Municipal employees in Portland Maine have decided to show their unhappiness with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Many local union members (Local 1373) feel that they pay expensive dues and are not receiving sufficient job protections. More than ninety of their members were laid off from their city jobs.

Now 450 members of the union have received ballots, giving them the opportunity to decertify the union.  The local AFSCME sends the national office $130,000 a year, and feels that it’s not getting its money’s worth.

Local leaders had filed a petition in October with 200 signatures that asked for decertification ballots. As a result, those leaders were suspended from their leadership positions, and the Local’s assets were seized. In addition, the National office has been running local ads critical of the Local.

As we reported last week in our report about SEIU, a union that is in a war with a break-away union, this is another example of intense dissension within the ranks of organized labor. As unions become increasingly more superfluous, their internecine battles increase in ferocity. Organized labor, unable to connect with workers, are fighting with each other for the ever diminishing number of workers who still find what is chimerical value in being union members.

One of the most aggressive unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will now face a challenge to its dominant role representing healthcare workers in California. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has called for an election to determine if SEIU or the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) will represent 2,300 Kaiser healthcare workers in California.

The decision of the NLRB came as a blow to SEIU in its ongoing battle with the breakaway healthcare union, NUHW. SEIU had hoped to stop NUHW’s ongoing march to win the allegiance of thousands of healthcare workers in a wide array of states. As part of its PR war, the two sides have exchanged charges of various acts of wrong doing, including financial mismanagement. Perhaps the most hilarious charge leveled by the unions is union-busting. It’s usually the paladins of Corporate America who are accused of being union busters. If the labor movement has ever evidenced its true agenda, the bitter battle between these two unions indicates that power and money are as important to unions as they are to other institutions.

Determined to preserve its power, the SEIU says it will appeal the NLRB decision. If, however, the SEIU appeal fails, balloting is expected to take place in January.

The fight between SEIU and NUHW amounts to a civil war within the labor movement. The unintended victor will be Corporate America, and the millions of workers who will regard unionization with a richly deserved sense of skepticism, if not disgust.  

While the New York Times is generally thought of as being union friendly in its reporting, it recently reported on a union situation so egregious that the Times could not avoid it.

According to a report by Steven Greenhouse, the hotel and restaurant workers’ union, Unite Here, pressures it organizers to reveal the most embarrassing and distressing personal information to their superiors. Such information may include stories of childhood or spousal abuse, family members who were alcoholic or drug addicted, sexual abuse, phobias, etc.

Once that information is obtained by the union, it is then used as leverage against the organizers who had revealed that information.

According the Times article, “…several Unite Here organizers described high-pressure meetings where they were brought to tears as supervisors pushed them, sometimes in front of a dozen colleagues, to divulge personal information in what several organizers said was an effort to beak their will and ensure obedience.”

Such tactics smack of those used by cults to control members. And those tactics are nothing short of being highly manipulative and cynical.

If this is what organized labor has devolved to, then Corporate America must be on heightened alert to the efforts of organizers who have been turned into aggressive automatons whose sole purpose is to capture the hearts and minds of workers who will follow orders and pay their dues, no questions asked.

According to the Bureau of National Affairs, most unionized employees now work for the government.  While the overall number of unionized workers is just above 12% of the workforce, only 7.3% of those union members work in the private sector.

What is amazing is that more than 37% of all government employees belong to unions! That amounts to 8-million unionized government workers! The government has become the largest employer of unionized workers, and those unionized workers make sure that their voices ring loud and clear in the halls of congress as well as in the White House. After all, unions contributed more than $56-million to Democratic political campaigns in 2008.

While those government workers cannot go on strike for higher wages, increased benefits, or more paid vacation days; they can  and do have their officers lobby congress to achieve those results.

An example of union strategy has become apparent on the west coast where unions have been running television ads and supporting ballot initiatives  to raise taxes so that their members can receive higher wages. One need only stand on line at a local post office or motor vehicles office to experience union-protected inefficiencies and lack of initiative.

As a result of union demands, taxpayers will be footing the bill for increased taxes. And those taxes will  go to pay for unionized government workers increased salaries and benefit. As the government pays ever high wages, it will have no alternative but  to impose ever higher taxes to meet the demand. It is a classic vicious circle.

According to Gallup’s 2009 Work and Education Survey,  more than half of all U.S. citizens disapprove of the role of unions. The percentage of those who do approve of unions has dropped from 59% a year ago to 48% now, “an all time low,” according to Gallup which started asking if people approved of disapproved of unions in 1936. That year, 72% of citizens approved of unions and 20% disapproved.  The tables have dramatically turned against unions.

Gallup also noted that  the perception that unions hurt companies has risen form 39% in 2006 to 46% in 2009. In addition, more than half of all citizens now agree that unions hurt the entire U. S. economy. That’s a jump from 36% in 2006 to 51% in 2009.

Such a low opinion of unions should give Congress pause before voting to pass the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which should be renamed the Freedom to Hurt America Act!

We can expect many more such appointments in the coming months, and the overall effect will be to make America less competitive and productive in a global economy in which many other countries are not hampered by the excesses of  bureaucratic rules and regulations that are in conflict with free market economies.

Films and television shows often portray Big Business as villainous and unions as manifestations of pure virtue selflessly devoted to the needs of workers. However, based upon information compiled by Union Facts and the Bureau of National Affairs, unions have repeatedly committed acts that are injurious not just to non-union workers, but also to their own members. And those, of course, are the people whose interests unions supposedly represent and are charged with protecting.

One should also know that wrongful acts by unions far outnumber charges of unfair labor practices committed by management and alleged by those same unions. Such is the information issued by the National Labor Relations Board.

The NLRB report of 2005, for example, contained the following information:

• Unions faced 6,381 allegations
• 82% of those charges alleged illegal restraint and coercion of employees by their unions.
• By contrast, 53% of charges were against management and those were for a refusal to negotiate contracts.
• Of all the listed allegations against unions, nearly 600 charges were based upon union discrimination against workers.
• In the previous year, unions filed more than 100 complaints against other unions
• Virtually every union in the United States, according to the Bureau of National Affairs, has had to defend itself against charges of violating union laws. And for some of those unions, the numbers of charges against them are in the thousands!

It’s time that the media  and the current administration in Washington stop treating Corporate America as if it were a nefarious monster and start realizing that union leaders are not the altruistic and benevolent leaders that they pretend to be.

            Management and workers have long known that high levels of productivity are the result of good relations and of all parties working together to achieve positive goals. That, however, is not the underlying message of Executive Order 13496, which President Obama signed. Here is a sentence from that order: “The attainment of industrial peace is most easily achieved and workers’ productivity is enhanced when workers are well informed of their rights under the Federal labor laws, including the National Labor Relations Act.”  

The Order is aimed at those who do business with the government, and it – in effect – guarantees that workers will know about all of their options when it comes to strikes, walkouts, and slow downs. The government has said that the order will provide labor peace. If that sounds unbelievable, it is. The government has handed organized labor another weapon to use against Corporate America.

How will informing workers of union tactics for securing their demands increase productivity? If it does anything, it will put Corporate America at a disadvantage when hiring workers for federal jobs. Not only will contractors have to abide with the Order, but so will their sub-contractors. Each will have to post all the information for their workers; and if it is not posted, delinquent contractors and sub-contractors will be barred from doing business with the government and be liable for various sanctions.

 Actions taken against companies will be at the discretion of the Secretary of Labor, who is responsible for the enforcement of the Order. While the Secretary may exempt certain companies, the Secretary can also cancel contracts and prohibit future contracts with the government.

The Executive Order and the power invested in the office of Secretary of Labor is further evidence that the Obama administration is not only on the side of unions, but it is actively advancing union interests to the detriment of Corporate America. 

The New York District Council of Carpenters and Joiners of America has had a sordid history. In 1990, federal officials attempted to remove mob influence within the union. In 1994, their efforts resulted in a consent decree that was followed by a court appointed corruption monitor. The New York Times has now reported that “federal authorities…announced new corruption charges on Wednesday against the union’s leader and nine other union officials and contractors. The charges include racketeering, bribery, fraud and perjury.”

A twenty-nine count indictment was issued, following a lengthy investigation by the FBI, the Department of Labor, and Manhattan prosecutors. It alleges that union officials accepted $1 million in bribes to permit contractors to pay below union scale benefits and hire non-union and illegal alien workers, and to forego payments to union benefit funds.

We were further reminded of union corruption this week when we learned of the death of Budd Schulberg, who wrote one of the greatest screenplays ever filmed about union corruption, On The Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando and Karl Malden, who also recently died.

With a pro-union administration in Washington and with the likely passage of the Employee Free Choice Act on the horizon, unions will again be in a position where they can take advantage of workers and corporations. It will be a lose-lose situation for everyone, except - of course - for the unions and their political enablers.

And Democrats in Congress, indebted to unions, continue to support the EFCA; it is the only way that union organizers can win new members, for the Act gives a decided advantage to unions over management. (Please read last week’s blog which enumerates all of the anti-management rules that would will take effect once the EFCA becomes law).

Once it does become law, the EFCA would, in effect, drive millions of American workers into the confining box of union membership where their dues would be used to support political agendas that they may be against.

The CUF poll proves that there is no national movement amongst workers to join unions. In fact, when asked about joining unions, workers find the prospect of no interest to them. Therefore, one can see that rather than being a populist movement, increased unionization is a cause embraced and promoted by Washington elites and union officials who will financially benefit from increased union dues, pots of gold that will cause union hearts to flutter.

Washington law makers, unfortunately, are intent on making it easier for unions to organize workers, and the results will be higher labor costs, greater unemployment, and more states in financial trouble.

Now, two Republican Congressmen have introduced a bill, the Truth in Employment Act (H.R. 2808/S 1227), that is designed to amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) so that employers can legally discharge “salts,” who are nothing but undercover agents for unions seeking to unionize workers.

The proposed bill states: "Nothing in this subsection shall be construed as requiring an employer to employ any person who seeks or has sought employment with the employer in furtherance of other employment or agency status."

The bill is meant to obviate a Supreme Court ruling that “salts” could not be terminated from their employment.

The bill further notes that “salting has evolved into an aggressive form of harassment not contemplated when the National Labor Relations Act was enacted and [it] threatens the balance … of collective bargaining."

It is absolutely necessary that the collective bargaining playing field be kept level and that there be a balance between workers and management. The Truth in Employment Act will go a long way to ensuring such an outcome.

By passing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and imposing card checks on Corporate America, the Democrats will – in effect – eliminate the free speech of workers. Since 1935, when the National Labor Relations Act was passed and signed into law, workers were assured that their opinions about unionization would be protected. During secret ballot elections in which employees could vote their preference about unionization, the opinions of workers would be kept private. Under the EFCA, however, private opinions will no longer be private. A worker’s colleagues and union organizers will readily know if that worker is in favor of unionization. Such a worker will no doubt be pressured and perhaps coerced into signing a card check authorizing union representation.

As two former Justice Department lawyers, David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, who served under President Reagan and President George H. W. Bush,  wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial: "Three of the Constitution's Framers -- James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay -- wrote the Federalist Papers supporting its ratification under the anonymous pen name Publius." If they had announced their identities, British authorities would have arrested them for sedition.

The authors further wrote: "When courts have upheld restrictions on anonymous speech, they have required that such provisions be narrowly tailored to serve an overriding governmental interest." There is, obviously, no government interest in denying the protection of anonymity to workers.

Imagine what would happen to American democracy if we all had to state our votes in public, and our private speech was curtailed. We would all become victims of coercive politics. Strong arm tactics would be the order (or disorder) of the day.

This is another reason why the Employee Free Choice Act should not become the law of the land.