The Wall Street Journal has a good editorial up on the incoming Secretary of Labor’s skewed enforcement priorities. Key quote (emphasis mine):

From day one of the Obama era, union leaders (sic) want the lights dimmed on how they spend their mandatory member dues. The AFL-CIO’s representative on the Obama transition team for Labor is Deborah Greenfield, and we’re told her first inspection stop was the Office of Labor-Management Standards, or OLMS, which monitors union compliance with federal law.

Ms. Greenfield declined to comment, citing Obama transition rules, but her mission is clear enough. The AFL-CIO’s formal "recommendations" to the Obama team call for the realignment of "the allocation of budgetary resources" from OLMS to other Labor agencies. The Secretary should "temporarily stay all financial reporting regulations that have not gone into effect," and "revise or rescind the onerous and unreasonable new requirements," such as the LM-2 and T-1 reporting forms. The explicit goal is to "restore the Department of Labor to its mission and role of advocating for, protecting and advancing the interests of workers." In other words, while transparency is fine for business, unions are demanding a pass for themselves.

Thank goodness we’ll finally get some budget cuts at DOL! After all, union corruption is such a "minor" problem…

The Foundation’s latest Right to Work video report features two outstanding and principled nurses from Houston, Texas. When California Nurses Association union bosses and the Tenet Medical Corporation cut a backroom deal to unionize several Houston-area health care facilities, they set up sham election procedures and imposed a gag rule to block any discussion by nurses of the downsides of unionization. Several nurses turned to the National Right to Work Foundation for help:

The Foundation’s previous coverage of the case is available here and here.

As Freedom @ Work readers are aware, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union wants its very own federal bailout. On Friday, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger, expressing frustration that his union doesn’t own everybody in Congress, indirectly blamed the mess in Detroit on the fact that the National Right to Work Foundation fights for voluntary unionism while protecting its donors’ from being harassed by union goons.

But rather than worrying about the Foundation’s funding sources and demanding the American taxpayers to bail out his pension scheme, perhaps Gettelfinger should examine his union’s financial mismanagement. The DC Examiner has more:

What do UAW executives and workers do to relax? They play golf at the union’s highly touted championship caliber Black Lake Golf Club, designed by Rees Jones. The UAW golf club is in secluded Onaway, MI, as part of the union’s Walter and Mary Reuther Family Education Center. Also part of Black Lake are a learning center, a practice facility with practice bunkers, chipping and putting greens, and a small, nine-hole par-three Little Course.

Golf Digest named Black Lake as one of top “upscale public courses.” And Michigan Golf described the course as a “classic” that includes “wide, well-groomed fairways [that] provide ample room for big hitters.” But some big hitters get special privileges at Black Lake. Tee times can be reserved up to two weeks in advance by UAW execs, compared to only three days for non-UAW duffers. Cost to play Black Lake is $95 per round.

Remember all the much-deserved bad press Detroit’s high-paid Big Three executives received last month when they flew in their corporate jets to beg Washington for a tax-paid bailout? Has anybody in Congress or the media bothered to ask UAW head Ron Gettelfinger about his union’s assets and perks like Black Lake Golf Club?

Michelle Malkin points out that the UAW union’s golf course and education center have managed to lose $23 million over the last five years, even though both are supposedly run as for-profit businesses, according to an independent audit.

Today, President-elect Barack Obama named his pick for Labor Secretary, California Congresswoman Hilda Solis. Unsurprisingly, union bosses are rallying behind the pick.

Solis is a prominent supporter of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (a.k.a. the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill), which would replace the secret ballot with intimidating "card check" campaigns in which union goons repeatedly harass workers at work and at home to sign union authorization cards. Once the union collects a simple majority of these public "votes," every worker in the bargaining unit loses the right to negotiate directly with the employer.

But in January 2007, Solis joined other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to protest the lack of a secret ballot in the election for CHC officials. The San Diego Union-Tribune has a good summary of their complaint (emphasis added):

On Wednesday, Sanchez did not elaborate on the claim of election rules violation. However, in a letter to Baca earlier this month, she, her sister, Solis and Velazquez contended the vote did not follow procedure because secret ballot votes were not taken.

The letter requested a new vote, by secret ballot.

“While this request is not likely to change the results, and while it may seem like a mere formality, it is important that the integrity of the CHC be unquestioned and above reproach,” it said.

There you have it — incoming Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is on the record favoring the secret ballot as "unquestioned and above reproach." But only when it protects her from intimidation.

For more on the selection of union-label Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, click here to read the statement issued by National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation!

Year round we distribute and give away hundreds of books so that employees know their legal rights, and so that Americans understand why the fight for employee free choice is so vital. But with the holiday season upon us, a reminder about the FREE books you can receive from the National Right to Work Foundation seems in order.

If you act now, you can order two free books Stranglehold – How union bosses have hijacked our government by Reed Larson and Union Dues and Religious Do Nots by Foundation attorney Bruce N. Cameron, and they should arrive in time for Christmas.

In Stranglehold, Reed Larson reveals the astonishing story of how organized labor has acquired incredible, hidden power over local, state, and national government in America.

Union Dues and Religious Do Nots is a guide for employees who find their forced full-dues-paying union membership in conflict with their sincere religious beliefs and want to explore ways to save their conscience.

Order these books today – they would make the ultimate stocking stuffer for the Right to Work supporter in your family!

A Fox affiliate in Chicago investigated Blagojevich’s corrupt relationship with the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU). We’ve got the video, which includes a clip from Foundation VP Stefan Gleason:

For more on Blagojevich’s connection to the SEIU, be sure to check out the Foundation’s latest podcast.

In August, we told you about allegations of corruption against Tyrone Freeman, then head the largest Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in California. Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times published new allegations against Freeman and his union.

In 2004, Freeman’s local launched what they called a "charity" to develop affordable housing for its members. The charity’s board is mostly comprised of union officials, and the charity shares office space with the union.

The problem? In at least two years of operation, the "charity" failed to spend a single cent on its charitable mission.

The charity, launched by a scandal-ridden Los Angeles chapter of the Service Employees International Union, had total expenses of about $165,000 for 2005 and 2006, and all of the money went to consulting fees, insurance costs and other overhead, according to its Internal Revenue Service filings.

Charity watchdogs say that nonprofits should never have zero program expenses in two successive years and that well-performing charities direct at least 70% of their annual spending to their charitable purpose.

"Of the 5,000-plus charities we’ve looked at, I don’t think we’ve ever seen one that didn’t spend anything on its charitable programs," said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of Charity Navigator, an online rating service.

Running a union-affiliated charity that doesn’t actually do any charity — sounds a bit like the kind of job Rob Blagojevich was asking the SEIU to set up for him.

Last week, the Detroit Free Press reported that a jury has found that a UAW local must pay a Chrysler worker $300,000 for not being protected by union officials from sexual harassment at the workplace.

Chrysler employee Mee Sanders was harassed by Richard Lott, a union steward, when he "requested sexual favors in exchange for influencing her job placement." A distraught Sanders requested help from union brass on numerous occasions. However, the union officials were uninterested in helping her and "in one case, an official urged her to do what Lott wanted." The union hierarchy’s outright negligence and greenlighting of such behavior resulted in a hostile work environment for Sanders.

During the trial, adding insult to injury, the union’s lawyer told Sanders at the end of cross examination that she will be laid off as part of Chrysler’s downsizing [induced by forced unionism induced financial problems], stating "By the way, you know you’re not going to make the cut, and you’re going to lose your job."

Unfortunately, serious workplace abuses like this will continue as long as union officials can use their compulsory unionism special privileges to shield themselves from accountability to the employees whose interests they supposedly represent.

Ronald Trowbridge has an excellent op-ed in Saturday’s Houston Chronicle about the corrosive effects on forced unionism in the workplace.

Some years ago, I crossed a faculty picket line at a large university — the only faculty member out of several hundred professors to cross. Every fiber in my body opposed the strike, and I was pathologically unable to not cross. The nightmare that followed was the most stressful experience in my life, save for the cancer and death of my wife.

What happened?

As for my professorial friends, Frank screamed to me down the pathway filled with students, "You a******!" Walter said he was going to take a picture of my crossing the line and show it to people, hoping that I would get hurt.

Donald said to me in the crowded faculty lunchroom, "There’s Trowbridge. No, he’s not a scab; he’s an oozing, running sore." Laughter erupted. Sheila called me a "scab," with a scowling, mean face. She really meant it.

Jay, my telephone mate and one I had taken in as a guest at my summer cottage, was so red-faced with anger at me that he yelled, "That’s it, Trowbridge, I am never again going to answer your telephone!"

All this over an illegal strike. But for forced unionism proponents, what’s legal, or just, or fair is irrelevant. It’s all about some mindless, don’t-question-your-peers sense of "solidarity."

And as Trowbridge warns, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (a.k.a. the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill) will further increase workplace hostility by pitting union partisans against their co-workers by eliminating the protection of the secret ballot and incentivizing intimidation against workers by union goons.