Right to Work Blog

Racing against the clock, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed through another Obama Big Labor nominee, Patricia Smith, before Senator-Elect Scott Brown becomes a Senator. Reid won this race, see the Senate votes here.

In addition, Reid is prepared to add radical SEIU & AFL-CIO lawyer, Craig Becker to the list of Obama nominees approved before Senator Brown arrives.

Please thank your Senators who voted against President Obama’s U.S. Labor Department Solicitor of Labor nominee Patricia Smith. And, urge your U.S. Senators to Vote NO on the impending Obama National Labor Relations Board nomination of Craig Becker. 

As the new U.S. Solicitor of Labor, President Obama’s nominee M. Patricia Smith will control the largest civilian pool of government lawyers after the Justice Department.

Then New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer appointed Smith Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor (NYDOL). Having spent her entire working life as a government employee, Smith brings only bureaucratic experience to the table.

As NYDOL Commissioner, Smith used her position and federal funds to override a state hiring freeze to hire a politically connected union organizer as a state employee.

In her former NYDOL position, Smith fostered and named a program “Wage Watch” that created a direct and integral relationship between NYDOL government enforcement agents and the “program’s partners” who are Big Labor organizers and Big Labor front groups.

Then NYDOL Director of Strategic Enforcement and recently withdrawn Obama DOL Wage and Hour appointee, Lorelei Boylan referred to these Big Labor partners as NYDOL “community enforcers.”

In one giddy e-mail obtained by NRTW, Boylan wrote, “the ‘role of the commuity [sic] enforcer’ is where we will have to come up with original material.”

For a real world example of how this works let us take you back to the Clinton Administration’s Labor Department which colluded with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizers in an attempt to shakedown an employer to extract an agreement to hand his employees over to labor bosses. Watch the National Right To Work Committee’s interview with Randy Schaber (Link) and read the congressional investigative report (Link) that caused the firing of a Clinton appointee at the Labor Department in the 1990s.

It is past time to stop these political favors and manipulations of federal resources and laws to benefit Big Labor Bosses. And, that is exactly what we can expect with Smith’s confirmation as Solicitor of Labor. She did it in New York, and now she plans to do it across the USA.

ACT NOW, thank your senators who voted against Smith and encourage your senators to vote against Big Labor Lawyer Craig Becker’s nomination to the NLRB.

Radical Big Labor lawyer Craig Becker has been renominated to that National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by President Obama. 

The National Right to Work Committee has opposed Becker’s nomination from the start and other groups are joining the chorus.

The Committee’s Becker Alert highlights the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Founder Wade Rathke’s ringing endorsement of Obama’s Becker nomination. Rathke wrote, “Here’s a big win no matter how you shake and bake it: Craig Becker being nominated for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)!

Becker, an associate general counsel to both the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO, will likely support measures to eliminate a workers right to a secret ballot through executive action.  

Chicago’s Fran Eaton calls the effects of forced unionism as she sees it:

Just when that house begins to teeter is when the bullies really get mean and desperate. We’re seeing that now at the federal level. Unions want to strip away workers’ right to privacy when they vote on unionizing. The federal “Card Check” legislation will strip away secret balloting for workers.  

“OK, everyone who wants me to be in charge, raise your hands,” imagine the bully shouting on the playground with his trusted goons standing on either side.

Instead, union thugs hike demands and press taxpayers for more under the guise of better education for the kids and compassionate welfare for the state’s helpless. The Illinois Education Association and the Service Employees International Union then have the guts to use those confiscated tax dollars to run radio ads and demand more tax increases.

It gets worse.

In Illinois, only union workers can build bridges, schools or roads. While only 43 percent of Illinois construction workers are in unions, impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s Executive Order 13 made it impossible for non-union crews to bid on state-funded construction projects.

Recently, President Barack Obama signed a similar order for federally-funded plans.

It’s simply a choice between freedom and coercion, National Right to Work’s Mark Mix said Monday during a private meeting in Chicago. “We’re not against unions, we’re just for people being given the choice whether or not they want to belong,” Mix said. “Freedom always works best.”

Mix is an average-sized guy, and one who would surprise you for being gutsy enough to stir up the idea that union bullies should be challenged in Illinois. Mix is the type of guy you always admired for his backbone but who also made you feel a little ashamed you weren’t quite as brave.

Mix, though, has been part of several statewide victories over the past few years and thinks Illinois needs to challenge statewide union tyranny. Twenty-two states are now “Right to Work” states, including nearby Ohio and neighboring Iowa. Indiana is right on the verge of joining their ranks.

“When the cost of government is less, the cost of living is less, and companies find those states more desirable to build new businesses and bring in more jobs,” Mix said.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed suit in United States District Court for an employee forced to pay unjustifiable fees by Teamsters officials at a Luzerne County government office.  See the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation’s release.

“Giving union officials free reign to deduct money from workers’ paychecks is an open invitation to abuse,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Enacting a Pennsylvania Right to Work law to make union dues fully voluntary is the only way to ensure employees are protected from avaricious union bosses.”

Thanks to the efforts of the National Right to Work Foundation, Utah teacher unions no longer have the right to use government resources to collect money for partisan political activities.

From the Deseret News:

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday reversed itself and ruled to uphold a Utah statute prohibiting union officials from using payroll deductions to divert teachers’ and other government workers’ money into union electioneering.

“Utah has a legitimate interest in avoiding the reality or appearance of government entanglement with partisan politics,” according to the ruling, and Utah’s Voluntary Contributions Act “plainly serves the state’s interest in separating public employment from political activities.”

Five Utah labor unions and one association of labor unions – representing several thousand Utah public employees – brought the suit against Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, seeking a declaration that the Utah VCA, a law passed in 2001, is unconstitutional as applied to all public employers other than the state itself.

After initially siding with union attorneys who argued the law somehow violated the constitutional rights of the union, the 10th Circuit Court put the case on hold pending the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving a similar Idaho statute.

“The recent Supreme Court’s decision and now this 10th Circuit ruling makes clear what should have been obvious: Union officials have no constitutional right to use government resources to line their pockets,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which advocates for right-to-work states, including Utah. “It is bad public policy for government bodies essentially to act as bagmen for union political monies.”

An Ohio union activist has been caught forging documents to take money from worker’s wages to pay for union political activity.  The organizers forged 40 “PAC cards” to take $14 a month from employees.  Besides the obvious outrage, this incident certainly begs the question — would union organizers forge Card Check cards if the law went into effect?  

After spending more than a billion dollars in forced union dues to ensure his election, President Obama repaid the favor by repealing executive orders, helping speed coercive union organizing. Obama has now given the Secretary of Labor the power to blacklist union-targeted employers and employees and has decided to keep workers in the dark about their rights to refrain from union membership. As Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation said, “Obama’s two executive orders serve one basic goal: to seize more forced-dues revenue to fund Big Labor’s political agenda.”

Obama repealed Executive Order 13201 signed by President George W. Bush which had helped ensure that employees of federal contractors were informed of their rights under the U.S. Supreme Court case Communication Workers v. Beck (1988). Won by attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation, Beck held that private-sector employees may be compelled to pay certain union dues, but may not be compelled to pay any dues or fees earmarked for union politics, lobbying, and other non-bargaining activities.

President Obama included the revocation of Beck rights notices in an executive order advertising, and essentially endorsing, the formation of unions under a theory (long discredited by academic research) that forcing employees into union collectives will somehow prevent “substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce.”

The executive order also purports to give the Secretary of Labor the authority to determine what will be required by the notice, the authority to investigate violations, to hold hearings, and the power to punish violators of all federal labor laws mentioned in the notice. In effect, the Secretary of Labor would become an additional judge, jury, and executioner of federal labor laws with respect to federal contractors. Most importantly, the Secretary would determine whether a contractor would be fired by the federal government (apparently where the contractor has not even been found to have violated any laws by the law enforcement body of jurisdiction). Even President Bill Clinton stopped short of attempting to give the Secretary of Labor a “blacklisting” power, which is almost certainly unlawful.

Another new order effectively bars federal contractors from communicating truthful information about unionization to their employees.

“It’s disgusting to see this blatant payoff to Big Labor only two weeks into Obama’s term,” continued Mix. “Today, President Obama has sent an ominous message to the 93 percent of private sector workers in America who, for whatever reasons, have chosen not to unionize: You’re not welcome here.”

A billion dollars can buy new friends. No wonder Obama said: “I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it’s part of the solution.”

Once again the legal-eagles at the National Right to Work have stuck a blow for freedom when an administrative law judge of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) struck down a nationwide policy of a major international union that requires employees to object annually to prevent union officials from spending union dues for political activities. The policy is a pervasive tactic used by union officials to prevent dissenting employees from reclaiming forced-union dues used to promote political causes they oppose.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys helped Robert Prime, an employee of L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace, LLC at the Naval Air Station, file unfair labor practice charges in December 2003 against the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union Local Lodge 2777. The charges alleged that union officials violated Prime’s rights by forcing him to renew his objection to funding union political advocacy every single year.

NLRB administrative law judge Michael A. Marcionese issued a ruling from the bench yesterday at the conclusion of a hearing in Pensacola. Marcionese found that the IAM policy was arbitrary, discriminatory, and bordered on being irrational. Although Foundation attorneys have asked for refunds for any objecting employee nationally within the last four years, the scope of the remedy will remain unclear for the next few weeks until the judge issues a supporting written ruling.

In November 2003, Prime filed an objection with IAM union officials to funding their political activities, as the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck decision permits. The Beck decision recognized that workers have the right to refrain from formal union membership and cannot be forced to pay for activities unrelated to collective bargaining. However, when Prime asked union officials to honor his request as a “continuing objection,” IAM officials refused, claiming that Prime and his coworkers must object annually because they are not subject to the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

IAM union officials already accept “continuing objections” from railroad and airline employees covered by the RLA due to favorable rulings in prior Foundation cases. However, union officials arbitrarily refuse to abide by those rulings for employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act.

“America’s workers may have one fewer hoop to jump through to reclaim their forced dues used for politics,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

“However, this lengthy legal battle underscores why no one should be forced to pay dues to an unwanted union in the first place.”

Florida’s highly-popular Right to Work law, on the books since 1944, is one of 22 state laws that secure the right of employees to decide for themselves whether or not to join or financially support a union.

However, because Vertex Aerospace employees work on federal property under “exclusive federal jurisdiction,” the state’s Right to Work law does not protect those workers from being forced to pay union dues to keep their jobs.