Tag Archives: AFL-CIO

My Thoughts: Citing ObamaCare and Amnesty, 40,000 Longshoremen Quit AFL-CIO

Barack Obama, Richard Trumka

Union thug Richard Trumka smiles as Barack Obama whispers sweet nothings into his ear

By Gary P Jackson

[Organized] crime doesn’t pay! At least that is the lesson union thug Richard Trumka should be learning after his AFL-CIO aligned itself so closely with the Obama regime. Trumka’s AFL-CIO was one of many union thug groups that backed Obama’s push for socialized medicine, and now back anti-America liberals, in BOTH parties’ treasonous push towards giving amnesty to tens of millions of criminal illegal aliens.

Trumka has already been in hot water with his fellow union thugs, as other union leaders have already called for the outright repeal of ObamaCare, citing outrageous increases in insurance premiums, as well as the fact many big employers are looking to change the status of their workforce from full time [40 or more hours weekly] to part time [under 30 hours a week] in order to avoid the outrageous costs involved with complying with the ObamaCare regulations. ObamaCare will effectively destroy the concept of the 40 hour work week, while still leaving some 30-40 million Americans uninsured. And that’s if things go as Obama and company planned!

These union thug groups are just now realizing what the rest of America knew from the start: ObamaCare was poorly thought-out, poorly cobbled together, and will be poorly run. [and that’s saying it as nicely as one can]

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, as well as the Roofer’s Union have called for the outright repeal of ObamaCare, citing it will undermine the quality insurance plans they already have, among other things.

Recently Trumka was said to be working with the Obama regime to work out the kinks of this disaster that one of it’s authors, democrat Max Baucus, has called a “train-wreck,” to no avail.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Unions are making some progress in getting the Obama administration to address their concerns about the new health law, and Labor Secretary Tom Perez is playing a central role, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Thursday.

We’ve been working with the administration to find solutions to what I think are inadvertent holes in the act. I’m hopeful that we’ll get something done in the very near future,” Mr. Trumka said at a breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

Mr. Perez, who has been labor secretary since July, is “in the middle” of organized labor’s continuing talks with the Obama administration over costs and other concerns about the health law, Mr. Trumka said, adding that he has met with Mr. Perez and as recently as Tuesday met with White House officials.

That marks a shift from early July, when Mr. Trumka called “troubling” the administration’s delay in enforcing a provision of the new health-care law that requires large employers to provide coverage for workers or pay a penalty in 2014.

Union leaders have been complaining since last year that many of the law’s requirements will drive up costs for union-sponsored health-care plans managed jointly by unions and mostly small employers. The plans are used heavily in industries such as construction, trucking and hotels, where workers’ hours fluctuate.

Union officials have repeatedly told the administration that the higher costs of these multiemployer plans could make it less appealing for employers to hire union workers or prompt them to drop the coverage altogether. The plans cover more than 20 million people.

This and other aspects of the health-care law are certain to be hot-button issues at the AFL-CIO’s convention beginning Sept. 8, where members of the union federation can drop in on sessions with titles such as “Fighting for Health Care in the Age of the Affordable Care Act” and “Building the Union Movement in the New Economy.

In April, a roofers’ union called for repeal of the law. And in mid-July, the presidents of several big unions wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to seek legislative changes to the health law and to complain that they had been stonewalled by the White House.

To offset the expected increased costs, many union groups want their lower-paid members to be able to remain on the multiemployer plans and obtain federal insurance subsidies. But the law established the subsidies for low-income workers who lack employer health coverage and need financial help to buy private insurance.

Labor and business groups disagree over whether the change could be made without legislation. Union officials have said rulemaking should suffice, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce disagrees.

In my reading of the statute, it’s not conceived as something that’s possible” through rulemaking, said Katie Mahoney, the chamber’s executive director of health policy, labor, immigration and employee benefits. Ms. Mahoney also said she doesn’t see how the administration could make an exception for multiemployer plans without doing the same for other employer plans.

The Labor Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday, and Mr. Trumka said he had no specifics to share from the talks, which he said are “a moving target.”

More here.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” ~ From Animal Farm 1945

Maybe instead of blindly following Obama and his fellow radical democrats down a dead end street, Trumka and his fellow union thugs should have been paying attention when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proclaimed [after absolutely NONE of her fellow travelers had read the legislation they were salivating over, and ready to make law] “You’ll have to pass the bill to see what’s in it!” Anytime you hear something like that, common sense tells you, that you are dealing with a crook, a liar, and someone who cannot be trusted, and you’d be a fool to buy what they are selling!

Well, democrats are fools, or they wouldn’t be democrats, and that includes the union thugs and other assorted cronies and hangers on, who have put their faith in rabid anti-American crazies like Pelosi and Barack Obama.

We’ve been warned about the evils of Big Government and socialized medicine for decades. Anyone above the age of 12 understands that Big Government is inefficient at best, and dangerous if left unchecked. Well, as Obama’s good buddy Jeremiah Wright would say: “The chick-unnns have come home to roost!

Now the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has decided to end their association with the AFL-CIO. Their objections are different than most though. They want to go full-on communist, and have single payer, nationalized care, something Obama and his fellow socialists wanted, but knew they couldn’t get, yet.

Many think the whole idea of ObamaCare, was to build something so ridiculous, it could only fail, and once this monster collapsed under it’s own weight, it would give the “benevolent government” the opportunity to “save” health care, by taking it over completely.

The Longshoremen cite the confiscatory taxes … penalties, really … that will be assessed on their gold plated “Cadillac plans” they have been provided by contract. This, of course, is a teaching moment that is lost on these wanna-be neo-Soviets!

Instead of building people up, liberalism seeks to destroy those who are successful. Instead of looking for ways to grow the economy, and lower health care costs, through common sense FREE MARKET reforms, thus allowing more and more to have those “Cadillac plans,” rabid liberals in the democrat party want to PUNISH those fortunate enough to have done well. That punishment comes via harsh penalties for those that have the best care. It makes liberals feel like they have “gotten even” but it does absolutely nothing to help those in need of better health care.

A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y

N.O.T.H.I.N.G

This is the fundamental difference between Conservatism [and being an American] and rabid, un-American [hell ANTI-American] liberalism. As Conservatives, we look for ways to make sure everyone has a chance to succeed, to lift everyone up. We know it’s not a perfect system, nothing is, and we also know not everyone has the same motivation to succeed, but still we want all to have the same opportunities.

On the other hand, liberals look at the successful and then look at those who aren’t, and figure the only way the successful person got there, was by screwing over the less than successful. As Ronald Reagan once said, a liberal can’t look at a fat man standing next to a skinny man, without think the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the skinny one!

Obama, Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of these liberals would screw their own mothers to get ahead. It seems there is a LOT of projection among liberals. If ya know what I mean!

No matter why, instead of building up those who are at a lower level of success, rabid liberals seek to tear down the very successful [unless they are campaign donors] in order to “level the playing field” There is an inherent evil to this way of thinking.

Anyway, back to the Longshoremen. They are angry because their taxes will skyrocket, but don’t have enough sense to know that taxes will be even higher, and health care benefits will be even less, in the single payer, socialist utopia they have their hearts set on.

The Longshoremen are also angry over amnesty, but are more concerned that “skilled” labor will be the preferred “pathway to citizenship” under this treasonous plan. Imagine that, these liberals want amnesty and open borders, as long as it doesn’t effect THEM. Typical and predictable!

From Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government:

In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation’s largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation.

In an August 29 letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, ILWU President Robert McEllrath cited quite a list of grievances as reasons for the dissolution of their affiliation, but prominent among them was the AFL-CIO’s support of Obamare.

We feel the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along,” McEllrath wrote in the letter to Trumka.

The ILWU President made it clear they are for a single-payer, nationalized healthcare policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their “Cadillac” healthcare plan.

The Longshoreman leader said, “President Obama ran on a platform that he would not tax medical plans and at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, you stated that labor would not stand for a tax on our benefits.” But, regardless of that promise, the President has pushed for just such a tax and Trumka and the AFL-CIO bowed to political pressure lining up behind Obama’s tax on those plans.

McEllrath also went on to say that they support stronger immigration reform than the AFL-CIO is supporting.

One ILWU committeeman was even harsher on both the AFL-CIO and the President. ILWU Coast Committeeman Leal Sundet criticized the AFL-CIO telling LaborNotes.com that Trumka was marching “in lockstep” with Obama both on the “Cadillac healthcare tax” as well as immigration.

Sundet slammed Obama’s immigration plan saying it is “designed to give [only] highly-paid workers a real path to citizenship.

More, with video, here.

This would be delicious to watch, democrats eating their own, blue-on-blue discord, but unfortunately, all Americans are effected by the evils these clowns were championing, until they figured out that they were just as screwed as the rest of us!

ObamaCare is a disaster of biblical proportions. It raises taxes by nearly $1 TRILLION. [the largest tax increase in history] Depending on where you live, your health care insurance premiums will increase anywhere between 50% and 200%, and that’s if we’re all lucky. Obama promised you could keep your plan if you like it, but we’re already seeing that was a big lie. Obama also said you could keep your doctor, but we are seeing a coming shortage of doctors, as fewer want to get in the profession, and others are retiring, or leaving, due to ObamaCare.

The Longshoremen are like most rabid liberals [in both parties] when it comes to amnesty for criminal illegal aliens.

Last week we saw fast food workers [one of the lowest skill jobs out there] all march for higher wages. These people are being ginned up by the same radicals who want open borders, and amnesty for what will most certainly be 40 million or more illegals. One of the reasons wages are low in America now is supply and demand. We have far more workers, than jobs. Putting even more low skilled workers into the job pool is not the recipe for success. It’s stupidity, squared.

The fact is, liberals have kept raising the minimum wage to a point that many businesses will no longer hire young, inexperienced workers. This is why unemployment among teens is at record highs.

There’s a reason why these jobs are low paying, but vital. These jobs are the perfect jobs for teens to learn what working is all about. Learn the basic skills to succeed at more complicated, better paying jobs. Jobs where the worker has more responsibilities. The skills learned in these low paying jobs will carry the hard worker as far as they want to go. These low paying jobs are not meant to be a career, just a starting point to a bright, productive future.

Problem is, with wages where they are, many businesses can’t afford to hire inexperienced workers, and deal with the high turn over, nor can they afford to offer better opportunities to the workers they have. Businesses still have to earn a profit, or they fail, and then no one has a job! This is something liberals, especially in government, simply do not understand.

Amnesty, or allowing these illegals to stay in America under any circumstances, will continue to destroy the United States. We cannot allow the policies that got us to this point to continue, nor can we allow all of these illegals to remain. They are uninvited guests who have not only worn out their welcome, they have done great damage to their hosts.

It’s striking to me though, that all of these union thugs are upset, not because ObamaCare and amnesty will destroy America as we know it, but because it effects them personally. They don’t realize the alternatives they propose are even worse.

Health care issues hit home with me. As readers know I’ve had a few stays in the hospital over the past year. I know I am writing this today because of the quality, life saving health care I have received from my doctors.

You know why it was possible, at an affordable cost? Texas passed massive FREE MARKET reforms a decade ago. Among other things, Texas passed huge tort reforms. Texas was once the ambulance chaser capital of the country, with juries awarding outrageous settlements, and fat cat attorneys making huge fees.

The reforms passed put caps on judgements, and liabilities a doctor or hospital were exposed to. These reforms mean that doctors in Texas don’t have to practice “defensive medicine” running unnecessary tests, and doing other procedures, not meant to treat a patient, as much as to cover the doctor’s butt in case of a lawsuit. As you can imagine, health care costs are kept in check, and doctors can spend more time caring about their patients, and less time worrying about blood sucking lawyers.

Texas is also competitive when it comes to insurance, as there are a variety of options. Though, ideally, all companies would be able to sell in all states, thus making the market even more competitive, it’s good here. Competition makes all better, and in the case of goods and service, less expensive.

The results? Besides quality care, nearly 10,000 doctors have moved to Texas from other states, in the past decade, and the health care industry is growing, creating jobs, and opportunities.

Texas is the example of how the FREE MARKET works in health care, and should be the way forward for the nation.

Health care will always be expensive and we’ll always have to pay, whether directly, or through confiscatory taxes, but common sense, FREE MARKET solutions already exist. Have for a long, long time. The notion that something as vile as ObamaCare is needed is frankly … hateful … to all real Americans. ObamaCare destroys Liberty and Freedom, while offering nothing but poorer options, as well as poorer Americans. As Sarah Palin has said, it’s downright evil.

It’s entertaining to see all of the rabidly anti-American groups that backed Obama and his plans to “fundamentally transform” America, now turning on one another, but the fact is, America is in big trouble. ObamaCare MUST be repealed! Then, every liberal [in BOTH parties] must be run out of office, and replaced by men and women who value Liberty and Freedom, and respect the Constitution and Rule of Law.

America is in trouble, and it’s time that all good Americans take charge, and come to her aid! We CAN defeat the evils of rabid liberalism. We MUST defeat the evils of rabid liberalism.

Advertisement

Leave a comment

Filed under In The News, Politics

Heartache: AFL-CIO Union Thugs Cutting Funding to Obama Campaign

By Gary P Jackson

It seems union thug Richard Trumka, and the AFL-CIO, have decided to distance themselves from the Obama regime. The thugs are upset their bought and paid for president didn’t show his face in Wisconsin and support their hand picked candidate against Scott Walker. This is the same Richard Trumka who claims his thugs weren’t part of the recall effort in Wisconsin.

Ben Shapiro at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government reports:

After President Obama’s decision to avoid the Wisconsin recall election, undercutting desperate union members who wanted to oust Governor Scott Walker, the AFL-CIO has announced that it will take money away from political candidates and instead put it into “infrastructure and advocacy,” according to AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein. “There will be less contributions to candidates.

That means that President Obama will receive less direct funding from the AFL-CIO than usual, but it doesn’t mean the AFL-CIO will be silent – it just means they’ll message independently of the Obama campaign. “This is not a slight at the president,” Goldstein said. The goal is to create a massive system that would give “different kinds of support to different candidates.” Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, had said back in 2009 that the labor movement would be building its own campaign machinery.

Trumka’s diplomatic way of saying: “Nice presidency you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.

Read more here.

Leave a comment

Filed under In The News, Politics

Ha! AFL-CIO Thug Richard Trumka Tries To Claim They Weren’t Part of Recall Effort in Wisconsin

Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan ~ Unknown

By Gary P Jackson

Oh this is just delicious. From Weasel Zippers:

The AFL-CIO’s fleet of Jesse Jackson minivans unavailable for comment.

The Washington Post has more:

The AFL-CIO was heavily involved in the recall campaign against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R). But on the day after Walker soundly defeated Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D), the union’s president downplayed the results and distanced the national organization from the recall effort.

We didn’t decide on this recall,” Richard Trumka told reporters on a conference call this afternoon. “It was the workers in Wisconsin and the voters in Wisconsin who did.”

Trumka also repeatedly argued that the recall results had little larger significance for the labor movement, calling it an “an off-year special election.”

Isn’t it just like the union thug leaders to put the blame for this fiasco on the backs of the workers!

If these thugs hadn’t worked their members into a frenzy, trying to save their phony-baloney jobs, none of this would have happened.

The far left Daily Beast notes: [emphasis mine]

Over the past month, We Are Wisconsin has raised more than $5.5 million. Of that total, the group has received three donations from individuals totaling $720. The rest of its funds came almost exclusively from organized labor.

This included nearly $2 million from the AFSCME, the public-employees union, and $1.25 million from the AFL-CIO, along with other six-figure gifts from unions such as the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Teamsters.

Obligatory:

1 Comment

Filed under In The News, Politics

Sarah Palin Denounces Union Thug Tactics in South Carolina

By Gary P Jackson

Yesterday we reported on a video that surfaced of retiring South Carolina AFL-CIO union thug president, Donna Dewitt, violently attacking a piñata with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s face on it.

Dewitt has defended her violence saying it was “all in fun.

Sarah Palin has a different take, calling on her union “brothers and sisters” to denounce the violence and condemn the union thug leadership.

his story about the South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna DeWitt beating a piñata with Governor Nikki Haley’s face on it is disgusting.

It’s a perfect example of union boss thuggery.

To all the good South Carolina cops and teachers and other good union members out there: this is your union dues at work. Are you comfortable with this?

Please, good South Carolina union brothers and sisters, demand your union dues be returned to you; demand an apology; quit your disrespectful union if you believe actions like this don’t represent who you really are.

Stiffen your spine because you’re better than this. Respectful union members across this great nation: will you condemn or condone this union “leadership” as they give you one helluva name?

~ Sarah Palin

4 Comments

Filed under In The News, Politics, sarah palin

South Carolina AFL-CIO Union Thug President Takes a Baseball Bat to Piñata Representing Governor Nikki Haley UPDATED


****UPDATED with New Video****

By Gary P Jackson

Union thug Donna Dewitt, the retiring South Carolina AFL-CIO president is seen taking a baseball bat to a piñata with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s face on it. As you can see, Dewitt, who is egged on by the crowd, takes great delight in this.

Michelle Malkin reports the national AFL-CIO union thugs are trying to force You Tube to pull the video, but you can still view it, for now, by clicking here, or on the image above.

Malkin also notes that it was somehow inciting violence when Sarah Palin “targeted” Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords for defeat. Never mind it was left wing Daily Kos publisher Marcos Moulitsas who actually but a bull’s-eye on Congresswoman Giffords, targeting her as a sell-out. Evidently, this sort of actual violence by a union thug, is perfectly acceptable.

South Carolina is a right to work state, meaning union thugs are not welcome. Labor unions, with a history of violence since day one, obviously don’t like this, or Governor Haley, who has been tough on unions.

From the video description:

Gov. Nikki Haley has been vicious to organized labor, saying in her State of the State address that “unions are not needed, wanted or welcome in South Carolina.” After years of being treated like a union thug, Donna Dewitt gets sweet revenge at a retirement reception in her honor.

Let’s see, a union thug complaining about being treated like a union thug, while acting exactly like union thugs do. Amazing.

H/T: Reince Priebus

UPDATE:

The National AFL-CIO has been trying to get the video of their thug pulled. In case this happens, we’ve found the video from a trusted source.

4 Comments

Filed under In The News, Politics, sarah palin

Union Members Respond to Sarah Palin’s Plea

By Stacy Drake

In the comment sections where her plea was posted, that is…

I’m sure you will be hard pressed to find many union members who will go on record stating this sentiment, given the environment they find themselves in these days. However, the internet is a place many find able to speak their mind without fear of retribution.

Scanning through the comment sections of both Governor Palin’s Facebook page, and certain articles on this topic, I saw some comments that I found interesting. They had been left by union members who viewed Governor Palin’s statement as factual and words they obviously identified with. I wanted to share some of them but I have omitted their names because they are not public figures (emphasis mine).

  • As a proud current card-carrying IBEW member for seven years I was just discussing this very topic with my Dad (another IBEW member) earlier this evening. I am very upset and deeply concerned about Obama and what his liberal/socialist cron…ies are doing to our country. What angers me further is that the leaders back at the AFL-CIO continue to back these morons as they run for office. […] I work hard for my paychecks and I don’t wish in any way to discredit the values that unions are SUPPOSED to stand for. I owe the IBEW my current middle-class standing and without the training and bargaining strength of my union I would not be able to support my wife and children as my father did. Keep it up Sarah, there are many union members out there that share my sentiments.
  • Go Sarah I’ve Been a union member most of my life construction labor ,uswa and teamsters plus 3yrs. USMC.I’m 72 now and I back you 100%
  • Took me 24 years of union membership to finally realize where the union bosses real loyalties were. I withdrew last November after the thuggery that supported shoving national healthcare down our throats. I’m with you 100% Sarah! To my union brothers and sisters: Those that say they represent you are not your friends…. they view you as nothing more than a paycheck. Stand with us and help us take our country back!
  • I am a member of a local trade union. We are not the problem with the country. Trade Unions are not SEIU and do not like being lumped together with them. Many of us are quite conservative and fewer and fewer of my local brothers and sisters that I talk to are supporting Obama and his agenda. Historically the Republicans have not supported labor and have driven us away. There does need to be some kind of balance between business and its workers. That being said, I have never gotten a job from a poor person, so I don’t hate the rich. I have not voted Democrat in years and I can assure all that the bunch in the White House now has me in every bit the uproar that all of you are.
  • The FB post by Ms. Palin is so close to the hearts of many union workers. […] Members as “mere followers” while the “union leaders” acting as “the boss”. The end is always the same. Union leaders become as “rich” as the devil while the members remain “poor” and needy. This is true in my family’s case. I am a liberal democrat but beginning to see the beauty and wisdom that is Sarah Palin. I’m almost there!

I’m not pretending that there has been some massive sea-shift in regards to union political support over one Facebook posting. I live in a state run by SEIU (thank you Jerry Brown) so I understand very well how unions operate. That said, I also understand that most union members are not left-wing radicals, which is what one pretty much has to be these days to agree with the current direction of the country. I do find these comments encouraging, however, and I hope that Governor Palin’s plea sparks a conversation within the union rank-and- file.

I think Governor Palin was both bold and wise to answer attacks from AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, in this manner. Not only did she expose him for the “thug” that he is, she also made his members think twice about about what it is their leaders are doing for them. I cannot recall any other national republican since Reagan, who attempted to go around the union leadership and talk directly to union members themselves. Given the antics, and the practices of union leaders, I know there are many more members who will identify with the sentiment in the Governor’s statement to them.

2 Comments

Filed under Politics, sarah palin