Union Thuggery and Intimidation

[Ryan Ruck]

No problem. Move the posts over here if you want or leave them. Either works!

[Ryan Ruck]

Prosecutor: No Charges After Fox News Contributor Punched During Right-To-Work Protest

March 18, 2013

Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said he won’t file criminal charges after reviewing unedited video showing events that led to a Fox News contributor being punched during December’s right-to-work demonstrations.

Steven Crowder filed a police report following the Dec. 11 incident at the Capitol, which Michigan State Police had referred to Dunnings’ office for review. The fight occurred amid generally peaceful demonstrations involving more than 10,000 people who had gathered in Lansing that day as lawmakers voted on a package of bills that ban requiring union dues as a condition of employment.

Dunnings said today the first video his office reviewed had been edited. After reviewing an unedited clip, he decided to not pursue the case.

“It’s pretty clear the person that they wanted to charge was acting in self-defense,” Dunnings said of the union member who apparently slugged Crowder.

Both videos that Dunnings reviewed are available on the YouTube website, he said.

The edited clip was an 80-second video Crowder swiftly uploaded to the web following the incident. To date, it’s drawn nearly 1.4 million views on YouTube.

The footage shows Crowder asking rowdy union members why they oppose right-to-work and, later, urging them not to tear down a tent that was put up by Americans for Prosperity, a pro-RTW group. Crowder is shown being punched by a union member.

Crowder said on Twitter later day that he suffered a minor cut to the forehead and a chipped tooth after being “sucker-punched” four times.However, unedited footage shows that the union member who apparently punched Crowder appeared to have been pushed to the ground seconds before the brawl.

It’s unclear who pushed the union member. Crowder was standing nearby and appears to throw his hands up in the air in a gesture of innocence after the man fell, the video shows.

Dunning’s office said the source of this unedited video was a YouTube posting from The Young Turks, an online news commentary show.

The video criticizes Crowder and Fox News for using the edited video to enflame and slant the situation. According to The Young Turks, Fox News aired Crowder’s unedited footage before opting to repeatedly air the edited clip that went viral.

Dunnings questioned why Crowder didn’t initially provide that original footage to Dunnings’ office.

“I’m not holding that against him, but why would they provide the edited video? The longer video clearly shows the guy got pushed down and came up swinging,” Dunnings said.

A YouTube search shows Crowder also posted unedited footage from Dec. 11 nine days after the protest. By comparison, Crowder’s extended video (Warning: Video contains offensive language) had about 117,400 views, as of Monday morning.

Crowder did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

[Ryan Ruck]

98 Arrested As Union Protest Blocks Las Vegas Strip For An Hour

A Las Vegas union Wednesday made its first act of civil disobedience outside a unionized casino in more than two decades, blocking Las Vegas Boulevard for more than an hour.

March 20, 2013

Throngs of workers blocked traffic on the Las Vegas Strip in a demonstration Wednesday against the Cosmopolitan casino that ended with the arrest of nearly 100 protesters.

Tourists watched from an overpass across Las Vegas Boulevard as police led workers wearing red union shirts one by one into a white police bus.

Police arrested 98 protesters, according to Metro Police Capt. Todd Fasulo. The workers chanted, "If we don't get no contract, you don't get no peace," as they waited to be taken away.

Las Vegas' largest and most powerful union has been in contract talks with Cosmopolitan Las Vegas owner Deutsche Bank for two years.

Earlier this year, the 54,000-member union held two one-day pickets outside the casino, which sits on a bustling corner in the heart of the tourist corridor. They marked Culinary Workers Local 226's first pickets on the Strip since 2003.

Wednesday's action was the first time union members deployed civil disobedience, the tactical use of nonviolent law breaking, outside a unionized casino in more than two decades, according to union spokeswoman Yvanna Cancela.

Cosmopolitan spokeswoman Amy Rossetti said management is continuing to negotiate with labor to "find a fair agreement." She added that the union was negotiating with casino management, not with Deutsche Bank directly.

Protesters shut down rush-hour traffic for more than an hour in both directions on the block that is also home to the Bellagio, Aria and Planet Hollywood casinos. Cancela estimated the crowd at about 1,500 people.

Moments before her hands were bound with a zip-tie, Janet Hill said she decided to get arrested to send management a message.

"They need to give workers here a contract; it affects us all," said Hill, a porter at the Flamingo casino down the Strip.

Contract negotiations will open for most other Strip casinos in April.

Talks with the Cosmopolitan have stalled on a range of issues, including wages, health care and job security, Cancela said.

The 2-year-old Cosmopolitan was built by the German investment bank after its original developer defaulted. It is one of just a handful of non-unionized casinos on the Strip, along with the Venetian, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, and the Palms.

Culinary Union members receive free health care and are paid above-average wages. Housekeepers in most Strip hotels start at $16 an hour and receive a pension.

A majority of Cosmopolitan service workers signed cards in 2010 saying they wanted representation.

On Wednesday, protesters said they were worried that Deutsche Bank was stalling because it intends to sell the casino and doesn't want to be burdened by a union contract.

Most tourists walked by the demonstration without breaking their stride. One couple turned around in surprise when a protester booed them for crossing the picket line.

Several visitors said they were annoyed at the inconvenience. But a few cheered on the workers as they marched in their navy, emerald and black casino uniforms. A few even joined in.

James Lewis, of Australia, took a photo of himself holding a sign reading, "No Justice, No Peace."

"I was surprised because I didn't know this was an issue here," said Lewis, who was in town for a friend's 40th birthday party. "I come from a place where health care is free, so this is something completely foreign."

Paulina Corona came to the protest in the brown uniform she wears as a housekeeper at the Mirage hotel-casino. She said the demonstration was important because mutual support creates strength.

"This is a union, and everybody is in it together. When there are problems at the Mirage, everyone goes there," she said.

Corona, 58, said that as a cancer survivor she worries that management could make workers shoulder more of their health care costs.

"Every day, they try to ask for more things," she said.

[Ryan Ruck]

SEIU- Fast Food Workers May Contaminate Food if Demands Not Met







Of course, this is nothing new...

Sabotage And The IWW

[American Patriot]

More commies.....

[Ryan Ruck]

You are more right than you know...

Communists And SEIU Members March Together At May Day Demonstration, L.A., CA

[American Patriot]

Yes, I posted this in the right place. lol


Evolution Study Reveals Why Selfish People Will Become Extinct



Christine Hsu
Update Date: Aug 01, 2013 11:50 AM EDT


Researchers explain that while selfishness can offer short-term success, selfish people will eventually become extinct because they will sooner or later be outnumbered by competitors who cooperate to achieve shared goals. (Photo : Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

Evolution never helps the selfish, according to scientists.



A new study reveals new evidence that evolution favors cooperation over selfishness. Researchers explain that while selfishness can offer short-term success, selfish people will eventually become extinct because they will sooner or later be outnumbered by competitors who cooperate to achieve shared goals.


In the study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers used high-powered computing to run hundreds of thousands of games to see whether it was selfishness or selflessness that ultimately won.

"We found evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean," lead author Christoph Adami, Michigan State University professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, said in a news release. "For a short time and against a specific set of opponents, some selfish organisms may come out ahead. But selfishness isn't evolutionarily sustainable."


The latest findings go against the widely-held "Zero Determinant" theory that says that selfish players are guaranteed to beat cooperative players.
However, researchers explained that there are so many strategies and ways of "winning" in evolution, and that it is important to be able to communicate and cooperate in order to succeed.


In the study, researchers used the prisoner's dilemma as a model to study cooperation where two people have committed a crime and are arrested. The prisoners are each offered a deal by police. If one person tells on their friend, they would go free while their friend spends six months in jail. If both prisoners snitch they both get three months in jail and if both stay silent, they both get one month in jail for a lesser offense.


If the two prisoners get a chance to talk to each other, they can establish trust and are usually more likely to cooperate because then both of them only spend on month in jail. However, if they're not allowed to communicate, the best strategy is to snitch because it guarantees the snitcher doesn't get the longer jail term.


Researchers said the game allows them to study a basic question faced by individuals competing for limited resources. Do they act selfishly or do they cooperate.


Cooperation would do the most good for the most people, but it might be tempting to be selfish and freeload by letting others do the work and take the risks.


Researchers found that zero determinant or selfish ways of beating opponents only worked if the player knew who their cooperative opponent was and beat them by taking advantage of their weaknesses.


"The only way ZD strategists could survive would be if they could recognize their opponents," co-author Arend Hintze, molecular and microbiology research associate, said in a statement. "And even if ZD strategists kept winning so that only ZD strategists were left, in the long run they would have to evolve away from being ZD and become more cooperative. So they wouldn't be ZD strategists anymore."


Researchers said that communication is critical for cooperation, and that communication is the reason cooperation occurs.


It is believed that there are five independent mechanisms that foster cooperation. However, researchers note that these mechanisms are really just ways to ensure that cooperators play mostly with other cooperators and avoid all others.


Adami believes that the same set of principles apply to all organisms. He adds that he plans on testing the idea directly in yeast cells.

[Ryan Ruck]

Feds Accuse Longshoremen Of Threatening To Rape United Grain Manager's Daughter, Harm Boss's Kids

March 7, 2014

The National Labor Relations Board accused longshoremen this week of assaulting United Grain Corp. security officers and threatening to rape a manager's daughter and harm a boss's children.

In a separate but related filing, Ronald Hooks, NLRB regional director in Seattle, accused United Grain of unfairly locking out union members and unjustly discharging longshoremen who wouldn't operate equipment they considered unsafe. Both cases involve the Vancouver company’s year-long lockout of dockworkers at its grain export terminal.

The most shocking accusations are contained in Hooks’ case against International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 4 in Vancouver.

After investigating charges filed by the company, Hooks alleged longshore picketers shone spotlights into vehicles entering and exiting United Grain’s terminal, blocking drivers’ vision and causing permanent eye injury to a security officer. Hooks alleged locked-out workers recklessly pursued company vans, threatened to harm Columbia River pilots and pinned a security officer’s leg under a moving vehicle.

Hooks alleged that Local 4 members “threatened to rape the daughter of one of the employer’s managers,” and implied threats to harm a manager’s children by telling him they would “see his children at school” and asking, “are (his) children okay today?”

The NLRB charges are the most recent developments in a lockout that began Feb. 27, 2013, and later included Columbia Grain Inc. in Portland and Louis Dreyfus Commodities in Portland and Seattle. Sporadic contract negotiations continue between the longshore union and the companies, which are using non-union workers to load Northwest grain on ships for export.

Hooks’ cases against the union and United Grain result from unfair-labor-practices charges each party filed last year. He scheduled hearings on the cases before an NLRB administrative law judge in Portland this summer.

Hooks dismissed several of the union charges and found merit in some others, which he consolidated and converted into a nine-page complaint dated Feb. 28. Hooks incorporated charges by United Grain in a nine-page complaint dated the same day.

NLRB attorneys will essentially act as prosecutors during the hearings, presenting the cases originally advanced by United Grain and Local 4.

Parties in labor disputes such as the grain handlers’ lockout routinely file such cases, sometimes merely for tactical reasons including publicity. The cases can take years, and may be appealed to an NLRB Office of Appeals and beyond. Often cases are dropped if the underlying labor dispute is settled.

In Hooks’ case against United Grain, he alleged the company shut out workers without providing an offer listing conditions they would have to meet to avoid a lockout. He also alleged the company discharged workers who refused to operate equipment they believed was unsafe. In both instances, he said, United Grain didn’t enable the union to bargain over the company’s actions.

Pat McCormick, a spokesman for United Grain, said Thursday the company believes the NLRB’s allegations on the lockout and terminations are not supported by current law. In some NLRB cases, labor lawyers say, agency attorneys make arguments that the board can use to set new precedents and change regulations.

In Hooks’ case against Local 4, he listed numerous alleged incidents, including an assault on a vendor’s truck, rocks thrown at a security guard and racial slurs made against United Grain’s African American security officers.

Jennifer Sargent, a longshore union spokeswoman, said Thursday the NLRB complaint was “merely the beginning of a legal process that we believe will eventually clear these workers of the company's allegations."

“Mitsui-UGC,” said Sargent, referring to United Grain’s Japanese parent company, “has made these allegations against individual workers to distract from the fact their illegal lockout that's impacted hundreds of local families and hurt their ability to support local businesses and public services."

The grain handlers' lockout and dispute with the longshore union is separate from the union's feud with the Port of Portland and ICTSI Oregon Inc. over conditions at the Port's container terminal.

That North Portland terminal reopened Thursday after an arbitrator ordered longshoremen back to work, ruling that union members faced no immediate danger Wednesday when they called a work stoppage because of an altercation. Arbitrator Jan Holmes ruled the dispute was legitimate under the dockworkers' contract, but said longshoremen would not be paid for their time during the stoppage.

[Ryan Ruck]

Longshoremen Contract Threatens U.S. West Coast Port Trade

June 23, 2014

Business groups are urging longshoremen and their employers to avoid a dispute that could cripple ports along the West Coast and affect billions of dollars in commerce.

A six-year pact between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents about 20,000 dock workers at 29 West Coast ports, expires June 30, both sides said in a joint June 4 release. Negotiations began in May. The ports account for about half of all U.S. maritime trade and more than 70 percent of imports from Asia, according to the association.

A failure to agree and a resulting halt to shipments will have “serious economy-wide impacts,” a coalition of organizations representing U.S. manufacturers, farmers, wholesalers, retailers, distributors, and other groups wrote in a May 9 letter to union President Robert McEllrath and association President James McKenna.

“The potential for disruptions in the flow of commerce at West Coast ports is creating uncertainty in a fragile economic climate and forcing many businesses to develop contingency plans that come at a significant cost to jobs and our economic competitiveness,” according to the letter.

Lousy Timing

Companies are moving goods early and making plans for alternate ports, said Jonathan Gold of the Washington-based National Retail Federation, a trade group representing members including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) and J.C. Penney Co. (JCP)

The timing is critical because retailers are gearing up for back-to-school sales as manufacturers, farmers and other businesses have time-sensitive shipments, Gold said.

“We can’t afford to have a shutdown and a disruption like we had in 2002,” Gold said by phone.

That year, an agreement wasn’t reached until about Thanksgiving after a 10-day lockout, the Associated Press said.

Both sides have said they are unlikely to agree on a contract before the current one expires and will continue negotiating after it does, the AP reported today.

Talks are progressing and “it’s a good sign that everyone is continuing to meet and take the process seriously,” said Craig Merrilees, a union spokesman.

Keep Rolling

While some companies can make contingency plans for shipping disruptions, about 20,000 truckers are dedicated to hauling cargo from the ports, said Chris Shimoda of the California Trucking Association in Sacramento.

“No one can afford not to work right now,” Shimoda said.

A 2012 strike by clerical employees at the ports of Los Angeles-Long Beach hobbled the nation’s largest port complex, affecting an estimated $1 billion of cargo a day and idling thousands of workers without pay.

About 1 million tons of cargo are shipped through West Coast ports each day, and in 2013 longshore workers, clerks and foremen were paid $1.39 billion, according to the San Francisco-based Pacific Maritime Association, which represents cargo carriers and dock employers at West Coast ports.

[Ryan Ruck]

Padma Lakshmi And ‘Top Chef’ Crew Find Teamsters' Local Flavor Bitter

August 21, 2014

The Charlestown-based Teamsters Local 25 — the crew that drives for most TV and movie productions made in Massachusetts — reportedly harassed and threatened the cast and crew of Bravo’s “Top Chef” while the show was filming in Milton earlier this summer, but a network source said the ugly incident won’t deter them from returning to Boston in the future.

“It was an isolated incident but we had a great experience overall shooting in Boston,” the source told the Track. “I don’t think it would prevent us from coming back. Boston is a great city with a lot to offer.”

According to Deadline.com, the Teamsters threw up a picket line while the hit TV cooking competition was filming at the Steel & Rye restaurant in Milton. The union types were miffed because Bravo was using production assistants to drive their cars and not the union. When “Top Chef” star Padma Lakshmi arrived on the set, picketers called her a “(expletive) whore,” our source confirmed, and threatened to “bash that pretty face in.”

The picketers lobbed sexist, racist and homophobic slurs at the rest of the cast and crew for most of the day, the website reported, and when production wrapped, the “Top Chef” crew found that tires were slashed on 14 of their cars. Milton police confirmed that the union members were “threatening, heckling and harassing” but said no arrests were made. The union protest was confined to just that one day during “Top Chef’s” two-month shoot.

Local 25 president Sean O’Brien was out of town and unavailable for comment yesterday, according to spokeswoman Melissa Hurley.

“As far as we’re concerned, nothing happened,” Hurley said. “This is typical of nonunion companies who often make excuses for why they won’t hire union labor.”

According to the network source, Bravo did try to reach a compromise with the union, but were unable to do so.

A state Film Office spokeswoman said the office was not involved in bringing the show to Boston and had received no complaints regarding the Teamsters’ action.

For years Hollywood avoided the Bay State because of the heavy-handed tactics of the local Teamsters. The union’s past has included convictions for money laundering, extortion, racketeering and shaking down movie producers who tried to film in Boston. O’Brien has said the Local has cleaned up its act and now has a great working relationship with most of the productions that film here.

File Under: No Compliments To The “Chef.”

And a blatant excuse to post pics of Ms. Lakshmi when she did an episode of Enterprise...

[MinutemanCO]

After I graduated from college at Syracuse, I moved to Boston eventually living in Charlestown for three years. It was the strangest sociological experience of my life. In the winter, if it snowed, residents shoveled a parking spot at the curb on the public street and set a cone or an old chair in it. The implication was that the parking spot was then theirs for the duration of the winter. Legend has it that if you parked in someone else's spot you could expect all manner of damage to be done to either your vehicle or your person. Also, my roommates had a party one weekend. I was out of town. When I got back into town, my landlord delivered to us eviction notices. He said that his life was in danger because tenants of his were breaking some unwritten Charlestown code regarding privacy and disturbing the peace. Black people never go to Charlestown out of fear for their lives. It was documented in an episode of 60 minutes back in the early '90s. Weirdest, most subtly dangerous place I've ever lived.