The BNA news service reports that the attorneys general of South Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia are challenging the NLRB’s overreach in its attempt to circumvent state Right To Work laws: 

The attorneys general of nine states April 28 sent a letter to National Labor Relations Board Acting General Counsel Lafe E. Solomon asserting that his approval of an unfair labor practice complaint challenging Boeing Co.’s decision to establish airplane production in South Carolina was an “ill-conceived retaliatory action” that “seeks to destroy our citizens’ right to work” and asking him to withdraw the complaint immediately.

The letter came a week after Solomon announced the issuance of a complaint alleging that Boeing illegally transferred some of the production of its 787 Dreamliner and related supply operations to South Carolina because Washingtonbased employees represented by the International Association of Machinists have in past years engaged in lawful strikes over contract disputes with the company (77 DLR AA-1, 4/21/11).

Time For Politicians in Both Parties to Own Up to Their Mistakes

In late February, many concerned Americans in other states were paying close attention to the fierce, and still unresolved, battle over public-sector union monopoly bargaining in Wisconsin.

Many observing the Madison showdown from their homes inwere undoubtedly amazed by what they saw.

These five states, like roughly a dozen others, have no statutes on the books empowering government union officials to act as state and local public employees’ monopoly-bargaining agents.

When elected officials in such states make a judgment that a reform in public-employee compensation packages and work rules is necessary and can be prudently implemented to give taxpayers a better return on their money, they have the power to proceed.

It is then up to the voting public to judge whether the reform was a good idea or not.

In Wisconsin, however, like in other states which statutorily mandate union monopoly bargaining over public employee pay, benefits, and working conditions, elected officials from the governor on down have far less control over the roughly 50% of public expenditures that go into employee compensation.

In the Badger State, half of state and local government employees are unionized. Elected officials and their appointees cannot make any significant changes in the way these employees are compensated or in how they are instructed to do their jobs without government union bosses’ approval.

Today, millions of Americans whose state and local governments operate free from Big Labor constraints appreciate, after watching the bitter struggle in Wisconsin unfold, better than ever before the importance of keeping union monopolists out of the government workplace.

Only Intense Right to Work Lobbying Blocked Monopoly-Bargaining Bill

What most freedom-loving Virginians, North Carolinians and Texans probably don’t realize is that, just last year, the U.S. Congress came within a hair of taking away their prerogative to decide how their state and local government workplaces are run.

At the outset of the 2009-2010 Congress, the votes were there to pass the so-called “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act” in both the House and the Senate. Furthermore, President Obama was publicly vowing to sign this legislation as soon as it reached his desk.

This measure, more accurately labeled the “Police/Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Bill,” would have foisted Wisconsin-style labor relations on state and local public-safety departments in all 50 states.

When the House first voted on this legislation in 2007, nearly 99% of the Democrats voting sided with Big Labor, and 98 GOP congressmen also voted for it.

Naturally, many Washington insiders considered approval of federally mandated union monopoly bargaining a sure thing after Barack Obama became President.

But an intense, two-year-long lobbying and public mobilization campaign by the National Right to Work Committee kept this power grab from ever reaching Mr. Obama’s desk in 2009 or 2010.

Recent Past Should Not Be Forgotten

Fortunes change swiftly in politics, and today the momentum is on the side of proponents of rolling back compulsory unionism in government, not expanding it. (See, e.g., this month’s Newsletter cover story.)

But in fighting for a brighter future, pro-Right to Work citizens should not forget the recent past.

Politicians in both parties who recently supported federalizing monopolistic government unionism should be held accountable for what they almost succeeded in doing.

As a start, Right to Work members (especially constituents) are urged now to contact the U.S. representatives listed below.

Americans overwhelming choose Right To Work freedom when they are given the choice. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth points out in her Real Clear Politics article, people prefer the choice to job or not a join a union:

The American people have been voting with their feet, the Census Bureau announced on Tuesday, leaving states with heavy union influence and choosing to live in “right to work” states with higher job growth where they cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment.

But the National Labor Relations Board, now dominated by Obama appointees, is deaf to the preferences of voting Americans. It wants to do everything in its administrative power to tilt the playing field towards unionization-even if it means higher unemployment and lost jobs.

As a result of geographic shifts in population uncovered by the 2010 Census, nine congressional seats will move to right-to-work states from forced unionization states. Some winners are Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and South Carolina, while losers include New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and New Jersey. Over the past 25 years job growth in right-to-work states has been over twice as high as in unionized states.

Hot News from Texas:

The Attorney General stands up to protect teachers issuing an opinion stating school districts may not fund political action committees of teacher unions via payroll deductions.

The conclusion that the Legislature did not impliedly grant districts authority to process payroll deductions for contributions to political committees is consistent with the Legislature’s general aversion to the use of public funds for political purposes. See, e.g., TEx. EDUC. CODE ANN. § 11.169 (Vernon Supp. 2009) (“Notwithstanding any other law, the board of trustees of an independent school district may not use state or local funds or other resources of the district to electioneer for or against any candidate, measure, or political party.”); TEx. GOV’T CODE ANN. §556.004(a) (Vernon 2004) (noting that “[a] state agency may not use any money under its control, including appropriated money, to finance or otherwise support the candidacy of a person for an office in the legislative, executive, or judicial branch of state government or of the government of the United States”).

Click here to view entire Attorney General of Texas opinion.

(Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Nationwide unemployment hovers near 10%.  (U.S. DOL reports unemployment rate of 9.9% for April 2010) Across America today, there is widespread hardship resulting from most businesses’ lingering inability to hire more workers profitably even as the country emerges from the 2008-2009 recession.

What is the response of Big Labor politicians in Washington, D.C.? Sadly, they appear determined to make matters worse.

Last month, union-label U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) admitted to the Hill, a D.C. Beltway publication, that she and other members of her chamber’s Democratic majority were working behind the scenes to concoct an “alternative” version of the mislabeled “Employee Free Choice Act” for floor action this year.

In its current form, this legislation (S.560/H.R.1409) is designed to help union bosses sharply increase the share of all private-sector workers who are under union monopoly control by effectively ending secret-ballot elections in union organizing campaigns.

However, 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.

Monopoly Unionism Negatively Correlated With Private-Sector Job Growth

In response, as Ms. McCaskill recently acknowledged, Big Labor politicians and union lobbyists are now concocting new legislation designed to accomplish the same objective through somewhat different means.

“The Committee and its 2.5 million members have led the opposition to S.560/H.R.1409, because this scheme would greatly exacerbate the harm caused by the current forced-unionism provisions in federal labor law,” commented Right to Work Vice President Doug Stafford.

“The ‘Plan B’ forced-unionism expansion legislation now being hammered out by Big Labor Sen. Tom Harkin [D-Iowa] and cohorts like Claire McCaskill would greatly intensify workplace elections’ bias in favor of union organizers. In the end, it could prove even more harmful than ‘Plan A.’

“And experience indicates enactment of either ‘Plan A’ or ‘Plan B’ would drastically reduce employment opportunities in addition to taking away the freedom of now-independent workers.

“For example, as a group, the 10 states with the highest shares of their private-sector employees under union monopoly-bargaining in 2004 suffered a private-sector job decline of 2.5% over the following five years.

“Meanwhile, the 10 states with the lowest private-sector unionization experienced an aggregate private-sector job gain of 1.9%.

“Incredibly, the avowed goal of S.560 lead sponsor Harkin and other Big Labor politicians in Congress is to ‘level the playing field’ by bringing all states down to the level of forced-unionism strongholds like Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey.”

Union Bigwigs Calculate ‘Plan B’ Can Muster Necessary 60 Senate Votes

Mr. Stafford continued: “Rewriting federal labor law to make Texas’s private-sector unionization rate as high as California’s is today would certainly be a radical move.

“But union bigwigs like incoming Service Employees International Union [SEIU] chief Mary Kay Henry believe that, by dropping S.560′s ‘card check’ provision and modifying others, they can muster the 60 votes they need to bring up this power grab for a final Senate roll call.

“If that happens, it will be virtually impossible to stop the bill from being passed and sent to the White House.

“That’s why Right to Work supporters must not let their guard down.

“However, as long as Committee members and supporters keep turning up the heat on Congress with their postcards, phone calls, signed letters and petitions, I’m confident ‘Plan B’ as well as ‘Plan A’ can be defeated.”

Mr. Stafford urged Right to Work members to continue contacting their senators and congressmen through the Congressional Switchboard, 202-224-3121 and 202-225-3121, asking them to oppose S.560/H.R.1409 and all similar legislation on all votes.

(Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has sent out an unmistakable signal that he is dead set on pushing through a bill that would undermine state Right to Work laws and soak state and local taxpayers for billions of dollars in additional goverment costs.

On April 12, Mr. Reid reintroduced as S.3194 the Police/Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Bill, which was already pending in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee as S.1611.

Mr. Reid’s clear purpose in carrying out this tactical maneuver was to make it possible for him to bring up this federal government union power grab for a Senate floor vote at any time, with as little as 48 hours public notice and with no HELP Committee action whatsoever in advance.

Harry Reid and his cohorts cynically mislabel their legislation, also introduced in the U.S. House as H.R.413 by union-label Congressman Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), as the “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act.”

States’ Bitter Experiences Illustrate Dangers of Harry Reid’s Scheme

But that moniker has nothing to do with reality. S.3194/H.R.413 would institute a federal mandate foisting union “exclusive representation” (monopoly bargaining) on state and local police, firefighters, and other public-safety employees nationwide.

Reid-Kildee would force countless policemen, firefighters and EMT’s to accept as their monopoly-bargaining agent a union they never asked for or voted for, and want nothing to do with.

It would also constitute a major step towards Big Labor’s decades-old goal of enacting a federal law that foists union monopoly bargaining on front-line state and local employees of all types across America.

“In recent years, the expansion of public-sector union bosses’ monopoly-bargaining empire has become the top challenge to the prosperity of America’s private sector,” said National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix.

“Consequently, the states in which government union bosses are relatively less powerful are our nation’s growth engine.”

According to labor economists Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson, as of 2004 fewer than one in four public-sector workers were unionized in 16 states. That same year, more than half of public-sector employees were unionized in 15 states.

From 2004 through 2009, the aggregate real personal income for the 16 states where government union bosses wielded the least power grew by 11.0%, an increase nearly two-and-a-half times as great as the total real income growth for the 15 states with the most public-sector monopoly bargaining.

And real income growth for the lowest union-monopoly states was greater by two-thirds than the national average.

Reid-Kildee Would ‘Replicate California’s Disaster Nationally’

Mr. Mix commented:

“This spring, incredibly, the U.S. Congress is poised to pass, and President Barack Obama is vowing to sign, legislation designed to help government union bigwigs seize monopoly-bargaining control over majorities of public employees in all 50 states.

“To get an idea of where Reid-Kildee could take America, you need only look at California, where nearly 60% of public employees are unionized (compared to 41% nationwide) and government union bosses have for years gotten practically everything they wanted.

“Today, Californians fork over a higher share of their incomes in state and local taxes than residents of all but five other states, but still face unfunded public-employee pension liabilities of as much as $500 billion. Meanwhile, overall income growth in the once-Golden State has fallen well below the national average in recent years.

“Does Congress really want to replicate California’s disaster nationally?”

Reid-Kildee would rewrite the public-sector labor laws of the vast majority of the 50 states to make them more pro-forced unionism.

In states that haven’t caved in to Big Labor demands for monopoly bargaining, Reid-Kildee would federally impose it, denying localities the option to refuse to grant a single union the power to speak for all front-line employees, including those who don’t want to join.

And in most states that already authorize public-safety union monopoly bargaining, S.3194/H.R.413 would widen its scope.

Right to Work States Would Likely Lose Key Edge They’ve Had Up to Now

“Employees and businesses in the 22 states with Right to Work laws, which prohibit the firing of employees for refusal to join or pay dues to an unwanted union, would lose a key advantage they’ve had up to now,” noted Mr. Mix.

“As Ohio University’s Richard Vedder, a widely recognized expert in labor economics, pointed out in a recent scholarly article, one important reason Right to Work states typically enjoy superior job and income growth is that a far smaller share of their employees are under union monopoly-bargaining control.

“But Reid-Kildee would facilitate the rapid spread of government union monopoly bargaining in states, overwhelmingly Right to Work states, where it has up to now been rare.

“While this federal scheme does not directly authorize forced dues in states where they are now prohibited, it obviously would reduce the relative attractiveness of the business climates of Right to Work states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas.

“Politicians who claim otherwise are either misinformed, or simply lying.”

“Right to Work supporters face an uphill battle against S.3194/H.R.413,” Mr. Mix acknowledged. “In the Big Labor-dominated House, the most we can do is slow the legislation down to buy time. And President Obama has publicly promised Big Labor he will sign the bill into law if he gets a chance.

“Our only chance of victory is in the Senate. That’s why, right now, Right to Work members and supporters are doing everything they can to mobilize 41 senators to sustain an extended debate and keep S.3194 from coming up for a final vote for as long as necessary.”

(Source: March 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

According to a scientific poll conducted by the respected Research 2000 firm, 81% of Americans who regularly vote in statewide elections believe workers in unionized workplaces who don’t want a union should “have the right to bargain for themselves.”

Unfortunately, for three-quarters of a century, federal labor law has actively promoted what Americans, according to the Research 2000 poll and many others, overwhelmingly oppose.

The 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the 1934 Railway Labor Act (RLA) amendments hand union officials the power to force millions of workers, union members and nonmembers alike, to accept a union as their “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agent in their dealings with their employer.

Attack on Secret Ballot Only One Trick in Union Monopolists’ Playbook

And this year Congress is very likely to bring up for floor votes legislation that would help Big Labor corral millions of additional workers into unions.

Until recently, union strategists’ primary vehicle for expanding private-sector union monopoly bargaining in the current Congress was S.560/H.R.1409, the cynically mislabeled “Employee Free Choice Act.”

This legislation is designed to help union bosses sharply increase the share of all workers who are under union monopoly control by effectively ending secret-ballot elections in union organizing campaigns.

However, the National Right to Work Committee and its allies have mobilized massive public opposition to S.560/H.R.1409, greatly lowering its prospects for passage in its current form.

In response, Big Labor Capitol Hill politicians and union lobbyists are now concocting new legislation designed to accomplish the same objective through somewhat different means.

Monopoly Unionism Negatively Correlated With Private-Sector Growth

“The Committee and its 2.5 million members have led the opposition to S.560/H.R.1409, because this scheme would greatly exacerbate the harm caused by the forced-unionism provisions in the NLRA and RLA,” commented Committee President Mark Mix.

“The ‘Plan B’ forced-unionism expansion legislation now being crafted by Big Labor Sen. Tom Harkin [D-Iowa] and a handful of his cohorts could be even more harmful.

“And experience indicates enactment of either S.560/H.R.1409 or a ‘Plan B’ alternative would drastically reduce employment opportunities in addition to taking away the freedom of now-independent workers.

“For example, as a group, the 10 states that had the highest shares of their private-sector employees under union monopoly bargaining in 2003 experienced barely more than half as much real economic output growth over the next five years as did the 10 states with the lowest private-sector unionization.

“An even more compelling illustration of how Big Labor monopoly snuffs out economic dynamism is the mass movement of young adults out of the states where union bosses wield the most power.”

Mr. Mix noted that U.S. Census Bureau data show that, in states that had private-sector unionization of less than 6.5% in 1998, the total number of 25-34 year olds in 2008 was 12.304 million, an increase of 17.8% over these states’ aggregate population in that age bracket a decade earlier.

Were It Not For ‘Safety-Valve’ States, National Unemployment Would Be Even Worse

Over the same 10-year period, the 25-34 year-old population increased by just 3.7% in states with 1998 private-sector unionization of 6.5% to 11.0%, and decreased by 1.1% in states with 1998 private-sector unionization of more than 11.0%.

By 2008, the 25-34 year-old population of the states where private-sector union bosses wield the least monopoly-bargaining power was higher by 1.28 million than it would have been had it increased at the national average rate over the previous decade.

And other Census data show these states’ outsized growth in their young-adult population was overwhelmingly the result of migration from other states, not higher 1974-1983 birth rates or immigration from abroad.

“Up to now, low-union-density states like Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina have furnished a ‘safety valve’ for Big Labor strongholds like New York, New Jersey, Michigan and California,” commented Mr. Mix.

“Young adults who can’t find decent job opportunities in heavily unionized states simply pick up and leave for states like Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina, where they routinely fare much better.

“As bad as unemployment is today in union-label New York, New Jersey, Michigan and California, it would be far worse were it not for the ‘safety-valve’ states.

“Incredibly, the avowed goal of S.560 lead sponsor Tom Harkin and other Big Labor politicians in Congress is to eliminate these pockets of long-term job growth! Of course, the vast majority of them are Right to Work states.”

Union Bigwigs Calculate ‘Plan B’ Can Muster Necessary 60 Senate Votes

Mr. Mix continued: “Rewriting federal labor to make Texas’s private-sector unionization rate as high as California’s is today would certainly be a radical move.

“But Tom Harkin and union bigwigs like AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka believe that, by dropping the ‘card-check’ provision in S.560 and modifying others, they can muster the 60 votes they need to bring up this power grab for a final Senate roll call so that it can be passed and sent to the White House.

“There are a number of fence-sitting senators like Blanche Lincoln [D-Ark.] and Ben Nelson [D-Neb.] who, even though they voted for ‘card-check’ forced unionism in the past, are having second thoughts on backing S.560 in its current form.

“However, Ms. Lincoln, Mr. Nelson, and several other key senators in both parties have left the door open for supporting ‘Plan B’ when it emerges in its final form and arrives on the Senate floor.

“Even recently elected GOP Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who has commendably expressed his opposition to S.560’s ‘card-check’ provision, has yet to say how he would vote on a modified version of this legislation that promoted union monopoly bargaining by tampering with workplace election rules.”

Right to Work Supporters Must Not Let Their Guard Down

“That’s why I think Right to Work supporters would be wrong to brush off Richard Trumka’s recent prediction that the so-called ‘Employee Free Choice Act’ would pass, in one form or another, before this summer,” Mr. Mix observed.

“However, as long as Right to Work members and supporters keep turning up the heat on Congress with their postcards, phone calls, letters, signed petitions, and personal visits, I’m optimistic Mr. Trumka will be proven wrong.

“Now is no time for Right to Work supporters to let their guard down.”