Right to Work Blog

Politics is often a game of inches, not yards. Success does not come overnight. But as any legislative strategist will tell you, getting a roll-call vote on a critical issue is the first step toward long-term success, no matter what the initial outcome.

That is why Sen. Jim DeMint deserves praise for his efforts to get a vote on a National Right to Work bill. Despite an obvious outcome, DeMint was able to put all Senators on record for the first time in a decade on where they stand on the critical issue of workers’ choice. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said: “No law — federal or state — should force an American to join a union in order to get a job in this country. . . . This is about individual rights. There should not be a federal law that discriminates against workers who choose not to join a union.”

Not surprisingly, the amendment was defeated by a large margin, as the union bosses currently have a majority of Senators carrying their water. But the short-term outcome is not as important as the long-term fight.

Check the roll call to see where your Senator stands on Right to Work.

Once again, thank you, Sen. DeMint.

In the waning hours of the Bush Administration, the Department of Labor beefed up disclosure rules for Big Labor, trying to ensure workers’ dues money is not stolen or abused. Most union bosses are complaining about the rules, but some are welcoming the new rules.

. . . Sal Rosselli, president of an Oakland-based local, has feuded with the SEIU’s [Service Employees International Union] national leadership over the direction of the union. He said the national office has refused to fully disclose how much money it has spent on the internecine fight.

“Transparency on how unions spend their members’ dollars, from our point of view, is wanted,” Rosselli said. “We let our members look at every check.”

The sad reality, however, is the new rules will probably be short lived. The Obama Administration was elected on the back and dollar of union bosses and returns the favor at every turn. The biggest question is: Why did the Bush Department of Labor wait so long to protect workers?

John Stossel of ABC News sees right through Big Labor’s claim that the Card Check Scam Bill is about giving workers a choice:

Choice is good. As a libertarian, I’m all over choice. But strangely, today, liberals are mostly about what Americans should not be allowed to choose.

AFL-CIO boss John Sweeney says, “[O]ur top priority is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that will restore workers’ freedom to bargain for a better life”.

That sounds nice. But it really means that workers will no longer have the privacy and safety of a secret ballot when voting on a union. If a union can round up signatures from more than half the employees at a plant, other workers will be forced to unionize, too.

Unorganized labor — better known as most of us, or free people making our own way — won’t be helped by this coercive limiting of choice.

Hilda Solis’ nomination for Secretary of Labor has hit a bit of a snag. Her refusal to answer basic questions about the Card Check Scam Bill, and whether the Right to Work should be eliminated, has stalled her confirmation in the U.S. Senate.

Investor’s Business Daily has joined other newspapers to demand defeat of the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill:

Unions spent as much as $400 million in the 2008 election cycle to get labor-friendly candidates elected. They succeeded and now have made passage of the Employee Free Choice Act a priority. The Democratic leadership, having enjoyed the electoral fruits of the unions’ generosity, would like to oblige.

Despite its noble-sounding name, the legislation won’t expand freedom. The bill could be more accurately called the card check act, for it has nothing to do with free choice.

Quite the contrary, it seeks to reverse unions’ waning influence by eliminating the secret ballots that workers historically used to organize in a federally supervised election.

Instead, under card check, a union is certified when a majority of workers signs the cards that are now used to merely gauge employee interest in voting on union participation. These cards aren’t secret, so it’s a fundamental violation of the secret ballot principle.

It’s not hard to imagine the intimidation workers would be subject to when they’re offered cards to sign. And it’s not as if nonunion workers are clamoring to join a union but are afraid of management reprisals if they do. By more than a 3-to-1 margin, polls show, workers say [sic] don’t want to be part of organized labor.

Less well-known but just as harmful as the gross violation of privacy is a provision in the bill that authorizes government arbitrators to set the terms of the initial contract if the union and management can’t agree on a deal. At that point, workers have lost all control over the conditions of their employment.

Should card check be passed and signed, organized labor, using the new law like a nightstick, would aim directly at the low-price nonunion retailers that save consumers millions — like Wal-Mart. Should those companies become unionized, prices would be forced up so management could afford the inevitably expanded payrolls.

While a few workers would benefit from higher wages — at least those who remain after jobs are cut to accommodate rising labor costs — the millions of working-class Americans who benefit from low prices to keep their families fed and clothed would find life a bit tougher.

. . .

Unions, which represent only 7.5% of the private sector labor force, down from more than one-third in the 1950s, are so desperate to regain their lost power that they would abandon the very people they say they want to protect — struggling American families.

Right now, the worker’s best friends are a few senators in the South and a handful of state lawmakers willing to stand up for freedom, privacy and the companies that fuel our prosperity by providing us with jobs and affordable goods.

The National Right to Work Foundation announced it will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission, on behalf of two Alabama educators, against the National Education Association teacher union and two NEA affiliates for an illegal political fundraising scheme initiated by the union hierarchy.

According to the complaint, the NEA illegally laundered teachers’ dues into a union political action committee. Adding insult to injury, when confronted by the teachers, union officials tried to dupe them into thinking they were contributing to a “children’s fund.”

You can read the Foundation’s news release here.

You can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast on the NEA scandal here.

In a letter to Congress, 10 governors voiced objections to imposition of the Card Check Scam (i.e. the so-called Employee Free Choice Act) on their states.

The letter states:

January 8, 2009

Dear Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, and Representative Boehner,

The “Employee Free Choice Act” is a highly controversial federal bill which seeks to fundamentally alter federal labor laws that run counter to long held traditions that have protected the privacy and security of American workers. We believe that America must maintain and encourage a competitive workforce. To keep America competitive, the federal government must protect the confidential nature of a worker’s vote. Some of the Act’s primary flaws include:

— Violating the elections process that allows employees to choose whether they want union representation through a secret ballot. Currently, neither the union nor the employer knows how an employee votes. The proposed legislation would eliminate this important protection for employees — one supported by a recent poll that showed 75% of Americans believe that a free and impartial secret ballot election is the fairest way for workers to decide on union membership.

— Imposing Contract Terms on Employers which are not actually requested by their workers. The National Labor Relations Board will be de facto authorized to force an employer to implement a collective bargaining agreement imposed by an arbitrator rather than through the long held tradition of unions working independently on an agreement between the employer and employees in order to secure their top priorities. Instead this bill will allow far removed union executives to insert their own priorities without prior consultation with the affected workers. This represents an unprecedented government intrusion on the right to bargain freely over working terms and conditions.

We respectfully request that you join us in opposing this legislation and cast your vote against it.

Sincerely,

Gov. Sonny Perdue,
Georgia

Gov. Bobby Jindal,
Louisiana

Gov. Tim Pawlenty,
Minnesota

Gov. Haley Barbour,
Mississippi

Gov. Jim Gibbons,
Nevada

Gov. John Hoeven,
North Dakota

Gov. Mark Sanford,
South Carolina

Gov. Mike Rounds,
South Dakota

Gov. Rick Perry,
Texas

Gov. Jim Douglas,
Vermont

The AFL-CIO is touting the fact that Big Labor unions in 45 countries are pushing the US Congress to pass the Card Check Scam Bill. Is this something they really want to brag about?

With a larger Democrat majority in the state legislature, supporters of Right to Work in the Hawkeye State will have their hands full defending workers’ right to choose. Despite the threat, House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen announced his strong opposition of weakening Iowa’s Right to Work Law during the opening ceremonies of the 83rd General Assembly.

With Congress in session, Big Labor bosses are opening their spending spigots to push forced unionism on millions of Americans.