Last Tuesday, a pair of seeming coincidences occurred: The first was an article that appeared in the Hill about the SEIU splitting the costs with Priorities USA Action on an anti-Mitt Romney ad in Florida. The second was an e-mail that went out from 1199SEIU featuring ex-1199SEIU boss and current political heavyweight, Patrick Gaspard. While the two appeared unrelated, what they do have in common is the SEIU’s influence on the Democratic Party and the presidential election itself.

Even before the Service Employees International Union became known in center-right households for its thuggish behavior during the 2009 health care debate, the SEIU was already a well-known political powerhouse in Washington. By 2009, the union’s then-president, Andy Stern—already a polarizing figure who successfully broke up the AFL-CIO in 2005—became known as the hand inside Barack Obama’s puppet from his visits to the White House. However, after Stern and his SEIU ‘changed America forever‘ through the imposition of health care reform, Stern abruptly left the union movement.

Although Stern became a corporate insider soon after his departure from the union movement, to many, he still remains the public face of the SEIU. This is despite the fact that there is a far lesser known and much more powerful SEIU operative running both the Democrat National Committee, as well as Barack Obama’s re-election campaign machine, Organizing for America.

Meet Patrick Gaspard. In an e-mail last week from 1199SEIU to its members, the union begins with: “In a series of recent interviews, our brother Patrick Gaspard discusses the presidential election…” Outside of the Beltway Bubble and the SEIU, few people know who Patrick Gaspard is, nor do they know just how politically powerful he really is.

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Last Tuesday, a pair of seeming coincidences occurred: The first was an article that appeared in the Hill about the SEIU splitting the costs with Priorities USA Action on an anti-Mitt Romney ad in Florida. The second was an e-mail that went out from 1199SEIU featuring ex-1199SEIU boss and current political heavyweight, Patrick Gaspard. While the two appeared unrelated, what they do have in common is the SEIU’s influence on the Democratic Party and the presidential election itself.

Even before the Service Employees International Union became known in center-right households for its thuggish behavior during the 2009 health care debate, the SEIU was already a well-known political powerhouse in Washington. By 2009, the union’s then-president, Andy Stern—already a polarizing figure who successfully broke up the AFL-CIO in 2005—became known as the hand inside Barack Obama’s puppet from his visits to the White House. However, after Stern and his SEIU ‘changed America forever‘ through the imposition of health care reform, Stern abruptly left the union movement.

Although Stern became a corporate insider soon after his departure from the union movement, to many, he still remains the public face of the SEIU. This is despite the fact that there is a far lesser known and much more powerful SEIU operative running both the Democrat National Committee, as well as Barack Obama’s re-election campaign machine, Organizing for America.

Meet Patrick Gaspard. In an e-mail last week from 1199SEIU to its members, the union begins with: “In a series of recent interviews, our brother Patrick Gaspard discusses the presidential election…” Outside of the Beltway Bubble and the SEIU, few people know who Patrick Gaspard is, nor do they know just how politically powerful he really is.

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By: Brian Sikma

Indiana unions have been very good to Indiana Democrats. Minority Leader Pat Bauer netted over $76,200 in contributions from union PACs in his 2010 re-election campaign. Just one SEIU-affiliated PAC in Indiana gave 158% more contributions to Democrats than Republicans that same cycle and two top local SEIU operatives have a record of giving exclusively to Democratic candidates and local parties.

Perhaps it is at the behest of unions that Indiana House Democrats have chosen to carry on their tradition of opposing right-to-work by staging a walkout. With right-to-work legislation forcing unions to actually prove their value to members and preventing unions keeping non-union workers out of certain jobs, no wonder the House Democrats have decided to let House Republicans (who hold a legislative majority) penalize them with $1,000-a-day per legislator fines.

Right-to-work reform has been bantered about in the state for several years, and last year a 36-day walkout by House Democrats managed to kill the proposal. This year, the drama picked up afresh with a 3-day walkout by Democrats before the threat of fines brought them back.

In public and private Democrat leader Bauer said that there would be no more walkouts this year, and that the Democrat caucus would show up for work even when the right-to-work bill was on the agenda. That promise was promptly broken when Bauer appeared only briefly and by himself on the House floor Tuesday afternoon without his caucus in tow.

The walkout continued with a pep rally / Democrat caucus meeting in the statehouse rotunda on Wednesday morning. After failing to show up in their seats for the 9:00 am session start, House Republicans slapped them with the long-awaited fine. The absence of a quorum has shuttered legislative business all the way from the chamber to committee hearings.

Democrats, instead of fleeing to Illinois like they did last year, have chosen to remain in the state. In fact, a walk around the state capitol will find a number of them milling about or headed to and from their offices. Due to the modest numbers of union protesters that have showed up each day, the capitol is swarming with state troopers who could, under the rules of the House and the provisions of the Indiana Constitution, be ordered to nab a few Democrats and take them to the House chamber where business could resume.

For now, Democrats are enjoying some expensive leisure time and there is no indication of when they will start doing their job again. Union money is an important part of the Democratic Party’s political success, so it’s no wonder that Democrats would put their union-underwritten money stream ahead of constituents. It is, however, quite shameful for them to do so.

Originally published on Hoosier Access by Media Trackers.

 

Meet Jessica Shearer, Executive Director of the Healthcare Education Project at 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.

In the 14-minute video below, Ms. Shearer, sitting in a panel discussion (with an unknown Tea Party activist beside her), discusses a variety of topics, such as:

• The current excitement over the OccupyWallSt movement and what it means to the union movement
• The inability of unions to motivate their own members
• The half-empty buses to last year’s One Nation rally
• The election Barack Obama and the subsequent disappointment on his (and the SEIU’s) “caving” on health care reform
• The failure of Barack Obama’s Organizing for America to realize its potential
• …and much more

View the video in its entirety. It is an insightful look into the mind of a SEIU activist and insider…a collectivist.

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Meet Jessica Shearer, Executive Director of the Healthcare Education Project at 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.

In the 14-minute video below, Ms. Shearer, sitting in a panel discussion (with an unknown Tea Party activist beside her), discusses a variety of topics, such as:

• The current excitement over the OccupyWallSt movement and what it means to the union movement
• The inability of unions to motivate their own members
• The half-empty buses to last year’s One Nation rally
• The election Barack Obama and the subsequent disappointment on his (and the SEIU’s) “caving” on health care reform
• The failure of Barack Obama’s Organizing for America to realize its potential
• …and much more

View the video in its entirety. It is an insightful look into the mind of a SEIU activist and insider…a collectivist.

Read More →

Last April, after months of laying siege to the Wisconsin capitol building, unions poured $4.5 million into the state to unseat Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in an election. Though their efforts ultimately failed, unions did all they could legally and now, it seems, illegally to win at all costs.

In October, Media Trackers uncovered documents exposing three SEIU-affiliated individuals who took advantage of Wisconsin’s lax voter registration rules to register and vote by using a Residence Inn as their address. The individuals, SEIU organizer Todd E. Stoner from Freehold, New Jersey; Clarence Haynes, a SEIU organizer from Florida; as well as Austin Lee Thompson, a left-wing protester employed by an SEIU-affiliated group, all used the Residence Inn in Glendale, Wisconsin as their address.

Now, Milwaukee’s Assistant District Attorney has taken an interest by issuing a search warrant for Clarence Haynes.

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Last April, after months of laying siege to the Wisconsin capitol building, unions poured $4.5 million into the state to unseat Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in an election. Though their efforts ultimately failed, unions did all they could legally and now, it seems, illegally to win at all costs.

In October, Media Trackers uncovered documents exposing three SEIU-affiliated individuals who took advantage of Wisconsin’s lax voter registration rules to register and vote by using a Residence Inn as their address. The individuals, SEIU organizer Todd E. Stoner from Freehold, New Jersey; Clarence Haynes, a SEIU organizer from Florida; as well as Austin Lee Thompson, a left-wing protester employed by an SEIU-affiliated group, all used the Residence Inn in Glendale, Wisconsin as their address.

Now, Milwaukee’s Assistant District Attorney has taken an interest by issuing a search warrant for Clarence Haynes.

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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  ardently pro-union and demonstrate Obama’s ongoing willingness to continue his union-backed carpet-bombing campaign on millions of job creators—drew immediate fire U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), who stated:

“President Obama’s stunning move to install not one but three new members to the National Labor Relations Board without a hearing or a vote in the United States Senate is an unprecedented abuse of power and an affront to the will of the American people.

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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  ardently pro-union and demonstrate Obama’s ongoing willingness to continue his union-backed carpet-bombing campaign on millions of job creators—drew immediate fire U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), who stated:

“President Obama’s stunning move to install not one but three new members to the National Labor Relations Board without a hearing or a vote in the United States Senate is an unprecedented abuse of power and an affront to the will of the American people.

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Connecticut’s union-bought governor, Daniel Malloy, is apparently scheming with the SEIU to unionize his state’s daycare providers and personal care attendants through a secret plan using the flawed method of card-check unionization.

By stripping individuals of their right to vote on whether or not to unionize, Malloy is virtually guaranteeing money (paid by taxpayers) will go into his SEIU cronies’ pockets.

According to Raising Hale’s Zach Janowski, Malloy has  created “working groups” through executive order that will “guide the unionization” over the next year.

The two working groups will meet Friday morning. The Personal Care Attendant Working Group will meet at 10 a.m. and the Family Child Care Working Group will meet at 11 a.m., both in Room 410 of the Capitol.

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