Gulag Bound
By: Janet Smiles
Teamsters Local 120 created this chart to demonstrate the success of their Union. “The rights which Labor has won, Labor must fight to protect.”
Reported in the Weekly Standard:
Over Half of All Obamacare Waivers Given to Union Members
In what is fast becoming a weekly event, the Obama administration granted 200 more companies aivers from the Democrats’ sweeping health care law in the Friday night news dump. That brings the number of companies receiving waivers to 1,372. (You can get a full list of the companies exempted below.)
Not surprisingly, it helps to be a Democratic ally when seeking a waiver. The Republican Policy Committee reports that over half of the workers that have been exempted so far belong to unions:
The plans newly approved for waivers cover more than 160,000 people, bringing to nearly 3.1 million the number of individuals in plans exempted from the health law’s requirements. Of the participants receiving waivers, more than half – over 1.55 million – are in union plans, raising questions of why such a disproportionate share of union members are receiving waivers from the law’s requirements. The percentage of participants receiving waivers that come from unions also continues to rise – the number was 48% in April, and 45% in March.
Unions already received a generous concession in the health care bill. Their generous “cadilac” insurance plans were exempted from being taxed until 2018, adding about $120 billion to the bill’s cost over ten years. For more on how the administration has helped unions, see my story in THE WEEKLY STANDARD from a few weeks ago.
No brainer question: If unions have created the best working environments and benefit packages, and “if you like what you have now, you can keep it,” why do these same unions need waivers in order to allow them to not fall under the management of Obamacare? Just askin’
Here is the full list of all waivers granted… straight from the horse’s mouth.
Bonus Update from NY Daily News:
Union whistleblowers: We were beaten and harassed after they accused bosses of looting
Unionized phone company employees say they were beaten or threatened after they accused their labor bosses of looting their coffers through various scams.
One member of Communications Workers of America Local 1101 said that after he reported a time-sheet padding scheme, a thug beat him so badly his spine was injured.
Another says he found a dead rat in his locker, while a third said a union officer warned that suspected informants should be brought off company property and “taken care of.”
The threats come to light as the U.S. Labor Department is probing charges that union bosses lined their pockets at the rank-and-file’s expense.
Accusations include an unauthorized 401(k) plan union officers gave themselves funded with members’ dues, along with hefty weekly allowances, lavish expense accounts and six-figure salaries, union documents show.
The feds are also looking into allegations that double-dipping union bosses illegally received pay from Verizon and the local for the same hours, sources said.
So very glad that the Unions got rid of all those sweat shops and oppressive, selfish employers who made themselves wealthy on the backs of the laborer’s hard work.
Trevor and Terresa:
One of the biggest lies about the obamacare program is that they in any way matter. They don’t and that is why they are given out so freely. The truth is, and those who wrote this masterpiece (and it is a masterpiece of deception) know, is that actually NONE OF IT MATTERS! This act has nothing to do with health care… and everything to do with setting up an infrastructure and destroying the current health care system. When the health care system collapses, the infrastructure is in place. It is actually quite ingenious. AND THEY KNOW IT! That is why all of the law suits are left to languish in limbo. All they have to do is stall and then everything… and I do mean “everything” will fall into place. So, pay no attention to the waivers. It is all meant as a diversion. Pay attention to what they are actually very busy doing setting up the infrastructure and the regulations. That is where the “real” money is going. And, oh yeah, the act can not be defunded no matter what some say. It is funded through so many other pieces of legislation. That was one of the things that shocked me when I read it — the fact that this act uses all of the other laws as vehicles in order to fund it. BUT NO ONE HAS NOTICED THAT!
Democrat? This democracy of Obamas is a hogs.
The ones who really belief the US wants “Democracy” should go see the Youtube Vid “Weltschmerz:Introduction”…
There Chomsky admits they are as interested in Democracy as the chinese are in Socialism. Imperialists always had pretenses which sounded benevolant: Civilisatorial mission, spreading Christianity etc.
Organized labor “IS” communism (“workers of the world-unite!”; “DICTATORSHIP of the proletariet”, etc.).
The Democrat party was created by the communist party here in 1924. It began of course, with the labor union moverment.
The DFL is organized labor’s (communism’s) political prostitute. the DFL is, for all practical purposes, the Communist Party-USA.