Friday, September 9, 2011

Longshoremen Union for Strike Gone Wrong


Well, Barry,
After listening to your droll on and on about "creating jobs" it's clear the jobs you intend are UNION JOBS. You suck buddy, Trumka, has unleashed the Longshoreman Union against a company that is trying to create jobs and make a profit. The basis of this dispute is clearly in the Longshoreman's Union side. They made unreasonable demands on the owners who then turned to a different union rather than give in to threats and intimidation.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the percentage of American workers who belong to a union (even counting those not working in union shops) is only 11.9% of the working population. Interestingly, the number of union workers is almost exactly the same number as those unemployed.

However, of the some 14 million union workers only about 9% are without jobs, mostly in the construction industry. Hence, Obama's insistence on "Infrastructure Spending" since those are all union or paid at the same scale. Frankly, this does little or nothing for the greatest share of unemployed in the U.S. Just keep telling us how well you are doing and we will tell you how well you really did come November 2012.

The tactics employed by the Longshoreman in this case is nothing short of criminal. The union ignored a court order and attacked the property, damaged the premises and destroyed thousands of tons of grain, to say nothing of the assault on the guards.

But what can you expect. From wikapedia on Richard Trumka : "But Trumka's tenure as Secretary-Treasurer was not without controversy. In 1996, Teamsters president Ron Carey was locked in a tight reelection battle with James P. Hoffa, son of disappeared Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa and a long-time Teamsters union attorney. Hoffa was also out-raising Carey in funds by more than 4-to-1, but the Carey campaign was convinced it could win if the campaign could bypass the local leadership (which supported Hoffa) and get his message directly to Teamsters members.[15] Martin Davis, a Carey campaign consultant who owned The November Group (a direct-marketing company), allegedly contacted Trumka in the summer of 1996 and concocted a scheme whereby the Teamsters would donate $150,000 to the AFL-CIO for spurious get-out-the-vote efforts and the AFL-CIO would pay the same amount to Citizen Action (a liberal grassroots lobbying and organizing group).[15] Citizen Action would then pay $100,000 to The November Group, which would use the cash to finance Carey's direct marketing effort.[16][17][18] The alleged scheme was revealed on August 22, 1997, by a federal government official overseeing the Teamsters' election.[18][19] The federal government overturned Carey's successful reelection, and ordered a new election.[20] On November 17, 1997, a federal official disqualified Carey from seeking elective office in the union.[16] Carey was indicted on federal perjury charges in January 2001,[21] pled not guilty,[22] and was found not guilty on all charges on October 12, 2001.[23] Trumka invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the government's grand jury investigation and a congressional panel, but was never charged with any crimes.[ Although the AFL-CIO had a policy (enacted in the wake of several Teamsters' scandals in the late 1950s) appearing to require anyone who asserted their Fifth Amendment rights to be removed from office, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney wrote in a letter sent to AFL-CIO member unions in November 1997 that the AFL-CIO policy regarding assertion of Fifth Amendment rights had "never been applied by the federation".[27] The letter went on to say that "The policy calls for removal only when the union determines that the Fifth Amendment is being invoked to conceal discovery of corruption."

And I suppose the assault on Teamster's Election through such a devious and underhanded, fraudulent means was not corrupt? I suppose not if you believe Scott Mason, president of the ILWU Local 23 in Tacoma, who blamed the owners for the criminal actions of his union, even sending Union Members from Tacoma to aid in the riot.

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