MaxRedline

Big Labor Butts Into The Grocery Checkout

Filed in July, Initiative Petition 41 is backed by the Oregon AFL-CIO, a coalition of labor groups representing about 300,000 Oregon workers.

“We have been consistently concerned about the impacts of technology and automation on the livelihoods of working people, especially when they have no voice in how technology is used in their workplaces,” Graham Trainor, president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “You can see the expansion of self-checkout machines in stores across the country and in Oregon.”

He said jobs are lost as a result.

The AFL-CIO contends self-checkout kiosks make customers feel socially isolated, particularly elderly people, and that the kiosks let stores rely more on part-time workers and leave workers “feeling devalued.” They also say self-checkout stands make it easier for minors to buy alcohol and for people to steal from stores.

But these days, there are cameras everywhere, and most self-checkout kiosks are monitored by floor employees as well, so Big Labor's arguments are just silly. The kiosks I've used flag alcohol purchases, which must be approved by a floor employee before you can proceed with checkout. So Big Labor's argument in that regard is fallacious as well as silly.

What are their next targets - ATMs and machines that sell postage stamps?

 

 

Another Good Reason To Shop At Fred Meyer

A grocery workers’ union is asking shoppers to boycott Fred Meyer stores in Oregon and southwest Washington. The union’s call for a consumer boycott is the first action taken in response to the store's alleged "unfair" labor practice, union officials said in a statement.

Well, if a union calls for a boycott, I'm heading over there. Easy shopping, for one thing.

 

 

Look For - The union Label

Especially here on the loony left coast:

California unions have figured out the cause of the state’s budget problems — taxes aren’t high enough.

The unions, including the California Teachers’ Association and Service Employee International Union, have filed a ballot initiative to increase commercial property taxes. They argue the hikes are necessary because of a “funding shortfall” in education and to help local governments.

California has the highest top individual tax rate in the country. Its corporate income tax rate is eighth-highest. It has the ninth-highest sales tax. It has the highest gas tax in the county, at 61 cents a gallon. Contributions to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System have soared, too. Last year, employers sent $19.9 billion to CalPERS. A decade ago, they paid $6.9 billion.

Today, nearly 20% of the taxpayer-funded compensation to California teachers is directed toward pension obligations.

Unlikely as it may seem, these people aren't entirely stupid - they fully realize that as taxes continue to increase, their payments go up just like everyone else's. But pushing to kill Proposition 13, which constrains property tax increases to around 1% a year, isn't a big deal as they see it. Because they'll just "negotiate" pay increases to shield them from the effects.

Meanwhile, here in Oregon, unions are gearing up to fight against self-checkout lanes.

As The Wall Street Journal noted this week, Oregon in 2016 heeded calls from labor activists and imposed “one of the country’s most aggressive minimum wage laws.” Portland’s pay floor will hit $14.75 an hour in 2022, one of the highest in the country. Naturally, this progressive push to outlaw more jobs will impose large financial obligations on many small businesses and make it more difficult for unskilled workers to find honest work. McDonald’s and other fast-food outlets, for instance, have accelerated the move toward automation in an effort to control costs amid escalating wage mandates.

Many grocers responded to the latest mandate by simply removing a number of human checkers, leaving staffed lanes largely empty as they moved to self-checkout systems, where one employee can provide assistance to as many as eight lanes of customers should an issue arise.

This development has the union hopping mad:

Having long insisted that boosting the minimum wage will have no effect on employment, they now propose a follow-up economic intervention intended to limit the job losses associated with boosting the minimum wage. Last week, the Oregon AFL-CIO submitted paperwork signaling its intention to qualify the Grocery Store Service and Community Protection Act for the 2020 ballot. If passed, it would prevent Oregon groceries from having more than two self-serve checkout stations.

And they're pushing an amazing argument. Well, it would be, except that they used it before to successfully ban self-service refueling here. It goes like this:

Grocery checkout lanes promote community, and offering patrons the convenience of self-service checkout threatens to exacerbate “social isolation and related negative health consequences.” In addition, “Because people of color are overrepresented in cashier positions … the increasing use of self-service checkouts has a disproportionate negative impact on people of color.”

Same tune we heard when they were fighting self-serve at gas stations. If you want them, it's a heath threat and you're a bigot. wonder if it'll work this time around.

 

 

 

Backlash

There’s no disputing SEIU 503 has been squarely in the Freedom Foundation’s crosshairs since the organization expanded into Oregon in 2015. The two combatants offered starkly different accounts, however, about how much damage had been inflicted.

The question was answered definitively this week when a “for sale” sign went up out front of the headquarters building in Salem the union has called home for more than 20 years.

After spending millions during the 2018 election cycle while simultaneously losing millions in membership dues, SEIU 503 have been forced to vacate the almost $3 million building.

It appears that a lot of folks are availing themselves of recent court decisions that free them to opt out of union membership.

 

Dirty Bob - A Democratic, Of Course

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson tried to cover up his office's collusion with labor unions after a think tank asked for public records about their communications, according to a lawsuit.

Ferguson is one of several Democrats seeking to resist the Trump administration's directive that would prohibit states from siphoning Medicaid payments away from at-home caregivers and putting them in the pockets of labor unions, such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Ferguson's office has been one of the most ambitious in filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, leading the high-profile lawsuit against the executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim nations. "The whole situation is exhibit A of the collusion taking place between Left Coast state governments and the unions they rely on for political support. The losers in this relationship are taxpayers and, in this case, home caregivers."

Pour money into public employee unions, and they'll give you some back, come election time. The campaigns are all that count. You sure don't.

It's all about the Benjamins, baby.

 

More Union Shenanigans

Union workers loading grain for international shipping at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 5 inflated their own time cards and those of colleagues for more than four years, costing their employer, Columbia Export Terminal, more than $5 million, a federal lawsuit alleges. The suit filed by Columbia Export Terminal claims members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s Local 8 and Local 92 engaged in racketeering by conspiring to over bill their employer.

Hanky-panky by the ILWU? Say it isn't so!

Proving once again that they're home to organized crime.

 

They Just Can't Follow The Law

Oregon - The law firm that represented the plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned mandatory union dues has sent cease and desist letters to state officials threatening litigation if they don’t immediately stop deducting dues from employee paychecks.

Under Janus, public employers are prohibited from deducting union fees or dues from a nonmember’s wages without the employee’s affirmative consent.

According to the Oregon DOJ, however, the opinion applies only to the payment of an agency service fee or dues by individuals who decline union membership.

It's a shaky argument, and unlikely to hold up should litigation come into play. But you can't really blame Oregon Democratics for trying to skirt the law by continuing to deduct union "dues" from paychecks. After all, unions are largely what funds their campaigns, and thus, their jobs. They're just trying to find a way to keep from biting the hand that feeds them.

 

 

The Public Pension Hole

Democrat-run cities and states have promised public employee unions generous pensions for years, and now the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. The unfunded liabilities in places from New Jersey and New York to Illinois and the three west coast states, the pension hole is approximately $5 trillion - about the size of the economy of Japan.

This is not a recoverable situation, and it's hard to see how so many people could have failed to see this day coming.

 

Look For - The Union Label

Many political campaign workers spend long hours at low pay, living off of pizza and coffee, all in the hope of seeing their candidate win. The newly formed Campaign Workers Guild claims to have helped organize at least a dozen Democratic campaigns and one political consulting firm.

Gee. And Democratics have long portrayed themselves as being for the working stiff, unlike those evil and greedy Republicans. But they're so for the working stiff that working stiffs have unionized; one of the few forums in the USA that aren't dumping unions.

 

Fear In The Halls

The Supreme Court heard fiery arguments Monday in a case that could remove a key revenue stream for public-sector unions.

The case was brought by Mark Janus, a child support specialist for the state of Illinois. He says he's not against unions, per se: "The problem is that government has given these unions this special privilege to charge us for these fees, in essence, without my permission." Actually, it's a little more complicated - those who choose not to join a union (particularly in the public sector) are nonetheless required to pay "fair-share" fees to that union. Ostensibly, these "partial dues" are not to be used for union politicking.

It's a lie that union bosses have promulgated for nearly half a century; they claim that all "partial dues" monies are used solely to pay for contract "negotiations" when they are, in fact, used to promote policies and Democrat candidates that a conservative would not support - unless forced to do so. And that's exactly how it works.

Kennedy and other conservative justices on the court took the position that everything a public employee union bargains for involves public policy, and thus a public employee who disagrees with that policy should not be forced to pay for the negotiations.

In the 1950s, about a third of the U.S. workforce was union members. Now, it's only about 11 percent overall.

And over one-third of union members are public employees. Even FDR opposed allowing that to happen, and with good reason: public employee unions become adversaries of the general public, because nothing that they "negotiate" ever affects them. If taxes must be raised, they can "negotiate" pay increases to offset the effects. So they are effectively insulated while all the rest of us take the hit.

To some degree, that may be about to change when SCOTUS renders their decision.

Sorry, the ad was done on VHS tape.