The nine states with the greatest 2000-2010 gains in their college-educated adult populations all protect the Right to Work. Of the nine states with the smallest gains, only Hurricane Katrina-devastated Louisiana does so.

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

Federal data on the American workforce and employment and unemployment rates show that, even with our country struggling through the most severe recession in decades and a so-far anemic recovery, employer demand for college-educated employees has continued to rise at a surprisingly rapid clip.

From 2000 to 2010, the total population of the U.S., aged 25 and over, grew by 12.1%, but the number of people in that age bracket with at least a bachelor’s degree grew by 29.3%.

And in October 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor force participation rate for civilians aged 25 or older with one or more higher-education degrees was 76.4% (not seasonally adjusted), barely lower than it was before the recession started.

That same month, the nationwide unemployment rate for the pool of 47.3 million college-educated adults 25 or over was just 4.2%, well under half the average for the workforce as a whole.

The bottom-line significance of these data is that employers across the country typically have more difficulty finding a qualified college-educated person to fill a position than a college-educated person has finding a good job.

Of course, not everyone who holds a bachelor’s degree and is in the work force is doing well economically. But generally speaking there is still a “seller’s market” for college-educated labor in America today.

Furthermore, many businesses that sustain large numbers of jobs for people with associate’s degrees, high school diplomas, or less education also require a substantial number of college-educated people to operate smoothly.

Therefore, the rate at which a state is gaining college-educated people, relative to the national average, is in itself a good indication of how successful the state is in creating and retaining good jobs.

‘Highly Educated Employees, Like Other Employees, Benefit From Right to Work Laws’

The nine states with the highest percentage growth in their college-educated adult populations over the past decade (see the left column of the table accompanying this article) are located in the Southeastern, Southwestern, Plains, and Rocky Mountains regions of America. And they are culturally as well as regionally diverse.

What these states have in common is that they all have on the books Right to Work laws that make it illegal to force employees to join or pay dues or fees to an unwanted union as a condition of employment.

On the other hand, states without Right to Work protections for employees dominate the ranks of the laggards in increasing their college-educated populations (see the accompanying table’s right column).

Excluding the special case of Louisiana, which lost large numbers of college-educated and other residents after being devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, all of the nine worst performers were forced-dues states.

“The simple fact is, highly educated employees, like other employees, benefit from Right to Work laws,” noted Matthew Leen, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“Employees of all kinds prefer to live in Right to Work states when they can because living costs are lower and real incomes are higher.”

Policymakers Should Pay Heed to Data

Mr. Leen elaborated: “For example, a study by Dr. Barry Poulson, past president of the North American Economics and Finance Association, found that the average household income in Right to Work states, adjusted for interstate differences in cost of living, was more than $4250 higher than the average in forced-unionism states.

“The fact that real household incomes have over the years repeatedly been shown to be higher in Right to Work states than in non-Right to Work states is no coincidence.

“Where forced union dues are legal, union bosses use their power to disrupt labor markets, jack up costs, and bankroll Tax & Spend, regulation-happy state legislators and governors.

“The data clearly show forced-unionism states seeking a ‘brain gain’ should pass Right to Work laws. Policymakers should pay heed.”

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

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

Early this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) infuriated the union hierarchy, in his own state and nationally, when he introduced legislation (S.B.11) that would abolish forced union dues for teachers and many other public employees and also sharply limit the scope of government union monopoly bargaining.

In response, teacher union bosses in Madison, Milwaukee, and other cities called teachers out on illegal strikes so they could stage angry protests at the state capitol and at legislators’ residences.

Government union militants issued dozens of death threats against Mr. Walker, members of his administration, and their families. Fourteen Big Labor-backed state senators, all Democrats, temporarily fled the state to deny the pro-S.B.11 Senate majority a quorum to pass the bill.

In raucous demonstrations, union bigwigs and their radical followers actually suggested Mr. Walker’s support for public employees’ Right to Work made him similar to Mubarak, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, or even Satan.

(This fall, national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka gave his personal imprimatur to such ugly vituperation when he likened the Wisconsin governor to “Lucifer” in an interview published in Esquire magazine.)

Thanks in part to public support mobilized by the National Right to Work Committee’s e-mail and telecommunications activities, pro-Right to Work legislators were able to withstand the Big Labor fury and send S.B.11 to Gov. Walker’s desk. On March 11, he signed into law the measure now known as Act 10.

Forced-Unionism Supporters Pumped More Than $40 Million Into 2011 ‘Recall’ Elections

Act 10, formally known as the Budget Repair Act of 2011, took effect in June after fending off a union boss-inspired legal challenge in state court.

Act 10 now protects most public employees from being fired for refusal to bankroll an unwanted union, but leaves untouched the forced-dues privileges of most public safety and transportation union bosses.

“Despite its unfortunate exclusions, this law represents a step forward for public employees’ free choice,” said Committee President Mark Mix.

“Not surprisingly, union bigwigs are out for revenge against Mr. Walker and the legislators who helped pass the Budget Repair Act.”

As part of its ongoing campaign to obtain vengeance and ultimately repeal the Budget Repair Act, early this year Big Labor launched petition campaigns for “recall” elections of many Senate supporters of the measure.

In August, special recall elections in which pro-forced unionism candidates challenged six pro-Right to Work senators took place. Three union-label Democrat senators who had opposed Act 10, and temporarily fled the state to stop it from passing, also faced recall votes this summer.

Union bigwigs and their Democratic allies pumped more than $40 million into the nine state Senate races.

In the end, the unprecedentedly expensive legislative recall push by Big Labor enjoyed some success, as two of the six pro-Act 10 senators went down to defeat, while all three forced-unionism senators held on to their seats. However, the union political machine fell short of capturing the three seats it needed to relegate pro-Act 10 Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (Juneau) to minority status and reassume control of the chamber.

Democratic Mayor: Under Act 10, Milwaukee Will Save ‘At Least $25 Million a Year’

And that same month, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Scott Walker’s Democratic opponent in 2010 and a bitter foe of Act 10, publicly admitted that, thanks to this very legislation, his city would save “at least $25 million a year — and potentially as much as $36 million in 2012 . . . .”

In addition to significantly reducing the fiscal strain on local governments, Act 10 has enabled Wisconsin to eliminate, without increasing taxes, a gaping state budget deficit that was projected this February to reach $3.6 billion over two years.

Finally, unlike localities in a number of other states in the Midwest and elsewhere where politicians have refused to take on government union bosses’ monopolistic special privileges, Wisconsin cities, towns and counties are not being required to resort to massive layoffs to stay solvent.

Despite all the good news that has emerged over the past few months, union officials in Wisconsin and nationwide remain as determined as ever to overturn Act 10 and reinstate compulsory union dues and fees for all types of state and local public employees.

A Huge Setback For Ohio, But a Pyrrhic Victory For Union Officials

This fall, mendacious union propagandists convinced all too many Ohio voters that S.B.5, if upheld, would slash school and public-safety budgets. Ironically, now that S.B.5 is dead, the very layoffs voters feared appear inevitable. Credits: Chip Bok/Creators

And in 2012 Big Labor intends to continue pouring workers’ dues money into expensive recall election campaigns as part of its ongoing program to kill Act 10. First on the new list of recall targets is Scott Walker himself.

In November, Wisconsin union bosses and their allied politicians officially launched a two-month drive to collect the roughly 540,000 signatures needed to force Mr. Walker into a recall election next spring. Several prominent state Democrats, including Mr. Barrett, are openly considering running against Mr. Walker should the recall take place.

Meanwhile, in another Midwestern state that was a 2011 battleground over government forced unionism, taxpayers have already lost.

This fall, union bosses from across the country spent upwards of $50 million to forestall enforcement of an Ohio public-sector labor law reform package enacted the same month as the Badger State’s and similar in key regards.

Ohio’s S.B.5 included provisions protecting the Right to Work of all categories of state and local employees, including public-safety and transportation workers. It also reduced the scope of government union bosses’ monopoly-bargaining privileges in several other ways.

Big Labor first stopped S.B.5 from taking effect, and then dipped deep into its forced dues-funded treasuries to outspend proponents vastly and kill the measure in the cradle. This was a huge setback for Ohio — and, at the same time, a pyrrhic victory for union strategists.

The tactics to which Big Labor resorted in Ohio have a strong potential to backfire on the union brass in the near future.

Major School, Public-Safety Layoffs Appear Inevitable In Buckeye State Next Year

The TV and radio ads with which the union hierarchy flooded the Ohio airwaves from September through early November successfully diverted public attention from what S.B.5 would actually do.

“You would never have guessed it from the Big Labor ads, but S.B.5 would not have reduced at all the amount of money the state of Ohio doles out to local schools and police and fire departments,” noted Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“Had it gone into effect, however, S.B.5 would have made it far less difficult for local elected officials to spend whatever money they did have at their disposal prudently, so as to provide taxpayers good services at a reasonable cost.

“And it would have protected each individual public servant’s freedom to join or not join a union.

“Now Big Labor has quashed this reform, but clearly not convinced Ohio voters their already high taxes should be even higher. That means Ohio localities, unlike Wisconsin localities, will almost certainly have to resort to mass layoffs over the next few months to keep from going broke.

“If union chiefs’ ongoing bid to subject Scott Walker to a recall election succeeds in Wisconsin, by the time he has to face the voters next year he will be able to point to a quite telling contrast between the outlook in Ohio, where Big Labor ultimately got its way in 2011, and in his state, where it didn’t.

“The contrast will not be helpful for the union political operatives who are seeking to punish Mr. Walker.

“And over time, residents of other fiscally troubled government union stronghold states will be able to see for themselves who was telling the truth in Ohio and Wisconsin, and act accordingly. That’s why, all in all, 2011 has been a hopeful year for America.”

Internal NLRB e-mails show Lafe Solomon (pictured) was disinclined this March to target Boeing for expanding production in Right to Work South Carolina. Then IAM union chiefs, led by Tom Buffenbarger, apparently got to him. Credit: AP/Bruce Smith

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

This April 20, Acting National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Lafe Solomon ignited a public-policy firestorm by filing a complaint against Boeing for initiating a second Dreamliner 787 aircraft production line in Right to Work South Carolina.

In several public statements, Boeing executives had made no bones about the fact that their decision to expand in a Right to Work state was prompted largely by their desire to avoid or at least mitigate multi-billion-dollar revenue losses stemming from disruptive strikes.

Agreeing with International Association of Machinists (IAM/AFL-CIO) union kingpins who had repeatedly ordered employees at Boeing’s west coast facilities out on strike, Mr. Solomon claimed these statements showed Boeing was motivated by “anti-union animus.” Consequently, the South Carolina expansion was illegal, declared Mr. Solomon.

Mr. Solomon’s complaint asked an NLRB administrative law judge to stop Boeing’s South Carolina production.

Former Clinton-Appointed NLRB Chairman: Boeing Complaint Didn’t ‘Make Sense’

Lafe Solomon was installed by President Barack Obama, without the U.S. Senate’s advice or consent, as the NLRB’s top lawyer in 2010. From the beginning, Mr. Solomon’s case against Boeing was highly controversial.

In addition to the overwhelming majority of Americans who support the Right to Work principle, even some well-informed apologists for compulsory unionism openly doubted whether Mr. Solomon really understands federal labor law.

For example, William Gould, the ex-union lawyer who was the Bill Clinton-appointed chairman of the NLRB from 1994 to 1998, summed up the case against Boeing this way:

“The general counsel is trying to equate an employer’s concern with strikes that disrupt production and make it difficult to make deadlines — he’s trying to equate that with hostility toward trade unionism. I don’t think that makes sense.”

In response to such criticism, Mr. Solomon protested that, as he saw it, the evidence Boeing had violated the law was clear-cut. “I feel that I really had no choice [but to file the complaint],” he told a New York Times reporter in late April.

Mr. Solomon appeared then to be merely a tunnel-visioned supporter of compulsory unionism. But now it seems that, besides being an ideologue, he is a fraud.

Mr. Solomon Made a Deal With Boeing, Then Broke It

Internal NLRB documents obtained by the educational group Judicial Watch and made public in November show that early this year Mr. Solomon told Boeing he would not target the company and its South Carolina employees if executives made a multi-year pledge not to lay off any unionized employees working on the 787.

The NLRB’s e-mail communications also show that, just as Mr. Solomon specified, Boeing quickly agreed not to lay off any IAM-controlled employees involved in Dreamliner production prior to the expiration of its existing contract with the IAM hierarchy.

But a few weeks later, Mr. Solomon filed his complaint against Boeing anyway, apparently because IAM agents representing union international President Tom Buffenbarger told him they wanted to extract more from the company than a no lay-off pledge.

“The record shows that, far from believing he ‘had’ to file a case against Boeing, as he claimed in public time and again, as recently as this March Mr. Solomon wasn’t planning to file one,” said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“And the obvious reason he finally decided to go ahead with the case after all wasn’t any purported wrongdoing by the company. Mr. Solomon did what IAM bosses told him to.”

Mr. Mourad continued: “National Right to Work and other like-minded groups quickly exposed the anti-employee and anti-business essence of the Boeing case to the American people. Even Mr. Solomon himself, in another internal NLRB e-mail recently made public, came to quip cynically that the case had ‘screwed up the U.S. economy.’

“Finally, in late November, IAM chiefs, acting without the NLRB’s involvement, cut a deal with Boeing and publicly indicated they wanted the case to go away.

“Now that the IAM puppeteers are finished, the NLRB action against Boeing will likely soon end quietly.

“That’s good news for Right to Work supporters, but unfortunately the fork-tongued Big Labor stooge who brought the case remains entrenched as the powerful NLRB’s top lawyer. That means the next attack on Right to Work can’t be far off.”

United Way Worldwide President Brian Gallagher thinks it's a good idea for United Way locals to divert charitable donors' money into Big Labor's lobbying campaign for another round of federal "stimulus" spending. Credit: United Way of America

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

For nearly four decades, the National Right to Work Committee has been warning charitable donors that the United Way of America (UWA) was diverting millions of their dollars to AFL-CIO union-boss slush funds.

Now such abuses of charitable donations appear to be worse than ever at the United Way Worldwide (UWW), the successor group that came into being in 2009 when the UWA merged with the United Way International.

Documents made publicly available by the UWW and AFL-CIO affiliates indicate that today local United Ways bloat their payrolls by employing more than 160 full-time union operatives, known as “AFL-CIO community service liaisons,” across the country.

And the UWW also openly acknowledges using donors’ money to recruit, “train and help place members of organized labor on the decision-making bodies of health and human-service organizations.”

Moreover, the UWW and many of its affiliates have long operated and continue to operate under “memoranda of understanding” with the AFL-CIO in which they agree to discriminate against goods, services and suppliers that don’t wear the union label.

Many United Way Donors Have Resisted Discriminatory United Way Policies

In 1974, the Committee exposed the discriminatory “Cooperative Memorandum of Understanding Between the United Way and the AFL-CIO” that was then in effect.

Many United Way donors were outraged that contributions intended to aid worthy civic and charitable causes were instead going to enrich Big Labor. They put enormous pressure on the UWA to change its policies.

Unfortunately, only cosmetic changes ensued, and the AFL-CIO hierarchy and the UWW remain “close partners,” as UWW President Brian Gallagher unabashedly put it in a letter this fall distributed to leaders of United Way locals nationwide.

“Any charity has a duty to its donors to get the best price it can on goods and services that meet its needs, without imposing unneeded and discriminatory conditions on suppliers,” said Committee Vice President Mary King.

“The UWW policy, however, tilts the scales against goods and services produced by the vast majority of private-sector workers, who neither belong nor wish to belong to a union.

“The UWW is letting AFL-CIO bosses use contributions intended to help the less fortunate for union-machine organizing.”

On November 13, Mr. Gallagher brought the decades-old “partnership” between his group and top union bosses to a whole new level when he sent out a nationwide letter to United Way local staff urging them to team up with union officials in their area as they lobby for the AFL-CIO’s so-called “jobs agenda.”

Brian Gallagher: UWW, AFL-CIO Elite Are ‘Working Towards the Same Goal’

“Please support your AFL-CIO,” wrote Mr. Gallagher, as it seeks to ram through the U.S. Senate and House a package of so-called “stimulus” legislation that is eerily similar to the failed “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” (ARRA) rubber-stamped by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in 2009.

As many Newsletter readers know, after ARRA became law, it bilked taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars to ensure that bloated, unionized government payrolls stayed bloated, but furnished no detectable net benefit for America’s private sector.

In his letter, Mr. Gallagher explained his exhortation that UWW staff should help union lobbyists foist another round of massively expensive and futile “stimulus” on America: The UWW and the AFL-CIO elite are “working towards the same goal.”

Your Letter to UWW Needed

Ms. King commented: “Sadly, despite the National Right to Work Committee’s persistent efforts over the years to put a spotlight on unfortunate ‘sweetheart’ deals between United Way executives and union kingpins, many well-intentioned charitable donors clearly remain unaware of the problem.”

She vowed that the Committee would continue to work to inform more and more pro-Right to Work charitable donors about Big Labor infiltration of the UWW and many of its locals.

Ms. King also encouraged members to write Mr. Gallagher and urge him to change course. He can be reached at United Way Worldwide, 701 N. Fairfax St., Alexandria, Va. 22314.

Craig Becker has publicly lamented the fact that U.S. labor law does not "mandate" union monopoly bargaining. Credit: www.uncoverage.net

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

In his writings for academic and “labor studies” journals over the years, union lawyer Craig Becker has repeatedly bemoaned the fact that U.S. labor law “does not,” as he once bluntly explained, “require employees in a plant to select a bargaining agent, if they do not want to.”

Employees’ only choice, Mr. Becker has suggested time and again, should be over which set of union officials get “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining power to negotiate their wages, benefits, and work rules.

Thanks to President Barack Obama, Mr. Becker is in a position as 2011 winds down to begin implementing his extremist vision of what federal labor policy should be.

In March 2010, Mr. Obama did the bidding of the union hierarchy by “recess” appointing Mr. Becker to the powerful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Mr. Becker and Chairman Mark Pearce, another ex-union lawyer installed on the NLRB by Mr. Obama, now constitute a radical Big Labor majority on a rump, three-member NLRB. (Two of the board’s five seats are currently vacant.)

And late this November Mr. Pearce and Mr. Becker okayed changes to the current procedures for NLRB certification of unions that will, in practice, significantly undermine workers’ right to choose against monopolistic union representation.

The Obama NLRB originally planned to go even further to gut workers’ “choice to remain unrepresented” — a choice Mr. Becker has indicated he doesn’t think should be legally protected at all. But intense public opposition, mobilized by the National Right to Work Committee and other allied groups, evidently influenced the NLRB to temper its haste somewhat.

Employers May Soon Be Forced To Hand Employee Phone Numbers, E-Mail Addresses to Union Dons

The revised proposal advanced by the Pearce-Becker team over the vigorous opposition of the third NLRB member, Brian Hayes, would sharply reduce the current median time frame of 38 days between the filing of a union “representation petition” and the conduct of a union election.

The effect of such a change, as former NLRB member and Right to Work supporter Peter Kirsanow has put it, will be to “utterly and completely deprive employers of the ability to communicate vital information to their employees regarding their rights and the effects of unionization.”

Of course, once employers are denied enough time to make their case, employees will ipso facto be denied the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before voting on unionization.

“Apologists for President Obama’s NLRB brazenly claim that the ‘ambush’ election scheme it is now implementing step by step represents only a few modest changes to current practice,” noted Committee President Mark Mix.

“But this is nothing other than an underhanded means of realizing the very objective Craig Becker lauded in his published writings before his NLRB appointment: Workers’ ‘choice to remain unrepresented’ would be rendered almost meaningless.

“And the ‘ambush’ elections just rubber-stamped by the NLRB are only the beginning. The NLRB is still considering a host of other harmful proposals.

“These include new rules mandating that the employer hand over employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses to union organizers at the outset of each ‘ambush’ election campaign.”

Committee Will Consider ‘All Appropriate Means’ to Protect Independent Employees

Mr. Mix vowed that the Committee would consider “all appropriate means” to protect independent employees from the Obama NLRB.

“Unfortunately, as long as Barack Obama remains President and retains his veto power, it will be difficult to rein in the NLRB,” he acknowledged.

“But at the very least, Right to Work supporters on Capitol Hill can and must prevent Mr. Obama from placing another union stooge on the NLRB to replace Mr. Becker once his ‘recess’ appointment ends this winter.”

November-December 2011 issue headlines:

Capitol Hill Support For Right to Work Growing — More Senators, Representatives Cosponsor Compulsory-Dues Repeal

Obama Bureaucrats Bolster Monopolistic Unionism — Labor Board Chipping Away at ‘Choice to Remain Unrepresented’

United Way Chief: ‘Please Support Your AFL-CIO’ — Brian Gallagher Prods Charity Workers to Assist Union Lobbyists

Lafe Solomon ‘Did What IAM Bosses Told Him To’ — E-mails Reveal Why Top NLRB Lawyer ‘Screwed up the U.S. Economy’

College Graduates Flock to Right to Work States — States Seeking a ‘Brain Gain’ Should Bar Compulsory Union Dues

All in All, ‘a Hopeful Year For America’ — Big Labor Bosses Fume as Benefits of Wisconsin Reform Spread

Right to Work President Mark Mix: "At a minimum, the House should consider appropriations amendments cutting off funds for pursuing the Boeing case and for implementing several other ongoing NLRB power grabs." Credit: Fox Business News

But Board Abuses Will Intensify Unless Congress Does Much More

(Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

On September 15, the U.S. House voted 238-186 to rebuke Acting National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Lafe Solomon for trying to dictate where businesses may or may not expand.

By passing H.R.2587, the Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act, last month, the House made a judgment that NLRB bureaucrats like Mr. Solomon should not have the power to order an employer to relocate jobs from one site to another.

House members were responding specifically to Mr. Solomon’s decision in April to file a complaint against Boeing for initiating a new aircraft production line in Right to Work South Carolina.

In several public statements, Boeing executives had made no bones about the fact that their decision to expand in a Right to Work state was prompted largely by their desire to avoid or at least mitigate multi-billion-dollar revenue losses stemming from disruptive strikes.

Agreeing with International Association of Machinists (IAM, AFL-CIO) union kingpins who had repeatedly ordered employees at Boeing’s Washington State and Oregon facilities out on strike, Mr. Solomon claims these statements show Boeing was motivated by “anti-union animus.” Consequently, the South Carolina expansion is illegal, declares Mr. Solomon.

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

As Politics, ‘the NLRB Issue Is a Doozy’ For Big Labor Politicians

Sponsored by pro-Right to Work freshman South Carolina Congressman Tim Scott (R), H.R.2587 aims to stop Mr. Solomon from penalizing employers legitimately concerned with strikes that disrupt production and alienate customers by telling them where they can or can’t locate jobs.

H.R.2587 would modestly reduce the NLRB’s current extraordinary power, barring it “from ordering any employer to relocate, shut down, or transfer employment under any circumstance.”

This legislation sailed through the House with the support of several members who normally kowtow to the union bosses. That’s a sign, as a July 28 Wall Street Journal editorial put it, that “a policy of punishing business for building plants and creating jobs in their states . . . is a doozy” for Big Labor politicians.

However, in the U.S. Senate union-label Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will very likely be able to muster sufficient votes to stall H.R.2587, despite the reform’s popularity.

Indeed, on September 22 Big Labor Democrats torpedoed an effort by pro-Right to Work members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to attach an amendment similar to H.R.2587 to the Fiscal Year 2012 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill.

Moreover, the White House announced well before H.R.2587 passed the House that President Obama opposes it.

Other Countermeasures House Could Take Have Greater Potential

Because the President now unambiguously agrees with the man he unilaterally installed as NLRB general counsel about the Boeing complaint, an H.R.2587 veto can be expected should the bill somehow pass the Senate.

“The National Right to Work Committee supports H.R.2587 and is encouraged that it could pass the House,” said Committee President Mark Mix.

“However, this bill is quite unlikely to become law in the near future, and 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.

“In light of these facts, Speaker John Boehner [R-Ohio] and other House leaders must pursue additional means of reining in this rogue agency.

“At a minimum, the House should consider appropriations amendments cutting off funds for pursuing the Boeing case and for implementing several other ongoing NLRB power grabs.

“By refusing to vote for an NLRB budget unless it curtails Obama bureaucrats’ worst excesses, the House can actually stop abuses like the Boeing complaint without the cooperation of Harry Reid’s Senate 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.”

Mr. Mix urged Committee members to call Speaker Boehner at 202-225-0600 and urge him to pursue all appropriate courses of action to protect employees and businesses from NLRB excesses.

Regardless of who was in the White House, Sen. Wallop energetically defended the Right to Work. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Malcolm Wallop Opposed Compulsory Unionism, Without Fear or Favor

(Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Thirty-five years ago this August, a staunchly pro-Right to Work, but obscure GOP state senator named Malcolm Wallop was running 34 points behind in his challenge to Wyoming three-term U.S. Sen. Gale McGee, a Big Labor Democrat.

Respected pundits didn’t expect the race ever to get close.

But less than three months later, after an extensive National Right to Work Committee campaign had alerted Wyoming citizens about the union-boss power grabs Mr. McGee could help ram through Congress if reelected, Mr. Wallop soundly defeated the incumbent.

As even the Washington Post noticed from afar at the time, the McGee-Wallop race “brought unions and right-to-work groups into direct battle.”

Former Right to Work President:  Sen. Wallop Kept His Promises to Constituents

“In a letter he sent out in late August 1976 to Wyoming citizens who had inquired about his stance on compulsory unionism, Malcolm Wallop said forthrightly: ‘I believe in the work of the [National Right to Work] Committee,’” noted former Committee President Reed Larson.

“Mr. Wallop added that he would ‘stand behind the principle’ of Right to Work as a U.S. senator.

“From the time he took his oath of federal office in 1977 to the day he retired from the Senate in 1995, Malcolm Wallop kept his pro-Right to Work promises to his constituents.”

During Mr. Wallop’s first years in the Senate, standing up for the Right to Work meant standing up as a Republican to the Big Labor-favoring policies of Democrat President Jimmy Carter.

In 1977 and 1978, Mr. Wallop successfully opposed the Carter Administration’s so-called labor-law “reform,” which would have used the threat of exorbitant fines to browbeat employers into acquiescing to the forced unionization of their employees.

In the floor debate leading up to one of a record six cloture votes on Mr. Carter’s phony “reform,” Mr. Wallop eloquently summed up why Big Labor was so determined to get this legislation passed.

Union officials, the senator charged, “no longer compete for the minds and loyalty of the workmen of this country. They want them handed to them. They want an indentured situation where they do not have to go out and work for members.”

Mr. Wallop Fought Big Labor Appeasement in Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses

Years later, Mr. Wallop defended the Right to Work with just as much passion when it was being undermined by Big Labor appeasers in his own political party.

In 1979, union-label appointees on the National Labor Relations Board ruled that private-sector employees at the Patrick Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral in Right to Work Florida may be forced to pay union dues, or be fired. The NLRB’s rationale was that these facilities are “exclusive” federal enclaves.

Three years later, Reagan-appointed Solicitor General Rex Lee shocked and disappointed Right to Work supporters when he issued a brief calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to deny review of an appeals court decision upholding the NLRB’s restriction on states’ prerogative to pass Right to Work laws.

“In response to Mr. Lee’s betrayal, Sen. Wallop quickly agreed to sign on to a joint letter to President Reagan from principled Right to Work supporters on Capitol Hill calling on the White House to change course,” Mr. Larson recalled.

“Unfortunately, this effort wasn’t successful, and the NLRB power grab in Lord v. IBEW stands to this day. In other cases, however, Mr. Wallop’s principled stance prevailed.

“In 1991, working closely with Right to Work officers, the senator stopped the George H.W. Bush Administration from appointing forced-unionism ideologue Mary Cracraft to a second five-year NLRB term.”

On September 14, Malcolm Wallop passed away at his ranch home near Big Horn, Wyo. He will be missed by Right to Work supporters everywhere.

In southwestern Washington last month, overpowered police were unable to prevent bat- and ax handle-wielding union toughs from systematically sabotaging a $200 million grain terminal. No arrests were made at the scene. Credit: AP Photo/Don Ryan

Bat- and Pipe-Wielding Union Thugs Rampage in Washington State

(Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

For decades, Right to Work advocates have fought to close the judicially created loophole in federal anti-extortion law that exempts threats, vandalism and violence perpetrated to secure so-called “legitimate union objectives,” including monopoly-bargaining and forced-dues privileges over employees.

In explaining the importance of closing the loophole created 38 years ago in the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 Enmons decision, National Right to Work Committee spokesmen and their allies have pointed out, time and again, that local and state law enforcement are often overwhelmed by violent union conspiracies.

Just last month, the local police in Longview, Wash., a Columbia River port town, became the latest case in point.

At 4:30 AM on September 8, hundreds of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU/AFL-CIO) militants stormed a new grain terminal at the Port of Longview.

Big Labor thugs broke down the gates, overwhelmed six security guards, and then converged on the terminal of EGT, a joint venture of U.S., Japanese, and South Korean companies that has been targeted by ILWU chiefs.

A week later, security guard Charlie Cadwell testified before U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton that every ILWU “protester” he saw that night was carrying a baseball bat, lead pipe, garden tool, or other weapon.

As the AP reported, Mr. Cadwell told the judge he was first pulled out of his car by one Big Labor zealot, then another swung a metal pipe at him.

“I told him,” Mr. Cadwell continued, “You have 50 cameras on you, and law enforcement is on its way. He said, ‘(Expletive) you. We’re not here for you; we’re here for the train.’”

Meanwhile, yet another union militant drove off with his car and eventually ran it into a ditch. Mr. Cadwell said “about 40 to 50 people were throwing rocks at him, and that he was hit between his eyes and in his knee,” according to the AP account.

‘I Wasn’t About’ to Stop ‘These People From Doing Whatever It Is They Were Going to Do’

The ILWU lawbreakers in Washington State evidently feel no more compunction about using threats and violence against police than they do about assaulting and terrorizing security guards.

Longview police Sgt. Mark Langlois tried to respond to a call that night about dozens of vehicles leaving the ILWU hall in Longview, but a vehicle parked in the middle of the road blocked his path. Next, a bat-wielding union mob threatened the sergeant.

“I was by myself. I was completely outnumbered. I wasn’t about to stop any of these people from doing whatever it is they were going to do,” Mr. Langlois later testified.

And Mr. Langlois was just one of many police officers who were threatened. “Our teams of four or five officers were confronted by baseball bat- and ax handle-wielding protesters,” Cowlitz County Sheriff Mark Nelson told Portland’s KOIN-TV.

With neither security guards nor police able to stop them, union toughs went on a rampage.

They cut the brake lines of many rail cars in the EGT terminal and dumped the grain contained in 72 of them. They also smashed windows and cut the air hoses to a grain train.

Altogether, roughly $150,000 in damage was done, according to EGT’s estimate. Yet police were unable to make a single arrest at the scene.

‘This Was an Organized, Large-Scale Criminal Event’

“This was an organized, large-scale criminal event,” Sheriff Nelson told Longview’s Daily News September 9. “We’re talking about sabotage. We’re talking about riotous behavior.”

Moreover, top union officials including ILWU International President Bob McEllrath publicly encouraged such activity in advance by participating, for example, in an illegal blockade of deliveries to the EGT grain terminals September 7.

“If business executives anywhere in America openly encouraged and orchestrated sabotage, threats, vandalism and violence against the employees and property of a rival company, they could expect to be charged with felonies and go to prison for a long time,” commented Right to Work President Mark Mix.

“The same is true for Americans in virtually every other walk of life.

“Unfortunately, however, in today’s America, prosecutions of Big Labor assaults, death threats, sabotage, property destruction, and other serious crimes are extraordinarily difficult.

Largely because ILWU chiefs incited hundreds of longshore workers to travel to the Port of Longview to participate in the September 8 attack, the Seattle and Tacoma ports were shut down that morning. Credit: Ted S. Warren/AP

“The fact is, it is very unlikely Bob McEllrath and other ILWU bosses will be criminally prosecuted for inciting and organizing the Longview mayhem.

“Such prosecutions are frequently hindered because of the judicially-created loophole in the federal Hobbs Act that exempts from prosecution extortionate violence committed pursuant to supposedly ‘legitimate union objectives.’

“And one objective that federal labor law clearly deems to be ‘legitimate’ is to expand the number of employees who are force to accept union representation and pay union dues as a condition of employment.

“That was, without a doubt, the primary objective of the ILWU bosses when their militant followers were wreaking havoc at the EGT grain terminal on the morning of September 8.”

Freedom From Union Violence Act Would Close Lethal Loophole

“What Mr. McEllrath, his cohorts, and their henchmen have engaged in is extortion, as that word is commonly understood,” Mr. Mix continued. “But because of the pro-union violence loophole in the federal Hobbs Act, they can’t be charged with extortion.

“With the law so heavily tilted in their favor, ILWU bosses who encouraged, helped coordinate, and ratified the threats, violence and vandalism at the Port of Washington are likely to get off scot-free, regardless of how compelling the evidence against them is.

“This is a black mark on the American justice system — and it makes your blood boil.

“Fortunately, a provision in H.R.2810/S.1507, the Employee Rights Act, now before both chambers of Congress, would at last close the union-violence loophole the Supreme Court opened up in 1973.

“The provision, also known as the Freedom from Union Violence Act, would hold union officials who plan, commit, or foment extortionate violence against a firm’s employees to the same standards as business rivals, gangsters, or anyone else who does the same.”

Committee legislative staffers are now working with pro-Right to Work House and Senate members to secure introduction and consideration of Enmons repeal as a freestanding bill.

Big Labor Politicians Know Public Opinion Is Against Them on Union-Violence Issue

“Since the High Court’s Enmons ruling interpreted the Hobbs Act, not the U.S. Constitution, Congress clearly has the authority to override it,” Mr. Mix explained.

“Of course, with forced-unionism cheerleader Harry Reid [D-Nev.] in charge of the Senate and union-label President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, it will be a steeply uphill battle to pass the Freedom from Union Violence Act into law this year or next.

“But simply forcing all congressmen and senators to vote on this legislation would mark an important advance and pave the way for a future victory.

“Even Big Labor politicians know public opinion is against them on the union-violence issue. Within the next few years, Right to Work supporters can win this battle. But first we will have to wage an extended and furious fight.”

In 2001, Sooners defied Big Labor by approving a statewide ban on forced union dues. Since its Right to Work law took effect, Oklahoma has become a national leader in private-sector compensation and job growth.

Oklahoma Celebrates Right to Work Anniversary — Sooner Experience Reinforces Case For Federal Forced-Dues Repeal

(Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

On September 25 a decade ago, one of Big Labor’s most formidable fear-and-loathing campaigns ever failed when Oklahoma approved a statewide ban on compulsory union dues and fees and thus became the nation’s 22nd Right to Work state.

Almost immediately, the very union bosses who had been shrilly predicting that a Sooner Right to Work law would swiftly lead to disaster moved to prevent the law from having any impact at all.

When the Right to Work law had been in effect just seven weeks, Big Labor lawyers launched an underhanded bid to overturn it. This legal attack kept the law’s future under a cloud for an extended period.

The state’s attorneys and Right to Work attorneys intervening on behalf of several independent-minded workers prevailed in 2003 when the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously rejected AFL-CIO union kingpins’ demand that it overturn the law.

Oklahoma’s Private-Sector Compensation Growth Has Far Outpaced U.S. Average

“Since Big Labor’s legal assault on Oklahomans’ Right to Work was thwarted, the state has had one of the strongest economies in the country, as measured by a number of key indicators,” said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“For example, from 2003 to 2010, inflation-adjusted U.S. Commerce Department data show private-sector employer outlays for employee compensation, including wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses, grew by 12.2% in Oklahoma, after adjusting for inflation.

“Sooners’ real private-sector compensation expanded at a rate more than three-and-a-half times as great as the national average of 3.4%, and faster than in 41 other states.”

Oklahoma Also a Standout For Job Creation

“Private-sector employment is another major indicator that Oklahoma’s Right to Work law has helped boost economic growth, as proponents predicted it would,” Mr. Mourad continued.

“According to the U.S. Labor Department, from 2003 to 2010, private-sector employment in Oklahoma increased by 3.2%, even as it fell by 1.0% nationwide and inched up by an average of just 0.02% in Oklahoma’s forced-unionism neighbor states.”

The experience of Oklahoma is compelling.

But it simply reinforces what was already clear from the experiences of the 21 other states with similar laws prohibiting the firing of employees for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union: Right to Work measures make sense on economic as well as moral grounds.

This is true both at the state level and the federal level.

In fact, if Congress had never adopted the National Labor Act (NLRA) authorizing forced-dues exactions from private-sector employees across the country, states would never have needed to adopt Right to Work laws in the first place.

National Right to Work Act Wouldn’t Add a Word To Federal Labor Law

Fortunately, legislation now pending in Congress as H.R.2040 and S.504 would evenhandedly protect the freedom of private-sector employees nationwide to join or not join a union by eliminating all current federal labor-law provisions that authorize forced union membership, dues, or fees.

“The National Right to Work Act, sponsored in the House by Rep. Steve King [R-Iowa] and in the Senate by Sens. Jim DeMint [R-S.C.] and Rand Paul [R-Ky.], wouldn’t add a single word to federal labor law,” emphasized Mr. Mourad.

“It would simply strike out a handful of pro-forced unionism provisions in the NLRA and the Railway Labor Act that represent a gross violation of the individual employee’s freedom of choice.

“The record shows these provisions are also an economic albatross as our nation struggles to recover from the worst recession in decades.

“Americans deserve to know which of their politicians, federal as well as state, support the unjust, economically unviable forced-unionism system. For that reason alone, congressional leaders should let H.R.2040 and S.504 receive full House and Senate consideration.”

The experience of state after state shows that public-sector compulsory unionism as well as private-sector compulsory unionism devours job- and income-creating opportunities for taxpaying businesses and employees. Credit: Michael Ramirez/Investors Business Daily

 Union Bosses Aim to Kill Recent Buckeye State Reform Next Month

(Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Over the past decade, the citizens of forced-unionism Ohio have been afflicted with one of the worst-performing state economies in the country.

Across the U.S. as a whole, despite the severe recent recession, private employers’ inflation-adjusted outlays for employee compensation (including wages, salaries, bonuses and benefits) did increase from 2000 to 2010, by an average of 4.3%.

And many states fared much better than that. In the 22 states with Right to Work laws on the books protecting both private- and public-sector employees from being fired for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, real private-sector employee compensation grew by an aggregate 11.3%.

Private employees in 20 of the 22 Right to Work states experienced 2000-2010 compensation growth greater than the national average.

Unfortunately, in the 28 states without Right to Work laws on the books, private-sector outlays for employee compensation rose only by a combined 0.7%, after adjusting for inflation. Thirteen of the 14 states with the lowest compensation growth lack a Right to Work law.

Ohio was one of just five states with negative real private-sector compensation growth over the last decade. In 2010, Ohio’s business expenditures for private employee compensation were 6.6% less than they had been in 2000.

Region, Job Mix Can’t Account For Buckeye State’s Shrinking Private Employee Compensation

When confronted with such data, apologists for the forced-unionism policies that prevailed across the board in Ohio for decades until this year try to explain them away by blaming the Buckeye State’s location in the U.S. Midwest or its historically high manufacturing density for its abysmal economic record.

But such excuses won’t wash.

From 2000 to 2010, real private-sector employee compensation in the five Midwestern Right to Work states (Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota) increased by an average of 11.5%. All five of these states enjoyed compensation growth greater than the national average.

In contrast, real private-sector compensation in Ohio and the six other Midwestern forced-unionism states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin) fell by an aggregate 5.3%.

Moreover, a number of Right to Work states in which manufacturing’s share of total employment a decade ago was roughly equal to, or higher than, Ohio’s enjoyed above-average private-sector compensation growth over the past decade. Examples include Right to Work North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Actions of Forced Dues-Funded Politicians Cripple Private-Sector Growth

Even as Ohio's private sector shriveled over the past decade, Big Labor's forced dues-fueled electioneering and lobbying machine helped the Buckeye State's heavily unionized government sector to expand by nearly 12%.

“The evidence indicates it is the pro-forced union dues policies that have long been entrenched in Ohio, rather than any other factor, that are the source of the Buckeye State’s chronic economic woes,” charged Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“Private-sector compulsory unionism and government forced unionism have both inflicted major damage on Ohio and many other states. But in recent years government union bosses have surely wrought the most harm of all. Today, most employees nationwide who are under union monopoly control are government employees.”

Mr. Mix explained: “Wherever union chiefs wield forced-dues powers, a huge portion of the loot they rake in goes into efforts to elect and reelect state and local, as well as federal, Big Labor politicians.

“Such politicians have a broad agenda that greatly impedes private-sector job and income growth.

“Fortunately, this spring two states enacted significant reforms that — if they withstand ongoing Big Labor-led attempts to remove them from the books — can begin undoing the damage over the course of the next few years.

“Ohio’s new public-sector Right to Work law, still often referred to as Senate Bill 5, includes provisions protecting the Right to Work of all categories of state and local employees. S.B.5 also reduces the scope of government union bosses’ monopoly-bargaining privileges in several other ways.

“S.B.5 is more comprehensive than the other state public-sector Right to Work law enacted in March, Wisconsin’s Budget Repair Act.

“The Badger State law protects the freedom of teachers and many other public employees to refuse to bankroll an unwanted union, but leaves untouched the forced-dues privileges of public-safety and public-transportation union bosses.”

National Right to Work Helped Mobilize Public Support For Reforms

“Grass-roots support for the public-sector Right to Work measures in Ohio and in Wisconsin was mobilized, in significant part, by the Committee’s e-mail and telecommunications activities,” Mr. Mix noted.

“Both these laws represent important advances for the Right to Work cause — especially the Ohio statute, because it protects all state and local employees from forced union dues. But both laws are also in danger of being reversed.”

The more immediate threat to Right to Work is in the Buckeye State.

During the spring and early summer, union strategists successfully collected the number of signed petitions needed to block implementation of S.B.5 and put their forced-dues reinstatement referendum before voters on November 8.

In Wisconsin, a Big Labor-inspired court challenge that had kept the Budget Repair Act in limbo for months was rebuffed by the state Supreme Court in June.

However, a second legal bid to invalidate the law, filed by lawyers representing a host of government unions, is now pending in federal court.

“The National Committee is offering our advice and counsel, as well as financial resources, to Ohio citizens who are battling to keep their new public-sector Right to Work law on the books,” said Mr. Mix.

“And in Wisconsin, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have helped three public servants file a motion to intervene in the ongoing Big Labor lawsuit to overturn the Budget Repair Act.

“If the motion succeeds, these independent-minded employees will be able to present their own arguments to the court for why their Right to Work should continue to be legally protected.”

Big Labor Flooding Ohio Airwaves With Ads Designed To Confuse Electorate

As this month’s Right to Work Newsletter goes to press, national and state union bosses are spending millions of dollars, most of it derived from dues and fees employees are forced to pay as a job condition, to defeat Issue 2, the Ohio referendum that must pass if S.B.5 is to take effect and become permanent law.

“Union officials clearly know that the overwhelming majority of Ohioans support the principle that no one should be denied a job, or lose a job, because he or she refuses to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union,” commented Mr. Mix.

“Big Labor is also well aware of the fact that, in a state where, over the last decade, private-sector compensation has fallen by more than six percent, but state and local government compensation has increased by nearly 12%, voters know something must be done to restore the balance.

“That’s why the TV and radio ads with which the union hierarchy is now flooding the Ohio airwaves try to divert public attention from what S.B.5 would actually do and frighten people with talk about slashing school and public-safety budgets.

“The fact is, S.B.5 does not say anything about how much money the state of Ohio will dole out to local schools and police and fire departments in the future.

“It will, however, make it far less difficult for local elected officials to spend whatever money they have at their disposal prudently, so as to provide taxpayers good services at a reasonable cost. And it will protect each individual public servant’s freedom to join or not join a union.”

Mr. Mix vowed that the National Committee would throughout this month and over the first week in November contact hundreds of thousands of identified Right to Work supporters in Ohio to ensure that they understand what is at stake in Issue 2, and act accordingly.

October 2011 issue headlines:

Beleaguered Local Cops ‘Completely Outnumbered’ –  Bat- and Pipe-Wielding Union Thugs Rampage in Washington State

House Chastises Obama NLRB’s Top Lawyer — But Board Abuses Will Intensify Unless Congress Does Much More

‘President Obama, This Is Your Army‘  — On a Dime, Forced Dues-Funded Union Operatives Can Turn Political

Oklahoma Celebrates Right to Work Anniversary –  Sooner Experience Reinforces Case For Federal Forced-Dues Repeal

Senator ‘Stood Behind’ Right to Work Principle — Malcolm Wallop Opposed Compulsory Unionism, Without Fear or Favor

Public Servants’ Right to Work in Jeopardy — Union Bosses Aim to Kill Recent Buckeye State Reform Next Month

Union-Boss Bid to Regain Control Over State Senate Falls Short

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Early this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) infuriated the union hierarchy, in his own state and nationally, when he introduced legislation (S.B.11) that would abolish forced union dues for teachers and many other public employees and also sharply limit the scope of union monopoly bargaining.

In response, teacher union bosses in Madison, Milwaukee, and other cities called teachers out on illegal strikes so they could stage angry protests at the state capitol.

Government union militants issued dozens of death threats against Mr. Walker, members of his administration, and their families. Fourteen union-backed state senators, all Democrats, temporarily fled the state to deny the pro-S.B.11 Senate majority a quorum to pass the bill.

In raucous demonstrations, union bigwigs and their radical followers actually suggested Mr. Walker’s support for public employees’ Right to Work made him similar to Mubarak, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, or even Satan.

Thanks in part to public support mobilized by the National Right to Work Committee’s e-mail and telecommunications activities, pro-Right to Work legislators were able to withstand the Big Labor fury and send S.B.11 to Gov. Walker’s desk. On March 11, he signed it into law.

‘I Can’t Even Phone Bank Because the Labor Temple Is Full’

Wisconsin’s Budget Repair Act of 2011, which withstood a union boss-inspired legal challenge and took effect in June, now protects the freedom of most public employees to refuse to bankroll an unwanted union, but leaves untouched the forced-dues privileges of public safety and transportation union bosses.

“Despite its unfortunate exclusions, this law represents a step forward for public employees’ free choice. And its curtailment of government union bosses’ monopoly privileges is already helping improve Wisconsin’s tax and private-sector employment climates,” said Committee Vice President Matthew Leen.

“Meanwhile, union bigwigs are out for revenge against Gov. Walker and the legislators who helped pass the Budget Repair Act.”

As part of its ongoing campaign to obtain vengeance and ultimately repeal the Budget Repair Act, early this year Big Labor launched petition campaigns for “recall” elections of Senate supporters of the measure.

Last month, special recall elections in which pro-forced unionism candidates challenged six pro-Right to Work senators took place. Three union-label Democrat senators who had opposed S.B.11 and temporarily fled the state to stop it from passing also faced recall votes this summer.

Big Labor and Democrat Party operatives were so determined to punish elected officials for daring to roll back government forced unionism that they poured a total of at least $20 million in cash alone, plus untold amounts of forced dues-funded “in-kind” contributions, into the nine state Senate races.

At 6 P.M. on August 9, the day six of the elections occurred, one Big Labor agent sent this boastful report from a local union hall: “I can’t even phone bank because the labor temple is full.”

AFL-CIO Czar Insinuates Wisconsin Governor May Be Ousted From Office

In the end, the unprecedentedly expensive legislative recall push by Big Labor enjoyed some success, as two of the six pro-S.B.11 senators went down to defeat, while all three forced-unionism senators held on to their seats.

However, the union political machine fell short of capturing the three seats it needed to relegate pro-S.B.11 Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) to minority status and reassume control of the chamber.

Nevertheless, national AFL-CIO czar Richard Trumka insinuated at an August 25 media event in Washington, D.C., that the Senate recall results actually show ousting Mr. Walker in a recall next year would not be too “difficult,” according to a Washington Examiner report.

“Scott Walker clearly remains in Big Labor’s gun sights,” Mr. Leen concluded.

September 2011 issue headlines:

Right to Work Debated in State Capitals — But National Forced-Dues Repeal Measure Still Being Held Back

Right to Work Has Been Right All Along — Big Labor Spent $1.14 Billion on Politics, Lobbying in 2009-2010

Wisconsin Governor in Big Labor Gun Sights — Union-Boss Bid to Regain Control Over State Senate Falls Short

New Privileges For Transportation Union Chiefs? — Principled U.S. House Leadership Can Thwart Big Labor Power Grab

Wounded Ohio Contractor: ‘I’m in Disbelief’ — Shooting Victim’s Workers, Firm Have Long Been Big Labor Targets

‘Without Any Warning, the Rules Have Changed’ — New York Times Pundit: Reckless Obama NLRB ‘Paralyzing’ Economy

Big Labor Spent $1.14 Billion on Politics, Lobbying in 2009-2010

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

A surprising source has confirmed, unimpeachably, that Big Labor spends more than a billion dollars on politics and lobbying per federal campaign cycle.

National Right to Work Committee members have for years known this to be true.

But poor-mouthing union officials and supposedly nonpartisan monitors of political spending like the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) continue even today to foster a false impression that Big Labor spends less on electioneering and lobbying than Big Business.

Unfortunately for the union bosses and their apologists, the very LM-2 forms that private-sector (and some government-sector) unions with annual revenues exceeding $250,000 are required to file with the U.S. Labor Department show unambiguously they control by far the most massive political machine in America.

Reported Union PAC Spending Only Tip of the Iceberg

In 2003, then-President George W. Bush’s Labor Department revised these disclosure forms with the avowed goal of helping the millions of private-sector workers who are forced to pay union dues or fees as a job condition get a better idea of where there conscripted money was going.

This was a worthwhile initiative. Current labor laws, as interpreted by federal courts, unjustly authorize the firing of employees for refusal to pay for unwanted union monopoly bargaining, unless the employees are protected by a state Right to Work law.

But the U.S. Supreme Court, in precedents argued and won by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, has made it clear time and again that employees may not legally be forced to pay for non-bargaining activities — regardless of where they live.

Unfortunately, in a misguided and futile attempt to appease the union brass, Bush officials failed to require union reports to strictly segregate all bargaining and non-bargaining activities in the revised LM-2′s.

Nevertheless, since the LM-2 revision withstood an extended Big Labor legal challenge and took effect, union officials have been required to report each year how much they spend on two major non-bargaining activities — electioneering and lobbying.

And a recent National Right to Work Committee analysis of all LM-2 forms filed for the years 2009 and 2010 shows that unions filing such forms spent a total of $1.14 billion in forced dues-funded union treasury money on “political activities and lobbying” in the 2010 election cycle alone.

That barely exceeded LM-2-filing unions’ combined political and lobbying expenditures of $1.06 billion in the 2008 campaign cycle.

Of course, such forced dues-fueled spending, which pays for phone banks, get-out-the-vote drives, propaganda mailings, and much more, but doesn’t go directly to candidates, far surpasses Big Labor’s reported PAC contributions of $63.7 million in 2009-2010 and $66.4 million in 2007-2008.

During Election Years, AFL-CIO Building Becomes ‘National Party Headquarters’

Big Labor’s “in-kind” political expenditures also far surpass business PAC expenditures. In 2007-2008, for example, the 1036 largest business and association PACs gave a total of $275.5 million to federal candidates, or barely more than a quarter as much as union bosses spent on “in-kind” politics.

“The outsized political spending by union kingpins is nothing new,” noted Committee Vice President Greg Mourad.

“Back in 1976, highly-regarded labor journalist Victor Riesel (now deceased) aptly stated that, in the months preceding federal elections, the AFL-CIO building becomes ‘an instant national party headquarters — easily a match for the national committees of the Democratic and Republican parties . . .’ !

“Moreover, unlike business and other interest group political spending, Big Labor’s ‘in-kind’ expenditures on politics are financed primarily by forced-dues money, often paid by workers who personally oppose the union-boss agenda.

“Congress can and should end this outrage by passing a national Right to Work law prohibiting all forced union dues and fees.”

Principled U.S. House Leadership Can Thwart Big Labor Power Grab

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Over the next few weeks, the U.S. House will have the opportunity to turn back a Big Labor-inspired bureaucratic rewrite of the procedures through which union officials acquire monopoly-bargaining privileges under the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

If self-avowedly pro-Right to Work House leaders and rank-and-file members blow this opportunity, another one won’t come for a long time.

In June 2010, President Obama’s two appointees on the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB) instituted an RLA rule change making it far easier for airline and railroad union chiefs to acquire monopoly power to negotiate employees’ pay, benefits, and work rules.

NMB members Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, the two Obama-selected bureaucrats favoring the rule change, are both ex-union bosses. They overturned decades-old procedures previously supported by GOP and Democratic presidential administrations alike.

Union Monopoly Bargaining Hurts Employees and Businesses

Federally-imposed “exclusive” (monopoly) union bargaining undermines efficiency and productivity by forcing employers to reward equally their most productive and least productive employees.

The damage is compounded when the employees already hurt by being forced to accept a union bargaining agent opposed to their interests are then forced to pay dues or fees to the unwanted union.

Fortunately, Right to Work laws in 22 states, where 39% of the private-sector workforce is employed, prohibit the collection of forced dues from the vast majority of employees wherever they are in effect.

However, in 1951, when Congress amended the RLA to impose for the first time forced union dues and fees on airline and railroad employees, Big Labor U.S. senators and representatives denied states the option to protect employees’ Right to Work.

Ever since, union bosses have had the government-granted power to get airline and railroad employees fired for refusal to bankroll a union in all 50 states, including Right to Work states.

Partly in order to compensate for the unique privileges airline/railroad union officials enjoy, even relative to other union officials, federal labor policy has long set a somewhat higher bar for RLA-covered union bosses to acquire forced-union-dues powers.

Until last year, airline and railroad union kingpins needed the backing of the majority of all of a firm’s employees in a “craft or class,” not merely the majority of those who vote, to be installed as employees’ monopoly-bargaining agent.

The Hoglander-Puchala bureaucratic rewrite of longstanding RLA procedures enables union chiefs to get monopoly power as long as a majority of the employees who vote back them.

House Showdown With Big Labor-Controlled White House And Senate Now Underway

In March, International Association of Machinists (IAM/AFL-CIO) union bosses took advantage of this rule to grab monopoly control over more than 1900 AirTran employees, even though 66% had not voted for unionization.

Fortunately, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2011 (H.R.658), adopted by the House the following month, would overturn the Hoglander-Puchala scheme and restore the higher bar for union monopoly bargaining.

Before final passage of H.R.658, intense lobbying by National Right to Work Committee members persuaded a 220-206 House majority to defeat an amendment backed by Big Labor Democrats and Big Labor-appeasing Republicans endorsing Mr. Hoglander and Ms. Puchala’s power grab.

This House vote set the stage for a now unfolding House showdown with the Obama Administration and union-label Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) Senate over RLA union monopoly bargaining.

Right to Work Vice President Urges Members to Keep Contacting Speaker Boehner

“President Obama and Majority Leader Reid claim they won’t go along with any FAA reauthorization that prohibits the NMB from greasing the skids for union monopoly bargaining over transportation employees,” noted Committee Vice President Mary King.

“But if the House over the next month or two simply refuses to authorize FAA funding for Fiscal 2012, which begins October 1, and beyond, without an amendment restoring the RLA rules that prevailed until 2010, then it’s very likely the President and Mr. Reid will have to change their tune.

“Big Labor Democrats know the American public doesn’t want to see the FAA shut down for an extended period, as it already was briefly this summer, just so airline and railroad union bosses can grab even more monopoly power than they already have.

“I urge Committee members to keep contacting House Speaker John Boehner [R-Ohio] at 202-225-0600 to make sure he knows that, too.”

Shooting Victim’s Workers, Firm Have Long Been Big Labor Targets

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Having grown over the course of several decades into one of the largest union-free electrical contracting businesses in the Toledo, Ohio, area, King Electrical Services and its employees are seasoned in dealing with Big Labor harassment, threats and violence.

John King started the firm during the 1970′s, after first working for a unionized electrical contractor and serving a stint in the military. In his business’s early days, Mr. King recalls, “it was nothing to have to regularly buy a new set of tires. The ice pick was the weapon of choice.”

During a mid-eighties strike, King Electrical, which then had just eight or nine employees, was picketed by more than 50 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW/AFL-CIO) union militants. One employee had his car trashed and was also beaten up by IBEW thugs.

The harassment and violence have never stopped. Just during the first half of this year, goons hurled rocks through King Electrical’s shop-front windows, and smashed the windows and slashed the tires of the company’s trucks in separate incidents.

But somehow none of this prepared Mr. King for what happened to him on the night of August 10, while his wife was away with their grandchildren.

After waking up at his home in Monroe County, Mich., 2.5 miles from Toledo, Mr. King noticed that the motion lights in his driveway had come on. He then looked out his front window and saw a man who appeared to be breaking into his SUV.

‘It’s Not So Surprising That Union Militants Think They’re Above the Law’

As a resident of a neighborhood where violent crime is practically unheard of, Mr. King unhesitatingly walked out his front door to yell at the apparent thief.

So confident was Mr. King that his home was his “safe haven” from the Big Labor thuggery he and his employees have often faced on the job, in fact, that, prone and bloodied in front of his house a few seconds later, he didn’t realize he’d been shot.

Now he and the police know that the still-at-large intruder who fled the scene after shooting Mr. King with a handgun was not breaking into his vehicle, but planning to slash its tires after having scrawled “SCAB” across the side of the SUV.

Mr. King still finds it hard to accept that union zealots would go so far as to make his home, where his grandchildren are often to be found, part of their battlefield against his independent firm. “I guess I’m in disbelief,” he told Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney a few days after he’d been shot.

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented: “Employees, business owners, and other Americans are often shocked to find out how vicious union bosses and their fanatical followers can be.

“But it’s not so surprising that union militants think they’re above the law.

“In all 50 states, federal labor policy grants them the unique, monopolistic privilege to ‘represent’ employees who refuse to join the union as well as those who do in contract negotiations with the employer.

“Having wielded their monopoly-bargaining privileges for decades, union bosses now take them for granted.”

Revoking Union Bosses’ Monopolistic Legal Privileges Would Help Curtail Violence

Mr. Mix continued: “They think, if under federal law they have uncontested power to ‘negotiate’ the terms and conditions of employment for union nonmembers in unionized businesses, why shouldn’t they also have the power to ‘negotiate’ the terms and conditions of employment for independent workers in union-free firms?

“And why shouldn’t they be allowed to get rough if the employees and owners of union-free firms refuse to go along?”

The local police effort to identify, capture and bring to justice the forced-unionism militant who shot John King continues as this Newsletter edition goes to press.

But the long-term remedy for Big Labor lawlessness, Mr. Mix said, “is to take away union bosses’ federal monopoly-bargaining and forced-dues privileges. And that’s a job that Congress is obliged to do.”

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.”

But National Forced-Dues Repeal Measure Still Being Held Back

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Not long ago, Big Labor was crowing about having thwarted citizen efforts to pass new Right to Work laws in Indiana and New Hampshire this year. But it’s now clear that the boasts of the union bosses were premature.

Legislative support for abolishing compulsory union membership, dues and fees has been and remains strong in both the Hoosier and Granite States. Union lobbyists have therefore had to rely heavily on Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.) and union-label Gov. John Lynch (D-N.H.) to prevent enactment of America’s 23rd and 24th state Right to Work laws.

But now Mr. Daniels, under increasing heat from thousands and thousands of freedom-loving Hoosiers, including many who have supported him in the past, is signaling that he may reconsider his opposition to legislative votes on Right to Work measures in Indianapolis next year.

Meanwhile, Mr. Lynch’s late-spring veto of H.B.474, which would prohibit the firing of New Hampshire employees for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, may now potentially be overridden because of a sustained Right to Work lobbying campaign.

States Can’t Afford to Ignore Fact That Compulsory Unionism Hinders Economic Growth

“In the two years since the severe 2008-9 national recession officially ended, most state economies have recovered only feebly, if at all,” commented National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix.

“That’s why many Indianans and New Hampshirites, along with the citizens of a number of other states that have yet to enact Right to Work laws, are now emphatically telling their elected officials that they can’t afford to ignore the fact that compulsory unionism hinders economic growth.

“Trends in employee compensation, that is, wages, salaries, bonuses and benefits, illustrate well the Right to Work growth advantage.

“From 2000 to 2010, the inflation-adjusted outlays of private-sector businesses for employee compensation 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% rise 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.”

Mr. Mix added that faster growth constitutes only a part of Right to Work states’ edge.

Adjusting for regional differences in living costs with the help of indices created by the non-partisan Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC), in 2010 the average compensation per private-sector employee in Right to Work states was $56,830. That’s roughly $1100 more than the average for forced-unionism states.

Cost of Living-Adjusted Compensation Higher In Right to Work States

Indiana’s cost of living-adjusted compensation per private-sector employee was roughly $2000 below the Right to Work state average; New Hampshire’s was more than $8000 below the Right to Work state average.

“No wonder pro-Right to Work employees and business owners and other concerned citizens in Indiana, New Hampshire, and other states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Montana, Kentucky, Missouri and Maine are pushing harder than ever before for enactment of laws banning forced union dues and fees,” commented Mr. Mix.

“In response to the mounting public pressure, legislative hearings on proposed Right to Work laws took place this summer in the Indiana and Pennsylvania capitals, and hearings in Michigan’s capital are now expected this fall.

“Even more important, if Gov. Mitch Daniels changes course late this year and stops standing in the way of legislative action on Right to Work, as he is now publicly indicating he may do, the Hoosier State may well outlaw forced union dues in 2012.

“Furthermore, a number of the handful of Big Labor-appeasing GOP representatives in New Hampshire who have so far sided with union-label Democrats in supporting Gov. Lynch’s veto of H.B.474 may ultimately opt to heed the pro-Right to Work constituents who keep contacting them when the override vote occurs this fall.

“If enough switch over, that will make New Hampshire the first Right to Work state in the Northeast.”

Right to Work Hearing in Michigan, But Not in GOP-Controlled U.S. House?

In view of the Right to Work advances now being made in historic Big Labor-stronghold states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, Mr. Mix noted, it is disappointing that federal forced-dues repeal legislation is still being held back in the U.S. Congress.

“That Big Labor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-Nev.] refuses to allow hearings or a vote on S.504, the Senate version of the National Right to Work Act, is unfortunate, but not surprising,” Mr. Mix acknowledged.

“But why is House Speaker John Boehner [R-Ohio], who just last year made a campaign vow to support holding hearings and recorded votes on national Right to Work legislation, now keeping H.R.2040, the House forced-dues repeal measure, bottled up in committee?

“The federal labor law provisions that authorize and promote compulsory union dues and fees represent a gross violation of the individual employee’s freedom of choice. They are also an economic albatross as our nation struggles to recover from the worst recession in decades.

“Americans deserve to know which of their politicians, federal as well as state, support the unjust, economically unviable forced-unionism system. It’s long past time for John Boehner to let H.R.2040 receive full House consideration.”

Dr. Moe: As long as monopolistic teacher unions “remain powerful,” effective schools “will be short-changed.”

Stanford Professor Lambastes Monopolistic Teacher Unionism

(Source: July 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

On June 1, Tennessee achieved a legislative milestone when its elected officials effectively repealed a 33-year-old state statute authorizing and promoting union monopoly-bargaining control over teachers and other K-12 public school instructional employees.

Under the new K-12 reform law approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Bill Haslam (R ), no union or other organization will be handed a legally protected monopoly over all “employee” input in discussions with school boards over working conditions.

Once this law, known as the Collaborative Conferencing Act, takes effect, teachers who choose not to join any union will, for the first time in decades, have a voice in discussions throughout Tennessee regarding salaries, benefits and grievances.

Tennessee revoked teacher union bosses’ monopoly-bargaining privileges last month largely thanks to persistent lobbying by the roughly 46,000 National Right to Work Committee members and supporters in the Volunteer State.

And, according to Stanford University political scientist and education specialist Terry Moe, the Tennesseans who helped pass the Collaborative Conferencing Act have done an enormous favor for their state’s schoolchildren.

From Children’s Standpoint, Union Boss-Perpetuated Salary Rules ‘Make No Sense at All’

In his new book Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools (Brookings Institution Press), Dr. Moe documents how teacher union monopoly bargaining, still statutorily enshrined in more than 30 states, impairs school outcomes while sharply raising the cost to taxpayers.

In practice, charges Dr. Moe, “exclusive” union bargaining routinely produces “key decisions that depart from — and are systematically biased against — what is best for kids and effective organization.”

One example among many are so-called “single salary schedules” that furnish teachers with extra pay for additional degrees and course taking, even though “research has consistently shown” that simply accumulating degrees and/or additional course credits, “does not make teachers more effective.”

From “the standpoint of what is best for children,” such Big Labor-perpetuated salary rules “make no sense at all” (emphasis Dr. Moe’s). But teacher union officials ferociously defend “single salary schedule” rules, because they keep educators dependent on the union for securing better pay and career advancement.

Monopolistic Unionism Can Never Be ‘Reform Unionism’

In today’s America, Special Interest goes on to point out, many education policymakers and other leaders “recognize that teacher unions are standing in the way of effective schools,” but mistakenly believe that union officials “can be persuaded to do good things with their [monopolistic] power.”

This is the false hope of what is commonly called “reform unionism.”

Of course, in the current political environment, with millions of Americans demanding major changes in schools that consume a higher and higher share of taxpayers’ incomes even as school enrollments and standardized test scores stagnate, it often behooves teacher union bosses to feign openness to reform.

But “when the details are ultimately hashed out,” supposedly “reformist” teacher union bosses like American Federation of Teachers (AFT/AFL-CIO) union czarina Randi Weingarten “will ultimately weaken, limit, and dissipate reform” to protect core teacher union institutional interests.

“National Right to Work Committee members and supporters have long known that eliminating teacher union monopoly bargaining and forced union dues is an indispensable precondition for achieving genuine, significant education reform,” commented Committee Vice President Mary King.

“But Terry Moe is to be commended for thoroughly explaining how monopolistic teacher unions are destroying educational opportunities for millions and millions of schoolchildren and ripping off taxpayers.

“I’m hopeful that Special Interest will receive a wide distribution, and inspire even more freedom-loving Americans to press their state legislators to emulate their counterparts in Tennessee by prohibiting union monopoly bargaining in public education.”