Bickering Union Bosses Quit Feuding to Ramp Up Coercive Organizing
After a long and vicious feud, it seems CNA and SEIU bosses have finally buried the hatchet… in the backs of independent nurses:
Two of the nation’s fastest-growing labor unions — the Service Employees International Union and the California Nurses Association — ended a bitter yearlong dispute on Wednesday by agreeing to work together to unionize hospital workers and push for universal health coverage.
For the last year, the two unions have viciously denounced each other, with the service employees accusing the nurses of sabotaging efforts to organize 8,300 hospital workers in Ohio, and the nurses’ union accusing S.E.I.U. officials of stalking and harassing its leaders.
“We have buried the hatchet,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
So the SEIU and CNA bosses have tabled their ugly little internecine war to focus on what’s REALLY important to them — corralling more nurses into forced-dues-paying ranks!
Given the circumstances, we’re not too suprised by this touching reconciliation. The heart of the CNA-SEIU feud — CNA criticisms of coercive SEIU organizing tactics — was pretty much a dead letter after CNA operatives were implicated in the exact same practices at Houston and Philadelphia-area hospitals. For those of you who missed it, here’s the Foundation’s video report on coercive CNA organizing abuses in Texas:
SEIU Bosses Put Politics Before Workers’ Jobs – Literally
Here at Freedom@Work, we spend a lot of time documenting union bosses’ shameless hypocrisy, but this latest incident (almost) surprised even us. The powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) recently fired 75 staffers. But why is an organization that collects hundreds of millions of dollars in easy money (forced dues) per year cutting jobs now, in the midst of a devastating economic recession? Simple – they want even more cash for political lobbying:
"It’s completely hypocritical," said staff union President Malcolm Harris…
Harris said his union’s understanding is that the layoffs are the result of budget troubles faced by SEIU, which, on top of the California dispute, spent $80 million during the 2008 election and is planning to spend tens of millions more to advocate on behalf of Obama’s health-care plan and card check.
The entire sordid episode is sadly reminiscent of the SEIU’s election-year shenanigans, when the union hierarchy threw in the towel on the notion of hands-on employee assistance, replacing a help line with a remote call center — the goal being to free up even more resources for political campaigning.
And now, yet again, SEIU bosses are demonstrating that they are more concerned with politics and forced-dues dollars than looking out the working man.
(Via National Review)
Federal Labor Judge to Hold Hearing on Steelworker Union’s Illegal Scheme to Seize Workers’ Dues
Morgantown, WV and Goshen, IN (March 17, 2009) – In response to unfair labor practice charges filed by National Right to Work attorneys, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint that seeks nationwide remedies against steelworker union officials for violating employees’ rights.
Nonunion employees of Chemtura Corporation in Morgantown, West Virginia and Cequent Towing Products in Goshen, Indiana are currently forced by United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (USW) officials to annually opt-out of paying dues unrelated to workplace bargaining. Because neither Indiana nor West Virginia has passed a Right to Work law making union dues fully voluntary, nonunion workers are forced to fund union workplace negotiations. However, under Supreme Court precedents secured by National Right to Work attorneys, workers cannot be forced to pay dues for union activities unrelated to bargaining.
After reviewing the union’s annual objector policy, the NLRB General Counsel agreed with Foundation attorneys’ arguments and issued a nationwide complaint to end the union’s onerous opt-out requirements. The case will now be heard by an administrative law judge.
Under federal labor law, union bosses cannot arbitrarily discriminate against nonunion employees as a condition of maintaining their government-granted monopoly bargaining privileges. At Chemtura and Cequent Towing, nonunion workers are forced to annually repeat their objection to union dues unrelated to workplace bargaining, whereas union members are not required to annually renew their union membership.
The NLRB General Counsel is now seeking a remedy that requires USW bosses to rescind any and all annual opt-out requirements and post public notices informing workers across the country of their right to permanently withdraw financial support from union activities unrelated to collective bargaining
“This Byzantine opt-out process is little more than a scheme to ensure more unwilling workers pay tribute to USW bosses,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Union officials are only interested in making nonunion workers jump through bureaucratic hoops, particularly when forced-dues dollars are involved. Until workers in West Virginia and Indiana have the protection of a Right to Work law that makes union membership and dues payment truly voluntary, these illegal schemes will persist.”
Speaking Out of School: Brave Union Boss Slams “Card Check” Forced Unionism
Last week, Big Labor’s bought-and-paid-for politicians in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate introduced the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill. This Big Labor-endorsed compulsory unionism scheme is intended to give federal government bureaucrats the unprecedented power to impose wages and working conditions, including forced union dues, on employees and employers after workers are herded into union collectives without even a secret ballot election.
Neal Catlett, former union president at a Whirlpool plant in Arkansas, spoke out against Big Labor’s card check coercion:
Catlett, now retired from Whirlpool, opposes card check. He told The City Wire that he has seen plenty of “nonsense” among Whirlpool leaders and union leaders to know that anything other than a secret ballot will lead to intimidation, coercion and corruption on all sides.
“I strongly support secret ballots. Period. It doesn’t matter at what level, whether it is voting for a union or the president or your congressman,” Catlett said. “Your ideas should be personal as to if you want a union or don’t want a union.”
Card check is a dangerous encroachment on workers’ rights in the workplace and opens up the door for a flood of union intimidation and coercion to force more workers into forced-union-dues-paying ranks. Carlett, discrediting any claim that the legislation protects workers based on his own personal experience as a union president, hit the nail on the head when he stated:
“Doing away with the secret ballot is not good for the unions. It’s not good for any business… Open voting creates an atmosphere of intimidation. It creates an atmosphere where people will use your opinion against you. I’ve seen the threats and I’ve actually seen the physical conflict, if you know what I mean, come from the business side and from the union side,” Catlett said. “I just don’t see how any process that is not private will protect the worker.”
Frankly, we suggest Cartlett hire a bodyguard immediately. We’re not kidding. Union retribution can be swift and ugly.
New Right to Work Podcast: Card Check Threatens Employee Freedom
In the latest Foundation podcast, Legal Information Director Patrick Semmens sits down with Greg Mourad, Director of Legislation for the National Right to Work Committee, to discuss the recently reintroduced card check bill’s legislative prospects as well as its implications for employee freedom. Click here to listen or use the embeddable player below the fold:
You can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed. For previous Foundation card check coverage, click here.
Right to Work Video: Stop the Obama Administration from Trashing Basic Union Disclosure Requirements
Regular Freedom@Work readers already know that AFL-CIO bosses just spent a week at a luxurious beachfront resort in Miami with VP Biden and Secretary of Labor Solis. Now they want the Department of Labor to rescind simple disclosure guidelines that would help rank-and-file workers learn when they’re funding extravagant union getaways. Check out the National Right to Work video with Committee and Foundation President Mark Mix for more information:
The Foundation’s press release urging the Department to retain union disclosure regulations can be found here.
The National Right to Work Foundation provides free legal aid to employees so they can fight back against union coercion and abuse.
The Foundation must rely on the voluntary support of individual Americans who believe in our cause and wish to advance our strategic litigation program. To make a fully tax-deductible donation in whatever amount, please click here.
Wall Street Journal: “Unions don’t want to eliminate voter intimidation — they want a monopoly on it”
Former solicitor of labor Eugene Scalia takes to the pages of today’s Wall Street Journal to argue against Big Labor’s Card Check scheme. His op-ed explodes the myth that jettisoning the secret ballot will somehow reduce workplace intimidation:
…unions don’t want to eliminate voter intimidation — they want a monopoly on it. If secret-ballot elections aren’t required, then employers won’t get automatic notice that an organizing campaign is underway. They will have less opportunity to exercise their constitutional right to speak to employees about the legitimate reasons that many workers choose not to unionize. Union organizers, on the other hand, could visit employees at their homes or stop them in the parking lot and "encourage" them to choose to unionize on the spot. Employees are still voting — their authorization cards are binding — but now their vote is supervised by union organizers, not the federal government.
EFCA’s supporters argue that when a worker attends a company meeting and hears how his managers dislike unions, days later when he casts a secret vote in an election overseen by federal authorities, he’ll be afraid to vote his conscience. Well if that’s true, imagine how much "free choice" this gentle soul will feel when four of his co-workers surround him at the hardware store, stick an authorization card and pen in his hand, and ask if he’s for them or against them.
Case Update: Court Dismisses Frivolous Union Counter-Suit in Foundation Identity Theft Case
Regular Freedom@Work readers may remember the Foundation’s recent identity theft case in North Carolina, where Communication Workers of America union bosses posted nonunion AT&T employees’ social security numbers on a public bulletin board. Not only was this an open invitation to fraud and identity theft, it also violated North Carolina’s newly-enacted Identity Theft Protection Act. Foundation attorneys have slammed CWA bosses in state court, seeking damages for affected AT&T employees.
The union lawyers’ response, however, can only be described as absurd. Instead of working to ensure other workers’ confidential information is kept safe, CWA union operatives filed a counter-suit, alleging that the very act of removing workers’ social security numbers from the bulletin board and warning other workers that their confidential information had been made readily available at a public location itself violated the Identity Theft Protection Act. Naturally, the court dismissed the union’s frivolous claims and will now resolve the Foundation’s original lawsuit. The text of the decision is available here (.pdf). You can also watch the Foundation’s video on union identity theft in North Carolina:
Worker Advocate Urges Gov. Sonny Perdue to Enforce Georgia’s Longstanding Right to Work Law
Atlanta, GA (March 12, 2009) – National Right to Work Foundation president Mark Mix called upon Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue to defend Georgia’s cherished Right to Work law that is in danger of becoming a dead letter as a result of a sloppy Georgia appellate court ruling and an Attorney General who has so far refused to defend the law.
“On behalf of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the union-abused Georgia employees it is assisting, I urge you to use the power granted to you by the laws of the State of Georgia to ensure that Georgia’s longstanding and popular Right to Work law is enforced,” Mix urged Governor Perdue.
“Moreover, in this time of economic crisis, the last thing workers in Georgia should have to worry about is being forced to pay money to self-interested union bosses as a condition of getting or keeping their jobs. And the last thing Georgia needs is for union bosses to flex their muscles and scare away new job opportunities,” continued Mix in the letter.
Attorneys at the National Right to Work Foundation are providing free legal aid to eleven dockworkers at the port of Savannah who are forced to pay a significant portion of their paychecks to Longshoremen union bosses as a condition of obtaining employment. Longshoremen Local 1414 union bosses have demanded that the eleven nonmember employees pay so-called “fees” – as much as $1.33 per hour worked – just for obtaining jobs through a union-controlled hiring hall.
But Georgia’s longstanding and popular Right to Work law unambiguously states that “[n]o individual shall be required as a condition of employment or continuance of employment to pay any fee, assessment, or other sum of money whatsoever to a labor organization.”
Nonetheless, in late January, the Georgia Court of Appeals, affirming a lower court ruling, took the surprising and arbitrary ruling that the Georgia Right to Work law does not apply to a hiring hall scenario, and federal labor law somehow does not permit states to prohibit unions from forcing workers to pay monies to an exclusive union hiring hall. Foundation attorneys have pointed out that the Peachtree State’s Right to Work law unambiguously prohibits any mandate on employees to pay a union for the privilege to work, and state Right to Work laws cannot be preempted by federal law in this regard.
The case, Perry v. International Longshoremen Association 1414, is currently on appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Foundation attorneys asked Attorney General Thurbert Baker to intervene to defend the Right to Work law before the Georgia Supreme Court and to criminally enforce the Right to Work law at the port of Savannah (violations of the Right to Work law are misdemeanor offenses under Georgia law). Thousands of Georgians have also written to the attorney general, but he has taken no action to defend the law.
The download the full text of the letter, click here.
CNN: National Right to Work Discusses Card Check on Lou Dobbs
Lou Dobbs’ recent report on Card Check featured an interview with Committee and Foundation President Mark Mix. Check out the video for a full account of union bosses’ extensive political connections to the Obama Administration and Capitol Hill, as well as their ambitious legislative priorities:
