Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind (41 page)

18
“About NTEU,” National Treasury Employees Union,
http://www.nteu.org/NTEU/
, accessed January 2012.

19
“About AFGE,” American Federation of Government Employees,
http://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=AboutAFGE
, accessed January 2012.

20
“What Is AFSA?” American Foreign Service Association,
http://www.afsa.org/what_is_afsa
, accessed January 2012.

21
These protections were first granted in the Executive Order and then were codified into law. See 5 U.S.C. § 7102 (2011) (federal employees generally); 39 U.S.C. § 1209(c) (2011) (postal employees).

22
Unions still earn plenty of dues from federal employees and state and local employees in right-to-work states who join the union because of union control over their workplaces.

23
Daniel DiSalvo, “Storm Clouds Ahead: Why Conflict with Public Unions Will Continue,” Issue Brief no. 13, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, November 2011,
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ib_13.htm
.

24
The key to monopoly bargaining is not that these states allow unions to engage in it, but that they require the government to bargain “in good faith” with the certified or recognized monopoly and exclusive bargaining representative. In thirty-four states, the government employer is required to negotiate in good faith with unions representing government workers. This means basically that the government employer cannot walk away from the bargaining table and is forced to continue negotiating and continue offering concessions until a deal is reached. In nine other states, unions can and do collectively bargain on behalf of at least some state and/or local government workers, although not all the other states require the government to bargain in good faith with unions. In contrast, seven states either expressly forbid unions from engaging in collective bargaining over state and local workers or don’t accept it. These states are Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

25
While the twenty-seven states that are not right-to-work states don’t prohibit forced-dues provisions, a few of them do not currently have forced-dues provisions in their contracts with government employee unions. Wisconsin, for example, now prohibits most public sector forced-dues contracts. Several other states that are not right-to-work states may or may not have forced-dues contracts but don’t prohibit them. This leaves twenty-two states that specifically permit forced-dues contracts over state and/or local government employees.

26
Joseph C. Goulden,
Jerry Wurf: Labor’s Last Angry Man
(New York: Atheneum, 1982), pp. 14–17.

27
Ibid.

28
Ibid., pp. 18–24.

29
Wagner ultimately delivered on his promises to Wurf, but it took him several years. In 1958, Wagner issued Executive Order 49, which extended collective bargaining over about 100,000 city employees. See Ken Auletta,
The Streets Were Paved with Gold
(New York: Random House, 1975); Goulden, pp. 45–47. And in 1977, state and local employees under collective bargaining agreements were forced to pay union dues as a condition of their employment. “New York’s Gov. Carey Signs Agency Shop Bill,”
National Right to Work Newsletter
, September 28, 1977.

Government payrolls shot up even as private employment declined. “By the end of 1975,” write E. J. McMahon and Fred Siegel, “the city directly employed an astonishing 340,000 workers, an increase of 100,000 since 1959 alone. And that didn’t include the 80,000 people who worked for the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which had absorbed the city-run transit system in 1969) or the bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, or the bevy of private firms supporting themselves almost solely on government contracts.” In 1975, New York stood on “the brink of ruin,” with “city politics (and politicians)… dominated by extraordinarily large municipal unions.” E. J. McMahon and Fred Siegel, “Gotham’s Fiscal Crisis: Lessons Unlearned,”
Public Interest
158 (Winter 2005), pp. 96–110.

30
Reed Larson,
Stranglehold
(Ottawa, Ill.: Jameson Books, 1999), chapter 1. AFSCME’s own website acknowledged how the union relies on political activity to further its own activities: “In the 1970s and 80s, AFSCME members increased their efforts politically in order to win collective bargaining laws, organize new members, and wield clout on behalf of existing members. All across the country, at every level of government, candidates for public office learned they had to pay attention to AFSCME’s political muscle.” “AFSCME: 75 Years of History,” AFSCME,
http://www.afscme.org/union/history/afscme-75-years-of-history
, accessed January 2012.

31
Goulden, pp. 142–143.

32
Morris Thomson, “In Memphis, Progress and Poverty,”
Washington Post
, April 4, 1988; Goulden, p. 147.

33
Goulden, p. 143.

34
“Coming: Unionized Government,”
U.S. News & World Report
, September 26, 1966.

35
According to Goulden, the sanitation workers went on strike for two reasons. On January 30, 1968, two black sanitation workers had been crushed to death in trash compactor trucks, after the workers had warned supervisors about defective “off-on” switches on the trucks. The next day, the black sanitation workers were told to go home because of rainy conditions and received only their two-hour “call-up pay,” while the white supervisors waited until the rain cleared and went out for a full day’s work (and pay). After they complained to the city without redress, the consensus among the black sanitation workers was that “the city’s actions had been racist, and that the sanitation men had had enough of it.” Goulden, p. 147.

36
Goulden, p. 149.

37
Ibid.

38
Ibid., p. 169.

39
See, for example, Paul Moreno,
Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), especially pp. 259–276.

40
Goulden, pp. 169–170.

41
Ibid., pp. 173–175.

42
See Hampton Sides,
Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
, Kindle ed. (New York: Doubleday, 2010), locations 1548–1563, 1579–1610, and 1760–1900.

43
Goulden, pp. 176–177.

44
“Rahm Emanuel: You Never Want a Serious Crisis to Go to Waste,” video, YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow
, accessed March 2012.

45
Goulden, p. 178.

46
Ibid. In fact, Memphis experienced only scattered riots during that time, although Washington, D.C., and several other major cities did experience severe riots after King’s assassination.

47
Ibid., pp. 178–182.

48
Ibid., p. 181.

49
Ibid., p. 182.

50
“AFSCME: 75 Years of History.”

51
Information taken from “City of Memphis—Solid Waste History,” City of Memphis,
http://www.cityofmemphis.org/statistics/2000/sw_history.htm
.

52
Armand Thieblot and Thomas Haggard,
Union Violence: The Record and the Response by Courts, Legislatures, and the NLRB
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1983), p. 124.

53
This issue is covered very well in John Berlau, “The Firemen Next Time,”
National Review Online
, October 14, 2010,
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/249701/fire-next-time-john-berlau
, accessed January 2012.

54
Thieblot and Haggard, p. 125.

55
Ibid., p. 126.

56
Ibid., pp. 125–127.

57
Ibid., p. 132.

58
Ibid., pp. 129–135.

59
Ibid., p.135.

60
Joseph McCartin, “A Wagner Act for Public Employees: Labor’s Deferred Dream and the Rise of Conservatism, 1970–1976,”
Journal of American History
(June 2008), pp. 123–148, especially pp. 137, 139.

61
“Union-Ruled City,”
New York Times
, July 8, 1975.

62
E. Cahill Maloney, “Strikers Sabotage Working Cops,”
Progress Bulletin
(Pomona, Calif.), August 22, 1975.

63
“Alioto House Bombed,”
Oakland Tribune
, August 20, 1975.

64
Steve Konicki, “Firemen Watch Homes Burn,”
Dayton Daily News
, August 9, 1977.

65
Albert Schweitzer and John C. Shelton, “Firemen Turn Backs, U. City Plant Burns,”
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
, July 25, 1977.

66
Thieblot and Haggard, pp. 136–142.

67
Quoted in “A Clear and Avoidable Danger: Daschle Amend. Could Lead to Firefighter, Police Strikes During a Terrorist Attack,” U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, November 1, 2001, p. 2,
http://rpc.senate.gov//files/10/58/19/f105819/public/_files/DEFENSEjt110103.pdf
, accessed April 2012.

68
Thieblot and Haggard, p. 120.

69
Ibid.

70
“Freedom from Union Violence Act,” Fact Sheet, National Right to Work,
http://www.right-to-work.org/FactSheets/ViolenceFactSheet.pdf
, accessed January 2012.

71
U.S. v. Larson, 07-CR-304S, NYLJ 1202511598699, at *1 (WDNY, Decided August 10, 2011).

72
NRTW Committee Staff, “Hobbs Act Loophole Legitimizes Union Violence,” February 14, 2012,
http://www.nrtwc.org/hobbs-act-loophole-legitimizes-union-violence/
, accessed April 2012.

73
U.S. v. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396 (1973). In-depth treatment of this case and attempts to change the underlying law to remedy the situation can be found in David Kendrick, “Freedom from Union Violence,” Policy Analysis no. 316, Cato Institute, September 9, 1998.

74
“Freedom from Union Violence Act.”

75
Kendrick, pp. 28–29.

76
Freedom from Union Violence Act of 2012, H.R. 4074, 112th Cong. (2012). Similar acts have been introduced in the House by different House members numerous times but have never made it out of committee. The Freedom from Union Violence Act of 2005 had the most cosponsors—twenty-eight—but none of them were Democrats. This information was obtained via the THOMAS search engine at the Library of Congress website,
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php
.

77
Kris Maher, “SEIU to End Sodexo Campaign,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 15, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904491704576573074162700598.html?_nocache=1326060998873&user=welcome&mg=id-wsj
, accessed January 2012.

78
“Sodexo USA Files RICO Lawsuit against SEIU,” Sodexo USA press release, PR Newswire, March 17, 2011,
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sodexo-usa-files-rico-lawsuit-against-seiu-118204534.html
, accessed March 2012.

79
Sodexo, Inc. v. S.E.I.U. et al., Case No. 1:20 11-cv-00276 (E.D. Va.), complaint, p. 8.

80
Ibid.

81
Sodexo, Inc. v. S.E.I.U. et al., Case No. 1:20 11-cv-00276 (E.D. Va.), complaint, p. 5.

82
“SEIU Contract Campaign Manual—Pressuring the Employer,” Scribd,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/60893001/SEIU-Contract-Campaign-Manual-Pressuring-the-Employer
, accessed March 2012.

83
F. Vincent Vernuccio, “Labor’s New Strategy: Intimidation for Dummies,”
Washington Times
, July 15, 2011,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/15/labors-new-strategy-intimidation-for-dummies/
, accessed January 2012.

84
Ibid.

85
Nina Easton, “What’s Really behind the SEIU’s Bank of America Protests?” Power Play,
CNNMoney
, May 19, 2010,
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/news/companies/SEIU_Bank_of_America_protest.fortune/
, accessed March 2012.

86
About 75 percent of reported union violence occurs in the twenty-seven states that do not have right-to-work laws, based on reported state-by-state counts from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.

87
Hearing on “Open Shops in the 21st Century Workplace,” Before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Committee on Education and the Workforce
, 106th Cong. (May 3, 2000) (written statement of Reed Larson, president of the National Right to Work Committee),
http://archives.republicans.edlabor.house.gov/archive/hearings/106th/oi/openshop5300/larson.htm
, accessed April 2012.

Chapter 3. Follow the Money

1
“Labor Unions Receive $14 Billion in Dues Per Year from CBAs,” Fact Sheets, National Institute for Labor Relations Research, March 30, 2012,
http://www.nilrr.org/2012/03/31/unions-rake-in-over-14-9-billion-in-dues-per-year-from-cbas/
, accessed April 2012. We are basing the assumption that over half of union dues are from government workers on the fact that 51 percent of all union members in America are government workers. See Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Union Members–2011,” January 27, 2012,
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
, accessed March 2012.

2
See Michael Beckel and Seth Cline, “Labor Lobbying, Union PAC Contributions and More in Capital Eye Opener: Sept. 5,”
OpenSecrets
(blog),
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/09/labor-lobbying-union-pac-money.html
, accessed February 2012.

3
“2.2 Billion Political Outlaws,” research paper, National Institute for Labor Relations Research, September 1, 2011,
http://www.nilrr.org/files/2011%20NILRR%20Big%20Labor%20Politcal%20Spending%20Preliminary%20Report.pdf
, accessed January 2012.

4
Steven Greenhouse, “Union Spends $91 Million on Midterms,”
The Caucus
(blog),
New York Times
, October 26, 2010,
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/union-spends-91-million-on-midterms/
.