Right to Work Blog

The following U.S. Senators co-sponsored a cloture vote to end debate on Big Labor Lawyer:

Harry Reid, Roland W. Burris, Tom Harkin, Debbie Stabenow, Dianne Feinstein, Benjamin L. Cardin, Bill Nelson, Al Franken, Barbara Boxer, Amy Klobuchar, Mark Begich, Byron L. Dorgan, John D. Rockefeller IV, Edward E. Kaufman, Daniel K. Akaka, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown.

Please contact your Senators today and tell them to vote NO on cloture and NO on SEIU/AFL-CIO* union lawyer Craig Becker’s confirmation to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

*SEIU = Service Employees International Union AFL-CIO = American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations labor union

The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation Jan-Feb 2010 Newsletter Now On-line:

In this issue:

• Right to Work Sues Obama Administration, Demands Info on Big Labor Ties
• Big Labor Moves to Roll Back Sweeping Foundation Precedent
• Right to Work Combats Sneak Attack on Railway/Airline Workers
• Supreme Court Asked to Halt UAW Religious Discrimination
• Grocery Clerks Fight to Free Themselves From Union Ranks

In addition to to reading Foundation Action online, you can sign up to receive a free subscription by mail here.

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.

The Washington Examiner catches the Senate rushing pro-labor agenda items to the floor before Senator-Elect Scott Brown is sworn into the esteemed body:

… the Senate is again trying to perform as many favors for Big Labor as it can before newly elected Republican Senator Scott Brown is seated and Democrats lose their supermajority. Senate Democrats are now trying to rush through the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Becker would be the first union-employed lawyer to be confirmed by the Senate to the NLRB and is very cozy with and has received many paychecks from big politically active unions like the SEIU and AFL-CIO.

Project Labor Agreements (PLA’s) are government-sponsored kickbacks to Big Labor bosses that drive up the cost of publicly-funded construction projects by as much as 25% to the taxpayers.  PLA’s limit competitive bidding for project work to construction companies that have union contracts or will agree to them, shutting out over 85% of all construction workers who are not under union monopoly control.  But that didn’t stop the Utica School Board from imposing one on a $187.6 million capital project.  Rather than using the money for more schools and better classrooms, the School Board voted to hand taxpayer money over to Big Labor.  They should get an “F” in Accountability.

With California on the brink of bankruptcy, you would think that elected officials would be looking to save taxpayers money rather than paying more than they have to for the cost of construction.  You would be wrong.

As government unions grow more powerful than private sector unions, in part because of their ability to force workers into unions through a “card check” process, the drain on taxpayers continues to grow.

California is a shining example.

You can’t help but wonder if Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) reads his local newspapers. With a Senator so far out of touch with his local constituency, the obvious answer is: probably not.

Despite vehement opposition from the Las Vegas Review Journal and others, Reid keeps carrying big labor’s agenda and the taxpayers are the ones that pay the price.

Hold on your your wallets if you are a taxpayer in Atlanta.  The union bosses are demanding their due.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Steve Visser reports that big labor expects big favors from new mayor Kasim Reed. Local union boss Charlie Flemming says “we did a lot of work and we spent a lot of our resources” supporting Reed. It should be noted that it wasn’t Flemming’s resources but worker’s dues money that was spent but that is another story. Flemming is demanding that Reed pay them back with kickback and favoritism.

In the book, Stranglehold, Reed Larson reveals the astonishing story of how organized labor has acquired incredible, hidden power over local, state, and national governments in America. For a free copy of Stranglehold, go here.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley’s campaign was so dependent on big labor, “it was all we had,” one Democrat political consultant said.