Foundation Action: High Court Agrees with Foundation on Coercive Organizing Law
This article from the September/October issue of Foundation Action discusses the June 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States Chamber of Commerce v. Jerry Brown.
National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed arguments, with which the Supreme Court agreed, to overturn a controversial California law that pressured companies to assist in coercive union organizing drives.
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SEIU Union Hit with FEC Complaint for Illegal Political Fundraising Scheme
This summer, we told you about one of the nation’s largest unions imposing a fundraising quota on locals and workers in an illegal scheme to fund its political action committee. Here’s the latest:
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission asking it to investigate a campaign fundraising scheme adopted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) at its convention this summer.
The union and its officers appear to be violating federal labor law and the Federal Election Campaign Act by imposing financial penalties on local affiliates who fail to meet Political Action Committee (PAC) fundraising targets. On June 3, delegates to the SEIU convention approved Constitutional Amendment #317 in time to take effect for this year’s federal elections.
The policy imposes on each SEIU local an “annual SEIU COPE fundraising obligation.” SEIU COPE is the SEIU’s federal PAC. If a local fails to meet this requirement, the SEIU imposes heavy fines. However, federal election law forbids unions from “utilizing money…secured by…financial reprisals… or the threat of … financial reprisal” to fund a PAC.
Read the full press release here.
SEIU Union Hit with FEC Complaint for Illegal Political Fundraising Scheme
Washington, DC (October 23, 2008) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission asking it to investigate a campaign fundraising scheme adopted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) at its convention this summer.
The union and its officers appear to be violating federal labor law and the Federal Election Campaign Act by imposing financial penalties on local affiliates who fail to meet Political Action Committee (PAC) fundraising targets. On June 3, delegates to the SEIU convention approved Constitutional Amendment #317 in time to take effect for this year’s federal elections.
The policy imposes on each SEIU local an “annual SEIU COPE fundraising obligation.” SEIU COPE is the SEIU’s federal PAC. If a local fails to meet this requirement, the SEIU imposes heavy fines. However, federal election law forbids unions from “utilizing money…secured by…financial reprisals… or the threat of … financial reprisal” to fund a PAC.
Union officials have injected enormous sums of money this election season into electing favored candidates. The FEC lists SEIU COPE as the top labor union PAC with over $23 million in receipts for 2005-2006, and SEIU union bosses expect the new requirement to funnel at least $9 million into SEIU COPE.
Because the SEIU’s political contributions are so significant, Foundation attorneys believe that this amendment has the potential to irreparably compromise the integrity of the electoral process. By coercing local affiliates and nonmember employees into contributing to the SEIU’s massive general election fund, union officials threaten to disenfranchise voters with a firestorm of illegally funded political activism.
Last year, the FEC levied record fines – though still quite minimal compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars at issue in the case – against Americans Coming Together, an SEIU-backed “527” group following a complaint filed by the National Right to Work Foundation.
“The SEIU cannot be trusted with its government-backed forced-dues privilege, and its scheme will corrupt the election process,” said Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason. “The FEC must act quickly.”
The Foundation joined with Karen Glass, a school district employee in Wisconsin who is forced to pay dues to SEIU Local 150 and its national affiliate, and Regent University School of Law student Michael Casaretto, who has extensively researched the SEIU scheme.
VIDEO – Union Organizers On Card Check Intimidation: “Get the card signed… by hook or crook”
Here’s a telling video of former union organizers describing the pressure, intimidation and even outright dishonesty that goes into collecting cards for a card check.
New Right to Work Video: Teacher Strikes and Forced Unionism
Our latest Right to Work video features Simon Campbell, a concerned Pennsylvania parent who founded stopteacherstrikes.org in the wake of a debilitating public school strike. At the annual Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism Conference, Campbell explained the connection between compulsory unionism and teacher strikes:
As always, check back regularly at the Foundation’s YouTube Channel for more Right to Work video updates.
National Right to Work Podcast now available on iTunes
The official National Right to Work Podcast is now available on iTunes!
Subscribe to the official National Right to Work Podcast on iTunes here and get weekly updates from the Foundation on the latest in the Right to Work movement. Then, download each episode onto your iPod or portable media player and listen to it anytime, anywhere.
Subscribe now and listen to Episode #1 of the National Right to Work Podcast titled "Big Labor’s Agenda and Election 2008" featuring National Right to Work Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason’s interview with Greg Mourad, Director of Legislation for the National Right to Work Committee.
Foundation Win Nets $250,000 Refund from Union for Nonunion Workers
Federal labor board charges filed by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys has just paid off big for a group of Georgia employees… to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars.
In September of 2005, Foundation staff attorneys filed unfair labor practice charges against the International Longshoreman’s Local 1414 union in Savannah, Georgia. The notoriously thuggish longshoremen union bosses had been forcing nonmember employees to pay dues to seek work at a union-controlled hiring hall. This policy violated Georgia’s Right to Work law, which holds that workers cannot be forced to pay any dues if they choose not to belong to a union.
In May, an NLRB settlement forced the union to partially reimburse nonmember employees, but until recently it wasn’t revealed just how much money the union had previously extorted. According to the latest edition of the NLRB’s regional newsletter (pdf), the union had no choice but to refund $250K to nonmember workers that union officials illegally collected.
Unfortunately, the NLRB’s settlement only reduced workers’ fees but did not end the requirement to pay union dues for use of the union controlled hiring hall. Employees are still challenging the forced fees as a violation of Georgia’s Right to Work law.
USA Today Comes Out Against Card Check Instant Organizing
Today USA Today, the largest circulation newspaper in the country, editorializes against efforts to impose the coercive Card Check Instant Organizing on every worker in America:
Under the current system, once 30% of a company’s workers sign union authorization cards, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administers a confidential vote, typically 39 days after it receives the cards. The union and employer campaign for votes.
Under a major rewrite of U.S. labor law being promoted by unions, when more than 50% of employees sign authorization cards, the NLRB would have to recognize the new union. No campaign. No secret ballot.
This misguided measure passed the House shortly after Democrats took the majority in 2007. But it needs several more votes in the Senate and a president who will sign it. Barack Obama supports it; John McCain does not. It’s no surprise, then, that the AFL-CIO plans to spend an eye-popping $200 million this election cycle to support Obama and Democratic candidates for Congress. A win for Obama and big gains for Senate Democrats could remove the remaining obstacles to the euphemistically named "Employee Free Choice Act."
Cajoled choice is more like it. The proposed change would give unions and pro-union employees more incentive to use peer pressure, or worse, to persuade reluctant workers to sign their cards. And without elections, workers who weren’t contacted by union organizers would have no say in the final outcome.
Labor leaders [sic], such as AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in the space below, argue that the proposed law wouldn’t prohibit private balloting. This is accurate but misleading. Union organizers would have no reason to seek an election if they had union cards signed by more than 50% of workers. And if they had less than a majority, they’d be unlikely to call for a vote they’d probably lose.
Read the whole thing here. USA Today’s editorial board joins a growing chorus of voices from across the political spectrum recognizing the horrible abuses involved in "card check" organizing. Here, for example, is former United States Senator and leftist George McGovern writing about the dangers of Card Check Instant Organizing.
Introducing the National Right to Work Podcast: Episode 1- Big Labor’s Agenda and Election 2008
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of our official podcast. Each episode will feature a discussion about a topic related to compulsory unionism.
Episode 1 of the National Right to Work Podcast is titled "Big Labor’s Agenda and Election 2008". In this episode, National Right to Work Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason interviews Greg Mourad, Director of Legislation for the National Right to Work Committee about Big Labor’s legislative power grabs. Topics range from Big Labor’s full court press to pass mandatory “card check” legislation to the plan to federally impose monopoly bargaining on America’s first responders. Also find out what advocates of employee freedom are doing about it.
You can listen to the National Right to Work Podcast "Big Labor’s Agenda and Election 2008" on the flash player below or download the mp3.
You can subscribe to the National Right to Work Podcast through iTunes or other podcasting programs by using this feed: http://righttowork.podbean.com/feed/.
Foundation Prepares for Tsunami of Card Check Organizing Victims in Early 2009
You wouldn’t know it from watching any of the debates, but the potential for Big Labor to ram "card check" down American workers’ throats is very real and very immediate. Accordingly, the Foundation is bracing itself for a new wave of employee requests for legal aid. Mickey Kaus, a lefty blogger reveals the rapid timeline:
Obama’s Fast Labor Payoff: kf hears from a trustworthy non-Republican source (with access to actual insider information) that the Dems are getting set to pass "card check" legislation fast next year, right out of the box, assuming Obama wins and the Democrats get their expected big Senate majority. The legislation–which would eliminate the secret ballot in union organizing elections, allowing union organizers to gather signed cards person-to-person–is cheap, in budgetary terms. And it’s very, very important to organized labor.
More here.
