LaborPains.org

I’ve noted how labor attempts to intimidate, harass, or humiliate companies that don’t bend to their will. Change To Win’s favorite target in recent months is drugstore retailer CVS, which they charge with allegedly selling expired products.

But that campaign apparently was not effective judging by what Change To Win is now complaining about:

Add condoms to the list of items under lock and key at some retail pharmacies, a practice at certain CVS drugstores that’s being criticized by a coalition of labor unions. The “Cure CVS: Unlock the Condoms Initiative” led by the labor group Change to Win is asking the nation’s largest drugstore chain to end the practice, which it says is more common in communities of color.

I’m not going to wade into the debate over access to contraceptives but I will point out what the CVS spokesman had to say in response:

“They’re waging a campaign to disparage CVS by using highly skewed or false information because we refuse to waive the rights our employees have under federal law to be able to vote confidentially in union elections.”

This is just another example of how unions wage a retaliatory campaign against a company because it won’t appease their demands. Using access to condoms as a talking point shows just how far Change To Win and its labor allies will go in their attempts to shame a company into changing its policies. Fortunately, linking contraception and card check is not going to resonate with the public, just  like the rest of their failed campaigns.

Jon’s post yesterday reminded me of a great article on the physical proximity of teachers union headquarters to state capital buildings.

The American reports:

Of the 25 most influential interest groups, the teachers’ union is the closest to the capitol in 14 of the 50 states.

Sunday’s Newark Star-Ledger brings word that a city high school principal has been warned by the school district after he sent out a memo on district letterhead asking employees to buy tickets to a political fundraiser. But the real story is the reaction from Newark Teachers Union President Joseph Del Grosso, who supplied this amazing quote: “There is not supposed to be politics involved in public schools.”

A few more of the NTU’s own words, on the website of its Committee on Political Education: “Make no mistake about it, our political successes gives us a strong voice in educational decisions throughout the state and district.” More: “This year, NTU COPE expects to be very active in registering voters, as well as supporting candidates in New Jersey’s statewide legislative races. NTU COPE will also organize membership around legislative referenda related to school vouchers, school financing, pension issues, and the ability of the union members to maximize their political voice.” (HT: Mike Antonucci)

In case it’s not already clear that the NTU cares deeply about keeping politics out of public schools (as deeply as it cares about getting rid of bad teachers), The Daily Newarker blog has more, with a scan of a particularly nasty political mailer the union recently sent out attacking the city’s mayor.

Remember that SEIU-backed group called ACORN, which supposedly wasn’t really tied to voter fraud (even though troubling incidents have popped up in more than a dozen states)? You can add another state to your play-at-home Rotten Acorn map. Here’s the latest out of Washington State:

Prosecutors in King County are looking at possible criminal charges related to a voter-registration drive in 2006, echoing the controversy that erupted after voting irregularities in the razor-close gubernatorial election of 2004.

Acting prosecutor Dan Satterberg is reviewing 1,829 voter-registration forms turned in last year by people working for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a national activist group.

This is a huge embarrassment to the union bosses who fund the group, which is why so many are doing their darndest to say “this is not the fraud you’re looking for.” C’mon, get real.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

A federal judge in Harrisburg has granted a preliminary injunction that bars the Teamsters union from collecting dues from 20 Pennsylvania Turnpike workers in Harrisburg. In a lawsuit filed in March, the Turnpike employees sought the injunction, alleging that a “maintenance of membership” clause has unlawfully prevented them from resigning from the union. The court has not ruled on six Pittsburgh Turnpike workers who also sued the union and Turnpike executives in March, alleging that they had been overcharged for union dues even after they had resigned from the union.

I’ve come across at least two blogs putting up photographs of teachers choosing not to comply with the strike against the Hayward school district in California’s Bay Area. I’m not going to link to the blogs themselves, but I will link to this Daily Review editorial condeming such unprofessional, unkind behavior:

Teachers union President Kathy Crummey said she thinks the blog is “very clever.” And union rep and teacher Paulette Albert praised it on her own blog, “Hayward Educators Together!,” in an entry that was subsequently deleted.It’s not clever. It’s not even adult. The photos do nothing but cast Hayward teachers in a negative, unprofessional light.

The union has been adamant that teachers aren’t resorting to physical aggression on the picket line, but posting anonymous photos of “scabs” (and, by the way, Hayward teachers probably should know that’s a derogatory term) is just as bad as getting physical.

It’s obviously meant to intimidate subs and nonstriking teachers into fearing for their safety, and their reputations. Otherwise, why do it?

The realities of the business world are complex, and leaders have to keep things competitive in an ever-changing market. Nowhere is that more apparent than when the union is the employer.

In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, reporter Jerry Hirsch noted that the potential for another major grocery strike is rooted in the one just three years ago. UFCW members in Southern California aren’t happy with the deal their union officials cut last time because it created a two-tiered system. (Others aren’t happy with the potential for another strike.) But as we’ve noted, a major UFCW official has enacted the exact same tiered policy for his own unionized staff. Then there is the issue of labor bosses trying to kill off secret ballot voting when workers — except for their own — are deciding their union membership status.

The latest example comes from SEIU, where president Andy Stern has been forcing mergers of local unions in hopes of increasing the union’s power. But all is not well (see here). The head of the BART railway employees chapter of SEIU, Sue Angeli, told the Contra Costa Times that the process has left employees open to — shock — a world in which one must remain flexible and relevant. Those ostensible indignities include reapplying for their jobs and possibly facing pay cuts. What’s bad for union members, it seems, is fine for union employees. The paper reports:

What’s not widely known, Angeli said, is that the union’s new management team has taken a page right out of the books of the employers the union typically battles.

“It’s hypocritical,” said Angeli, also a member of the Pleasant Hill City Council. “How can this organization preach fair treatment of employees and promote the representation of workers and then turn around and screw its own people? I’m ashamed to say that I am a member of SEIU.” …

If BART or any other employer attempted to do to its represented staff what SEIU is doing, Angeli said, “We’d be on strike in a heartbeat.”

This Sunday Seattle Times editor-at-large Mike Fancher wrote on the protections extended to Washington teachers and coaches implicated in child abuse — and the lengths to which the Washington Education Association is going to keep this information from becoming public. The Times discovered in its investigation the following disturbing phenomenon:

“After facing credible allegations or possible discipline, the coaches would get a job in another district or a private athletic club where their misbehavior wasn’t known to officials. In at least one instance, a coach was paid to quietly leave his district before going elsewhere to molest more girls.”

The WEA took the Times to court to prevent the newspaper from gaining access to records of such shuffling, which would have resulted in the following: “Under the ruling sought by the WEA, The Times would have had no way to know if a teacher was the subject of several complaints or to track an individual from one district to another.”

The “shuffling” of teachers and coaches linked with child abuse is hardly unique to the state of Washington. Our research into tenured teacher termination in Newark, New Jersey, produced just this sort of story. Click here to read the tenure charges against a gym teacher who reportedly made frequent public remarks about his female students’ bodies, including his reported request that his young charges inform him when they were menstruating.

Make sure to read his settlement (signed by the Newark Teachers Union lawyer), in which the district agrees (on page 9 of the PDF) to “provide only dates of employment and title of last position held” to any prospective employers of his looking for a reference.