Tom Harkin | The National Right to Work Committee®

Obama NLRB Unveils New ‘Card-Check’ Scheme

On August 4, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Chairman Wilma Liebman and other Big Labor members of President Obama's NLRB have proposed radical new rules for union organizing campaigns that would drastically curtail independent minded employees' ability to resist unionization. Credit: Radaris.com

President’s Handpicked Bureaucrats Ignore 2010 Election Results

(Source: July 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

In the 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 Congresses, Big Labor’s top objective was a rewrite of federal labor law making it even easier for union bosses to seize monopoly-bargaining power over millions of employees in the American private sector.

Union strategists’ legislative vehicle was the cynically mislabeled “Employee Free Choice Act,” introduced by pro-forced unionism Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). After Mr. Kennedy died in 2009, union-label Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin took over as the lead Senate sponsor.

The Miller-Kennedy-Harkin measure was more accurately called the “Card-Check” Forced-Unionism Bill.

Even without a federal card-check mandate, union bosses have long been able to acquire “exclusive” (monopoly) power to negotiate employees’ pay, benefits, and work rules solely through the acquisition of signed “union authorization cards.”

Consequently, individual workers under the peering eyes of union organizers may be intimidated into signing not just themselves, but all of their nonunion fellow employees, over to union-boss control.

However, as stacked as current law is in favor of Big Labor’s monopoly-bargaining power, employers nevertheless retain the right to stand up for their employees against union-boss intimidation tactics.

But Miller-Kennedy-Harkin would have empowered union officials to impose monopoly bargaining through card checks automatically, with no recourse for any pro-Right to Work employee or employer.

This legislation was totally contrary to the policy views of the vast majority of citizens, including union members.

Last November 2, 31 Card-Check Bill Supporters Lost Their Re-Election Bids

“Over the years, polls have shown Americans overwhelmingly oppose union monopoly bargaining, period,” explained National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix. (more…)

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.

Tagged with: 787 Dreamliner • Barack Obama • Boeing • Jim DeMint • Joe Wilson • Lamar Alexander • Michael Luttig • Mike Enzi • National Labor Relations Board • NLRB • Pajamas Media • Richard Blumenthal • Tom Harkin
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

Capitol Hill’s ‘Lame Ducks’ Are Dangerous

On September 16, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

(Source: September 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Since forced-unionism cheerleader Barack Obama became President in January 2009, Big Labor bosses and their yes-men in the U.S. Congress have helped him inflict a lot of damage on employees, businesses, and taxpayers across America.

To take just the latest example, last month union puppet politicians in the Senate and House rubber-stamped a special-interest measure (H.R.1586) that will ultimately extract an additional $10 billion from beleaguered private-sector employees and businesses to maintain and expand wasteful unionized government payrolls.

From 1998 to 2007, the number of instructional employees at K-12 public schools nationwide soared by 15.9% — an increase 3.5 times greater than the 4.5% growth in school enrollment over the same period.

The rapid-fire expansion of school payrolls, roughly 70% of which are unionized, produced no measurable improvement in educational outcomes, but cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

And the terms on which H.R.1586 piles on another $10 billion are expressly designed to ensure that currently strapped states do not pare back the past decade of teacher union boss-driven growth in K-12 payrolls in order to avoid increasing the burden on taxpaying individuals and businesses.

On August 11, just one day after the House had okayed H.R.1586, President Obama signed it into law.

Big Labor Bosses Still Far From Satisfied (more…)

Tagged with: Barack Obama • Bob Casey • Employee Free Choice Act • George Miller • H.R. 413 • H.R.1409 • H.R.1586 • lame duck • Mark Mix • Nancy Pelosi • Richard Trumka • S.3194 • S.560 • Tom Harkin
Posted in: Card Check, Card Check, Elections, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, NRTWC Newsletter, Police Fire Monopoly Bargaining, Police Firefighters EMTs, Public Employee Monopoly Bargaining, Public Employees

Obama Labor Bureaucrats to Bypass Congress?

On July 16, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

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

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 (more…)

Tagged with: Card Check • Craig Becker • George Miller • H.R.1409 • NLRB • S.560 • SEIU • Tom Harkin
Posted in: Card Check, Card Check, Economics, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, Monopoly Bargaining, NLRB, NRTWC Newsletter

Forced-Unionism Expansion, by Hook or Crook

On May 24, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

Big Labor ‘Organizing’ Strategy Reliant on Washington, D.C.

(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. (more…)

Tagged with: Claire McCaskill • Doug Stafford • EFCA • H.R.1409 • Illinois • Mary Kay Henry • Michigan • New Jersey • S.560 • SEIU • Texas • Tom Harkin
Posted in: Card Check, Card Check, Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Monopoly Bargaining, NRTWC Newsletter

Bailout!

On May 20, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the author if the infamous Card Check Forced Unionism bill, is at it again. Harkin has just authored Senate Bill 3206 — a massive $23 billion bailout for the teacher’s union. The NEA has made the bill a top priority. Kyle Olson does the math:

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, and its counterpart, the American Federation of Teachers, are ramping up attention on Senate Bill 3206, introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), which would create a $23 billion “education jobs fund” to hire or retain “150,000 or more” school employees for the next school year. The NEA is engaged in a “massive, 24/7 lobbying campaign” to pass Harkin’s bill, according to its president Dennis Van Roekel.

That’s $153,333 spent per job just to “retain” them. The most recent data from the American Federation of Teachers concluded the average teacher salary is $51,009. Where is the other $100,000 per job going?

Nevertheless, in a recent Senate committee hearing, Harkin cited the “emergency” for creating the fund. Note he didn’t say teachers, he said “education jobs.” That’s because in many states, like Michigan, teachers unions are losing members that are custodians or food service workers.

Just for the record, billions of dollars have already been spent on “retaining” school jobs. The NEA claims 325,000 public school jobs were “saved” under the stimulus bill.

Tagged with: Kyle Olson • NEA • Tom Harkin
Posted in: Economics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation

School Union Bailout

On May 17, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-AFL-CIO) is proposing a $23 billion bailout to ensure full employment for the teacher union members.

Tagged with: AFT • NEA • Public Employees • Tom Harkin
Posted in: Economics, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Public Employee Monopoly Bargaining

IOU’s Called In — Payback Appointment

On March 26, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

The Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal discuss the possibility of a recess appointment of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. A recess appointment would bypass the will of the Senate and install a self-proclaimed forced unionism radical to the Board. The Washington Times correctly opines:

Mark Mix of the National Right to Work organization reports that in 2007 alone, Mr. Becker’s lawyering forced 63,000 California workers to pay union dues even after rejecting union membership. He allowed repeated “home visits” for union backers, designed to pressure workers to sign public union-organizing petitions. Unions were “formed to escape the evils of individualism and individual competition. … Their actions necessarily involve coercion,” Mr. Becker once explained.

This gets to the heart of the fears about this nomination. The administration so far has been unable to push through Congress the radical plan to force union organizing through “card check” mechanisms in which workers would be denied a secret ballot when voting on whether to unionize. The purpose, clearly, is to invite coercion and intimidation to increase the ranks of dues-paying members. Mr. Becker let slip his suggested solution to the congressional difficulty back in 1993, when he said the NLRB could impose card check, or something close to it, with “no alteration of the statutory framework.” Indeed, he openly called for “abandoning the union election.” (more…)

Tagged with: Craig Becker • executive order • Hilda Solis • Mark Mix • recess appointment • Tom Harkin • Wall Street Journal • Washington Times
Posted in: Card Check, Card Check, Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Legislation, Obama Administration, Personnel Alert, Police Fire Monopoly Bargaining, Public Employees, Union boss power

Turning the Tables on Tom Harkin

Bailout!

School Union Bailout

IOU’s Called In — Payback Appointment

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