Randy Boettjer experienced years of harassment by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 47 union officials.

Randy (pictured) had dared to raise concerns about health care benefits, but an IBEW official simply scorned, “we don’t like your kind.” Having been so disgusted by union officials’ deceptions, he created his own website critical of the IBEW union hierarchy.

Once the union bosses learned he was exercising his freedom of speech, union officials filed a lawsuit against Randy for libel and tried to extract $25,000 from him in Orange County Superior Court. Moreover, the union expelled Randy and levied $250,000 in trumped-up fines against him.

But in the end, Foundation attorneys helped Randy obtain federal labor prosecution of the union, forcing union officials to rescind the $250,000 fine and to stop all forced dues claims against him.

Randy is just one of hundreds of thousands of employees the National Right to Work Foundation has helped. Read about other individuals courageously defending their rights in the face of ugly union coercion here.

A leftist University of Florida history professor named Robert Zieger dutifully lapped up the AFL-CIO’s latest talking points and lambasted the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for its rulings on a handful of high-profile cases this fall.

Of course, Zieger failed to acknowledge that George W. Bush’s labor board has actually done very little to correct the many atrocities of Bill Clinton’s NLRB – which increased union coercive power over employees, entrenched unions in workplaces without the majority support of employees, and allowed for the rampant misuse of forced union dues for politics.

National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason responded to Zieger in this column at the Gainesville Sun:

Despite the histrionics of Zieger and others, Big Labor is indeed winning its overall war against employees who wish to remain union-free. And President Bush’s NLRB has sadly been, for the most part, AWOL.

It’s no secret that The Wolverine state is a high-taxed, forced unionism state. Without a Right to Work law on the books, Michigan is lumped with 27 other states in the nation that force hard-working Americans to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job.

Another economic analyst recently pointed out that most of Michigan’s economic woes are a result of Big Labor’s stranglehold over worker free choice and argued the state will be better off with a Right to Work law.

The Midland Daily News pointed out the economic benefits of Right to Work laws:

In 2005 and 2006, nine of the 10 fastest-growing states had Right to Work laws and, in the longer haul, from 1986 to 2006, eight of the fastest-growing states had such laws in force.

Read more about Right to Work laws here.

A new study conducted by the National Institute for Labor RelationsResearch (NILRR) explains how monopolistic teacher unionism is undercutting math and science education across America.

Stan Greer, senior research associate at NILRR, discusses entrenched teacher union officials and their influence over the “single salary schedule” used to determine teacher pay rates:

And teacher union officials have so far been very successful in blocking significant reforms of the single salary schedule because of state and local public policies authorizing them to act as the “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agents of all the K-12 teachers in a school district.

Visit the NILRR’s website here and download the full report here.

When union officials order a strike there is one word they use over and over to intimidate and harass: Scab

Case in point is the recent Writers Guild Union strike, and the recent decision of Carson Daly’s “Last Call with Carson Daly” show to continue production. Union officials immediately denounced the show for hiring “scabs,” but in reality their threat isn’t against the show so much as it is against rank-and-file writers.

The writers, like all employees who have been ordered out on strike by union bosses, have the legal right to return to work as explained here. However, in an effort to intimidate workers into toeing the union line, once again union officials are using the s-word as a slur to intimidate employees from exercising their legal rights.

Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 79 union thugs are back at it again.

New Jersey residents Joseph Chetrit and his family have been targets of a LIUNA union intimidation campaign for weeks.

Chetrit explained that union militants “have been abusive and confrontational to his family” after they placed the infamous 15-foot inflatable rat outside his home. In what they described as going through a “gauntlet” to leave their own property, Chetrit and his family (including his wife and their four children) cannot even walk to their synagogue without fear for their safety.

Sadly, one of Chetrit’s children is seeing a counselor as a result of the union’s ugly intimidation campaign. Meanwhile, a judge agreed with Chetrit that “[i]t is the hostile placement immediately adjacent to the home, towering over the sidewalk, directly facing the home, with the rat’s claws and teeth bared, that creates the intimidating and menacing effect.”

NorthJersey.com has the full story here.

National Right to Work Foundation Staff Attorney Glenn Taubman had a letter to the editor in the Washington Post over the weekend concerning whining about the recent Dana/Metaldyne victory. He wrote:

These cases were brought by workers to protect their right to freely choose or reject unionization. In both cases, employees were pressured to sign cards that were counted as "votes" for unionization. In both cases, the unions and the employers signed private deals apparently intended to result in unionization regardless of employee sentiment.

That said, it comes as no surprise that the NLRB majority in the case cited that the coercive "card check" union organizing scheme is "admittedly inferior" in protecting employee free choice.

The PBS documentary series "Voices of Vision" produced a feature on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and Right to Work movement. View Part 1 of 3 below. You can view part two here, and three here. The video highlights first hand testimonials from the victims of compulsory unionism, American workers to which the Foundation provides free legal aid every day.

With no Right to Work law on the books, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a struggling, forced unionism state.

Ryan Mellinger is a young, full-time math teacher in a Pennsylvania public school district. He never joined the union which holds monopoly bargaining privileges over the district’s teachers, but he is still required to pay the $394 annually in forced dues, or lose his job.

And all Mellinger wants is to decide on his own how he could save or spend his $394 as he sees fit. FrontPage Magazine highlights:

“Pennsylvania is the state that gave birth to freedom and individual liberty, but it has turned its back on its heritage regarding compulsory union fees. Compulsory membership and fees affect not only teachers but thousands of workers throughout Pennsylvania in a variety of businesses that have union contracts. The results are an economic disaster.”

In order to highlight the impact of compulsory unionism in education in America today, the National Right to Work Foundation established a special project, Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism (CEAFU). For over 30 years, CEAFU has helped to ensure that union officials respect the individual rights of independent educators.

Check out the CEAFU website here to see the negative impact of compulsory unionism on education.