Big Labor, Not Tea Party, Is Workers' Worst Enemy

[peejay 327]

Big Labor, Not Tea Party, Is Workers' Worst Enemy

by Michelle Malkin

Posted 09/29/2010 ET

The Service Employees International Union plans to send 25,000 rank-and-file workers on 500 buses to Washington this weekend to protest the tea party movement, Republicans and Fox News. If SEIU members had any sense, they'd be demonstrating at their own bosses' D.C. headquarters. It's the Big Labor Left, not the Tea Party Right, that is flushing rank-and-file union workers' hard-earned dues down the collective toilet in these hard times.

The co-organizer of the so-called "One Nation" protest by a coalition of progressive groups is George Gresham, president of the behemoth SEIU Local 1199 based in New York. (This is the same SEIU affiliate that employed current Obama domestic policy adviser Patrick Gaspard as chief lobbyist for nine years.) Peeved by all the attention that grassroots conservatives and limited government activists have received over the past year, Gresham spearheaded the rally plans earlier this summer to "counter the Tea Party narrative" and reclaim the voice for "working people." Perhaps Gresham should pay more attention to his workers' pensions than to tea party leaders' media appearances.

SEIU Local 1199's Upstate Pension Fund has plunged from 115 percent funded in 1999 to 75 percent funded, and its Greater New York Pension Fund was funded at only 58 percent of its future obligations as of 2007, according to Hudson Institute analyst Diana Furchtgott-Roth. The union fat cats blame Wall Street. But while the pensions of SEIU workers nationwide are in "endangered status," the pensions of SEIU top brass have been protected and remain fully funded.

The D.C.-based Alliance for Worker Freedom, which monitors labor union abuses, reported last year that 13 major local SEIU pension funds are in serious financial jeopardy. Indeed, fewer than one in every 160 union-represented workers is covered by a union pension with required assets. Local 1199 workers -- already subject to wage freezes to salvage their pensions -- might want to know how their leaders were able to pony up $1 million for Haiti earthquake relief in January while their retirement funds wither on the vine.

SEIU leaders have shown a special talent for squandering their workers' dues. They poured $10 million down the drain in Arkansas on a failed bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln. They spent $10 million on a nasty lawsuit against a competing union in California. They've burned through union dues to transport SEIU radicals to bully bank execs and their families at their private homes and to bus workers to Arizona to protest crackdowns on illegal aliens, who depress the wages of law-abiding working-class Americans.

Under former Purple Army Chief Andy Stern, the union's liabilities skyrocketed from $7.6 million to nearly $121 million. Stern burned through $61 million to put Barack Obama and the Democratic ruling majority in place. And before abruptly stepping down in April, he installed a cadre of labor management stooges embroiled in financial scandals across the country.

One of them, Stern protege and former SEIU national Vice President Tyrone Freeman, remains under FBI investigation for siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues money for his personal enrichment and pleasure. The Los Angeles Times uncovered schemes that ranged from piping $600,000 in union contracts to his wife's video production and entertainment ventures to paying his mother-in-law $8,000 a month to babysit his daughter and other union employees' children to footing a $13,000 bill for membership at a Beverly Hills cigar club.

Another Stern underling, former SEIU leader Alejandro Stephens, is under FBI investigation, the LA Times reported this week, for $150,000 in consulting fees paid "under a confidential agreement" signed by Stern. The feds allege the money funded a no-show job for Stephens. While probing the smelly deal, the feds also stumbled upon a cozy agreement by SEIU executives to shell out $80,000 to promote a book Stern wrote in 2006. The SEIU may not have been looking after rank-and-file workers, but Stern made sure the SEIU was looking after him.

Now, Stern's profligate successors will steer an estimated $44 million in union worker dues into Democratic coffers this November -- all in the name of defeating right-wing enemies of the working people. Perhaps it's time for rank-and-file workers to stage a tea party of their own.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39201

[Danno 1,228]

The Union thuggery will be in good company at the rally..... if you doubt that just check out who is sponsoring the event.

http://www.onenationworkingtogether.org/partners

Everyone from communists and socialist organizations to Race hustlers to social outcasts and the anti war crowds.

This list is nearly a consolidated roll call of "Whats wrong with America".

Anyway it will be fun to watch as each groups agenda is on parade.

no doubt in more normal times a more normal version of the Left would show up but with the mood of the country now, only the fringe are motivated to come.

*One can't help but note: how the Tea Party is made to answer for every sign in the crowd..... yet in this gathering has groups "endorsing" or "partnering" whose manifesto is to destroy our form of government... and I have not heard a whisper about it.

[mawilson 2,133]

Talk about "astroturf"!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Michelle Malkin, peejay?

[mawilson 2,133]

Michelle Malkin, peejay?

Ah, it's Malkin, so we have nothing to worry about.

The SEIU are not really sending 25,000 rank-and-file workers on 500 buses to Washington this weekend to protest the tea party movement, Republicans and Fox News.

It's all in her head.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Ah, it's Malkin, so we have nothing to worry about.

The SEIU are not really sending 25,000 rank-and-file workers on 500 buses to Washington this weekend to protest the tea party movement, Republicans and Fox News.

It's all in her head.

Her nine paragraph editorialization of that one factoid is what's funny.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Her nine paragraph editorialization of that one factoid is what's funny.

Stick your fingers in your ears and repeat this:

LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I'm not listening!!!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Yeah, it's funny how the SEIU has become the RWN's next target since ACORN no longer exists. The Right hates, HATES unions and will do anything and everything they can to make them out as some kind of evil that is ruining America. The irony is that these Right Wing yahoos don't even realize how much the unions helped build the Middle Class after WWII, many of whom are beneficiaries of those unions.

Edited September 30, 2010 by El Buscador

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Yeah, it's funny how the SEIU has become the RWN's next target since ACORN no longer exists. The Right hates, HATES unions and will do anything and everything they can to make them out as some kind of evil that is ruining America. The irony is that these Right Wing yahoos don't even realize how much the unions helped build the Middle Class after WWII, many of whom are beneficiaries of those unions.

What you don't realize that the time for unions has passed. We now have laws to protect the workers. All unions are good for is to hold business hostage in the pursute of ever increasing wages. This is why our jobs are going over seas. The unions are killing our middle class.

[Danno 1,228]

What you don't realize that the time for unions has passed. We now have laws to protect the workers. All unions are good for is to hold business hostage in the pursute of ever increasing wages. This is why our jobs are going over seas. The unions are killing our middle class.

THe equally big problem is the way the Unions are driving up the cost or gov't even more than it normally would be.

We have all seen the comparison wages between private and public sector jobs.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

What you don't realize that the time for unions has passed. We now have laws to protect the workers. All unions are good for is to hold business hostage in the pursute of ever increasing wages. This is why our jobs are going over seas. The unions are killing our middle class.

So Nanny State trumps unions in the minds of smaller government Right Wingers? I have sit down. My head is spinning.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

So Nanny State trumps unions in the minds of smaller government Right Wingers? I have sit down. My head is spinning.

So you don't like the laws protecting workers? Interesting.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

So you don't like the laws protecting workers? Interesting.

Nice deflection. The Right Wing fights against regulations and laws (at least typically) and in this case, you are at least in favor of such regulations. But lets look at it more specifically - if you think the usefulness of unions has expired because of existing labor laws, are you then in favor of new labor laws for overtime? Vacation pay? Sick pay? Minimum wage? And if you have any of that right now, you can thank the unions for it.

Edited September 30, 2010 by El Buscador

[Heracles 417]

Nice deflection. The Right Wing fights against regulations and laws (at least typically) and in this case, you are at least in favor of such regulations. But lets look at it more specifically - if you think the usefulness of unions has expired because of existing labor laws, are you then in favor of new labor laws for overtime? Vacation pay? Sick pay? Minimum wage? And if you have any of that right now, you can thank the unions for it.

Agreed, but you have to realize why there is so much animosity towards unions. Unions like the UAW went way across the line and started making demands that were simply and utterly ridiculous, like demanding people be paid to sit around. Stipulating how many people had to be present to move equipment etc etc. This is certainly not how unions work abroad.

Unions have one purpose, to protect their workers from being exploited. They should never be there to tell a company how to function or what do do. Then again various unions here advocate for illegal aliens, which is when you know they have totally lost the plot, as it directly contradicts everything they stand for and have fought for.

Unfortunately due to the ease of shifting almost any job to third world countries, unions have little power left and the wealthy have regained their power.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Agreed, but you have to realize why there is so much animosity towards unions. Unions like the UAW went way across the line and started making demands that were simply and utterly ridiculous, like demanding people be paid to sit around. Stipulating how many people had to be present to move equipment etc etc. This is certainly not how unions work abroad.

Unions have one purpose, to protect their workers from being exploited. They should never be there to tell a company how to function or what do do. Then again various unions here advocate for illegal aliens, which is when you know they have totally lost the plot, as it directly contradicts everything they stand for and have fought for.

Unfortunately due to the ease of shifting almost any job to third world countries, unions have little power left and the wealthy have regained their power.

Unions, just like corporations are not perfect and like you said, they serve one purpose - for the benefit of the workers, although for both unions and corporations, one could say that they it is in the benefit of all, when all sides are fairly accommodated for.