UNITE-HERE Leaving AFL-CIO?

House of Labor is reporting that Unite-HERE will announce their departure from the AFofL-CofIO tomorrow. I found this article in The Houston Chronicle reporting that the union will make its decision sometime this week. The repercussions mentioned include the dues hit ($3 mil) the AFLCIO will take (small compared to the $30 mil in per caps that left with SEIU, Teamsters and UFCW), as well as the implications related to Unite-HERE's ownership of Amalgamated Bank. Let me know if you know anything.

In an unrelated note, I did not intend to imply in my earlier post that I think John Roberts will be "liberal" on labor issues. I intended the scare quotes to suggest the irony of the idea that voting to uphold NLRB precedent is liberal. It is only liberal where conservative means ending the Department of Education, FEMA, the EPA and all that other do-gooder bullshit (again with sarcasm). Conservative as in "no federal government at all," like Grover Norquist. John Roberts does not seem that far out there to me. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he's hidden it awfully well, deferring to the authority of federal agencies for 2 years on the DC Court of Appeals to lull us into a false sense of calm so that he could become Chief Justice and wipe out the entire federal government. I can't really get there, intellectually, though. That does not mean I think he's a liberal, folks. The idea that this was Roberts plan all along is about as likely as my hope that he would affirm pro-worker Board decisions, if such a thing should ever come along again.

Oh, and the New York Times will have this piece tomorrow on another novel suit against Wal-Mart, filed on behalf of apparel workers in China, Bangladesh, et al. alleging that Wal-Mart has violated CA state wage laws and contractual obligations by failing to impose its corporate code of conduct on overseas contractors. That basically reiterates the first paragraph or two. I'll add this to my list of Wal-Mart cases I am vaguely aware of and keep you up to date as events warrant.