On yesterday’s episode of the O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly asked, “Is corruption seeping into America’s big unions?” Fox News analyst Charles Krauthammer claimed, “The labor movement has always had its radicals and Marxists, but in America we’ve never had them take over the unions and become the dominating force.” However, in consideration of the behavior of large unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Krauthammer might have underestimated the power of the radicals and Marxists in the unions.
SEIU members disrupted a banquet hall dinner where leaders from the California Nurses Association (CAN) held a Labor Notes Conference addressing 800 various union members in August 2008. SEIU members had a bone to pick with CAN, accusing them of “busting an Ohio union drive,” according to the Union News. Unionized Baltimore dockworker Roland Day stated that the SEIU protestors “were banging on the doors like a marching band base drum. Real quick they rushed through the door.”
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Of the event, the Union News explained, “Things quickly got out of control in the lobby, as fliers spilled to the floor and a cacophony of chants, noisemakers and screams ensued from the SEIU group’s push towards the banquet doors.” Retired union member Dianne Feeley was pushed to the floor by an SEIU member, hitting her head and requiring stitches.
In August 2009, at a forum on aging called by Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-St. Louis), a black conservative activist, Kenneth Gladney, was physically attacked by SEIU members after he handed out yellow flags that read “Don’t tread on me.” One of the union members, who was also black, called Gladney a racial slur. In this video, you will see that those involved in the violent outburst are wearing SEIU t-shirts.
On May 16, approximately 500 SEIU members were bussed to the home of Bank of America’s senior executive Greg Baer to indicate their opposition to banks. While this went on, Baer’s son was home by himself and frightened so severely that he took refuge in the bathroom of his home while his father attended his youngest son’s baseball game. The event was witnessed by Nina Easton, a journalist and one of Baer’s neighbors.
Ronald VanTilburg of Associated Content analyzed the “communist behavior” of the SEIU. VanTilburg described the SEIU’s protest outside of Baer’s home as “not surprising when one knows the background of the organizations Marxist philosophies as described by its recently retired President Andy Stern.” Behavior such as that of the protest outside of Baer’s home is similar to that described in The Black Book of Communism, where Pascal Fontaine describes Fidel Castro’s “Committees for Defense of the Revolution” (CDRs). The CDRs were expected to “marginalize and break the resistance of opponents … and their families,” says VanTilburg.
While the SEIU members protesting outside of Baer’s home were not violent, as opposed to the CDRs, they did in fact violate the property rights of a citizen, “another attribute of Marx’s Communist Manifesto”; their presence alone was intimidating, which seemed to be the goal.
VanTilburg also pointed to Andy Stern’s remark that alludes to Karl Marx: “Workers of the world united! It’s just not a slogan anymore. It’s a way we’re going to have to do our work.”
About the SEIU, Bill O’Reilly noted, “The SEIU has a tremendous amount of money that they get from dues and give to people like Barack Obama. They have a lot of power and they purport to be the spokesperson for the working American. We underestimate their power.”
According to the Chicago Daily Examiner, union workers in Illinois resorted to violent tactics to indicate their disapproval of Illinois-based LyondellBasell plant’s decision to hire out-of-state workers to “perform temporary ‘turnaround’ work at the facility.” The Chicago Daily Examiner noted, “According to eyewitnesses and other sources, the unions have been damaging company and personal property and even hurling stones at individuals working at the plant.”
In 2009, when two members of the Communications Workers of America union (CWA) blew the whistle on other union workers who were paid for work that they did not actually perform, they faced intimidation tactics from their “union brothers” that led to violence. One of the whistleblowers, DiStefano, found a dead rat in his locker, and was later called a rat while being hit in the face and head by another union member, resulting in two herniated discs. Instead of the CWA taking action against the attacker, DiStefano was terminated for “starting the fight.”
Glenn Beck has asserted that many of the anti-Arizona immigration law rallies were led by the SEIU, AFL-CIO, Workers World Party, Socialist Party USA, etc., the very same rallies where protestors were caught on video throwing bottles at the police. In Pheonix, Arizona, protestors spray-painted “Burn this Racist City” on sidewalks.
World Net Daily points out that John Sweeney, leader of the AFL-CIO, “repealed language in the federation’s bylaws barring members of the Communist Party from full participation.” WND adds that the leadership of the AFL-CIO has “either been completely compromised by the extreme left or they are hopelessly naïve or desperate for members no matter what rock they might crawl out from under.” Not surprisingly, the change in the AFL-CIO’s bylaws was not covered in the mainstream media.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), California Faculty Association, California Federation of Teachers, and California Teachers Association came out in support of SB 1322, a bill that would have allowed the promotion of communism in public schools. Capitol Resource Institute spokesperson Karen England explained, “SB1322 would delete the requirement that an individual or organization wanting to use the school property is not a Communist action organization or Communist front organization” and would also “strike the law that a public school or community college employee may be fired if he or she is a member of the Communist Party.” Above all, SB 1322 would allow teachers to provide instruction that indoctrinates in students a preference for communism. Luckily, this bill was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Now, Congress is currently considering a $165 billion bailout of union pensions. The unions have already pledged their full-fledged support of President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, as well as the upcoming 2010 elections. The incestuous relationship between politicians and the unions continues to deepen.
It is becoming indisputable that unions transformed from their original origins as a force against corruption in the workplace to a powerful, and often violent, ally of Washington. Unfortunately, the normally level-headed Krauthammer afforded unions the seemingly undeserved “benefit of the doubt.”
