Union Bosses Forced to Drop $200,000 Lawsuit against Unemployed Carpenter

Union officials failed to find work for carpenter, then retaliated against him for working to support his family without paying tribute to union bosses

Chicago, IL (December 10, 2010) – Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters (CRCC) union bosses have dropped a lawsuit against an unemployed carpenter for working to provide for himself and his family after union officials had no work for him.

After he lost his full-time job, Richard Crenshaw – who specializes in door carpentry – was hired by a friend who was a contractor. Up until then, Crenshaw was working as a handyman to make ends meet.

A CRCC union official discovered Crenshaw was working at his friend’s jobsite and union officials initiated internal disciplinary proceedings against him. The union hierarchy levied a fine of $201,250 and filed a civil lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

Read the entire release here.

Faced with a looming strike on June 10, 2010, several Minneapolis nurses refused to follow union boss marching orders and instead stayed on the job to care for their patients. Although they resigned their membership before the strike took place, three nurses were threatened with union disciplinary hearings for refusing to walk off the job. With the help of Right to Work attorneys, these nurses have now filed unfair labor practice charges to hold union officials accountable for their heavy-handed intimidation tactics. Here's a video report on the incident from a local Minneapolis station:

For related coverage, check out articles from Minnesota Public Radio and The Minnesota Star-Tribune. You can also read the Foundation's press release on the incident here. 

The Right to Work Foundation has also extended an offer of free legal aid to any nurses facing similar union "disciplinary hearings." Interested parties should use the contact information provided here to determine if they're eligible for assistance. 

UPDATE: On Monday, August 2, Foundation attorneys filed another round of charges against the MNA union on behalf of Susan Clark, a nurse who was never informed of her right to leave the union to avoid participating in the recent Minneapolis hospital strike. A copy of Clark's charges can be found here (.pdf). 

Manny Lopez from the Detroit News comments on the United Autoworker (UAW) union hierarchy's "new" strategy of organizing workers, (i.e. using even more intimidation and harassment to force additional workers into their dues-paying ranks):

Bob King, the new president of the UAW was stumping for democracy yesterday, and you'd think that it would be hard to corrupt such a thing.

But he did. See, democracy to the unions means do it our way, or no way.

King said the UAW will try a new tactic to organize foreign automakers. The membership-declining union is going to draft a set of principles that will bar companies from using derogatory, untruthful or threatening statements to dissuade workers from organizing (as if that was a one-way street).

"Any company that does not agree to the UAW principles is essentially declaring war on freedom of speech and assembly," he said.

Ta-da, the "shame campaign" (my interpretation, not his).

Those that don't sign on will be labeled as being against the First Amendment.

But as Lopez correctly points out, UAW union hypocrites seem the least bit interested in protecting Michigan workers' rights to also not be forced to associate with something they want no part of:

In fact, the UAW's push for freedom could be a good thing if it were universally open to such a thing. How about the UAW abide by its own new interest in openness and allow its members in Michigan and other forced unionism states to also have the freedom to decide whether they want to be in the union?

I'll buy into the UAW's campaign for the First Amendment and the freedom of speech and assembly when it gives its workers in every state that same opportunity.

How about it Mr. King? Let's make Michigan a right-to-work state. Or is the freedom to choose limited to certain circumstances?

And not only would Right to Work protections be great for workers' rights, it would also be good for their wallets.  Now that's a "new" strategy Michigan's families could support.

With the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill looming on the horizon, here's a portent of things to come from the Cal Watchdog blog:

North Bay firefighters launched a boycott of a Napa Valley winery this weekend after its owner criticized their wages and benefits in a letter published in the St. Helena Star. But more than a boycott was launched, as the winery owner has received veiled threats online from some public safety employees, potentially refusing to fight a fire at his home or winery, or save him from choking in a restaurant.

A concerned winery owner has the temerity to point out that public sector union bosses have bankrupted California. In return, he's threatened by union operatives who say they'll refuse to fight a fire at his home or place of business. The union militants' reaction is all the more thuggish in light of the original letter to the editor, which is about as mild as political criticism gets, putting the blame squarely on the politicians:

Napa Valley winery owner Dario Sattui of V. Sattui Winery wrote a letter to the Editor of the St. Helena Star, venting about the benefits and pensions that firefighters receive. In his April 9 letter, Sattui wrote, “I thought I was doing well in the wine business. Had I had any real brains I would have become a firefighter. What a racket they have. While I respect the work they do and the inherent dangers, they are greatly overpaid, work only two days a week (a third of which they sleep) and get to retire at 50 years old at 90 percent of their pay after working 30 years. I don’t blame the firefighters. Good for them for getting as much as they can. The blame goes to the politicians and the government administrators. What do they care? It isn’t their money.”

The skyrocketing costs of public services are an inevitable consequence of public sector unionization, which relentlessly expands government and drives up taxes. Union operatives' threat to ignore a fire at the winery owner's home also highlights the dangers of the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill, which would leave state and local public safety employees at the mercy of Big Labor organizing drives. Once Big Labor bosses are firmly in control of public safety organizations, they'll have no qualms about leveraging their influence over firefighters and police departments to threaten anyone who dares to question their monopoly bargaining powers. 

Last week, AFL-CIO bosses viciously accused the grassroots citizens who are increasingly alarmed about unfolding Big Government power grabs (and who are expressing their legitimate concerns at Congressional town hall meetings on government run health care) of orchestrating "extremist disruptions" in coordination with "a growing number of health care reform opponents, including Republican leaders trying to kill President Obama’s reform initiatives."

AFL-CIO operatives are convinced that these so-called "extremist disruptions" are meant "to kill health care reform, not debate it, not refine it, not find a middle ground, just kill it."

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer and heir apparent to AFL-CIO chieftain John Sweeney, had this to say:

"Mob rule is not a democracy. People have a democratic right to express themselves and our elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents -- not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation and attempt to scare our leaders into inaction."

Such over-the-top hyperbole might be dismissed if it didn't come from someone who makes his living coercing and intimidating. After all, union bosses are the ones known for intimidating and shouting-down people who refuse to toe the union line. When anyone questions Big Labor's government-granted special privileges, union bosses frequently resort to intimidation, harassment, or worse to end the discussion.

And Trumka himself has tacitly endorsed such thuggery. Here's how he responded to reports of UMW union violence against independent-minded workers:

"I'm saying if you strike a match and put your finger in, common sense tells you you're going to burn your finger."

The presumptive AFL-CIO president Trumka isn't the only culprit, of course. When California teachers Judy Liegmann and Jeralee Smith spoke out against forced union dues for politics, union bosses rounded up a mob of union toughs to shout down and intimidate them.  As Ms. Liegmann and Ms. Smith bravely announced their opposition to funding union political activism, union militants chanted "shame on you" while other Big Labor goons booed and hurled insults. This sounds like REAL "extremist disruption" to me. 

Last week, Big Labor's bought-and-paid-for politicians in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate introduced the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill. This Big Labor-endorsed compulsory unionism scheme is intended to give federal government bureaucrats the unprecedented power to impose wages and working conditions, including forced union dues, on employees and employers after workers are herded into union collectives without even a secret ballot election.

Neal Catlett, former union president at a Whirlpool plant in Arkansas, spoke out against Big Labor's card check coercion:

Catlett, now retired from Whirlpool, opposes card check. He told The City Wire that he has seen plenty of “nonsense” among Whirlpool leaders and union leaders to know that anything other than a secret ballot will lead to intimidation, coercion and corruption on all sides.

“I strongly support secret ballots. Period. It doesn’t matter at what level, whether it is voting for a union or the president or your congressman,” Catlett said. “Your ideas should be personal as to if you want a union or don’t want a union.”

Card check is a dangerous encroachment on workers' rights in the workplace and opens up the door for a flood of union intimidation and coercion to force more workers into forced-union-dues-paying ranks. Carlett, discrediting any claim that the legislation protects workers based on his own personal experience as a union president, hit the nail on the head when he stated:

“Doing away with the secret ballot is not good for the unions. It’s not good for any business... Open voting creates an atmosphere of intimidation. It creates an atmosphere where people will use your opinion against you. I’ve seen the threats and I’ve actually seen the physical conflict, if you know what I mean, come from the business side and from the union side,” Catlett said. “I just don’t see how any process that is not private will protect the worker.”

Frankly, we suggest Cartlett hire a bodyguard immediately.  We're not kidding.  Union retribution can be swift and ugly.

That's what one person commented on YouTube about our latest video. Though sad, the sentiment is indicative of the mind set that led to such hostility against the employees in the video that simply exercised their Right to Work.

Unfortunately, history shows that it gets even worse.

View a new video by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation about the often brutal intimidation that employees face for exercising their Right to Work.

Sadly, while these employees suffered greatly, others often face far worse retaliation for refusing to walk off the job during a strike.

Additional photos documenting earlier reported incidents of retaliation against employees of Volvo who kept working during a recent UAW union strike have surfaced.

Here, an employee finally gained the ability to press charges against a union operative for spitting tobacco juice all over her windshield after contacting the National Right to Work Foundation.

And here are just a couple of several hundred nails the very same employee found in her driveway before heading out to work one morning.

These photos, along with the photo of the broken windshield from last week drive home just how important it is to protect these employees' Right to Work.