Union Facts

[mesaba2425]

Let the truth be told.

www.unionfacts.org

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Do you believe it because it is a website?

Do a FI search and then consider deleting your post...

 

[sleeves]

Are unions perfect? NO, what is? I compare it to our country. The USA is not perfect but it sure beats the heck out of what ever country is in second.

If you are not happy about how yours is being run, then stop complaining on some web site and get involved. You might find it is not as messed up as MGT. would have you believe.

 

[GogglesPisano]

Let the truth be told.

www.unionfacts.org

There are plenty of non-union airlines out there. Quit complaining and apply. (BTW: Most -- though not all -- are terrible places to work, whether it's T-props or B747's.)

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

The issue actually is this website is designed to promote anti unionism. The info is spun and flawed...

 

[KaptainKarl]

you want to talk about spun and flawed? read some ALPA RAG

 

[JoeMerchant]

The issue actually is this website is designed to promote anti unionism. The info is spun and flawed...

Good thing nothing ALPA says is ever "spun or flawed". TPFIC....

 

[D'Angelo]

Check out http://www.nrtw.org they have some great info as well. Straight up tells you what your rights are and abuses that unions commit. Whats wrong with being anti-union? Just because we are pilots doesnt mean everyone has to drink the alpo koolaid. I am a person in the middle. I drink neither union or management koolaid. I think for myself nothing more nothing less

 

[redbook]

Check out http://www.nrtw.org they have some great info as well. Straight up tells you what your rights are and abuses that unions commit. Whats wrong with being anti-union? Just because we are pilots doesnt mean everyone has to drink the alpo koolaid. I am a person in the middle. I drink neither union or management koolaid. I think for myself nothing more nothing less

Show one post on this board where you have sided with pilots interests. One.

Can't because you are being paid to do exactly what you did in the above post.

 

[Dave Benjamin]

Do some research on who is behind that union facts website before you put much stock in it.

 

[belchfire]

Rez, your avitar has (among other things) really, really nice legs. Hollywood and other advocates of stick figure women should take notice!

When people started cracking a few skulls in the late 20's and 30's unions were a quasi-socialist pro worker thing. Unfortunately they have morphed into big business of and for themselves.

The last truly solid thing that I know of that ALPA did for air safety was insisting on the balanced field concept when the 707 was being certified.
Probably alot of things I have missed over the years, but they sure have been doing poorly representing their members lately-as have all unions...

if the jobs get shipped overseas they will loose all those dues...we better
take this offer so that management can show a profit and please the shareholders (when in reality the ceo's and other execs are lining their pockets and the shareholders are not seeing any results of the lowered wages)...

Funny though how they can save the job of someone that doesn't deserved to be saved. Guess that they have gotten really good at fighting the small fights but can't win a real battle.

Don't fret, it's not just alpa, it's all of them...teamsters, machinists, every sorry one of them. Now they mostly seem to do what will represent the flow of dues to the treasury. They have better fiscal policy than the dems or republicans...and the success of all three is on our backs. Dang are we screwed up....

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

When people started cracking a few skulls in the late 20's and 30's unions were a quasi-socialist pro worker thing. Unfortunately they have morphed into big business of and for themselves.....

True, but only partially. Watch a movie called Matewan. "The Company" isn't exactly good ol' capitalist just trying to make an honest buck. In fact the goons with guns the company hired made Nazi's look like alter boys. One of the best parts was when James Earl Jones' character said "I may have even been called a nig*** but nobody has ever called me a scab!"

Like any relationship it takes two. But guess who has control? Guess who changes the working conditions and pay unilaterally....

The last truly solid thing that I know of that ALPA did for air safety was insisting on the balanced field concept when the 707 was being certified.
Probably alot of things I have missed over the years, but they sure have been doing poorly representing their members lately-as have all unions.......

I guess you missed the LAHSO campaign? Poor job representing? Think of the DAL, UAL and NWA pilots without represention at all: no TA, no voting, no negotiations. Not sure there is a better union out there to represent during these unprecedented times. But if you can debate that no representation or other representation than ALPA would be better, then please...tell us...

if the jobs get shipped overseas they will loose all those dues...we better
take this offer so that management can show a profit and please the shareholders (when in reality the ceo's and other execs are lining their pockets and the shareholders are not seeing any results of the lowered wages).......

Dues? How our very jobs? If the jobs get shipped overseas then we have no jobs, no income and we seek retraining for our new careers. Cabatoge and Foreign control are real threats. How do you suggest we stop or curb those threats? I suggest ALPA-PAC and CAPA-PAC. What do you suggest?

Funny though how they can save the job of someone that doesn't deserved to be saved. Guess that they have gotten really good at fighting the small fights but can't win a real battle. ....

Yeah, that saving some clowns job thing... Problem is how does the union decide who gets to keep their job and who doesn't. Now you are asking for a good ol' boy club. Also, if they don't fight for this clowns job, then the reasons for firing just got easier and closer to the main herd. I know, I know, good guys don't screw up. (By the way.. define a good guy. )

I don't know, I guess one has to realize what they've got. And sometimes one doesn't till its gone. There is alot that ALPA does for its members that isn't realized. Same can be said for the gov't: local, state and Fed.

If you can show up to work, and do your job pretty much worry free, then maybe your union is doing something right. Intimidation and pilot pushing are real threats, even today.

Don't fret, it's not just alpa, it's all of them...teamsters, machinists, every sorry one of them. Now they mostly seem to do what will represent the flow of dues to the treasury. They have better fiscal policy than the dems or republicans...and the success of all three is on our backs. Dang are we screwed up....

You are right it is all of them..... all of the members. Apathetic and cynical. Oh don't get me wrong. When a teamster member leaves the shop floor and gets a union job with millions in budget and that Chevy gets traded in for a Caddy he will do almost whatever to keep it...

So we had better attend the meetings and ask the questions. You know.. get involved. Problem is...at ALPA only 35% of the members particapte in elections. (do you like my signature? ) Only 5% show up at meetings. Ever file a grievance? If unions are "flawed" so is the membership, each and everyone one of us....

If unions are flawed, then what is the better solution?

 

[ImbracableCrunk]

D'Angelo,

You don't drink the Company Koolaid because you're too busy serving it up on the boards. You come up with the new flavors! You are obviously an RAA or other industry association stooge.

I hope everyone adds you to their ignore lists. Here's how:

1. Click on "User CP"
2. Click on "Buddy / Ignore Lists"
3. Enter "D'Angelo" on the "Ignore List"
4. Enjoy these boards more than ever without that paid lobbyist's scripted muck.

 

[John Pennekamp]

Let the truth be told.

www.unionfacts.org

*yawn* Old news.

And I wouldn't consider that "facts" any more than this guy "dog in the woods" speech or my company CEO talking about how the union is going to kill the company.

 

[GogglesPisano]

Check out http://www.nrtw.org they have some great info as well. Straight up tells you what your rights are and abuses that unions commit. Whats wrong with being anti-union? Just because we are pilots doesnt mean everyone has to drink the alpo koolaid. I am a person in the middle. I drink neither union or management koolaid. I think for myself nothing more nothing less

Name some non-union airlines that are decent places to work.

1) Skywest
2) Jetblue.

Any others? OK. That's 2 out of several hundred airlines. The evidence speaks for itself.

 

[Dave Benjamin]

Some of you are so gullible....

Group Starts Anti-Union Campaign


By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: February 14, 2006
A new business-backed group is mounting a highly visible attack against organized labor, just as unions are trying to pick themselves up after suffering a schism and years of decline.
The group, the Center for Union Facts, ran full-page advertisements in national newspapers yesterday and started a Web site, UnionFacts.com, asserting that many unions are corrupt and have hurt airlines, steel makers and automakers.
"Obviously I'm putting out information that's not very flattering," said Richard Berman, a longtime lobbyist for the restaurant and beverage industry who is executive director of the Center for Union Facts. "The average person today, including the average union member, doesn't have any idea how unions operate and what the realities are. Everybody knows what unions are good at, but not what they're bad at."
The Center for Union Facts shot onto the public stage yesterday by running full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The ads, which cost a total of $240,000, say "The New Union Label," and then show a sign with the word "Closed" in capital letters hanging from a plant gate. Then it adds, "Brought to you by the union 'leaders' who helped bankrupt steel, auto and airline companies."
Mr. Berman said various companies and a foundation had contributed to his nonprofit group, but he refused to identify them. He said he hoped to spend more than $5 million a year on the campaign.
A spokeswoman for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Lane Windham, said: "It's clear that corporations are fighting back against workers' efforts to roll back corporate power. It's no accident that corporations are doing this against us when unions are trying to make sure that employers pay their fair share on heath care and when we're taking on giant corporations like Wal-Mart."
Mr. Berman runs a public affairs firm in Washington and helped to create the American Beverage Institute and the Employment Policies Institute, which has helped the restaurant industry fight increases in the minimum wage.
He has faced criticism in recent years for arguing on behalf of his clients that drinking a lot of soda does not contribute to diabetes and that Americans have been "force-fed a steady diet of obesity myths by the 'food police,' trial lawyers, and even our own government." Mr. Berman was also criticized for fighting a push by Mothers Against Drunk Driving to tighten rules on alcohol limits for drivers.
"We do take edgy positions and they're all very legitimate," Mr. Berman said yesterday.
Ms. Windham of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said Mr. Berman's attack on unions was another of his campaigns against those who clash with his corporate clients.
The attack comes as organized labor is facing divisions that have caused five unions to quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. over the past year.
Unions have also struggled with declining membership, as the percentage of American workers in unions has sunk to 12.5 percent of the work force, down from 35 percent in the 1950's.
A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials said the president of a state chamber of commerce told them that at a conference in Florida on Jan. 26, the state chambers had pledged several million dollars to back Mr. Berman's effort. But Mr. Berman said that when he spoke at the conference, he neither asked for nor received contributions. Rather, he said, he asked chamber officials to recommend that businesses in their states donate to his efforts.
Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that as far as he knew neither the United States Chamber nor any state chambers had contributed to the Center for Union Facts.
Mr. Johnson said he had served as an adviser to the center. The center was founded as several unions had grown more aggressive about unionizing workers, often pressuring employers not to fight organizing drives. In addition, many unions are pressing companies to agree to recognize them, not through representation elections, but through a process known as card check, in which companies grant recognition as soon as a majority of workers sign cards saying they want a union.
"In card check campaigns, unions tend to control the information that the workers hear," Mr. Johnson said. "We think the Center on Union Facts is useful for workers to have access to more information on unions."
Mr. Berman said his center hoped to help enact a Republican-backed bill that would prohibit unions from organizing workers through card checks.
For a dozen different unions, the center's Web site details the compensation of leaders, the amount of each union's political contributions and how often members have sued the union for not representing them properly.
"Union leaders have abused the trust of their members," the center says on its Web site. "They've misspent member dues and harmed the very same people they promise to protect."
Anna Burger, president of the Change to Win Federation, a group of unions that quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, "These anti-union activists can name themselves whatever they like, but the fact is that unions help working families secure the American Dream and that's good for our country."

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Get the hooks out of your gills.....

Right-wing Lobbyist Initiates Misleading Anti-union Campaign

By Joel Wendland

click here for related stories: right wing watch http://www.politicalaffairs.net/images/1x1.gif2-20-06, 9:02 am

Who is Richard Berman, and why does he hate labor unions so much?

Berman is a corporate lobbyist and lawyer who runs Berman and Company. His company has been hired by the US Chamber of Commerce, to the tune of $8 million this year alone, to manage a project called Unionfacts.com.

The goal of this multi-million dollar campaign is to run a website and fund an expensive ad campaign to attack the AFL-CIO and its member unions.

Insiders who were present at a recent Chamber of Commerce national strategy meeting told labor activists that the anti-union campaign is a direct response to the efforts of AFL-CIO unions and others to help workers win the right to health care benefits.

Taking on major corporations such as Wal-Mart who skimp on health care benefits for their employees, the AFL-CIO, other unions, and Internet organizations like WakeUpWalMart.com are backing a nationwide campaign called Fair Share for Health Care.

The health care campaign supports bills that have been introduced or are about to be introduced in state legislatures modeled on a bill recently passed by the Maryland state legislature.

The new Maryland law requires large, highly profitable corporate employers like Wal-Mart to pay a fair percentage of the health care costs of their employees. It prevents them from passing their health care costs on to taxpayers by forcing their low-paid workers to apply for state-sponsored Medicaid for themselves and their families.

WakeUpWalMart.com estimates that employees of Wal-Mart across the country are forced to turn to public assistance programs, like hard-strapped state Medicaid programs, to provide health care for their families, costing literally hundreds of millions of dollars to taxpayers each year. Read more here: http://politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/1591/1/110/

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The passage of the Maryland law and the growing popularity of similar bills across the country has angered that portion of the business community that believes profits are more important than the needs of our communities.

Some in the business community apparently prefer to spend millions on lawyers’ fees and advertising campaigns than on providing health insurance for their employees.

To do its dirty work, the Chamber of Commerce has hired Richard Berman’s company.

Berman has a long record of taking corporate money in order to target community and public advocacy groups, making outrageous and even dangerous claims.

For example, according to a recent story on AFL-CIO Now, Berman’s company is behind a multimillion dollar public relations campaign deceptively funneled through a Berman-controlled front group innocuously called the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), aimed at convincing pregnant women to eat more tuna, despite US government warnings that the high mercury content in tuna is dangerous for children and pregnant women.

According to ConsumerDeception.com, Berman front groups and his lobbying firm have also taken corporate money to attack Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) on behalf of the alcohol industry.

Berman’s outfit described MADD, which sought to publicize the dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol, as essentially a "scare" group. Berman vigorously fought MADD’s successful efforts to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit.

Berman’s CCF organization was founded in 1995 with $600,000 in donations from major cigarette maker Phillip Morris and Co. and the tobacco lobby, according to the Washington Post. And according to ConsumerDeception.com, Berman used the money to attack scientifically based warnings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against second hand smoke. With tobacco lobby cash in his pocket, Berman strove to convince the public that second hand smoke is OK.

According to ConsumerDeception.com, Berman took close to $3 million from Phillip Morris and Co. between 1995 and 1998.

Berman has gotten rich by attacking public health organizations who call for adequate standards in our food and water, along with consumer safety and environmental groups, all at the behest of the corporations who turn to him with deep pockets.

Berman was also directly linked to specific ethics violations that forced former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich to step down from party leadership and ultimately out of office.

Berman’s CCF group was launched as a nonprofit organization, which under federal tax law requires it to remain non-partisan. What hasn’t been fully explained is whether Berman’s donations to Republican Party campaign coffers came indirectly from supposedly charitable donations through groups like CCF or others controlled by him.

The non-partisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has expressed concerns that Berman inappropriately pocketed huge wads of cash donated to the supposedly non-profit group, which is prohibited federal laws regulating non-profit organizations. The group’s promotion of corporate interests only also weaken its claim to charitable work.

The apparent abuse of CCF’s non-profit status has prompted (CREW) to write to the IRS formally requesting that it investigate CCF for "multiple violations of IRS law."

Berman’s latest project, the Center for Union Facts (CUF), misleadingly claims to be supported by a wide range of people interested in "union transparency" and has also filed for non-profit status. Its website suggests that it is a neutral party, but its main source of funding – the US Chamber of Commerce – and Berman’s strong ties to the anti-union section of the corporate community and Republican Party strongly suggest otherwise.

When CUF-sponsored ads recently appeared in national newspapers attacking labor unions with a barrage of misleading information, CREW reiterated its call for an IRS investigation of the non-profit status of Berman’s various front groups.

Given this sordid record, how could anyone trust anything Richard Berman has to say?


--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at [email protected].


Looks like there are plenty of guliable ALPA pilots and ALPA haters trust all that Berman has to say.... pretty pathetic.. Professional Pilots taking information at face value..... So much for self education....


Diclaimer: PA.net is out there....

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Berman

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q1/berman1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Berman

His résumé includes work for Beverage Retailers Against Drunk Driving (BRADD), where he argued for "tolerance of social drinking;"



​

Groups run by Berman

• The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) The CCF attacks anyone who criticizes smoking, fast­food, or alcohol from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
• The Center for Union Facts (CUF), an organization that on February 13, 2006, ran full-page ads in major print media outlets (NY Times, WSJ, the Washington Post) to blame unions for the bankruptcies of American industries.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

MORE:





According to Melanie Sloan of the Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), (as heard on the Al Franken show, Air America, 2/21/06) Berman's organizations are not valid 501(c)(3) charitable organizations because Berman, acting as executive director, hires himself out as a lobbyist (he has a separate lobbying firm, Berman & Co) to influence legislation.[2] CREW has written to Senators Chuck Grassley and Max Baucus, ranking members of the Senate Finance Committee, asking for an investigation into the validity of the tax-exempt status of Berman's organizations.
http://www.consumerdeception.com/

Richard Berman is a spin doctor. For example, he has argued against a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) initiative to lower the blood alcohol content (BAC) limit for drivers by claiming that the stricter limits would punish responsible social drinkers. He has claimed that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warnings about salmonella-related food poisoning are just “whipping up fear over food.”

Richard Berman is an influence peddler. He has worked out a scheme to funnel charitable donations from wealthy corporations into his own pocket. In exchange, he provides a flurry of disinformation, flawed studies, op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, and trade-industry articles, as well as access to his high-level government contacts, who are servants of the industries he represents.

Berman arranges for large sums of corporate money to find its way into nonprofit societies of which he is the executive director. He then hires his own company as a consultant to these nonprofit groups. Of the millions of dollars “donated” by Philip Morris between the years 1995 and 1998, 49 percent to 79 percent went directly to Berman or Berman & Co.

The key to Berman’s aggressive strategy is, in his own words, “to shoot the messenger ... we’ve got to attack their credibility as spokespersons,”—an interesting remark from someone whose background and funding so severely challenge his own credibility.

 

[doh]

Let the truth be told.

www.unionfacts.org

Yes, let management determine what's best! Enron is a shining example of the great things management will do if just given the chance! ..l..