Ah, the Maine State Employees Association. When they’re not extorting workers’ dues to pay for union activism and legal schemes, MSEA bosses are evidently fond of harassing UPS truck drivers:

Timothy Belcher, the leader [sic] of the state’s workers’ union, has requested that a jury hear allegations that he illegally blocked a UPS driver from continuing his rounds earlier this summer.

Belcher’s attorney, Leonard Sharon, said this week that a trial date has not yet been set in Sagadahoc County Superior Court.

Belcher, 53, the executive director of the Maine State Employee Association, a labor union representing more than 15,000 public and private sector workers throughout Maine, was issued a summons charging him with criminal restraint on June 25 after allegedly standing in front of the UPS drivers’ truck to prevent it from leaving the driveway to Belcher’s Bowdoinham home.

Criminal restraint is a Class D misdemeanor that carries a maximum potential penalty of a year in jail and a fine, Sharon said.

The MSEA, of course, is one of the parties in the upcoming Foundation Supreme Court case Locke v. Karass. Foundation attorneys seek a court ruling that would put greater teeth into protections for nonunion workers laboring under forced union dues.

Here’s how the responding officer described Mr. Belcher’s decision-making faculties after the hapless UPS driver called the police:

"He just seemed to be irrational at the time and wasn’t making good decisions," [Officer] Rogers said.

Now ask yourself: would you trust Mr. Belcher to manage your hard-earned money? Why should Maine State employees be forced to hand over their hard-earned money to Belcher?

With just the click of your mouse and a few key strokes, National Right to Work Foundation supporters can help the Foundation achieve its mission of providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses.

Right to Work supporters generously make tax-deductible contributions to the Foundation each year, and there are many more ways of giving. (After all, unlike the union bosses, we don’t, can’t, and wouldn’t dare force anyone to support us, but depend on the voluntary contributions of our generous supporters.)

Now with GoodSearch.com, you can supplement your support for the Foundation’s strategic legal program while you search online.

GoodSearch is a search engine powered by Yahoo. But unlike other search engines, GoodSearch contributes a portion of advertising revenue for each search to a charity of your choice. Make GoodSearch your default browser today, and make sure to select the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation as your designated charity. It’s easy, and since you are online anyway, just searching the Internet can help the Foundation defend the rights of victims of forced unionism.

You can even add a toolbar to your Internet browser to make things even easier.

It gets better. GoodSearch has also launched GoodShop.com, which is partnered with over 500 of the most popular online retailers such as Amazon.com, iTunes, and 1-800-flowers. The next time you’re planning on doing some online shopping, go to GoodShop.com, make sure the Foundation is the designated charity, and find the online store of your choice. Up to 30% of your purchase may go to supporting the cause of employee freedom. Using this service doesn’t cost you any extra — you pay the same prices you would if you went straight to the site.

It’s easy. It’s free to use. And you get to help vindicate employees’ rights doing two things you’re doing online anyway — searching and shopping.

We appreciate your continued support.

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected the appeal filed by union lawyers in Pichler v. UNITE (read the opinion here), which should result in union liability to pay a multi-million dollar damage award to employees.

The facts of the case are simple: UNITE operatives launched an organizing campaign against the Cintas Corporation, among others. As part of the campaign, UNITE operatives surveiled employee parking lots and recorded license plate numbers of parked cars (as well as cars entering and leaving). "Information brokers" then searched Department of Motor Vehicle records to obtain names and addresses corresponding to the cars.

Union organizers went to employees’ homes to pressure employees to sign union authorization cards intended to corral them into union ranks. By obtaining and using personal information from DMV records, UNITE operatives violated the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (text here).

This appellate ruling clears the path for the payment of $2,500 plus possible punitive damages for each violation. If the lower court allows class-wide relief to the nearly 2,000 affected employees, friends, and families who had their DMV records illegally accessed, we’re talking tens of millions of dollars.

But court records indicate that another 12,000 or so individuals’ personal information was obtained in violation of the DPPA — and these people are entirely unaware of this invasion of their privacy. That’s why Foundation attorneys have asked the courts for the right to do a one-time mailing to these thousands of other victims. That case is currently before the Third Circuit as well (for more information, read our appellate and reply briefs).

If your personal information was obtained illegally, wouldn’t you want to know about it?

Laboring Away at the Institute points out this flagrant piece of hypocrisy from the AFL-CIO blog:

We have learned painfully that in this third century of our republic, we cannot take our right to vote for granted. We have to defend it. There are people in our political system who think that voting is a privilege reserved for those like themselves, that it is fair and right to confuse and intimidate people into not voting.

So Big Labor thinks voting is a privilege and should be free from confusion and intimidation? Hmmm… Except when union organizers unrelentingly pressure or mislead workers into signing "union authorization cards" so that workers are denied access to the less-abusive secret ballot election process. Except when union bosses decide to spend forced dues on radical politics. The list goes on and on…

Last week we reported on an attempt by National Media Board (NMB) bureaucrats to reposition the agency as a promoter of coercive "card check" union organizing. The NMB is a federal bureaucracy whose purpose is supposedly to, among other things, “to promote… the effectuation of employee rights of self-organization where a representation dispute exists…” within the railroad and airline industries.

Today we learn via the Daily Labor Report that the NMB’s proposal has been yanked, at least for now. The move is a victory for the National Right to Work Foundation, which opposed the changes:

National Right to Work Staff Attorney Glenn M. Taubman submitted opposing comments… regarding the sneaky changes proposed by the National Mediation Board. As Taubman points out, not interfering with “card check” practices is essentially providing a rubber stamp for more union boss interference, influence and coercion.

Taubman makes a forceful argument using historical fact and case law that having rules that allow “card check” undermine employee free choice. Taubman concludes that “all MNB rules, regulations and policies should mandate the secret-ballot election process and entirely forbid ‘card checks.’”

The full document can be downloaded here.

The National Right to Work Foundation has launched its official Facebook.com group. The group will help virally spread information about the Right to Work movement while keeping supporters up-to-date on the Foundation’s latest news and views. The latest press releases, blog posts, and YouTube videos can be found on the Facebook group’s profile page, while the discussion board allows group members talk about current issues relating to compulsory unionism.

The group has already garnered the support of over 80 members in just a few days and the Foundation will randomly select ten of the first 200 group members to receive a free book — either “Power Grab: How the National Education Association is Betraying Our Children” by G. Gregory Moo or “Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work Movement” by George C. Leef.

The Foundation’s Facebook group can be found by the group name “National Right to Work”, under the group categories Organizations – Non-Profit Organizations, or here.

Join the National Right to Work Foundation’s Facebook group today for your chance to win a copy of “Power Grab” or “Free Choice for Workers”!  Also, tell your friends!

The U.S. District Court has pinned back the ears of the Utah political class, particularly Lieutenant Governor Herbert — slapping down key provisions of their unconstitutional campaign finance regulations. The law was exploited by political opponents to muzzle — even criminalize — certain speech.

When teachers in Utah began complaining to National Right to Work Foundation attorneys in early 2007 that union activists were swarming school property and pressuring them to sign petitions to overturn a school reform measure, the Foundation took quick action by running television and radio ads offering free legal aid.

That did not sit well with union activists who complained to the state’s speech regulators. The Lieutenant Governor and staff sent threatening letters to the Foundation demanding contributor information and other private information.

In response, the Foundation — with the invaluable help of the Madison Center for Free Speech — filed a lawsuit to challenge parts of Utah’s speech regulation laws as unconstitutional violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

In a summary judgment ruling issued late yesterday, Federal Judge Dee Benson agreed with the National Right to Work Foundation. Responding to the ruling, Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason issued the following statement:

Utah’s political authorities, especially Lieutenant Governor Herbert, went way overboard, and their unconstitutional law was deservedly smacked down by the U.S. District Court.

Our organization received numerous reports from employees about coercion and other illegal actions during a union petition drive in 2007. What we do is provide free legal aid and information. That’s all we do — it’s the Foundation’s mission, whether the union militants engaged in the coercion like it or not.

Just because a teacher union activist doesn’t like our public service legal-aid advertisements and files a complaint does not justify the state’s politicians coming in and harassing us with unconstitutional regulation.

The Utah law at issue is one of the most unconstitutionally overbroad and overvague of all campaign finance laws in the nation. The Judge recognized this and, not surprisingly, ruled in our favor.

Politicians can’t just come in and harass charities with draconian regulations that chill their voluntary, non-express-advocacy speech.

In a press release about the case James Bopp of the James Madison Center for Free Speech said:

This case was a perfect example of government overreaching into the very heart of the First Amendment… the Foundation was engaging in the very activities it always has, offering free legal aid to workers affected by coercive union activities, and because they happened to coincide with a ballot measure election, the state claimed that they were regulable.

This is a decisive victory for the First Amendment. Speech surrounding ballot measures is no less protected than speech about candidates, and regulation of political speech must be limited to express advocacy and organizations cannot be forced to register and report as a political committee unless they have the passage or defeat of a ballot measure as their major purpose.

The James Madison Center release can be downloaded here.

Two days ago, we posted an entry announcing our offer of free legal aid to Todd Palin if he wishes to stop funding ugly union attacks against his wife. It continues — the USW’s president recently unloaded on Governor Palin and her family at the union’s official blog:

At the press conference, Palin trotted him out, stressing his steelworker credentials. Here’s a good union man, she emphasized.

But his United Steelworker card doesn’t include an automatic auxiliary membership for her. Or her running mate at the top of the Republican ticket…

There is a clear disconnect between unions’ top bosses and rank-and-file workers. Union chief Leo Gerard — who, according to his biography, is a Canadian citizen and whose lavish salary is paid with the forced union dues of workers like Todd Palin — likes to berate people about who they should vote for in American elections.

Todd Palin’s unfortunate quandary highlights the injustices of forced unionism. If you are a unionized worker funding political speech you abhor, contact the National Right to Work Foundation or take a close look at the employee rights section of our web site. We provide free legal assistance to workers victimized by compulsory unionism. 

In an extremely rare move, the United States Supreme Court today has smacked down (.pdf) the U.S. Solicitor General after he tried to force his way into the October 6 oral arguments in the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s upcoming Locke v. Karass case involving forced union dues.

Bush’s SG (Paul Clement and now Gregory Garre) had, apparently at the behest of the U.S. Department of Labor, previously filed an amicus brief which supported organized labor’s legal position in key ways. In fact, SEIU union lawyers cited the government’s brief 14 times in their own brief. As Foundation attorneys pointed out in their response, the federal government had no business even getting involved in this case, because no federal statute or federal interest is involved.

It is extremely unusual for the Solicitor General (often referred to as the Tenth Justice) to be turned down when requesting oral argument time.

This is a well-deserved slap in the face for the Solicitor General’s office and the Solicitor of Labor. They should be spending their time energy enforcing employees’ rights, rather than trying to tear them down.

The Bush administration should now do the right thing and withdraw its outrageous legal brief immediately, as previously demanded (.pdf) by Foundation president Mark Mix.

In recent weeks, the National Mediation Board, a federal bureaucracy whose purpose is to, among other things, “to promote… the effectuation of employee rights of self-organization where a representation dispute exists…” within the railroad and airline industries, has proposed revisions to its Representational Manual that would open the floodgates to the use of coercive "card check."

While the NMB does “determine and certify collective bargaining representatives of employees” it also says that it functions to “ensure that the process occurs without interference, influence or coercion.” Despite this fact, the proposed NMB revisions are explicitly stated to not be “intended to interfere with or preclude either certification by card check…or voluntary recognition.” In other words, while its mission is to stop coercion, the NMB wants to modify its rules to encourage the coercive card check process for unionization.

National Right to Work Staff Attorney Glenn M. Taubman submitted opposing comments for the National Right to Work Committee and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation regarding the sneaky changes proposed by the National Mediation Board. As Taubman points out, not interfering with “card check” practices is essentially providing a rubber stamp for more union boss interference, influence and coercion.

Taubman makes a forceful argument using historical fact and case law that having rules that allow “card check” undermine employee free choice. Taubman concludes that “all MNB rules, regulations and policies should mandate the secret-ballot election process and entirely forbid ‘card checks.’”

The full document can be downloaded here.