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No Good Deed Goes Unbullied by the Union

By Alex in Politics on Nov 17, 2009 at 9:19 pm


For his Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, a 17-year-old junioar at Southern Lehigh High School, spent 250 hours over several weeks clearing a path at his local park so people could enjoy walking and biking along the river. What did he get for this good deed?

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city’s largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

"We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

Balzano said Saturday he isn’t targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city’s decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said "there’s to be no volunteers." No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

"We would hope that the well-intentioned efforts of an Eagle Scout candidate would not be challenged by the union," said Mayor Ed Pawlowski in an e-mail Friday. "This young man is performing a great service to the community. His efforts should be recognized as such."

Link – via Michelle Malkin


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COMMENT
  1. Tony LaRocca
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    Boy scouts or not, an agreement that says no volunteers is an agreement that says no volunteers. And the union aren't targeting the Eagle Scout, (the article states this but the tone implies otherwise,) they're targeting the city for breaking that agreement.

  2. pwscott
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    Pointless argument on the unions part. This kid showed drive and dedication to his own cause. Butt out!!

  3. Ursula
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

    While the union's actions are arguably excessive, this is a complicated issue. 39 employees have been laid off, and in this economy the people who are remaining are desperate to hold on to their jobs. While the kid deserves thanks for what he did, the union members aren't being totally unreasonable. It's supposed to be the city's responsibility to do things like that, and if private citizens start doing the city's work, it gets complicated legally. (What if something that kid did results in an injury, or a fire?)

    My point is that this clearly isn't a case of union "bullying". Unions certainly aren't perfect, they can be very crooked. But too many people these days are reflexively anti-union... Even as we're gradually losing a lot of the employee benefits that the unions fought for.

  4. Katthe7th
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    Sorry, but any organization or action that actively discourages community members from investing their time and effort into their community resources gets a big thumbs down from me.

    Not cool.
    You want to bring troubled economic times into it? Fine. Not like the city could afford to pay someone to do that. Not like the young man volunteering put people out of jobs. He wanted to help, and these people are kicking him in the face for it. Ridiculous.

  5. the artist
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    SEIU, the Obama brownshirts.

  6. Colin
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    This is why unions are becoming a footnote in the workforce as we know it.

    In NYC I had to have work done, electrical, in a building, and it was like some lightbulb joke, only it was no joke. You had to have an apprentice (who did all the work), an engineer, and a supervisor, neither of whom did anything but collecting a high hourly rate to stand there and no do anything. And you had to hire union electrical companies/workers at something like $180 an hour, of which the one who did the least made the most.

    Most union systems are so power hungry and are so absurd that they border on why many companies are shutting down and/or cant stay competitive. I now work for higher ed, and the unions are just as greedy and insane. Hell, a professor can rape a person, or not show up for work once their tenured, making exorbitant wages, but the college can't fire them. And they don't retire, why would they take the pay cut (which is much more than you and me) when they can't be fired, they simply don't work and keep on collecting salaries, and the students and education suffers.

    Unions are too powerful, too delusional, and this story serves to prove this. Because they're fat lazy asses are laid off and they have to maintain some fiefdom BS over what they perceive as their right or no right, the city and it's parks will suffer. Well boo effin' hoo! If cities like many I know, including mine, weren't scammed by 1/4 the union force into disability and retirement packages 90% of Americans will never see that drain coffers left and right most cities and most companies wouldn't be in the state they're in.

    Unions started with great noble reasons and to create equity in the workplace and safe environments, but like all systems, they got corrupted, perverted, and are now grossly outdated and outmoded.

    And no, I'm not some GOP reupublitard blowhard, I'm a left-leaning liberal who believes we need public healthcare and to get out of the BS lie-created wars and need to start spending here and stop being world cop. I'm just sick of seeing all the BS the unions cause, and it needs to stop.

  7. Geekazoid
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 10:37 pm

    Michelle Malkin?? Say it ain't so Alex! I love you but, if I can't say anything good about a person...

    Just teasing you (but not about MM).

    Anyhow, Tony, I can't find anywhere in the article that says there was any formal agreement from the city that there was to be no volunteers doing things like cleaning trails, etc. All Balzano says is that there's to be no volunteers, which to me means it's something he came up with by himself.

    And Ursula, you bring up a good point but my impression is that Balzano raised this issue up not because of any concerns about private citizens doing city public work, but simply because he is bitter over the layoffs and picked the most convenient target.

    Anyways, Balzano says that he's probably going to let it go.

  8. Johnny Cat
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 10:57 pm

    Wasn't this the plot of Mitchell? "Balzano, Galano-"

  9. Chin
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Nick%20Balzano

  10. mule
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    Wow! Unions are so cool and indispensable! What a valuable role in our society they have. IDIOTS!

  11. Joseph Francis
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 12:25 am

    Gee, haven't been to Neatorama in a while I wonder whu---????? Michelle Malkin???

  12. Edward
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 12:26 am

    "If we say that, we look like idiots."

    "Who cares? We are right!"

  13. zota
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 12:27 am

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=michelle%20malkin

  14. WordyGrrl
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 1:06 am

    From the article, the union boss did say they'd probably "let that one go", along with a few other instances in which the cash-strapped locale had to go with non-union labor.

    Who knows? The union labor may get called in to bring that completed project up to code. From what an electrician friend tells me, union code standards are higher than most city/state/federal standards. Want a great job done? Hire a union worker who's laid off and pay him/her under the table.

  15. dutchboy
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 1:37 am

    I forgot its in the lefty rulebbook to not like Michelle Malkin.

  16. hedwig
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 2:32 am

    I'm with Katthe7th

    The unions are choking out employers these days. I agree- what they did at the beginning was desperately needed; the demands they make now are ridiculous. Too bad.

  17. Skipweasel
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 3:28 am

    This is why I'm glad the UK doesn't allow "Closed shop" unions. You don't have to be a member of any union to do any job - though it's often a good idea if you are.

    Oh, except professional bodies - things like the British Medical Association - you can't be a doctor without being a member, so arguably it's a kind of union.

  18. B.M.
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 5:27 am

    Atlas Shrugged in Brazil

  19. ted
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 6:10 am

    Dod the kid get permission to clear a path? That's a lot more work than just picking up trash from the roadside. The union has a point, but seem a little bitter.

  20. Scotchdrnkr
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 6:41 am

    I'm as non-union as they come. The AFL-CIO machinist union screwed my father out of his pension.
    But with that said, I wouldn't have a grief with the union bitching in this case if the city hired/payed someone to clear this path since the city is unionized. But this was a volunteer effort (NO $ involved) so shut up and go find some jobs for out of work due paying members and stop wasting money on filing legal cases when there is no real case. The city can't afford your union rates right now. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here.

  21. D Bozko
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 6:47 am

    This a very complicated issue. This scout wasn't just picking up trash, he "completed" a stretch of this trail. What does that mean? Did he have permission? Is it up to safety standards and various codes? I also noticed from the article that this union was the only one to experience layoffs. These members seem to be the employees that do the physical work of the city so it looks like the pencil pushers retained their employment at their expense. Like I said it's a complicated issue and I don't think the knee jerk, anti-union sentiment is necessarily justified without more information.

  22. buddhaflow
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 7:23 am

    Here's the danger when you grant a government monopoly to do a service. Some group will have a vested interest in that monopoly, and will go to greath lengths to protect it. Even preventing the spirit of civic duty which is the core of a well functioning community. The end result is that no one works together, people stay in their houses all day, and everyone pays a high tax rate to a bunch of people who do a job that should often be paid for by the sweat of the inhabitants.

    Even worse is the cases where the union strikes a deal with a government body to grant the union an artificial monopoly. We might find this idea abhorrent, at yet we can find it practiced all over the U.S., such as the electric unions in NYC mentioned in #6 above, or more abstractly the artificial monopoly over health care services granted to an exclusive cartel, that is one of the fundamental causes of our spiraling health care costs.

    I find something really irksome about the implication that the union members have a right to a job. No one has a right to a job. What we have a right to is freedom. With that freedom, if we don't have a job, we can produce our own food, start a small business, or sell our services for anything we're good at freelance. That is the "safety net" of natural law. That's why not man people starved during the depression, because they still knew how to hunt and farm, because people still had a great deal of freedom to do small enterprise. Failing that, they still had communities.

    But now, much of this basic freedom has been legislated away, in the name of "consumer protection" and whatnot, so we need to create these false "safety nets" and phony government jobs, which have all sorts of unintended consequences and moral hazards.

    And seriously, are there really people on this thread who worry about the "safety" of him clearing a path? Who worry that he didn't follow the "various codes?" I could see some people wanting to maintain the grass without a path. But worrying about "codes" and "safety???"

    What have we, as a country (except that this pedantry is true of most of western civilization), come to?

  23. Sue Dunham
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 7:33 am

    Unions built the great American Rust Belt.

  24. aikaik
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 8:30 am

    I'd like to take this article seriously but Malkin is such a joke of a celebrity journalist that everything she says is suspect and most assuredly cherry-picked to show the worst side of any agenda she disagrees with.

  25. Jeffos
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 9:34 am

    What's up with all the focus on Malkin? People are dismissing a story because it came from a certain person?

    There is a link to the original story, BTW, so you don't have to pollute your soul by reading Malkin directly.

    Oh, and SEIU? Way to discourage community service. "Hey, if somebody's going to volunteer to do our work out of civic pride, what happens to our overpaid union jobs?"

  26. Gauldar
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 10:25 am

    This argument is moot, garbage on non-private land is public domain. If this information is correct, it just sounds like a rant from another jackhole that needs to get off his high horse. Either this stories facts are blown out of proportion, or this guy needs to get his head examined.

  27. Geekazoid
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 10:32 am

    I just pray to the high gods that malkin does NOT visit this site. I have no beefs against anyone based solely on their political affiliation, and politics has nothing to do with my intense dislike of her.

    She is just a rotten person to the core, period, someone with no conscience or soul. Not to get sidetracked, sorry.

  28. JEFF GANNON
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    ALL YOU DIRTY HIPPY LIBS ARE JUST JEALOUS OF MICHELLE MALTIN'S AMAZING INTELLEGENCE. ALEXS TITLE IS RIGHT ON THERE IS ONLY ONE UNION AND IT HAS NEVER DONE NOTHING FOR ANYONE EXCEPT BULLY KINDLY INNOCENT BILLIONAIRE BUSINESS OWNERS, BOY SCOUTS AND TEABAGGINS. DID YOU KNOW SHE LOOKS GREAT FLOPPING AROUND IN A CHEERLEADER OUTFIR AND CAN FIT AN ENTIRE BIG MAC IN HER MOUTH WITHOUT CHEWING? YOU SHOULD READ HER BROTHER'S MOVIE REVIEWS BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD TOO BUT NOT AS GOOD AS JOHN STOSSELS. THANK YOU ALEX FOR BRINGING MICHELLE TO NAETORAMA I CAN'T WAIT FOR LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS TO BE FEATURD NEXT.

  29. Gauldar
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    Oh, she's that angry asian chick that has hissy fits on FOX News, I had to wiki her and I recognised her pic from the clips on the that appear Daily Show.

  30. Lea
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Did the kid even know about the agreement?

    And why did they wait til he was done?
    Where was the union, what were they doing?

  31. ByrdBrain
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    Wow. I have no idea who Michelle Malkin is, but judging from the way people are reacting, had the name "Barak Obama" appeared (however tangential) in this same post the whole internets would have combusted with the fury of a fusion bomb. So there is someone out there that you disagree with. Get over it.

  32. Erica
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    I used to work for the Columbus, OH branch office. While I can say that they do seem to try to help people out, especially health care workers, they tend to go incredibly overboard with stuff like this. It's a kid. C'mon! Also, in my life experience, I have noticed that most union workers expect to get paid $80 an hour to sweep a sidewalk for 3 hours a day, and stand around and talk the rest of the day, then gripe if anyone asks them to do more work. Boo-hoo. At least you have a job!

  33. Jasond
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    The unions are upset because this kid did this huge project all by himself, quickly, efficiently and cost effectively.

    The union would have had 35 guys out there, 29 of which stand around leaning on a shovel. They would take over 6 months to do "impact studies" and other bureaucratic nonsense, then start the actual work (careful using this word around union employees). After 6 months of work, with little accomplished, they would then go on strike demanding more pay and better equipment. After all is said and done, they would have spent 500K+ (billing @ $30 an hour) and taken 2-3 years to do the job. They would then have the local, liberal enclave declare the section of the trail the "peace trail" and blame something on GW Bush.

    This kid did it for free in less than 260 hours and didn't ask for one shred of credit or recognition. Great kid, and the best of what our future can be.

    The union? Tired, old, dinosaur still talking about labor like it's the 60's. Do nothing, contribute nothing bums.

    Nick Ballsonyou is a coward and a gorilla. What heart full of integrity picking on a kid because your worthless collective didn't get to rip us off of some more tax dollars. Obama's America at its best......

  34. postal
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 6:47 pm

    What exactly is "neat" about this story? There are thousands of blogs out there that cherry pick stories in order to bash those with different political views. Please tell me Neatorama isn't becoming one of them.

  35. heather
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    And the moral of the story: People in large groups are greedy, childish idiots.

  36. postal
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    What does this story have to do with Neatorama? This is a pleasant site full of fun and interesting things. Opening the door to political stories will quickly ruin this site. Half of the readership will quickly hate the other half.

  37. Rob
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 8:55 pm

    Eagle Scout project requirements require the applicant to plan, study, gain approvals and check local regulations prior to reporting and seeking approval from the local and district scouting organization.
    Any fault for skimming over the union would be on the part of the city that O.K'ed this.
    I have worked in Union run factories and have not one positive thing to say about them.
    Nothing is better than having to risk a grievance because someone spilled 300 gallons of ink outside your office and the only way to exit for the next several hours is to clean yourself a path. Unions rob industry of teamwork and creativity while bolstering a sense of passivity and entitlement in the workforce.

  38. LukeTheDrifter
    Nov 18th, 2009 at 10:27 pm

    Way to go, o tolerant, open-minded, inclusive libs.

    The story must be bad because a bad person presented it.

    And the person is bad because...because they're not a liberal, evidently. Notice that nothing has been shown in evidence against Malkin. There's nothing here but personal attacks and speculation about "cherry-picking".

    Or maybe you're all racists.

    Or sexists.

    Or sexo-racists or something.

    After all, that's the kind of "thinking" you understand, right?

    How do you live with yourselves?

  39. Geekazoid
    Nov 19th, 2009 at 12:47 am

    Ever noticed that only people of a, umm, certain political persuasion engage in name calling of others and make automatic assumptions about liberal hippie loony this, liberal hippie loony that?

    Hypocrisy at its finest!

  40. Clifford
    Nov 19th, 2009 at 3:37 am

    LukeTheDrifter,

    If there's one thing I learned, it's to be extremely wary of anything a demagogue has to tell me.

    Fuck Malkin!

  41. CE
    Nov 19th, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    My son has just finished his eagle project, cleaning up an historic cemetery, painting the flag pole, flying a new flag and having a light put in to shine on it at night. He spent 239 hours. His eagle board of review is in December. He is only 14 and we are very proud of him. I feel badly for the scout in this story because he just tried to do a good thing and it ended up backfiring. (And I like Michelle Malkin.)

  42. Christophe
    Nov 19th, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    Wow. America IS becoming France!

  43. jm1656
    Nov 19th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    UNIONS ARE BS. everyone i have ever met that is in a union is a a-hole.

    save America , beat up a liberal.

  44. postal
    Nov 19th, 2009 at 11:33 pm

    Everyone is making my point. Name calling and generally being jerks to one another. No respectful dialogue or fairness in argument.

    Great choice of story for a site that usually cheers people up and stimulates the imagination.

    Maybe Neatorama can start linking directly to Drudge and Huffington stories everyday, that will make this a really fun site to visit.

  45. CE
    Nov 20th, 2009 at 12:00 am

    Actually, that WOULD make it a more interesting site!

  46. Jett
    Nov 29th, 2009 at 12:44 am

    "We would hope that the well-intentioned efforts of an Eagle Scout candidate would not be challenged by the union," said Mayor Ed Pawlowski in an e-mail Friday"

    Hey Ed, let's play the blame game.

  47. Coyote
    Dec 3rd, 2009 at 9:42 am

    "there’s to be no volunteers."

    I'm sorry you can't just claim an organization deny volunteers. Volunteering by nature is a decision by a 3rd party, the choke hold the union has does not cover every person that comes in contact with the city. Volunteers also work for free which removes any civil suits as no money changed hands. If it were me I would toss the whole union and put the boy scouts to work. It seems they actually want to do it.

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