Oddly enough, with 6700 members jobs at stake, the Teamsters rightfully recommended a secret-ballot vote be taken among striking bakers’ union members.
However, while pushing a secret ballot when it served the Teamsters’ interest, the union bosses within the Teamsters’ Marble Palace want to deny everyday Americans their right to vote on unionization via secret ballot.
Read More »The events of this past week have Sno Balled rather quickly and Suzie Q is still in a state of shock. Teamsters are calling the striking bakery union a bunch of Ding Dongs and Ho Ho’s. Yes, it’s true. The great Twinkie is dead. And, it’s no Wonder. Like so many before it, Twinkie the kid has been killed off by a union strike.
Read More »Very possibly. Background here and here: the short version is that Hostess Foods is in horrible financial shape; it’s in the process of trying to stave off bankruptcy via drastically renegotiated emergency union contracts with the Teamsters and bakers’ unions; the Teamsters took a look at the books, blanched, swallowed hard, and took the deal; the bakers’ unions did not, and decided to go on | Read More »
Back in September, following acceptance by the Teamsters. the bakers’ union (BCTGM) at bankrupt Hostess brands—makers of the iconic Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder brand breads—rejected a company proposal to help keep the company in business. By a voice vote of its members, the union opened the door to conduct a company-killing strike and potentially putting 18,500 Hostess workers onto the streets. Well, on Friday, | Read More »
With so much to write about (and so little time), here are a few selected news stories to remind us how today’s unions are all about…well…something. Solidarity Succumbs to Economic Greed: Teamsters attempt to raid TWU at American Airlines. Back in the 1930s through the 1950s, when the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) were rival federations expanding their memberships | Read More »
Earlier this week, arrests were made and RICO charges filed against four Boston-area Teamsters for “committing multiple acts of extortion and racketeering among other crimes.” While news of a 30-count indictment always generates a fair amount of buzz, the fact is, regardless how much money the Teamsters spend on Democrat politicians, corruption is still alive and well within Hoffa’s union. In 1988, the U.S. Department | Read More »
Last January, Hostess Brands, the company that built such iconic lunch-bag stuffers as Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread filed for bankruptcy. In an era of greater competition and a more health conscious public, Hostess’ problems stem, in part, to the heavy costs its union contracts have placed on the company. Now, as the company and union leaders have hammered out tentative contracts that would | Read More »
The book I Heard You Paint Houses came out in 2003, so it’s been gathering some dust on a number of bookshelves around the country for quite some time. The book’s title, according to Amazon, comes from the first words infamous Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the | Read More »
Union bosses who pretend they’re fighters for the working class often are accused by their own employees of committing the same sins that they accuse employers of doing. Very often, when push comes to shove, union bosses become the worst kind of union busters there are–because they should know better. Take, for example, the Teamsters who, back in 2009, threatened to operate their union business | Read More »
Prior to the beating of Kenneth Gladney, the Service Employees International Union (or SEIU) flew under the public’s radar. Many Americans’ had never heard of then-SEIU boss Andy Stern and his merry band of purple goons*. Since the Gladney beating, however, the SEIU has earned the reputation once held by such notorious unions as the once mafia-controlled Teamsters or Longshoremen. Now, with the internet replacing the | Read More »
On Wednesday afternoon, the current President of the United States did what may be described as an unconstitutional end run around the United States Senate by “recess appointing” three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (as well as to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) even though the Senate is not in recess. Notwithstanding the CFPB appointment, Obama’s seating of the three NLRB appointees—two of whom are | Read More »
It is axiomatic—a given, if you will—that unions do not like workers to work overtime. Sure, they’ll do it, but if unions had their druthers, the work week would be limited to 40 hours—in some cases unions prefer 35 hours. The reasoning is simple, the fewer hours worked, the more employees an employer must employ and, in a workplace where unions can require dues, the | Read More »
Despite the bribery scandals, the dancers, and the jokes about the millions of their members’ dues that Teamster bosses spent in Las Vegas last week at the union’s 28th international convention, delegates did accomplish one thing of note: The delegates passed a resolution that, among other things, calls for a “financial rescue package for struggling union pensions” (also known as the $165 billion union pension bailout). Following last | Read More »
Union solidarity is a myth. David Freddoso has the details: essentially, the Teamsters and the UFCW are at cross-purposes when it comes to the Giant supermarket chain here in DC. The Teamsters are angry at Giant because Giant parent company Royal Ahold is closing a Teamsters-controlled facility in Jessup, Maryland, in favor of a non-union one in Pennsylvania*. This will be happening, and the real | Read More »
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