Michigan Unions Use Astro-Turf Protests to Intimidate Businesses

From the Blaze: This is an old story that just wont go away. That's because the unions are still using their brand of anti-business threats and intimidation. These same union hire people at minimum wage to stand at the polls on election day. The union doesn't pay overt minimum wage or give any benefits. Talk about hypocracy.


Imagine that you are a business owner and the local union demands that you reveal the private payroll data of your 120 non-union employees within a week.  If you choose not to answer this demand, the union will consider you to be obviously “paying substandard wages and benefits.”
In addition to that proclamation from the Union, your customers will be notified by mail that a labor dispute exists between the union and your company and that any job sites where you have contract to perform work will be subjected to protests in the form of ‘bannering’ and the distribution of leaflets.
Got it?

• The union has targeted a non-union business.
• They demand that the business allow the union to examine private payroll records, or else.
• Customers of the business are also targeted with on-site protests with banners and picket lines (often staffed with non-union day labor being paid less than union wages and not afforded health benefits).

This has happened, and in fact is an ongoing story.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, has brought to light the attempted strong-arm tactics of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters in a story by Ken Braun.
Video #1 offers the overview of the story:

Video #2 backs up the charge that the Carpenters Union is using astro-turf tactics, hiring non-union day laborers, paying these workers less than union wages and not offering benefits.

The unions should note that the unemployment rate in Michigan (from where this story originates) is still sitting at 11.3%, almost 2 1/2 points higher than the national average.

According to a statistic quoted in the Mackinac Center piece, more than 78% of the carpenters in Michigan are non-union workers, and the company under attack claims their 120 employees have not complained about wages, benefits or employer treatment. This appears to be nothing more than union bullying.

Recall the Wisconsin 14: Pass It On

It's time to recall the Wisconsin 14 Democrats that held up democracy in order to bully their way past the will of the voters in Wisconsin. Go to www.facebook.com/RecallWI14 . We can play this same game. Send this facebook page to all your friends and blogs. These unions and liberals are playing for keeps. If they win this it will cost us all money. Do you want to dig deeper in your pocket at tax time to give into the unions that are literally destroying our country? Do you want to give those unions that much power over you and you government? We need to get the word out now. This may be in Wisconsin right now but it is coming to a State near you soon.

 

I think these same public sector unions are forgetting that it was the taxpayers that bailed them out with the stimulus bill. They got their money and security when we added to our national debt to secure their jobs,pensions and benefits. These same unions also got an exemption from paying the obamacare "Cadillac tax" like a protected class. We didn't get that special treatment. I'm getting sick of the unions getting treated as a protected elite class of workers. We all must make cuts and pay taxes. The unions are not above that. But in reality they think they are because they own the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party pays up with our tax dollars.

 

That is why we must limit the collective bargaining of these public sector unions. If we don't they will keep taking from the tax payers.

Bill Kristol on Obama: How Can You Say 'Qaddafi Must Go' and Sit Back and Do Nothing?

Bill Kristol slammed Obama's cowardice and indecisiveness on Libya today:
How can you say "Qaddafi must go" and sit back and do nothing?

This is why no one is listening to Obama and the Democratic Party any more. They say one thing while doing the opposite. Only a total fool would believe what these snake oil salesmen are selling.

It just goes to show you that this president incompotent. He is clueless on what he is doing. That or he is just a lieing POS. You chose.

Watch This Video And Then Tell Me That Unions Are Great

Montage Documenting Union Violence and Racism against the Tea Party and Walker Supporters WARNING THIS IS VIDEO OF UNIONS.

Send this video to everyone you know and post it on your blog. We need to see who is asking us to reach into our pockets and pay them. Don't you feel better knowing that these same union members have a monopoly over us? Do you really want these unions in control? You have seen the pictures of the damage they have done to our public property haven't you? See these unions have no problem destroying things and making our public property their private pigsty. We are in a massive fiscal problem in almost every state in the union. These states wont get a bailout like they got from the failed stimulus bill.

In fact the unions should be happy since we added to our national debt to pay off the public unions. We put our kids in debt so that the unions wouldn't have to make major cuts. See how they thank us and our children? Those same children that are going to get the bill for the public union bailout stimulus are also getting a third rate education by those public union teachers.

I'm not taking another penny out of my pocket to keep the fat cat public unions in greed. If the left-wing wants these public unions to keep on keeping on then they can pay for it out of the goodness of their liberal hearts. But that is the problem. The liberals goodness goes away real fast when they have to reach into their own pockets. Anyone can be generous with other peoples money.

I'd like to see these mops at these anti-taxpayer protests pass the hat around so we can see how much is in it at the end of the day. How do you think the unions and liberals have portrayed themselves?

Jesse Jackson: Scott Walker Pushing a 'Confederate

 

Liberals say the dumbest things. This is just more proof that liberalism may be a mental illness. The way the unions keep saying that Republicans and Tea Partiers are trying to kill the middle class and minorities. You have to laugh at these sausages.

Why Isn't Obama and the Democratic Party Condemning the Violent Rhetoric Coming From The Unions and OFA?

We're still waiting for President Obama to condemn the violent rhetoric coming from the union bosses and Organizing for America. I think people need to start pointing this fact out to their friends and family. Or the guy at the pump bitching about gas prices.

We all know this isn't going to happen so we should feel free to point out the hypocrisy,double standards,violence and destruction cause by these left-wing organizations. If you want to know what bothers liberals just look at their own talking points and use them against them. You have to have fun with these liberals, they beg for it.

When the liberals start using the Japan earthquake to shut down future nuclear energy debates here in this country. Remind them that under their idiotic logic they should shut down all thoughts of high speed rail for what happened in Japan. It's OK to point and laugh at them when you point out how mental their thinking is. Don't forget to point out that we should throw out liberal ideology because it's failures. But they never use their illogical logic on themselves. That is what "social justice" is for. Without "social justice" they're held by the same standards as everyone else. The truth has no agenda.

Video: Police detain a union operative in Wisconsin for vandalism

The president has called for a new civility. One union operative in Madison, Wisconsin didn't get the message as the video shows.

As one person on the video says, union activists are not nice people.

Massive Anti-Taxpayer Protest In Madison,WI And No One Cares

Anti-Taxpayer protester are pouring into Wisconsin State Capitol today. I'm not sure if it is massive yet but that is how the left-wing and unions are selling it so I'll give that to them. As far as I'm concerned they could have a million strong in Madison. No one will care. See this "massive" anti-taxpayer protest is being overshadowed by the biggest disaster in Japan's history. It really does suck to be a protester today. All that money and effort to have this "massive" protest and it will end up going off like a firecracker in Lybia. No one will notice it.

I hope these protesters have fun and don't destroy anything to get attention. If the protesters get violent and destructive they will get noticed. But it will be in a bad way and they don't want that. I'll make sure I give these anti-taxpayer protesters get some attention on this blog. I'll wait and cover the aftermath. I'm sure the protesters can give us at least a 5.1 on the Rickter Scale. I just hope they don't make Madison look like Tokyo to get attention.

Anger At The Pump. How To Have Fun While Pumping

It sucks filling up my tank. I hate it. I hate that all that money is going to countries that hate us instead of in our own countryman's pockets.

I'm going to tell you how you can have some fun at the pumps. I did this the last time I filled up a couple of days ago. As I was pumping up my car at the gas station there was a man filling up his SUV. He happened to be black. All I had to say is, "this sucks". He said he is "pissed at how much gas is". It soon turned into a comedy show as others chimed in to the bitch fest. People want to blame someone and this is the perfect time to vent. When I was done teaching him how it's Obama's and the Democratic Parties fault for not drilling here and now this guy and the others were pissed. And the funny thing is they all had heard about the lack of new drilling since Obama took office. They knew he shut down oil drilling after the Deep water Horizon and stopped giving permites for any new drilling.

People thought the Democratic Party and Obama were going to make things better. That is what they said they would do. People aren't dumb. They see reality even when the Democrats spin it. And everyone is pissed at gas prices. Take that opportunity to educate and ventilate on who is to blame. You will be suprised at how receptive people are at that moment. A little nudge is all most people need when they are paying at the pump. Have fun. I know I do. It still sucks to fill my car up but I'll make the best out of it.

Was Obama Fibbing About Oil Production?

From Hotair.com
The President took to the bully pulpit for a presser covering a wide range of topics including the Japanese earthquake and the situation in Libya. He also took time out to make a rather curious claim about US oil supplies.

“We’re adapting. We’re producing more oil, and we’re importing less,” he remarked.
“Now, the hard truth is, is that as long as our economy depends on foreign oil, we’ll always be subject to price spikes,” he noted.
He indicated that “our oil production reached its highest level in seven years. Oil production from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all-time high,” adding that “for the first time in more than a decade, imports accounted for less than half of what we consumed.”

That’s an interesting claim, particularly given Hot Air’s coverage of the subject just prior to the press event. But record setting production would certainly be good news, wouldn’t it? Sadly, it seems that the President was basing his claims on some recent comments by Ken Salazar. While they sound great on paper, Ken was talking about the total number of oil rigs in the gulf, not the total amount of oil being produced. Jack Gerard of the American Petroleum Institute attempts to straighten out the math for the Oil Analyst in Chief.

Salazar’s numbers distort the true number of working rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. According to Baker Hughes:

• Four days before the Deepwater Horizon accident there were 55 rotary rigs actually drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
• On May 28, 2010, when the administration announced the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, there were 46 rotary rigs operating in the Gulf.
• Last week, 25 rotary rigs were operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

So the fact that there is an “all-time high” number of rigs in the Gulf ignores the fact that most of those rigs are not working. Claiming an increase in idle rigs in the Gulf as a success story is like claiming the job market is great because a lot of people are unemployed and available to work.

With all due respect to API, a better analagy would be to have a poultry farmer claiming that egg production was at an all time high based on the number of chickens he has, regardless of the fact that more than half the hens have stopped laying. But in fairness to America’s poultry farmers, your average chicken doesn’t have to wait for a permit from the federal government before dropping more eggs in the nest.
The president needs to go back and do a bit more work on his math. Or possibly pardon a few chickens. Perhaps the new media meme for 2011 could be the one put forward by a good friend of Hot Air on Twitter. So… “Obama lied, Gulf oil workers cried”?
Update (Ed): Over at American Solutions, Steve Everley debunks a few more claims from Obama:

• “We can’t escape the fact that we control only 2% of the world’s oil.” This is a common refrain among anti-drilling Democrats and environmentalists, and it’s repeated enough that many people accept it as true. In reality, it’s 100% false. The number comes from a highly conservative estimate from the Energy Information Administration totaling America’s proven reserves where we are already drilling. It does not include the 10 billion barrels available in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It does not include most of the 86 billion barrels available offshore in the Outer Continental Shelf, most of which President Obama has placed under an executive drilling ban. And it does not include the 800 billion barrels of oil we have locked in shale in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Those shale resources alone are actually three times larger than the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia, so the claim that the U.S. only has 2% of the world’s oil is clearly false.

• “Industry holds leases on tens of millions of acres both offshore and on land where they aren’t producing a thing.” President Obama adds to this whopper by saying he wants to “encourage companies to produce [on] the leases they hold.” While this sounds like a common sense fix, it’s actually just blind rhetoric reserved only for people with a shocking ignorance of drilling. You can read more about this here and here, but it basically boils down to this: A lease is for exploration and production, not just production, and because oil is not equally distributed across the globe, one parcel of leased acreage may not hold any oil. Moreover, due to the circuitous and needlessly complicated permitting process, it can take years for companies who own a lease to complete their exploration activities. To get to the production phase, it could take as long as ten years. Ironically, President Obama wants to tax companies for not producing on their leases, even if the federal government’s refusal to grant permits is the reason why those companies are not drilling.

• “Last year…our oil production reached its highest level in 7 years.” This is pure spin. President Obama is deliberately trying to take credit for actions unrelated to his policies. The increased level of production is due to the actions of previous administrations and production in the Dakotas where most drilling is occurring on private land. By contrast, the Energy Information Administration projects that there will be a decline in production of 220,000 barrels of domestic oil per day in 2011, and in 2012 America will produce 150 million fewer barrels in the Gulf of Mexico, all because of President Obama’s policies to discourage or ban domestic drilling. In addition, President Obama’s drilling moratorium (and subsequent refusal to issue drilling permits) has forced at least 7 rigs to leave the Gulf and sign contracts in other countries, taking much needed jobs and revenue with them.

Remember when Presidents held press conferences to clarify issues?

Isn't it great that Obama is taking credit for something he had nothing to do with? This gives us even more proof that Obama is enept. It's no wonder this country is in the shape that it is.