Right to Work Blog

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.

The National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) released its first Obama Personnel Alert of 2010 exposing the ongoing failure of President Obama’s ethics pledge and executive order as it relates to ethics and transparency in his administration.  According to NRTWC research, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and several other top-level political appointees at Department of Labor (DOL) made up their own rules ignoring the President’s ethics executive order.

Assistant Secretary Phyllis Borzi, Assistant Secretary Michael Kerr, and Assistant Secretary Jane Oates are other known DOL appointees who gave themselves ethics waivers.  Without public disclosure of the ethics pledges, it is impossible to determine if this self-administering of ethics waivers is Department-wide or even Obama Administration-wide.

Big Labor DOL insiders gave themselves personal exemptions from President Obama’s January 21, 2009 ethics Executive Order 13490 two-year ban from activity on behalf of former

Obama has filled DOL with Big Labor operatives and former union officials, and these insiders have wasted little time rolling back financial disclosure for union bosses, handing out multimillion dollar grants and contracts to Big Labor, and turning DOL enforcement into an arm of Big Labor’s forced-unionism organizing machine.

Top DOL officials have at least made a mockery of and worst completely violated the President’s executive order by cutting in half Obama’s ordered two-year moratorium.  It appears that the President has already lost control of the union operatives inside his own Administration.  But what can Obama do when he owes so much to Big Labor Bosses and the forced union dues they anted up for his election?

Congress and the Justice Department ought to investigate the Office of Government Ethics failure to enforce the Ethics Executive Order 13490 documented violations.

With all that is disclosed in the NRTWC report, there should be increasing pressure for Congress to investigate the Obama Administration’s repeal of several financial disclosures that include the proposed repealing of conflict-of-interest disclosures for Big Labor officials.

It looks like the Labor Department is the tail wagging the Administration dog.

NRTWC OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PERSONNEL ALERT: U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Lucia Solis –

The United Teachers Union of Los Angeles has filed suit over the establishment of a charter school campus designed to relief classroom overcrowding at a local high school that was the basis of the movie Stand and Deliver. Union officials are demanding veto power over the establishment of a school. It’s another example of union militants caring more about their power and influence than doing what’s right for the children.

A California state worker hopes to recover from a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of  Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose corruption within the SEIU union.

As California goes, so goes the nation — in this case that would be great! It was exciting to see the Orange County Board of as Supervisors (latimes.com) ban the use of forced unionism, Public Labor Agreements for county construction projects. Supervisor John Moorlach pushed the resolution. Moorlach was the county Treasurer in 2000 when the board approved a PLA. Moorlach said the decision was a “long-term stain and an embarrassment for a conservative county like ours.”  Hopefully other counties and states across the nation will stand up for fairness, taxpayers and workers by following California’s lead on this issue.

Dan Walters is a veteran and often astute observer of California politics and he recognizes some of the budget problems California suffers under comes from the power of big labor unions have in the state, especially the public employee unions:

When California’s government employees gained collective bargaining rights three-plus decades ago, thanks to then-Gov. Jerry Brown, it was depicted as merely giving those on the public payroll equality with private workers, but in fact it went way beyond parity.

Yes, unions could bargain with public agencies on contracts.

But unlike those in private business, public worker unions could try to select those on the other side of the bargaining table by contributing heavily to campaigns for state and local offices.

Seeking contracts from those you’ve placed in office is a far cry from the arms-length bargaining over private sector union contracts.

Meanwhile, even though public workers had contract rights, the civil service system remained in effect, making it extremely difficult to discipline or fire someone on the public payroll for anything less than committing a felony.

In private industry, conditions for hiring and firing are governed by contract and/or company policy, not densely detailed civil service rules.

Finally, public unions could bypass collective bargaining and seek benefits through legislation — again drawing on their relationships with politicians they helped elect.

A case in point occurred a decade ago, when then-Gov. Gray Davis championed public union-backed legislation that sharply increased pension benefits after unions helped him win the governorship — a major contributor to pension systems’ current financial travails.

Given those three parallel systems of governing public worker employment, it’s not surprising that public employees enjoy job security and fringe benefits far beyond those in private employment — a gap that has expanded sharply during this severe recession.

Yes, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered three-day-a-month unpaid furloughs for state workers under his control and some local agencies have followed suit, but they pale in comparison to the massive salary and fringe benefit cuts and layoffs in the private sector. And that brings us to the great Columbus Day flap.

A new contract between the state and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is in limbo but the Legislature decreed that state workers would no longer be given Columbus Day off, still leaving them with far more paid holidays than private workers.

The union said that without a new contract, the old contract, including Columbus Day, was still in force and filed a grievance over its members being ordered to work.

It’s ironic that the SEIU and other public unions don’t hesitate to pursue pensions and other benefits via legislation, outside the collective bargaining process, but when the tables are turned and the Legislature acts against their wishes, they claim a violation of collective bargaining.

It calls to mind several clichés, such as turnabout being fair play, what’s good for the goose being equally good for the gander, or — a political favorite — what goes around comes around.

While Walters has seen the problems of public union “collective bargaining” power. Let’s ensure that legislation moving through Congress — and supported by both parties — doesn’t turn the country into one big version of California.

New Cato Institute study exposes the high costs of public sector forced-union dues for politics:

In May 2008, the city of Vallejo, California declared bankruptcy. Vallejo is an egregious case, but the trends that brought it to financial ruin are present in public sector union negotiations and contracts everywhere.

After helping bankrupt the state of California, SEIU is preparing its members to strike over the state’s effort to balance its books.  Incredibly, their contract with the state specifically prohibits such action but union bosses claim the contract is unenforceable.

This is an important story in these times of Big Labor’s takeover of the Federal government.  This documented true story that contains Card Check abuse, SEIU physical violence against workers, SEIU abuse of the NLRB system, orchestrated false allegations, and a corrupt Clinton appointee; and you can see and hear about what happens when Big Labor Bosses control a president’s administration like they do today.

Mr. Randy Schaber’s story begins with the discovery of an ongoing SEIU Card Check Forced Unionism scheme that included harassing employees at their homes.  Mr. Schaber offered to hold an NLRB sanctioned secret ballot election.

The SEIU organizers replied, “We will never let your employees have a secret ballot election.”  Then, Mr. Schaber began to feel the pain that SEIU’s corporate campaign is designed to inflict.

Randy’s employees were physically assaulted during this SEIU organizing campaign.

To hear Mr. Schaber tell the story in his own words, we recommend that you listen and watch his full interview (click links to video clip 1, video clip 2, and video clip 3); for a brief description view his shortened interview.  You will be amazed at the abuse of federal power coordinated by SEIU in the 1990’s when they had less control of the White House than they do today.

For more information, you can download the edited version of the U.S. House of Representatives Report and the U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General’s Report that discuss SEIU’s corporate campaign and the U.S. Department of Labor’s abuses that Mr. Schaber suffered, and it eventually resulted in the dismissal of a Clinton appointee.  

The following are quotes from that U.S. House of Representatives report:

Abuse of power at the Department of Labor

CONCLUSION

Based on the Office of the Inspector General’s investigation and the testimony of other witnesses at the hearing, it is obvious that Mr. Richard F. Sawyer abused his position as the Secretary’s Representative by intervening on behalf of the SEIU in its campaign to organize the janitorial workers of Somers.

This information establishes several irrefutable facts:

(1) Mr. Sawyer contacted officials of Somers’ largest client, and specifically discussed the Department of Labor’s active and on-going investigation of Somers.

(2) Mr. Sawyer contacted the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour investigators to request information on the status of the Somers’ investigation and to complain about the progress of said investigation.

(3) Mr. Sawyer improperly provided the SEIU with specific information regarding the Department of Labor’s active and on-going investigation of Somers—information that was used by the SEIU both privately and publicly to pressure Somers to capitulate to the union’s organizational demands.

(4) Mr. Sawyer contacted high-ranking officials within the Wage and Hour Division’s national office to complain about the progress of the Somers’ investigation.

(5) In response to Mr. Sawyer’s repeated contacts, high-ranking officials within the Wage and Hour Division’s national office assigned five additional investigators to the Somers’ investigation and directed investigators to give Somers special attention.

(6) The Somers’ investigation was kept open well beyond the point the lead Wage and Hour investigator deemed warranted by the facts.

(7) Despite the involvement of no less than six investigators and 500 hours of investigative work, the Wage and Hour Division discovered only $317.44 in FLSA violations.

These facts clearly illustrate that Mr. Sawyer was engaged in a conscious effort to use his position as the regional representative of Labor Secretary Robert Reich to assist his former employer, the SEIU, in its efforts to organize the janitorial workers of Somers. As such, the Subcommittee believes it wholly appropriate that Mr.  Sawyer’s employment with the Department of Labor was terminated.

The Subcommittee also remains concerned about the extent to which other Department of Labor employees had knowledge of, supported or assisted Mr. Sawyer in his efforts to coerce Somers into signing a union contract with the SEIU.  As noted previously, Mr. Sawyer’s position as a Secretary’s Representative falls under the purview of the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs and his official Department of Labor job description clearly states that the ‘‘Incumbent reports directly to the Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs * * * [and] consults with the Director on decisions or matters which appropriately require personal attention.”  Based on this description of Mr. Sawyer’s supervisory controls, it is reasonable to expect that high-level Departmental officers, like the Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, would have been aware of Mr. Sawyer’s actions concerning Somers.

It is also reasonable to assume that Ms. Geri Palast, Assistant Secretary of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, would also have knowledge of Mr. Sawyer’s actions.  If not, the Subcommittee cannot help but question the efficacy of the Department of Labor’s supervisory controls with respect to the Secretary’s Representatives.

Corporate campaigns

John Sweeney, President of the AFL–CIO, declared a new direction for the international labor unions that the Federation represents. Mr. Sweeney declared that labor would become far more militant in the pursuit of organizing and collective bargaining objectives.  The term used to organize formally non-union corporations became known as ‘‘corporate campaigns.’’ 

A ‘‘corporate campaign’’ has several distinct elements.  Two of the most prominent elements are:  having the target company perceived negatively by the company’s investors, customers, employees and the public, and initiating enforcement and oversight actions by federal, state, and local governmental agencies. In other words, organized labor in a ‘‘corporate campaign’’ does not necessarily target the employees of the corporation as it had done historically, but rather focuses on corporate management.

Perhaps Stephen Lerner, Organizing Director of the Service Employees International Union, said it best – 

Instead of asking, ‘How do we win a majority of (employee) votes?’, we should be asking, ‘How do we develop power to force employers to recognize the union and sign a contract.’

During the course of the 104th Congress many concerns were raised by targeted corporations regarding the tactics used by organized labor and their attendant relationship with the NLRB.  Employers argued that the NLRB was favoring organized labor and was indeed a willing pawn in the ‘‘corporate campaign’’ strategy.  As a result of these repeated and serious allegations, the Subcommittee conducted two hearings and one round-table discussion.

The first hearing held by the Subcommittee invited NLRB Chairman Gould, General Counsel Feinstein, and a variety of small and large employers to recount their personal experiences.  The second hearing held by the Subcommittee focused on the ‘‘corporate campaign’’ technique of salting – the placing of professional union organizers or members in a nonunion facility to harass or disrupt contractor operations, to increase costs, or to organize.

These two hearings raised a number of concerns for the Subcommittee including the following:

• Organizing nonunion employees into a unified union membership is not necessarily the objective of union organizers;
• Resources are not an obstacle for the unions when it comes to public relations;
• The cost of frivolous complaints and other federal agency charges fall on the businesses and the federal taxpayer while the unions have no direct accountability or cost; and  
• Jeopardizing jobs and employer viability is ultimately more important than ensuring that workers have good wages, safe worksites and fulfilling jobs.

In conclusion, the pursuit of injunctive relief, the NLRB’s handling of ‘‘salting’’ cases and the public comments of the NLRB Chairman have served as ample evidence that the NLRB may be biased against the regulated employer community.

(REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES DURING THE 104TH CONGRESS, 1/2/1997)