Fred Barnes “Is there anything Obama won’t do for unions?”

On June 26, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

 

Former murdered Mineworkers International presidential candidate “Jock” Yoblonski’s campaign manager and Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes reminds us that Obama has created more Big Labor Boss paybacks than just the NLRB v. Boeing case.

Besides the Obama National Labor Relations Board’s assault on Boeing’s South Carolina employees and workers in Right To Work states in general, Barnes mentions the recent new regulations proposed by DOL to hamper employees getting to hear both sides of the story during union organizing campaigns.

But, the main focus of the article is the Obama Administration’s repeated attempts to overturn multiple defeats of unions to organize DELTA airlines. If you want to get more outraged at the Obama administration for its continuous assaults on free enterprise and individual employee choices, then read Barnes’ America’s Labor Party, Is there anything Obama won’t do for unions? Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

How far will President Obama go to advance the interests of organized labor? Awfully far. We know this not only from the effort to keep Boeing from building a plane in a right-to-work state, South Carolina, but also from the way Delta Airlines is being railroaded into recognizing unions its employees have repeatedly rejected. (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, DOL, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, National Mediation Board (NMB), NLRB, Obama Administration, Organizing, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States, State Right To Work
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President Obama: Union Owned and Operated

On June 23, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer has hit the nail on the head — the president is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Labor:

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. (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Elections, Exclusive Representation, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Legislation, Monopoly Bargaining, NLRB, Obama Administration, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina, Union boss power, Wisconsin
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Right To Work = Jobs

On May 20, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

BMW plans to expand in Right To Work state of South Carolina

As politicians are seeking jobs through stimulus programs, spending sprees, welfare, food stamp programs and bureaucratic mandates, many ignore the upshot enactment of a Right to Work law can have on job creation for fear of angering their big labor benefactors. But the evidence continues to compound that giving workers a choice in joining a union is not only a civil rights issue but an economic growth issue. The Washington Examiner gets it:

“Danaher’s closing,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., lamenting the loss of a plant that had employed 330 people in his state. “Now those jobs are going to Arkansas and to Texas.”

It was April 2005. Neal was taking the opportunity during a House committee hearing on competition with China to complain instead about how Massachusetts was losing jobs to states with less-hostile business climates.

The Ways and Means Committee chairman in 2005, California Republican Bill Thomas, mildly rebuked Neal’s deviation from the topic, saying Massachusetts had shot itself in the foot with high taxes and compulsory union membership.

“At some point perhaps the good citizens of Massachusetts will pick up the drift,” Thomas said. (more…)

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, Massachusetts, NLRB, Obama Administration, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina
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Turning the Tables on Tom Harkin

On May 17, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Union water-carrier Sen. Tom Harkin (D-AFL-CIO) held a hearing last week in the Senate to promote more forced unionism but the Republican minority turned tables on the Chairman.

Sen. Mike Enzi called one witness — Michael Luttig, the general counsel of Boeing who spoke at length about the NLRB’s war on freedom of choice and Right to Work.

Pajamas Media reported:

Luttig, the general emphasized that a union strike in 2008 in Washington shut down production of the 787, costing Boeing more than a billion dollars and “damaging Boeing’s reputation for reliability with its airline customers, suppliers, and investors.” Boeing took into account many different factors in making a major assembly investment decision, and the recurring strikes in Washington was just one of them.

This action by the pro-union NLRB is an abuse of the applicable law and precedent, and seems to be a political move made to placate the unions that will be crucial to the election efforts of Democrats next year, including President Obama. It is also an attack on right-to-work states like South Carolina.

The NLRB action has raised the ire of everyone from the governor and Representative Joe Wilson, to Senators Jim DeMint and Lamar Alexander. Luttig’s testimony made the NLRB the focus of the hearing, something that would otherwise not have happened because Harkin would never have called a hearing to specifically discuss this issue.

Harkin was clearly annoyed at the turn that the hearing took. He muttered about his coal mining father and the unfair attacks on unions and the NLRB. But the political danger of the NLRB action was demonstrated by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who given his background in suing corporations, is not generally seen as “pro-business.”

Blumenthal went out of his way to be nice to Luttig and Boeing, the biggest American export company with $29 billion in overseas sales in 2009. That might also be due to the fact that Boeing suppliers spend more than a billion dollars in Connecticut.

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Posted in: Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States
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NRTW to Obama: Withdraw Big Labor Biased NLRB General Counsel Nominee

On May 6, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

National Right To Work President Mark Mix wrote President Obama declaring, “Solomon’s poor judgments regarding the deliberations that brought about his complaint [against Boeing and its workers in South Carolina] and the complaint itself disqualify him as an acceptable nominee for NLRB General Counsel. The Foundation requests that you withdrawal Lafe Solomon’s nomination to serve as General Counsel of the NLRB immediately.

Full text of Letter:

The Honorable Barack Obama

Re: Withdrawal of Lafe Solomon as NLRB General Counsel Nominee

Dear Mr. President:

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Lafe Solomon’s complaint against The Boeing Company (“Boeing”) in Case No. 19-CA-32431, to force a private aircraft manufacturer to move jobs from a Right To Work state to a compulsory unionism state, overstretches legal precedents and abuses the power that Congress granted the NLRB. As Acting General Counsel, Solomon should dismiss such filings rather than issuing ill-considered complaints.

The NLRB complaint against Boeing, and in effect the workers in South Carolina who will lose their jobs, seeks to force Boeing to halt its South Carolina (Right To Work State) factory expansion and re-locate it to the state of Washington (Forced Unionism State).

Boeing has already hired more than 1,000 new South Carolina-based employees for its 787 Dreamliner factory in Charleston. But simultaneously, Boeing has increased its employment in its Puget Sound, Washington factory. Boeing’s actions have created no loss of jobs for the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and its represented workers there. Yet, the NLRB’s proposed remedy will result in lost jobs immediately for 1,000 workers in the Charleston, South Carolina area. Ironically, many of these workers have already decertified the IAM at this same plant under a prior employer, thereby expressing their legally protected choice to work without union compulsion.

Without regard to the loss of jobs to workers in South Carolina and the fact that there has been no harm to the workers in Washington, General Counsel Solomon is attempting to curtail free speech, harm workers who have chosen to work without union representation, intimidate employers, discourage other employers from locating in Right To Work States, and encourage employers to leave the United States. The NLRB’s complaint has virtually no legal support, and its claim that Boeing committed “unlawful employer speech” for saying that the company “cannot afford to have work stoppages every three years” like it has experienced at the hands of the IAM in Washington since the 1980s is frivolous.

The NLRB position ignores that “the Supreme Court has long held that firms may consider the economic effect of strikes when making business decisions. Also, Boeing’s existing collective bargaining agreement with the IAM allows Boeing to build facilities at other locations.”

Solomon’s poor judgments regarding the deliberations that brought about his complaint and the complaint itself disqualify him as an acceptable nominee for NLRB General Counsel. The Foundation requests that you withdrawal Lafe Solomon’s nomination to serve as General Counsel of the NLRB immediately.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Mix

President

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, Economic Development in RTW States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina, State Right To Work, Strike, Washington
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NLRB Action Against Right To Work “Unprecedented”

On May 5, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

A former National Labor Relations Board Chairman has described recent actions against Boeing for opening a production line in a Right to Work state as “unprecedented.”

Boeing, to their credit is fighting back. “This claim is legally frivolous and represents a radical departure from both NLRB and Supreme Court precedent,” Boeing General Counsel J. Michael Luttig said in a statement. But we cannot leave it up to companies to fight for the rights of workers.  It is up to you and us to fight back and your support for the National Right to Work Committee is critical in this fight — and others.

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Posted in: Big Labor Payback, Economic Development in RTW States, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Political Activity, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina, State Right To Work, Washington
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Florida’s AG Stands Up for Workers

On May 3, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi is profiled for defending the Right to Work in the Sunshine State News:

Bondi signed off on a letter sent by Attorney General Alan Wilson of South Carolina to Solomon which maintained that the NLRB’s complain was without merit and demanded he withdraw it.

“This complaint represents an assault upon the constitutional right of free speech, and the ability of our states to create jobs and recruit industry,” the attorneys general wrote. “Your ill-conceived retaliatory action seeks to destroy our citizens’ right to work.

“Our states are struggling to emerge from one of the worst economic collapses since the Depression,” they continued. “Your complaint further impairs an economic recovery. Intrusion by the federal bureaucracy on behalf of unions will not create a single new job or put one unemployed person back to work.

“The only justification for the NRLB’s unprecedented retaliatory action is to aid union survival,” they concluded. “Your action seriously undermines our citizens’ right to work as well as their ability to compete globally. Therefore, as attorneys general, we will protect our citizens from union bullying and federal coercion. We thus call upon you to cease this attack on our right to work, our states’ economies and our jobs.”

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Posted in: Bailouts to Unions, Big Labor Payback, Economic Development in RTW States, Florida, Forced-Dues for Politics, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Obama Administration, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina
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Attorney Generals Demand NLRB Withdraw Anti-Right to Work Complaint

On May 3, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Eight Attorney Generals have written a letter to the General Counsel of the NLRB demanding he withdraw his complaint against Boeing for moving to a Right to Work state. Their letter, organized by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson read in part:

The right to work, uninhibited by compulsory unionism, is a precious right and is constitutionally enforceable through our states’ right to work laws. See Retail Clerks Int’l v. Schermerhorn, 375 U.S. 96 (1963). Such laws are designed to eliminate union affiliation as a criterion for employment. However, the NLRB, through this single proceeding, attempts to sound the death knell of the right to work. Additionally, this tenuous complaint will reverberate throughout union and non-union states alike, as international companies will question the wisdom of locating in a country where the federal government interferes in industry without cause or justification.

Furthermore, this complaint disrupts, and may well eliminate, the production of Boeing 787 Dreamliners in South Carolina. In fact, Boeing has expanded its operations to meet product demand in South Carolina, while adding new jobs in Washington State. The complaint charges Boeing with the commission of an unfair labor practice, but appears to do so without legal and factual foundation. This unparalleled and overreaching action seeks to drive a stake through the heart of the free enterprise system. The statements of Boeing officials cited in your complaint are the innocent exercise of the company’s right of free speech. The Supreme Court long ago made it clear that the NLRA does not limit, and the First Amendment protects, the employer’s right to express views on labor policies or problems. N.L.R.B. v. Va. Electric and Power, 314 US 469, 477 (1941). As the Court recently reiterated in Citizens United v. FEC, 130 S. Ct. 876, 899-90 (2010), a corporation is not a second class citizen in terms of First Amendment protection.

Our states are struggling to emerge from one of the worst economic collapses since the Depression. Your complaint further impairs an economic recovery. Intrusion by the federal bureaucracy on behalf of unions will not create a single new job or put one unemployed person back to work.

The only justification for the NLRB’s unprecedented retaliatory action is to aid union survival. Your action seriously undermines our citizens’ right to work as well as their ability to compete globally. Therefore, as Attorneys General, we will protect our citizens from union bullying and federal coercion. We thus call upon you to cease this attack on our right to work, our states’ economies, and our jobs.

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Posted in: Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, NLRB, Right to Work, Right To Work States, South Carolina, State Right To Work, Washington
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