Union Activist Voter Fraud Investigated

On February 7, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Nothing is going to stop union militants efforts to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his pro-reform allies — even the law, apparently.  The Racine County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the possibility of fraudulent signatures on the petitions to recall Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine.

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

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Posted in: Big Labor Ethics, Forced-Dues for Politics, Intimidation Tactics, Legislation, Political Activity, Teacher Unions, Wisconsin
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Mix: Indiana Rejects Forced Unionism

On February 5, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Writing for the Investor’s Business Daily, National Right to Work President Mark Mix summarizes what our victory in Indiana really means:

For the past two weeks, Big Labor bosses around the country have had their eyes on the Indiana capitol — watching in horror as the General Assembly passed a right-to-work bill with commanding majorities.

The passage of Indiana’s right-to-work law is an extraordinarily bitter defeat for the union brass. Less than a year ago, despite the fact that Hoosiers had elected substantial pro-right-to-work majorities to both chambers in 2010, union strategists remained confident they could preserve the forced-unionism status quo.

Last year, union bigwigs convinced the entire Democratic caucus of the Indiana House of Representatives to flee the state for five weeks in order to deny the body a quorum it needed to bring up and pass right-to-work legislation. Big Labor clearly believed whatever it lacked in legislative numbers it could make up for in zeal.

But polls showed Hoosiers overwhelmingly disapproved of the “fleabagger” tactic, and right-to-work supporters kept turning up the pressure on Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and GOP legislative leaders to fight back against Big Labor.

Thanks to legislation passed after last year’s walkout, House members failing to show up to do their jobs when the General Assembly is in session may be hit with $1,000-a-day fines.

In the opening weeks of the 2012 session, House Democrats went public about their reluctance to jump over a cliff again for the union hierarchy. Finally, on Jan. 24, House Minority Leader Pat Bauer announced an end to his caucus’ boycott of the bill. It passed the next day.

Ever since, the caterwauling by Big Labor and its allies has resounded across the state. But what’s so bad about a law that merely says an individual shouldn’t be forced at the workplace to support financially an organization that he or she doesn’t believe acts in his or her interests?

Rather than address this question, union propagandists skirt it. Union officials never act contrary to the interests of any employee, they implicitly argue. Any employee who says otherwise they brand as a hypocritical “freeloader”! (more…)

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Posted in: Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Indiana, Intimidation Tactics, Legislation, Right to Work, Right To Work States, State Right To Work
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Big Labor Hits Road Block in Wisconsin

On February 5, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

As Big Labor seeks to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, they are running into a big road block that is hindering their efforts — Walker’s reforms are working saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

City Journal looks at the success of the Walker reforms that should be a model for other states looking to balance their budgets:  ”The truth, however, is that the reforms not only are saving money already; they’re doing so with little disruption to services. In early August, noticing the trend, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that Milwaukee would save more in health-care and pension costs than it would lose in state aid, leaving the city $11 million ahead in 2012—despite Mayor Tom Barrett’s prediction in March that Walker’s budget ‘makes our structural deficit explode.’”

That is just one example.  Well worth the read.

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Posted in: Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Political Activity, Public Employees, Teacher Unions, Wisconsin
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Wisconsin Big Labor Fraud

On February 3, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Union-label Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (left) is a bitter political foe of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s. Nevertheless, Mr. Barrett admits the governor’s Big Labor-detested Act 10 has helped his city get control over its budget. Credit: AP

Big Labor militants, who submitted 1 million names demanding a recall of Gov. Scott Walker, included the name of a person four times. The man, according to Media Trackers, says he never signed the petition.

Wisconsin watchdog Citizens for Responsible Government in Racine  reported that Racine native Jeff Demet’s name was found four times on the petition to recall Republican State Senator Van Wanggaard. Finding the same signature four times is bad enough, but when Demet was contacted about the four signatures, he claims he never signed the Wanggaard recall petition at all!

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Posted in: Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Legislation, Public Employees, Teacher Unions, Wisconsin
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TEACHERS UNION MANUAL INSTRUCTS HOW TO USE CHILDREN AS ‘PROPAGANDA’

On February 2, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

From The Blaze:

“For more than two years, the Michigan Education Association [MEA] has had a manual that urges its members to use students as propaganda in contract negotiations and also lays out how to organize strikes,” writes Tome Gantert of Michigan Capitol Confidential.

Considering the fact that teacher strikes are illegal in Michigan, some may find it odd that the MEA has been encouraging this sort of behavior. In fact, the MEA has done a lot more than just “encourage” potentially illegal activity. As Gantert reports, the organization produced an anonymously written 28-page manual titled, “Building Full Capacity Locals — Crisis Planning, It’s Never Too Early To Start!”

And of course, what union protest would be complete without the exploitation of children in the bargaining process?

“In terms of a bargaining message, the public responds most positively when we talk about children, quality in the classroom and the future,” the MEA manual states.

The manual even suggests one slogan that it claims has worked for other locals: “It’s not about dollars and cents; it’s about our children.”

Perhaps the most disturbing moment occurs when one section appears to quote almost verbatim Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals.”

Alinsky instructs his followers to “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Likewise, the MEA manual instructs teachers to “Pick a target—personalize—and polarize the opposition [pg. 17].” And those are just the verbatim quotes; the entire manual is a handbook for creating, managing, and profiting from crises.

 

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Posted in: Education, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Michigan, Public Employee Monopoly Bargaining, Strike, Teacher Unions
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NLRB’s Speed-Dial Forced-Unionism

On February 2, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

The unconstitutionally appointed National Labor Relations Board announced its upcoming agenda that includes forcing companies to release private information about their employees — including their phone numbers and email addresses — to union activists to assist their efforts to coerce workers into a union.

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Posted in: Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Organizing, Personnel Alert, Union Violence
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As a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, Big Labor has long embraced “the necessity for coercion”

On February 1, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, blasts Big Labor’s “shameless pretext” for fighting without abandon against Right To Work Freedom:

SOON — PERHAPS AS EARLY AS TODAY — Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign legislation making Indiana the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state. Labor unions angrily oppose the change, but their opposition has no legitimate or principled basis.

State right-to-work laws, authorized by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, are not anti-union. They are pro-choice: They protect workers from being forced to join or pay fees to a labor union as a condition of keeping a job. In non-right-to-work states, employees who work in a “union shop” are compelled to fork over part of each paycheck to a labor organization — even if they want nothing to do with unions, let alone to be represented by one. Laws like the one Indiana is poised to enact simply make union support voluntary. Hoosiers can’t be required to kick back part of their wages to the Republican Party or the Methodist Church or the Animal Liberation Front; the new measure will ensure that they don’t have to give a cut of everything they earn to labor unions, either.

Most Americans regard compulsory unionism as unconscionable. In a new Rasmussen survey, 74 percent of likely voters say non-union workers should not have to pay dues against their will. Once upon a time, labor movement giants like Samuel Gompers, a founder of the American Federation of Labor, agreed. “I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty — the principles of voluntarism,” declared Gompers in his last speech to the AFL in 1924. “No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.” Those words can be seen chiseled on Gompers’s memorial in Washington, DC.

So as a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, it is easy to understand why Big Labor long ago embraced what liberal scholar Robert Reich (who served as Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor) dubbed “the necessity for coercion.” In order “to maintain themselves,” Reich said in 1985, “unions have got to have some ability to strap their members to the mast.” Or, as Don Corleone might have put it, to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

But is there any ethical reason — any honorable basis — for the union shop? (more…)

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Posted in: Government Grants to Unions, Indiana, Intimidation Tactics, Monopoly Bargaining, Right to Work, Right To Work States, Section 14-B Taft-Hartley, State Right To Work, State RTW, Union Membership
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Indiana Passes Right To Work — National Right to Work Committee Statement

On February 1, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Indianapolis, Indiana – Today, Mark Mix, President of the 2.6 million-member National Right to Work Committee, praised the Indiana House and Senate for passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law.

Mr. Mix said, “This is a great day for Indiana’s workers and taxpayers.

“After a ten-year struggle involving hundreds of thousands of mobilized Hoosiers, Indiana will finally be able to enjoy all the benefits of a Right to Work law,” said Mr. Mix.

“Today, the Indiana Senate passed the Right to Work Bill by a vote of 28 to 22. The bill has already passed the House, so it now goes straight to Governor Daniels, who has vowed to sign it, making Indiana America’s 23rd Right to Work state,” continued Mix.

Mr. Mix continued, “The Right to Work Law will free nearly 200,000 Hoosiers who have been forced to pay tribute to a union boss for the privilege of getting up everyday and going to work so they can provide for their families.”

Proponents of the bill expect that passage of the Right to Work law will provide significant economic benefits for Indiana and Indiana workers.

For the past decade, non-agricultural employment in Right to Work states grew twice as fast compared to that in non-Right to Work states like Indiana, according to data from the Department of Labor.

“On the job front,” said Mr. Mix, “virtually every site selection consultant on record has testified that as many as half of their clients will not even consider expanding or relocating to non-Right to Work states.”

Governor Daniels experienced this problem firsthand, reporting recently that when Volkswagen was looking to build a production facility in America, he was unable to get the company to even return his phone calls.

Volkswagen ended up choosing to open its new facility in the Right to Work state of Tennessee.

Today’s action makes Indiana the first Right to Work state in the Manufacturing Belt, and supporters say it will give Hoosiers a significant advantage over all of its neighbors and the rest of the 27 non-Right to Work states.

“Besides enjoying an influx of new jobs, Right to Work states also enjoy higher personal income,” said Mr. Mix.

In particular, Mr. Mix drew attention to a study by Dr. Barry Poulson, a past president of the North American Economics and Finance Association and also a professor of economics at the University of Colorado, who compared household incomes in 133 metropolitan areas in Right to Work states with those of 158 metropolitan areas in non-Right to Work states.

“Among other results, he found that the average real income for households in Right to Work state metro areas, when all else was equal, was $4,258 more than non-Right to Work state metro areas,” said Mr. Mix. (more…)

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Posted in: Economics, Indiana, Intimidation Tactics, Legislation, NRTWC Press Release, Right to Work, Right To Work States, State Right To Work, State RTW
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