A labor union representing roofers is reversing course and calling for repeal of the federal health law, citing concerns the law will raise its cost for insuring members.
Organized labor was instrumental in getting the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, but more recently has voiced concerns that the law could lead members to lose their existing health plans. The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers is believed to be the first union to initially support the law and later call for its repeal.
The Union’s statement, which can be found here, in part reads:
United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers International President Kinsey M. Robinson issued the following statement today calling for a repeal or complete reform of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA):
“Our Union and its members have supported President Obama and his Administration for both of his terms in office.
But regrettably, our concerns over certain provisions in the ACA have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored. In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.
In a perverse sort of way, it’s funny that people actually believed Barack Obama when he said “If you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan.”
Union thug Richard Trumka and his buddy Barack I’ve come under some fire from a few union lackeys over my Labor Day post — teamsters who have contacted me to tell me how misguided my closing lines actually are. You see, in describing unions as having a long history of hatred and violence toward non-union members like me, I’m accused of being “unfair.”
Well, I wonder.
Via Michelle Malkin, who has been indefatigable on this subject:
Meet Eddie York. He was a workingman whose story will never scroll across Obama’s teleprompter. A nonunion contractor who operated heavy equipment, York was shot to death during a strike called by the United Mine Workers 17 years ago. Workmates who tried to come to his rescue were beaten in an ensuing melee. The head of the UMW spearheading the wave of strikes at that time? Richard Trumka. Responding to concerns about violence, he shrugged to the Virginian-Pilot in September 1993: “I’m saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned.” Incendiary rhetoric, anyone?
A federal jury convicted one of Trumka’s UMW captains on conspiracy and weapons charges in York’s death. According to the Washington, D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, which tracks Big Labor abuse, Trumka’s legal team quickly settled a $27 million wrongful death suit filed by York’s widow just days after a judge admitted evidence in the criminal trial. An investigative report by Reader’s Digest disclosed that Trumka “did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local.”
In Illinois, Trumka told UMW members to “kick the shit out of every last” worker who crossed his picket lines, according to the Nashville (Ill.) News. And as the National Right to Work Foundation (pdf), the leading anti-forced unionism organization in the country, pointed out, other UMW coalfield strikes resulted in what one judge determined were “violent activities … organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.”
Trumka washed off the figurative bloodstains and moved up the ranks. As AFL-CIO secretary, he notoriously refused to testify in a sordid 1999 embezzlement trial involving his labor boss brethren at the Teamsters Union. No surprise. Thugs of a feather: Trumka’s violence-promoting record echoes the riotous Teamsters strikes dating back to the 1950s, when the union organized taxicab companies to target workers with gas bombs, bottles and fists.
And now, Trumka is spearheading a Democratic Party get-out-the-vote campaign by far-left groups — publicized in the revolutionary Marxist People’s World — to “energize an army of tens of thousands who will return to their neighborhoods, churches, schools and voting booths to prevent a Republican takeover of Congress in November and begin building a new permanent coalition to fight for a progressive agenda.”
Take those as literal fighting words. The bloody consequences of compulsory unionism cannot be ignored.
Also, according to the FBI, “four of the last eight Teamsters presidents have been criminally indicted and since FY 2001, racketeering investigations have yielded more than 2,000 indictments and awarded more than $3 billion in fines and restitution. In past union elections, Hoffa’s team was caught laundering union funds for electioneering and for campaign polling on dues-payers’ dime.”
AFSCME, UFCW, and SEIU corner Republican Congressman and shout: “Fuck you!” “Shame!”
Union thugs in front of Verizon Vice President Bill Foshay’s private home yelling: “We’re here to fight, Bill!”
Union thug to Jewish guy: “Bad Jew!”
Union thug to Fox News reporter: “I hate you because it makes me feel good.”
Union thug in Ohio: “The tea party is a bunch of dick-sucking corporate butt-lickers who want to crush the working people of this country…. You’re fucking hypocrites.”
And in Denver, racist SEIU supporters taunt gay black entrepreneur Leland Robinson, who had the nerve to (correctly) criticize teacher’s unions at a Capitol rally: “Get behind that fence where you belong! Do you have any children? That you claim?”
The following photos were captured by Zombie on May 5, 2011, at the May Day rally in downtown Los Angeles. This event was co-sponsored by the SEIU — a gigantic socialist labor organization that Barack Obama is famously fond of:
Barack Obama:
Everybody: There’s not a presidential candidate, a gubernatorial candidate, a congressional candidate, who won’t tell ya, that they’re pro-union, when they’re looking for their endorsements. They’ll all say, ‘Oh we love SEIU.’ But the question you gotta ask yourself is, do they have it in their gut, do they have a track record of standing alongside you on picket lines? Do they have a track record of going after the companies that aren’t letting you organize? Do they have a track record of voting the right way? But also helping you organize to build more and more power?
And some of you know I come from an organizing background, so — I’ve been working with the SEIU before I was elected to anything. When I was a community organizer, SEIU Local 880 and myself we organized people, to make sure that healthcare workers had basic rights; we organized voter registration drives, that’s how we built political power on the South Side of Chicago….and now the time has come for us to do it all across this country, and then we’ll paint the nation purple, with SEIU!
I would not be a United States Senator had it not been for the support of your brothers and sisters in Illinois. Those folks, they supported me early, they supported me often. I’ve got my purple windbreaker from my campaign in 2004.
And so, we’ve just got, what, four more days? Four more days of knocking on some doors. Four more days of working the precinct. Four more days of making sure all your co-workers are caucusing. SEIU, I am glad you are with me, let’s together change the country! SEIU! SEIU! SEIU! SEIU! SEIU!”
The mob captured in the following video calls to mind Massachusetts Congressman Michael Capuano’s recent instructions to unions: “Time to get a little bloody.”
Watch:
If you don’t have the time or the stomach to watch, here are some of the highpoints:
“Shame! Shame! Shame!”
“Fuck you! Fuck you!”
All the while clubbing that cheesy tribal drum, backing Grothman up to the side of a building, harassing him across the lawn, cornering him.
Grothman was eventually rescued by Democratic Senator Brett Hulsey.
