A new buzz word paid union operatives throw around when they decide to strike against a facility they have absolutely nothing to do with is that they’re simply holding an "informational" picket. As in this instance in Tennessee, union officials hold such pickets for pretty much any reason under the sun, but usually for simply being non-union.

This, no doubt, leaves employees forced to foot the bill for this activity scratching their heads. Why are they forced to pay the salaries of paid union professionals to picket facilities that they don’t even work at?

Here’s some recent "informational picketing" out of Albany, New York:

Further undermining what little credibility it may still have, the American Bar Association held its annual labor law conference and loaded up the agenda with another one-sided panel discussion to attack the concept of employee free choice.

For the 4th year in a row, ABA political hacks have pointedly refused to allow the perspective of employees who may, God forbid, not want a union to dominate their workplace. Once again, a hot topic at the conference was the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s cases defending employees whose rights are abused during card check organizing drives.

And yet again, the ABA meeting planners refused to allow the perspective of workers or their Right to Work attorneys to be heard — instead selecting speakers representing Big Labor and a small faction of squishy, union-boss-friendly management lawyers. (Of course, the views of the speakers were rejected by the NLRB in its recent Dana/Metaldyne ruling, and the views of Foundation attorneys were embraced. Just a technicality, I guess.)

The ABA’s intellectual dishonesty continues to be an embarrassment to America’s legal profession.

The American flag will now fly at election sites where employees vote over whether or not to unionize, according to a recent announcement by the National Labor Relations Board. How ironic, considering that union officials are pressing to eliminate secret ballots over whether to unionize in favor of the coercive "card check" process, where employees are often pressured individually.

Unfortunately, the secret ballot election process is not without fault either. If 1,000 employees vote overall, and 501 vote to unionize, the other 499 must accept unwanted union "representation" over their wages and working conditions, and in 28 states pay dues or be fired. Such tyranny of the majority has no place over such fundamental choices as the Right to Work in a country that prides itself on individual freedom to choose.

And speaking of which, a Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial today highlights the National Right to Work Foundation’s recent work at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme to take up the National Right to Work Foundation’s Locke case on behalf of employees marks the Foundation’s 14th trip to the High Court. Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason summed up the case this way:

“No one should be compelled to pay union dues just to get or keep a job. But where union officials have obtained this special
privilege from the legislature, they still have no legal authority to
make non-union public servants in Maine pay for union activity across America.”

The National Right to Work Foundation’s most recent victory at the High Court came in 2007, under Davenport v. WEA, a crucial defensive victory. In that case, the Court ruled that union officials do not have a "constitutional right" to spend employees’ forced union dues on political causes that they oppose.

Sal Rosselli, a top official in the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) recently resigned an executive committee position with the union to protest power consolidation by the union’s chief Andy Stern, according to the Chicago Tribune. As head of a 150,000-member SEIU local in California, Rosselli boasts real sway within SEIU.

Rosselli told the Tribune:

"Over the past two years, a stark difference has evolved between SEIU’s projected image and its real world practices," he wrote to Stern. "An overly zealous focus on growth, growth at any cost, apparently has eclipsed SEIU’s commitment to its members."

Most representative of this sentiment is the way the SEIU hierarchy has stepped up in-your-face "card check" unionzation drives. The National Right to Work Foundation is helping workers across America fight back.

Ironically, Rosselli’s using the same freedom to disassociate himself from the SEIU executive committes that union officials deny workers in the form of a Right to Work law which makes union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary.

In Washington State, Susan Wiggs, a teacher with a religious objection to paying union dues, fought tooth-and-nail against the Vancouver Education Association (VEA) over her right to divert those dues to charity. VEA union officials refused time and again to accommodate the teacher’s wishes.

Citizenlink.com has the story:

“[Union officials] absolutely don’t want a precedent of religious objectors being able to choose their own charity," Wiggs said.

After the seemingly never-ending battle, a labor board ruled last week in favor of the teacher, but the VEA won’t give up and still refuses to approve Wiggs’ choice.

For more information on your rights as a religious objector, read the Foundation’s pamphlet entitled, “An Employee’s Guide–To Union Dues and Religious Do Nots.” The guide describes how to obtain as accommodation of an employee’s religious beliefs against joining or financially supporting a labor union.

Here’s a new video detailing how the National Right to Work Foundation is helping a group of nurses in Pomona, California, fight back against a hostile union hierarchy:

News of a 170-page federal indictment handed down over the weekend could’ve come straight out of The Sopranos. According to The Jersey Journal:

The business manager of a Jersey City labor local is among
more than 80 people charged by federal and New York
officials this week in a massive sweep they say also netted
key leaders of the Gambino crime family.

The indictment details how the union official helped "Fat Joe" Agate get fraudulent union credentials and access to a union job site. The indictment was part of a mob crackdown that reached as far away as Italy.

What a slap in the face to workers in New Jersey forced to pay union dues that they have to pay the salaries of union officials charged with such crimes.