From the blog at LaborUnionReport:

The Purple People Eater and ACORN benefactor, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is gearing up for the 2010 redistricting battle, according to Politco’s Ben Smith.

Political actors are beginning to invest in the 2010 redistricting battles that will be decided in large part by state legislative elections, and SEIU, I’m told just hired a prominent California union official to run its national campaign.

The official, Courtni Sunjoo Pugh, was SEIU California’s executive director and a political player in the state. She’s returning to Washington with the title of National Redistricting Project Director.

This comes on Friday’s revelation that SEIU also wants illegal immigrants counted in the 2010 census.

• On a seperate note, Ellen Moran (brief bio here), the AFL-CIO’s former anti-Wal-Mart coordinator, Emily’s List former Executive Director, and Obama’s former White House Communications Director now works as Chief of Staff for the Secretary of Commerce, the department that oversees the census.

Some RedState readers may be interested in this sort of stuff.

The info below comes from the blogat LaborUnionReport and provides a summary of news stories from around the country:

Here is this week’s list of the most relevant union happenings across the country (and beyond), brought to you in short and “tweet” form (that is 140 characters, more or less):

• EFCA’s Evil Twin. Airlines are under siege as unions want to change the 75-year old process for unionizing airline workers to that of “minority rule.”
• Desperate Steelworkers. On strike for 14 months, Canadian USW threatens to target replacement workers.
• Duking it out. Pratt & Whitney and the Machinists are heading to court over company plans to relocate.
• Rejects?  UFCW rejects Safeway and Kroger Colorado contract offers.
• Labor’s Lackey. LA Timeslooks into President Obama’s special special interest.
• The King & Queen’s Communist Love Affair. Romantic Poetwaxes on SEIU’s Stern and Burger and their special relationship with China’s Communist-run trade union.
• UAW & the Downfall of Detroit. Motor City looked at through Time.
• The Cookie Crumbles in the Bronx.Stella D’ Oro workers cling to the last crumb of hope, as the Company calls the union to task.
• Brotherly Love? Andy Says: Say Uncle! as the SEIU takes aim at UNITE-HERE in Philly.
• Purple People Beaters.SEIU’s chronicles of violence, while others are eaten by…
• Purple People Eaters. Illinois governor offers SEIU more bodies to feed their dues habit on.
• Mock Doc Smocks. As some docs came unprepared, SEIU boasts of astroturfer, RedState exposes the ‘disinterested’ docs’ donations and the staged photo-op is still catching heat.
• Public Option Pushers. As unions push for the “public option” (aka nationalized health care), pols fight to keep the health care bill a secret.
• Shrinkage: ACORN’s Nuts in the Cold. Congress cutsas Chief-Nutjob Bertha Lewis fires back, continuing her ‘apology tour,’ while ACORN’s nuts are brilliantly laid bare and the $1 million embezzlement multiplies itself fivefold.
• The Money Pit, a 2010 Trap?Bam Slam: Dollar drop could be Democrats mid-term dream.
• Obama’s SEIU Man. White House political director Patrick Gaspard gets exposed down under.
• No Union Site Turns 30. Visitors of 1-888-No-Union.com hit 30,000 this week.
• None Dare Call it a Strike. SEIU wants state workers to take Monday off(en masse) in the broke state of California.
• Lost at Sea, Ye Mutinous Bilge Rats! Someone pass the rum! Unionized seamen have been floating around on strike for three weeks. Aargh!

And that, mates, is our Labor Shorts #3!

Form more info on unions and their bags of tricks, check out 1-888-NO-UNION.COM

It has long been estimated that the cost of bringing the Olympics to Chicago would be $4.8 billion or more. Since Chicago is a big union town, second only to New York, much of the money that would have been spent would have gone the city's unionized workers and, of course, their union bosses--from the construction trade unions to the hotels workers' union, UNITE-HERE.

 

These guys must really be desperate. As we’ve written many times, “card check” effectively ends secret-ballot elections because it would allow labor organizers to automatically organize a work site if more than 50% of workers sign an authorization card. Thus our words: “dead letter.”

President Obama's Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is still pushing the no-vote unionization bill, otherwise misleadingly called the Employee Free Choice Act.

From the LaborUnionReport.com blog post

An interesting interview with the next AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka is appearing in The Nation.

What is particularly interesting about the interview is not the typical pro-union pablum that Trumka puts out (no different than his soon-to-be predecessor John Sweeney), but his outright shot at the Service Employees International Union.

“The raiding stuff is a zero-sum game,” he says, singling out the Service Employees actions against UNITE HERE as a “particularly outrageous example.”

But raiding is just one manifestation of the perpetually thorny problem of deciding which union has the primary right to organize a particular workplace or industry. Trumka thinks unions will be able to resolve those jurisdictional disputes as the Employee Free Choice Act opens up organizing, especially if rank-and-file workers play a bigger role. “Those [jurisdictional] problems don’t bubble up but come from top down,” he argues.

This would apear to be an indirect shot at SEIU president Andy Stern who seems to on the top of the union boss’ enemy list (after George Bush and Dick Cheney, of course). [View list of Stern's detractors here, and what they say here.]

Trumka is also confident that the delusionally dubbed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will get passed:

“[W]e’ll get an act that will give us everything we need. I think it will have dispute resolution in it. It will allow us to have a union without being threatened, intimidated or fired.”

And, like the Teamsters putting together an army of 1,000 organizers in expectation of EFCA, Trumka plans on calling on all AFL-CIO unions to have an army of 1,000 organizers as well.

But Trumka has one ambitious new proposal: asking unions to provide a reserve army of 1,000 or more organizers who could be sent to help other unions in strategic campaigns or to fight inter-union raiding.

While Trumka differs little from what other union bosses say, he is a fiery orator, so we shall see if he is truly different from every other union boss today.

The one thing that was not apparently discussed in the interview was his invoking his Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination some years ago–something that was against the rules of his own federation.

The AFL-CIO had a policy that said taking the Fifth Amendment was grounds for removal from office. Sweeney said at the time that a 1957 federation resolution said the policy should apply only to those who invoked the right in order to cover up wrongdoing.

To read the entire article in the Nation, go here.

However, unlike her members, Ms. Alston didn't seem to struggle too much in 2008 as, according to the union's 2008 financial statement, Ms. Alston raked in $115,259 in total compensation (plus another $6,563 from the BCT's international) while the local's Vice President Joseph Svingala took in $108,345 last year. Meanwhile, the union's international president, Frank Hurt, raked in $250,441 in 2008.