United Nations

Will UAW Seek Foreign Help to Unionize American Workers?

by Ivan Osorio on January 18, 2011 · 2 comments

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Employment, International, Labor

America has a vibrant and successful auto industry — just largely outside of Detroit. For years, many foreign automakers’ American divisions have been successful at making cars profitably, while creating thousands of well-paying jobs. One reason for the foreign automakers’ success has been their ability to work without the burdensome work rules faced by the Big Three under their contracts with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

Apparently, UAW President Bob King doesn’t like that one bit. In fact, he seems to feel so strongly about it that he recently announced that for companies that resist its organizing efforts, the UAW “will launch a global campaign to brand that company a human-rights violator.” What might such a campaign entail?

One indication can be found in the Obama administration’s report to the bad joke known as the U.N. Human Rights Council — whose members include such human rights champions as China, Cuba, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. In the report, submitted in August 2010, the State Department strongly suggests that the degree to which the law facilitates unionization should be a human rights matter — and that the U.S. falls short in that area.

The UAW — or any other union, for that matter — likely would cite the State Department document in any complaint filed to the International Labor Organization, World Trade Organization, or any other international body — maybe even the ridiculous U.N. Human Rights Council. And King’s recent remarks indicate this is an option the UAW might well pursue.

King also recently acknowledged that the UAW is in trouble. Speaking to an audience of 1,000 union members at a Washington political action conference, he said, “If we don’t organize these transnationals, I don’t think there’s a long term future for the UAW — I really don’t.” With those kind of stakes, it would be surprising for the UAW not to take some drastic action.

The upshot of all this is that we could end up seeing the UAW ask international bodies composed of foreign governments — including some undemocratic ones — for help in unionizing American workers. Stranger things have happened.

For more on labor, see here and here.

Should Geoengineering be Banned?

by Wayne Crews on November 1, 2010

in International, Tech & Telecom

Since one day the sun will expand into a red-giant star, humans in the distant multi-millennial future will either have to leave the Earth, geoengineer it, or go extinct. But some current UN leaders have elected to ban geoengineering.

“Any private or public experimentation or adventurism intended to manipulate the planetary thermostat will be in violation of this carefully crafted U.N. consensus,” said Silvia Ribeiro, Latin American director of ETC Group, a grass-roots advocacy organization.

Chris Horner Debates IMF Climate Fund

by Richard Morrison on March 10, 2010

in Video, Zeitgeist

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nll-tVIlKj0 285 234]

LibertyWeek 62: Soak the Rich, Reap the Wind

by Richard Morrison on September 28, 2009

in CEI Projects, Features, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Your host Richard Morrison welcomes returning guest co-host Jeremy Lott of the Capital Research Center and technical producer Ryan Young as special guest commentator for Episode 62 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the semi-proposed allegedly not-a-bailout of the newspaper industry, Steven Chu’s condescending views on energy policy and Google’s copyright troubles in France. We then look at the what soaking the rich has done to New York’s finances, Obama’s presence at the UN and a good old fashioned Washington, D.C. corruption scandal.

Racist, Communist, America-Bashing Obama Adviser Resigns, Over Wacky 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

by Hans Bader on September 7, 2009 · 1 comment

in Energy, Environment, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Obama’s racist, communist, America-bashing Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, has resigned after revelations that he was a 9/11 “Truther,” who believed that George Bush may have been behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

But Obama has long been aware of Jones’ extremism, wacky statements, and arrest record, which would have come to light months ago during the White House vetting process, as former White House staffer Jeffrey Lord and National Review‘s Andrew McCarthy note. The Secret Service would have investigated Jones’ past and Marxist views and informed Obama about them.

As the Washington Examiner‘s Byron York noted, most of the media systematically ignored revelations about Jones’ disturbing past and extremist views, seeking to prevent damage to the Obama Administration. Despite weeks of controversy over Jones’ extreme views on talk radio, blogs, and Fox News, newspapers like the New York Times, and TV networks like ABC and NBC, refused to cover the controversy until after Jones resigned, while the Washington Post and CBS covered the story only when his resignation was imminent.

Slate journalist Mickey Kaus, who voted for Obama but has been critical of the Administration, ridicules newspapers like the New York Times for deliberately concealing the Van Jones controversy in order to protect the Obama Administration. “‘Readers of the print edition will never have heard of the presidential appointee so controversial the President had to dump him. Is this a milestone in the decline of the NYT?’ . . .It seems this may be just another installment of the NYT’s running feature, ‘You Know That Guy You’ve Never Heard About? Well, He’s Gone.’”

Jones is a race-baiter, “self-avowed communist” and Truther who believed that George Bush may have been behind the 9/11 attacks.

Why even a Democratic White House would hire Jones is beyond understanding. In 1998, Jones defended Al Qaeda and bashed Bill Clinton. Why would Obama even think of hiring someone who said a few years ago that he was part of a “global struggle against the U.S.”?

Jones has also glorified convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, in a campaign that likened supporters of the murdered police officer to the KKK.

Jones, who set up a group that is orchestrating advertiser boycotts of Obama’s media critics, was until recently a “member of a radical communist group that was dedicated to ‘organizing a revolutionary movement in America.’”

Jones also claimed that mass murder is a white characteristic, saying that the Columbine killers would not have committed their crimes had they not been white. “‘You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child,’ Jones, who’s African-American, said in the 2005 video. ‘Never. They always say, “We can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe these suburban white kids.” It’s only them.’”

Many officials in the Obama Administration are sympathetic to Marxist regimes. For example, Obama’s appointee to be the FCC’s “diversity officer” is Mark Lloyd, a big fan of Venezuela’s socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez. Although Chavez has shot unarmed demonstrators, Lloyd has called socialist Venezuela a model, praised its authoritarian leader’s “incredible revolution” and defended his attacks on independent media.

Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State, Arturo Valenzuela, has a reputation as a loud defender of Venezuelan dictator Chavez’s terrible record on freedom of the press. Valenzuela is a big supporter of imposing sanctions on Honduras, which ousted its left-wing would-be dictator. Americans for Limited Government says that “Arturo Valenzuela has never met a Marxist dictator that he didn’t embrace.” ALG’s assessment of Valenzuela is echoed by liberal Latin America expert Martin Edwin Andersen.

The Obama Administration is extremely hostile to non-communist Honduras and its democratically-elected legislature, demanding that they allow the return to power of Honduras’s bullying ex-president and would-be dictator. The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many experts, such as attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and “even left-liberal analysts.”

The Obama Administration cites the UN’s support for the bullying ex-president to justify demanding that Honduras allow him to return. But the UN is openly biased in favor of left-wing dictators.

The UN has just declared Fidel Castro, the longtime Communist dictator of Cuba, the “World Hero of Solidarity.” Castro killed thousands and thousands of people during his rule, torturing some to death (including a few American citizens), and Cuba remains an oppressive dictatorship even today.

So it’s not surprising that the UN backs Honduras’s bullying ex-president Manuel Zelaya, given his fondness for left-wing rhetoric. (Two months ago, soldiers acting on orders of Honduras’s Supreme Court arrested Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers. After the Court quite legally declared that Zelaya was no longer president, he was duly replaced by Honduras’s Congress with a civilian, the Congressional Speaker).

The Obama Administration recently decided to impose sanctions on Honduras, and indicated it will not recognize future democratic elections in Honduras unless Honduras first lets ex-president Zelaya return to power.

“Green jobs” is a scam and excuse for vast amounts of corporate welfare, as is the cap-and-trade “global warming” scheme backed by Obama, which would rip off the public and do nothing to protect the environment, while enriching politically-connected companies like General Electric and destroying millions of jobs.

LibertyWeek 46: The Great Porn Wall of China

by Richard Morrison on June 9, 2009

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Your faithful host Richard Morrison welcomes back special guest co-hosts William Yeatman and Michelle Minton for Episode 46 (listen HERE!). We start with the investors that are getting worked over by the politically-distorted bankruptcy of Chrysler, the ascension of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament and the Great Porn Wall of China. We then move on to proof that beer is better for you than water, a sign that airline travel may get more expensive, and an example of how voters deal with corrupt politicians. Finally, we wind things up with some very educational Olympic News.