Obama’s Terrorist Friends
August 27, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Media Bias, News, Patriotism, President, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
A segment of the upcoming movie “Hype” gives us the facts about Obama’s friends and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.
Calif. SEIU Funds Abuse Spreads to Mich.
August 27, 2008 | Filed Under Communism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, News, Publius Contributor, Socialism, Society/Culture, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
This just gets better and better. You’ll recall our recent focus on the abuse of funds and influence peddling by California Service Employee International Union (SEIU) head Tyrone Freeman being investigated in depth by the L.A.Times and how Mr. Freeman has been funneling union contracts to his family members. Now a related investigation in Michigan has revealed that one of Freeman’s former associates has had to step down from a Michigan SEIU post because of similar financial misdeeds there.
Once again the L.A. Times is the source for this sad tale of union bosses abusing the power so blindly handed them by the rank and file.
It appears that Rickman Jackson, former chief of staff for the California organization headed by Tyrone Freeman, had to step down from a Michigan SEIU local when it was discovered that he and Freeman had set up a shady housing corporation that was improperly getting business from Freeman’s California organization.
Both departures followed reports in The Times that the local and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of its president, Tyrone Freeman, and spent similar sums on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, restaurants such as Morton’s steakhouse, a Beverly Hills cigar lounge and a Hollywood talent agency.
More On Union Thug Tyrone Freeman
August 24, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Socialism, Society/Culture, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By The Heritage Foundation
With continuing coverage of the Tyrone Freeman investigations (see Here and Here) in L.A., here is an entry from the Heritage Foundation Daily Bell updating us.
Can Our Economy Afford More Union Corruption?
The president of California’s largest union local, the 160,000-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Los Angeles, yesterday announced he would take a leave of absence and the local would be placed in a temporary trusteeship. Tyrone Freeman’s departure comes after an in-depth series of Los Angeles Times articles detailing how Freeman fleeced union members — who make about $9 an hour caring for the infirm and disabled — of over $1 million in 2006 and 2007 alone.
Forced Unionism at UPS Being Fought
August 23, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
Forced unionism is one of the issues that galls right to work advocates the most. How can we, as a free people, be forced by state laws to join a union just to keep a job? Worse, how can one be forced to pay union dues without even joining a union just to keep a job? Is this not America where one has free choice?
Well, the National Right to Work organization has been asking that question for some time and is now attempting to put the question to the courts. At UPS facilities in Dayton, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky, NRTW is assisting several drivers for the United Parcel Service to sue the Teamsters and UPS for having been forced to pay dues to a union they do not wish to support.
Louisville, Kentucky, and Dayton, Ohio (August 19, 2008) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, three UPS employees in Kentucky and two UPS employees in Ohio filed federal lawsuits Friday and Monday, respectively, against national and local Teamsters officials for illegal extraction of forced union dues.
In the lawsuits, the nonmember employees claim that the national and local unions breached their duty of fair representation and violated the employees’ First and Fifth Amendment rights by charging and collecting fees used for organizing nonunion workers throughout the United States and financing a members-only “Strike and Defense Fund.”
This is a situation where these drivers are forced to pay union dues and are also forced to be represented by the Teamsters despite their personal wishes, preventing these employees from being able to represent themselves before their employers.
The fees paid by these drivers also seem to have violated Federal laws.
Since March 2006, the union charged and collected from the nonmembers compulsory fees greater than 80 percent of the full dues and fees paid by union members. Union bosses failed to provide a required notice of Beck rights and disclosure detailing the basis of the fees until this year. The financial disclosure reveals that Teamsters’ compulsory fees include disallowed expenditures for the national union’s efforts to help organize nonunion employees in both the private and public sectors nationwide. The employees have also been forced to contribute to the “Strike and Defense Fund,” which bars benefits flowing to nonmembers.
“It’s bad enough that employees who exercise their right to refrain from union membership are forced to pay fees to a union they do not want,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “But Teamsters bosses are violating the law by compelling nonmembers to fund strikes and organizing activities which seek to corral even more workers into forced unionism.”
Good luck to these brave drivers for taking on the Teamsters, well known for their violent tendencies.
Teamsters Dumps Old Union Boss Family
August 22, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
James Hoffa, Jr. is trying to make it look like he is reforming the Teamsters by forcing out Robert Hogan, former President of Teamsters Local 714, a member of a long time, corruption prone union family.
The IRB alleged that Hogan had acted against the best interests of union members by hiring Robert Riley as a business agent and organizing director, even though Riley had been barred from the union. The IRB also charged that the local union was failing to represent its membership, had corrupt relationships with companies where members worked, and was using favoritism and nepotism to secure jobs for associates of the Hogan family.
Hogan’s family have been union thugs since the Depression era, but he has at last signed an agreement with the Independent Review Board (IRB) of Teamsters National that he will leave all union activities behind and never again attempt to become involved with the Teamsters.
Naturally, Hogan claims he is a victim of Hoffa’s political triangulation and that he is totally innocent.
Local 714 has been under the control of the national union since June of this year, with Hoffa claiming he is making inroads into eliminating the corruption of this long-time, troubled local.
Time will tell, but it would be shocking if it turned out to be true instead of just a turn over from one group of corrupt officials for the newest set of corrupt union officials. Here’s the new boss, same as the old boss.
Union Thugs Beat Member for Disagreeing With Party Line
August 21, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
Members of the carpenters union in New York City have ruined any chance that authorities there will take their union out of government oversight by beating unconscious William Davenport, a union dissident running for office in the union.
After an August 5 candidates forum, the candidate was beaten by members of the carpenters union audience outside a church. Outside a CHURCH!
This thuggery along with continued Mob involvement, indictments and convictions on corruption of union members convinced Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. not to release the union from government oversight.
Source of ACORN Embezzlement Payoff Discovered
August 19, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Unions, Wa