Maine Reporter Fired for Offending Gay Lobbyists

Some stories leave you scratching your head. Take the case of the Maine reporter fired for sending a private e-mail opposing gay marriage to the Human Rights Commission.

Larry Grard fired off an angry e-mail to the Human Rights Commission after the HRC sent a press release claiming that Maine's gay marriage proposition died because of "hatred of gays."

Grard, who said he’d gotten no sleep the night before, used his own e-mail to send a response. “They said the Yes-on-1 people were haters. I’m a Christian. I take offense at that,” he said. “I e-mailed them back and said basically, ‘We’re not the ones doing the hating. You’re the ones doing the hating.’

“I sent the same message in his face he sent in mine.”

Grard thought his e-mail was anonymous, but the HRC Googled his name and discovered he was a reporter at the Waterville Morning Sentinel. The tolerance policde then demanded that Grard be fired and the weak-kneed sissies at the Morning Sentinel obliged.

According to Grard and his union, the Portland Newspaper Guild, he has never before had any disciplinary issues. Guild president Tom Bell said in an e-mail that a grievance has been filed on Grard’s behalf, and the Guild is awaiting a date for an arbitration hearing, which will probably take place in three or four months. “The Guild is defending the contract,” Bell said, “which requires that there be progressive discipline in situations like this.”

Grard said he wouldn’t be complaining if he’d been subjected to a lesser penalty, such as a reprimand or a suspension without pay, for his first offence. He said reporters frequently send personal e-mails from their own accounts during working hours without incurring management’s wrath.

Grard said he thinks his religious beliefs were a factor in his firing, calling it “anti-Christian bias.” “A lawyer said to me, ‘What if you’d agreed with [the Human Rights Campaign]? Would the company fire you for that? Of course they wouldn’t have,’” he said.

The Sentinel and the other MaineToday papers editorialized in favor of same-sex marriage.

Rarely do I support unions, but the PNG is doing the right thing by supporting Grard in a clearly arbitrary firing case. Grard should sue for wrongful termination, if it's possible.

Worse yet, the newspaper apparently is punishing Grard's wife Lisa for the incident.

The week after Grard was fired, he said, his wife, Lisa, who wrote a biweekly food column for the Sentinel as a freelancer, received an e-mail informing her that her work would no longer be needed.

Could it be that Lisa Grard was canned because the paper "didn't need" her work anymore? Possibly, but the circumstances are mighty fishy.

That Obama Transparency

Thanks to Chuck Serio for this tip:
Obama’s Labor Department Ignores Freedom of Information Act

On Friday, 20 November 2009, The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation (Foundation) decided enough was enough and filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court demanding that they compel the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to comply with the Foundation’s April 6th Freedom of information Act (FOIA) request.

Barack Obama promised during the 2008 campaign that his presidency would be a model of transparency. So far, this administration has broken virtually every promise for open government that it originally made.

Union Wants to Sue Boy Scout?

For having the audacity to clean up a park.

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

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.

Can't let good works get in the way of unions, you know.

White House Transparency?

Frankly, I'd be more impressed with White House transparency if Teh One kept the promise about health care debates being on C-SPAN and all of us getting to participate (without being called un-American and Nazis), but that's just me. Instead, we're left with a White House that thinks it should be praised for doing what the candidate promised: not to hide stuff.

The list of White House visitors contains some obvious hoaxes such as Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright showing up on the rolls. As Allahpundit notes, neither of those guys is going to show up and sign their names in the White House guest book. I'm sure President Obama can call them any time he wants.

Who is on the list? Why, the most frequent visitor is SEIU head Andy Stern. Which makes sense, since he had to set up all those non-thuggish, grassroots protests protesting protesters last August.

I'm in the Wrong Business

Carnegie Hall Stagehand Moving Props Makes $530,044

Why? One word: unions.

The stagehands benefit from a strong union: Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees demonstrated its clout in November 2007 when its members walked off their Broadway jobs and closed 26 shows for almost three weeks. The strike ended after stagehands and producers agreed to a five-year contract that both sides called a compromise.

Joshua B. Freeman, a U.S. labor historian at Queens College and author of “Working Class New York,” said the union’s power to shut down a vital part of New York’s entertainment industry gives it leverage in negotiations.

“They have a credible threat of withdrawing their labor,” Freeman said.

Local One President James J. Claffey Jr., who earned $260,877 in salary and benefits in 2007, declined to comment. Union spokesman Bruce Cohen said O’Connell had no comment. Gillinson also had no comment, while Matlaga and Weber didn’t return calls.

Cohen said in an e-mail that members “work under collective bargaining negotiated fairly with management, signed by management and ratified by the membership of the union.”

Hooray for the little guys! Not.

"(O)ur elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents -- not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation"

So say AFL-CIO thugs wanting to shut down protests at townhall meetings.

The nation's largest federation of labor organizations has promised to directly engage (emphasis mine) with boisterous conservative protesters at Democratic town halls during the August recess.

In a memo sent out on Thursday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney outlined the blueprint for how the union conglomerate would step up recess activities on health care reform and other topics pertinent to the labor community.

We know how unions directly engage their opponents. With fists and bats.

Some of those "astroturf" protesters the AFL-CIO wants to "directly engage":


Now this is some Grade A, Chicago-born astroturfing for you.

No Card Check

This is good news for everyone who doesn't want to have to work for a union.

Specter and Card Check

Flip-flopped again.

Common Sense

Chuck sent this:

Employee Not Free Choice Act Ad

Nice ad regarding card check.



H/T The Other McCain

NLRB Precedents in Jeopardy Under Obama

This article outlines the Top 10 precedents from the Bush era NLRB which are in danger during the Obama administration.

There will also be a changing of the guard at the National Labor Relations Board in 2009 that promises to roll back the pro-employer decisions of the 2004-2007 board, led by President George W. Bush-appointed Chairman Robert J. Battista.

Between 2004 and 2007, the so-called "Bush board," utilizing a 3-2 Bush-appointed majority, established several precedents favorable to employers, reversed several Clinton-era board precedents and was subject to heavy criticism by unions and its own minority members. Now, President-elect Barack Obama, who just selected Hilda Solis, a strong union supporter, as his secretary of Labor, will have the opportunity to dramatically reshape the NLRB by appointing pro-union board members.

It is widely predicted that the new Obama board will reverse as many of these controversial pro-employer Bush board precedents as they can get their hands on.

Wanna slow the recovery? Back unions.

Forced Unionization and Bailing Out the Auto Industry

Bismarck sent me a link that went to this video:



I live in a right-to-work state, so, I'm always amazed when I hear about people who are forced to pay union dues, then watch the union use their money for candidates and positions they don't support.

Barack Obama is a big union supporter, and has promised to do everything possible to force companies to accept the unionization of employees (whether those employees want it or not).

All of this comes to mind while watching the Big 3 fat cats fly to Washington on private jets to ask for taxpayer money to bailout their companies...again. Regardless of how much more a worker for Ford makes versus a Toyota employee, the bottom line is that Ford, Chevrolet and Chrysler aren't making cars people want. That's why they are losing money. I can't see why we should be on the hook for more terrible business practices.