by Liberty Chick

As one Change to Win labor union blocks a Red Cross blood delivery today, what will a health care system taken hostage by labor unions look like tomorrow?

As Change to Win’s Anna Burger is leading her coalition of unions to lobby all around the country “until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on,” one of her unions is busy blocking the delivery of a Red Cross blood donation to a hospital and picketing private companies’ blood drives.

The Red Cross, which has union workers in various locations who are covered both by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and SEIU, says union leaders are trying to disrupt the Red Cross Blood Services operations by going on strike.

That’s right.  At a time of year when blood donations are at their lowest levels and are the most urgently needed, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, SEIU’s sister union and member of Burger’sChange to Win labor coalition, took advantage of the opportunity to go on strike on December 4th against the American Red Cross Blood Services Penn-Jersey Region.  Local 929  initiated the strike at midnight just as their contract expired.  Hours later, the Red Cross was forced to take legal action when some strikers illegally blocked one blood delivery in particular

“the Red Cross says it had to inform union members that a two-year-old child’s life depended on our blood delivery before they would allow a Red Cross vehicle to exit the yard to get the necessary blood products to the hospital.”

In the Penn-Jersey region alone, the Red Cross provides blood to over 100 hospitals. This incident forced the Red Cross to seek a court injunction against the union, which it won from the court later the same day.

The Red Cross says it is currently in negotiations with union leaders over a pay raise for union workers who package and deliver blood to hospitals, provide assistance at blood drives and help maintain their facility.  While the agency struggles during this economic slump, it has been forced to temporarily suspend merit raises for its non-union staff, as are so many other businesses and non-profit organizations.  This has become the primary sticking point in negotiations with the union, which will not agree to the freeze.

“We are simply asking union employees to make the same sacrifices that their non-union colleagues have already made,” said Anthony Tornetta, Communications Manager for the Red Cross Penn-Jersey Blood Region. “Their refusal to do so remains a significant issue in these negotiations.”

The Teamsters have insisted that the issue is one of working conditions and pay, charging the Red Cross engages in unfair labor practices that endanger the safety of the workers and the blood products they deliver.  Union leaders accuse the Red Cross of caring more about boosting profits than worker safety, complaining of consecutive workdays without a day off in between. However, the Red Cross maintains that the negotiation issue is one of pay and not safety, indicating that there have been no unfair labor practice complaints filed by the local Teamsters union regarding these negotiations.  The union is also demanding a pay increase while non-union workers are under a wage freeze until June 30, 2010.  Outside the negotiating table, picketers are telling passersby and media that the working conditions are causing safety issues for donors and staff. But as the Red Cross indicated, the union’s behavior is in stark contrast with this claim, pointing out that blocking critical blood deliveries has potentially endangered patient safety, a concern with which the court has agreed.

While the average American will agree that workers at any organization, including the Red Cross, should be treated fairly and labor practices should keep them and the products they deliver safe, what’s been called into question by the general public is the contrast with non-union workers’ concessions, the very ill timing of the strike, and the tactics being employed.  Citizens are questioning the sincerity and broader motives of the executive union leaders at the very top.

Not only was picketing not limited to Philadelphia, it wasn’t even limited to the Red Cross. The Teamsters took their fight over to other unrelated private businesses conducting their own blood drives. Unbeknownst to the employees at Mannington Mills in South Jersey, striking Teamsters caught wind of their planned blood drive in advance and showed up to picket along the route to their company.  According to the Today’s Sunbeam paper, Mannington Spokeswoman Betsy Amoroso said the blood drive went on as scheduled with many Mannington employees taking part, adding that employees realize the importance of donating blood this time of year when supplies tend to traditionally be lower because of the holidays.

Here’s why this story is an important piece of a larger picture. Consider for a moment the following:

• Change to Win and partner union leaders are working diligently to convert and unionize as many private sector jobs as possible, even when it’s done without the knowledge of the private worker. To do so, they are strong-arming companies and organizations into paying union workers wages that collectively are on average 30% higher than non-union workers in the private sector.
• In parallel, the same union leaders are quickly winning federal funds to be funneled into the private sector so that government will then have the legal authority to intervene and unionize private jobs and convert them to public jobs where they see fit.
• Now imagine that we also have government-run health care.  We know that SEIU, sister union to the Teamsters as part of Anna Burger’s Change to Win coalition, will take over a good deal of health care jobs.  What will picketers do then?

When we have a union disgruntled over a pay freeze that has resorted to blocking a blood donation delivery, on its way to save the life of a 2-year old child, from reaching a hospital, we have a problem.  When we have unions that control the majority of health care, home care, nursing home care, child care, pharmacy, radiology, and public workers in this country, we will have a catastrophe.

I predict hostage negotiation may become next year’s new hot job. Let’s hope it’s not unionized.

by Russell D. Longcore

Not so long ago, secession was a taboo subject for discussion in polite society. It was almost un-American to thoughtfully consider a state leaving the Union for any reason. Everyone thought that Lincoln’s War settled that issue. But today’s America is a seething cauldron of resentment toward Washington and the “Mobocracy Looter Minions” that populate the District of Columbia and its suburbs.

If you watch any news service for seven days, you’ll learn that the dollar is weak and growing weaker. You’ll learn that other nations are preparing to disconnect from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. And you’ll learn that America is in big trouble, at home and around the world. (Wonder why Chicago didn’t get the Olympics? What countries like the USA right now?)

Over half of the American states have passed legislative resolutions exerting their rights under the Tenth Amendment. That’s nice, and symbolic…and somewhat unusual for slaves to stand up to the plantation owner. But it’s not really necessary.

So when is the best time to actually pull the trigger and secede from the United States?

I believe that states should be making concrete plans right now for secession. States already have intricate plans in place in case of natural disasters and such. Should not a state have a plan in place in case of political disaster?

The United States Federal Government is a dying monster. But is still possesses political might, military might and potency. Dying monsters quite often thrash about and injure those that are too nearby. So at this point in time, while Washington still APPEARS viable, state secession would not seem to be a wise move.

After all, why would a state willingly take the chance of incurring the wrath of Washington? It would be like in the Tolkien movie “Return of the King,” when the good guys presented themselves at the Black Gate to divert the gaze of Sauron’s all-seeing eye. Washington might turn its fury on a seceding state to make an example of it, in order to discourage any other state from trying secession.

Washington is working 24/7 to produce substantive changes in American governance and culture. And, at some point, some state might decide that enough is enough. But I believe that it will take an event that happens outside of Washington to bring about Washington’s collapse.

The most likely event is the worldwide rejection of the US Dollar as reserve currency, and the worldwide use of any other currency as reserve. Even the change of the dollar as the currency of choice of any major petroleum bourse¹ will spell disaster for the dollar.

Iran has already formed an oil bourse, which uses the Euro, the Iranian Rial and a basket of other currencies as the settlement currency for petro transactions. Its first day of trading was Monday, October 26, 2009, on the Free Trade Zone Iranian island of Kish. Iran, having the world’s second largest gas reserves and third largest oil reserves, is trying to play a more active role in oil and petrochemical transactions in international markets.

Between the rejection of the dollar worldwide, and the selloff of US Government securities by nations like China, combined with runaway money printing by Washington and the hyperinflation that MUST follow, the dollar has nowhere to go but down…and precipitously.

The value of the dollar will tumble against other currencies…very soon. It will happen as other nations scramble to get rid of American currency and securities holdings and protect the very survival of their own nations. Washington has been passing bad checks for too long, and the nations are stepping to the pay window.

It is at this moment in time, when the dollar freefalls, that the states will have a golden opportunity to secede. States must do what it takes to assure their own survival, and not as a slave state to Washington. But a secession alone won’t solve anything. The heavy lifting just begins when a state secedes.

First there would have to be a Provisional Government installed until the formal government could be designed and brought into being as a legal entity.

The very next thing that MUST be settled is the issue of money. If a new nation adopts the very same banking environment that America has right now, the new nation will be doomed to fail. The new nation MUST have a 100% gold/silver standard. It must also prohibit by law fractional reserve banking. Both government monopoly on monetary policy and fractional reserve banking are counterfeiting by another name. It must be prevented before it starts.

Monetary policy and banking worldwide is failing. A new nation needs to go another way, and that way is to return to sound money. Most of the other challenges that a new nation would face will be easier if the new nation has money backed with precious metals at 100% reserve. But you cannot counterfeit your way to liberty and prosperity.

Timing is everything. If states secede at the time that Washington is drowning in worldwide debt and the financial markets worldwide cause the collapse of the dollar, Washington may be powerless to stop secession. Ask Moscow how well they stopped the secession of the Western Soviet republics in 1989.

I know I’m getting to be “Johnny One-Note” about monetary policy, but that should tell you how crucial it is. Remember that no nation in the history of the world has survived that counterfeited its money. Not one. Ever.

But also remember that the Byzantine empire, on a gold standard, lasted over a thousand years…until it debased its own money.

From the 10th Amendment Center