AFL-CIO Launches Sneak Attack on Nation’s Non-Union Railway and Airline Workers

National Right to Work opposes union officials’ quiet efforts to grease the skids to impose forced unionism at non-union workplaces

Washington, DC (November 3, 2009) – America’s preeminent workers’ rights advocacy organization raised the alarm about an under-the-radar attempt by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and 30 other unions to make a dramatic change to labor regulations, enabling union organizers to corral tens of thousands of non-union railway and airline industry workers into union membership.

Yesterday, the National Mediation Board (NMB), a government agency charged under the Railway Labor Act with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, voted 2-1 to preliminarily support the controversial changes. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation sent a letter objecting to the AFL-CIO union’s proposals and the NMB is requesting comments on the proposed changes. The Foundation will file formal comments in the coming days.

The AFL-CIO union bosses’ proposal urges the NMB to discard its policy of requiring a true majority of all workers within a collective bargaining unit to decide for themselves if they wish to be represented by a union – a 75-year-old precedent – and instead implement new procedures that require only a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to make that decision for the whole group.

(Read the full press release)

The alarming trend of politicians forcing workers into union ranks continues in Illinois as Governor Pat Quinn -- in order to win Big Labor's political support -- is resurrecting the sordid legacy of disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich (and Gray Davis of California) subverting workers' rights to benefit forced dues-hungry union bosses.

Quinn recently signed an executive order arbitrarily reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care providers as state employees -- thereby opening them up to forced unionism under state law.  Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union organizers, armed by the state with the addresses of Illinois's nearly 3,500 in-home health-care providers, are competing to corral home health-care providers into compulsory union membership by going door-to-door to solicit support for their respective unions.

Pam Harris, a mother who stays home to take care of her son with special needs, was visited by two aggressive out-of-state SEIU organizers at her front door.  Understandably, Ms. Harris is worried that the Detroit-style labor relations that destroyed America's auto industry could also destroy her right to care for her son as she wants. (To say nothing of the union dues she will be forced to pay for the "privilege.")

Because she does not live in a state with Right to Work protections, if SEIU union bosses are successful in corralling all home health-care providers into forced dues membership, Ms. Harris will be forced to pay tribute to union bosses just to continue to take care of her own son -- even if she refrains from formal union membership.

However, as many Freedom@Work readers may already be aware, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Just last month, National Right to Work President Mark Mix reiterated in the Wall Street Journal NRTW's previous warnings that union bosses are working to unionize the health-care industry and that under Obamacare, the very thing that is happening in Illinois will happen nationwide:

Following [the Davis/Blagojevich] playbook, pending government-run health care bills create a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation on hundreds of thousands of folks like Ms. Harris to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (CLASS)" reimbursement plan.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy...

Employees File Federal Class Action Suit to Halt Abusive Mandatory Union Dues Scheme

Right to Work Foundation helps employees challenge national union’s illegal “annual objection” policy

Aberdeen, MD (September 21, 2009) – Today, two employees filed a class action federal suit challenging the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union’s nationwide policy requiring employees to object year after year to paying union dues they cannot be lawfully forced to pay.

With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Jacobs Technology Incorporated employees Rick Gorham and Robert Negosta are challenging the IAM union officials’ scheme intended to thwart non-union members’ legal rights to refrain from paying union dues for union electioneering and other non-bargaining activities. Foundation attorneys filed the complaint in Maryland’s U.S. District Court on behalf of the two employees and all of Jacobs Technology’s other similarly-situated employees.

In the Foundation-won Communication Workers of America v. Beck (1988), the U.S. Supreme Court held that union officials can lawfully compel nonmembers to pay union dues as a job condition, but not the part of dues spent for non-bargaining activities like political activism, lobbying, and member-only events. However, these limited rights have been difficult to enforce, as union officials often concoct illegal schemes such as these “annual objection” policies to burden or thwart employees from exercising their rights.

(Continue reading this news release...)

Most Freedom@Work readers are already aware of a growing scandal involving the pro-forced unionism Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in New York, Baltimore, Washington, and now, California. For those who missed it, ACORN representatives were caught on camera giving advice to undercover journalists on how to open an illegal brothel, launder its profits, and commit a host of other illegal activities.

According to The Washington Examiner, teacher union officials have contributed over 1.3 million dollars (in mostly forced union dues) to ACORN since 2005.

We decided to do a little digging into union financial disclosure forms on the Department of Labor's website. After examining union financial records, it turns out that officials of several high-profile unions diverted large sums of mostly forced union dues dollars to the same ACORN offices in Washington and New York that are implicated in the hidden camera scandal. 

In 2008, for example, the AFL-CIO New York City Teacher Union gave a total of $406,730 to an ACORN office in Brooklyn that was later exposed by undercover journalists at Big Government. This contribution was classified under "representational activities," meaning it was funded by teachers forced to pay dues to teacher union bosses. In states without a Right to Work law like New York, employees who don't join unions can still be forced to pay union dues if union bosses acquire monopoly bargaining privileges.

The powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has also made financial contributions to ACORN. In 2008, the SEIU transferred $12,500 to ACORN's Washington, DC office for "consulting fees and expenses." Once again, this was classified under "representational activities." The DC ACORN office is also implicated in the massive hidden camera scandal.

Finally, the NEA union hierarchy made its own significant financial contribution to ACORN in 2008. According to Department of Labor disclosure forms, the NEA bosses transferred $78,000 to ACORN's Brooklyn office.

Because only the 2008 union disclosure forms are easily searchable, these shady transactions may be the tip of the iceberg. But we shouldn't be surprised by the Big Labor-ACORN connection: after all, their organizational approaches and ideology are strikingly similar. In 2008, National Review's Stanley Kurtz described one of ACORN's favored "organizing" tactics:

Perhaps most mischievously, says Stern, Acorn uses banking regulations to pressure financial institutions into massive “donations” that it uses to finance supposedly non-partisan voter turn-out drives.

Anyone familiar with Big Labor's corporate campaigns will immediately recognize this strategy. Like ACORN, Big Labor's operatives frequently threaten non-union companies and workers with harassment, PR broadsides, and union-instigated protests with the goal of forcing them to knuckle under to forced unionism.

These financial connections between Big Labor and ACORN highlight the fundamental injustices of forced unionism. Every day, unwilling workers are forced to pay dues to union bosses or be fired from their jobs while their hard-earned money underwrites corruption and general thuggery.

The Detroit Free Press reports that the Detroit Federation of Teachers union is threatening to have up to 70 teachers fired for not paying forced union dues.  A school district error is mainly responsible for the mix up. 

Yet, because of the clerical error, union official Mark O'Keefe stated that the "fair" thing to do would be to fire the teachers who fail to pay the full union dues.

No, Mark.  The "fair" thing to do is to not require teachers to pay ANY union dues as a condition of teaching Detroit's schoolchildren.

On April 24, the National Right to Work Committee presented Professional Oklahoma Educators (POE) executive director Ginger Tinney with the Carol Applegate Education Award.

Ginger Tinney (center) with National Right to Work Chairman of the Executive Committee Reed Larson and President Mark Mix 

Tinney was a teacher for more than 11 years before taking on her full-time role as executive director of POE. She taught in both regular and special education, at elementary and secondary grade levels, and in urban and rural school districts.

Vice president of National Right to Work Stefan Gleason stated in the POE's news release:

“We have had the pleasure of working with Ginger Tinney over many years, and we’ve always been impressed with her leadership skills, her passion for teacher excellence, and her passion for the principles of freedom and volunteerism that embody the Right to Work cause."

The Carol Applegate Education Award is presented annually by the Committee’s Board of Directors to exceptional educators who take courageous stands against the coercive policies of the National Education Association (NEA) union. The award is named in honor of Carol Applegate, a longtime English teacher who refused to formally join the NEA union and was fired from her job.

A longtime member of Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism (an umbrella organization established by the National Right to Work Foundation), the Professional Oklahoma Educators is a all voluntary professional educators association that serves more than 4,000 teachers, administrators, and support professionals in Oklahoma. The group puts children first and focuses on true professionalism, unlike its militant union counterpart. For more information on the POE, click here.

In Pennsylvania, staff attorneys from the Foundation helped four air traffic controllers reach a settlement with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) union. NATCA union officials were illegally forcing nonmember employees to financially support union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, as well as refusing to provide a legally required independent financial audit of forced-dues union expenditures:

Harrisburg, PA (December 29, 2008) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, four air traffic controllers have forced National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) union officials to halt their illegal forced union dues extraction methods.

The settlement is a result of unfair labor practice charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by Foundation attorneys for the four controllers in September 2008. The unfair labor practice charges challenged the union officials’ confiscatory scheme of forcing nonmember employees to support financially union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, as well as their refusal to provide a legally required independent financial audit of forced-dues union expenditures. The charges also challenged the union hierarchy’s policy that forced nonunion employees to object annually to full, forced-dues paying union membership.

Finalized today, the settlement requires union officials to post public notices informing affected controllers of their right to refrain from formal, full dues-paying membership. The notice also rescinds the union’s onerous annual objection policy – a policy that requires nonunion members annually to inform union officials of their decision not to pay for union activities unrelated to collective bargaining – and commits union officials to providing employees with an audited financial breakdown of all organizational expenditures. The union hierarchy has also agreed to allow nonunion workers to challenge retroactively dues payments unrelated to workplace representation.

Read the rest of the Foundation's press release here.

Two days ago, we posted an entry announcing our offer of free legal aid to Todd Palin if he wishes to stop funding ugly union attacks against his wife. It continues -- the USW's president recently unloaded on Governor Palin and her family at the union's official blog:

At the press conference, Palin trotted him out, stressing his steelworker credentials. Here’s a good union man, she emphasized.

But his United Steelworker card doesn’t include an automatic auxiliary membership for her. Or her running mate at the top of the Republican ticket...

There is a clear disconnect between unions' top bosses and rank-and-file workers. Union chief Leo Gerard -- who, according to his biography, is a Canadian citizen and whose lavish salary is paid with the forced union dues of workers like Todd Palin -- likes to berate people about who they should vote for in American elections.

Todd Palin's unfortunate quandary highlights the injustices of forced unionism. If you are a unionized worker funding political speech you abhor, contact the National Right to Work Foundation or take a close look at the employee rights section of our web site. We provide free legal assistance to workers victimized by compulsory unionism.