The Fiscal Times

From Bloated Union Contracts Have Busted State Budgets:

Consider the issues making headlines: education reform, busted state budgets, the battle to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, free trade agreements,Occupy Wall Street, the fight to make Indiana a right-to-work state. What these stories have in common is the waning influence of organized labor and the all-out battle by union leaders to hold on.

Take the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top initiative. Education Secretary Duncan recently warned that several states, including New York, might not receive monies earlier awarded through that program because they have not followed through on required reforms. The stumbling block? Teacher evaluations.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out new education initiatives in his recent State of the City address, among them a proposal to give $20,000 raises to the best teachers, in return for changing the way educators are evaluated. Today, teachers are rated either satisfactory or unsatisfactory; 97 percent fall in the former category. UFT President Michael Mulgrew immediately denounced the plan, describing Mr. Bloomberg as “lost in his own fantasy world of education.”

Mr. Mulgrew may be the one living in a fantasy world. Pressure to boost our country’s public schools is one of the rare priorities on both Republicans’ and Democrats’ to-do lists. Americans are appalled by our plummeting world education rankings, and by our graduates’ lack of preparedness for today’s job market. While the decline in our schools stems from a number of sources, most reformers – including Secretary Duncan – see the intransigence of unions on the “job for life” rules that perpetuate mediocre teaching as a major roadblock to progress.

Likewise, the recession has forced politicians to confront bloated public employee contracts that have torpedoed many states’ budgets. Estimated at over $3 trillion, the underfunding of state and local pension plans has been described as one of our most serious fiscal problems. Voters now understand that unless elected officials overhaul pay and benefits packages they will face soaring taxes or reduced services.

Governor Walker’s efforts to rein in unsustainable public employee costs in Wisconsin (and to reduce a sizeable budget deficit) became the rallying point for terrified union leaders who see their only growth opportunity – public employees – under attack. Though Walker proposed terms that were still more generous than the national averages… Union leaders struck back, rallying workers from across the country to their cause; they are now trying to force the governor from office.

These confrontations have left Big Labor bruised but unbowed, and eager to turn public anger elsewhere. They have nurtured and funded the Occupy Wall Street protests for just that reason, ginning up resentment against the “one percent” and especially against banks and bankers. Better to raise taxes on the wealthy than to cut government payrolls. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has over one million members and much to lose from widespread government reform efforts, has been especially eager to support the protests. Stephen Lerner, a highly regarded union organizer and former SEIU official, spoke to students at Pace University last March about his plan to “destabilize” the country through civil disobedience, strikes and large-scale protests. Acknowledging that labor was under pressure and needed to stay out of the spotlight, he insisted that students and community groups take the lead. Welcome to OWS.

Happily, the public is not so gullible. On many fronts, Americans see unions as part of the problem, not part of the solution.  Voters can connect the dots, between the interests of the nation…..and defeating the interests of organized labor.

From the Chicago Tribune:

A worker’s constitutional rights seem to take a back seat to the political privileges of the union.

Earlier this year, UAW local 898 officials displayed their political views for everyone who drove by the union hall. “Recall Gov. Snyder, sign up here!” was the message glaring from the parking lot sign for all passers-by to see.

A recent Harris poll shows that 60 percent of union households say that unions are too involved in politics, and we know that 40 percent or more of union households vote Republican. Unfortunately, union members who disagree with these partisan political attacks are forced, as a condition of employment, to financially support this message.

Federal laws are supposed to restrict union officials from using regular dues for political purposes. Regrettably, it still happens all the time.

In a 1988 Supreme Court decision called Communication Workers of America vs. Beck, unions were forbidden to collect full union dues from non-members; only those dues that are supposed to reflect the true cost to the union as a collective bargaining agent. In other words, members could choose to resign their union membership and then only pay what is called the “agency fee” to keep their job.

Obviously, there are problems with this ruling. Workers who wish to exercise these rights have to jump through hoops, and they are then persecuted and ridiculed on the job for doing so. The agency fee also includes all the educational and subjective political activities that unions engage in.

Union newsletters and magazines are full of political propaganda, and union officials travel the country spewing hateful venom and a destructive worldview, yet their salaries are paid for with regular union dues. And there is so much more.

Unions financially support “voter education centers”; they rally together and protest against responsible government actions; they own and operate retreats where members are fed political propaganda; they give financial aid and comfort to the radical and sometimes violent occupy protesters; and they broadcast political rhetoric from parking lot signs — all paid for out of regular union coffers.

Perhaps the best and easiest solution is to pass a right-to-work law. This would ensure that worker’s rights are not violated because they would have the right to choose whether or not to join or financially support a union. They would finally be able to exercise their 1st Amendment right of freedom of association — or conversely — the freedom to not associate.

Right to work would end the discrimination levied against workers who disagree with the radical political agenda of their union officials and ensure political equality for all workers, union and non-union alike.

Workers in the grocery stores in New York City and surrounding areas are forced to pay union dues and fees to keep their jobs.  It appears this revenue is not enough for the union officials who enjoy the privilege.

From the Epoch Times:

Police arrested the president, former president, and treasurer of Local 348 United Food andCommercial Workers International Union (UFCW) on Thursday. Anthony Fazio Sr., John Fazio Jr., and Anthony Fazio Jr. were charged with racketeering, extortion, money laundering, and witness tampering.

The Fazios used their positions in the union to extort money from employers unionized by the UFCW. They stole more than $2.4 million from union members and employers over the course of 16 years, according to the indictment.

Each leader earned more than $150,000 in annual salary. The UFCW represents more than 6,000 members. It hold close to $7.4 million in assets [source: US DOL LM. The Local 348 office was closed during business hours and could not be reached for comment.

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

“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.

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.”

As I was going out the door, Hoffa said: “Tell your wife I’m not as bad as everyone thinks I am.” I laughed. Jimmy Hoffa had a sense of humor. He must have laughed himself as he said it. In view of all I already knew, I felt that he was worse than anybody said he was.

In the next two and a half years, nothing happened to change my opinion. On my way home I thought of how often Hoffa had said he was tough; that he destroyed employers, hated policemen and broke those who stood in his way.

It had always been my feeling that if a person was truly tough; if he actually had strength and power; if he really had the ability to excel, he need not brag and boast of it to prove it.

When a grown man sat for an evening and talked continuously about his toughness, I could only conclude that he was a bully hiding behind a facade. I thought: Jimmy Hoffa has been reading his press clippings. And he is afraid I have missed them.

Later, during a hearing, I told him frankly that I did not think he was tough enough to rid his union of the gangsters and hoodlums he had put in power. The statement visibly upset him; his body tensed in the chair, his face contorted, and several days afterward, when he was again on the witness stand, he went out of his way to give a detailed answer.

It is important to Jimmy Hoffa that he appear the tough guy to the world. But the truth is that the tough ones are not the Jimmy Hoffas, with three hundred lawyers, and hired lieutenants riding in Cadillacs, armed with guns and clubs.

The really tough ones are the men in Hoffa’s union who have the guts to stand up to him and his hired hands. The really strong ones are the men who get knocked down again and again by Hoffa and who always get up to fight back. The really tough ones are the men Jimmy Hoffa cannot buy and cannot cajole and cannot threaten.

The really tough ones are the Floyd Hooks, the Jim Lukens, the Barney Matuals, the Amos Renikers-men whose opposition to Hoffa we will discuss in detail later on.

In this year’s State of the Union address,[President Obama] proclaimed a national goal of doubling exports by 2014.

One obvious way to increase exports is through free-trade agreements. But unions don’t like them. No surprise then that for two years Obama has been sitting on three free-trade agreements — with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea — already negotiated by his predecessor.

Nothing new here. In 2009, Obama pushed through a federally run, questionably legal bankruptcy for the auto companies that robbed first-in-line creditors in order to bail out the United Auto Workers. Elsewhere, Delta Air Lines workers have voted four times to reject unionization. A federal agency, naturally, is investigating and, notes economist Irwin Stelzer, can order still another election in the hope that it yields the answer Obama’s campaign team wants.

But Democratic fealty to unions does not stop there. Boeing has just completed a production facility in South Carolina for its new 787 Dreamliner. Why? Because by choosing right-to-work South Carolina, Boeing is accused of retaliating against its unionized Washington State workers for previous strikes.

It jeopardizes the economic recovery, not only targeting America’s single largest exporter in its attempt to compete with Airbus for a huge global market, but also threatening any other company that might think of expanding in any way displeasing to unions and their NLRB patrons.

The Wisconsin maneuver ultimately failed, as likely will the assault on Boeing. In the interim, however, there is collateral damage — to U.S. exports, to the larger economy, to bankruptcy law, to free trade, to a constitutional system wherein the legislatures make the laws, rather than willful judges and partisan regulators.

But what are those when there are unions to appease and elections to win?

The Hill newspaper details how George Miller (D-CA) and the “American Rights at Work” (Obama Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis used to be the Treasurer for this AFL-CIO front group.) are working together to defend the NLRB’s outrageous attack on Boeing employees and South Carolina’s Right to Work law. Miller has received millions from labor union PACs over his decades in Congress and the group “American Rights at Work” is a big labor front group funded by the union bosses.

It’s too bad the newspaper didn’t connect the dots for their readers.

The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation has released a copy of its NLRB Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and it looks like its focus is not limited to the White House, but also includes any communications with Washington Governor Chris Gregoire and Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber.

The pertinent part of the FOIA is in the image below, or you can click here to download the Foundation’s full FOIA.

“They were warning me that if I continue to complain about their finances, they would have me killed,” a New York union member, who caught the union bosses with their hands in the union member coffers, told the New York Daily News:

Unionized phone company employees say they were beaten or threatened after they accused their labor bosses of looting their coffers through various scams.

One member of Communications Workers of America Local 1101 said that after he reported a time-sheet padding scheme, a thug beat him so badly his spine was injured.

Another says he found a dead rat in his locker, while a third said a union officer warned that suspected informants should be brought off company property and “taken care of.”

The threats come to light as the U.S. Labor Department is probing charges that union bosses lined their pockets at the rank-and-file’s expense.

Accusations include an unauthorized 401(k) plan union officers gave themselves funded with members’ dues, along with hefty weekly allowances, lavish expense accounts and six-figure salaries, union documents show.

The feds are also looking into allegations that double-dipping union bosses illegally received pay from Verizon and the local for the same hours, sources said.

“This was union greed and that’s worse than corporate greed,” said Kevin Condy, a reform movement leader of the 6,700-member local that represents mostly Verizon workers in Manhattan and the Bronx. “These guys acted like they felt they were entitled.”

And, some members charge, the bosses retaliated when threatened with exposure.

In August, business agent Patrick Gibbons said he received death threats and his office was vandalized after he complained that union bosses were misappropriating cash.

“They were warning me that if I continue to complain about their finances, they would have me killed,” Gibbons wrote in an open letter to union members.

Six months earlier, Verizon heavy equipment operators Salvatore DiStefano and Sebastian Taravella sued the local in Brooklyn Federal Court.

They said they were harassed after telling Verizon security officials a manager allowed workers to leave early but claim a full day’s pay – as long as they completed a quota of assigned jobs. DiStefano told the Daily News he was “attacked by a union thug” as he started the morning shift at a Verizon garage in the Bronx in April 2009. “He pounded me with his fists, he spit on me, he choked me and threw me down to the floor,” he said.

DiStefano said he suffered two herniated discs and had knee problems that required surgery. He got workers’ compensation as a result, records show.

Taravella said a dead rat was put in his locker with “a note tied to his tail” that said “Rest in Peace, Sebbie.”

The incidents came after a local vice president purportedly told members at a meeting, “We have to deal with these spies on a personal level, like take them … off the company property and off company time and take care of them,” the suit charged.

Taravella still works at Empire City Subway, a Verizon subsidiary; DiStefano was fired in July 2009 for “violation of the business code of conduct.”

Verizon officials declined to comment except to say they’d given probers “a small amount of payroll information.”

A financial monitor hired by the union’s national last month uncovered “highly questionable practices” by local union bosses, including:

• Setting up a 401(k) plan for themselves to which members contributed a percentage of their dues, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. The national union halted the perk in March.
• Establishing a weekly $225 no-receipts-required expense allowance that added $11,700 annually to the paychecks of each officer and board member. The national also stopped this in March.
• Expensing meal tabs averaging $225 a person at an Atlantic City meeting and $600-a-night hotel charges in Las Vegas.
• • Spending up to $37,000 a year in car service bills while also charging for their own cars.

(Source: March 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

In Contrast, Maine Governor Stands Up For His Avowed Principles

Eight years ago, Indiana citizens who were determined to free themselves and their fellow Hoosiers from the shackles of compulsory unionism launched what they knew from the beginning would be a sustained, and often difficult, effort to pass a state Right to Work law.

Ever since then, the organization these citizens put into high-gear in 2003, the Indiana Right to Work Committee, has mobilized an ever-loudening drumbeat of support for employee freedom.

Over the course of the ongoing campaign, the Indianapolis-based Right to Work group has benefited from the counsel and experience of the National Right to Work Committee.

And National Committee members and supporters who live in the Hoosier State, roughly 119,000 strong and growing in number year after year, have been the bulwark of the Indiana Right to Work campaign.

Stubborn Opposition to Right To Work Has Ended Long Political Careers in Indiana

In the 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010 state election cycles, pro-Right to Work Hoosiers sent thousands upon thousands of postcards, letters, and e-mail messages to their legislative candidates urging them to oppose forced unionism. Right to Work activists also reinforced the point with phone calls and personal visits.

Since the Indiana Committee emerged as a major statewide citizens lobby, many politicians who once rode the fence have decided to take a stand in favor of Right to Work. Other politicians who stubbornly continued to carry water for, or at least appease, Big Labor have gone down to defeat.

For example, in early 2005, then-Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton (R-Columbus) told National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix that Right to Work legislation wouldn’t get a floor vote in his chamber as long as he held his leadership position.

In 2006, Mr. Garton, a 36-year incumbent and the longest serving Senate pro tem in American history, was defeated by primary challenger Greg Walker, an underfunded political novice. A critical asset Mr. Walker did have going for him was his 100% support for Right to Work.

That same year, 26-year state Rep. Mary Kay Budak (R-LaPorte) was ousted in a primary upset by pro-Right to Work challenger Tom Dermody. A few months earlier, Ms. Budak had been one of the minority of House Republicans who voted with Big Labor to defeat an amendment that would have made Indiana a Right to Work state.

While Mr. Garton and Ms. Budak are Republicans, the vast majority of Big Labor collaborators in the Indiana Legislature have been Democrats. That’s why, last year especially, major Right to Work electoral gains have been a boon for Republican leaders.

This year, Republicans are solidly in control of the Indiana Senate and the Indiana House of Representatives, and majorities in both chambers are on the record in support of passing a Right to Work law that would bar the firing of employees for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union.

If Mitch Daniels, Indiana’s GOP governor, had wanted his state to have a Right to Work law, he could almost certainly have gotten it this year.

Actions of Indiana Governor Belie His Professed Support For Right to Work Principle

Right to Work supporters in Indiana and around the country have long known Mr. Daniels was no stalwart foe of forced unionism. But they have also had ample grounds to hope after their 2010 Hoosier State election sweep that the governor wouldn’t stand in their way.

Mr. Daniels himself late last year admitted that Indiana’s lack of a Right to Work “does hold us back economically. There’s no doubt about it.” In the same interview, he was indirectly quoted as referring to Right to Work as a “valid idea.”

But even as he continued to try to avoid angering the pro-Right to Work majority of Indianans by purporting to agree with them, Mr. Daniels waged a low-key but devastating campaign from late last fall into mid-February to block passage of Right to Work legislation in Indiana.

Time and again, publicly as well as in private, the glum governor put out the word that he opposed any serious debates or recorded votes over Right to Work this year.

Mr. Daniels offered a few flimsy excuses for his dour determination to sabotage legislation that clearly had sufficient House and Senate support to pass and that was overwhelmingly favored by Hoosiers generally and by his own political base in particular.

For example, the governor claimed it would be wrong for the Legislature to pass a Right to Work law in 2011, because the issue hadn’t been discussed in the 2010 elections.

This was laughably false. In reality, last year alone the Indiana and national Right to Work organizations sent out roughly 278,000 pieces of targeted mail identifying the forced-unionism positions of state legislative incumbents and challengers and urging citizens to lobby their politicians on the issue.

“Issue-oriented mailings went out not just to members and other identified Right to Work supporters, but also to vast numbers of other people our organizations believed were likely supportive of the cause,” noted National Committee President Mark Mix.

“We practically mailed the phone book in targeted districts. We felt safe doing so, because we knew from poll after poll that roughly 80% of Indianans support the Right to Work principle.

“This Daniels excuse is the opposite of the truth. In all probability, Indiana candidates’ stands on Right to Work were better known by the public last year than their stands on any other single issue.”

Speaker Kept Right to Work Measures Bottled up Until It Was Too Late

Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma (Indianapolis), despite having personally vowed to the National Committee board of directors in 2004 that he would do everything necessary to make Indiana a Right to Work state as soon as he had a chance to do so, kept Right to Work measures bottled up in committee this year at the governor’s behest.

Only on February 21, the last day before all House measures that had not been approved by the entire chamber would automatically die, did Mr. Bosma allow a pro forma hearing and committee vote on Right to Work legislation.

Mr. Bosma knew by then he could let a panel pass a Right to Work measure (deeply flawed because it excluded construction industry employees from protection) without offending Mr. Daniels, because the House Democrat minority could kill it the next day simply by fleeing the capitol, as they did.

Right to Work advocates were left without a quorum, and even the half-measure the speaker had allowed to come up at the last minute expired without a recorded floor vote.

Had Right to Work legislation been brought up early in January, as National and Indiana Committee strategists repeatedly told Indiana legislators, Big Labor Democrats could not have prevailed without absconding for the entire legislative session. It’s unlikely they would have dared to do so.

Republican Politicians in Other States Act in Accord With What They Say

“I know the rationalizations Mitch Daniels has made for backstabbing Right to Work supporters are phony, but I don’t purport to know what really did motivate his and Brian Bosma’s betrayal of their freedom-loving constituents,” said Committee President Mix. “I just know Right to Work supporters have been sold out, temporarily.

“One consolation is there is fresh evidence this year that not all politicians act that way.

“Take what’s going on in the state of Maine, for example. After years of pain-staking mobilization, Right to Work supporters in the Pine Tree State are now close to securing sufficient legislative support to send a Right to Work measure to GOP Gov. Paul LePage’s desk.

“And, unlike Mitch Daniels, Paul LePage is actually trying to help move Right to Work legislation forward so he can sign it. In a February 26 radio address, Mr. LePage stated forthrightly: ‘If you do not believe union membership helps in your pursuit of happiness, you should . . . have the right to decline participation.’

“Pro-Right to Work Hoosiers deserve to have such a governor. And, if they don’t allow themselves to become discouraged and keep pressing hard to make Indiana a Right to Work state, one day in the not-too-distant future they will.”

Coming off their less than successful protests in Wisconsin, the top minds at the SEIU have decided to spend millions in mandatory union dues money for more protests.

 “The new plan, revealed in a planning document reviewed by POLITICO and in the subsequent interview with Henry, reflects the widening recognition by labor leaders that the shrinking national ranks of union members no longer carry the political heft they once did. The draft plan, titled “Fight for a Fair Economy” in what Henry said was a preliminary planning document, would reach outside union ranks to focus on “mobilizing underpaid, underemployed and unemployed workers” and “channeling anger about jobs into action for positive change.”

Boeing, which is moving production from high-cost Washington State (a non-Right to Work State) to more competitive South Carolina (a Right to Work State), is under assault from the Board for its decision. The Wall Street Journal weighs in:

We knew that Big Labor had political pull at the Obama-era National Labor Relations Board, but yesterday’s complaint against Boeing is one for the (dark) ages. By challenging Boeing’s right to build aircraft in South Carolina, labor’s bureaucratic allies in Washington are threatening the ability of states to compete for new jobs and investment—and risking the economic recovery to boot.

In 2009, Boeing announced plans to build a new plant to meet demand for its new 787 Dreamliner. Though its union contract didn’t require it, Boeing executives negotiated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to build the plane at its existing plant in Washington state. The talks broke down because the union wanted, among other things, a seat on Boeing’s board and a promise that Boeing would build all future airplanes in Puget Sound.

So Boeing management did what it judged to be best for its shareholders and customers and looked elsewhere. In October 2009, the company settled on South Carolina, which, like the 21 other right-to-work states, has friendlier labor laws than Washington. As Boeing chief Jim McNerney noted on a conference call at the time, the company couldn’t have “strikes happening every three to four years.” The union has shut down Boeing’s commercial aircraft production line four times since 1989, and a 58-day strike in 2008 cost the company $1.8 billion.

This reasonable business decision created more than 1,000 jobs and has brought around $2 billion of investment to South Carolina. The aerospace workers in Puget Sound remain among the best paid in America, but the union nonetheless asked the NLRB to stop Boeing’s plans before the company starts to assemble planes in North Charleston this July.

The NLRB obliged with its complaint yesterday asking an administrative law judge to stop Boeing’s South Carolina production because its executives had cited the risk of strikes as a reason for the move.

No wonder, the movie Atlas Shrugged is a surprise hit.

From Laura Olson’s Post-Gazette report, Lawmaker pushes bill to end mandatory union dues:

Mr. Metcalfe said he believes the bills could become a priority if state taxpayers “demand from their elected officials responsible representation, and to end the time when the unions are just pushing big dollars into campaign war chests that are ultimately purchasing those votes that so many have given to protect the unions in this state.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is coming to Washington just after winning his multi-week battle with Big Labor that gave, among other things, state government employees the choice to pay a union or not. Gov. Walker’s and the WI Legislature’s action undid decades of compulsory unionism that forced all state government employees to handover money to unions or lose their job; essentially conscripting employees into the union. Many union bosses in Wisconsin are terrified that current forced-dues payers will opt out of the union. Walker is no stranger to union boss pressures, as mayor, he fought several battles with Big Labor.

National Right To Work President Mark Mix has personally fought hundreds of political battles and is currently engaged in several with Big Labor Bosses across the country. Since 1955, The National Right To Work Committee has been the prime architect that kept Big Labor at bay while clawing back freedom from compulsory unionism in states like Oklahoma and its passage of its Right To Work law that makes it illegal to force people to pay tributes to union bosses in order to keep or get a job.

No doubt, Big Labor operatives are busy creating talking points and questions for their Democrat congressional committee members. Or, perhaps they are planning another recent favorite tactic of Big Labor Democrats – fleeing to Illinois.

It is safe to say that having Walker and Mix at the same hearing is quite a turnaround from last year; Speaker Nancy Pelosi most certainly would have prevented their voices of freedom from being heard in any congressional hearing room.

For more on the hearing click here.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Scores of California government agencies continued to sweeten employee pension plans even after the state’s economy began collapsing into recession in 2008, a decision that is now haunting them as they struggle with deficits and deep budget cuts.

A state oversight panel has identified about 180 local governments that increased pension benefits at a time when the state’s unemployment rate was rising, housing prices were falling and the nation’s banking system was in crisis. The enhancements covered thousands of public employees, adding tens of millions of dollars of new debt to local governments, analysts say.

At the time, officials thought the deal made financial sense because the firefighters union agreed to forgo more raises in exchange for new pensions rules that would allow them to retire at age 50 with 85% of their salary if they’d been on the job 28 years. Now, Costa Mesa says it’s facing a $1.4-million deficit and has sent layoff notices to half its employees. Officials plan to eliminate the Fire Department, contracting with the Orange County Fire Authority in a move they say will save money.

Read the Hoover report.  More evidence that government worker monopoly bargaining is a bad deal for taxpayers who foot the bill for the political deals cut between the politicians and big labor.

First, the brigade of Big Labor’s Bullhorn Bullies failed to keep the Wisconsin legislature from operating when it used intimidation in an attempt to bypass the November 2010 democratic election, and all-the-while chanting the anarchist chant: “This Is What Democracy Looks Like.”

Then, having failed with their weeks of harassment, those same forced-dues financed bullies poured $3 million-plus into JoAnne Kloppenburg’s campaign for the Wisconsin Supreme Court against Justive David Prosser. The goal: overturn democracy and the legislative results that flow from it.

Yet, even with union pouring in campaign money and paying for precinct workers, the voters of Wisconsin again rejected Ms. Kloppenburg, who so actively embraced Big Labor’s myopic vision on compulsory unionism that she ended the public’s ability to ever see her again as an impartial jurist.

In the end, it appears Wisconsin has shown us what democracy looks like. State employees, at least, will have the choice to continue to contribute or not contribute to the same union officials who organized the chaos in Wisconsin. And, isn’t choice and freedom what democracy looks like verses intimidation and compulsion?

The Wisconsin state senators who fled the state during February’s budget impasse were on the same page with organized labor — literally. A newspaper report Tuesday revealed that the AWOL Democrats had received written instructions from national union officials on how to justify their actions to the media. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel turned up emails that verified the union interaction with the AWOL Democrats, following a freedom of information request. One email from big labor to the Wisconsin Democratic senators bore the subject line “TP,” for talking points.