By: Rachel Pulaski
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) formally announced on Sunday that they have ended their association with the AFL-CIO citing Obamacare and immigration reform as their reasons.
Bretibart.com reported:
In an August 29 letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, ILWU President Robert McEllrath cited quite a list of grievances as reasons for the dissolution of their affiliation, but prominent among them was the AFL-CIO’s support of Obamare.
“We feel the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along,” McEllrath wrote in the letter to Trumka.
The ILWU President made it clear they are for a single-payer, nationalized healthcare policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their “Cadillac” healthcare plan.
The Longshoreman leader said, “President Obama ran on a platform that he would not tax medical plans and at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, you stated that labor would not stand for a tax on our benefits.” But, regardless of that promise, the President has pushed for just such a tax and Trumka and the AFL-CIO bowed to political pressure lining up behind Obama’s tax on those plans.
In related news, “The Lusty Lady Peep Show” was the only unionized strip club in the nation. The club was an SEIU member since 1997 and today it closed after almost forty years of business, because they could not pay their rent. The company would pride themselves on their “humane” practice of giving employees a ten minute break for every hour they worked.
The Atlantic reported:
To locate the ethos of San Francisco’s just-shuttered Lusty Lady peep show, one must look for a sign. Not some mystical “message from the universe” sign, as one might expect in this city of hippie roots, but an actual marquee sign.
On the peep show’s Kearney Street façade, among the enticements for “Live Nudes and Movies” and “Private Booths” curling out in Olde Tyme script, is a telling graphic flourish: Two hands pointing to a banner stating “Free Admission.” Upon close observation, you realize that the fingers pointing to the banner are middle fingers. That, to me, is the Lusty Lady encapsulated: Come one! Come all! F. you!
The nation’s only unionized (SEIU since 1997) and dancer-run adult entertainment business closes September 2 after almost forty years in business. Landlord Roger Forbes, a Nevada-based real estate magnate who bought the building in 2001, declined to negotiate with the cooperative when they weren’t able to make the May rent.
