Town hall protests marked by physical aggression

[BloodEclipse]

SEIU and the “persuasion of power”

By Michelle Malkin • August 6, 2009 11:44 PM
In May, I told you how the Service Employees International Union’s $61 million investment in Barack Obama paid off with cabinet appointments, executive orders, key personnel slots, and legislative goodies.
Now, the SEIU thugs are looking out for The Boss. In Tampa, Florida and St. Louis today, the Purple People turned out to give cover to members of Congress targeted by Tea Party activists and town hall protesters. For the first time, the town hall protests were marked by physical aggression. More on the St. Louis arrests of confrontational Obamacare activists here. (Just like Obama wanted: “In your face.”) This is no coincidence.
I’m excerpting a portion of my Culture of Corruption chapter on the SEIU. This is what you are up against.
***
EXCERPTED FROM Chapter 7, “SEIU: Look for the union label,” Culture of Corruption
“The persuasion of power”
Asked about his organizing philosophy, Andy Stern summed it up this way: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.”
Stern and his shock troops have bullied companies from private equity firms to Burger King to food management company Aramark, who have resisted SEIU’s attempts to organizer their workers. The Purple People have organized aggressive protests and a “War on Greed” campaign to pound the employers into submission. One of the besieged targets, security provider Wackenhut Services, battled SEIU’s attempts to gain exclusive representation for its employees. The company already ten other unions representing its workers. Initially unbowed by a massive, malicious negative publicity campaign against them, Wackenhut blew the whistle:

The SEIU seeks membership growth through aggressive “corporate campaigns” that have a blunt message to employers, “Let us unionize your workforce or we will destroy your reputation.” This tactic has been used against a number of organizations to include Wal-Mart, Kaiser Permanente, Advocate Health Care, Catholic Healthcare West, and Sutter Health.
SEIU is attempting to coerce The Wackenhut Corporation and WSI to recognize it as the “exclusive” collective bargaining representative throughout Wackenhut. Wackenhut declined to enter into such an agreement. The SEIU responded with a corporate campaign that is intended to damage WSI’s reputation and relationships with our clients. Their campaign tactics include distributing misinformation, distortion and omission of fact through the media, conducting demonstrations in proximity of work sites in an effort to disrupt normal client operations, and aggressively attempting to intimidate or influence clients.

But after filing a racketeering lawsuit against the SEIU, a weary and drained Wackenhut entered into an agreement allowing its employees in nine cities to choose SEIU as its bargaining representative. Behold the “persuasion of power.”
Showing an appalling lack of concern for the well-being of its members, the SEIU upped the ante in a representation battle with the University of Miami in 2006. The union fought tooth and nail against a true, democratic unionizing election for campus janitors using a secure, federally monitored secret ballot. Stern personally escalated the dispute, joined the fasters, and demonized then-university president Donna Shalala (yes, that Donna Shalala of Clinton yore). She lashed back:

We are devastated that the union is risking the health and well-being of our students and the Unicco employees by sanctioning an activity as drastic as a hunger strike. Hunger strikes have never been used in this country to oppose an election. We have urged both parties to continue daily discussions until this issue is resolved. A free election for or against unionization is a federal statutory right.

In the end, the SEIU relented to a federally monitored election. But at what price? Five SEIU members were hospitalized, one with a minor stroke. Wackenhut Corporation chief operating officer Paul Donahue, expressing sympathy for the University of Miami’s plight, saw the big picture:
The bullying, protesting, harassment, contrived events and demands will continue indefinitely because the union has millions of dollars in dues money from hard working janitors and other service workers which can be spent on ruining the reputation of businesses instead of bettering the lives of those workers that contributed.
Indeed, no one has felt the blunt force – and physical danger — of Stern’s “persuasion of power” more than workers themselves.
In Oakland, Stern and his Washington crew imposed a trusteeship on a 150,000-member local that had publicly opposed SEIU strong-arm tactics. The D.C.headquarters (knee deep in ethical mud) accused the local – known as SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (UHW West) – of financial malpractice and misconduct. The local fought back, charging the Beltway union leaders with manufacturing the allegations to retaliate and to distract from Washington mismanagement. The UHW West president, Sal Rosselli, quit the SEIU Executive Board, and formed a new union in February 2009, which declared: “We’re tired of SEIU’s hostile tactics, threatening phone calls, their collusion with employers and governors like Blagojovich, and the corruption of Stern’s appointees like Local 6434 head Tyrone Freeman in Los Angeles, disgraced SEIU Executive Vice President Annelle Grajada, and the appointees who have just taken over what had been our local. We don’t trust them with our contracts, we don’t trust them with our dues—we just don’t trust them.”
In Philadelphia, Stern engineered the hostile takeover of a 150,000-member union representing garment and hospitality workers. Workers United had broken off from the national UNITE HERE union of 450,000 workers. Progressive New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, citing SEIU’s agreement with Workers United, called Stern “hellbent on using classic corporate raider tactics to bring a huge portion of the U.S. labor movement under his absolute control.” The pact included discounted member dues and legal and financial assistance to aid the breakaway group’s efforts to take control of the Amalgamated Bank, the nation’s only union-owned bank. One union official called the power grab “a breathtaking form of imperialism…”

Know your enemy.

Here we go.

[BloodEclipse]

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/aug/06/protests-passions-roiling-town-hall-meeting-health/news-metro/

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/0470FEB3219207458625760B001142AC?OpenDocument

[Dryden]

In the first article: "When you get to the point of possible violence, you've gone over the edge," she said.


There's a quote worth examining.
It wasn't a violent meeting... it was at the pointof possibly getting violent. This woman has the ability to see the future actions of her constituents and she believes them to have the potential for possible violence. (A clairvoyant politician....wow)
Maybe her constituents have the ability to see that she has the potential for the possibility to sell them out??? That would certainly drive most voters to the edge.

[POTI]

"Reed said she was shocked by the number of people who turned out and some of their reactions."

Time to leave the bubble and see what the real world is all about

[Pami]

You would think that MAYBE because SO MANY people are actually getting involved in these town hall meetings -- for or against, but according to one article "mostly opponents [of the Health Care bill]" -- they would get a clue and realize something's just not quite right here. I admit I haven't been as interested in politics my whole life as I have been this last year, but I can't remember when -nationwide- the people got this riled up about what's going on in DC.

[don't_tread_on_me]

The sad part is all the polls show a majority of the folks oppose this current health care plan, but they are hell bent on passing it anyway. The politicians no longer fear the people that elected them and that needs to change! It's time they start listening to us instead of telling us what they are going to do.

[model67a]

Originally Posted by Pami

You would think that MAYBE because SO MANY people are actually getting involved in these town hall meetings -- for or against, but according to one article "mostly opponents [of the Health Care bill]" -- they would get a clue and realize something's just not quite right here. I admit I haven't been as interested in politics my whole life as I have been this last year, but I can't remember when -nationwide- the people got this riled up about what's going on in DC.

The reason why there is more resistance is because of the internet. People are being made aware of things the politicians kept from us before. The news media is controlled by the government but they cannot control the internet, but they are trying to gain control of it and they will if we let them.. stay safe

[jeremy]

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy

[melensdad]

From St. Louis at Congressman Russ Carnahan's Town Hall Meeting on Health Care

"It just seems there's no freedom of speech without being attacked," - Kenneth Gladney, victim of SEIU thugs

YouTube - Obama's SEIU Thugs Attack Black...

At one minute into the video, one of the thugs says (regarding the person who was attacked):

The thug stated: "He attacked America" as his rational for attacking the man on the street! Oh, well I see, if you oppose the union you get your butt kicked in public!

Yup, get the federal service union members involved and they will 'enforce' the Democratic position with violence.

[rjwin1967]

Read "War To The Knife" about the decade before the Civil War and you will see several similarities between the town meetings of today and the town meetings in Missouri and Kansas then. This is how a civil war starts. First with violent arguments, then physical violence, then organized violence. It's already started. Who knows how it will end.