In this issue: • Union Bailout Update • Yes, America, the Unions Are Killing Your Twinkies • Will the Unions Screw Up the Superbowl? • Laborers Vow Never to Forget Keystone • Picket Line Do’s and Don’ts • Teamsters Watch, Sticky Fingers and more…
The NLRB held a “meet and greet” on Jan. 12 between lawmakers and the three newly sworn in Board members at the center of the latest NLRB firestorm. Members of Congress were denied the chance to question or even scan the resumes of Richard Griffin and Sharon Block as the two Democrats’ names were only first sent to Congress on December 15, the day before the start of the Senate’s pro forma holiday session. (Republican Terence Flynn was nominated last January.) Less than three weeks after nominating Griffin and Block, on Jan. 3, President Obama lost patience with the process, returning from holiday to invoke his new “We Can’t Wait” doctrine, and seat all three nominees in what just might be his most bald-faced appeasement (to date) of Big Labor. The paperwork filed on the 15th normally triggers a nomination process that includes first a full background check looking for improprieties and all potential conflicts of interest. In fact the rules of the Senate’s HELP Committee demand a five-day waiting period to examine a candidate’s background before any action can be taken on a nomination. (It’s difficult to imagine a more conflicted nominee than Richard Griffin who has served for 17 years on the board of directors for the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee.) This is the biggest difference between a traditional recess appointment, where a fully vetted candidate languishes for months in partisan limbo, and a special emergency “We Can’t Wait” (or what we call a “recess without a recess” appointment), where candidates are sworn into office before a second branch of government can even check their credit report. On January 6 the National Right to Work Foundation filed the first of what will likely be many legal challenges to the appointments, in a joint action with the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and the National Federation of Independent Business. (The Foundation has consolidated its legal challenge of the appointments with its ongoing challenge of the new workplace posting rules.) “President Barack Obama has already shown time and again that he is willing to abuse his executive authority to force more workers into union-dues-paying ranks,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Now Obama’s executive abuse jeopardizes the constitutional balance our country holds very dear, all in the name of paying back his Big Labor benefactors.” These initial challenges have a bit of a legal hill to climb on the issue of standing (since the posting requirement was adopted by a valid quorum of the Board). But that legal hurdle won’t be around for long. As soon as the new Board issues decisions – or regulations – they’ll create a ready supply of new plaintiffs with certain standing. The Wall Street Journal calls the recess appointments a “reckless ploy” and accuses the President of ultimately undermining the Board’s authority with the questionable legality of his actions. Every decision of the new Board will be challenged and potentially all could be overturned en masse if the appointments are found to be unconstitutional. Looking back a year from now, it’s most likely the new Board will have only accomplished one thing with its new dubious “We Can’t Wait” quorum — the injection of even more uncertainty into the country’s business climate when we all can least afford it. As Melanie Trottman of the Journal wrote: “Mr. Obama is claiming an open-ended authority to determine that the Senate is in recess, despite that body’s own judgment and the factual realities. That is an astonishing and, so far as we can tell, unprecedented power grab…It is not up to the president to decide whether the Senate is organized properly or working hard enough.”
The House Education and Workforce Committee has reacted to those “We Can’t Wait” appointments with a reminder to be very, very afraid of the new 2012 Obama NLRB regardless of how unconstitutional it all may turn out to be in the end. Just look at the short list of Obama Board’s decisions since 2009 —
- Specialty Healthcare gave Big Labor the green light to gerrymander the workplace for their own gain using “micro-units” of as few as two employees. (While still making no provisions for “micro-units” that might wish to opt out of union representation entirely.)
- The Giant Rat ruling allows unions to harass neutral third-party businesses with impunity. (While also declaring the rat itself “protected free speech”)
- The rollback of Dana allows unions to bully both workers and their employer into a card check agreement without fear of a secret ballot.
- The Quickie Election Rule restricts an employer’s response to union propaganda and smears, effectively denying employees their best chance to make a fully informed decision in a union election.
- The one–sided Mandatory Posting Rule will educate workers on the steps to join a union but not the steps or their right to decertify.
- The Boeing complaint sent the chilling message that the Obama Feds can and will put millions of dollars of legal hurt on a company not only for relocating to a Right to Work state but for taking a tough stance with a bully union at the bargaining table.
And we would add the multiple Board decisions that establish protection from reprimand for employees who publicly trash their employer including wearing prison clothes – errr – anti-company tee shirts on service calls.
In the last issue of INK we posed the question no one else at the time was asking – Will Unions Kill the Twinkie? Since then LRI President Phil Wilson appeared on Fox Business to explain not only how unions are killing the company, but how union concessions in the bankruptcy process are critical to saving it. The company’s bankruptcy filings make clear what we at LRI first suspected – financially Hostess is sinking for its dozens of union contracts that chain the company to massive “too big to fail” multi-employer union pension funds. Court documents show the company is in debt to the Bakery & Confection Union & Industry Pension Fund alone for a jaw-dropping $944M, far and away its largest debt owed. (That works out to about $2 per Twinkie sold per year.) And of the company’s thirteen unsecured debts over $1M all but four are owed to various union pension funds including close to $12M to the notoriously underfunded Teamsters Central States Fund. The company has repeatedly asked for and been denied concessions that would allow Hostess to secure its pension obligations to past and present employees through a single self-administered fund, rather than a patchwork of sorely underfunded multi-employer union plans. (The Bakery & Confection Union & Industry Pension Fund is 62% funded and ranked “endangered” by Moody’s) Meanwhile, the unions are also refusing to give ground on arcane work rules that, for example, do not allow Wonder products and Hostess products to be delivered by the same truck. Teamsters also cannot be required to both drive a truck and unload a truck so all company deliveries must be made by two Teamsters. To quote Phil Wilson on Fox Business, “They (Hostess) need to be a more innovative company and with all of the restrictions and all of the inefficiencies that are built into their system because of their labor union problems it’s impossible for them to innovate.”
Things are certainly heating up in the battle to make Indiana the 23rd Right to Work state. Indiana Democrats are once again AWOL from the state house in their last ditch effort to stave off passage of RtW legislation. Passage is inevitable, given GOP majorities in both the Indiana house and senate, but not until seven house Democrats show up to fulfill the 67 member quorum requirement. (Democrats blocked the legislation’s passage with a similar walkout last summer.) The Republican Speaker of the House is now imposing $1000/day fines on missing lawmakers who are taking that issue to court to block the fines from being deducted from their paychecks. Union-beholden Democrats have also taken a new rhetorical tack, a Hail Mary pass that calls for an unprecedented statewide referendum vote on the measure, a demand that is largely considered unconstitutional. Both sides claim to have majority public support although the only independent poll taken in recent weeks shows the majority of Hoosiers are still utterly confused by the measure and thus have no opinion on it. Meanwhile, the union goon squad leaders are making their own demands – drop the legislation or else the Superbowl gets it. Wednesday, labor union protesters, in a stroke of original thought, filled the Statehouse with chants of ”Occupy the Super Bowl.” Jeff Combs, director of Teamsters Local 135 in Indianapolis said it is no idle threat. ”We are seriously considering if we can’t get the respect that we deserve down at the Statehouse then, yeah, there’s a very good possibility” the protests will spread to the Super Bowl, he said. Because, if history teaches us anything, it teaches us that the surest road to respect is dressing up in a rat suit and chanting meaningless slogans at people trying to enjoy a football game. Jeff Harris, spokesman for the Indiana AFL-CIO, said the union organization’s ”focus is on defeating ’right to work’ on the (House) floor. However, we do know the national spotlight will be turning to Indianapolis. It’s an opportunity to highlight how inhospitable Indiana is becoming for working men and women,” he said. The passage of Right to Work in Indiana would no doubt set off a cascade of like attempts in surrounding states, with efforts gaining traction in neighboring Kentucky and Michigan.
Recently released Health and Human Services documents show that, far and away, union administered insurance funds are still the top recipients of Obamacare waivers, even after application rules were tightened in the summer in response to the first wave of waiver controversy. Early on unions were the biggest boosters of Obamacare, pushing relentlessly for employer mandates, even threatening to unseat any Democrat who dared vote against them. Public employee union plans (listed as “non-Taft Hartley” plans here) alone received waivers for 659,871 participants since June 2011 while multi-employer union plans received waivers that covered another 1.2 million workers in the private sector. To contrast, self-insured businesses received waivers that covered only 69,813 employees. Of greater significance, non-union health insurance providers were granted around 970,000 participants waived, less than half the number of participants waived than union plans. This suggests union plans were more cash-strapped and/or more likely to violate Obamacare mandates than non-union plans. The numbers get even more curious when looking at waivers denied. Only 7% of insurance companies and 20% of self-insured employers denied on their first application received a waiver when reconsidered. Union plans, on the other hand, fared considerably better when their applications were reviewed; 50% of public employee union funds and 40% of private sector union plans received waivers on reconsideration by HHS.
The U.S. Navy will require its first project labor agreement (PLA) for construction of a $715M explosive handling wharf in Washington state. This is the Defense Department’s first PLA since President Obama issued an executive order one month into his presidency that strongly encouraged all federal agencies to require union labor on all projects over $25M. Without explanation or proof, defenders of the Navy’s PLA mandate say a unionized workforce ensures efficient, timely and cost-effective completion. The Olympic Peninsula Building and Construction Trades Council had successfully called upon Democrats Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Reps. Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee to appeal to the Defense Department for a PLA. All four have received significant campaign donations from the Building Trades Council. 84% of Washington’s private construction workforce is non-union. Those hired onto the Navy’s project would be required not only to pay dues, but to pay into underfunded union pension plans with little hope of working long enough to be vested.
Faced with the threat of massive Occupy and Longshoremen union protests, the U.S. Coast Guard has announced it will be escorting the first ship to be loaded at the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview some time this month. The grain carrier, bound for China, will be escorted up the Columbia River and out to sea in the event protestors in small boats attempt to somehow disrupt the ship’s passage. Since July, the ILWU has been holding high profile sometimes-violent protests at the new terminal claiming EGT’s lease agreement stipulates they can only use ILWU local 21 members. (EGT instead hired a Washington state sub-contractor that uses operating engineers from another union.) The ILWU has been fined $300,000 for damages done when its members blocked incoming trains in September. The union is under federal court order not to interfere with commerce at the port. As we reported in the Dec. 15 issue of INK, the “Occupy” protestors, heavily infiltrated by organizers from the Change to Win’s “Coalition for Safe Ports,” successfully shut down the port of Longview in December causing the ILWU to accuse the Occupy movement of “co-opting” their labor struggle. The same “Occupy” group is now calling for a massive protest to thwart loading of the Chinese ship.
The AFL-CIO is launching a $1.5M ad campaign designed to improve the public perception of unions. Observers note the federation may be trying to capitalize on the Occupy movement and reflect some Occupy energy towards unions that have been steadily sinking in the public’s opinion for the past two decades. The ads fall back on the fanciful notion of unions as representatives of all working people and the only remaining check on corporate power. One 30-second TV ad scheduled to air in Pittsburgh, Austin, Texas, and Portland, Ore., features close-ups of archetypical union workers — firefighters, airline pilots, teachers — with a voiceover saying, “Work doesn’t separate. It’s what binds us together. I teach your kid, you fix my car, he builds my city, she keeps it safe. Work is what connects us.” “This campaign showcases the values that America’s unions share with all working people: hard work, quality work, and how every one of us is connected,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler.
After three years (three years!) of “rigorous review” by the State Department, the Obama Administration announced on Wednesday it was killing the Keystone pipeline project and with it 20,000 American jobs. As the President bows to pressure from tree-hugging Hollywood donors on Keystone, some pundits have conjectured that Obama made his emergency NLRB appointments last month in return for unions letting the Keystone decision slide. Terry O’Sullivan, loudmouth president of the Laborers union will have none of that. “The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero. We are completely and totally disappointed. This is politics at its worst,” he said. “Once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers – even though environmental concerns were more than adequately addressed. Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.” “The Administration and environmentalists have blown the whistle on workers trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads,” continued O’Sullivan. “Instead of celebrating their victory by hugging a tree they should hug a jobless construction worker because they’re the ones who are going to need it.” The Keystone issue has also divided the labor movement, setting the building trades, coal miners and radicalized leftwing Obama boosters like SEIU at odds with each other. Enter AFL-CIO president and frequent White House guest Dick Trumka with a statement sure to keep many awake tonight. “We need dialogue between environmentalists and workers and communities about the future of coal.” Trumka, said. “About what the global labor movement calls a Just Transition to a low carbon emissions economy. And the AFL-CIO is ready to host that dialogue.” Please, we beg you, no. Radio talk show host Neil Boortz said today that beyond the rhetoric, union leaders won’t punish Obama for the decision, knowing full well after he has secured the much-needed environmentalist political contributions, he’ll “change his mind” and approve the Keystone venture after the election. The unions might even be able to make some hay of the announcement, taking responsibility for “pressuring” Obama to change his mind.
A global network of IBM unions is meeting in May to form the IBM Global Union Alliance, described by its backers as the first “super union.” The effort was spearheaded by the CWA with the hope that coordinated attacks on the company from the unionized ranks of its 400,000 employees worldwide would give unions significant leverage over the company that no one union can achieve alone.
The city of Santa Clara, CA has approved an $850M loan to build a new 49ers football stadium and groups of Santa Clara taxpayers are taking steps to block the loan and construction. But as opponents of the measure plan to pass out fliers at Sunday’s NFC championship game IBEW Local 332 was attempting to hire what the union called “interceptors” to get between stadium critics and the general public. In a posting since removed from the union’s website, Local 332 was offering $100 for four hours work. “We have been asked by the 49ers to generate between 10-20 individuals to act as ‘interceptors’ in an effort to derail a ballot referendum,” the IBEW site says. “We cannot let a small group of NIMBY’s derail a $1 billion construction project … not if we can prevent it,” the site says.
Labor Notes has put together a handy list of picket line “do’s and don’ts” after Verizon legally fired 40 union members in December for illegal picket-line activity. Apparently the Labor Notes editorial board thought it important that union members (and the zealots that “organize” them) needed the refresher. Labor Notes gives the following examples of actions NOT protected by the NLRA:
- Warning a line-crosser, “we know where you live and we’re coming to get you”
- Throwing rocks or bottles
- Banging on a scab’s car with a picket sign
- Spitting on scabs
- Placing nails on the road
And while it’s okay to verbally assault your co-worker whose family can’t survive on strike pay, Labor Notes reminds us that peppering your tirades with racial or sexual epithets is a job risking no-no. The leading “voice of labor movement” then adds this: “Make sure that strikers understand the problem with individually threatening a scab. While it feels good to yell, that’s not what wins the strike. Have plenty of chants ready for members to use, and remind them that picket lines are video recorded, so all actions are documented unless a wall of picket signs blocks the camera.” Labor Notes then goes on to encourage union officials to “most importantly” include a “no discipline for picket line misconduct” clause in any strike settlement. Then, if someone does goof up and toss a couple rocks or spit on someone, they can’t get fired when they come back in. Good to know!
The IBT has taken control of Teamsters local 173 in Bradenton, FL while it completes an investigation of the local’s president. Robert Tuttle is accused in an initial report of improperly obtaining at least four loans of more than $1,000 by using the union’s credit card for cash advances at casinos. The memo also states Tuttle often used the union credit card for excessive fuel and business travel, plane change fees for his girlfriend, groceries, prescriptions, and other personal expenses. Tuttle continued his bad behavior even after an internal auditor warned him in 2010. According to the Teamsters, Tuttle also violated the local’s bylaws by bringing guns to union meetings and threatening board members who disagreed with his methods with economic retaliation and physical violence. The local will lose all local control until the investigation is complete, which could take up to two years, a union spokesman said. “The day-to-day business of the union will continue,” an IBT official said. “The situation is really not as bad as it seems.
John Samuelsen, the president of the Transport Workers Union, told a cheering crowd of his members that Gov. Cuomo and the transit agency can take their contract demands calling for no raises and “shove it.” Speaking Sunday at a rally in front of the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers – where union big wigs and MTA officials were still trying to hammer out a deal – Samuelsen said “I’m going to go back into that hotel, and I’m going to tell the chairman of the MTA, and I’m going to tell the governor to take their petty demands and shove it because TWU Local 100 is not going to agree.” Samuelsen called MTA demands for part-time bus operators, a reduction of vacation days, and a reworking of overtime rules “ridiculous.” Gov. Cuomo managed to secure the needed concessions and wage freezes from all other public employees unions. But Samuelsen says the TWU won’t agree to any contract that doesn’t have guaranteed raises. “I said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re not eating the three zeroes that Governor Cuomo thinks that we should eat,” he said. “We’re not selling out our operators, our conductors –we’re not selling them down the river so that Governor Cuomo or the MTA can assist in balancing the budget on the backs of Local 100 members. We’re not going for it.” The average MTA /TWU salary is $52/K without overtime with fully paid zero out-of-pocket healthcare coverage. The TWU infamously went on strike in 2005, crippling the city for three days during the Christmas season and costing the city $300M-$400M a day in lost transit revenue and increased police costs. Retailers were reported to have lost many hundreds of millions more while lives were put at risk when first responders were trapped in traffic gridlock. “We’ll fight for a month, we’ll fight for two months, we’ll fight them until they relent and give us a fair contract,” Samuelsen told the cheering crowd of followers. ********** Sticky Fingers: Top Ten Union Corruption Stories of the Year 
(Visit the National Legal Policy Center’s Union Corruption Update for details) 10) Chicago Electrical Workers bosses collect lavish pensions and stick city taxpayers with bills. 9) FBI raid nets dozens of New York City-area mobsters and associates. 8) United Food and Commercial Workers officials in Brooklyn charged with massive extortion, fraud. 7) Organized labor foments, endorses Occupy Wall Street protests. 6) Unions were major recipients of waivers from Obama health care law they lobbied to create. 5) Former official of Screen Actors Guild benefit plan files complaint against SAG benefit plan bosses. 4) Public-sector unions lead Wisconsin legislature shutdown. 3) SEIU anti-corporate radical activism continues. 2) National Labor Relations Board serves as union advocate. 1) FBI arrests 11 in probe of $1 billion+ Long Island Rail Road disability scheme. ********** Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up by visiting: https://lrionline.com/free-stuff/newsletter-signup/ If you use content from this newsletter please attribute it to Labor Relations Institute and include our website address: www.LRIonline.com Contributing editors for this issue: Phillip Wilson, Greg Kittinger, Nancy Jowske and Shaun Fanning You are receiving this email because you subscribed to receive our labor relations newsletters and updates. You can manage your email preferences by clicking the link at the bottom of any of our email communications. NOTE: if you are using Internet Explorer v. 6, read the text version, as the html will not load properly in IE6. We recommend upgrading to IE7.
