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...

Seven Employees Force Settlement with Teamster Local Union Brass

Right to Work Attorneys help employees after union officials levy more than $200,000 in confiscatory fines

Chicago, IL (May 29, 2009) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, seven employees who refused to abandon their jobs during a strike forced a settlement with a local union after union officials levied exorbitant and illegal retaliatory fines against them.

The employees, truck drivers for industrial laundry company Lechner and Sons, filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Teamsters Local Union 731, an affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, after Local 731 union officials hit the employees with fines ranging from $13,946 to $40,000 each for not abandoning their jobs during a strike. None of the employees were truly voluntary members of the union during the strike.

In July 2006, Local 731 union bosses ordered the employees to abandon their jobs during a so-called “sympathy strike” involving a different bargaining unit of workers at the plant where the strike occurred. After the strike ended in June 2007, union brass claimed the power to use fines to discipline non-striking employees.

(Continue reading this news release...)

(Click here to see a copy of a Teamsters Local 731 strike fines notice in which Teamster union bosses claimed the power to use $40,000 worth of fines to discipline one of the non-striking employees.)

Last year, Freedom@Work reported on the allegations of corruption against Tyrone Freeman, former boss of the largest Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in California. Freeman spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars of rank-and-file workers' forced union dues on his wife's and mother's companies and on a luxurious fat-cat lifestyle. The Los Angeles Times later reported Freeman's SEIU affiliate "charity" failed to spend a single cent on its charitable mission in two of the four years it has been in existence.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports another SEIU union official corruption scandal, this time executive vice president of the SEIU's Illinois-Indiana health care affiliate and national SEIU union board member Byron Hobbs.

Hobbs is accused of billing the union for $9,000 for personal expenses. The LA Times continues its report by putting the latest scandal in context:

...[former Freeman Chief-of-Staff] Rickman Jackson, was removed as head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local, because he allegedly received improper lease payments for his Bell Gardens house.

Annelle Grajeda, president of both a second L.A. local and the SEIU's state council, has been on leave since August, when the union began investigating whether she had improperly used her influence to keep her ex-boyfriend on the county payroll...

Last month, the union imposed a trusteeship on an Oakland-based local and fired its officers, accusing them of misusing dues money to wage a political battle against SEIU President Andy Stern.

And of course, who can forget that it was a SEIU union boss who was engaged in pay-to-play talks with former [and corrupt] Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich -- to allegedly buy Obama's then-vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Unfortunately, the people most hurt by union boss corruption are the rank-and-file workers, especially in forced unionism states. Right to work laws, allow workers to hold union officials more accountable by exercising because workers can cut off union dues if they don’t like union officials' so-called “representation,” politics, corruption, or fat-cat lifestyles.

Sal Rosselli, a top official in the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) recently resigned an executive committee position with the union to protest power consolidation by the union's chief Andy Stern, according to the Chicago Tribune. As head of a 150,000-member SEIU local in California, Rosselli boasts real sway within SEIU.

Rosselli told the Tribune:

"Over the past two years, a stark difference has evolved between SEIU's projected image and its real world practices," he wrote to Stern. "An overly zealous focus on growth, growth at any cost, apparently has eclipsed SEIU's commitment to its members."

Most representative of this sentiment is the way the SEIU hierarchy has stepped up in-your-face "card check" unionzation drives. The National Right to Work Foundation is helping workers across America fight back.

Ironically, Rosselli's using the same freedom to disassociate himself from the SEIU executive committes that union officials deny workers in the form of a Right to Work law which makes union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary.

What do union bosses do when independent-minded employees refuse to succumb to union organizing pressure?

Well, it turns out Jimmy Hoffa’s solution is to write a letter to the president of the companies he is trying to organize in order to smear those companies.

Teamsters boss Hoffa did just that in writing to CEO Moir Lockhead once FirstGroup employees began showing admirable resistance to the union's thuggish organizing tactics.

Workers at a Hodgkins, Illinois busing facility – owned by the UK-based FirstGroup – are saying “no” to the Teamsters’ unionization hopes, but union bosses don't like hearing "no" from independent-minded employees.

Hoffa's letter underscores the problems with so-called “neutrality agreements,” since FirstGroup entered into such an agreement with the Teamsters union in order to get the union off its back. Neutrality agreements give unions sweeping access to employees’ personal information and ban secret-ballot elections, since the employer agrees to support a union’s attempt to organize its workforce.

Hoffa’s letter shows that anything short of unyielding assistance to lock employees up in forced unionism by employers is unacceptable to union officials.

In a similar Right to Work Foundation-aided case in Batavia, Illinois, another union with a neutrality pledge refused to go away from a FirstGroup facility – just like what is happening here.

If "UNITE-HERE" union officials have their way, employees of Donald Trump's new Windy City hotel may soon be hearing "you're fired" if they refuse to pay union dues. According to Crain's Chicago Business:

The Trump International Hotel & Tower offers both a high-profile target and an opportunity to bring 300 or more employees into the union fold. UNITE HERE wants Trump to approve a so-called neutrality agreement, which would permit organizers to try to persuade workers to sign cards supporting union representation.

So called "neutrality agreements"are anything but- they often require employers to assist union officials in organizing employees. Under such pacts, employers must often grant union organizers sweeping access to employees, hold "captive audience" meetings, and even hand out employees' personal information.

Notice too as you read the article, as is common in many similar situations, that union officials are targeting the hotel's employees rather than vice versa. Makes sense, since without a Right to Work law, union officials can force employees in Illinois to pay dues. Looks like it's all about the forced-dues cash.

A group of Laidlaw bus employees outside the Windy City voted to kick out the unwanted Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1028 this week, with help from the National Right to Work Foundation.

Though the employees had already rid their workplace of the unwanted union earlier in the year, once their employer was bought out by another company, union officials began bargaining over workers' wages and working conditions with no legal authority whatsoever! The Foundation helped Russell Haasch and his coworkers immediately take action at the National Labor Relations Board.

Employees need to be vigilant, particulary when union officials don't take "no" for an answer. However, only a Right to Work law will provide widespread for Prairie State employees. Decertification elections are extraordinarily hard to come by and union lawyers often delay them for years by filing baseless charges.

Late last week, the fight by Treasure Island Foods grocery workers to kick the unwanted UFCW union out of all six Chicago-area stores officially ended in the employees' favor.

In July, Wilmette store manager Dan Schalin told a major Chicago newspaper:

"People felt that the union wasn't looking out for them. They weren't earning our union dues."

However, as explained last week, decertification elections like those won by the employees in Chicago are uphill battles and no substitute for passing a Right to Work law in combatting compulsory unionism abuse.