize this loss, 14,000 little monopoly houses were dropped by “Mr. Moneybags” at the action site. [...] Both actions are part of a continued effort to demand that big bank executives–like US Bancorp and Wells Fargo–do the right thing to fulfill their responsibility to the taxpayers that bailed them out by supporting better jobs and a green future, and helping keep working Americans in their homes.”

So you can watch the video here, but otherwise, trust me when I tell you that the image to the right is the floor of the Wells Fargo once the protesters were done with the place. They throw monopoly game piece houses everywhere and printed up thousands of “Minneapoly” bills which were thrown out of money bags. Here’s their self-congratulatory post today on SEIU.org.

I hope no small children walked in during the protest given the choking hazard of those little houses. The SEIU should have a sign: “SEIU Protests and Rallies: Unsuitable for employers and children under the age of 8.”

I find this whole thing ironic because while they probably don’t mind that they created work for their SEIU compatriots who clean Minneapolis, the amount of trash they created–littering with paper and little plastic houses– doesn’t really gel with the SEIU’s other major agenda point in Minneapolis: Being environmentally friendly. Did you catch the “green future” quote?

It should not come a s surprise that the SEIU’s “green” agenda is more about additional things to hold against employers during negotiations and less about actually caring for the environment.

In December, I wrote that “[c]aring about the environment and conservation is great (a nice change from how unions used to be), and workers safety is paramount, but for the SEIU, it is also a REALLY convenient thing to use as a trump card in negotiations.”

I have a problem with a protest trashing a place of business, but like I said, I imagine unionized workers actually did have to clean up the mess. If the 300 janitors who marched in December for greener work places want to speak out for the environment, maybe they should say something about yesterday’s protest.