Right to Work Blog

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research has announced the winners of its two annual essay contests on the Right to Work issue, the William B. Ruggles Journalism Scholarship and the Applegate/Jackson/Parks Future Teachers Scholarship.

Valerie Bischoff, currently a first-year graduate student at Columbia University School of the Arts, was awarded $2,000 as the 2008 recipient of the William B. Ruggles Journalism Scholarship. Majoring in Film Writing and Directing, Mrs. Bischoff is a 2006-2007 Fulbright Scholar, who has won several other awards including Honors in her undergraduate major, Film and Digital Media, at the University of Santa Cruz. Valerie’s essay reflected how the positive experience of living in a Right to Work state, Nevada, allows her to pursue her educational and career goals. As she concluded:

. . . [T]he right to unionize should be one of our fundamental freedoms. However, the validity of this right can only be realized if the members of the union are involved because of choice. Thankfully, in twenty-two states, a Right to Work law protects this freedom.

Lisa Bishara, beginning her first year as a graduate student at Ohio State University, took top honors in the Applegate/Jackson/Parks Future Teachers Scholarship. Mrs. Bishara was awarded $1,000 for her prize-winning essay on the vital importance of teachers’ academic freedom and the Right to Work. As an Elementary/Secondary Curriculum and Administration major, Mrs. Bishara plans to become a curriculum specialist with a defined emphasis on the creative arts. As she explained:

. . . We teach that everyone has choices in all that they do. Children are required to serve consequences for their poor choices, and are rewarded for their superior choices. We teach nonconformity, “If your friends jumped off the highest bridge, does that make it the right choice for you?” No, this is not an acceptable answer. We teach that it is important for the child to opt for traveling their own course regardless of that his or her peers take. How, then, are we to allow ourselves to be forced into compulsory unionization? It is important to support voluntary unionism, which emphasizes the importance of choice.

Big Labor has, so far, promised to spend a remarkable $35 million of forced union dues against a Right to Work initiative in Colorado. Much of the money will pour in from out of state.

The Denver Post reports that “more than $1.1 million of the nearly $1.6 million raised so far came from the Washington, D.C., offices of powerful unions such as the Service Employees International Union [SEIU], the AFL-CIO and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers [IBEW]. Nearly $500,000 came from local chapters of the Teamsters, the SEIU and other labor groups.”

Big Labor will spend nearly half a billion dollars trying to elect Pro-Big Labor puppets who will pass the Card Check Scam Bill. Don’t just listen to us, listen to AFL-CIO bigwig Stewart Acuff. As reported by David Weigel on Reason.com:

My brothers and sisters, if we go into 2008 with an even larger mobilization of workers behind this legislation, with even more commitment to win the election in 2008, and put this on the agenda in 2009, I’m here to tell you today that we will pass this legislation, in the House, overwhelmingly! We will pass it in the Senate! We will defeat a Republican filibuster! And we will have a president who signs the Employee Free Choice Act! And we can get back to the business of restoring the American dream for millions and millions of workers.

If they pass their so-called Free Choice Bill, millions of workers will have no choice whether to join a labor union. That’s about as Orwellian as you can get.

The Las Vegas Sun has an interesting overview of the stakes and implications of enacting the Card Check Scam Bill.

As the Sun reported, passage of the bill “. . . would for the first time in 60 years, allow workers to organize without putting the issue to a secret-ballot vote.”

The legislation also has a provision that would:

. . . stiffen penalties for employers who commit unfair labor practices during an organizing drive and impose binding arbitration in bargaining cases in which the sides cannot agree.

Taken together, the changes would shake the foundations of modern labor law and likely usher in the largest unionization drive since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. Chicago-based Seyfarth Shaw LLP, a leading labor relations law firm, held a Web seminar last month outlining the implications of the bill . . . .

As Amanda Sonneborn, a lawyer with the firm, put it: “. . . you read it and weep.”

This isn’t speculation by Sonneborn. She points to Illinois as an example of the bill’s “cascading effect.”

The state passed mandatory card check in 2003. As a result, union density soared, she said. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, for instance, doubled its number of bargaining units in four years, Sonneborn said.

In Las Vegas, the Culinary Union has tripled its membership over the past 20 years primarily through negotiating voluntary card check agreements with casino companies. The union added 10,000 members from 2002 to 2005 alone — and will add another 6,000 when MGM Mirage’s CityCenter opens in 2009.

In Canada, the effect also has been striking. Thirty-two percent of the country’s workers belong to a union, a density not seen in the United States since the American labor movement’s pinnacle in 1955. Only 12 percent of American workers today belong to a union. Labor benefits from mandatory card check laws in some Canadian provinces. Alberta sports the lowest union density of those places — a whopping 24 percent.

. . . Under the card check bill, employers would face fines for unfair labor practices of up to $20,000 per violation.

Writer, author, and attorney, David Limbaugh, recently brought up an issue that needs looking into. As he pointed out in a recent Creators’ Syndicate article:

. . . 20 years ago, the Justice Department filed a federal civil racketeering complaint against the Teamsters, alleging the union had “made a devil’s pact” with the Mafia. A year later, the union settled with the government, agreeing to a consent decree in exchange for a dismissal of the lawsuit.

The WSJ [Wall Street Journal] reports the decree established a three-member independent review board to investigate and monitor possible corruption within the union and “required the direct election of the union president and other officers by rank and file members, in an election overseen by a court-appointed officer.” Prior to the decree, delegates elected the union president.

Teamsters President James P. Hoffa has pushed for relaxation or elimination of federal involvement since he took office in 1999, arguing that oversight is very costly and that corruption has diminished dramatically. He reportedly lobbied Obama for a year to support his position.

While officials of the oversight board agree that corruption has been reduced, they insist that if the board were eliminated, it would surely re-emerge. The union, they say, is not equipped or inclined to police itself.

Interestingly, neither the Teamsters nor Obama denies that Obama has expressed the view that the consent decree has “run its course.” They just deny there was any quid pro quo between Obama’s position and the Teamsters’ endorsement. After all, Obama came around to his position opposing federal oversight in July or August 2007, and the union didn’t endorse him until February 2008. Why the delay?

Well, the WSJ reports that fellow Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards also agreed with the union on this issue, and “when Mr. Edwards dropped out of the race in January, the union endorsed Sen. Obama in February.”

The timing is undeniably curious and perhaps suspicious. But what is more troubling to me than that or even Obama’s substantive position on the issue is that he has voiced a position on it at all.

The issues surrounding the consent decree are a judicial matter, outside the purview of the executive branch. It’s up to a federal judge to decide whether and when the consent decree should be relaxed or withdrawn.

But sadly, Obama understands, like Bill Clinton intimately understood, that judicial affairs can be affected by the political branches, such as through sympathetic appointments to the Justice Department and the courts. So it is no small matter that a presidential candidate would consider intervening, albeit indirectly, in a judicial question, especially one involving potential corruption.

It’s disheartening to think that Sen. Obama would give a wink and a nod to union corruption for a turn at Big Labor’s forced-dues-funded feeding trough, but it appears that might be the case.

It’s definitely worth looking into.

Union violence is a major problem that Congress must address. Typically union thugs target non-union workers to force them to join their forced-dues-paying ranks. But sometimes, as with the recent spat with SEIU union activists, the violence is targeted at each other.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin is taking on Big Labor and their local congressman, Neil Abercrombie, by opposing efforts to enact the Card Check Scam Bill, both nationally and in Hawaii. The Star proclaims that Gov. Linda Lingle “. . . rightly vetoed a bill approved by the Legislature that would have had the effect of eliminating secret elections in union organizing . . . .”

Abercrombie had written an editorial supporting the elimination of secret ballot elections, but the Star didn’t find his reasoning compelling. “Abercrombie points out that management is known to pressure employees to reject union organization. That can be effective in discouraging them from signing union cards, but anonymity protected by secret ballots in union elections is the best way to thwart pressure from both management and labor.”

It has been nearly 30 days since the Iowa State House and Senate passed a sweeping union power grab of the state’s school boards. Despite initial indications that Democrat Gov. Chet Culver was not inclined to support the legislation, it now appears that an insider lobbying campaign by the state’s union bosses has prevailed. The Des Moines Register reports that union officials believe Culver will now sign the bill.

“The governor has two options: to stand with Iowans and veto or to side with big union bosses and sign the bill,” said House Republican Leader Christopher Rants, from Sioux City. “I’m hopeful he will listen to the outcry of Iowans.”

The bill tilts the playing field in favor of Big Labor and ends provisions that provide a balance between management and labor, Rants said.

“It’s a bad bill that will eventually raise Iowans’ property taxes and make it extremely hard to get rid of bad teachers,” said Senate Republican Leader Ron Wieck of Sioux City. “What should truly concern Iowans is that this bill is so bad that the Democrat governor is contemplating a veto.”
Groups such as the [Iowans for Right to Work, Iowa Professional Educators,] Iowa League of Cities and the Iowa State Association of Counties registered in opposition to House File 2645. . . .

After spending millions in Pennsylvania trying to defeat Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democrat primary, SEIU’s political spending spigot is once again targeting Sen. John McCain.

A new ad campaign criticizes Sen. McCain for his position on health care. The size of the ad buy has not been released, but we do know that SEIU members are footing the bill.

Check out the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s (NRTWLDF) new video highlighting the indictment of 12 union officials for acts of violence against non-union employees and employers in Western New York. A local newspaper compared the acts described in the 62-page federal racketeering and extortion indictment to the mafia television series “The Sopranos.”

To watch the video titled “Union Violence Meets the Sopranos,” click here.