Posted on Jun 30, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
It’s an emerging Washington pundit-class genre: Big Labor’s big comeback. But as with many Beltway memes, there’s often less than meets the eye. And so it is with the latest round of stories. A couple of weeks ago, we saw the following three headlines after a trade bill lost a procedural vote (from Politico, The […]
Posted on Jun 23, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
Service Employees International Union officials are throwing accusations at each other over a major power play by national President Mary Kay Henry in California. Henry is fighting with Dave Regan—President of the United Healthcare Workers local and a Vice President on SEIU’s International Executive Board—for control of 70,000 of Regan’s members. Henry has ordered Regan’s […]
Posted on Jun 19, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
The Service Employees International Union has spent something on the order of $50 million as part of its “Fight for 15” campaign to unionize quick-service restaurants. However, the union isn’t yet collecting much in the way of new dues in response to this massive investment. We found an old SEIU press release from early 2009, […]
Posted on Jun 16, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), led by Randi Weingarten, has a history of misdeeds by its local unions. Some past local officials have gone to prison for years for corrupt practices. Now, two local AFT unions are riven by internal political squabbles, with Detroit’s union president facing recall and the local for Orange County, […]
Posted on Jun 10, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
If a normal person stood outside his or her workplace and shouted racist epithets at coworkers and passersby, that person would be fired. But an Administrative Law Judge with the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that normal rules of civilized conduct don’t apply while on union business, ordering Anthony Runion, a United Steelworkers picketer […]
Posted on Jun 08, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
Unions and Democratic Party politicians are infamously loyal to one another. Labor PACs consistently send about 90 percent of their contributions to Democrats—even as roughly 40 percent of union households consistently vote Republican—and Democrats supply labor favors in return. But when labor and Democrats disagree, unions can savage their allies as brutally as they would […]
Posted on Jun 03, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
America’s labor unions are not fans of private votes, as their support of the anti-democratic public “card check” representation procedure clearly demonstrates. And their support of “union democracy”—internal procedures to allow members a say in the union’s governance—is rhetorical at best. The latest example comes from New Hampshire, where the state AFL-CIO declared its President, […]
