Federal Labor Board Hits Nurses Union
Hierarchy with Complaint for Keeping Workers in Dark

Warwick, RI (July 8, 2010) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Boston issued a formal complaint indicating that local union officials have kept nurses in the dark about the amount of compulsory union dues.

The NLRB’s regional director investigated unfair labor practices charges filed by a Kent Hospital nurse with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation. The regional director found merit to the charges that United Nurses & Allied Professionals (UNAP) union officials failed to meet federal financial disclosure requirements and will now prosecute the union before an administrative law judge.

In September 2009, Jeanette Geary and other nurses informed UNAP union officials that they were exercising their right to refrain from formal union membership and to the payment of any fees for non-bargaining activities including politics and member-only events.

Read the full release by clicking here.

A recent story in the Providence Journal serves as a stark reminder of union bosses' historical ties to the mafia and the propensity of union militants to mask their corruption and violence under pleasant-sounding goals like social justice.

U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith gave Nicholas Manocchio, a former director of the Laborers' New England Region Organizing Fund, three years' probation for accepting cash, liquor, rental cars and gift certificates from an undercover FBI agent posing as a contractor seeking business in Rhode Island.

Before being sentenced, Manocchio told Smith that he was "ashamed and embarrassed and repentant." He had worked for social justice causes, he said, and had tried to break through the labor movement’s culture of favoritism. "I hope you don’t define me by that single act."

While Manocchio may have committed just a "single act" of corruption, union bosses across the country think they're above the law. This Right to Work video report shows that union violence is all too real, and that often the victims are rank-and-file workers.

Compulsory unionism itself is to blame.  With all the special privileges -- including immunity from federal prosecution for union-related violence -- union bigwigs have garnered through their political power, why wouldn't they think they're above the law?

National Right to Work president Mark Mix recently wrote in the Washington Examiner about the Obama Administration's refusal to attend the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in Providence at the behest of militant union bosses. The message to mayors was clear: Hand over your cities and taxpayers' dollars to the union bosses.

Miami mayor Manny Diaz, outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), has accused the White House of "setting a very dangerous precedent" during the organization's 2009 annual meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. Vice President Joe Biden, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, and Cabinet members Shaun Donavan, Arne Duncan, and Gary Locke had all been slated to attend.

Not one showed up.

Why would Obama and his Cabinet do such a thing to their close political friends? Because International Association of Firefighters (IAFF/AFL-CIO) union President Harold Schaitberger told them to.

As the national recession and exploding government deficits are forcing mayors across the country to make difficult decisions to keep their cities from going bankrupt, Schaitberger is leading a crusade to intimidate local and state elected officials. Specifically, he and his lieutenants are trying to deter local and state politicians from reforming the outrageous public-safety union pension systems that are driving cities like Providence into insolvency. The Obama White House is apparently eager to go along.

Not long before the mayors' meeting, Schaitberger and the bosses of IAFF Local 799 in Providence announced that they would be setting up a picket line outside the conference. The White House then vowed that no one from the Obama administration would defy the union brass by attending. In a June 5 IAFF union press release, Schaitberger was quoted gloating about the Obama administration's "unqualified support" for "organized labor."

Read the rest of the op-ed here.

Click here to watch an urgent video message from Senator Jim DeMint, Steve Forbes, and National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix.