Springfield, VA (September 2, 2016) – Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation and the National Right to Work Committee, issued the following statement on the occasion of Labor Day 2016:

“This Labor Day, many Americans will enjoy a well-deserved three day weekend. After the festivities, vacations, and beach trips have ended, however, we should take a step back to examine the injustice of forced unionism that millions of American workers face every day.

“While workplace freedom has made great strides in the past year, including passage of the 26th Right to Work law in West Virginia, millions of American employees remain forced to hand over a portion of their paycheck to union officials. They pay this tribute not because they freely choose to associate with a union, but because government has granted union officials the power to order a worker fired solely for refusing to pay fees.

“With the election season swinging into high gear, the fight for freedom in the workplace faces many challenges. In this election cycle, unions are projected to spend nearly two billion dollars in campaign contributions, lobbying, and other political activities. The vast majority of this money will go to support the chosen candidates of the union elite no matter whom the rank and file member supports.

“Even though polls show union members, like all Americans, strongly support the Right to Work principle that union membership and dues payment should be strictly voluntary, Big Labor is spending millions of dollars collected from rank-and-file employees to undermine Right to Work. In addition to working to elect officials who would expand union boss forced dues powers, union officials are also bankrolling a ballot initiative in South Dakota to repeal that state’s Right to Work law which was adopted over 60 years ago.

“Meanwhile, in the courts, millions of workers’ rights are at stake as Big Labor lawyers have launched a nationwide series of lawsuits claiming that union officials have a Constitutional ‘right’ to force workers to pay them dues. While this radical argument should be laughed out of court, union officials clearly hope that activist judges will ignore longstanding law and legal precedent in order to expand union power. Attorneys for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have already stepped in to respond to this new threat and defend Right to Work laws in Idaho, West Virginia and Wisconsin from this coordinated legal attack.

“This Labor Day, as we celebrate hard-working Americans from all walks of life, the National Right to Work community is proud to be working towards the goal of ending forced unionism in America once and for all and restoring the freedoms of the American worker.”

Mix’s statement can be watched here, and the audio can be downloaded here. Mix and other Right to Work experts are also available for comment on a variety of labor-related issues.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.