Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
with guest Bruce Cameron,
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we were talking
about your specialty,
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a take on labor unions
and religious accommodation.
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But let me jump it in
slightly different direction.
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I don't know when
this program will come out,
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but it's very likely
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it'll be before the
presidential election.
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And we're not partisans
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on this program of
religious liberties for all.
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And both parties
should be promoting it.
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But when we talk about unions,
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there's been a perception,
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probably even a reality
that the present administration,
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the Obama's administration
have a sympathy for the unions.
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Have you seen that?
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And what does it mean?
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And, you know,
what do you see ahead
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either for a continuation
of this administration
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or if the other party got in?
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What would it mean for unions
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and the religious accommodation?
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I am not sure we change
religious accommodation,
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but it certainly
benefits a union.
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So there is no question
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that the democrats are
tilted towards labor unions.
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The reason for that is obvious.
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Organize labor is
the financial engine
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for the Democratic Party.
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That an extremely
wealthy individuals.
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Unions are always among
the very top contributors,
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to politics you
have big corporations
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and you have organized labor.
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And so the Democratic Party
has an affinity to organize
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labors because that
serve their purse, you know.
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Yes, I think
that's historical fact.
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Well, let me interject.
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I want to stop
the whole response,
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but given that that's true,
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do you think that
this present administration
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have given
inordinate support to the unions
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or is it just
being business as usual?
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No, I think they have
given an inordinate support
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to the unions in certain areas.
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For example,
there's a lot of publicity
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recently about
what's been happening
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at the National
Labor Relations Board.
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National Labor
Relations Board has generally
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five board members
appointed by the president
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and then they are supposed
to be confirmed by the senate.
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But the President
Obama has been putting
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board members on the NLRB,
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the National
Labor Relations Board,
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who cannot be confirmed by this.
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And for example, Craig Becker,
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was a union lawyer
hostile to Right to Work.
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And he came in as
a recess appointment,
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did a
tremendous amount of damage
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to individual
liberties and individual rights.
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And President Obama
in the last three weeks
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has now appointed
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three more board
members without senate approval.
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We've challenged
that in federal court
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because these are board
appointees by President Obama
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are simply not in
favor of individual rights.
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Now, you say, how
can you say that Bruce?
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You know, when I
say individual rights,
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I am talking
about employee rights.
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It's because the whole theses
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of the National
Labor Relations Act,
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which is administered
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by the National
Labor Relations Board
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is employee for your choice,
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employees get to choose whether
they want a union or not.
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But the Obama Board
has been pushing this idea
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that employers
and unions can agree,
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they can have these
neutrality agreements,
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they can have
these agreements before
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any individual
employee is voted on a union
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that will allow the
union to have a leg-up
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in representing the employees.
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Yeah, I know, I
can-- I've seen that.
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My question is
not related to that.
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Why was--why wasn't
it called the Choice Act?
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Well, the-- Which
was anything about that.
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Right, Employee
Free Choice Act, right.
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The idea is employees
have a right to an election,
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unless the
employer, you know, says,
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I've looked at the evidence
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and I think the
union has majority status
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and I can agree to that,
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but absent that employees
have a right to a secret ballot.
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The Obama Board
wants to take that away,
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the Democratic Party
wants to take that away
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and allow elections to
be done through card check,
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which means the
friendly union fellow
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gets to stand in there
while you're filling out
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your preference
for the union or not.
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Now I think there is
not a single American
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that doesn't
understand the benefit
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and the blessing of the ballot,
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you know, the secret
ballot, right, right.
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You get behind the curtain
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and it's between you
and God, who you vote for--
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In other way, secret
ballot came from Australia.
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Is that right?
There you have it.
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That was a basic principal
there for the beginning.
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So instead we're
replaced at with,
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you fill out your ballot
with the friendly union fellow
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standing there supervising you.
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It's obviously
antithetical to free choice.
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And in fact the
Obama Board changed a rule
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because of these agreements,
these neutrality agreements
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where employers
agree to give the union
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an advantage and
agreement to card check,
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the concern was
that individual employees
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viewers were not really
being represented in this.
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So we'd won a case
called Dana Meldine
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that said that if
you had a situation
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like that the employees
had a short window of time
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in which they
could file a petition,
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asking for an election.
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They were then have a
secret ballot election.
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Well, organize labor
is not in favor of having
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a stand for
secret ballot election.
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The Obama Board repealed that,
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reverse that in a
case called Lamon Gaskets.
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And so, you know,
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now employees don't
have that choice to file,
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it was a 45 day period,
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to file request for a
secret ballot election.
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So, yes, the
Obama administration
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has been very
helpful to organize labor.
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Well, as I listen to you,
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case after case and
argument after argument.
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I'm more and more impressed
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that at least the
way you're presenting it
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that unions are anti-democratic.
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I rather than--
beyond just whether
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it might
restrict your conscience
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or religious liberty stand
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that this is the
pattern of disrespecting
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majoritarian or
democratic norms.
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Well you know,
organize labor is exempt
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from a number of the
statues in the United States.
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For example, the Hobbs Act
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allows an individually
prosecute for violence
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but unions are exempt from that.
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I don't know that.
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Yes, many year ago,
I was litigating a case
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on behalf of a lady who
had her family home burned down
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by the union that represent her
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because she had decided
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she wanted to go to
work through a picket line
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so they burnt her house down.
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I had been working for
the Department of Justice
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in my last year of law school.
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And so I contacted
justice about this and said,
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"look is there some way
that you can look at this,"
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and they said to me,
what I fear they would say,
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which is well under, you know,
that supreme court president,
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we have no jurisdiction
to prosecute a union
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because if they commit
violence in furtherance
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of labor objectives,
they get a free pass.
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Now that would be, that
would restrict the right
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to sue whole of
the union accountable
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but the individual
that burnt the house surely
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could be charge
with the crime, right?
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Well, yes and in
fact the individual
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who burn down the house
was charged with that crime
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and we also sue the
union and so on and so forth.
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But now the point is simply this
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that it prevents the federal
government from prosecuting.
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I'll tell you another one,
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there is a
fellow named Eddie York,
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Eddie York was working
in a mine in West Virginia.
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He--the mine was being struck
by the United Mine Workers.
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He was not doing
work in the mine.
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He was doing EPA
reclamation work.
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Eddie York, when he
drove out of the place
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that is out of the mine
road, there were pickets there,
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there's a UAW picket
captain, he pulled a pistol
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and he shot and
killed Eddie York.
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The father had three children.
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That union and that
official was never prosecuted
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for Hobbs Act violation,
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instead the federal government
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brought a weapons
charge against him.
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He's convicted
of a weapons charge
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and he has
never through this day
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been prosecuted by
the local state prosecutor
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because I believe
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of the political
influence of the UMW.
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This is in my view, unions
are getting away with murder.
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Quite literally,
that's an aberration.
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Let me ask you one,
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we didn't have much time left.
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But I think
you've made a good case
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that unions are
adults with a phase,
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a stance in the work place.
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We have many Adventists
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and others of religious faith
in the workplace have problems
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in the other
large single employer
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other than U.S. government,
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Wal-Mart. Okay.
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Now they're not
unionized, right?
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Well, they, you know, a
Wal-Mart is not unionized--
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No. In fact they
made a big point of this--
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No, there's a, they're well
with the unions in many ways.
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And in fact that's
right the retail clerks
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and another unions have
tried to in fact disable
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and injure
Wal-Mart's business model
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because they're not organized.
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So I think, I won't
end up defend unions,
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but it seems to me we
have two polar opposites
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that are equally troublesome
for religious accommodation.
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Wal-Mart have shown
a very little sympathy
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for specific
religious accommodation cases.
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Their main way
of dealing with it
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is they filter out applicants,
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which I think is not right
with direct questions about,
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you know, what will you
work for full days and so on?
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And if you signal that
you're not gonna be hired.
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I've not heard that
and I've not seen this
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and I will tell you what,
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when Sam Walton
was the--was alive
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and was running Wal-Mart.
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The Wal-Mart management
had a clear Christian culture
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and they're absolutely,
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it was a faith
affirming culture.
00:10:34.59\00:10:37.78
And I can't say that today
but 've had not heard that--
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Well, we need to hold
and do account on that.
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Well. That I know that
there are recurring cases
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and with the cases that
come up with their church,
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you know, pretty much Wal-Mart
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and the post
office are take the law
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and share of the
areas of difficulties.
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I was not aware of that,
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I truly I've
never heard this at all.
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I'd like to think my ears
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to the ground on
religious liberty but--
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I'm not suggesting that Wal-Mart
00:11:03.11\00:11:05.39
necessarily be unionized
for us to get accommodation,
00:11:05.40\00:11:08.03
that's hardly--
Well, that would be--
00:11:08.04\00:11:10.87
But unions and I think
you've described it very well,
00:11:10.88\00:11:13.48
a problematic but
even without unions
00:11:13.49\00:11:16.86
there can be a problem
00:11:16.87\00:11:19.03
and so it isn't just may
be I am trying the wrong way
00:11:19.04\00:11:21.60
or long way around
to make an argument
00:11:21.61\00:11:23.33
that's pointless anyhow.
00:11:23.34\00:11:24.87
It isn't just unions are opposed
00:11:24.88\00:11:27.22
to what needs to be is
a sympathy to the faith
00:11:27.23\00:11:31.60
stands of someone
in the work place,
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whether it's the
government recognizing it,
00:11:33.12\00:11:34.94
whether it's the
employee, employer or a union
00:11:34.95\00:11:38.10
if such exists
that we don't want
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that to be standing in
the way of accommodation.
00:11:41.21\00:11:42.89
Well, that's exactly this,
00:11:42.90\00:11:44.55
whether or not you
an employer or a union,
00:11:44.56\00:11:48.13
you know, you're doing
God's work by watching out for
00:11:48.14\00:11:51.81
and being concerned about
the faith of your employees.
00:11:51.82\00:11:55.88
An employee who cares about God
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will be a superior employee.
00:11:57.69\00:12:00.69
Writing to early
Seventh-day Adventists,
00:12:00.70\00:12:03.62
Ellen White warned
of the complications
00:12:03.63\00:12:07.17
arising from union membership.
00:12:07.18\00:12:09.56
It's a little hard to get
into the mind set of that time
00:12:09.57\00:12:12.44
because there's no question
00:12:12.45\00:12:14.15
that even then
unions were functioning
00:12:14.16\00:12:17.15
as I counter balance to
the interest of Capital.
00:12:17.16\00:12:20.96
But reading specifically
00:12:20.97\00:12:22.38
what she said to
Seventh-day Adventists
00:12:22.39\00:12:24.13
and warning about the in time.
00:12:24.14\00:12:26.58
It's a salutary
warning that an organization
00:12:26.59\00:12:32.90
that can
actually inhibit a choice,
00:12:32.91\00:12:35.95
a person's religious choice
for accommodation is not good.
00:12:35.96\00:12:40.17
It's obvious that the
violence adopt in the company
00:12:40.18\00:12:43.06
of union activity is a
problematic for a Christian
00:12:43.07\00:12:47.74
and it's particularly
important to realize
00:12:47.75\00:12:52.08
that she said a
phenomenon of the end times
00:12:52.09\00:12:55.59
will be "bundles
together for the burning."
00:12:55.60\00:12:59.62
Confederacies that
limit peoples choice
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and expose people
to a common thinking
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that opposes to God's way.
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This is our
warning for this time.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
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