Houblog

Just got this email — in my city email inbox, mind you — from my uwanted friends at the SEIU:
Dear Friend,
Earlier this week the SEIU New Media team wrote to you about what our union is doing online to help get Barack Obama elected President of the United States.
Over 25,000 people have […]

Seems the good ol’ boys and girls at the Service Employees International Union of Communism and Illegal Immigration gave the finger to it’s labor force recently: Did a Union Doublecross Its College Activists?
“It is becoming increasingly clear that SEIU leaders often see students and campus workers as little more than pawns to use as […]

Laurence Simon sums up in one simple sentence everything I find wrong about unions today, and why I have no desire to join HOPE, the combined AFL-CIO-SEIU union for Houston city employees:
A Union is not there to get its members all they can get. No, it’s there to represent the members to help them get […]

HOPE, the combined organization formed by the SEIU and AFSCME Now unions has had so little luck getting people to sign up (I’ve mentioned in comments over at bH that the rep got no respect here) that they came by this week to offer pizza just to listen to their pitch. Employees were encouraged […]

The following email appeared in my inbox today:

Dear City Employee:
This message is to help ensure City employees are well informed on matters concerning their jobs. Senate Bill 2866 passed by our Legislature allows City employees the opportunity to voice their opinion on whether or not to be represented by an employee association in a […]

I really did not expect them to have enough sense to do the obvious. I guess I definately underestimated them.

If you’ve been wondering where the Unions Due catagory has been, as well as scans of the propaganda they send me (and others), it’s not been neglect; it’s been a problem with my scanner. For some reason, it didn’t want to work with that computer any more, and no amount of un/re-installing drivers would […]

I might have to watch this just to see how much of a puff piece it is. I really don’t expect them to take the SEIU to task for its support of illegal immigration. That’s something you expect a union would oppose, wouldn’t you?
Recently, the City of Houston recognized that a majority of […]

Carol Alvarado
SEIU

Well, I hope that not everyone was thinking this was going to be earthshaking news or bust an investigation wide open, because it’s not; to some, I suspect it’s not even news. But it is funny and (embarassing in some quarters) to note that what they have in common is each other. […]

Got polled this morning on union-related subjects. Although the pollster denied it, the phrasing of the questions indicated to me that they were affiliated with the AFSCME or AFL-CIO. A lot of the early questions were about working conditions, etc, but as the questions got more specific, they started being slanted so as […]

A little birdie somewhere insdie the SEIU managed to smuggle out a really bad copy of the City of Houston’s Legal Department response to the SEIU petitions. AFSCME wasted no time crowing about SEIU’s failure, in an email to all employees.
City of Houston Employees are closer to winning the better pay and benefits we […]

Oh look, its another “we’re not keeping up with inflation but want you to think we’re doing something for you” raise:
Dear City Employees:
I have directed the senior management of the City to implement a 1.5% pay raise for all full-time civilian employees to begin in April 2006. Eligible civilian employees will receive the pay hike […]

Two more unions have followed the SEIU’s lead in bolting from the AFL-CIO, citing its lack of focus on recruiting. More over at the Captain’s Quarters; original article at the NY Times. The impact on the Houston area will be negligible. Trying to unionize the construction industry here would be like trying […]

Well, the AFSCME NOW folks decided to kick their dispute with the SEIU up a notch or three, finally remembering to talk to the employees themselves. Yes, somehow, they managed to notice that we still exist.

What I consider interesting is that while the AFSCME tosses around the word “illegal” a lot about the SEIU, […]

Because of the amount of reporting on the unions competing to represent the City of Houston employees, I am establishing a new category, “Unions Due” for Houblog.