trade unions. if i look at the privileges, almost impossible to eliminate. government, not even try to -- like could make you a longer list of the privilege of the paid unions. more or less, i heard similar things in your speech so my question timely is in case the republican will win the race to the white house, you think they could somehow change the situation that you have described in your speech? do they have any program in the sense that you indicate? >> i hope so. i hope so. the candidates are very good republican candidates, very good conservatives. they believe in freedom and values, and i have not seen enough about them in terms of their beliefs in the union issues. by the way, keep in mind, you're looking at less than 7% of the workers. it's a small amount of people looking at the total united states, but the amount of power and the amount of influence that they project into politics is just astoppedding, and they do it -- astounding, and they do it all behind closed doors. we go into th

ief unions again. effective and easiest way to break the cycle so we don't have the shadow boxes any more? >> steve, joyce first of all. it goes back in places where you are not allowed to use a member's money for politics unless members agree to it what happens is political spending by unions drop significantly because when you ask members there is a growing discontent with where money is being used to not organize and represent them but for political purposes much of which doesn't have anything to do with representing workers. somewhere between a third or 55 or 60 percent of union money represents workers the rest goes to politics and doesn't necessarily help workers. >> another thing is to go back to the conservative fdr who said up can't have government unions because they are negotiating their own bosses. that is going not going to work. >> beside exercising a right to vote what else can we do as concerned americans to push back against all of this corruption and incorrect spending of our tax doll

>> union members should have a right to unionize. downside is the opportunities lost because union rules limit the of entrepreneurs ability to

>> union members should have a right to unionize.he downside is the opportunities lost because union rules limit the of entrepreneurs ability to adapt and grow.

, the government employee unions was to unionize health care.y only have about a million and a half health care workers unionized. but as government starts paying more and more to our health care services, they're going to start unionizing them. already ten states have unionized these independent contractors. . you'll see nurses, doctors, as you so wellpointed out, every million members is a billion dollars in dues. that's a stunning number. >> stunning. >> lou: and what union principally tends to benefit from this effort, this initiative of the-- >> the sciu, the president was a part of, organizers, ask me-- by the way, president obama is our first union labor party president. and not to impinge only the food stamp president, but he's a historic figure in many ways, but interestingly there's a lot of history coming into collision now. one of those is the right to work and the unions, the power. and at times when most people think of unions as being something of, if you will, almost a relegated to the dust bin of history, well, under 7%, union o

union power. it is our job to reverse that pattern and restore sanity and fiscal policy to our country. i thank you for being here today and listening to me and i thank you for hearing about "shadowbosses." it's been a two year work for us and i hope it will help people understand government employee unions better. [applause] seamount reg before going to questions from the crowd i have one question. these unions reportedly worked government employees. what fraction actually voted for this union? >> in some states under a couple of%, across-the-board less than 10%. a lot of people get a job in the next thing they know, they have to be a member of the union to pay dues to keep that job. they have never had the opportunity. less than 10% of union members have voted for a union and when they have that opportunity like the teachers did in constant, half of them drop out almost immediately. yes, sir? >> hi. my name is lex and i'm unaffiliated. enjoyed your talk very much and agree wholeheartedly. in the

unions the unions will throw them right out of office. unions reward their friends and punish their enemies very effectively. the amount of money they can bring to bear is staggering. the unions together collect over $14 billion in dues, just the teachers' unions alone as we talk about in bosses collect $2 billion a year just in dues and again we lay out these figures in great detail. interestingly enough and a lot of their own filings, these unions spend about 20% of their income on a political lie activity which is close to the percentage that the spin on representing their members but that of a 60% on administrative overhead and some of those other issues i think if we looked into carefully we would see that a lot of it is also spend on various forms of political activity. five, government unions are bankrupting the state's. states with the longest and strongest history of the employee unions are also the states with the worst budget crisis. a government employee unions are a major contributing factor, perhaps the major contributing fa

it is good to be a union boss just not the union member. [laughter] particularly if you did not want to be. it is almost impossible to get out. if you do you could not be a part of the union but then still pay a fee then you can't have any say whatsoever you have to pay and still not to have say. >> have you discuss pensions and deficits? temecula asking me it a question you could discuss better than i could. i am at the podium. thank you. [laughter] i don't have the figures but we know what is bank of paying our city and state's. going on over the last three years to run up huge amounts of overtime. we cannot afford to do that. the private sector is being shut out. we don't have the numbers but that is a problem with state and local government. >> the industrial unions if not controlled but infiltrated it organized crime, longshoreman and operating engineers. is it any evidence of organized crime? >> not really. they have become very legitimate. known as the ideal lead amigos. craig becker the famous lawyer is a yale law school grad. he wa

ief unions again. effective and easiest way to break the cycle so we don't have the shadow boxes any more? >> steve, joyce first of all. it goes back in places where you are not allowed to use a member's money for politics unless members agree to it what happens is political spending by unions drop significantly because when you ask members there is a growing discontent with where money is being used to not organize and represent them but for political purposes much of which doesn't have anything to do with representing workers. somewhere between a third or 55 or 60 percent of union money represents workers the rest goes to politics and doesn't necessarily help workers. >> another thing is to go back to the conservative fdr who said up can't have government unions because they are negotiating their own bosses. that is going not going to work. >> beside exercising a right to vote what else can we do as concerned americans to push back against all of this corruption and incorrect spending of our tax doll

and private sector unions between government employee unions and corporate employee unions three did he succeed he did very well and and even though there was massive resistance as we saw in early two thousand and eleven and even in the recall he wasn't able to be defeated and i think that it's it's shameful but i think that we in the union movement we have to assume some of the responsibility that we have not spent the time and effort that we need to focusing internally on building up and helping our members understand what's really going on and then further we have dropped the ball in terms of really leading the fight for economic justice so what happens is a lot of nonunion workers say you use a good for union members but they're not good for the rest of us well that's actually not true but part of the problem is that when our movement is not out there fighting for people who happen not to be in unions now it's understandable that people would come to that conclusion in the reality is that when in a community there is a substantial number of unionized workers it energises economic

union is a clean union, and there is no corruption in our union. we are democratic, we're more democratic than almost any other union. we just went through another cycle of elections, so i don't know what else there is to be done, and we're looking forward to settling our case. this has to be, our consent decree has to be one of the oldest cases on the docket, and you would think that somebody would want to settle it and make it go away, and we're ready to enter a good settlement for both sides and both of us declare victory. >> >> how hard is it for the union to operate under the consent decree and its negative publicity? >> consent decree? >> yeah. how hard has it within? >> it doesn't impact the daily operations of the union. it's an elaborate thing, it probably costs us three, four million dollars a year, but the daily operations are not affected. now, the amount of money we have to pay to maintain the apparatus established by the consent decree is something i wish would go away because we could organize even more people. >> you touched on this

the real agenda are the unions to our government employee unions. he wants to unionize health care.have about amelya that health care workers unionized. as government starts paying more and more to our health care services they will start unionizing them. already ten states have unionized out of independent contractors. you will see nurses, doctors. remember as you so well pointed out, every million members is a billion dollars in dues. lou: a stunning number. >> stunning. lou: what unions tend principally to benefit from this effort, this initiative of the obama agenda? >> mci you, service employees international union with the president was part of, an organizer asked me. by the wake of president obama is really our first union labor president. lou: i guess i had not thought about it that way, not to and pans on the need gingrich food stamp president, but he is a man , certainly a historic figure in so many ways. interestingly there is a lot of history coming into collision. one is the right to work and the unions, the power that time when most people think of unions as being almo

>> union members should have a right to unionize.ut the downside is the opportunities lost because union rules limit the of entrepreneurs ability to

but it would also bring those dire warnings about public sector unions from fdr's era. >> union. >> yes! >> back into focus. >> and one other thing, bret. in 2009, public employee unions absolutelily eclipsed the membership of private sector unions. >> thanks a lot. we will see you a bit late. >>> up next, i go across the country to one of those >>> you have heard why many fear public sector unions could bankrupt cities and states. it is happening right now in california. let's take a trip down route 66. ♪ get your kicks on route 66 >> on old route 66, san bernardino was known as the last stop before l.a. ♪ san bernardino >> with freeways and major railway station it was the ideal hub linking the ports of los angeles and long beach out to the rest of the country. san bernardino symbolized the promise that economic growth held for middle class america. it was even the location of the first mcdonald's. but today, this city of around 210,000 has a shortfall of $46 million. over a quarter of its entire budget. unable to fund enough cuts to close the gap, san bernardino on august 1 filed for

but it would also bring those dire warnings about public sector unions from fdr's era. >> union. >> yes! >> back into focus. >> and one other thing, bret. in 2009, public employee unions absolutelily eclipsed the membership of private sector unions. >> thanks a lot. we will see you a bit late. >>> up next, i go across the country to one of those [ male announcer ] whether it's kevin's smartphone... mom's smartphone... dad's tablet... or lauren's smartphone... at&t has a plan built to help make families' lives easier. introducing at&t mobile share. one plan lets you share data on up to 10 devices with unlimited talk and text. add a tablet for only $10 per month. the more data you share, the more you save. at&t. 8% every 10 years.age 40, we can start losing muscle -- wow. wow. but you can help fight muscle loss with exercise and ensure muscle health. i've got revigor. what's revigor? it's the amino acid metabolite, hmb to help rebuild muscle and strength naturally lost over time. [ female announcer ] ensure muscle health has revigor and protein to help protect, preserve, and promote muscl

that may be so for other unions, but we purposely tried to change the culture of union said that thenion is about education, is about comparing teachers and professionals and -- professionals and clinicians. as a result, the union officers took significant pay cut so we could have been organizing department, a research department, so that we did not do the in the way the old union was done because those days are over. the people like bruce rauner and separate them from the teachers. they are absolutely wrong in this area and acted that way the entire time because they did not understand what we were really doing, which was organizing our members, not about the whole -- yes, we have to negotiate for what ever, but that is not our main focus. our main focus is trying to make education better because we feel we can solve some of the problems -- the longer school day was a hot, but a real mess until we sat down with them and said, ok, you cannot afford to pay us this entire length of day because the arbitrator told you that, so here is a way to figure this out by staffing up to you can s

of union officials -- that union official to not support. it is high temperatures group and we ought to respect those numbers and households and not use money for political projects they opposed. 38 to 45% of households cast ballots opposed to what union officials have told them how to vote. caller: there are some money things i want to say. it isn't it funny that obama goes out in a speech and he cries about how romney as wind have all of this money, all this dirty karl rove money against him. was it like $800 million they put in the campaign in 2008? i am in the right to work state and i'm glad. if the teachers unions are ready to strike in chicago, they are in a mess. why does the press hold obama responsible for anything in chicago? he gets arne duncan to be the superintendent of schools. he got the subprime mortgages going with citibank. not one person talks about it. we hardly did not get any stimulus money. it is like in north carolina. you had to be a union worker to work in the convention center. isn't that discrimination? guest: ba

we are seeing in response from state unions as well as national unions to get first the tell-to fighthe battle to get these on the initiative, -- battle to get these initiatives on the ballot. >> i want to talk about this bill that could replace an elected mayor, for example, with the corporation. explain exactly how it came about, who is behind it, and how it is being carried out, how it is being put into effect throughout michigan. >> this is the product but a lot of different forces in the state, including a free-market think tank called the mackinac service for public' which has pushed laws like the emergency manager law for several years. the original law goes back decades to 1990, to give it a scope of the economic crisis in this state. politicians have been trying to position themselves as reformers and rescuers of the economic situation for decades. so it is not a new idea in the state, although when the republicans took over the legislature in 2010 and the governor snyder took over the governor's mansion the same year, we sought an intensified push the out-we saw an intensifi

but it would also bring those dire warnings about public sector unions from fdr's era. >> union. >> yes>> back into focus. >> and one other thing, bret. in 2009, public employee unions absolutelily eclipsed the membership of private sector unions. >> thanks a lot. we will see you a bit late. >>> up next, i go across the country to one of those all energy development comes with some risk, but proven technologies allow natural gas producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protecting our environment. across america, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation and self-contained recycling systems... ... and protect land - by reducing our footprint and respecting wildlife. america's natural gas... domestic, abundant, clean energy to power our lives... that's smarter power today. dad, we want pizza. you guys said tacos. [ female announcer ] it doesn't always work out that way. you know what? we're spending too much money on eating out anyway. honey, come look at this. [ female announcer ] my money map

convention and this has some unions very upset r.t. correspondent lizzie wall brings us their story. the site of the two thousand and twelve democratic national convention is also home to the least unionized states in the nation there's another story to be told that's the story of the people were continually going through the decision to hold the convention in charlotte as one some union members and labor activists find offensive of president obama and of them accredit party cared about the working class and unions in this country there's no way they would have had the their convention here all north carolina has some of the harshest anti union laws and the country it is even legal here for workers to collectively bargain with the democratic national convention in town workers want to bring attention to what they see as an attack on workers' rights in the south. inside the wedgwood baptist church a call to organize the south a lot of the right to work laws a lot of the anti collective bargaining laws in the from the southern region nor

square park, this is required for the union square central union subway station and this was heard at the capitol committee and you saw a presentation by john klun gi, and he is back today, he's going to provide more information on this item. thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning, commissioners, john, the central subway program manager. i'm pleased to note that while i don't have an outstanding video that i just saw of the parks, i do have a powerpoint presentation that will show case the proposed union square station, the northern entrance of the union street market square station that i'll be showing you today and before i start the slide show, i would like to add that this design has been in six years of design development and i'm very pleased and proud to announce that i believe that your vote today will actually be the last public hearing for the designing construction of the four stations that will comprise of the central subway station, and this station has received approvals from previous commissioner from the rec and park commission, the planning department, the historic p

which is an anti-union town, has no unionized hotels, and gave unions the back of the hand when theydecision to go there over labor objections? >> there's something to be said for that, and obviously, the cat calculation had and the obama white house had in making it as the site, they saw it as the premiere swing state, our future is winning over states like north carolina where there's changing demographic patterns and we can make inroads to a region in the south where we have been shut out for decades, really almost for generations at the presidential level. that was the calculation. i will be honest with you, i heard when the decision to go to charlotte for the convention was announced, i heard a lot more grumbling, a lot more overoutrage from people than i'm picking up here. for various reasons today, the weather included, i wasn't able to get out as much as i wanted to. but the labor people i have spoken to yes, if you ask them, should the convention have been held in a right to work state, the answer is no, they're disappointed, they wish it was elsewhere, they don't get the lo

unions.dea they're not willing for a long time, i have supported means tested for teachers. testing for teachers. they want the people who have been let go of the school system to automatically come back. the reason they're out is they weren't good teachers. >> greg: right. >> bob: they they are the first in mind to get teaching jobs is crazy. >> greg: it is crazy. >> bob: the 35%, they moved immediately off that. they are holing up on this whole issue about the teachers should be raised on what their kids do on the standardized tests. why not? >> eric: in their contract is the only thing they cannot strike for. only thing they can strike for is money. i think the latest they came back and said we didn't want 35%. we have only wanted 25-1/2%. what are you talking about? 15 packet of eighth graders read at eighth grade proficiency level. teachers are making $74,000 a year plus benefit. average household in chicago makes under $50,000. i have no problem with good teachers. just put on the merit

from arequiring workers to pay union dues, making it impossible to unionize. north carolina is also one of two states in the country, along with virginia, that makes it illegal for the state to collectively bargain with public sector workers. not surprisingly, north carolina has the loetest rate of unionization of any state in the country. the choice of charlotte prompted an outcry from many labor leaders who see it in the long litny of a front. some are even skipping the convention altogether. north carolina, of course, provides a model for what conservatives are trying to achieve in their sustained nationwide assault, a nation without unions. in fact, one of the proponents of that vision, nick a nikki ha awarded a a prime speaking spot in the republican national convention last week which she used to attack union leaders. >> we deserve a president who won't sacrifice american jobs and workers to pacify the union bosses that he counts as his political allies. >> you're not going to hear redric from the podium like that in charlotte this week, but that doesn't

so why is the pro labor party holding their national convention in a state that's not friendly to unions are tea asks more. and as democrats gather for their convention our team is in north carolina in charlotte north carolina to cover the event we'll take a look at some of the president obama's promises from four years ago and find out if he has come close to fulfilling them. it's tuesday september fourth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . well starting off this hour it's one of the most highly anticipated book releases in the us a first hand account on the raid it will sum up in one's compound and a detailed explanation of the events leading up to those tense moments in the book named no easy day a firsthand account of the mission that killed osama bin laden was published today by penguin books and is already a bestseller on amazon it was coauthored by two men the well known journalist kevin mauer and a former navy seal whose use the senate pseudonym mark owen turns out the former navy seal is actually thirty six year old matt bisan that from rangle

a totally nonunion city in an anti-union state hosting the supposedly pro union political party. look what's in their party platform. quote, the protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the eisenhower administration. wait, the eisenhower administration? yes, i'm told i'm not reading from the current democratic party platform. this is the republican party platform from 1956, from the eisenhower era. okay, how about this letter from the president? should any political party attempt to abolish labor laws, quote, you would not hear from that party again in our political history. there's a splinter group that believes you can do these things, and what does the president think? their number is negligible and they are stupid. again, that's not president obama. that's president eisenhower again. from 1954. republicans used to really like union rights. they used to think it was, and i'm quoting here, stupid to try to get rid of them. republicans used to be very much in favor of the rights of people who have

teachers unions are to blame for the educational system. president obama entered a counterpoint. >> i think governor romney and a number of folks try to politicize the issue and do a lot of teacher bashing. when i meet teachers across the country, they are so devoted and dedicated to their kids. >> devoted, devotion, loving their profession. that's what teachers are about, but romney didn't say anything like that. they are the problem. many of romney's answers were superficial. one of his big solutions for education reform is a new one that we have been talking about for 70 years p parental involvement. >> i'd love to see parents very much evolved in evaluating the success of schools. if parent rs show up at parent/teacher night, kids are going to do fine. >> when a parent stepped up with a question, romney wasn't too happy with the parent's involvement. >> new york city the parents here support the union to protect our kids three to one over the mayor and the chancellor. this is not me. this is coming from a poll of parents. >> i don't bel

if not unions working with management. the auto industry would seize to itself. >> the only reason gm is existing now is the union got special treatment from the president. don't tell me if you don't support union don't get anything. they get government favors and they are in bed with the government. >> that spends time and energy and management wasted to try to get through the negotiations and you are right. shame on american. 62 percent of the flights are on time as compared to the rest of the industry. i have no idea. the union members keep come asking for more. it has to stop. >> this sick out is a legitimate fire them. it is that simple. this goes back to inept management >> we will have to warn wayne rogers that we need a ride on the jet. >> it is huge. >> let me show you my jet. all right. and coming up. taking extra dips from taxpayer and states go broke. taxpayer and states go broke. and hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. it's the

the unions and democratic side wouldn't. i understand several other states have done this already where people had not had to donate money. >> there is a little bit of fear out there. these initiatives on the ballot that are all about unions. there are other avenues that some people would say maybe unions could call the money. it would be a lot harder work. >> inside the unions themselve., >> you may not support a candidate and there you are supporting a candidate that you might not want to actually vote for. >> from what i can tell, the union leadership is resolute. they see the status quo. i think if you had a rank and file undercurrent. can you have the california teacher's association. the single largest this is a really fascinating fight for me because the public sees this or will the public see it. or it's a trojan horse strategy. the unions lead you to believe. >> what about the money. is there a balance in the amount of money? we talked about the money. >> we have to be careful not from the coke brothers themselves.