One National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge recently overturned a very close decertification election and more than suggested that another election take place after union operatives practically rigged a vote in their favor.

Actually, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 399 did win the tainted election – but by a difference of two highly questionable votes.

According the NLRB investigation, SEIU union thugs used intimidation tactics, including threats, harassment of employees, and efforts to bribe the petitioner into withdrawing the decertification petition, in order to help with the electioneering. Administrative Law Judge Gregory Z. Meyerson wrote that the SEIU union’s underhanded tactics likely scared employees so badly, that they were afraid to oppose the union in the decertification election:

“…wherein union business agent Ronquillo verbally and physically threatened Alan Smith…[and] union business agent Rodriguez offered Smith a number of benefits for abandoning his support for the decertification effort, including purple scrubs, a position as a keynote speaker at the Jesse Jackson rally, and most significantly, a job with the [SEIU] Union.”

Meyerson continued that the SEIU union’s low down dirty tactics “prevented the employees from freely and fairly exercising their choice in the election.” It is plain despicable these thugs will do anything in order to keep forced dues coming into their coffers.

Read Meyerson’s full recommendation here.

Nurses at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in California are today filing a decertification petition, which is a fancy way of saying they’re asking for an election to kick out the unwanted SEIU Local 121RN union.

This should come as no suprise as the National Right to Work Foundation helped a nurse at the facility hit Local 121RN with federal charges for threatening nurses with arrests, jail, and fines for refusing to walk off the job during a union-ordered strike. Some union "representation."

Union operatives also distributed a threatening flier, despite a claim to the contrary by a top union official.

"Troubling." "Notorious." "Deeply disturbing." You would have thought that the sky was falling.

However, no, this is how some members of Congress feel about employees’ right to vote out an unwanted union after a coercive "card check" unionization drive, as evidenced by today’s Joint Subcommittee hearing regarding the National Labor Relations Board.

Dominating the hearing was talk about the National Right Work Foundation’s Dana/Metaldyne victory, which won this right for employees. NLRB Chairman Robert Battista made an analogy that the right for employees to vote out and unwanted union after a card check was a way for them to "speak now or forever hold their peace."

Too bad for America’s workers, many times it is only union and company officials that say "I do" to card check/neutrality agreements, and they are left without a say.

Over 4,500 rank-and-file workers have been hung out to dry by their union local in New York City.

The Village Voice had an intriguing editorial about the Carpenters Local 157 union. Apparently the local is infested with corruption, and not just recently either. The editorial reports:

“…the Carpenters union has been unable to climb out of a 30-year-long quagmire of corruption.”

But just as troubling, William Callahan, the union’s court-appointed independent investigator, had this to say to Carpenters union chief, Douglas McCarron:

“…Local 157 as ‘a mismanaged mess where [business agents] come and go as they please, following few, if any, rules.’”

Sadly, in an instance like this when the union hierarchy turned its back on its own, it goes to show that union bosses are more concerned about their own well-being than actually respecting the rights of the workers they claim to “represent.”

After a four-year legal tangle, Floridian Robert Prime prompted the National Labor Relations Board to strike down an IAM union nationwide policy requiring employees to object annually to paying forced union dues for politics. Prime received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation.

Union officials commonly use such tactics to hamstring employees from exercising their rights under the Foundation-won Communications Workers v. Beck U.S. Supreme court victory.

Under Beck, employees under the National Labor Relations Act can withhold forced union dues not used for collective barganing, including those used for union political activities.

Though Florida is a Right to Work state, Prime works on an "exclusive federal enclave" where state law does not protect him.

As union chief John Sweeney continues to whine over the National Labor Relations Board’s recent workers’ rights victories, Big Labor bosses are meeting with Democrat officials today to press for passage of the horribly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act.”

The Wall Street Journal covered the story, stating that labor officials from around the world have convened in Washington as part of a global push to make it easier for unions to corral workers into union ranks by imposing the “card check” instant organizing scam.

The card check instant organizing process is opposed by most Americans because it curtails employees’ freedom to choose whether or not to unionize and strips workers of the limited protections of a government-supervised secret ballot election.

For more information about the harmful affects of in-your-face card check schemes on employees, check out these studies conducted by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.

Following up on this post, today’s Worcester Business Journal contains this editorial which highlights the problems with so-called “project labor agreements,” which often harm both workers and taxpayers. The article states:

“Fair and open competition in public bidding is the American way. Labor unions should compete on the same playing field as anyone else.”

The editorial continues that the U.S. Department of Labor notes 80 percent of the construction workforce in Massachusetts is nonunion. Yet, because the City of Worcester and other Massachusetts communities award only union contractors these public projects, public officials are denying the lion share of the state’s construction workforce a chance to work.

Read about the other multi-million (and sometimes multi-billion) dollar public projects Massachusetts taxpayers have been forced to overpay as a result of PLA’s, here.

The Wall Street Journal today has a piece recognizing that Right to Work laws are among two vital public policies that:

"…stand out as perhaps the most important in attracting jobs and capital."

WSJ continues:

"States that permit workers to be compelled to join unions have much lower rates of employment growth than states that don’t. Many companies say they will not even consider locating a factory in a state that does not have a right-to-work law."

Interestingly, as visible in the graph below, the bottom 10 economicly competitive states are all forced unionism states, while 9 of the top 10 are long time Right to Work states.

The Philadelphia Inquirer today reports:

Accusing trade unions of standing in the way of minority hiring objectives, City Council yesterday declared the $700 million Convention Center expansion open to nonunion contractors and workers – an unprecedented gesture in a city dominated by organized labor.

Union officials commonly shut out minority and nonunion contractors from such projects through so-called "project labor agreements." These cynical pacts require all contractors, whether they are unionized or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization in order to work on a government-funded construction project.

For more information on the harmful effects of PLAs, see this study from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.

Of course, from time to time public figures will spew some pretty surprising statements to the media. This can be especially true when union bosses put their own needs in front of the American workers they claim to “represent.”

Here’s what some union officials had to say about their liking to compulsory unionism:

• Pushing Big Labor’s “card check” organizing scheme over the employee-preferred secret ballot elections, Mike Fishman, SEIU Local 32BJ chief, said: “We don’t do elections.” –Wall Street Journal

• Speaking against Iowa’s 60 year-old Right to Work law, Jan Laue, a top official of the Iowa AFL-CIO said, “If you don’t want to be a part of it, then you ought to go work somewhere else.” –River Cities’ Reader

• The National Right to Work Foundation hired 24-hour security detail after United Auto Workers union militants distributed driving directions to a dissenting employee’s home. UAW union Region 8 boss Gary Casteel claimed to disavow use of vandalism or physical threats to those who opposed unionization. Yet, Casteel seemingly encouraged the reprisals when the labor boss said this about the dissenting employee, “He did put himself in limelight.” –High Point Enterprise

• Tim Welch, spin doctor for the WFSE union, speaking about employees’ right (or lack-thereof in Washington state) to choose: “You can choose to be a member of the union, you can choose to pay a fee. But ultimately, if you do not like that, you can choose to be unemployed.” – Spokesman Review

• Former chief of the United Mine Workers union, Richard Trumka, implied that employees who work during a strike deserve whatever happens to them. In 1993, he had this to say after a heavy equipment operator was shot in the back of the head as he drove past militant UMW strikers: "I’m saying if you strike a match and put your finger in, common sense tells you you’re going to burn your finger." –Washington Times