Right to Work Blog

Spending over $40 million of forced-union dues to elect Democrats, the AFL-CIO announced Monday that 100,000 union “volunteers” will deploy in battleground states and congressional districts during the four days before the polls close to boost the turnout of likely Democratic voters on Election Day.

“It’s definitely bigger and more intensive than anything we’ve ever done in terms of the final four days of turnout,” said AFL-CIO spokesman Steve Smith. “This year we’re looking at having something bigger and better than we have ever had in the past.”

Union volunteers plan to make 1.75 million workplace contacts, 3.5 million home visits, and 5 million telephone calls during the four-day span according to a statement released by the AFL-CIO.

In Ohio, the site of competitive gubernatorial, Senate, and House races, the union and its allies plan to knock on 280,000 doors and make more than 1 million phone calls.

Smith called the four-day program “the apex of everything we’ve been doing and building for in the past year.”

The AFL-CIO has run a voter identification and targeting program over the past year to educate potential voters and prepare them for the final turnout effort. Union volunteers are expected to contact some of the people targeted by the program as many as 25 times before the program ends, said Karen Ackerman, the AFL-CIO’s political director.

All this to say that “we don’t do politics” or so most union bosses would have you believe.

Andrew Stern, the union boss of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been touring the country promoting a new book hyping the “shake-up” of union politics. But in Los Angeles, the former head of the local SEIU is being prosecuted for shaking down its members to pay for politics.

A jury has been asked to determine whether Janett Humphries, the local SEIU head that “represents” Los Angeles school workers, conspired to break the $500 legal limit on political contributions by having her union pay for campaign workers and a cellphone for Martin Ludlow during his successful 2003 campaign for the Los Angeles City Council.

Ludlow, a close friend of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s, resigned his council seat to head the county labor federation in 2005. He pleaded guilty in a related case earlier this year and testified against Humphries during the trial.

In addition to conspiracy charges, Humphries is charged with two counts of perjury for failing to disclose her assistance to Ludlow on campaign forms. Lawyers close to the case say she is unlikely to face jail time if convicted, though she may be in more jeopardy next month when she is scheduled to go on trial in federal court on related charges of conspiracy and embezzlement from her union.

Humphries’ union has long been a behind-the-scenes political power, providing muscle and phone-bank services for local and national candidates. When asked whether she understood the meaning of perjury, she claimed she did not.

It’s clear that if the SEIU union bosses want to “shake-up” union politics, they should first stop the shake down of American workers.

File this one under “hard to believe,” but the Big Labor barons at the AFL-CIO have turned to an international organization with problems of its own to hurt American workers — the United Nations.

According to the Associated Press, the AFL-CIO will file a complaint against the United States with the United Nations claiming that a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board is “outside the mainstream of accepted international law.”

This is further evidence that AFL-CIO top officials are outside the mainstream of American thinking.

The largest teachers union in America, the National Education Association (NEA), has thrown itself headfirst into the congressional election with over $1 million in political expenditures against three Republicans: Jon Porter (NV), Heather Wilson (NM) and J.D. Hayworth (AZ).

In Nevada, where the NEA is desperately trying to elect former Harry Reid staffer, Teresa Haffer, the NEA has thrown over $350,000 into its campaign against Jon Porter.

In Arizona’s District 5, the NEA is spending even more money trying to defeat conservative J.D. Hayworth with a $491,000 spending spree.

And in New Mexico’s District 1, where Patricia Madrid and Heather Wilson are in a tight race, the NEA plunked down nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

The New York Times (registration required) reports that Brian M. McLaughlin, the Boss of the country’s largest municipal labor council, is expected to surrender on federal corruption charges.

Mr. McLaughlin, 54, the president of the New York City Central Labor Council and a seven-term Democratic state assemblyman from Queens, has been under investigation in a possible scheme to rig bids on multimillion-dollar city contracts for streetlights, officials have said.

Investigators were also looking at whether he received improper payments from electrical contractors.

Mr. McLaughlin would probably be the only person charged today but that the investigation, by the F.B.I., the federal Labor Department, the city’s Department of Investigation and the United States Attorney’s office in Manhattan, was continuing.

Mr. McLaughlin’s group, which represents a million workers in 400 union locals, has been a prominent supporter of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, lending its weight both to Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election bid last year and to the mayor’s ill-fated plan for a football stadium on the West Side of Manhattan.

The F.B.I. raided Mr. McLaughlin’s union office in March, as well as his Assembly district office in Flushing. In August, Mr. McLaughlin went on paid leave from his union post, which he has held for 10 years. Although he had publicly entertained the notion of running for mayor himself not long ago, he announced in January that he would not run for re-election to the Assembly this year, in order to devote more time to the labor movement. Mr. McLaughlin, a former electrician, was also the longtime director of the street lamps division of the city’s main union of electrical workers.

The Wall Street Journal has reported on what Right to Work supporters have been talking about for months — Big Labor has dumped its Republican lackeys.

In a short note on their blog, the Washington Wire, the Journal notes that Big Labor has “curbed outreach to Republicans.”

Teamsters and Firefighters, among others, promised to use their forced-dues treasury to ramp up Republican support to increase their clout while Bush’s party held power. But predictably, enthusiasm has faded, a Teamsters official explained, because, “We need a leadership change.”

Forced-union dues have become a major driver of the Democrat party, and the lip service paid to GOP elected officials was only until Big Labor believed the Democrats could regain power in Washington. That time is now for Hoffa, Sweeny and the rest of the Big Labor elite.

The message to Republican candidates who support forced-unionism privilege — Drop Dead!

Don and Teri Adams attended a rally protesting President Clinton outside Philadelphia City Hall in 1998 — and were beaten to a bloody pulp by a group of Teamsters. The Adams have filed a lawsuit. A special three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals will convene to hear arguments as to whether a federal civil rights suit may proceed against Governor Ed Rendell for his alleged role in the 1998 Teamster beating.

Rendell, Philadelphia mayor at the time, has since admitted in a deposition to personally inviting Teamster boss John Morris and Teamster Union Local 115 members to attend a pro-Clinton rally, despite knowing the Teamsters’ propensity to use violence against opponents. Rendell acknowledged that he had specifically instructed the Teamsters to “drown out” Clinton protesters.

Moments before the Oct. 2, 1998 beating, Morris was caught by several news cameras marking one Clinton protester for attack by placing a Fedora over his head. The teamsters then charged the man, Don Adams, and his sister, knocking both to the ground before viciously assaulting them. Adams was treated at an area hospital for a concussion, lacerations, and several bruises. His sister suffered minor injuries.

According to a statement from Morris’ top deputy, Rendell later tried to console Morris about the negative publicity the teamsters had generated by promising no charges would be filed against Morris and by suggesting ways to have the victim, Adams, prosecuted.

In July 1999, Adams stood trial after several Teamster women alleged he had assaulted them prior to his own beating. Adams was found not guilty and the women have since recanted their stories.

Morris was never charged. He died in 2001. Five Teamsters pled guilty to various assault and conspiracy charges and were given probation.

Three judges from outside the 3rd Circuit’s jurisdiction were appointed to hear the appeal after the appellees filed a motion asking the entire circuit to recuse itself — due to the fact Rendell’s wife, Judge Marjorie Rendell, is one of its members.

The Pittsburgh Plumber Local 27 has said NO to amnesty. On October 10 union officials approved a resolution demanding that their union revenue not be used for promoting amnesty and other activities that promote illegal immigration.

The resolution follows a similar position taken last month by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a national union representing some 750,000 building trades workers.

In their resolution, the Pittsburgh Plumbers union sharply criticizes the AFL-CIO leadership’s positions on dealing with illegal immigration. Local 27 “wants to express our outrage regarding the AFL-CIO’s stance on supporting amnesty for millions of illegal aliens,” states the resolution. Illegal immigration is “harming our country,” and specifically the interests of working Americans, declares Local 27.

Unfortunately for the members of Local 27, Pennsylvania is not a Right to Work State. They can protest the use of their dues for things they disagree with, but if they don’t pay, they get fired.

Apparently what works for the union bosses doesn’t work for its forced-dues paying “members.”

The Labor Department informed the AFL-CIO that its financial controls and record-keeping were insufficient and that problems were “beyond technical bookkeeping errors.”

Citing the lack of travel policy for AFL-CIO officers, lack of reporting of travel expenses for spouses, improper handling of credit card charges and missing loan documents, the report demanded improvements in financial procedures for the group.

Unconcerned about the implications of poor bookkeeping, AFL-CIO Boss John Sweeney’s response was “the audit raised no questions whatsoever regarding the federation’s expenditure of funds on behalf of workers.” Translation — our political expenditures on behalf of our favorite candidates can continue unimpeded.

As long as workers are forced to contribute, there is no incentive to accurately keep track of the books as the money will flow one way or another.

AFL-CIO Boss John Sweeney visited Toledo recently to march with 500 migrant workers rallying for amnesty of illegal aliens. The AFL-CIO Boss brought with him $60,000 in workers’ forced-dues money to give to the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). FLOC is moving beyond Ohio and North Carolina in hopes of organizing migrant farm workers in Georgia, South Carolina, and elsewhere, which could at least double its membership of 11,000.

In a speech, Sweeney called Congress’ efforts to secure America’s borders as “more than shameful.” In fact, Sweeney said the building of a fence to keep illegal aliens out of the country was “an international disgrace.” It appears that the way Sweeney looks at the world, every illegal alien stopped at the border is a new dues-paying member of the AFL-CIO — illegal or not.