Right to Work Blog

With Iowa’s Right to Work Law targeted for repeal by the union bosses, citizens and members of the state legislature are rising up to defend workers’ choice.

Among them is State Sen. Pat Ward.

Writing forcefully in the Des Moines Register, Ward points out that “Iowa is on a path of self destruction as far as good jobs are concerned. We’re in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and rather than doing everything within our power to keep jobs here in Iowa, we seem determined to run them away.”

Ward highlights a string of Big Labor-backed proposals that are being considered by the state legislature including repeal of Right to Work, expanding the scope and power of government employee unions to collectively bargain for more taxpayer money, and enactment of a state prevailing wage law that would drive up the price of government infrastructure projects.

As Sen. Ward writes, “if these bills become law, Iowa might as well hang a ‘closed’ for business sign out for the world to see.”

It’s not new, but its worth remembering and the Washington Examiner does a fine job of reminding the American people that Card Check Scam supporters demanded secret ballot elections to protect Mexican workers from abuse.

American workers? Not so much.

The El Paso Times reports on the Texas Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to enactment of the Card Check Scam Bill. Most interestingly, local union boss David Aranda is quoted as saying, “Why should it (union formation) be secret?”

There you have it. Union bosses want to eliminate the secret ballot and don’t believe that the decision should be made in the privacy of the voting booth. Any claim to the otherwise is a falsehood. Without a secret ballot, workers will be subject to pressure and intimidation, and Aranda and his ilk know it.

With Big Labor bosses from the AFL-CIO declaring a “huge victory,” the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis to be the next Secretary of Labor.

Here is some background on “Big Labor’s Girl.”

Mississippi’s state Senate has passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 550, urging Congress to oppose the Card Check Scam Bill.

Take it from someone who creates manufacturing jobs, enactment the Card Check Scam Bill is a “lose-lose situation for businesses and employees, and threatens the fundamental rights of the very workers that the unions claim to want to protect.”

The erroneously named Employee Free Choice Act would strip employees of the privacy and protection of a private ballot, and replace it with the hostile approach of the “card check recognition system.” By removing the workers’ privacy, they will be forced to make their decision on whether to unionize in front of coworkers and union organizers. This could subject them to undue pressure and even coercion. This is undemocratic and, frankly, un-American.

Big Labor advocates like to cite the big government spending programs of the Depression-era as the panacea for what ails us today. But Mark Mix, the President of the National Right to Work Committee, looks at the facts. If we want to turn this recession into a depression, enact the Card Check Scam Bill.

The Pueblo Chieftain in Colorado refuses to sing to Big Labor’s tune:

There’s a relentless drive by organized labor to get its way legislatively where it hasn’t been able in the workaday world.

In Colorado, the latest manifestation of this is SB180. If enacted, this bill would mandate that local governments allow their firefighters and law enforcement officers to unionize, whether the taxpaying public of those governments approve or not.

A hearing has been scheduled today on what’s titled the “Firefighter and Law Enforcement Officer Collective Bargaining Act.” The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton, and Rep. Casso Edward, D-Denver.

Colorado law now allows city and county residents to decide whether workers employed by local government should be able to organize. Some communities have approved collective bargaining and others haven’t.

SB180 would take the decision-making out of the hands of local taxpayers. All compensation for unionized public safety workers would be decided by a system that favors employees over taxpayers. And if unionized workers didn’t like their contracts, they could force them unilaterally to be renegotiated.

This bill would be an unfunded mandate on local communities which up to now have declined to have union pacts with firefighters or police or sheriff’s officers. Why should legislation carried by metro-area lawmakers be forced down the throats of small communities in Southern Colorado?

Local employment decisions should be made at the local level. They should not be mandated by lawmakers in Denver who dance to the tune of Big Labor.

Right now local governments are seeing their tax revenues decline. This is not the time to force them to reallocate finite finances because lawmakers who live a hundred miles away want to please union bosses who have been unable to get their way.

SB180 is an anti-democratic assault on local government and the taxpayers who foot the bills. It should be given a fitting last rite – say a funeral pyre on the Statehouse steps.

WTMJ-TV reports:

Prosecutors have charged the former head of the Milwaukee Police officers Union, Bradley DeBraska, with misappropriation of entity identifying information and forgery. He faces up to 12 years in prison and up to $20,000 in fines if convicted on both counts.

For refusing to unionize the employees of the Delta Queen, an historic U.S. landmark, the Seafarers International Union used its political muscle to sink the ship’s business.