LaborPains.org

Just in time for campaign fundraising season, Democrats are lining up to support unions and fill their campaign coffers. As campaigns file their year-end reports with the Federal Election Commission, it becomes much more obvious who’s in bed with whom.

State Rep. Sal Pace’s (D) campaign for Congress finished 2011 with a surge of money, collecting $207,632 in the final three months of the year. Running against incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CA), $62,500 of Pace’s haul came from political action committees (PAC) representing labor unions.

Priorities USA PAC – a Super PAC supporting Obama – received a $1 million donation from the PAC arm of the Service Employees International Union and another $215,234 from its non-profit sister organization Priorities USA.

The same Super PAC is also spending vast sums to run ads in Nevada and Florida that accuse Republican Presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney of having “two faces” on immigration issues.

Earlier this week, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) received thunderous applause when he announced that he will continue to work to pass Employee Free Choice Act during the annual legislative-political conference of the Communications Workers of America. Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said he plans to introduce a comprehensive bill to that includes at least one element from EFCA in the coming weeks.

As the 2012 election season heats up, we expect to see a much closer relationship between Democrats and Big Labor. What for that last couple of years has been and dangerous dance, now looks like it’s intensifying into a torrid affair.

Here are some photographs captured by RingosPictures.com during the May Day rally in Los Angeles, CA on May 1, 2011. Is red the new purple? We’ll let you be the judge.

Clicking images will take you to RingosPictures.com’s full photo essay on the May 1 rally.

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

A high ranking official in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is under investigation for allegations of financial misconduct. SEIU spokeswoman Inga Skippings said the investigation is focused on “one individual only,” namely, the union’s international vice president…yes, you’ve heard of him…Bruce Raynor–the man who cannibalized UNITE-HERE.

SEIU’s internal investigation of Raynor revealed that he “abused his expense account,” Politico’s Ben Smith reported Tuesday. Smith noted that labor unions typically don’t conduct formal investigations of such violations, suggesting SEIU and Raynor have much bigger issues between them:

Raynor’s alleged breach is something many unions would handle without a formal investigation — particularly against a senior official. However two SEIU sources said the union’s executive board discussed the matter in closed session Monday, and is in the process of hiring a hearing officer to oversee the probe.

Raynor told Politico that he is the victim of “an ugly, naked exercise in political retaliation,” insisting that he was protecting a female SEIU official “from political retaliation within the union by keeping her name off of expense reports and [dining] receipts.”

The charges against Raynor will be referred to an “outside independent hearing officer” who will suggest a course of action to SEIU’s International Executive Board. It should come as no surprise that a man responsible for wresting a bank away from another union and transferring $12 million to supportive constituents is somehow under investigation for financial misconduct at his current job?

Time for a little union mythbusting. This comes from California and the never-ending war between the SEIU and the National Union of Healthcare Workers:

I am sitting at a table in the Summit Hospital cafeteria in Oakland, California. Beverly Griffith, a spirited African-American grandparent who worked for 32 years in the Summit EVS (Housekeeping) department, taps my arm. “See that security guard at the table? He’s watching us. SEIU gets Security to follow me.”

I think to myself. How many grandmothers are security risks? So I ask: “Why would anyone follow you?”

“It’s harassment,” she insists. “I’m involved in the NUHW campaign to decertify SEIU. The election between these two unions takes place January 19th. Both management and SEIU are working together to make employees who converse with me feel uncomfortable.”

Follow the link and read the full article — it turns out Griffith isn’t the only employee who thinks she’s being watched. It’s also not the first time the SEIU has used thuggish tactics against the NUHW. So much for the SEIU being anti-corporate and defending the dignity of the common worker. At the end of the day, America’s number-one union is only looking out for number one.

Image courtesy of D.Clow – Maryland.

After 20 inches of snow were dumped on New York City last week, the media has been atwitter about allegations made by one city councilman. Dan Halloran claimed he was approached by three Sanitation Department workers who confessed they had been ordered to slow down the snow removal as a protest against recent budget cuts.

The accused unions are the Sanitation Officers Association (which is part of the SEIU) and the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association (which is part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters). Both have claimed that the sluggish plowing was due to budget cutbacks and that no one takes Halloran’s allegations seriously.

But apparently the feds do–at least enough to open an investigation:

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have opened a preliminary investigation into allegations that disgruntled sanitation workers sabotaged the cleanup after the blizzard last week that left some neighborhoods snowbound for days, people who have been briefed on the inquiry said Tuesday.

The investigation is focusing on whether there was a work slowdown and, if so, whether it was an effort to pad overtime. If the actions took place, two of those people said, they could constitute wire fraud or wire fraud conspiracy, both federal crimes. Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

Meanwhile:

Between 660 and 720 Sanitation workers called in sick for the cleanup of last week’s blizzard — more than double the usual rate, The Post has learned.

About 11 to 12 percent of the Sanitation Department’s 6,000-strong force didn’t show up for work on Monday or Tuesday, city officials confirmed, as 20 inches of snow brought the Apple to a near-standstill.

Of course, there’s no way of knowing whether those absent employees were protesting or snowed in. But for what it’s worth, this is far from the first time Teamsters-affiliated sanitation workers have called in sick. The worst incident occurred in nearby Yonkers where garbage festered in some neighborhoods for weeks after a budget battle angered the local sanitation union. On one day, 46 out of 48 sanitation workers scheduled to pick up garbage called in sick. More details will come out in the next few weeks, and in the meantime, we are keeping an eye on this.

Image courtesy of Barbara L. Hanson.

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.

File this under: “Should we really be surprised?”

Anna Burger, the former number two at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), has joined the board of directors at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In a statement, John Podesta, chairman of the board, said the group was “pleased” that Burger was coming on board. …

The action fund is an affiliated advocacy group of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is well-connected among influential Democrats and the Obama Administration. As Time magazine reported in late 2008, “Just as candidate Obama depended on CAP during the campaign for opposition research and talking points, President-elect Obama has effectively contracted out the management of his own government’s formation to [CAP President John] Podesta.”

At SEIU, Burger was a close ally of Andy Stern, who recently cast the deciding vote on the deficit commission. Looks like the old SEIU brass will continue to be influential for a long time to come.

Image courtesy of Daquella manera.