The Right To Work states of Idaho, Virginia, and North Carolina took the top three spots.  States that embrace employee freedom from union conscription dominated the top of the list.

There’s much more separating Richmond and Washington than just 100 miles of interstate.

It’s a Tale of Two Cities.

In Washington they’re bogged down in red ink, spiraling debt, expanding government and overspending – all while the difficult decisions are left to future generations.

Here in Richmond, for the second straight year, we’ve reached the end of our fiscal year in the black —with a surplus this year of more than $500 million.

What does it take to create jobs and bring economic development to Virginia?

It’s really common sense and a focus on getting results, something that is in short supply in Washington.

Businesses want consistency and a level playing field, low taxes, reasonable regulation, good schools and a world-class transportation system.

We are unapologetic supporters of Virginia’s Right-to-Work laws and fighting off the union excesses that is hurting businessmen across the United States.

We’ve kept taxes low on businesses in Virginia.

We’ve worked to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses here in the Commonwealth.

Contrast that with how Washington does businesses.

In Washington, the Administration is using unelected people in appointed boards to do what Congress can’t, like using the NLRB to prohibit companies like Boeing from relocating some of their workforce to Right To Work states.

In Washington, a national healthcare plan was passed which explodes the cost of healthcare that employers must pay, and places an estimated $2.2 billion unfunded mandate on Virginia over the next 10 years.

In Washington, the Democrats beat the redistribution drums for increased taxes on job creators and wealth generators.

What business wants more than anything else from government is to make sure there is certainty and a level playing field —and then get out of the way.

When we took office in January, 2010, we were greeted by a massive budget shortfall, our rest stops were closed, and we were facing outgoing Governor Tim Kaine’s proposal for a job-killing $2 billion tax increase to solve our shortfall.

In the worst economic times we’ve had since the Great Depression, the worst thing we could have done is passed a $2 billion tax increase!

But we do things differently in Richmond than they do in Washington.

Instead of raising taxes and increasing spending, we worked with the legislature to pass a balanced budget by cutting spending. We reduced state spending to 2006/2007 levels. We focused government on its core functions.

In the past 90 days, we’ve seen some of the results:

• In Covington, MeadWestvaco announced plans to invest $285,000,000 in their operations
• In Dinwiddie, Spiniello Co. will establish its first operation in Virginia
• In Halifax, ABB, Inc. will expand its operations, invest $4,600,000
• In Charlottesville, the CFA Institute will invest $24,500,000 to establish its operations center
• Also in Halifax, Presto Products Company will invest $6,000,000 to expand
• In Chesterfield County, Emerson Ecologies will open a distribution facility
• In Staunton, Cadence, Inc. will invest $15,900,000 to expand its operations
• Safety Technologies will invest $5,890,000 to open a manufacturing facility in Lunenburg County
• ITT Excelis announced plans to invest $5,000,000 at its new headquarters in Fairfax County

In the past year and a half, we were also successful in attracting the corporate headquarters of Fortune 100 company, Northrop Grumman, brought new jobs to Southwest Virginia by recruiting DirecTV, Convergys, ATK and Phoenix Packaging, and facilitated a significant $500 million investment in Mecklenburg County by Microsoft.

At the end of June, CNBC named Virginia the “Top State for Business” in the United States, giving Virginia the highest score in the country in their survey. A few weeks ago, Polina research survey did the same.

When vou recognize that it’s private enterprise and the free-market system that creates jobs, vou win.

In Washington, where the Administration believes that it’s the government’s mission to spend more to try to create jobs, you’ve got it backwards. [sic]

[Even Virginia has its roadblocks]

We have had some challenges in getting some of our reform agenda passed in the Virginia Senate.

In this past legislative session, we pushed to support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution, doing our part to get Washington D.C. to live within its means, like we do here in Richmond.

We also pushed for a “Repeal Amendment,” which would restore some much needed balance to our federal system of government by strengthening the 10th Amendment rights of the states.

We pushed to have our job-creating Right To Work status made a constitutional protection for hard-working Virginians – and also ensure that workers voting in union elections get to cast their vote in private, a basic right we all deserve.

We worked to enact substantive reform to the state pension system to tackle our $18 billion unfunded liability and tried to create a modest school choice scholarship bill for needy children.

All this legislation was killed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

From Wesley Hester at the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Hampshire has the opportunity to live up to its motto and “Live Free” by overriding Gov. John Lynch’s veto of freedom.

Lynch, who is heavily financed by forced-union dues given to him by Big Labor bosses, chose to thwart freedom for working men and women. Somehow, Lynch decided it is more just to require people to be  forced to pay tributes union bosses against their will that to let struggling workers in New Hampshire decide if they should keep their own wages or choose to share some with a union.  Encourage your legislators to override Gov. Lynch’s veto of “Freedom” and “Liberty.”

From the Washington Post:

He received the loudest applause when he mentioned the need to tap the nation’s natural resources as part of a complete energy plan and to turn New Hampshire into a right-to-work state.

“We have a country that is now facing some tough issues,” he said. “It is time for a change.”

DCI asked corporate executives and representatives to name the three states they thought provided the “most favorable business climates,” and the three states least favorable to business. Texas ranked #1 in the final survey results, while California ranked dead last at #50.

DCI provided this commentary on the results:

• Common themes of low operating costs and a pro-business environment emerge for the top five [original emphasis]. Positive responses emphasized costs, low taxes and incentive offerings, while negative opinions cited high taxes, anti-business climates and fiscal problems/state deficits.
• Here are the top five states, in order: Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida.
• Here are the bottom five states, starting with with the worst ranked: California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan.

The Top Five

The Bottom Five

Enacting a Right to Work law in Kentucky would be a boon for jobs and economic prosperity — but don’t just take our word for it.  The Bowling Green Daily News agrees:

Gov. Steve Beshear and the Democrat-controlled House are beholden to labor unions in this state and for that reason, year after year we continue to lose companies and jobs to other Southern states because Kentucky is not a right-to-work state.

Right-to-work laws protect workers’ freedoms by not forcing them to pay dues to a union upon becoming employed or throughout employment. Nearly any citizen in a right-to-work state is protected by a state’s right-to-work law.

Labor unions make up less than 9 percent of Kentucky’s workforce, so it would make sense that Beshear and the House would have more concern for the majority of the workforce. Sadly, they don’t. They need the unions, who contribute millions of dollars every election year through political action committees or other ways to encourage the governor and those in the House to follow part of their agenda, which is not allowing Kentucky to become a right-to-work state.

Kentucky is the only Southern state not to have a right-to-work law. For that reason, many companies don’t even consider our state when choosing plant locations.

Business 101 would tell you that this is simply bad business. The governor and House are hindering our state because they ignore reality. Shame on them. It reflects poor leadership and it holds our state back when competing for jobs that could be coming to Kentucky.

Simpson County Judge-Executive Jim Henderson is a strong supporter of the right-to-work concept.

Henderson said on a number of occasions during the process of trying to get a company to come to Franklin, it was eliminated because of not being a right-to-work state. He said it was communicated through correspondence and other means of communication that not having a right-to-work law is why companies aren’t coming to his city.One only has to look at companies such as Nissan North America. The company admitted that one reason it decided to move its headquarters from California to Tennessee and not Kentucky was because of the lower business costs. Interestingly enough, the average Kentuckian has to work 13 months to make what an average Tennessean can in one year.

The number of jobs created in right-to-work states compared to forced union states like Kentucky are revealing.

According to Freedom Kentucky, between 1996-2004, Georgia brought in more than 500,000 new jobs, Virginia more than 400,000, North Carolina nearly 275,000. Tennessee brought in more than 125,000 new jobs, South Carolina around 125,000 and Kentucky brought in less than 100,000 jobs in that time.

These numbers show a significant problem. A big reason for us underperforming is companies want to do business in right-to-work states. Those who make plant location decisions vote with their wallets.

Bryan Sunderland, vice president of public affairs for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, said his organization wants Kentucky to become a right-to-work state.

“We do agree it would be a positive aspect for us to look at. A lot of companies don’t look at us because of that. All right-to-work states have that advantage over us in competing for jobs,” Sunderland said.

“It’s part of our legislative agenda. Not being a right-to-work state is absolutely a factor in bringing jobs here. In some cases, it’s a primary factor,” Sunderland said.

State Rep. Jim DeCesare, R-Bowling Green, is a big proponent of Kentucky becoming a right-to-work state. DeCesare has introduced legislation in the House only to see it die in committee.“Less than 10 percent of our workforce is union, and out of that they’re controlling the whole state and where we go. The right-to work-states are the ones getting the jobs,” DeCesare said. “I’m for allowing people to have the option to join a union or not. Some union employees don’t like their money going to political candidates, but they have no choice.”

State Rep. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, has also been a strong proponent for making Kentucky a right-to-work state. State Rep. Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, unfortunately believes that Kentucky doesn’t need to be a right-to-work state.Richards, Beshear and others are part of the problem that is holding us back.

State Sen. David Williams, R-Burkesville, who is running against Beshear for governor, gets it and believes that we should be a right-to-work state.

Unions like to talk about their right to join together and organize. This is well established and protected and very few people would question this freedom of association.If, however, there is a freedom of association, there has to be a corollary freedom not to associate and therein lies the essence of the argument for a right-to-work law.

Another study has clearly demonstrated that enacting Right to Work laws is a critical factor in creating jobs and a pro-growth environment for your state.  Pollina Real Estate has chosen the top 5 states for jobs and according to their report, all five are Right to Work states:

Virginia’s Former-Governor George Allen again rises to defend Right To Work and the principles of liberty embraced by our Founding Fathers against attacks from the Obama Administration and the acquiescent U.S. Senate.

It is time for all freedom-loving people to stand up against the forces of tyranny that have taken hold of numerous government agencies such as the NLRB. It is time that elected officials and candidates for office to declare their positions for or against individual liberty. If for liberty, then they must act to oppose the tyranny of forced unionism and its suppression of the individual. (For Governor Allen’s full Op-Ed in Politico click here.)

President Thomas Jefferson defined the sum of good government as, “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Those words are the uplifting principles of a free society.

Unfortunately these principles are being ignored by the powers in Washington.

Virginia deserves leaders unafraid to speak out against this administration, the federal bureaucracy and the union bosses who seek to undermine our free market economy and who will fight for Virginia’s working families.

The National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against Boeing’s locating some production facilities in South Carolina is an attack on the founding principles of our country. It’s also an attack on the freedom and competitiveness of every state with right-to-work laws -– including Virginia.

It is the responsibility of Washington leaders and candidates running for office to speak out against the dangerous precedent of the NLRB’s assault on the liberty of working men and women everywhere and the rights and prerogatives of the people in the States.

It’s time for this over-reaching federal government to get out of our lives and stop encroaching on the economic freedom of Virginia — and all right-to-work states.

CNBC has rated Right to Work state Virginia as the best state to do business in America.

The Governor credits the state’s Right To Work status as a key component to success. Governor Bob McDonnell“Our focus, from day one of this administration, has been to put in place the policies that will help private sector businesses create those jobs in the Commonwealth and get our economy back on track,” he said. “We’ve done that by keeping taxes low, getting government spending under control, having a strong Right to Work law, and making smart investments in transportation, economic development and higher education.”

Four of the top five states to do business in America are Right to Work states.  All of the worst five states to do business in America are non-Right to Work or compulsory-unionism states.

COLUMBIA — Attorneys general from South Carolina and 15 other states Thursday weighed in on a lawsuit filed by the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that its complaint against Boeing for building an assembly plant in North Charleston after a strike by Washington state workers hurts states’ abilities to keep manufacturing jobs.

Alan Wilson and Greg Abbott, the attorneys general in South Carolina and Texas, respectively, asserted in a brief that “the NLRB’s proposed action will harm the interests of the very unionized workers whom the general counsel’s Complaint seeks to protect.”

“State policymakers should be free to choose to enact right-to-work laws — or to choose not to enact them — without worrying about retaliation from the NLRB,” the two officials wrote.

“It is logical that some employers will simply avoid creating new jobs or facilities in non-right-to-work States in the first place.”

The brief also was signed by attorneys general in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

It points out that the attorneys general represent right-to-work and unionized states, although only two of the signers — Colorado and Michigan — fall into the latter category.

South Carolina is a right-to-work state where individual employees can join unions voluntarily, but unions cannot force membership across entire worksites.

Lafe Solomon, the NLRB’s acting general counsel, wants that work returned to Washington state, even though the company already has built the $750 million plant and hired 1,000 workers.

Union advocates argue that the NLRB is merely doing its job of enforcing the nation’s labor laws.

Boeing disputes the board’s allegations that it violated labor laws, and said that stopping work on 787s here would be impermissibly punitive because it would effectively shut it down.

The company also has taken issue with the labor board’s claim that the company removed or transferred any work from its Puget Sound facility, saying all the work in North Charleston will be new and that no union member has lost a job over the action.

Since the decision to open the local plant, the attorneys general wrote, Boeing has added more than 2,000 union jobs in Washington state.

Separately, a judge has denied a request by three local Boeing workers seeking to formally join and fight the lawsuit.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which represents the employees, said it would immediately appeal NLRB Administrative Law Judge Clifford Anderson’s ruling from late Wednesday.

Boeing plans to mark the completion of its North Charleston plant at a ceremony today.

In a letter to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuchinelli, Hugo claimed that the airports authority appears to have violated its own ethics code as well as state conflict-of-interest statutes by allowing board member Dennis Martire, vice president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, to vote for the agreement. Hugo charged that the union Martire represents would “reap a financial windfall” as a result of the agreement, the Washington Examiner reports. “Should MWAA move forward with this ill-advised measure, it will discriminate against nonunion construction firms and the 96 percent of construction workers in Virginia who have chosen to not belong to a union,” Hugo wrote. It will also “discourage competition; and ultimately greatly increase the overall cost of the project.”

Should contractors win the bid, the agreement would require them to provide union wages and benefits and hire union workers even though the construction will take place in Virginia, a right-to-work state — which means an employee can’t be forced to join a union to get a job.

Critics of the labor agreement, citing studies from the Boston-based, free-market think tank Beacon Hill Institute, said it will increase project costs by 12 percent to 18 percent. The cost of the second phase, originally estimated at $2.5 billion, has already jumped by over $1 billion, most of which will be paid by Loudoun and Fairfax counties and Dulles Toll Road users.

From Matt Mayer’s post:

“With Michigan bleeding jobs and tax revenues, Granholm said she followed the corporate playbook in her attempt to close a huge state budget deficit and make Michigan more competitive. ‘In listening to the business community, I cut takes [sic] 99 times, and I ended shrinking government more than any state in the nation. In my two terms, I cut more by far than any state in the nation. And yet, we still have the highest unemployment rate.

There was no correlation.’ Granholm conceded that streamlining business regulations and lowering taxes — Kasich’s economic recovery mantra — are helpful, but they aren’t a panacea…[l]abor costs, help with start-up costs and proximity to markets are other factors.”

Hallett and Governor Granholm fail to mention why streamlining regulations and lowering taxes aren’t helping the northern states (located within 50 percent of the U.S. population and with low start-up costs) compete against the southern and western states. Instead, Hallett ignores the obvious answer and pleads for an end to corporate pork (with which we enthusiastically agree).

The reason Michigan and Ohio can’t compete is that the southern and western states already have fewer regulations and lower taxes, so “catching up” with those states still leaves the proverbial elephant in the room weighing down the northern states. Plus, those states are also pushing for lower taxes and fewer regulations, so the northern states are perpetually behind them. The elephant, which Governor Granholm does hint at, is labor costs, or, more specifically, unionized labor costs (see: General Motors and the United Auto Workers).

As I noted in Six Principles for Fixing Ohio, “Of course, tax and regulatory burdens also impact a state’s economy. Although many of the forced unionization states have heavy tax burdens and many of the worker freedom states have light tax burdens, some heavily taxed worker freedom states (Idaho, Nevada, and Utah) had the strongest sustained job growth from 1990 to today.

Similarly, a few moderately taxed forced unionization states still had weak job growth (Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri). The combination of both a heavy tax burden and forced unionization is deadly when it comes to job growth, as 11 of the 15 worst performing states are ranked in the top 20 for high tax burdens.” If Ohio and the other states from Missouri to Maine want to truly compete with Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina, then those states need to enact laws that protect the rights of workers not to join a labor union to get a job.

After all, depending on the National Labor Relations Board to protect unions from competing is not a long-term strategy for success; rather, it is a short-term finger in the dike as the flood of worker freedoms washes over the dike. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data over the last twenty-one years shows why Right to Work laws result in more jobs.

From 1990 to 2011, states that protected the freedom of workers not to join a union to get a job netted 10,742,600 jobs — even after the massive housing and construction job losses in states like Nevada, Florida, and Arizona — as forced unionization states (including Ohio) netted just 6,715,500 jobs.

Keep in mind that the vastly superior net job growth in worker freedom states was done despite having nearly 60,000,000 fewer residents! Over twenty-one years, forced unionization states had private sector job growth change of just 11 percent compared to 34 percent in worker freedom states.

According to Fox News’ Judson Berger, “Wisconsin Union Battle Could Set Stage for National ‘Right To Work’ Debate.”  More from Berger’s article:

The standoff in Wisconsin over the benefits and rights of public employees could for the first time in decades spur changes across the country over so-called “right-to-work” laws — or laws that prohibit unions from forcing workers to join.

Along with requiring public employees to contribute more to pensions and health care coverage, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to put his state in the right-to-work column. His proposals have touched off an epic battle in Madison between pro-labor Democrats and Republicans who say they’re just trying to balance the budget. 

And now that battle is spreading.

Throngs of union members and supporters gathered in Indianapolis Monday for a protest against a proposed bill in the Indiana House that would restrict collective bargaining rights and make it a misdemeanor to require any employee to join or pay dues to a union.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, in an interview with Fox News on Monday, directly attributed Virginia’s ease in balancing its budget to the fact that it is a right-to-work state.

“We’re a right-to-work state, so I don’t have a lot of the challenges that (Walker) has in Wisconsin,” McDonnell said. Virginia is nevertheless considering a proposal to add a right-to-work provision into the state’s constitution.

“Unlike in federal government, we’ve got to balance our budgets,” McDonnell said.

As Perry states, “In other words, the decline in economic growth growth in forced unionism states (-2.42%) was 0.76% worse in 2009 than the decline in right-to-work states (-1.66%). Further, of the ten states that experienced positive growth in 2009, only two were forced unionism states (Alaska and W. Virginia) and eight were right-to-work states (Nebraska, N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia, Oklahoma and Wyoming). The three top states with the highest growth in 2009 were all right-to-work states: Oklahoma (6.6%), Wyoming (5.4%) and North Dakota (3.9%). “

 ”I think binding arbitration is actually the most egregious part of EFCA,” he said. “Allowing a federal arbitrator to come in and basically write a contract between labor and management if an agreement cannot be reached after 120 days is a horrible policy. This will put a terrific burden on business to cave into any number of demands. Binding arbitration is yet another example of an over burdensome federal government that wants to get involved in micromanaging the free enterprise system. It would hurt our competitiveness in Virginia.”

An inability to remove bad teachers from the classroom has stymied education reform in Maryland and the District of Columbia, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and two prominent think tanks.

About 77 percent of D.C. Public Schools principals and 72 percent of Maryland’s principals said “teacher unions or associations are a barrier to the removal of ineffective teachers,” compared with a national average of about 61 percent of principals.

In Virginia, a right-to-work state, less than one-third of principals cited the same troubles. That data was collected as part of a U.S. Education Department survey in 2007-08, and compiled with dozens of other measures for a “Leaders and Laggards” state report card on innovation in education. The left-leaning Center for American Progress and the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute helped to write the report.

While Virginia and federal law protect every individual’s right to join a union, the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibits the recognition of union officials as bargaining agents for government employees. The bill was signed into law by then Governor Doug Wilder in 1993.

. . . supporting Big Labor’s forced-unionism agenda doesn’t pay politically.

You see, it’s no secret that forced unionism was one of THE TOP ISSUES in Virginia’s election.

In fact, all three of Virginia’s winning statewide candidates — Governor candidate Bob McDonnell, Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, and Attorney General candidate Ken Cuccinelli — pledged 100% opposition to forced unionism.

Not only that, but Bob McDonnell made opposition to Big Labor’s federal “Card Check” power grab and protection of Virginia’s Right to Work Law central campaign issues on his way to victory.

The losing candidates?

They ran and hid, trying to publicly duck the forced-unionism issue while counting on Big Labor’s electioneering machine to catapult them to victory.

And they paid for it at the polls, as pro-Right to Work candidates whipped them by an average of 15% each.

But with “Card Check” still at the top of the new Democrat Congress’s agenda, did your U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb also “get the message?”

Well, you can MAKE SURE they do by signing this petition demanding Mark Warner and Jim Webb vote AGAINST the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill at every opportunity.

As you know, should “Card Check” pass, workers would no longer be able to vote for or against union boss “representation” in a secret ballot election.

Instead, the union bosses would dispose of the secret ballot election and intimidate workers one-on-one — or three-on-one — into signing so-called “union authorization cards.”

And, of course, Big Labor has yet another ticking time bomb hidden in the “Card Check” legislation.

If the union bosses can drag out negotiations with an employer past 90 days by making outrageous demands, then Obama Administration bureaucrats will have the power to use this so-called “impasse” as an excuse to write a labor contract and FORCE its terms and conditions of employment upon those workers!

So, you see, Big Labor wants to strip workers not only of the right to a secret ballot but also of the right to vote on their own contracts as well!

And, as I’ve told you before, the union bosses have another trick up their sleeves to make doubly sure they finally “cash in” with the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.

Word is, several of Big Labor’s closest allies in the U.S. Senate have been working feverishly to craft a so-called “Plan B” version — even acting like they might drop the “Card Check” provision entirely from the bill.

Their goal?

Convince key Senators like Mark Warner and Jim Webb that it’s “politically ok” to support their scheme.

Well, you and I both know this bill is dangerous with or without “Card Check!”

Whatever “final” bill Big Labor’s allies stamp their approval on WILL NOT be some watered-down “compromise” bill that causes no harm to American workers and our fragile economy!

That’s why it’s more important than ever that you let Mark Warner and Jim Webb know that should they support ANY VERSION of the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill, they’ll pay a severe price for it.

The fact is, should ANY version of “Card Check” pass, it would:

*** Force millions of additional working Americans to pay union dues under the threat of losing their jobs, filling Big Labor’s coffers with hundreds of millions of forced-dues dollars;

*** Dramatically increase the wasteful work rules, hate-the-boss propaganda, slowdowns and bitter strikes that shut down businesses and destroy jobs, ensuring that even more plants are closed and more jobs are shipped overseas or lost forever;

*** Enable Big Labor to pump even more campaign cash into the coffers of its radical, tax-and-spend politicians like Barack Obama and Harry Reid, who, in turn, will look for even greater ways to increase the union bosses’ forced-dues empire.

So please, click here to send a petition to Jim Webb and Mark Warner demanding they vote against Card Check Forced Unionism.

And, if you can, please make your most generous contribution of $250, $100, $50 or $35 to help with this program.

Big Labor would love nothing more than to ram their radical “Card Check” scheme into law by the end of the year.

So, we MUST act now. Let’s use the powerful message delivered by Virginians on Tuesday to show Senators Warner and Webb that support for forced unionism comes with a heavy, heavy price.

So please, sign this petition.  

Sincerely,

Mark Mix
President

P.S. Forced-unionism supporters went down in flames in this past Tuesday’s elections in Virginia.

So today, our job is to make sure Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb know there will be a heavy price to pay should they support ANY VERSION of Big Labor’s “Card Check” Bill.

About the time the Plumbers union bosses decided to join other union bosses in their rush flush, Deeds was 18-points behind according to a Virginia Commonwealth University poll. Based on the election results, the Plumbers union money did little to help Deeds.

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, “Organized Labor” made roughly $5.36 million in reported contributions to statewide and legislative candidates and committees in Virginia in 2009. Democrat gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds received approximately $2.5 million from Big Labor including public employee unions.

Probably the most well-known of the Plumbers union’s upper echelon is disgraced boss Martin Maddaloni who approved a pension fund scandal that drained over $300 million of rank-and-file pension funds into a Florida hotel.

Earlier this month, the AFL-CIO awarded Senator Creigh Deeds “Legislator of the Year” for his support of forced unionism. In his thank you speech, Deeds gushed, “Before I first ran for office, I believed in the power of organized labor; during my 17 years in the legislature … And, when I’m Governor, you won’t just have a friend in Richmond-you’ll have a partner.” Well, Big Labor will still have Deeds as a partner in the Virginia Legislature.

The Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) has been working hard to slice and dice finance reports submitted by the campaigns yesterday and has already reported some very interesting findings.

VPAP also shows us that of the $16.95 million Deeds has raised for his campaign committee, he has taken in $9.4 million from Virginians and $7.4 million from outside the state. Broken down by industry, outside of political committees, Deeds has received the most money from organized labor, followed by the legal industry and then real estate and construction.