LaborPains.org

Here’s the first thing you need to know about Senator Casey’s event on March 22, 2010, introducing the Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010, is who was in attendance at the announcement:

“Senator Casey was joined at the event in Carlisle by representatives from YRC Transportation, ABF Freight Systems and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.”

Folks these days know that if you put the phrase “Create Jobs” at the beginning of a piece of legislation, its easier to yell at your opponents about how they opposed a “jobs bill.” There are about one hundred cliches, mores, and epithets that would work  right about now, but I think sticking with the old favorite “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.”

Borrowing from the Wall Street Journal, the bill would better be entitled “The Union Pension Bailout.” Because that’s what it is. During the health care legislation reform debacle, part of the bill was section 164 that bailed out failing pension funds to the tune of $10 billion USD.  It passed in the final version of the bill relatively unnoticed, giving Jimmy Hoffa a taste of sweet, sweet success.

Ten billion dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to how much money this legislation would cost. From the Wall Street Journal:

“Mr. Casey is claiming his multi-employer-bailout scheme will cost a mere $8 billion, but Moody’s estimated last year that multi-employer plans were $165 billion underfunded.”

“The tab is likely to be much higher given the moral hazard Mr. Casey would create. As Hudson Institute economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth notes, the bill creates “a vicious circle. Once PGBC took over some plans, other employers would want to declare bankruptcy, unload plans on the PGBC, and reorganize under another name. The incentives to do this would be enormous.” [...]

Union chiefs prefer the power that comes with managing huge pension investments—even if they’re failing. They are now counting on Mr. Casey to preserve their power by making taxpayers pick up the tab for years of pension mismanagement. With the union priority of “card check” stalled, word is that the Casey bailout is Big Labor’s consolation prize. Taxpayers should let Congress know they don’t want to pay.”

If Hoffa wins this one, perhaps it will be enough to fend off the attacks from within his own ranks. Vice President Fred Gegare is vying for the number one spot, according to reports, in the upcoming election in 2011. Interestingly enough, the reason Fred Gegare cites for breaking ranks with Hoffa is all about pension funds:

Gegare especially points to the decision to let UPS out of the Central States Pension Fund, saying that move has led to employers “lined up” to get out of the pension fund, with Central States losing two-thirds of its participants. Gegare is the union chair of the Central States Pension Fund. He also alleges that the union is experience financial difficulties because of some Hoffa decisions. “I cannot understand some of your decisions in the last four years regarding some of your expenditure that you were questioned about,” he writes.

A Reuters article entitled “States face hurdles in cutting worker benefits” could have subtitled “Unions made this reporter feel bad for governors”, because that ended up being how it read. Instead, the subheading was:

“State governors working to close yawning deficits are again eyeing a tempting target — the billions of dollars in benefits and wage hikes that public workers won in boom times.”

The article covers Governor vs. Union (and huge budget shortfall) drama in Massachusetts, Maryland, California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.  The most interesting take on furloughs was from none other than Hawaii’s Governor Linda Lingle:

“Courts in states from Maryland to California have partly blocked unpaid furloughs, although some unions still prefer them to lower pay, as Hawaii’s Republican Governor Linda Lingle found after the teachers’ union spurned graduated pay cuts.

“They said ‘Oh no, we have to treat everybody the same,’” Lingle told Reuters in late April. “I couldn’t get them to accept that a furlough costs a lot more to someone at the bottom of the pay scale.”"

Regardless of who gets hurt the most by cost saving furloughs, many governors are left with the furloughs as their only option. And it’s the only option that public unions seem willing to consider. Forget long term solutions. Those aren’t even to be mentioned.

Image courtesy of kreslik.com.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The rise of the tea party makes Democrats even more dependent on organized labor. In this week’s Pennsylvania special election for the late Jack Murtha’s seat, the AFL-CIO alone sent out 80,000 mailers on behalf of Democrat Mark Critz, along with 100,000 robocalls.

In Arkansas, unions showed their clout by forcing Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln into a June runoff with labor-backed Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Unions decided to make an example of her after she opposed the “card check” bill that limits the use of secret ballots in union elections. Unions, especially the Service Employees International Union, spent more than $3 million against her.

In contrast to the tea party, there has been far too little scrutiny of the SEIU, whose membership of government and health-care workers is the fastest-growing of any union in the country. Andy Stern, the just retired head of the SEIU, was found to be the most frequent guest at the Obama White House last year, stopping by 22 times between January and September, more than all congressional leaders and cabinet members.

The SEIU’s close ties to the discredited group Acorn have largely been ignored. The same is true for the violence perpetrated by some of its members.

Image courtesy of gerlos.

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.

So you may have heard about the anti-Wall Street protests…or is it anti-K Street protests?…. that happened around Washington, DC, not New York City, today. Made up of a hodgepodge of unions, they stormed down a bank, closed a road or two (K and 14th NW), pissed off some pigeons in a park, and got generally wet in the rain. This is after they protested in front of the home of a Bank of America executive yesterday.

I decided to brave the weather–without a union branded poncho, of course– and take a few shots. There were a plethora of union colors, a giants cutout of a K Street “corporate” type which reminded me of another protest puppet, posters calling for the Consumer Financial Protection Agency to “protect small businesses”. Riiight.

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.”

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.

You put your support for card check in, you pull your support of card check out, you put your support for card check in and you get the union endorsement.

From the AP:

Cal Cunningham said in an interview with The Associated Press that he supports elections as the sole way for there to be unions created, but opposed so-called “card check” organizing. He clarified in a later interview that he would be open to hearing arguments about “card check” but felt it could not pass. The labor-backed idea would allow workers to form a union by signing cards instead of by secret ballot.

The Teamsters recently endorsed Cunningham.