LaborPains.org

War drums are beating all over the country as Big Labor gears up for the fight to stay relevant in the American political landscape. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka began expanding his political operation last summer with a super PAC for the purposes of funding multi-cycle, issue advocacy as well as get-out-the-vote efforts. The new super PAC, “Workers’ Voices”, has announced its small, yet respectable haul with $3.7 million raised, and $3 million cash on hand.

The battle may be coming to a head in California, where labor organizations are fighting tooth and nail to protect their source of revenue. If a new ballot initiative passes this November, unions would need to get written permission from their members each year to use dues for political purposes.

“This could change the balance of power long after the governor’s taxes are expired,” said Thad Kousser, a political-science professor at UC San Diego. “Defeating this has got to be the top goal of labor. If they don’t, they could become almost extinct in California politics.”

At this point, unions are desperately looking for a win. Today, as thousands of protesters packed hallways and shouted their disapproval, the Indiana Senate voted 28-22 to pass a right to work bill. The bill will now go to Gov. Mitch Daniels for his signature.

On a national level, there is legislation with a similar provision. The Employee Rights Act, sponsored by U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and U.S. Representative Tim Scott (R-SC) contains a measure that would give employees the right to require unions to get their approval before dues money is spent on behalf of political parties or political candidates.

It should be noted; exit polling from 2010 by shows that 42 percent of union households voted for Republican candidates, yet more than 93 percent of union political support went to Democratic candidates. There is a serious disconnect between Big Labor’s political agenda and the personal ideology of its members.

Union membership has steadily declined for decades. Membership peaked in 1979, with over 20 million union members. Today, less than 15 million members remain—less than half of which are in the private sector. In light of the recent push for labor reform and right-to-work laws, combined with unions’ dwindling membership, labor leaders are fighting for a last chance at relevancy and control.

The AFL-CIO is attempting to revive its image with a new advertising campaign. The Wall Street Journal reports that the $1.5 million campaign featuring 30 and 60 second television ads has begun, airing in Pittsburg, PA and Austin, TX. The awkward ads attempt to show how everyone is connected by organized labor, but what they obviously don’t show is all of the people who are forced to be connected to unions in non-right to work states.

Public sector unions in Wisconsin, with the help of their national unions, are also engaged in a fight for their life, as they desperately attempt to rid the state of Gov. Scott Walker. Last year Walker championed a bill that limited state employee collective bargaining rights, leaving union leaders seething.

In 2011, unions spent $35 million in a failed attempt to stop labor reform by recalling a number of Republican state representatives, and this year Walker himself told Fox News, “[Unions] want those automatic dues, and they’ll spend just about anything to get it back.”

With the current standoff in Indiana over right-to-work leaning in its opponent’s favor, the unions’ survival skills will again be tested.

Today the Center for Union Facts launches a multi-million dollar campaign educating Americans about the need for labor law reform.

It’s been more than 50 years since Congress overhauled America’s labor laws. During the following decades we’ve witnessed a workplace revolution that has fostered innovation, opportunity, and flexibility for America’s 150 million member strong workforce. Despite this, labor union leaders continue to cling to outdated labor laws that stifle job creation and trample employee rights.

You can read more about the Employee Rights Act at www.Employee Rights Act.com or you can join our new Facebook page.

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) legal efforts to derail The Boeing Company from opening a new production plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, prompted 41 Republican senators to retaliate against President Obama and his pro-union NLRB. The senators wrote in a letter to Obama last Thursday that they’d “use all procedural tools available to defeat” the confirmations of two board members unless he withdrew their nominations immediately.

Specifically, the senators vowed to oppose the nominations of the board’s Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon and board member Craig Becker, a former attorney who has represented both the AFL-CIO and Service Workers International Union (SEIU), who we’ve written about before.

For a hint at just how frustrated the 41 senators are, here’s a bit more of the letter sent by them to President Obama:

The Senate has been unacceptably denied the ability to exercise its constitutional duty of advice and consent in regards to the NLRB.

In light of the NLRB’s recent actions that would have a deleterious effect on job creation and economic opportunity across the country, it is time to hold the NLRB accountable.

We urge you to withdraw both Mr. Solomon’s and Mr. Becker’s nominations to their respective positions immediately.

If not, we will vigorously oppose both nominations, vote against cloture and use all procedural tools available to defeat their confirmation in the Senate. …

Is this move against Boeing what President Obama meant when he told the AFL-CIO in August 2010 that he was going to “restore some balance” to the NLRB and make it easier for workers in the aerospace industry to unionize? It certainly seems that way.

Image courtesy of: vgm8383

An inquisitive reporter in Providence, RI, recently did some digging and discovered a small fortune sitting inside the State House. That small fortune goes by the name of Stephen Iannazzi, a 25-year-old college dropout who’s apparently qualified for an $88,112 salaried position at the State House.

Iannazzi isn’t just any college dropout. As the Providence Journal’s Edward Achorn reveals, Iannazzi is the well-connected son of a labor union leader who employs the son of a state senator. Got that?

Well, here’s Achorn’s research to help you follow the money train that young Stephen Iannazzi is riding on the taxpayers’ dime:

Donald Iannazzi, the business manager for Local 1033, the Laborers International Union affiliate that employs 30-year-old lawyer Charles Ruggerio. Charles is the son of Senator Ruggerio.

While Stephen’s qualifications may be on the thin side, his family’s political connections are not.

His father Donald received an annual salary of $212,658, plus $53,212 in “other compensation,” in 2009, according to Local’s 990-filing with the IRS as an organization exempt from paying federal tax. (Senator Ruggerio enjoys a $190,246-a-year compensation package from an arm of the Laborers International Union.)

The family’s employment in state offices and the mayor of Providence’s offices fans out from there.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Rhode Islanders earned $42,579 per capita in 2010.  It’d be interesting to see Governor Lincoln Chaffee and state leaders justify Stephen Iannazzi’s unjustifiable salary to the people of Rhode Island who are earning a lot less than $88,000.

As the old saying goes, “It’s not who you know, it’s what labor union you’re connected to.”

As President Barack Obama said two years ago, “Elections have consequences”. He’s probably less enthusiastic about that bromide today — as are the unions who campaigned on his behalf. As the New York Times reports, state officials are gearing up to take on organized labor:

State officials from both parties are wrestling with ways to curb the salaries and pensions of government employees, which typically make up a significant percentage of state budgets. On Wednesday, for example, New York’s new Democratic governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, is expected to call for a one-year salary freeze for state workers, a move that would save $200 million to $400 million and challenge labor’s traditional clout in Albany.

But in some cases — mostly in states with Republican governors and Republican statehouse majorities — officials are seeking more far-reaching, structural changes that would weaken the bargaining power and political influence of unions, including private sector ones.

The explanation for all this from the unions is that newly-elected Republicans are looking to exact revenge because organized labor spent so much money on Democrats in 2010. But that doesn’t explain Cuomo. It also doesn’t explain the massive public pension problems facing state lawmakers. The aforementioned Indiana, for example, has more than $442 million in unfunded public-sector pension liabilities as of last year.

It’s not all bad news for labor though. There will still be jobs for union hotshots in the New York Attorney General office.

Image courtesy of James Durkee.

Here we go again. The traditional attempt by Democrats to reach out to organized labor after ignoring their policy advice:

The administration is making an “all hands on deck” effort to contact party activists angry over the accord, Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economic adviser, said last night before the U.S. House passed the $858 billion bill. Bernstein has made telephone calls and met with activists to defend a deal with Republicans that continues lower tax rates for all Americans, including top earners.

And the usual disgruntled grumbling as the unions play hard-to-get:

“The president is trying to build consensus among labor leaders for his compromise tax policy,” said Amy B. Dean, a former official with the AFL-CIO labor federation. The administration has “no problem reaching out to the labor movement when they need labor to be part of their electoral coalition. But they quickly forget that labor has a role to play in their governing coalition.”

Like in any wacky sitcom, these two will eventually realize that they need each other and reconcile before the credits roll. The Obama Administration needs organized labor for money and organized labor needs Democrats to enact policies so they can survive. Andy Stern once wondered, “Was I a leader of workers or an ATM machine?” The answer is the latter, but it’s all the unions have left.

Image courtesy of New England Secession.

Earlier this year, the Service Employees International Union organized with other labor groups in favor of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter. Halter was challenging Democratic Sen.  Blanche Lincoln in her primary. The SEIU was giddy at the thought of taking out Lincoln because she refused to bow down and kiss organized labor’s…er…because she wasn’t “progressive” enough.

Lincoln beat Halter in a run-off election and went on to lose resoundingly to Republican John Boozman in November. All this apparently sparked a rare round of soul-searching among SEIU bigwigs:

Khalid Pitts, director of strategic communications for the SEIU, said Monday the union might have gotten a better bang for its buck supporting candidates other than Bill Halter, who lost his bid to wrest the Arkansas Democratic Senate nomination from Lincoln.

“In retrospect, we were probably the wrong messenger,” Pitts said. “The message was right,” he added, asserting that Lincoln, who lost the general election last month to Republican Rep. John Boozman, repeatedly opposed organized labor’s priorities. Still, the SEIU has sparse membership in Arkansas and its support may have played into Lincoln’s hands, Pitts conceded, by “allow(ing) Sen. Lincoln to say that there were special interests – and she called it ‘Washington interests’ – who were coming into her state.”

We’re amused that the SEIU admits that at least some of its political spending was a mistake. But that doesn’t change the fact that the mega-union spent almost $3.2 million on a fool’s errand, all of it taken directly from worker paychecks. Arkansas is a conservative southern state and 2010 was a Republican year if ever there was one. Even if Halter was the Democratic nominee, he almost certainly didn’t have a chance against Boozman.

Image courtesy of estherase.