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.

But the targeting of Delta stands out. Following Delta’s merger with Northwest Airlines in 2008, its flight attendants voted against joining the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), and other employees decided against signing on with four separate unions of the International Association of Machinists and Aero-space Workers (IAM).

That didn’t end what has become a union crusade against Delta, abetted by Obama. Now, from all appearances, the fix is in—against Delta. It starts with the National Mediation Board, which governs labor relations in the airline and railroad industries. Obama stacked the NMB deck by putting two former union senior executives on the three-member board, Linda Puchala of the AFA and Harry Hoglander of the Air Line Pilots.

The unions lost anyway. In the case of the flight attendants, it was the third time they had voted against the AFA. But the AFA and the IAM have doggedly refused to take “no” for an answer.

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?

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.

Businesses often consider government interference when they make decisions about where to locate. One instance of such interference is the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which established a regimen of special treatment for labor during an era when nearly one in three employees was a union member.

Today, unions have lost relevance for more than 93 percent of American workers in the private sector, but this law remains with us, harming the ability of American businesses to compete. To see its results, we need only look south and west, to the success of our nation’s 22 right-to-work states.

Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 allows states to pass right-to-work laws, which bar union membership from being used as a condition of employment. In practice, these laws make unions significantly less powerful and less disruptive than did the original NLRA rules, and with tremendously positive economic results for everybody concerned.

A recent study by the staff of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed to some revealing data. Between 1993 and 2009, right-to-work states created jobs twice as quickly as states where forced unionism is permitted, and they enjoyed 10 percent faster growth in personal income. Right-to-work states account for only 40 percent of the U.S. population, but they hosted 60 percent of the nation’s new businesses from 1993 to 2009.

Such data contrasts mightily with facts such as this: Unions spent $400 million to elect President Barack Obama and Democrats in 2008 largely because of promises to use the federal government to restore labor to its former strength. The centerpiece of that effort was card check, which would have abolished secret ballots in workplace-representation elections if it hadn’t failed in Congress.

So now the Obama campaign to rescue dying unions is focused on the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB, controlled by Obama appointees, has filed a complaint against Boeing for expanding its manufacturing operations into DeMint’s right-to-work state. Obama is only trying to help his union campaign donors — as usual — but this effort is bound to backfire.

Right-to-work states are demonstrating daily that workers, their families and taxpayers all benefit when employees have the freedom to choose whether to join a union. There are 22 such states now and odds are that more are coming, which will be good economic news for them and the country.

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.

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

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.

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.”

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.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Wednesday she wants Republican presidential hopefuls, who will be debating in her state shortly, to address how they would deal with unions and a complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board.

The first presidential primary debate is scheduled next week in Greenville. The state Republican Party expects at least four participants: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

Haley said candidates should give their opinion on the labor board’s lawsuit against Boeing Co., which is building a $750 million aircraft assembly plant in North Charleston, expected to open this summer.

The lawsuit filed last week accuses Boeing of choosing the right-to-work state in 2009 to retaliate against union workers in Washington state who went on strike in 2008. Most 787s are being assembled in Washington state by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The labor board requests a court order forcing the aerospace company to build the line in the Pacific Northwest.

Haley, who faces a lawsuit from the machinists union for saying South Carolina would try to keep unions out of Boeing, has said she will not stand for the federal board bullying South Carolina businesses.

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Wisconsin needs Right to Work law to protect workers from forced unionism abuses

Milwaukee, WI (March 16, 2011) – A U.S. Bank customer service and support employee has filed federal charges against a local union after AFSCME union officials illegally attempted to force him and his colleagues into full-dues-paying union membership.

Peter Quinones of Milwaukee filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

After American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 777 union officials were granted monopoly bargaining privileges over approximately 300 U.S. Bank employees, Quinones sent a letter to union officials stating that he was exercising his right under National Right to Work Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck to refrain from full dues paying union membership.

Because Wisconsin is a forced unionism state, workers who refrain from formal union membership can still be forced to pay a certain amount of union dues, but cannot be compelled to pay the portion of union dues used for the union’s political, lobbying, and member-only activities.

Despite his letter, AFSCME Local 777 union officials continued to extract full union dues from his paycheck. After Quinones filed an unfair labor practice charge, union officials still refused to honor his request to exercise his legal rights.

Quinones’ latest charge seeks to prevent the AFSCME union hierarchy from requiring him to pay forced union fees by automatic deduction from his paycheck in violation of federal law.

“As we have seen in recent weeks, AFSCME union officials will stop at nothing to collect forced union dues from workers – whether they are in the public or private sector – to pay for their political activism,” said Patrick Semmens, National Right to Work Foundation legal information director. “Wisconsin’s workers desperately need Right to Work protections to protect them from the very union bosses that claim to care about workers’ rights while violating workers’ rights.”

If enacted, a Wisconsin Right to Work law would end compulsory union dues by making union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary. Polls consistently show that 8 in 10 Americans support the Right to Work principle, that no worker should be compelled to join a union or pay union dues to get or keep a job. Twenty-two states have already passed Right to Work protections for their workers.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, is assisting thousands of employees in nearly 200 cases nationwide. Its web address is www.nrtw.org.

Kudos Go to NLRB Members For ‘Encouraging’ Monopolistic Unionism

The four current members of the powerful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), all appointed or reappointed by President Barack Obama, are poised to make a series of major decisions expanding forced unionism over the next few months.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO union conglomerate, is licking his chops at this prospect — and it’s no mystery why he and other union kingpins are eager to see the Obama NLRB reinvent the federal rules for unionization campaigns.

Chairman Wilma Liebman, an NLRB veteran first appointed to the agency in 1997 by then-President Bill Clinton and elevated to the leadership position by Mr. Obama in 2009, is an ex-Teamster union lawyer. And Obama appointees Craig Becker and Mark Pearce both come out of union legal ranks.

More important, Ms. Liebman, Mr. Becker, and Mr. Pearce have all already demonstrated a willingness to go well beyond the pro-forced unionism letter of federal labor law to make it as difficult as they can for independent employees and businesses to avoid union monopoly control.

Federal Labor Law Itself Tramples Freedom of Independent-Minded Workers

Only one current NLRB member, former GOP Senate staffer Brian Hayes, has shown any real reluctance to rewrite the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) whenever they turn out to be inconvenient for union organizers.

But Mr. Hayes is evidently destined to be perpetually outvoted by the three forced-unionism zealots who now sit with him on the Board. (The fifth NLRB seat remains vacant as this month’s Right to Work Newsletter goes to press.)

Even were it implemented as it is written, the decades-old NLRA would be an inveterate enemy of the American employee’s freedom to make personal decisions about unionism.

The NLRA explicitly provides that, when one more than half of employees, among those expressing an opinion, favor unionization, all employees may legally be forced to accept a particular union as their “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agent with regard to terms and conditions of employment.

Monopoly bargaining, sanctioned under the NLRA, denies employees who don’t want any union (or at least one particular union) the freedom to negotiate directly with their employer (or through another union).

This is not a case of “majority rule.” The fact is, when a majority of workers oppose unionization, the NLRA as interpreted by federal courts permits the minority of workers who want a union to select a union to negotiate contracts for members only.

But workers who oppose unionization are, when they are in the minority, denied the freedom to remain free of monopolistic unionism.

The NLRA also empowers union officials, except those whose coercive privileges are checked by a state Right to Work law, to browbeat employers into agreeing to fire employees who refuse to join or pay dues or fees to a union they don’t want.

However, as biased as federal labor law is, it hasn’t, especially in recent years, helped Big Labor acquire and maintain monopoly control over nearly as many private-sector workers as union officials and their political allies deem sufficient.

That’s why Mr. Trumka and company are now looking to the NLRB to grease the skids for thousands of additional Big Labor workplace takeovers.

‘Electronic’ Voting Would Facilitate ‘Card Check’-Style Abuses

On January 19, the AFL-CIO czar explained why he is so looking forward to seeing the Obama NLRB in action:

“We are seeing a President who supports collective bargaining [i.e., monopolistic unionism] and is doing what he can to have the National Labor Relations Board perform its function of encouraging that process.”

One significant way in which the NLRB may go about “encouraging” monopolistic unionism is through promotion of so-called “electronic” voting in workplace unionization campaigns.

Last June, the NLRB put out a request for information about “electronic voting services for both remote and on-site elections.”

The request has been widely interpreted as a step toward mandating the routine use of remote Internet or telephone balloting in union organizing campaigns.

Under current law, when a unionization election occurs, employees normally cast their votes in private ballot booths, except when circumstances make the use of ballot booths very difficult or impossible.

If the Obama NLRB dispenses with ballot booths, and instead makes it the norm for workers to cast their votes over unionization from, say, their home computers, that will greatly intensify the process’s bias in favor of union organizers.

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix pointed out: “Federal labor policy already authorizes professional union organizers to target individual workers by visiting them at their homes, a privilege of which the union hierarchy regularly takes advantage.

“Forcing employees to vote at home would greatly exacerbate the abuses that already occur during such ‘home visits.’ Union organizers would visit workers’ homes to ‘make sure’ they had voted electronically, and even offer to ‘help’ them cast their votes.

“In fact, the potential for Big Labor abuses generated by mandatory electronic balloting may be just as great as if Congress had replaced secret ballots in unionization campaigns with mandatory ‘card checks.’

“Because of overwhelming public opposition, mobilized largely by Right to Work members, Congress declined to heed Big Labor demands to mandate ‘card checks’ in 2009 and 2010.

“But NLRB bureaucrats could, even without Congress’s help, do just as much damage by mandating intrinsically insecure off-site electronic balloting.”

Mr. Mix added that the NLRB is far from the only federal bureaucracy that Obama appointees appear to be using as a prod to corral workers into unions.

Another major example is the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). A DOL “strategic plan” made public early this year actually states that “many” of the agency’s “outcome goals are furthered by high rates of [compulsory] union membership.”

Committee President Pledges To Work With Capitol Hill Allies to Thwart Power Grab

But Mr. Mix vowed that the Committee would work closely with Capitol Hill allies to block Obama bureaucrats from the NLRB, the DOL, and other agencies from using regulations to steepen federal labor law’s slant against the individual employee’s freedom.

“Enactment of budgetary or other legislation reining in NLRB and DOL abuses will be a tall order this year and next, given Big Labor Sen. Harry Reid’s [D-Nev.] continuing control over Congress’s upper chamber and President Obama’s continued veto power,” acknowledged Mr. Mix.

“But it’s a battle Right to Work supporters can’t afford to pass up. Committee members and supporters and their allies fought too hard during the first two years of the Obama Administration to block the ‘card-check’ scheme legislatively to now stand back and let it be imposed, effectively, by bureaucratic fiat.”

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Independent Workers, Firms Face ‘Card-Check Lite’ Implementation

It’s been more than a century since Mr. Dooley, the immortal comic character created by Chicago-based journalist Finley Peter Dunne, opined that “th’ Supreme Coort follows th’ election returns.”

In the High Court’s consideration of controversial legal cases over the years, it often really has seemed that majorities of unelected justices were reluctant, for good or ill, to ignore recent electoral results.

But Mr. Dooley’s adage doesn’t appear to have made any impression whatsoever on the forced-unionism zealots who now hold all but one of the four occupied seats on the powerful National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB.

(The fifth NLRB seat has been vacant for several months.)

Despite the fact that voters in the November 2 general elections sent a clear message they oppose the imposition of new federal policies to help Organized Labor increase the share of workers who are under union monopoly-bargaining control, the Obama NLRB is signaling that is exactly what it intends to do.

For example, on October 21, when a wide array of polls were already showing that pro-forced unionism politicians would suffer major losses in both chambers of Congress on Election Day, NLRB member Mark Pearce publicly discussed one way the Board may make corralling workers into unions easier in 2011.

Mr. Pearce, until this year a union lawyer in private practice in Buffalo, N.Y., suggested in a speech at a law school in Boston that the NLRB may soon rewrite federal rules for unionization campaigns in order to tilt the playing field even more steeply in union organizers’ favor.

In particular, Mr. Pearce indicated that the NLRB may soon cease allowing an average of 38 days from the time an employer is notified that a union is seeking monopoly-bargaining control over his or her employees to the time the workplace election occurs, and instead allow only 5-10 days.

‘Quick-Snap’ Elections Would Deny Workers A Meaningful Vote

“Effectively, the kind of ‘quick-snap’ elections Mr. Pearce is talking about would deny employees the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before they vote on unionization by denying employers enough time to make their case,” charged Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“The bottom-line impact of this bureaucratic sop to Big Labor would be very similar to the impact of the mandatory ‘card check’ legislation, or S.560 and H.R.1409, that union lobbyists tried unsuccessfully to ram through the 2009-2010 Congress: more union power over workers and more forced dues in union coffers.

“On November 2, 31 U.S. House and Senate incumbents who had voted for the ‘card check’ scheme lost their re-election bids.

“This is about as clear an electoral repudiation as any bill ever gets.

“Unfortunately, the NLRB is ignoring voters’ unmistakable message and appears determined to foist ‘card check lite’ on American workplaces. Only determined congressional action can stop President Obama’s NLRB bureaucrats.”

Committee President Vows To Back Legislation Thwarting ‘Card Check Lite’

“‘Card check lite’ means more monopolistic unionism, and that in turn means fewer jobs and less income growth for private-sector workers,” Mr. Mix continued.

Mark Mix: More monopolistic unionism means fewer jobs and less income growth for private-sector workers.

He vowed that the Committee would work closely with Capitol Hill allies to craft legislation blocking implementation of quick-snap elections and any other variety of “card check lite” by the NLRB.

“Enactment of legislation reining in NLRB abuses will be a tall order in 2011, given Big Labor Sen. Harry Reid’s [D-Nev.] continuing control over Congress’s upper chamber and President Obama’s continued veto power,” acknowledged Mr. Mix.

“But it’s a battle Right to Work supporters can’t afford to pass up. Before we can make things better, we have to stop them from getting even worse.”

ACORN Founder Wade Rathke regarding SEIU Lawyer Craig Becker’s appointment to the five-member National Labor Relations Board once wrote:

“Thanks for a solid, President Obama!” And, “Craig Becker will no longer be a secret weapon for workers [read SEIU & AFL-CIO bosses] at the NLRB…” 

Rathke is right, Becker is no secret and, according to Washington Examiner’s Mark Hemingway and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, he appears to be willing to violate ethical restrictions to help his “former employer SEIU.

From Hemingway’s 12/10/2010 story:

National Labor Relations Board member Craig Becker recused himself from a decision earlier this week that advanced organized labor’s top public policy goal, Card Check, but worries continue to grow in at least a dozen other cases before the board in which he participated despite apparent conflicts of interest for the former labor lawyer.

Becker recused himself from the case because he had written a brief supporting labor prior to joining the board.

Card Check is a bullying tool used by unions that … exposes workers to threats and actual physical intimidation by union organizers.

Becker refused to discuss the case with the Examiner or his rationale for recusals, as did a board spokesman.

Since joining the NLRB, the National Right to Work (NRTW) Foundation has filed 13 motions noting Becker’s conflict of interest in cases before the NLRB.Since joining the NLRB, the National Right to Work (NRTW) Foundation has filed 13 motions noting Becker’s conflict of interest in cases before the NLRB.

The cases from which Becker did not recuse himself involve significant issues and his former clients, including a case involving the SEIU, for which he did extensive legal work for in the past.

Becker claimed he would have no conflicts of interest in cases involving local chapters of unions whose national organizations he had represented because the former are “distinct legal entities” from the latter.

In fact, SEIU’s constitution says the national union has “jurisdiction over its affiliated bodies and all Local Unions.”

Becker also appears to be violating the Obama administration ethics pledge he signed in which he promised: “I will not for a period of two years from the date of my appointment participate in any matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.”

Becker also refuses to hold himself to the same level of objectivity required of his fellow NLRB members, according to the foundation.

“[Becker] refuses to adopt the more stringent federal judge standard for recusal used by current NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman in cases concerning affiliates of the Teamster union, her former employer before being installed on the Board by President Bill Clinton,” the foundation said in a filing before the board.

Becker also has a long history of public criticism of NRTW, which often works on cases before the NLRB, further compromising his objectivity.

The NLRB will soon rule on another important case involving Card Check, the Lamons Gasket case, which is confusingly enough, also referred to as “the Dana decision.”

Lamons Gasket could reverse a  2007 NLRB decision also involving the Dana Corp., the AFL-CIO and UAW in which it said employees could invalidate a union that was organized through Card Check by holding a secret ballot election on the matter within 45 days of the new union’s certification.

The Right to Work group also argues that Becker denies having pre-judged attempts to overturn the 2007 Dana decision despite a long career of advocating an extreme version of forced unionism that considers secret ballot elections “profoundly undemocratic” and despite having authored an amicus brief in that case opposing granting employees the opportunity to petition for decertification of unions recognized by card check.

Becker’s brief argued the case “there is no essential difference between Card Check and secret ballots” and called the 2007 decision ‘bad labor-relations policy,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

For more information involving the legal teams invloved in the cases, visit the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation website.

One of the Survey 2010's top target states is Nevada, where Big Labor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (pictured at a union event) is now running neck and neck with pro-Right to Work challenger Sharron Angle. Image Credit: USW-Canada

Survey Results in, Committee Members Put Heat on the Candidates

(Source: October 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

With the results of the National Right to Work Committee’s federal Survey 2010 now in, Committee members from coast to coast keep turning up the heat on U.S. Senate and House candidates to publicly pledge 100% support for the Right to Work.

Committee members and supporters who receive the Newsletter through the U.S. Postal Service can find out whether and how their candidates responded to the Right to Work survey by consulting the Survey 2010 results roster enclosed with this month’s issue.

Pro-Right to Work Americans who have not yet received their Survey 2010 results may obtain a copy by contacting the Committee by e-mail – Members@NRTW.org  — or by dialing 1-800-325-7892.

By calling, writing, and visiting their candidates and urging them to declare themselves in opposition to forced unionism, Committee members are making forced unionism and the Right to Work red-hot issues in state after state this year.

Right to Work Activity Key to Stopping Big Labor

At this writing, just a few weeks remain until Election Day.

And reports from a wide array of pollsters and pundits indicate that the caucus of politicians who support Big Labor’s agenda on forced-unionism issues such as federally-mandated “card checks” will shrink significantly after voters go to the polls.

The Right to Work survey program puts the heat on pro-forced unionism candidates. The candidates then may choose to repudiate their past support for union special interests, or face the potential political consequences. Image Credit: Sean Delonas/City Journal

Consequently, union lobbyists may be hard-pressed in 2011 and 2012 to ram through legislation expanding union bosses’ coercive privileges over independent-minded private-sector employees and small businesses.

However, pro-forced unionism President Barack Obama will retain the power, for at least the next two years, to promote forced unionism by issuing executive orders and by appointing Big Labor shills to powerful federal agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Congress has the constitutional authority to thwart the President from unilaterally giving away the store, but doing so requires a strong commitment to principal on the part of senators and representatives.

Moreover, passage of Big Labor legislative schemes that do not blatantly attack private businesses and employees, including the AFL-CIO-backed Police/Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Bill, is likely to remain a grave threat in the 2011-2012 Congress regardless of the 2010 election results.

“Election results that are merely unfavorable for Barack Obama’s Democratic Party won’t nearly suffice to turn back the tide of forced unionism now that the President has already put Big Labor cheerleaders in charge of key agencies like the NLRB,” observed Committee President Mark Mix.

“And since several key legislative union power grabs such as the Police/Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Bill are backed by a significant number of GOP politicians as well as virtually all Democrat politicians, Right to Work supporters won’t be able to let their guard down on the legislative front, either.

“Whatever happens on November 2, Right to Work activity will remain critical for stopping Big Labor.”

Several Big Labor Senators Face Strong Challenges

This fall, Right to Work supporters hoping to enhance their ability to fight forced unionism over the next couple of years have multiple opportunities in U.S. Senate contests.

Just to start with, five current senators with pro-forced unionism records are, according to the latest polls, either trailing or running neck-and-neck in their re-election campaigns against 100% pro-Right to Work challengers.

Big Labor Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln is in the worst shape of all. Sen. Lincoln, who is seeking a third term, has a long track record of backing union special-interest legislation.

For example, in 2007 she voted to quash a Right to Work filibuster and help Big Labor ram through its notorious “Card-Check” Forced-Unionism Bill. And in the current Congress, she is a cosponsor of the Police/Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Bill.

Realizing too late that her history of subservience to Big Labor could kill her 2010 re-election hopes, Ms. Lincoln has tried to backpedal from her past votes for the “card-check” measure and other employee-coercing, economy-crushing schemes.

But freedom-loving Arkansans apparently aren’t fooled by the senator’s half-hearted gestures. Recent surveys indicate she is running well behind her GOP challenger, staunchly pro-Right to Work Congressman John Boozman.

Two other union-label senators, 2009 appointee Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and three-term incumbent Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), are also trailing their unabashedly pro-Right to Work challengers, Republicans Ken Buck (Colo.) and Ron Johnson (Wisc.), in recent polls, but by relatively small margins.

Yet another two union-boss lackey Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Patty Murray of Washington State, are statistically tied up with the across-the-board Right to Work supporters who are aiming to unseat them, Sharron Angle (R-Nev.) and Dino Rossi (R-Wash.)

Several ‘Open’ Seat Gains Likely or Possible For Right to Work Adherents

The number of Right to Work opportunities is even greater when it comes to “open” seats that have up to now been under union lobbyists’ control.

100% pro-Right to Work candidates are now narrowly leading in contests for “open” Senate seats now held by Big Labor water carriers in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The candidates who are standing up to the union bosses are former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats (Ind.), former Congressman Pat Toomey (Pa.), and John Raese (W.Va.). Their Big Labor-backed Democrat rivals are Reps. Brad Ellsworth (Ind.) and Joe Sestak (Pa.) and Gov. Joe Manchin (W.Va.).

Candidates who are vowing to support the Right to Work on all votes are also leading in races for two “open” seats that have been held by Republicans who only sporadically opposed union power grabs.

In Alaska, union boss-appeasing Republican Lisa Murkowski, a cosponsor of the Police/Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Bill, was defeated in her primary contest this summer by forced-unionism foe Joe Miller.

Mr. Miller now leads both Big Labor favorite Scott McAdams (D) and Ms. Murkowski, who is running a long-shot general election campaign as a write-in candidate.

In Florida, former GOP Sen. Mel Martinez, who resigned last August, was another pro-union monopoly Republican. But the Republican nominee for the “open” seat, Marco Rubio, pledges full support for Right to Work.

Polls show Mr. Rubio leading over union-label “Independent” Gov. Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek. (Mr. Meek is currently a congressman.)

Finally, in one race for an “open” Senate seat now held by an anti-Right to Work Democratic politician, the pro-freedom candidate is currently trailing, but within striking distance.

Delaware GOP nominee Christine O’Donnell, a staunch Right to Work advocate, is fighting to catch up with Big Labor pet Chris Coons (D).

The National Right to Work Committee and its members (now 2.6 million, and growing) are determined to ensure that congressmen and senators who have carried water for Big Labor time and again are held accountable this fall.

Committee Rallies Members To Put Heat on CandidatesThe principal Committee program for holding politicians’ feet to the fire is the federal candidate Survey 2010.

The ongoing Survey 2010 consists of three phases.

In the first phase, candidates received questionnaires asking them how they intended to vote on a number of forced unionism-related issues, including mandatory “card checks,” federalized public-safety union monopoly bargaining, and national Right to Work legislation.

“The Committee’s goal is not just to secure enough support to block enactment of forced-unionism schemes like ‘card check’ legislation, but also to forge pro-Right to Work majorities in the Senate and House,” explained Committee President Mix.

“That’s why the Right to Work survey raises the pressure on candidates to oppose the expansion of Big Labor’s forced-unionism privileges, and also to support rolling those privileges back.”

In the second phase of the Survey 2010, Committee members called and wrote the candidates, asking them to answer their questionnaires 100% in favor of Right to Work.

In the final phase, the Committee, through TV and newspaper ads, e-mails and the postal service, is reporting back to members and friends at the local level on how their candidates responded. That keeps the heat on non-responsive candidates until Election Day to take a clear stand on the Right to Work issue.

“The aim of Big Labor’s billion-dollar, forced dues-funded electioneering program is to divert public attention from the damage that union-label politicians have wrought on America over the past two years and the even more severe damage they will do over the next two years if they can,” said Mr. Mix.

Public Doesn’t Support Compulsory Unionism

“Big Labor has far more money at its disposal than do Right to Work supporters, but the union bosses have one major problem: The general public, and even the workers they claim to represent, don’t support what they are selling,” Mr. Mix continued.

“Poll after poll shows that nearly 80% of Americans agree that no one should be forced to join or pay dues to a union, simply in order to keep his or her job.

“The Committee survey program works simply by ensuring that the Right to Work issue, which already has overwhelming public support, remains in the spotlight throughout the campaign season.

“With members’ generous support, I’m confident that this fall the federal survey will force candidate after candidate either to pledge to stop attacking employees’ Right to Work, or face serious repercussions at the polls.”

Mark Mix: Even the workers Big Labor purports to represent don't support what it's selling.

Michelle Malkin highlights the non-existent ethical standards applied to Obama Big Labor politcal appointees like  SEIU/AFL-CIO lawyer Craig Becker who Obama appointed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

Everything you need to know about President Obama’s fraudulent ethics pledge can be summed up in four words: SEIU lawyer Craig Becker.

It’s no surprise that Becker now refuses to hold himself accountable for the ethics pledge he himself signed in April. As the past two years have taught us, Team Obama’s operational slogan is: Rules are for fools. The contractual ethics commitment states: “I will not for a period of two years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.” Yet, Becker has participated in numerous NLRB cases involving the SEIU and its affiliates — and is parsing the definition of “former employer” by arguing that local SEIU chapters are “separate and distinct legal entities” that don’t fall under the ethics rules.

The National Right to Work Foundation, which has fought both national and local SEIU officials in court on behalf of rank-and-file workers’ rights, eviscerates Becker’s lawyerly blather. SEIU’s own constitution considers local affiliates “constituent subordinate bodies” of the national union, the foundation notes. “Moreover, in 2009 over 85 percent of the SEIU’s receipts came from a per capita tax on the locals’ membership dues and fees. The national union even has the power to assume control over its locals if they do not conform to International policies.”

Despite the White House’s much-heralded policy of binding every executive appointee to strict conflict-of-interest guidelines, a defiant Becker now remains free to rule on cases involving his former Big Labor bosses. And the most ethical administration in U.S. history isn’t doing a thing to stop him.

He favors radical rewriting of union organizing rules and elimination of the secret ballot process by administrative fiat.

In any case, Becker has also acknowledged playing a key role in providing “advice and counsel” to the powerful SEIU affiliate in Illinois “relating to proposed executive orders and proposed legislation giving homecare workers a right to organize and engage in collective bargaining under state law.” [forced individual non-state employees to pay union fes to SEIU] Championed by Big Labor water-carrier and disgraced former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich and current SEIU-endorsed Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, such measures effectively bust into private homes for the Purple Shirts of the SEIU and other union competitors hungry for new dues-paying members.

Now, Becker is in the catbird seat — adjudicating challenges to the power grab rules he helped author.

(full article avaialbe at MichelleMalkin.com)

The National Right to Work Foundation [NRTW] has aggressively pursued recusal motions against Craig Becker, a recess appointment by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker had previously served as associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, an organization which has come under increasing scrutiny in connection to illicit activities by Obama and his supporters.

Becker took an ethics pledge last April, at the time of his recess appointment, in which he swore to abstain for a period of two years from involving himself in any matter before the board in which a client or former employer had been involved. Despite this pledge, the NRWF [NRTW] has identified cases involving SEUI locals and in which Becker participated in the cases. Becker has insisted that local unions are “separate and distinct entities” from the SEIU itself. This contradicts the SEIU Constitution, which presumably Becker would know something about as counsel for that organization, and which describes local affiliates as “constituent subordinate bodies” of the national union.

The NLRB Inspector General, David Berry, sided with the Obama appointee, finding that an SEIU local and the SEIU national union were “separate and distinct.” As shaky as this reasoning may be, a case involving the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center may display ever deeper ethical concerns with Becker participating in NLRB deliberations: The SEIU local at the Pomona medical center wishes to disassociate itself from SEIU. The NLRB has not yet responded to NRWF [NRTW] request for Becker to recuse himself from that case. It notes that his involvement in the Pomona case is even more troubling because Becker personally was involved in SEIU activities to get healthcare workers to join the SEIU.

Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN and was a former SEIU leader, lavished praise on the work that Becker did, stating: “His role was often behind the scenes devising strategy with the organizer and the lawyers, writing briefs for others to file, and putting all the pieces together, but he was the go-to-guy on all of this.” Rathke in further comments made it clear that Becker was much more active than simply a staff attorney representing a client: Becker was actively leading the drive to organize healthcare workers and to organize them as part of the SEIU.

… But it is unlikely that he will or that Attorney General Holder will move to compel Becker to do the right thing. The connect-the-dots unseemliness of Craig Becker on the National Labor Relations Board is too obvious and, sadly, in Washington, all too familiar.

Three of the four current NLRB members who were appointed or reappointed by President Obama are veteran union lawyers. All three are expected to vote in lock-step to expand Big Labor's forced-unionism privileges.

(Source: July 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Since the beginning of 2009, Big Labor has had a cheerleader in the Oval Office. At the same time, ample majorities of both chambers of the U.S. Congress have been willing to vote for virtually any power grab sought by union officials, as long as they could do so without running into intense, across-the-board constituent opposition.

Consequently, top union bosses have expected to see enacted in the current Congress legislation that would help them sharply increase the share of all private-sector workers who are under union monopoly-bargaining control.

Their original vehicle for achieving this objective was S.560/H.R.1409, the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act.”

Sponsored by union-label Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.), S.560/H.R.1409 would grease the skids for Big Labor workplace takeovers in several ways. Most famously, it would effectively end secret-ballot elections in union organizing drives, replacing them with so-called “card checks.”

That means, if S.560/H.R.1409 became law, union organizers would have far more opportunities than they currently do to intimidate individual workers into signing not just themselves, but all of their nonunion fellow employees, over to Big Labor control.

Unfortunately for union bigwigs, the National Right to Work Committee and its allies have mobilized massive public opposition to the measure, greatly lowering its prospects for passage in its current form.

New NLRB Made to Order For Union Hierarchy

In response, for many months now Big Labor lobbyists and union strategists have tried to concoct new, passable legislation that would accomplish the same objective through somewhat different means. But “Plan B” has been slow to emerge.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

And now, the Obama Administration appears to be considering another, quicker and easier way of intensifying workplace elections’ bias in favor union organizers. And this method has the advantage, from Big Labor’s perspective, of not requiring any direct congressional involvement.

The powerful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which regulates the labor-management relations of businesses employing well over 90% of America’s private-sector employees, will soon be manned entirely by bureaucrats appointed or reappointed by pro-forced unionism President Barack Obama.

As this month’s Newsletter goes to press, four of the five NLRB members are already Obama appointees or reappointees. And three of these four are veteran union lawyers.

Wilma Liebman, originally appointed to the Board by union-label President Bill Clinton and elevated to the chairmanship early last year by Mr. Obama, is an ex-lawyer for the notorious Teamster union.

Obama appointee Mark Pearce was, until this year, a career union lawyer in private practice in Buffalo, N.Y.

Craig Becker, who for years served as counsel for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO, has been Mr. Obama’s most controversial appointee yet.

While Mr. Becker, Mr. Pierce, and Ms. Liebman will very likely almost always agree on the main issues in NLRB cases, Mr. Becker differs from the other two in having a long “paper trail” that from the time of his nomination made it plain to see just how radical he is.

Craig Becker: Union Monopoly Should Be Mandated, Even if Most Workers Don’t Want It

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented:

“Over the years, Craig Becker has publicly acknowledged believing that any employee or employer efforts to resist the unionization of a workplace are unacceptable.

“For example, in one ‘labor studies’ journal article, Mr. Becker dismissed the notion that workers should have any say whatsoever, whether as individuals or collectively by secret ballot or ‘card check,’ over whether or not they are unionized.

“Federal policy should not acknowledge employees’ ‘choice to remain unrepresented,’ contended Mr. Becker.

“Their only choice, he explained, should be over which set of union officials get ‘exclusive’ power to negotiate their wages, benefits and work rules.

“Mr. Becker’s publicly aired views are so extreme that even several normally pro-forced unionism senators refused to approve his nomination. For that reason, he has yet to be confirmed. He nevertheless sits on the NLRB today because, on March 27, President Obama bypassed the Senate and ‘recess’ appointed him.

“It’s likely Mr. Becker will take every opportunity to curtail employees’ freedom to oppose unionization of their workplace.

“Ms. Liebman, Mr. Pierce, and he are all expected to vote in lock-step to increase Big Labor’s monopoly-bargaining and forced-dues powers over the individual employee whenever they get the chance.

“And barely more than two months after President Obama did the union bosses’ bidding by personally installing Mr. Becker, the Board signaled how it might bureaucratically proceed to provide Big Labor with tools of intimidation very similar to those the ‘card check’ bill would have furnished.”

On June 9, the NLRB put out a request for information about “electronic voting services for both remote and on-site elections.”

The request has been widely interpreted as a step toward mandating the routine use of remote Internet or telephone balloting in union organizing campaigns.

Remote Voting Facilitates ‘Vote Selling and Coercion’

Under current law, when a unionization election occurs, employees normally cast their votes in private ballot booths, except when circumstances make the use of ballot booths very difficult or impossible.

If the Obama NLRB dispenses with ballot booths, and instead makes it the norm for workers to cast their votes over unionization from, say, their home computers, that will greatly intensify the process’s bias in favor of union organizers.

“Federal labor policy already authorizes professional union organizers to target individual workers by visiting them at their homes, a privilege of which they regularly take advantage,” Mr. Mix pointed out.

“Forcing employees to vote at home would greatly exacerbate the abuses that already occur during such ‘home visits.’ Union organizers would visit workers’ homes to ‘make sure’ they had voted electronically, and even offer to ‘help’ them cast their votes.

“The NLRB request purports to focus solely on ‘secure’ electronic voting from remote locations, but, as Ms. [Wilma] Liebman, Mr. [Mark] Pierce, and Mr. Becker must surely know, that’s a practical impossibility.

“Remote Internet voting, as a report sponsored by the National Science Foundation and published by the Internet Policy Institute concluded a few years ago, ‘can be observed [by outsiders], opening the door to the possibilities of vote selling and coercion.’”

Right to Work Supporters Will Fight Back in Every Possible Way

On June 23, the Committee’s sister organization, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, formally submitted comments to the NLRB urging the agency not to proceed with implementing an abuse-ridden electronic balloting scheme.

Mr. Mix, who heads the Foundation as well as the Committee, acknowledged that Wilma Liebman and her cohorts were unlikely to pay heed, but added that going on the record now would be helpful for a future legal challenge.

“Right to Work supporters will fight back against ‘electronic’ voting, also known as ‘card check light,’ in every possible way,” Mr. Mix vowed.

“If the NLRB goes ahead with its scheme, as now seems all but inevitable, the Right to Work movement will lead legislative as well as legal efforts to thwart it.”

Arlen Specter’s party switch has renewed the debate over the legislative prospects for “card check,” which would effectively eliminate secret ballots in union organizing elections. But Big Labor might not even need card check if Craig Becker has his way.

Mr. Becker is one of two recent National Labor Relations Board appointments by President Obama. The five-member NLRB supervises union elections, investigates labor practices and, most important, issues rulings that interpret the National Labor Relations Act. Mr. Becker, who is currently the associate general counsel at Andy Stern’s Service Employees International Union, is all for giving unions more power over companies in elections. Only he’s not sure he needs to wait for Congress.

Current law on organizing provides advantages and restrictions for both sides. Employers are required to provide union reps with a list of employees and their addresses. Union organizers can visit employees at home, but companies cannot. Organizers can also make promises to employees (such as obtaining raises), which employers cannot. Companies can argue their position at a work site up to 24 hours before an election, but they are barred from coercing employees. Both sides get a seat at the table during NLRB hearings about the scope of an election or complaints about how it was conducted.

Mr. Becker has other ideas. In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, he explained that traditional notions of democracy should not apply in union elections. He wrote that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings about elections, and from challenging election results even amid evidence of union misconduct. He believes elections should be removed from work sites and held on “neutral grounds,” or via mail ballots. Employers should also be barred from “placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots.”

More extraordinary, Mr. Becker advocated a new “body of campaign rules” that would severely limit the ability of employers to argue against unionization. He argued that any meeting a company holds that involves a “captive audience” ought to be grounds for overturning an election. If a company wants to distribute leaflets that oppose the union, for example, Mr. Becker said it must allow union access to its private property to do the same.

Mr. Becker isn’t clear about which of these rules can be implemented by NLRB fiat, and which would require an act of Congress, but his mindset is clear enough. He’s willing to push NLRB discretion as far as possible to tilt today’s labor rules in favor of easier unionization.

Union leaders argue that they need these rule changes because they are at a disadvantage during elections. But a new report from the Bureau of National Affairs shows unions winning 67% of private ballot representation elections conducted by the NLRB in 2008, the highest rate since BNA began analyzing data in 1984. Meanwhile, 95% of all elections are conducted within 56 days of a union petition filing, with a median of 38 days. This suggests that the real union problem is that most workers don’t want a union election in the first place. Employees are well aware of what has happened to the steel, auto and other heavily unionized industries.

Mr. Becker has a confirmation hearing coming up, and Senators should ask him to explain why someone who wants to rig the rules to favor unionization should sit on a panel that is supposed to enforce fairness in union elections.

After handing billion dollar corporations over to union bosses, bailing-out union pension funds, stacking the deck of the National Labor Relations Board, and hundreds of other Obama Administration pro-Big Labor moves, the president proclaims: “I am a pro-union guy.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/04/27/obama_at_iowa_town_hall_im_a_pro-union_guy.html