Bank Employee Wins Settlement After AFSCME Union Bosses Illegally Seized Forced Dues for Politics

Wisconsin needs Right to Work law to protect workers from forced unionism abuses

Milwaukee, WI (May 31, 2011) – A U.S. Bank customer service and support employee reached a settlement with local union officials last week after union officials illegally attempted to force him and his colleagues into full-dues-paying union membership.

Peter Quinones of Milwaukee filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 777 union officials in March with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation.

After AFSCME Local 777 union bosses were granted monopoly bargaining privileges over approximately 300 U.S. Bank employees, Quinones sent a letter to union officials stating that he was exercising his right under National Right to Work Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent in Communication Workers v. Beck to refrain from full-dues-paying union membership.

Read the entire release here.

Worker Asks Federal Appeals Court to Overturn Backroom Deal Between Union and Company Officials

Union organizers obtained workers’ personal information as part of a quid pro quo with the company to force employees under union control

Hollywood, FL (February 3, 2011) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Mardi Gras Gaming employee is taking his case against local union officials and his employer to a federal appeals court.

In 2008, Unite Here Local 355 and Mardi Gras Gaming officials entered into an agreement in which union officials agreed to spend over one hundred thousand dollars in workers’ forced union dues on a gambling ballot initiative and guaranteed not to picket, boycott, or strike against the facility.

In return, Mardi Gras officials promised they would hand over employees’ personal contact information (including home addresses), grant union operatives access to company facilities for the purpose of organizing through a coercive card check campaign, and refrain from requesting a federally-supervised secret ballot election to determine whether employees actually wanted to unionize.

With the help of Foundation attorneys, Mardi Gras Gaming employee Martin Mulhall filed a lawsuit against Unite Here in 2008, arguing that the company’s concessions to the union are of substantial monetary value because the company made the union organizing process easier and less expensive.

Read the entire release here.

Local Union Bosses Face Federal Labor Charge for Illegally Taking Money from Workers’ Paychecks

Union officials’ illegal forced-dues scheme highlights need for Right to Work law

Detroit, MI (October 22, 2010) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Farmington Hills-based nursing home employee has filed a federal unfair labor practice charge against a local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate.

In October 2009, Donna Smith, a Botsford Common Nursing Home custodian, refrained from formal, full-dues-paying union membership from the SEIU Healthcare Michigan union.

Under Foundation-won precedent in the Supreme Court case Communication Workers v. Beck, the Court held that nonmember employees in states without Right to Work protections for its workers may still be forced to pay certain union fees as a condition of employment, but they do have the right to refrain from paying union dues spent for activities like political activism, lobbying, and member-only events.

Despite her being a nonmember, SEIU union officials continued to collect full union dues from Smith’s paycheck for 10 more months. In September 2010, Smith and SEIU union officials reached a settlement in which she received the difference of full union dues and the union fees that she is forced to pay for the union bosses’ so-called “representation.”

Read the entire release here.

Union Watchdog Files Second Disclosure Request to Investigate Obama Labor Department Stonewalling

Media report indicates Department of Labor officials are “in a tizzy and freaking out” over federal lawsuit

Washington, DC (December 2, 2009) – The National Right to Work Foundation has filed new disclosure demands on the heels of its lawsuit to compel the Department of Labor (DOL) to release information related to high-ranking officials’ connections to powerful union lobbying interests.

A media report indicates DOL officials have deliberately ignored disclosure laws, and Right to Work attorneys are seeking internal DOL records backing up the report.

National Right to Work originally lodged a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last April citing concerns about Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who previously held a key leadership position at the Big Labor-front group “American Rights at Work,” and Deborah Greenfield, who was a lawyer for the AFL-CIO involved in a lawsuit challenging DOL union disclosure regulations that she now oversees as an administration appointee.

For the last seven months, the Obama Administration has stonewalled the Foundation’s FOIA request seeking disclosure of the high-ranking DOL officials’ contacts with union operatives. Late last month, Right to Work attorneys filed suit in federal court to force the Obama Administration to fulfill its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act.

Subsequent media coverage has revealed DOL officials apparently decided to ignore the Foundation’s FOIA request, but facing the lawsuit and negative publicity is now reconsidering. Additionally, one media report cited a high-placed source stating that panicked DOL officials “are in a tizzy and freaking out” because of the Foundation’s lawsuit.

(Read the full press release)

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) has just released a report entitled "Tax-Paying Families Are Fleeing Forced-Unionism States" that details how and why families are moving from the 28 states that do not protect employees from forced unionism to the 22 states that do:

The IRS’s Statistical Information Service (SIS)... data for the Tax Filing Year 2008 show that a total of 1.523 million personal income tax filers were residing that year in a Right to Work state after residing somewhere else in the 50 states or the District of Columbia the previous year.  Meanwhile, a total of 1.338 million tax filers were residing in a Right to Work state in 2007, but filed from one of the other 49 states or the District of Columbia in
2008.

That means a net total of 185,000 tax filers moved from a forced-unionism state to a Right to Work state between 2007 and 2008.

The SIS also calculates and makes available to the public the aggregate adjusted gross incomes for migrating households in the year immediately following the move.  Personal income tax filers moving to a Right to Work state between 2007 and 2008 reported a total of $76.432 billion in income in 2008, or roughly $50,190 per filer.  Tax filers moving out of a Right to Work state during the same period reported a total of $61.773 billion in income in 2008, or roughly $46,165 per filer.

Both because of their substantial taxpayer losses due to net domestic out-migration, and because the taxpayers they gained earned significantly less per capita in 2008 than did the taxpayers they lost, forced-dues states lost a total of $14.659 billion in adjusted gross 2008 income in a single year.

The research report also highlights how those workers who flee forced unionism benefit with an adjusted gross income more than $4000 higher than their counterparts who moved from a pro-worker freedom state into a forced unionism state.

Of course, the most important aspect of why workers are fleeing to Right to Work states is because Right to Work laws give workers the needed protections to counter Big Labor's forced dues monopoly in the workplace.  Right to Work laws allow workers to keep their own hard-earned money if they find union dues payment to be objectionable or even just undesirable. Because of that right, Right to Work laws allow independent-minded workers the ability to better hold union bosses accountable for their actions.

To read the full NILRR report, click here.

In an expose published last week in the New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse profiles several UNITE HERE union organizers who claim that union bosses demanded they reveal intimate details of their personal lives -- including whether or not they have even been sexually abused -- and then collected this sensitive information and shared it with other union staff and organizers in a disturbing process known as "pink-sheeting."

The union organizers' accounts of what they claim is a widespread problem within UNITE HERE are simply horrifying and speak for themselves:

“It’s extremely cultlike and extremely manipulative,” said Amelia Frank-Vitale, a Yale graduate and former hotel union organizer who said these practices drove her to see a therapist.

...

“This information is extremely personal,” said Matthew Edwards, an organizer who had disclosed that he was from a broken home and was overweight when young. “It is catalogued and shared throughout the whole organizing department.”

...

“I wanted to change conditions at my workplace,” Maria said. “I was ready to fight for respect for workers. But this entire thing felt like a total lack of respect. I quit the union because I felt this was psychological abuse.”

The full article has many more accounts, and it's a must-read for those concerned with the lack of accountability within the union hierarchy.   The union organizers claim that their supervisors relied on "pink-sheeting" to ensure the organizers remained loyal to the union bosses and never questioned their authority or instructions. However one feels about unions in general, everyone should agree that these tactics are an affront to basic human decency and should have no place in the workplace.

The comments section contains several replies from Times readers claiming to be current or former  union staffers or organizers backing up the veracity of the accounts in the article.  One commenter claims to have heard the real goal of pink-sheeting "is to expunge the staffer of middle-class values."  It's understandable to question the accounts of anonymous commenters, but these current and former organizers deserve to be heard for coming out against these outrageous union boss practices.

Of course, while ignored by the notoriously pro-forced unionism Times, the article raises more fundamental questions, including:

• If this is how union bosses treat organizers, how can union bosses be trusted to "represent" rank-and-file workers who vocalize opposition to unionization?

• And perhaps most timely: With such horrific tactics continuing to come to light, why are so many politicians still intent on handing union bosses even more special privileges?

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?

Late last week, notoriously corrupt Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 1000 brass sent a clear message to those who object and attempt to expose their shady underbellies.  When California state employee and part-time reporter Ken Hamidi, a vocal critic of SEIU boss corruption, arrived at a SEIU Local 1000 meeting as in preparation for a cable access show exposing the local's misconduct, SEIU union thugs assaulted him:

Hamidi says he came to the hall to expose how he says SEIU union leaders are spending tens of thousands of dollars on a political race, he claims, they have no right to do.  After he and a photographer walked in to the meeting, it didn't take long for Hamidi to be right out the door and on his way to the hospital.

After Hamidi entered the meeting, SEIU union bosses ordered union militants to "beat the hell out of him." Three or four union thugs then held Hamidi down and beat him until he was "covered in blood."  SEIU union toughs then reportedly warned Hamidi that if he ever showed up again, they would probably kill him.

Hamidi was treated at the hospital for lacerations to his head and face and the district attorney is investigating the incident.

Sadly, if workers in California were protected by a Right to Work law, this incident may have been adverted.  Right to Work laws promote accountability of union officials to rank and file workers, thereby reducing union boss corruption.  If SEIU Local 1000 officials were obligated to be accountable to their members, it would have been much less likely Mr. Hamidi would have reason to investigate them and their questionable political schemes.

Today, President Barack Obama's nomination of pro-compulsory unionism radical Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is scheduled to be taken up in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

National Right to Work President Mark Mix warns in today's Washington Times of the grave dangers Becker's possible confirmation will pose to workers' rights:

When the union bosses have the NLRB in their fold, workers who try to exercise their legal rights to dismiss unwanted union monopoly bargaining agents - or even to stop their forced dues from being used to elect handpicked Big Labor candidates - are denied even the most basic protections.

That's why, especially considering Mr. Becker's record, it's not a stretch to believe that - should he be confirmed by the U.S. Senate - Mr. Becker wouldn't think twice about rubber-stamping even the most abusive forced unionism schemes cooked up by union militants.

In fact, as a former AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer, Mr. Becker is solely responsible for forcing tens of thousands of workers under union boss control.

In one case, reports from a Los Angeles SEIU local union revealed that almost 63,000 people rejected membership in the union in 2007, but thanks to Mr. Becker, were still forced to pay dues.

And Mr. Becker's own words explain why. He was even so bold as to say unions were "formed to escape the evils of individualism and individual competition ... their actions necessarily involve coercion."

With that kind of anything-goes attitude, it's no surprise Mr. Becker supports "home visits," in which union militants repeatedly harass workers at home until they sign union-authorization cards, and even advocates letting Mr. Obama's handpicked arbiters impose contracts on workers, without even allowing the workers to vote on their own contract.

In fact, Mr. Becker is so extreme he actually believes the only choice workers should have is which union they should be forced to join and pay dues to!

In Mr. Becker's view, if an independent worker refuses to pick, he and the rest of Big Labor's lackeys on the NLRB should be able to choose a union for that worker. This kind of Big Labor kowtowing is not only outrageous, but it's also dangerous.

To read all of Mark Mix's op-ed in the Washington Times click here.

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...