NILRR Right to Work Clips August 04, 2017

What’s Sauce for the Goose Is Sauce for the Gander, Even at the National Labor Relations Board

fed-soc.org, August 02, 2017

Raymond J. LaJeunesse

An article in the July 31, 2017, Bloomberg BNA Daily Labor Report notes that William Emanuel, a lawyer with Littler Mendelson PC and one of President Donald Trump’s two current nominees to the National Labor Relations Board, “signed an ethics agreement pledging to recuse himself for a two-year period from board cases involving any of his former clients as well as parties represented by Littler Mendelson.â€

However, unless the standards for recusal are more stringent for nominees of President Trump than they were for nominees of President Barack Obama, Emanuel can ethically ignore Senator Warren’s suggestion and need not recuse himself in all class-action waiver cases, even though that is a “hotly contested†issue.

One of the Board Members in the Lamons Gasket majority was Obama appointee Craig Becker, formerly an attorney with the AFL-CIO. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys represented the decertification petitioner in Lamons Gasket. We moved “for the recusal of Member Becker based on the fact that, as counsel for an amicus curiae, he signed a brief in Dana Corp.†that “was jointly filed by the United Auto Workers (as a party to the case) and the AFL-CIO (an amicus curiae and Member Becker’s then-employer).†Becker declined to recuse himself from Lamons Gasket for “the reasons fully explained in his concurrence in Service Employees Local 121RN (Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center), 355 NLRB 234, 240 fn. 3 (2010) [Member Becker ruling on motions to recuse].†357 NLRB at 740 n.3. The referenced footnote, 355 NLRB at 240 n.3, reads as follows:

Senate Confirms Trump NLRB Nominee Marvin Kaplan; Delays Nomination of William Emanuel

National Law Review Online, August 03, 2017

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Marvin Kaplan, a former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission lawyer, to fill one of the two open seats on the National Labor Relations Board, moving the agency a step closer to a Republican majority. Kaplan was confirmed on a 50-48 party-line vote by the GOP-controlled Senate.

Bernie Sanders attacks Nissan over union campaign

Washington Examiner Online, August 03, 2017

Sen. Bernie Sanders accused Nissan’s North American branch of union-busting as workers at a Mississippi plant began a two-day vote on joining the United Auto Workers.

The pre-emptive nature of the attack suggests that labor allies fear that the UAW’s bid will go down in defeat when the votes are counted.

Seattle Defeats Challenge To Uber Driver Union Law

Law 360.com, August 02, 2017

A Washington federal judge tossed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s challenge to Seattle’s ordinance letting Uber and Lyft drivers unionize, saying Tuesday it is not preempted by federal antitrust law and upending the business coalition’s hard-fought efforts to prevent independent contractors from banding together as a union.

‘Fat, Dumb and Happy’ at the UAW

The Wall Street Journal Online, August 03, 2017

“The UAW has zero tolerance for corruption or wrongdoing of this kind at any level,†union President Dennis Williams said of the scandal, adding that it is cooperating with investigators. Yet the UAW has quite the rap sheet. Since 2001 at least 47 of its members, including officials at several locals, have pleaded guilty to corruption and embezzlement charges.

There are also eyebrow-raising expenditures that are legal.

As worker anger over UAW corruption scandal grows, union president defends sellout contracts

world Socialist Web Site, August 03, 2017

As the corruption scandal involving the United Auto Workers union implicates ever-wider layers of the top UAW leadership, union president Dennis Williams penned a “letter to UAW members†Tuesday aimed at deflecting worker anger. Williams claimed that Fiat Chrysler’s payment of $1.2 million in bribes to the union’s former top negotiator with the company, the late General Holiefield, had no effect on the integrity of the “collective bargaining process.â€

The central aim of William’s letter is to try somehow to distance the UAW from Holiefield’s crimes and deny the obvious—that the corruption scandal is not an aberration, but rather expresses the essence of the UAW, a pro-corporate syndicate and tool of management that still pretends that it represents workers.

Indictment of Union Exec’s Widow Complicates UAW’s Mississippi Campaign

freebeacon.com, August 03, 2017

The indictment of a former union executive’s wife in a federal bribery investigation could complicate the United Automobile Workers’ quest to unionize a Nissan factory in right-to-work Mississippi.

On Thursday workers at a Canton Nissan factory began voting on whether they should join the UAW, the nation’s largest autoworkers union with more than 415,000 members. The election comes just one week after the Department of Justice announced that it had indicted a former Chrysler executive and the wife of a deceased union vice president for engaging in a $1.2 million dollar bribery scheme. On July 26, Nissan Our Team Our Future, a group created to oppose unionization, posted a news article about the indictment to its website.

CENTRAL STATES FUND: $15.45 BILLION

Teamsters for a Democratic Union Online, August 03, 2017

The first quarter 2017 Financial and Analytical Report of the Central States Pension Fund shows that it has treaded water over the past 12 months, due to a booming stock market. But that situation cannot last.

Shocking verbal attack on ‘Top Chef’ producers caught on video

page6.com, August 02, 2017

Four members of Local 25 in Boston are accused of trying to extort producers of the Bravo reality TV show for jobs in June 2014 – hurling racial and gay slurs at crew members including Lakshmi.

“They swarmed her vehicle and surrounded it. They were furious,†the show’s supervising producer Ellie Carbajal testified in Boston federal court, according to Deadline.

Carbajal recalled how one of the men had his face inches away from the passenger side window and told others about Lakshmi, “That’s the pretty one. We want to smash her face in.â€

Police officers were on scene that day but were less than helpful – even though they later reported that tires on several production vehicles had been slashed.

“They said [the Teamsters] were within their rights,†Carbajal said.

Meanwhile, “Top Chef’s†former location manager Derek Cunningham said the harrowing ordeal left him fearing for his life – and forced him to sleep with a “knife and a hatchet†after being threatened by two of the Teamsters.

Battenfeld: Marty Walsh thrust into union trial drama

Boston Herald Online, August 04, 2017

The reason the show was in Milton was because Brissette allegedly warned two Boston restaurants there would be trouble if they accommodated the “Top Chef†crew. Brissette also allegedly pulled permits for the show, just like he did for Boston Calling.

American Federation of Government Employees Still the Most Corrupt Union in the U.S.A.

fedsmithcom, August 03, 2017

AFGE has, without doubt, proven itself the most corrupt union in the United States among both public and private sector labor organizations. I’m not alleging this. It is a proven fact.

Below you can read not the indictments but the convictions of AFGE for corruption copied directly from the Department of Labor Criminal Enforcement Webpages. Please don’t rely on my statements, read the conviction information for yourself.

Labor Racket Weekly: Cooked Books and Union Crooks

laborpains.org, August 04, 2017

This week’s union rackets will blow your mind.

â—¦In Alabama, Michael Lackey, former President of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 3901, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and three years of supervised probation.

â—¦In Alaska, Jeffrey Davies, former President of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 183, was sentenced to one year in a federal penitentiary and three years of federal probation,

â—¦In Idaho, Ashley Cline, former office manager for Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 155, was sentenced to four years of federal probation and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $30,776 and a $1,000 fine

â—¦In Illinois, Lonzell Moore, former President of American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Local 1730, pled guilty to one count of embezzling

$18,857 in union funds.

â—¦In Michigan, Brenda Schaefer, former Treasurer of National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA) Local 39, pled guilty to one count of willful failure to maintain union records.