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 Friday afternoon, as the Senate prepared to pass the massive, pork-filled “stimulus” bill, President Barack Obama quietly arranged to virtually ensure that every construction project funded by the federal government will result in more forced union dues revenue for Big Labor.

The new executive order signed by Obama on Friday encourages government bureaucrats to adopt discriminatory, union-only project labor agreements for any “large-scale construction project” – defined as any project costing over $25 million – and thus discriminate against the 92.5 percent of private sector workers who have chosen for a wide variety of reasons not to join a union.

With the “stimulus” bill approaching one trillion dollars including many such projects, Big Labor stands to rake in literally hundreds of millions of dollars in new forced-dues revenue seized straight out of workers’ paychecks, whether they support the union or not. (Meanwhile, other "stimulus" funds will go to groups with strong ties to organized labor.)

President Obama’s new executive order comes a week after he issued two other executive orders giving the Secretary of Labor unchecked, unprecedented authority to blacklist non-union employees wanting to work on federal contracts.

Taken together, the new executive orders indicate President Obama is quite eager to repay the union bosses for spending well over one billion dollars (in mostly forced union dues) to elect Obama and other pro-forced unionism candidates.

Moreover, Big Labor’s high command is likely to funnel that money right back into its political machine in expectation of even more forced unionism power grabs – including efforts toward the ultimate goal of eliminating all 22 state Right to Work laws by federal fiat.

On Friday, Freedom@Work scooped the national media in breaking the full story about President Obama's executive order giveaway to Big Labor. For those of you who missed it, Obama handed the Department of Labor the new power to blacklist nonunion companies targeted by union operatives.

Under the new rules, any unfair labor practice charge leveled against a contractor -- perhaps during a union organizing drive -- could be used to bar the contractor from competing for taxpayer-funded federal work. Hilda Solis, Obama's pro-forced unionism pick for Secretary of Labor, is sure to use this requirement to pressure companies into handing their employees over to forced unionism

Taken alone, this blacklist rule is outrageous, but the outrage is compounded by the fact that Obama and his pro-forced unionism allies in Congress are on the verge of passing a massive, pork-filled "stimulus" bill. The 900 billion dollar package promises a dramatic, across-the-board increase in federal outlays, and thanks to President Obama's generosity, Big Labor is perfectly positioned to leverage those funds to tap into more sources of forced union dues from the 92 percent of American workers who have not chosen to unionize.

Now that union operatives at DOL have the power to blacklist a company from federal contracting simply by lodging a few spurious (even unadjudicated) charges, it's pretty clear union bosses are in for a massive payday when the "stimulus" bill passes.