Obama Administration

Michelle Malkin: Obama’s Big Labor ethics loophole

On August 18, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

Michelle Malkin highlights the non-existent ethical standards applied to Obama Big Labor politcal appointees like SEIU/AFL-CIO lawyer Craig Becker who Obama appointed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

Everything you need to know about President Obama’s fraudulent ethics pledge can be summed up in four words: SEIU lawyer Craig Becker.

It’s no surprise that Becker now refuses to hold himself accountable for the ethics pledge he himself signed in April. As the past two years have taught us, Team Obama’s operational slogan is: Rules are for fools. The contractual ethics commitment states: “I will not for a period of two years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.” Yet, Becker has participated in numerous NLRB cases involving the SEIU and its affiliates — and is parsing the definition of “former employer” by arguing that local SEIU chapters are “separate and distinct legal entities” that don’t fall under the ethics rules.

The National Right to Work Foundation, which has fought both national and local SEIU officials in court on behalf of rank-and-file workers’ rights, eviscerates Becker’s lawyerly blather. SEIU’s own constitution considers local affiliates “constituent subordinate bodies” of the national union, the foundation notes. “Moreover, in 2009 over 85 percent of the SEIU’s receipts came from a per capita tax on the locals’ membership dues and fees. The national union even has the power to assume control over its locals if they do not conform to International policies.” (more…)

Keep Bailing

On August 18, 2010, By NRTWC Staff

Bailouts for big banks and Wall Street firms. Bailouts for car companies and the United Auto Workers. Proposed bailouts for union pension funds. And now this — a massive $26 billion bailout for state government and teacher’s unions. Not only is the country on its way to bankruptcy but it appears the moral bankruptcy of this Congress has already come.

The Wall Street Journal takes on the latest bailout head-on:

To treat Washington’s spending addiction, the November elections are the taxpayer’s best chance to stage an intervention. But until then, President Obama and the Democratic Congress are determined to keep pushing strung-out state governments to take one more fix.

Witness yesterday’s 247-161 largely party-line House vote to approve a Senate bill shovelling another $26.1 billion out to state education and Medicaid programs. The White House has promoted the bill as emergency assistance for strained state budgets. But this unique brand of therapy drives states to spend more, not less. The “assistance” is so expensive that several governors were begging for relief even before Mr. Obama (more…)

Posted in: AFT and affiliates, Big Labor Payback, Mississippi, NEA and Affiliates, National Right to Work Committee, Public Employees, Texas, Wisconsin

NRTW “aggressively” pursues recusal motions against NLRB member Craig Becker

On August 13, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

The New American Reports:

The National Right to Work Foundation [NRTW] has aggressively pursued recusal motions against Craig Becker, a recess appointment by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker had previously served as associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, an organization which has come under increasing scrutiny in connection to illicit activities by Obama and his supporters.

Becker took an ethics pledge last April, at the time of his recess appointment, in which he swore to abstain for a period of two years from involving himself in any matter before the board in which a client or former employer had been involved. Despite this pledge, the NRWF [NRTW] has identified cases involving SEUI locals and in which Becker participated in the cases. Becker has insisted that local unions are “separate and distinct entities” from the SEIU itself. This contradicts the SEIU Constitution, which presumably Becker would know something about as counsel for that organization, and which describes local affiliates as “constituent subordinate bodies” of the national union. (more…)

Tagged with: ACORN • Craig Becker • David Berry • NLRB • NRTWLDF • SEIU • Wade Rathke
Posted in: ACORN, NLRB, NRTWLDF, Obama Administration

Washington Post: State Worker Bailout Motivated by Politics

On August 10, 2010, By NRTWC Staff

The Washington Post argues that Washington bailouts for state union workers reinforces dependency on the feds and is a political handout to their Big Labor constituency. It’s not often we agree with the Post but in this case they are right:

TO GOVERN is to choose, and nothing lays bare a government’s true priorities like the choices it makes about spending taxpayers’ money. In that regard, the Senate’s decision to spend $10 billion on education jobs this week is revealing — and deeply discouraging.

The crusade for an education jobs bill, led by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress, has always struck us as more of an election-year favor for teachers unions than an optimal use of public resources. Billed as an effort to stimulate the economy, it’s not clearly more effective than alternative uses of the cash. Yes, school budgets are tight across the country, but the teacher layoff “crisis” is exaggerated. In fact, as happens each year, many teachers who got pink slips in the spring have been notified that they’ll be hired after all. Many layoffs could have been — and indeed have been — avoided by modest union concessions.

As of last school year, the money for 5.5 percent of the 6 million K-12 jobs nationwide came from Washington through the 2009 stimulus; the new money reinforces this dangerous dependency. (more…)

Posted in: Big Labor Ethics, Big Labor Payback, Public Employee Monopoly Bargaining, Public Employees

Elena Kagan Supports Forced Union Dues for Politics

On July 29, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

Right to Work President Mark Mix sat down with nationally-syndicated radio host Lars Larson to discuss Obama Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan’s support for forcing workers to contribute to union political activism.

NRTW Podcast

Tagged with: dues for politics • Elena Kagan • Lars Larson • Mark Mix
Posted in: Economics, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, Monopoly Bargaining, National Right to Work Committee, Obama Administration, Union boss power

Obama: In the tank for Big Labor

On July 23, 2010, By NRTWC Staff

Without fear of stating the obvious, the Weekly Standard looks at how the Obama Administration have given labor union bosses the keys to the White House.

Posted in: Big Labor Ethics, Big Labor Payback, Obama Administration

Big Labor White House Insider Flouts Financial Disclosure Rules

On July 14, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

BigGovernment.com reports that Big Labor White House insider Patrick Gaspard (SEIU-ACORN) has failed to accurately report his financials on at least two occasions. Administration officials continue to mock President Obama’s proclaimed high ethical standards:

Has Congressman Darrell Issa’s request that White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard explain his failure to report a $37,000 payment from his previous employer SEIU Local 1199 evolved into a cover-up? It’s beginning to smell like it!

Rep. Issa’s request refers to the same Patrick Gaspard who while working for a Soros-SEIU political committee employed convicted felons to go door-to-door. In fact, that same Soros-SEIU committee received one of the steepest fines in Federal Election Commission history ($750,000) because its leadership, in Machiavellian fashion, chose to ignore federal laws and take the risk of paying fines if caught. So, ignoring a few pesky public disclosure laws is not as unlikely as it may sound.

Questions:

How did Gaspard work six days in January for SEIU 1199 ^h while simultaneously working for the “office of the President-Elect” during “January 1-16” of 2009?

How did Gaspard earn, in those six days of work for SEIU 1199, “$17,238.56 [of] carried over leave & vacation,” in particular, after apparently having already been paid 2.5 to 4 months vacation pay in 2008?

How did Gaspard earn a 9 week severance payout from an employer (SEIU 1199)? According to available SEIU 1199 financial reports (2000-2009), Gaspard was not paid by SEIU 1199 in years 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004. For the year 2001, SEIU 1199 paid Gaspard only $3,723. It appears that in at least 5 of the 9 years Gaspard was not on the payroll or worked only a week or two.

An investigation by the House Oversight Committee is warranted. Unfortunately with (more…)

Tagged with: Patrick Gaspard
Posted in: ACORN, Big Labor Ethics, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, Obama Administration, Political Activity, Public Employees, SEIU

Becker in Hot Water

On July 12, 2010, By NRTWC Staff

The National Right to Work Committee led the effort to block the appointment of radical SEIU-water carrier Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. It now appears Becker has crossed the ethical line and is under investigation.

From the Washington Examiner:

When it comes to President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill, what Big Labor wants, Big Labor gets. Unions spent $400 million electing Democrats in 2008, so they demanded to select which fox gets to guard the henhouse overseeing organized labor.

In the least surprising news of the week, Craig Becker — Big Labor’s go-to legal expert — has served on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for barely three months, and he’s already under investigation.

Becker lost a bipartisan Senate confirmation vote for the NLRB before Obama gave him a recess appointment. Becker is so pro-union he previously opined that “employers should have no right to be heard” in cases before the NLRB. (more…)

Posted in: Big Labor Ethics, NLRB, National Right to Work Committee, Personnel Alert

You Don’t Say? Obama: “I am a pro-union guy”

On May 7, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

After handing billion dollar corporations over to union bosses, bailing-out union pension funds, stacking the deck of the National Labor Relations Board, and hundreds of other Obama Administration pro-Big Labor moves, the president proclaims: “I am a pro-union guy.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/04/27/obama_at_iowa_town_hall_im_a_pro-union_guy.html

Tagged with: BHO • NLRB
Posted in: Economics, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Legislation, Obama Administration, Public Employees

GM and Union Boss Bailout Spin

On April 27, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

General Motors is owned in part by the United Auto Workers. In an effort to help spin the bankruptcy and bailout, the Obama Administration recently made an outrageous claim declaring that the company had “repaid” its $6.7 billion loan from the government. Malarky.

Fox News reports that the repayment was made by dipping further into the bailout money pot:

“The hype is not the reality,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a column on FoxNews.com over the weekend. “It is far from clear how GM and the Obama administration could honestly say, much less trumpet in prime time television ads, that GM repaid its TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) loans in any meaningful way.”

Grassley wrote a letter last week to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner expressing his concerns and asking for more information about why the company was allowed to use bailout money to repay bailout money.

The $6.7 billion is also just a fraction of the $52 billion General Motors received in government aid. Grassley said lawmakers are being told government losses on GM are expected to exceed $30 billion. (more…)

Tagged with: Charles Grassley • Fox News • FTC • General Motors • Meet the Press • Neil Barofsky • Richard Shelby • Timothy Geithner • UAW
Posted in: Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Obama Administration, Organizing, Pension Funds, Union boss power