NILRR Weekly News Clips, December 20, 2013
One Breach of Basic Legal Principles Doesn’t Warrant Another
www.nilrr.org, December 15, 2013
Unfortunately, in the U.S. federal labor policy routinely breaches the personal right to choose one’s own representative. If a majority of the front-line employees in a workplace sign authorization cards indicating they wish to be represented by a particular union on compensation and work-rule matters, or if the majority of those casting ballots in an election vote for unionization, then any and all employees opposed to being represented by that union lose their freedom to say “No.â€
Government takes General Motors loss to protect UAW cronies
Washington Examiner Online, December 20, 2013
But, hey, the UAW kicked in heavily to the Obama campaign and to Democratic campaigns generally, and so they got paid off, in an episode of what I called “gangster government.” Or in the style of Chicago politics. The later Mayor Daley was supposed to have said, when asked why one of his sons got the insurance contract at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, “If a man can’t help his family, how can it be America?”
100,000 Government Workers Choose Freedom from Unions in Wisconsin
Townhall, December 21, 2013
Less than 3 years after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed his collective bargaining reforms (Act 10), more than 100,000 union members have left Big Labor. The Left has fought these reforms at every step, but when workers are given the choice, they have overwhelmingly voted to leave government unions. Wisconsin’s reforms prove that public sector union representation is becoming an antiquated idea. Other states should follow Wisconsin’s example and provide government workers with the freedom to vote on union representation.
DWP union chief refuses to turn over financial records to auditor
Los Angeles Times Online, December 17, 2013
The politically powerful head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s largest union has refused to cooperate with a city audit of two nonprofit trusts established to improve relations between management and labor at the city-owned utility.
Teamsters allege right-to-work laws are ‘slavery’
Washington Examiner, December 14, 2013
Michigan labor unions are understandably upset over the Wolverine State’s adoption of a right-to-work law and are fighting it in every way they can. Detroit-based Teamsters Local 214 has gone so far as to argue that it violates anti-slavery laws. Yes, anti-slavery.
They got Ed — MSNBC’s Schultz slammed by fellow liberals
Washington Examiner Online, December 14, 2013
MSNBC host Ed Schultz has come under fire from his left flank over his alleged lack of solidarity with NBC employees seeking to unionize. Schultz has fired back by claiming his liberal critics have “income envy.”
California City’s Return to Solvency, With Pension Problem Unsolved
New York Times Online, December 5, 2013
But what Stockton, along with pretty much every other city in California that has gone into bankruptcy in recent years, has not done is address the skyrocketing public pensions that are at the heart of many of these cases.
Boeing leases more South Carolina land as jet programs ramp up
Chicago Tribune, December 13, 2013
Boeing Co has obtained a $1-a-year lease for another large tract of state land near its factory in South Carolina that will nearly double the amount expected for a planned expansion, a spokeswoman for the plane maker said on Friday.
UPDATE: Nearly 17,000 Wisconsin Workers Did Not Support Their Union
MacIver Institute Online, December 20, 2013
A closer look at the results of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) recertification elections show that 16,977 government workers did not vote in favor of their union.
Business groups focus on right-to-work laws
Columbia Tribune, December 19, 2013
Buoyed by recent successes in the Midwest, conservatives and business groups are targeting at least three additional states for new efforts that could weaken labor unions by ending their ability to collect mandatory bargaining fees.