Right to Work President Mark Mix discusses Big Labor hand-outs embedded in pending health care legislation:

President Barack Obama's efforts to transition the Department of Labor into a giant, taxpayer-funded extension of Big Labor's organizing and political fund-raising machine just hit another milestone. President Barack Obama's January 30, 2009 executive order, aimed to help union bosses seize more forced dues revenue to fund Big Labor’s political agenda, was just printed in the Federal Register -- making it official. 

In a nutshell, the EO tears down posted notices to employees of federal contractors which explain they can actually refrain from paying forced union dues spent for union electioneering and the like.

Obama's directive intends to ensure millions of workers do not learn of their rights and revokes former-President Bush's February 2001 executive order which required federal contractors to post notices in the workplace simply informing employees of their right to refrain from formal, full-dues-paying union membership and pay only the documented cost of collective bargaining.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys won these rights in their precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court victory in Communication Workers v. Beck (1988).  

Regular Freedom@Work readers may remember Obama's edict was one of the first in a long line of political paybacks to Big Labor for their use of over a billion forced-dues dollars in 2008 to elected him and his pro-compulsory unionism allies in Congress.  View some other Obama paybacks to Big Labor, including his picks on who controls the Department of Labor and the NLRB, rolling back union disclosure guidelines and reducing union boss accountability, and using taxpayer dollars to fund their forced dues operations and bail out union boss pension funds.

Last August, a health care protester was assaulted by union thugs for daring to voice his opinions at a political rally. Now Kenneth Gladney is stepping forward with his own account of what happened:

 

He [the union protester] shouted at me, “What kind of nigger are you?!” Then, he grabbed my board, so I quickly grabbed it back, then the man punched me in the face and charged at me . I put my hands up to block the second blow from the large man, when two other people from that group grabbed me and threw me to the ground and started punching and kicking me. I was kicked in the head and in the back, legs and buttocks. Then a white woman ran up to me while I was on the ground and began kicking me in my head as well.

Big Labor activism is frequently characterized by outbreaks of physical violence. Richard Trumka, the newly-installed head of the AFL-CIO who has condoned bloody violence, has made a career out of bullying and aggressive tactics. The powerful Service Employees International Union is also no stranger to physical coercion.

But why are union operatives so eager to stifle dissent over health care reform? Simple: they know that a massive expansion of Big Labor special privileges is at stake. A few weeks ago, Foundation President Mark Mix took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal to explain why union bosses are so invested in the health care debate. 

Right to Work President Mark Mix appeared on Fox Business yesterday to explain Big Labor's supposed opposition to the Baucus health care plan. The reality is union bosses are quietly licking their chops, because every pending proposal would hand them billions of taxpayer dollars and grease the skids for the forced unionization of the health care field: