New Jersey Communications Workers compulsory-dues funded union boss’ ridiculous statements reveal why solutions for New Jersey problems are not coming from Big Labor – they want to take New Jersey back to the 1940’s. From Politico’s Maggie Haberman:

Gov. Chris Christie is like Adolf Hitler and New Jersey is like Nazi Germany, a local labor leader declared at a rally against the governor’s proposed pension reform moves Thursday.

“It took World War II to get rid of the last Adolf Hitler — it’s gonna take World War III to get rid of Adolf Christie!” shouted Communications Workers of America vice president Chris Shelton at a rally outside the statehouse in Trenton.

“Welcome to Nazi Germany!” Shelton said when he first took the podium.

(Source: April 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Last month, the Big Labor Congress gave final approval to, and President Barack Obama signed into law, what is surely the greatest expansion of federal government power over consumers, employees and businesses since last century’s Great Depression.

And, even more than Mr. Obama, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), or any other elected official, top Big Labor bosses are responsible for Congress’s reconstruction of America’s enormous health-care system.

On March 22, the day after the House rubber-stamped both H.R.3590, the version of ObamaCare Mr. Reid had rammed through the Senate early Christmas Eve morning, 2009, and a “fixer” bill (H.R.4872) amending the Senate measure, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) demonstrated how it all happened.

“Supporters of both measures received out-sized support from labor unions,” concluded the CRP’s Michael Beckel in his legislative wrap-up.

He went on to specify that, since 1989: “Members who voted for both bills received an average of about $917,500″ in reported contributions alone from labor union bosses.

Furthermore, in “the final push for a vote,” many union bosses and union operatives “also displayed their clout through threats to withhold endorsements from lawmakers who failed to back the bill. They also vowed to support primary challenges or third-party bids against incumbents who opposed the bills.”

National Right to Work Committee Vice President Doug Stafford commented: “Since 1989, Big Labor has contributed a total of $160 million more, in cash alone, to ObamaCare proponents than to ObamaCare opponents.

“In contrast, health-focused industries gave roughly $100 million to ObamaCare proponents and roughly $110 million to opponents — a difference of just $10 million.

“And this 16-to-1 edge for pro-ObamaCare politicians doesn’t even take into account their even wider advantage in union bosses’ hidden, forced dues-funded ‘in-kind’ contributions. Organized Labor bosses can truly be said to ‘own’ ObamaCare.”

Verizon Retiree, Right to Work Chairman: ObamaCare Is Already Hurting Me

Why did union bigwigs spend so much of their PAC and forced-dues money, and twist so many politicians’ arms, to get ObamaCare enacted?

Certainly not because most unionized workers will benefit.

As has been widely reported, under ObamaCare as ultimately enacted, a disproportionately large share of unionized employees will see their premiums jump up, or their benefits cut back, as a result of the law’s large new excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans.

And unionized firms such as AT&T, Verizon and Caterpillar have already signaled they will very likely drop their prescription-drug coverage for retirees once ObamaCare slashes the tax incentive federal policy has offered them up to now to retain it.

Retirees from such companies will then have no choice but to apply for Medicare drug benefits, which are meager compared to those the retirees currently receive, but far more expensive for taxpayers who will carry the whole freight.

Right to Work Chairman and Verizon retiree Chuck Serio commented: “It appears that the Communications Workers of America union hierarchy to which I paid thousands of dollars in dues and compulsory fees during my 37 years has been instrumental in my coming loss of drug coverage by my former employer.

“Thanks a lot, CWA bosses.” Union Bosses Will Rake In Bailout Money

In reality, union bosses supported ObamaCare both because of their ideological commitment to bigger and bigger government, and because it remained, in all its various incarnations, full of special-interest handouts to Organized Labor.

For example, one little-discussed provision in the ObamaCare law would either exacerbate the horrendous national debt or foist an additional burden on taxpayers by furnishing $10 billion in bailout money for mismanaged union health-benefit funds.

“Union bosses will rake in billions and billions of dollars in bailouts thanks to ObamaCare, but most forced dues-paying workers will get hurt,” said Mr. Stafford. “It’s a horrifying, but instructive illustration of the evils of compulsory unionism.”

A new Web site targeting the tea parties is a part of a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country’s biggest labor unions and trickling slowly into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

A seemingly grassroots organization that’s mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds — including sizable labor union contributions — through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer.

A Web site popped up in January dedicated to preventing the tea party’s “radical” and “dangerous” ideas from “gaining legislative traction,” targeting GOP candidates in Illinois for the firing squad.

“This movement is a fad,” proclaims TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, which was established by the American Public Policy Center (APPC), a D.C.-based campaign shop that few people have ever heard of.

But a close look reveals the APPC’s place in a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country’s biggest labor unions into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

The most recent backers of the Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West, which helped fund the APPC and thus the Tea Party site, form a veritable Who’s Who of the country’s top labor unions: the Service Employees International Union, Change to Win, the Communications Workers of America, the National Education Association, the Teamsters Union, the United Food & Commercial Workers Union and others besides.

But by far the largest donations have come from a collection of unionized government workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) — which in 2008 alone donated $5.8 million to Patriot Majority and another $4.1 million to Patriot Majority Midwest.

Using this arrangement, Varoga and Rakis are managing what NPR called a “never-ending pot of union money” that they dispense among the 527s they run, which in turn pay for ads in hotly contested election districts.

That means that taxpayer dollars, sent up as union dues, have been going to fund a host of Democratic causes and help quash the tea party movement.

What’s more, Varoga and Rakis are not actually present in Suite 1102. That is the office of their lawyer, Joseph Sandler, a longtime general counsel to the Democratic National Committee.

Sandler, whose firm and trust account raked in over $500,000 in Democratic party money in 2009 alone, told Fox News that there was nothing irregular in their setup.

It is not clear whether TheTeaPartyIsOver.org is the start of a larger campaign run by Varoga and Rakis to target tea party activists. Additional attempts to reach Varoga at a California number were unsuccessful. A staffer answering the phone in Varoga’s Oakland office last week told FoxNews.com that he was unavailable for comment and hung up.

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.

Here’s a big win no matter how you shake and bake it: Craig Becker being nominated for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)!

For my money Craig’s signal contribution has been his work in crafting and executing the legal strategies and protections which have allowed the effective organization of informal workers, and by this I mean home health care workers, under the protection of the National Labor Relations Act. The effective organization of informal workers — home health and home day care — has been the great, exceptional success story within the American labor movement for our generation, leading to the membership of perhaps a half-million such workers in unions like SEIU, AFSCME, CWA, and the AFT.

The National Right To Work Committee first brought the Rathke and Becker connection to light in the Committee’s Obama Personnel Alert regarding Becker.

Angela Leitzel works as a field technician for Verizon in Tampa, Florida. Because Florida is one of 22 Right to Work states, Leitzel may not be compelled to pay any union dues, although she must accept unwanted “representation” of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 824 union bosses.

In February, Verizon assembled a team of Florida-based technicians, including Leitzel, for a work assignment in California out of a facility “represented” by Communication Workers of America (CWA) Local 9588 and affiliates CWA International and CWA District 9. On February 17, Verizon removed Leitzel from the project, and a company representative informed her that she could not work on the project, because she was not a member of IBEW Local 824.

On March 9, Leitzel was again barred from another team going to California to perform work for Verizon. The company informed her that CWA officials would not permit her to work at the California facility because she was not a member of IBEW Local 824.

With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Leitzel filed unfair labor practice charges against Verizon and the unions. Federal labor law forbids employers to discriminate against employees on the basis of non-membership in a union. Moreover, CWA officials committed unfair labor practices by encouraging Verizon to discriminate against her and failing to inform her of her rights in California, which has no Right to Work law, to refrain from union membership and pay reduced fees, rights established in the Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court precedent CWA v. Beck (1988).

The NLRB Regional Director in Tampa agreed with the charges and threatened to issue a complaint against the unions and the company, so they sought to settle the case to avoid a costly and embarrassing legal battle. The settlement guarantees Leitzel full compensation for lost income related to her removal from work, and the company and unions agreed to cease all illegal discrimination on account of union affiliation. A notice to be posted at Verizon workplaces in Tampa and Bradenton, Florida, and in Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, and San Fernando, California, will inform other Verizon employees that such union discrimination is illegal.

“California should take a lesson from Florida: no employee should ever be forced to join or pay fees to an unwanted union,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The only way to eliminate collusion between Big Business and Big Labor to discriminate against independent-minded employees is to eliminate forced unionism altogether.”