Union Thuggery 101

This is the kind of crap that illustrates why unions in general are no longer good for America. Once upon a time in America, when 12 year old kids were being forced to work in coal mines, labor unions served a purpose. Now, (for the most part) the unions aren’t in business to protect workers, they are in business to protect unions and acquire power.

Think about this. If joining a union were such a great thing today, would unions need to have politicians pass card check and other pro-union legislation that FORCES people into the unions, or turns a blind eye to union coercion? Would the union leaders need to threaten to, or actually sabotage businesses if they don’t accept unionization? No.

Unions in America are in their death throws, but like any wounded animal they are still dangerous and will “bite” if not handled properly.

Time to show the union dog where the property line is and whack his nose if he steps over the line.

---

http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2011/may11/union-thuggery.html

The University of Missouri is receiving some unwanted attention after conservative website BigGovernment.com posted video clips from a course on organized labor. Lecture comments from the two instructors sounded more like a seminar in coercive organizing and negotiating tactics than a college-level survey of the American Labor movement.

The videos show course instructors Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies, and Don Giljum, a self-described Communist and business manager of the union representing Missouri power company Ameren UE workers, describing various “creative” union negotiating tactics.

Obama’s Secret Power Grabs

Our government has a defined process as laid out in the constitution.  The chart below illustrates how Obama is sidestepping that process, undermining the constitution, and usurping power from the congress and senate that does not belong to him.  Chairman Maobama must be stopped from doing this.  He is with the aid of liberal-progressive democrats destroying the system of government, and the nation it produced over the last 200 plus years.

Are you ready to see Obama throw America onto the trash heap of history?  I’m not.  And I won’t quit fighting for this country and the constitution I swore to defend until the day I die.

---

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/12/phil-kerpen-obama-power-grab-fcc-internet-congress-lisa-jackson-epa-carol/

Updated April 12, 2010

By Phil Kerpen
FOXNews.com

President Obama seems to believe that most of his sweeping agenda to transform the country can be accomplished without even a vote of Congress.

While Congress considers sweeping new legislation to permanently institutionalize the bailouts and federal control of our financial system (right on the heels of their health care takeover, of course) several other sweeping power grabs are going on outside the spotlight of legislative debate. Indeed President Obama seems to believe that most of his sweeping agenda to transform the country can be accomplished without even a vote of Congress. The chart seen above and found here shows what the administration is up to.

As I’ve previously noted here in the Fox Forum, the the EPA is pursuing an aggressive global warming power grab under the direction of White House Climate czar Carol Browner (who was not subject to Senate confirmation), and the FCC is pursuing a regulatory takeover of the Internet.

Both of those efforts are now escalating. The EPA has now finalized its vehicle emissions rule, for the first time regulating global warming under the 1970 Clean Air Act. While EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is trying to calm a political backlash by promising the delay the onslaught of regulations (the overall blueprint is over 18,000 pages and regulates almost everything that moves and lots of things that stay put) she remains committed to them. The Senate will have a key vote on S.J. Res. 26, which would stop the EPA, some time in May.

The FCC was smacked down in court last week in Comcast v. FCC, which held that the Commission has no jurisdiction to regulate the Internet. Yet FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a close friend of Obama’s, is now considering Internet regulations of an even more extreme nature and by an even more dubious mechanism—reclassifying the Internet as a phone system to regulate it like an old-fashioned public utility.

Obama has a pattern of sidestepping Congress that will only get worse in the aftermath of the health care fight and the pending financial “reform” legislation. For a full explanation of all of these threats as well as action items on how to stop them, please check out the interactive version of the chart on www.ObamaChart.com.

Phil Kerpen is vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity. He can be reached on Twitter, Facebook, and through www.philkerpen.com.

+

---

U.S. Postal Service’s Business Model Not Sustainable

Unions have outlived their usefulness and benefit to American society.  Now, in MOST cases, they are an impediment to business, and the cause of failure for many companies.

The main thing unions are good for now is political power.  Hence the unfailing support and kowtowing of Obama to unions. Unions destroyed the U.S. auto industry (UAW), are largely responsible for the dumbing down of our children (teachers unions), and are in most cases a cancer on whatever American industry they touch.

When 10 year old children were being sent to work in coal mines, there was a place for unions.  Today, unions are destructive and need to be done away with, not STRENGTHENED as Obama is seeking to do.

Tell your senators and representatives you will not accept “card check,” or any other type of forced unionization.

---

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/64139
CNSNews.com

Unions Making Postal Service Unsustainable, GAO Says

Wednesday, April 14, 2010
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Postal Service’s business model is not sustainable, and union-backed generous employee benefits along with collective bargaining contracts are a big part of the problem, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

As mail volume has plummeted by 17 percent – or by 36 billion pieces – in the past three years, collective bargaining contracts have forced the Postal Service to keep full-time employees with full health and retirement benefits and preclude outsourcing of services.

“Limitations on the workforce mix of full-time and part-time postal employees and workforce flexibility rules contained in contracts with USPS’s unions are key detriments of how postal work is organized and, thus, of its cost,” the GAO report said.

“USPS officials told us that as mail volume declines, it would be more efficient to have a much higher proportion of part-time workers than is currently available under existing agreements,” the report continued.

About 85 percent of USPS employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements, and “78 percent USPS employees are full-time and receive salary increases and cost of living adjustments based on predetermined levels,” the report said.

Other factors in the USPS’s problems are excess number of post offices, the GAO said, but “closing facilities has been limited by political, employees, union and community opposition to potential job losses.” (See Full Report)

The 553,732 USPS employees under collective bargaining contracts are represented by four different unions.

The 200,658 city carriers are represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers. The 177,842 clerks are part of the American Postal Workers Union. The 122,278 rural carriers are represented by the National Rural Letter Carriers Association.

The 52,954 mail handlers are represented by the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

The postal service lost $12 billion from 2007 through 2009 despite cutting 84,000 employees and raising rates. It is reaching a $15 billion borrowing limit with the U.S. Treasury Department and continues to have unfunded pension and retiree health obligations of about $90 billion, the report said.

“Congress should consider providing financial relief, such as revising USPS retiree health benefit funding and requiring any binding arbitration to take USPS’s financial condition into account,” the report said.

In 2009, Congress cut Postal Service retiree benefits by $4 billion, but the agency still had a loss of $3.8 billion.

The report also suggested more outsourcing to private employees. However, unions and members of Congress have blocked these moves.

“Postal labor unions and some members of Congress have previously resisted outsourcing,” the GAO said. “For example, after USPS attempted to contract out some city delivery routes in 2007, legislation was introduced in both Houses of Congress on this matter.

“USPS and National Association of Letter Carriers subsequently agreed to a moratorium on outsourcing city carrier delivery through November 2011,” the GAO added.

---

Mr. Obama: I’m calling you out

This is what the REAL mainstream of America is thinking and feeling.

---

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1586060.html

Wednesday, November 11, 2009
By William Piercey Sr.

The new era of government control over our lives and freedoms has begun. This week, it got personal, and I felt helpless.

The doctor overseeing my health care advised me to get an H1N1 flu shot. I’ve been under a six-year treatment program for a chronic infection, plus I have heart and lung problems. Therefore, I am considered a high risk. Fortunately, my doctor had three shots available, but I would have to get approval from my county health department. Much to my surprise, the woman at the health department apologized and told me that even though I was a senior citizen at high risk, the health department had been instructed to approve shots only for children and pregnant mothers. I asked when a shot for my situation might be available. “We really don’t know. Check back with us sometime in December.”

What? The terrorist detainees in Gitmo are getting shots this month. Why not a high-risk senior citizen?

Mr. Obama, this is what we call health care rationing, which you claim won’t happen under a government-run health care program.

If George W. Bush was considered the Barney Fife of executive power, then welcome to the Chicago-style politics of the new Vito Corleone family. The president himself, like a strong-armed enforcer, said in a nationally televised speech, “If you misrepresent anything in this plan, I will call you out.” This administration has turned the once dignified and esteemed Oval Office into a war room for its liberal propaganda.

On his first day in office, the president signed the Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel executive order. During the campaign he vowed to keep lobbyists out of the administration. But in Section 3 of this order is a waiver clause. The director of the Office of Management and Budget “may grant” a written waiver of any restrictions. Former lobbyists were given waivers and now hold key positions in government. Mr. Obama, you lied.

At the same time lobbyists were coming in the front door, dozens of new unvetted, hand-picked ideologues were being shuttled in the back door. Many of these people were placed in key policymaking positions. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was worried about 18 of these unvetted czars, 10 of whom worked in the White House. An amendment to force these appointees to testify in oversight hearings was shot down by the Democratic leadership. Collins was especially concerned about Carol Browner, who negotiated fuel-economy standards with the auto industry. She even sent a letter to Obama, and one of his counsels replied that no one would be made available. This administration fears no one, especially a senator who dares to enforce something as minor as checks and balances. Obama promised transparency. He lied.

On the topic of transparency, the $787 billion stimulus bill was a progressive Trojan horse. It’s loaded with political favors and programs that set up the infrastructure for education, health care and climate change. It was passed and signed in a matter of weeks. This was not a bill to put Americans back to work. Obama said it would produce 3.5 million jobs in two years. Over the past year the administration has changed its story daily but finally settled on the “create or save” propaganda. Obama also said the bill would keep unemployment under 8 percent. The rate has climbed to over 10 percent. Either his economic advisers are incompetent and need to be fired, or, once again, Mr. President, you lied.

Mr. President, you said you didn’t want to run our car companies and banks, but you do. With the $350 billion in TARP funds left by President Bush, Obama’s people continued the surge of bailouts. Americans might be shocked to know the recipients of bailout money now total 727 institutions. This government control in the private sector is unprecedented.

Government-run health care, card check, cap-and-trade, net neutrality, control of radio stations and possible newspaper bailouts are just part of this administration’s agenda.

It’s time for Americans to get in this government’s face and call it out. This coup d’etat can be defeated. We have the numbers, the votes and the will power to turn back this assault on our individual freedoms.

With 15 million unemployed Americans, I’m sure we can find a few willing patriots to fill all those upcoming vacant seats in Washington, especially with an annual salary of $170,000, office, staff, insurance, expense account and, best of all, a three-day workweek. The only requirements for this job are honesty, integrity and a love of country.

William Piercey Sr. is a Cape Girardeau resident.

+

---