Jeff Demet’s name is on the petitions four times, but he said he didn’t sign even once. Also, his mother, Mary Demet’s signature is on the recall petitions, but she said she didn’t sign. Dennis Sargent of Racine is also on a petition that was allegedly circulated by Mark Demet, Jeff Demet’s brother. But Sargent said he did not sign a petition to recall Wanggaard and the address listed is not where he lives.

For more, read: Suspect recall signing could result in felony charges

From the Chicago Tribune:

A Stoneham man and former International Representative of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on charges that he made unlawful payments and falsified documents Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press statement.

At Monday’s sentencing, the court dismissed a second conviction of unlawful labor payments, the statement reads. Rago was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $216,384 in restitution and $10,000 forfeiture.

Upon being appointed as an ILA representative, Rago secured a no-show job with the employer of Local 1604 members so that he could continue making his prior linehandler’s salary without performing any work, the statement reads. Rago directed that his salary would be financed from deductions from the contractual wage earnings of the Local 1604 members.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Mark Neylon, District Director, Boston District Office for the United States Department of Labor – Office of Labor Management Standards; and Robert Panella, Special Agent in Charge of the Office of Inspector General – Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations for the United States Department of Labor; made the announcement Monday.

From a 2008 DOL report that the Obama DOL has discontinued providing:

On September 15, 2008, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Frank Rago, President of International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1604 (located in Boston, Mass.) was indicted with failure to maintain records and making false entries in union and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) records. The indictment follows an investigation by the OLMS Boston District Office.

New York Times Pundit: Reckless Obama NLRB ‘Paralyzing’ Economy

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

For years, New York Times commentator Joe Nocera has been one of the most relentless champions of government regulation of business and “stimulus” spending in the American media.

When even Mr. Nocera starts agreeing with critics of a presidential administration that it has gone “too far” in interfering with the decision-making of businesses and their employees, that administration clearly has a serious problem.

Therefore, Mr. Nocera’s August 23 Times column about the ongoing effort by Acting National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Lafe Solomon to dictate where businesses may or may not expand should have set off alarm bells at the White House.

Mr. Solomon’s immediate target is Boeing and its employees in Right to Work South Carolina. In April, he filed a complaint against the company, America’s biggest exporter of manufactured products, for initiating a new 787 Dreamliner assembly line in North Charleston.

As Mr. Nocera observed in his column bemoaning this Solomon power grab, “Boeing’s aircraft assembly has long been done by its unionized work force in Puget Sound, Wash.” Indeed, seven Dreaminers will still be assembled each month in Puget Sound.

“The South Carolina facility,” Mr. Nocera explained, “is a hedge against the possibility” that International Association of Machinists (IAM) union kingpins will order unionized employees in Puget Sound out on strike, and thus “shut down production of the Dreamliner.”

A ‘Mind-Boggling Stretch’ To Characterize Boeing’s Strategy as ‘Retaliation’

Boeing chose to add its North Charleston line, which will assemble three Dreamliners a month, only after trying assiduously, but unsuccessfully, to negotiate with IAM chieftains a “moratorium on strikes — precisely because it needed to get the airplane into the hands of impatient customers.”

For a company that had no other economically viable way of avoiding recurrences in the future of strikes that have cost its shareholders, employees and clients billions of dollars in the past, the South Carolina expansion was “a perfectly legitimate hedge” that it could make without fear of legal repercussions.

But this spring Mr. Solomon, the man whom President Obama unilaterally installed as acting NLRB general counsel in June 2010, declared that making such a hedge to avoid or at least mitigate multi-billion-dollar revenue losses stemming from disruptive IAM strikes constitutes illegal “retaliation.”

Even for a normally regulation-happy pundit like Mr. Nocera, it is a “mind-boggling stretch” to characterize Boeing’s strategy as “retaliation.”

And that is what the Times columnist finds “so jarring about this case — and not just for Boeing. Without any warning, the rules have changed. Uncertainty has replaced certainty. Other companies have to start wondering what other rules could soon change. It becomes a reason to hold back hiring.”

In short, the Obama NLRB’s aggressive rewriting of federal labor law to benefit the President’s political patrons in the union hierarchy is “paralyzing” job creation.

The Boeing case is currently before an NLRB administrative law judge and could drag on for years.

Right to Work Legislative Staffers Push For Effective Congressional Countermeasures

But National Right to Work Committee officers and members and other Americans concerned about the anti-employee, anti-business, and anti-economic growth impact of the Solomon complaint are fighting back.

“Working together with other citizen groups who share our position on this issue, the Committee aims to bring a halt to the NLRB attack on the 1000 Dreamliner assembly employees already at work in North Charleston and their employer before any more damage is done,” said Committee President Mark Mix.

“The Obama-selected acting general counsel’s action, which has apparent philosophical support from members of the Obama board itself, is outrageous. This action has deeply offended millions of Americans who otherwise hold disparate views about public policy.

“No wonder, then, that there is no shortage of politicians in Congress with ideas about how to derail the Boeing case — some better than others.

“One promising approach is to exercise Congress’s constitutional power over the NLRB budget. Committee legislative staff members are now working with Capitol Hill allies to secure legislative votes this fall on appropriations amendments cutting off funds for pursuit of the NLRB’s Boeing case.

“Better yet would be for Congress to vote to defund the NLRB completely. Back in February, the Committee supported an appropriations amendment by pro-Right to Work Congressman Tom Price [R-Ga.] that would have blocked all taxpayer funding for NLRB operations for the rest of Fiscal 2011.

“It’s bad enough that America’s federal labor laws are strongly biased against the individual employee’s Right to Work. Leaving enforcement of these laws in the hands of forced-unionism ideologues like Lafe Solomon, rather than less partisan Department of Justice attorneys, only makes matters worse.”

Mr. Mix continued: “And the fact is, the Boeing power grab is only one of an array of ways in which the Obama NLRB is now threatening to eviscerate employees’ Right to Work.”

Another ongoing attack on employees’ personal freedom is the “ambush” election proposal expected to be finalized by President Obama’s NLRB bureaucrats within a few weeks after this Right to Work Newsletter edition goes to press.

‘Ambush’ Elections Would Deny Workers a Meaningful Vote

Wilma Liebman, originally appointed to the NLRB by union-label President Bill Clinton and elevated to the NLRB chairmanship by Barack Obama in 2009, and two Obama-appointed board members, Craig Becker and Mark Pearce, officially announced the “ambush” election plan on June 22.

In practice, the proposed changes would eviscerate workers’ right under current law to make a collective choice against union monopoly bargaining in their workplace.

Under federally-authorized union monopoly bargaining, the bosses of a single union wield “exclusive” power to negotiate employees’ pay, benefits, and work rules. Employees who refuse to join the union are denied the freedom to bargain over their job conditions on their own behalf or through another union.

Currently, the NLRB allows an average of 38-40 days from the time an employer is notified that a union is seeking monopoly-bargaining privileges over his or her employees to the time the workplace election over unionization occurs.

Employers often use that relatively brief period of time to make the case to their employees that unionization isn’t in their best interest.

But the “ambush” election rules proposed by the Obama NLRB would shorten the time frame to 10-14 days, or perhaps even less.

Mr. Mix charged: “Effectively, employees would be denied the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before voting on unionization, because employers would be denied enough time to make their case.”

Employee Phone Numbers, E-Mail Addresses Would Be Handed Over to Union Organizers

In addition to denying business owners and managers any real chance to counter union organizers’ claims, the NLRB’s proposed new rules mandate that employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses be handed over to union organizers at the outset of each “ambush” election campaign.

The new rules would also make it even more difficult for independent-minded employees and businesses to challenge election misconduct by union bosses and their henchmen.

“Fortunately, the U.S. House, under the leadership of avowed Right to Work supporter John Boehner [R-Ohio], has the power to cut off funds for implementation of the NLRB ‘ambush’ election scheme as well as for prosecution of the Boeing complaint,” noted Mr. Mix.

“By refusing to vote for a Fiscal 2012 NLRB budget unless it curtails Obama bureaucrats’ worst excesses, the House can actually stop many board abuses without the cooperation of union-label Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-Nev.] or the White House.

“But that will require intestinal fortitude on the part of Speaker Boehner and other House leaders, and ever-intensifying mobilization of Right to Work supporters nationwide.”

Barbara Ivey of the forced unionism state of Oregon and her co-workers were victims of the totalitarian NLRB actions. On August 26^th, as Big Labor Attorney and NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman’s term expired and she slinked back to her Big Labor law practice, the NLRB voted to repeal “DANA rights” in its Lamons Gasket decision.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Mrs. Ivey was invited by the Education & Workforce Committee to testify about her shock that the U.S. government took away her right to a secret ballot, especially since the NLRB had earlier said she had the right and had scheduled the vote only days after the fateful Lamons Gasket decision. She and her fellow employees never got a chance for a secret ballot to vote, and now she will be forced to pay tribute to an SEIU union boss in order to keep her job.

The video above is taken from the Education & Workforce Committee hearing where the Obama NLRB usurpation of power and destruction of individual liberty is on display. Because of this decision numerous secret ballots that have already cast in workplaces across the country will never be counted. The ballots reportedly are currently stored at NLRB, then will eventually be shredded or disposed of in another manner.

To borrow from the Wisconsin union thugs, “This is what DEMOCRACY looks like” in an Obama Administration!

(NOTE: What were known as “DANA Rights” occurred when the NLRB voted 3-2 to overturned its policy of denying employees any access to a secret ballot vote over unionization after a union is recognized pursuant to the controversial “card check” organizing process. The ruling came in two high-profile cases brought by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys for employees at two automotive suppliers (Dana and Metaldyne) who found themselves organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. “DANA Rights” required the NLRB to give employees notice that they have 45 days after a card check recognition to file a decertification petition to obtain an election to vote out the unwanted union. Interestingly, these rights were granted prospectively, but removed retrospectively by the NLRB. )

Looks like this Chicago teacher’s attitude has spread West.

From the Mosquera’s Op-Ed in the Washington Examiner: 

Without stringent disclosure requirements, union members and nonmembers alike are left at the mercy of union officials who have the power to collect dues without being held accountable for how that money is spent.

The public reporting guidelines Solis jettisoned included several common-sense additions to the Labor Management Relations Disclosure Act of 1959.

Under the proposed guidelines, union officials would have to disclose how much individual compensation they receive in the form of benefits, account for any travel and entertainment expenses, and identify union income streams.

The fact is most workers want more information about how their money is being spent by union officials. Last year, a poll revealed that nearly 90 percent of union members support strong union transparency requirements.

Disclosure is a simple but effective tool for fighting corruption and encouraging accountability. If union officials know their spending habits are part of the public record, they’ll be less interested in expensive getaways and more interested in effectively managing their members’ hard-earned dues.

That’s why I filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to stop Solis from rolling back these vital union transparency requirements. Union officials shouldn’t be allowed to operate behind closed doors when billions of dollars of employees’ hard-earned money is at stake.

If you pay union dues, you have a right to know how your money is being spent, whether you’re a voluntary member or a nonunion worker who has to pay up to keep your job. If almost 90 percent of union members see the need for transparency, why can’t Hilda Solis?

Chris Mosquera is a county government employee in Maryland.

The New York Times profiles the fight. It’s worth the read.

A SEIU member says she was physically forced out of a room after she questioned union leaders about how they were counting ballots, and she recorded the confrontation on her cell phone.

Mariam Nojiam, a state worker for the Department of Motor Vehicles, began recording video as she walked into an SEIU election office while officials were giving instructions on counting procedure.

After one of the officials giving instructions asked if there were any questions, Mariam said she spoke up and began asking about large envelopes she says didn’t have any postmarks on them.

“Some people sent them in today, some people sent them in yesterday and the day before in priority mail, and there’s no postmark on them,” the official responded.

The ballot instructions clearly state that ballots must be received at the election office through the U.S. Postal Service, but when Mariam tried to insist that the envelopes without postmarks shouldn’t be allowed, the official cut her off.

The confrontation escalated when the official was joined by others who eventually forced her out of the room and locked the door.

Mariam said the confrontation shows union officials aren’t held to an appropriate level of transparency. “It’s about time that they be responsible and transparent to their members,” she said.

The SEIU 1000 responded to CBS13’s request for interview with a statement, saying, “As our election rules dictate Ms. Noujaim was permitted to view the ballot count process along with any other member who wanted to monitor the process. Ms. Noujaim was escorted out when she tried to push her way into a restricted area.”

A copy of the ballot instructions provided to CBS13 states that the protest period began in May 2011 but made no mention of candidates being the only people eligible to file a protest.

New Jersey Communications Workers compulsory-dues funded union boss’ ridiculous statements reveal why solutions for New Jersey problems are not coming from Big Labor – they want to take New Jersey back to the 1940’s. From Politico’s Maggie Haberman:

Gov. Chris Christie is like Adolf Hitler and New Jersey is like Nazi Germany, a local labor leader declared at a rally against the governor’s proposed pension reform moves Thursday.

“It took World War II to get rid of the last Adolf Hitler — it’s gonna take World War III to get rid of Adolf Christie!” shouted Communications Workers of America vice president Chris Shelton at a rally outside the statehouse in Trenton.

“Welcome to Nazi Germany!” Shelton said when he first took the podium.

It’s almost too much to believe but state legislators in Wisconsin are reporting 18 death threats for their votes to break up the union monopoly.

Even as they scream for “workers’ rights,” the one workers’ right that union bosses despise is the Right To Work.  Big Labor and its overwhelmingly Democratic allies oppose a woman’s right to choose whether or not to join a union. Instead, they prefer that predominantly male employers and labor leaders make that choice for her.

The American Left has hoisted “choice” onto a pedestal taller than the Washington Monument. Liberals and their Big Labor buddies will race to their battle stations to defend a woman’s right to choose to abort her unborn child. Meanwhile, they holler themselves hoarse to prevent her (and her male counterparts) from freely choosing to accept or avoid union membership.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., understands that exercising this choice is a basic human right, and neither private employment nor government work should require joining or paying dues to a union.

“Many Americans already are struggling just to put food on the table,” DeMint said, “and they shouldn’t have to fear losing their jobs or face discrimination if they don’t want to join a union.” Thus, on Tuesday, DeMint introduced the National Right to Work Act.

Notwithstanding that right-to-work states are comparatively prosperous engines of job growth, the case for right-to-work is not merely economic but also moral.

“Government has granted union officials the unprecedented power to force individual employees to pay up or be fired and to coerce workers into subsidizing union speech,” says the National Right to Work Committee’s Patrick Semmens. “This fundamental violation of individual liberty — an infringement on freedom of speech and freedom of association — finally would end with passage of the NRTWA.”

“Compulsory unionism…should not be lawful under a free government or tolerated by a free people,” Donald R. Richberg argued in his book, “Compulsory Unionism: The New Slavery”. As a labor attorney and federal official, Richberg helped draft landmark union laws, including the 1926 Railway Labor Act, the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act, and the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. Later in his career, however, Richberg considered such legislation authoritarian.

If, however, unions must dragoon workers into their ranks, why should government allow or even mandate such bondage?

Last October, pollster Frank Luntz surveyed 760 private- and public- sector unionized employees. Eighty percent agreed that union membership and dues should be optional. Hence, the National Right To Work Act is good policy and good politics — if only Republicans and free-marketeers would promote it.

House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, said the vocal crowd crossed the line by engaging in salty commentary outside of the House chamber and by shouting inside the chamber when the paycheck bill came to a vote.

“There were comments of sexually explicit nature directed at both female legislators and female staff,” O’Neal said. “That’s the most disrespectful display from the gallery I’ve seen in 27 years I’ve been here.”

But women were not alone.  The Speaker said two union sympathizers attempted to intimidate a male House member into voting against the measure.

Alas their tactics did not succeed.  The bill passed passed 75-46 and forwarded to the Senate.

Subscribe to The National Right to Work Committee® Posts by Email

Demonstrating he has no commitment to making the tough choices needed to balance a budget, the president called the efforts to reform the state budget in the Badger state as an “assault on unions.”  Frankly its outrageous. 

Union activists have called Gov. Scott Walker “Hitler” and compare him to Egyptian president Mubarak.  Of course, Walker was elected by the people to get the state’s fiscal house in order and he takes his responsibilities seriously — unlike the president and his union allies who believe the solution to every problem is to raise taxes and expand forced unionism privileges.

Former Big Labor front-group Treasurer and Obama’s current Labor Secretary Hilda Solis attempted to the play the Washington game of not answering questions while trying to ramble-on long enough to use up the questioner’s time.  At least that is how it appeared yesterday during a congressional hearing, U.S. House Education & Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline and members such as Representatives Kristi Noem, David Roe, Timothy Walberg, Scott DesJarlais, Larry Bucshon, Todd Rokita, and Dennis Ross put several questions to Solis who often provided long, rambling, and nonresponsive answers.

Early on, the National Right to Work Committee exposed Solis’ clear conflicts-of-interest in its Obama Administration Personnel Alert.  

The NRTW Legal Foundation has filed several inquiries and comments with the Labor Department concerning rulemakings that have allowed union officers to hide hundreds of millions of dollars of forced-union dues and potential conflicts-of-interest payments.  In fact, the NRTW Legal Defense Foundation is currently suing the Department for its failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The words of former  Arkansas Senator John McClellan, spoken on the Senate floor October 7, 1965 when defending section 14(b) of the Taft Hartley Act which allows states to pass Right to Work Laws, echo back today:  “compulsory unionism and corruption go hand in hand.”

Hon. John L. McClellan (U.S. Senator – Arkansas, 10/7/1965):

I can tell the Senate without hesitation that there is still much corruption in some labor unions today and, moreover, that compulsory unionism and corruption go hand in hand.

To maintain their tyrannical control over various unions, this unscrupulous element frequently resorted to brutal physical violence and threats of violence against union members and even their families. Bombed businesses and dynamited homes were the hallmark of the ruthless who sought to establish a reign of terror over the rank-and-file members, and to silence anyone who otherwise might have dared to raise his voice in protest.

The only legal obstacles which are encountered today by such corrupt unions and their evil leaders are those State laws which prohibit the imposition of compulsory membership in a labor union as a condition of employment, and those laws would be nullified by the repeal of Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act.

The Arkansas Right to Work Law, like the laws in sister States having similar laws, makes the worker a free man — free to join a union if he desires, and free not to join or support a union if he is so inclined.  The choice is his, and his alone.  Take away the right of choice … and you take away his freedom.  For when choice is denied then so, too, is freedom.

Of course, SEIU cash is nothing more than forced union dues money taken from workers.  Union boss Bill Lloyd wrote, “As you know, our primary objective in the 2010 election is targeting the top of the ticket. The lion’s share of our focus and resources are targeted at electing Jerry Brown as our next governor, but we look forward to joining you in any way we can to help pass Proposition 19.”

Whether it is to show solidarity to supporters of Jerry Brown or to support the tax that will be imposed on pot sales, this leading to more government spending, the SEIU is clearly behind the initiative.

The Washington Times points out that we are not even close to that point as proponents of forced unionism are pushing yet another bailout scheme — this time for their friends at the United States Postal Service union.