Virginia Considering Preemptive Strike Against The Unions, Moves To Make Card-Check Unconstitutional… Expect another violent temper tantrum. Via CNS News: Virginia is moving towards making card-check – the controversial union proposal to replace secret-ballot elections with simple card-signing petitions – unconstitutional in the state. The effort is led by State Sen. Bryce Reeves (R-Spotsylvania) who said that “not citizen” should be denied the ability to vote by secret ballot. “It’s really a simple bill,” Reeves told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday. “It’s there to improve voter integrity and privacy. I personally believe that no citizen should be forced to reveal how they voted in any election be it federal, state, local, or even a union election.” The proposed amendment would add a section to Virginia’s Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to a secret ballot election in all cases, even in the case of a union election. The proposal is intended to block so-called card check legislation that failed to pass Congress two years ago. That bill, which remains a Democratic and union priority, would have allowed unions to organize a workplace simply by getting a majority of workers to sign union cards, avoiding the need for a secret-ballot election where both the union and the business owners can compete for workers’ votes.
Surprise! Obama’s Illegal NLRB Sides With Union Over Wal-Mart… Via Beltway Confidential: The National Labor Relations Board sided with the United Food and Commercial Workers union and against Wal-Mart today in a case in which the retailer claimed the union was illegally picketing them. The board simply accepted at face value the union’s claim that it was not trying to organize the retail giant’s workforce and its promise not to do it again … for 60 days at least. Federal law says a union cannot picket a worksite for more than 30 days without officially filing to try to organize its workforce. The UFCW, whose members primarily work for Wal-Mart’s rivals, has managed a long-running PR campaign to attack the nonunion retail giant. Most recently it attempted to engineer a mass employee walkout at Walmarts on the day after Thanksgiving. The effort fizzled. On Nov. 20, Walmart maintained that two activist groups promoting the walkout effort, Making Change for Wal-Mart and OUR Walmart, were actually front groups for UFCW and ordered that they cease their activities. The groups were promoting themselves as independent grassroots organizations in an attempt to obscure the UFCW’s role in the protests.
AFL-CIO To Launch 14-City Campaign To Build Support For Obama’s Amnesty Plans… Which begs the obvious question, how does amnesty help the due-paying rank-and-file members? Via Politico: The AFL-CIO is launching a 14-city campaign to build support for a pathway to citizenship, even as the union’s president continues to negotiate with the Chamber of Commerce over the inclusion of a guest worker program in a final immigration reform deal. “There was no surge demanding a guest-worker program,” Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Secretary-Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo said Thursday on a conference call announcing the campaign, referring to the results of the 2012 election. “There was a surge in the Latino vote.” The call, which AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka repeatedly tried to bring back to the push for a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States even as reporters peppered him with questions about negotiations over the guest worker program, highlighted the dual role labor has in the immigration debate. The first event of the 14-city campaign, which an AFL-CIO spokesman said could expand, was Wednesday in Raleigh, North Carolina. The other 13 cities are Las Vegas, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Anaheim, Calif., San Francisco, Miami, St. Paul, Minn., Phoenix, New York City and Chicago.
Chicago Teachers Union Demands End Of Standardized Testing So Teachers Won’t Be Held Accountable For Students Not Being Able To Read And Write… I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face, unions are a cancer. Via Daily Caller: The Chicago Teachers Union urged school administrators nationwide to discontinue the use of standardized tests, deriding them as corporate tools. The CTU recently released a report arguing that standardized tests are a faulty measure of student achievement. They also advance a pro-corporate agenda, the report said. “Corporate interests continue to push towards a test‐centered public education system that is clearly harmful to students,” according to the report. The union’s anti-testing push is part of a broader campaign by teachers unions nationwide. Teachers at one Seattle high school recently went on strike, refusing to administer a test that they feared would be used to hold them accountable.
Missouri Democrats Introduce Bill To Make Limiting Power Of Union A Felony Via The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/22/missouri-dems-want-to-make-it-a-felony-to-restrict-union-power/#ixzz2LfwqDJ4s Three Missouri Democrats signed on to a bill that would make it illegal for state legislators to even suggest laws limiting unions’ collective bargaining powers. The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Roorda. According to the text of the bill, any legislator who proposes restrictions on collective bargaining will be subject to prosecution for a class D felony. “Any member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bargain collectively, as set forth under section 29, article I of the Missouri Constitution, shall be guilty of a class D felony,” reads the text of the bill. The legislation would prevent state congressmen from proposing laws such as right-to-work, a popular labor policy reform that gives individual workers the right not to join unions. Michigan recently became the 24th right-to-work state in the nation. Missouri does not have right-to-work. Roorda’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His bill likely came in response to one proposed by Republican Rep. Mike Leara, which would similarly criminalize any efforts by legislators to restrict gun ownership.