Look for the Union Label Part II

Good day all. As you know, the North Eastern United States was hit by a hurricane which pretty much wrecked parts of New Jersey and New York City. I won’t go into the utter incompetence of the local government responses here. I’ve already written about what NYC Mayor Bloomberg thinks is more important.

No, this time I’m going to write about, (Yet again), how unions are putting themselves ahead of the needs of the people. In the aftermath of the storm, the low laying areas were hit with a massive storm surge. This was on top of high tide. Sea water got into the NYC subway system and wrecked the power grids leaving tens of thousands of people with no electricity.

Power companies in other states promptly sent crews up to the affected areas to help repair the damage as rapidly as possible. However, when the crews arrived, they ran into a problem named the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. This is the union for electrical workers in the region and they told the crews coming in that they had to join the union or they wouldn’t be allowed to work. Here are the details from Fox Business:

Despite devastation and millions of power outages in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a utility crew from Alabama said it has been unable to help a ravaged New Jersey shore town due to a union dispute.

Officials from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers presented Alabama-based Decatur Utilities with documents that “required our folks to affiliate with the union,” Ray Hardin, general manager of Decatur, told FOX Business on Friday. “That was something that we could not agree to. It was our understanding and still is that it was a requirement for us to work in that area.”

Once again, Union thugs show what they consider to be more important. Lining the pockets of the union with forced kick backs masquerading as “voluntary” union dues.

Hardin said most of his six-man, four-vehicle crew was stuck in Virginia on Thursday instead of helping the N.J. shore town of Seaside Heights recover due to the bureaucratic tie-up. Eventually his crew ended up heading back home to Alabama because of the disagreement.

“We chose we could not agree to those documents and began looking for other areas that could use our assistance without those conditions,” Hardin said.

I don’t blame these people at all. I have no idea if they are part of a union shop or not, but it would not surprise me at all that they aren’t. Unions in the private sector have been losing membership for decades. Workers are better educated and can see that there generally there is no benefit to being in a union.

I’ve had to deal with Union workers, and they are generally not what I would call hard workers. Thanks to those contracts, they are generally all paid the same. It doesn’t matter if one worker excels, he or she will be treated just the same as the ones who don’t excel. Another group came up from Florida and ran into the same problem. Here are the details from the Daily Caller:

In a two-page Oct. 29 contract, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 1049 demanded union dues, pay hikes and benefit contributions from Florida electric utilities before its workers would be permitted to help reconnect power to Long Island communities. The demand came as Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the Northeastern United States, stranding tens of millions without electricity.

I do believe the term for this is extortion. Unions are very good at this, especially when third parties are the ones suffering.

The “Letter of Assent,” which The Daily Caller obtained from the Florida Municipal Electric Association, demanded 11 separate financial commitments from municipal power companies and electrical cooperatives in the Sunshine State. The agreement, for any utility that decided to sign it, would have been in force from Oct. 29 to Nov. 29.

This time, the Union only needed two or three blows to the back of the head to understand they had really put their foot in it.

Barry Moline, the association’s executive director, told The DC that by Nov. 1 the union, based in the central Long Island town of Hauppauge, had relented and stopped insisting that nonunion crews pay dues and other union fees.

“The union director” himself placed a phone call to withdraw the letter, Moline said during a telephone interview Saturday. But that came only after Moline had notified a national trade group, the American Public Power Association, which turned outrage into action.

Nothing like loads of bad press, not to mention angry people ready to string up the union goons for pulling these tactics. Governor Christy, no friend of unions, got rather annoyed when he heard about these stunts. Once he finished kissing Obama’s ass, he called the utilities and unions and let fly.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie bristled at reports Friday that an electricians’ union stood in the way of some utility workers who wanted to help restore power to victims of Hurricane Sandy. He would use his emergency-management powers, he said, to guarantee that nonunion crews could help restore his state’s electricity grid without interference.

“I’ve been on the phone with PSE&G [Public Service Electric and Gas Company], JCP&L [Jersey Central Power & Light] and the union, and they’ve all absolutely promised me they would never turn away a single worker whether they were union or nonunion, and I wouldn’t allow it,” Christie told reporters shortly after 3:30 p.m. Friday afternoon.

“I would invoke my powers under the Disaster Control Act to prevent that from happening, but they’ve assured me we don’t have to.”

It may be to late though, but at least Governor Christy is actually doing something. President Photo-Op came in, got his picture taken and promptly flew out again for his 943^rd round of golf prior to his next campaign stop. As I mentioned earlier and in another post, Michael “The Moronic Midget” Bloomberg was to busy yelling “Let them eat running shoes!” to actually do his job as Mayor of New York City.

A spokesman for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn’t reply to emails asking whether his boss would take a similar hard line. A spokeswoman for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo similarly didn’t return phone calls asking the same question.

Say, anyone want to play “Which political party gets things done?” Cuomo is a Democrat of course and wholly owned by the Unions in New York. Emperor Bloomers was a Republican when he though it would help him get elected, but now he’s a democrat. He couldn’t wait to change his party affiliation and get back in with “His” kind of people. (Elitist moonbats)

It’s time to start crushing these unions, once and for all. The best way to do that is end any closed shop, mandatory union membership and force unions to compete with everyone else. No more special privileges, and no more looting the memberships pockets for the union heads benefit. There’s a reason most people support “Right to work” laws ((Right-to-work law)). Workers see that it isn’t in their best interests to join a union and won’t unless they have no choice. (Unions are big on forcing people to join them as a condition of work)

Now, thanks to International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 1049, repairs that might have been completed haven’t even been started due to a lack of manpower. Now, the temperature is dropping and there is a prediction for another storm later this week. I’m sure all those people freezing in the dark are real happy about how much the Unions care about them.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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