SOON — PERHAPS AS EARLY AS TODAY — Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign legislation making Indiana the nation’s 23^rd 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?

To hear them tell it, they only object to “free riders.” Labor leaders claim it would be unjust to allow employees to avoid paying for the unions that negotiate benefits on their behalf. “There’s always going to be a certain amount of the population that will take something for free if they can get it for free,” says Nancy Guyott, head of the Indiana AFL-CIO.

That’s not a principle, it’s a shameless pretext. Unions demand monopoly bargaining power — the right to exclusively represent everyone in a workplace — and then insist that each of those workers must pay for the privilege. This is the “principle” of the squeegee-man who aggressively wipes your windshield when you stop at a red light, then demands that you pay for the service he has rendered you.

By the union’s “free-rider” logic, shouldn’t all voters be forced to subscribe to a daily newspaper, since all of them benefit from its journalism? And shouldn’t every company be compelled to support the Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies on behalf of business whether individual firms ask it to or not?

The passion with which Big Labor fights right-to-work helps explain why so many Americans have abandoned unions. The labor movement was born in freedom and choice. That’s not what it stands for anymore.

From Wesley Hester at the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate George Allen will today roll out his “Freedom to Work Act,” a three-pronged blueprint to free U.S. businesses of what he sees as onerous burdens imposed by the federal government.

Allen will unveil his plan at Botetourt County-based Dynax America Corp., a Japanese subsidiary that manufactures parts for automotive transmissions. Allen recruited the business to the state as governor in 1996.

The goals of the plan, Allen said Tuesday in an interview with The Times-Dispatch, are to “help businesses create jobs, save the taxpayers money and protect the liberty of working men and working women.”

[T]he plan would amend the National Labor Relations Act to prevent workers from being compelled to pay union dues or fees to obtain or keep a job and guarantee workers the opportunity to cast a secret ballot before a union can be organized.

“No working man nor working woman should have to pay union dues or fees of say $700 a year as a condition of getting or keeping a job,” he said. “That’s just a matter of liberty.”

“Freedom of Movement,” would strip the National Labor Relations Board of the power to order any employer to move, shut down, or transfer employment.

Allen’s plan would also seek to prohibit project labor agreement requirements on federal and federally assisted construction contracts, and repeal Davis-Bacon wage laws, which require that federal government construction contract workers be paid no less than the locally prevailing wages and benefits on similar project.

Right to Work Committee Begins Lobbying Presidential Hopefuls

(Source: July 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

This summer, New Hampshire is the site of an extended battle over the Right to Work issue, as pro-Right to Work citizens seek to secure two-thirds majority votes in the state House and Senate to override Big Labor Gov. John Lynch’s veto of legislation (H.B.474) prohibiting compulsory union dues and fees.

Because Right to Work has been in the New Hampshire news since both chambers of the state’s General Court approved H.B.474 earlier this year, WMUR-TV (ABC) news anchor Josh McElveen decided to bring up the issue at the June 13 GOP presidential debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.

Mr. McElveen asked former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, one of the seven 2012 presidential hopefuls participating in the debate, whether he would, if elected, support “a federal Right to Work law.”

Mr. Pawlenty ignited the debate’s longest and most enthusiastic round of applause with his response:

“We live in the United States of America, and people shouldn’t be forced to belong [to] or be a member in any organization, and the government has no business telling people what group you have to be a member of or not.

“I support strongly Right to Work legislation.”

Mr. Pawlenty thus became the fourth major-party White House aspirant in the 2012 race to endorse repeal of all current provisions in federal labor law that authorize the firing of employees for refusal to join or pay dues or fees to an unwanted union.

Previously, the two sitting U.S. representatives seeking the GOP nomination, Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Ron Paul (Texas), had pledged to support a national Right to Work law. Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is yet another candidate who has gone on record for forced-dues repeal.

Millions of Citizens Want ‘a Clear Alternative’ to Pro-Forced Unionism Obama Administration

The enthusiastic response for Mr. Pawlenty’s principled stance, evident in a CNN “dial test” of Republicans and Independents watching on TV as well as in the auditorium itself, is something to which all the candidates should pay heed, said National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix.

“Millions of Americans want a clear alternative to the Obama Administration’s relentless promotion of compulsory unionism,” Mr. Mix explained.

“Ever since he became President two-and-a-half years ago, Barack Obama has repeatedly championed Big Labor power grabs in Congress and appointed forced-unionism zealots to leadership positions at the National Labor Relations Board, the Labor Department, and other federal bureaucracies.

“Polls show the vast majority of Americans who regularly vote in federal elections believe the Obama Administration is just plain wrong to favor forcing workers to pay union dues to get a job.

“Freedom-loving Americans don’t favor a federal policy of ‘neutrality’ on the question of whether or not workers should be corralled into unions.

“Instead, they believe all federal labor laws should either protect the individual worker’s right to join or not join a union, or be scrapped completely.

“So far, Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, Gary Johnson, and Ron Paul have grasped this point. Over the coming months, Committee members in key primary states will be doing everything they can to ensure all the other candidates reach the same conclusion.”

Right to Work States ‘Attract the Most Productive Members of Society’

In addition to the fact that it is repugnant for the government, as Mr. Pawlenty succinctly put it, to tell people “what group you have to be a member of or not,” pro-forced unionism federal labor policies put the brakes on job and income growth. This effect is especially harmful as employees and businesses strive to recover from the severe 2008-2009 recession.

The disparate economic performance of the 22 states with Right to Work laws (explicitly permitted under Section 14(b) of the federal Taft-Hartley Act), which ban forced union dues and fees, and the 28 states without such laws provides a telling, though incomplete, gauge of the damage wrought by forced unionism.

From 2000 to 2010, the inflation-adjusted outlays of private-sector businesses for employee compensation (including wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses) increased by an average of 11.8% in Right to Work states.

That increase is nine times as great as forced-unionism states’ combined 1.3% gain over the same period.

Twenty of the 22 Right to Work states experienced a real compensation increase greater than the national average of 4.9%. And 14 of the 15 states with the lowest real compensation growth lack a Right to Work law.

Because they offer superior opportunities for employees and entrepreneurs, Right to Work states “attract the most productive members of society,” as economist Arthur Laffer, Wall Street Journal senior economics writer Stephen Moore, and tax policy expert Jonathan Williams note in a new report.

Even Right to Work States Are Hurt by Federal Pro-Forced Unionism Policies

From 1998 to 2008, as Dr. Laffer, Mr. Moore, and Mr. Williams point out in the just-published fourth edition of Rich States, Poor States, which they prepared for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC):

“[T]he population of 25-34 year olds in right-to-work states increased by 16.0 percent (from 14.361 million to 16.654 million), while the population in that age bracket for forced union states fell by 0.6 percent (from 24.32 million to 24.17 million).”

“While the 28 states that still fail to shield employees from federal pro-forced unionism labor policies naturally suffer the most as a consequence of those policies, the whole country is harmed,” noted Mr. Mix.

“Union bosses funnel a huge chunk of the forced dues and fees they collect with federal labor law’s abetment into politics. And the union-label politicians who routinely get elected and reelected because of Big Labor’s forced dues-funded support overwhelmingly favor higher taxes and more red-tape regulation of businesses.

“This is true at the federal, state and local levels. Private-sector job growth in all 50 states, including Right to Work states, is hindered by the actions of Big Labor federal politicians.

“Moreover, in today’s globalized economy, when union-boss militancy squashes job-creating business in a state, some investment is likely to go overseas. Then no American workers end up getting the jobs or income.

“For economic reasons as well as for moral reasons, Committee members are fighting to repeal all federal labor law provisions that authorize compulsory union dues and fee payments as a job condition, as well as to pass more state Right to Work laws.

“The two federal forced-dues repeal measures now pending in Congress, H.R. 2040 and S.504, would spur job growth in all 50 states. Businesses in current Right to Work states would share the benefits as their out-of-state customers and suppliers were freed from the burden of compulsory unionism.”

Right to Work Movement Strong, Growing in Early 2012 Presidential Battlegrounds

Mr. Mix said he was “optimistic” that several more 2012 hopefuls would soon join Ms. Bachmann, Mr. Pawlenty, Mr. Johnson, and Dr. Paul in endorsing a federal Right to Work law.

“The fact is, the three first battleground states in the presidential primaries — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — are all home to extraordinarily vibrant, growing Right to Work movements,” Mr. Mix explained.

“All the 2012 candidates, whether they are already in the race or enter some time in the next few months, will have to take into account the large numbers of Iowans, New Hampshirites, and South Carolinians who regard Right to Work as a critical issue.

“Those who are savvy politicians, and aren’t so deep in hock to Big Labor that their freedom of action is constrained, should logically respond to the reality on the ground by coming out in favor of a national Right to Work law.”

(Source: September 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Over the past two years, Big Labor bosses have repeatedly succeeded in getting their favored federal politicians in competitive U.S. House districts and states to cast “politically difficult” votes.

Early in 2009, for example, union lobbyists twisted arms to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress for controversial “stimulus” legislation. Since it became law, the “stimulus” has bilked taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars to ensure that bloated, unionized government payrolls stay bloated, but furnished no detectable help for America’s private sector.

And, more even than President Obama or any other elected official, top union officials are responsible for Congress’s narrow votes to reconstruct America’s enormous health-care system in late 2009 and early 2010.

As the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reported March 22, 2010, “in the final push before the vote,” many union bosses and union operatives “displayed their clout through threats to withhold endorsements from lawmakers who failed to back the bill. They also vowed to support primary challenges or third-party bids against incumbents who opposed” ObamaCare.

Now polls indicate that voters across the country are poised to punish vulnerable U.S. representatives and senators for doing what Big Labor told them to do.

Undoubtedly compounding the woes of many of the endangered politicians who backed the government union boss-friendly “stimulus” package and ObamaCare is that they are also on the record in support of forced-unionism initiatives that, due to stiff Right to Work opposition, have yet to be enacted.

Most of all, millions of freedom-loving citizens are furious with their incumbent politicians for having backed Big Labor’s now-stalled “card check” forced-unionism bill and its still-pending scheme to federalize government union monopoly bargaining over state and local public-safety employees.

National Union Boss Vows ‘Massive Incumbent Protection Program’

But despite poll after poll showing the public thinks little of the forced-unionism agenda and the politicians who have helped implement major parts of it, AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka clearly believes he can build on the “achievements” of the 2009 “stimulus” and ObamaCare.

This fall, Mr. Trumka and his cohorts are expected to spend well over a billion dollars, mostly derived from union dues and fees employees are forced to pay as a condition of employment, on electioneering efforts designed to benefit their puppet politicians.

Union kingpins calculate that their forced dues-funded phone banks, get-out-the-vote drives, and propaganda mailings, mostly conducted under the radar, can help dozens of Big Labor politicians who would otherwise go down to defeat this year secure reelection.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME/AFL-CIO) union President Gerald McEntee has frankly called what he and other union bosses are up to a “massive incumbent protection program.”

Mr. Trumka and Mr. McEntee know that, if they can show this November that backing Big Labor’s agenda on vote after vote has relatively little political downside, despite that agenda’s unpopularity in the polls, it will be much easier for them to ram through “card check” and more in the 2011-2012 Congress.

But the National Right to Work Committee and its members (now 2.6 million, and growing) are now fighting to ensure that congressmen and senators who have carried water for Big Labor time and again are held accountable this fall.

Right to Work Survey 2010 Can Help Ensure Politicians Are Held Accountable

The principal Committee program for holding politicians’ feet to the fire is the federal candidate Survey 2010.

The ongoing Survey 2010 consists of three phases.

In the first phase, candidates receive questionnaires asking them how they intend to vote on a number of forced unionism-related issues, including mandatory “card checks,” federalized public-safety union monopoly bargaining, and national Right to Work legislation.

“The Committee’s goal is not just to secure enough support to block enactment of forced-unionism schemes like ‘card check’ legislation, but also to forge pro-Right to Work majorities in the House and Senate,” explained Committee President Mark Mix.

“That’s why the Right to Work survey raises the pressure on candidates to oppose the expansion of Big Labor’s forced-unionism privileges, and also to support rolling those privileges back.”

In the second phase of the Survey 2010, Committee members call and write the candidates, asking them to answer their questionnaires 100% in favor of Right to Work.

In the final phase, the Committee, through TV and newspaper ads, e-mails and the postal service, reports back to members and friends at the local level on how their candidates responded. That keeps the heat on non-responsive candidates to take a clear stand on the Right to Work issue.

“The aim of Big Labor’s billion-dollar, forced dues-funded electioneering program is to divert public attention from the damage that union-label politicians have wrought on America over the past two years and the even more severe damage they will do over the next two if they can,” said Mr. Mix.

Public Doesn’t Support Compulsory Unionism

“Big Labor has far more money at its disposal than do Right to Work supporters, but the union bosses have one major problem: The general public, and even the workers they claim to represent, don’t support what they are selling,” Mr. Mix continued.

“Poll after poll shows that nearly 80% of Americans agree that no one should be forced to join or pay dues to a union, simply in order to keep his or her job.

“The Committee survey program works simply by ensuring that the Right to Work issue, which already has overwhelming public support, remains in the spotlight throughout the campaign season.

“With members’ generous support, I’m confident that this fall the federal survey will force candidate after candidate either to pledge to stop attacking employees’ Right to Work, or face serious repercussions at the polls.”

(Source: April 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

On February 9, union lawyer Craig Becker, nominated by President Obama to fill one of three vacancies on the powerful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), turned out to be too radical even for a number of normally pro-Big Labor U.S. senators.

Because of several union-label senators’ defections, union lobbyists and the White House fell eight Senate votes short that day of the 60 they needed to cut off Right to Work debate and bring the Becker nomination up for final consideration.

This vote was a significant victory for National Right to Work Committee members and supporters, who had led the fight against Mr. Becker since his selection was first announced last spring, and their allies.

However, top union bosses were furious that, because of well-mobilized Right to Work opposition, Big Labor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had failed to ram through the Becker nomination.

Almost immediately, Richard Trumka, chief of the AFL-CIO union conglomerate, publicly demanded that the President circumvent the Senate and install Craig Becker on the NLRB temporarily through a “recess” appointment.

Other union bigwigs like Andy Stern, czar of the massive Service Employees International Union (SEIU), were also cheerleading for Mr. Becker. For years, Mr. Becker has served as counsel for both the SEIU union and the AFL-CIO.

Craig Becker: Union Monopoly Should Be Mandated, Even if Most Workers Don’t Want It

And on Saturday, March 27, President Obama did the bidding of the union hierarchy by recess appointing Mr. Becker, along with the other union lawyer he has nominated to the NLRB, New Yorker Mark Pearce.

“In the past, Presidents have rarely granted recess appointments to nominees who have already come up for consideration in the full Senate, and failed to be approved,” noted Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee

“But President Obama has demonstrated time and again he is extraordinarily eager to please Big Labor bosses. Craig Becker and Mark Pearce are fresh examples.”

While Mr. Becker and Mr. Pearce will very likely almost always agree on the main issues in NLRB cases, Mr. Becker differs in having a long “paper trail” that made it plain for senators and anyone else with eyes to see just how radical he is.

Three of Four Current Board Members Are Veteran Union Lawyers

“Over the years,” said Mr. Mix, “Craig Becker has publicly acknowledged believing that any employee or employer efforts to resist unionization of a workplace are unacceptable.

“For example, in one ‘labor studies’ journal article, Mr. Becker dismissed the notion that workers should have any say whatsoever, whether as individuals or collectively by secret ballot or ‘card check,’ over whether or not they are unionized.

“Federal policy should not acknowledge employees’ ‘choice to remain unrepresented,’ contended Mr. Becker.

“Their only choice, he explained, should be over which set of union officials get ‘exclusive’ power to negotiate their wages, benefits and work rules.”

Incredibly, Craig Becker and Mark Pearce are not the only union lawyers on the current, four-member NLRB.

Wilma Liebman, originally appointed to the Board by union-label President Bill Clinton and elevated to the chairmanship early last year by Barack Obama, is an ex-lawyer for the notorious Teamster union.

“Ms. Liebman, Mr. Becker, and Mr. Pearce are all expected to vote in lockstep to increase Big Labor’s monopoly-bargaining and forced-dues powers over the individual employee whenever they see an opportunity,” commented Mr. Mix.

“And this alarming pattern will continue at least until the Becker and Pearce ‘recess’ terms expire in 2011.

“Meanwhile, Right to Work supporters will do everything they can to contain the damage.

“For example, attorneys for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the Committee’s sister organization, have announced they will ask Mr. Becker to pledge to recuse himself from their clients’ cases because of his demonstrable, virulent anti-Right to Work bias.

“If Mr. Becker refuses to recuse himself, then his record of bias could in itself constitute grounds for judicial appeals of all decisions in which he joins.”

The bills, which union bosses themselves call the greatest (potential) change in labor law in decades, would mean literally tens of millions in new dues revenue from public safety workers who would be fired if they didn’t pay union dues and fees. Forced unionism apologists in Congress have been working on this since the late 1970’s.

(Click-on Green Triangle to play)

Barack Obama and his closest allies have a message for America, and that message is: “Shut up.” 

Obama himself is famous for telling his critics to shut up: “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking,” he said while defending his so-far ineffective economic-recovery agenda. “I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.” The president used the State of the Union address to hector, in a most unstatesmanlike fashion, the justices of the Supreme Court for upholding the First Amendment right of nonprofits and businesses to make their voices heard before elections, and demanded that Congress pass legislation to shut them up. Endlessly described as “articulate,” the president apparently desires to monopolize the conversation. But Craig Becker, his nominee to the powerful National Labor Relations Board, surpasses the president in that he has made an entire legal and political philosophy out of “shut your trap.”

The NLRB is one of our most defective public institutions. Charged with policing unfair labor practices in general, and with overseeing union-organizing votes in particular, the NLRB is far from a neutral referee — it acts principally as an organ of the unions themselves, and it bristles with hostility toward business owners who are not eager to have their operations organized by the likes of the Teamsters or the ACORN-affiliated Service Employees International Union. 

Becker, a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and SEIU, in many ways fits the mold of a typical Democratic pick for the agency, but there are three reasons to have serious reservations about putting him in such a powerful position. First: His opinions are extreme. He has argued that workers should be allowed to choose only between unions, not between a union and no representation, and he wants employers to be banned from even attending NLRB hearings about union elections. On the subject of the NLRB itself, he has gone so far as to write that “employers should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practice case, even though Board rulings might indirectly affect their duty to bargain.” In other words: “Shut up.” Second: He is affiliated with ACORN, a corrupt enterprise that works the intersection of Big Labor and politics for its own benefit. Third: He has lied to Congress about his relationship with ACORN. On all of those grounds, his nomination should be opposed, vigorously.

Becker’s various legal opinions share a peculiar theme: That of restricting the choices of both workers and business owners who do not wish to be affiliated with a labor union. There are many good reasons for both workers and owners to oppose unionization: Workers know from experience that the union bosses frequently prove more abusive and meddlesome than the worst of employers; and the history of the union-choked American automobile and steel industries, to take just two examples of many, suggest that the long-term consequences of union interference often include sector-wide bankruptcy and the loss of domestic jobs to more flexible (not necessarily cheaper — those Japanese steelworkers who outperformed their American counterparts weren’t exactly working for minimum wage) foreign competitors. Given a choice, many workers will elect not to join a union. Becker’s relentless support of “card check,” which in effect strips workers of their right to a secret ballot when voting on whether to organize a union, is one indicator of his hostility to letting workers and businesses choose for themselves, but there are even more troubling signs. …

Becker has worked for the SEIU, which has ties to ACORN, whose vote-fraud shenanigans and other dodgy activities are well known. Asked about his ties to ACORN by Sen. John McCain, Becker said that he had never done any work for “ACORN or ACORN-affiliated groups.” But we have a very good source confirming that the SEIU is ACORN-affiliated: ACORN, which listed various SEIU locals as affiliated groups on its website until that fact was noted by the Washington Examiner. (The uncensored page is available for your inspection here.)

ACORN’s usual modus operandi is to obscure its relationships to the greatest extent possible, but they are clear enough: sharing the same address with SEIU locals, millions of dollars in cozy financial relationships, etc. As the Examiner notes: “U.S. Department of Labor LM-2’s (financial disclosure forms) point to over $600,000 in transactions between these same SEIU locals and other ACORN operations. A 2007 LM-2 form shows SEIU Local 880, which is active in Illinois and Minnesota, donated $60,118 to ACORN for ‘membership services.’ Organized labor has kicked it back in the form of gifts and grants to ACORN totaling $2.4 million, the LM-2’s reveal.” SEIU, in turn, poured millions of dollars into the elections of Barack Obama and other Democrats — with $42 million in political expenditures in 2008, it ranked only behind the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee as a big political spender. Whatever one makes of ACORN and SEIU, Becker’s statement that he had never advised ACORN or any “ACORN-affiliated groups” is indefensible, and that alone should be grounds for opposing his appointment. 

There is good reason to be worried about the intersection of Big Labor and Big Government. The majority of American union members do not work in the private sector, laboring on assembly lines or in steel mills: More than half are employees of the government, where payrolls are swelling, and where the admixture of union power and government power is particularly noxious. It’s all good and fair that President Obama and his allies should attempt to tip the scales in their own favor, but violating the secret ballot — and the rights of Americans to make themselves heard and be represented in the political process — is wrong. “Shut up” is not much of a motto for a free country, or its leaders.

for the complete article click here

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

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.

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.

… 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.

We have just learned from our contacts in Washington that the HELP committee [U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions] has postponed other scheduled business and will conduct a hearing on the [Craig] Becker [National Labor Relations Board] nomination next Tuesday at 4 p.m.

– Martin F. Payson

]]> http://www.nrtwc.org/big-labors-top-forced-unionism-lawyer-ready-to-take-seat-on-the-board/feed/ 0 http://www.nrtwc.org/the-nlrb-becker-fight-%e2%80%9cshakes-and-bakes%e2%80%9d-again/ http://www.nrtwc.org/the-nlrb-becker-fight-%e2%80%9cshakes-and-bakes%e2%80%9d-again/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:46:45 +0000 Post http://www.nrtwc.org/blog/?p=2902 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 the Becker 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.  

Right after the Becker nomination, The National Right to Work Committee posted this President Obama Personnel Alert video regarding Becker (link here) along with the Committee’s Becker Alert report (link here).

The report 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)!”

Rathke went on to reveal Becker’s involvement in the creation of the “non-employee state employees” known home healthcare workers. California and other states call home healthcare workers “employees” for collective bargaining purposes (re: forced dues paying purposes) and excluded these “employees” from all benefits of state employees like retirement, healthcare, vacation time, sick leave, set work rules, etc…

Rathke emphasized his joy in Becker’s manipulation of labor laws, “For my money Craig [Becker]’s signal contribution has been his work in crafting and executing the legal strategies which have allowed the …effective organization of informal workers — home health and home day care — has been the great, exceptional success story within the American labor movement for our generation, leading to the [forced dues] of perhaps a half-million such workers in unions like SEIU, AFSCME, CWA, and the AFT.”

According to Rathke, Becker is “the key lawyer from the beginning in the early 1980’s who was able to piece together the arguments and representation that allowed those of us involved in trying to organize home health care workers in Illinois, Massachusetts, and elsewhere … [Becker’s] role was often behind the scenes devising the strategy with the organizer and lawyers, writing the briefs for others to file, and putting all of the pieces together, but he was the go-to-guy on all of this.”

Rathke concludes, “I can remember Keith Kelleher negotiating the subsidy for SEIU Local 880 in Chicago and always making sure that there was the money for the organizers, but that SEIU was also still willing to allow access to Craig …Thanks for a solid [sic], President Obama!”

The President may resubmit Becker to the Senate, appoint him as a recess appointment, or simply nominate someone else for the NLRB post. No doubt the actions of tens of thousands of Right To Work supporters across the country have got the Senate thinking about this nomination.

While the Becker nomination represents only small part of President Obama’s radical forced-unionism agenda; it demonstrates that if we stay prepared to battle him every step of the way it can make a difference.

Please sign this petition today and urge Congress to oppose the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill and other union boss power grabs.

The list, however, fails to mention organized labor’s latest crusade — a trillion dollar public works spending program.

. . . This means the worst case scenario is now a distinct possibility: a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic Senate with a filibuster-proof majority, and a Democratic House with a bolstered majority.

If this scenario unfolds, Washington would become a solidly liberal town again for the first time in decades. And the prospects of passing the liberal agenda–nearly all of it–would be bright. Enacting major parts of it would be even brighter. You can forget about bipartisanship.

Start with “card check.” It would permit organized labor to unionize the private sector without winning a certification election by secret ballot. It’s easy to get workers to sign cards saying they want a union, but it’s hard to get them to vote that way when labor organizers aren’t hounding them. Card check is labor’s last hope for more dues-paying union members.

Unions simply aren’t popular and neither is card check. But it passed the House last year, only to be blocked in the Senate by a Republican filibuster. In 2009, with Washington controlled by Democrats, it would sail through Congress and President Obama would sign it. After all, neither Obama nor congressional Democrats have bucked organized labor even once.

Then Democrats might go after a longstanding target of big labor, section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act. It allows states to enact right-to-work laws, which bar workers from being forced to join a union. Twenty-two states have right-to-work laws.

One of Obama’s pet projects is the Patriot Employers Act, which he introduced last August. The bill offers incentives — in the form of tax breaks — to employers that comply with a litany of Big Labor demands. To get these tax breaks, companies need to agree to eliminate secret ballot elections for unionizing in their shop and to enforce a gag rule on truthful and non-coercive speech about the downsides of unionization.

But there’s more. An Obama White House will also seek law changes that prohibit permanent replacement of striking workers. Under current law, an employer has the right to continue operating during a strike by hiring replacement workers. To prevent a total shutdown, an employer must have the ability to recruit replacement workers who may hope for a permanent job. In advocating a ban on striker replacements, Obama’s message is clear – union ordered strikes would be automatic winners, and American workplaces would come to a screeching halt in the face of extortionate union demands.

Then there is the ultimate, though rarely spoken, goal of Big Labor: ending the rights of “Right to Work” states to secure the rights of employees to decide for themselves whether or not to join or financially support a union. This could be effected by repealing Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act. Without this provision, forced unionism would prevail in all states, and states could not protect private sector workers from union demands to pay dues to them as a condition of employment. This is a huge win for unions and pro-union candidates — literally billions of additional dollars in new coerced dues would flow into Big Labor’s coffers which could be used to support pro-Union candidates.

So the union bosses have found their man. With their billion dollar bet on Barack Obama, they know that the payoff of new union coercive powers will be worth the trouble.