As we recounted earlier this month, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are fighting a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to hand over all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to government union bosses.

Last week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, and Carrie Schlaud, the courageous lead plaintiff of the providers’ class-action lawsuit against Granholm and the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions appeared on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends to discuss the case:

In the latest issue of the Federalist Society’s Engage journal, National Right to Work Foundation attorney William Messenger discusses two lawsuits challenging schemes in Michigan and Illinois that force unionization on personal care providers and child care providers.

Two principal groups of individuals are currently being subjected to state-imposed representation. The first group is “Personal Care Providers,” who provide home personal care to disabled, chronically ill, or elderly individuals whose care is paid for by state self-directed home and community-based service (“HCBS”) programs established under Medicaid. This care generally includes assistance with daily living activities, such as dressing, grooming, and homemaking. Although the details of state HCBS programs vary, their core feature is that participants have discretion to hire, fire, and supervise their Personal Care Providers. The state subsidizes participants’ costs for hiring a Personal Care Provider and provides counseling to facilitate the process.

….

The second group is “Childcare Providers,” who provide home childcare (i.e., daycare) services to parents whose childcare expenses are subsidized by state programs established under the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). Childcare Providers include independent contractors who operate daycare businesses from their homes, employees employed in parents’ homes, and relatives willing to watch their grandchildren or other related children in their homes. State programs generally permit participants to hire the private Childcare Provider of their choice, with the state’s role generally limited to paying some or all of their childcare costs.

As Messenger explains in the article, these forced unionism schemes infringe upon the First Amendment rights of compassionate care providers (including grandparents and babysitters) because they are being forced to support political speech and lobbying activities with no vital government interest.

In Michigan, 40,000 child care providers are now forced to pay union dues to joint venture of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions, and the scheme in Illinois forces approximately 20,000 personal care providers to pay fees to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). These schemes funnel millions of dollars into union coffers at the expense of the care recipients.

Hopefully, the federal courts will correct the gross injustice done to these tens of thousands of care providers, but these lawsuits have much wider implications. At least 15 other states have similar schemes, and union bosses are on the move to impose their representation on care providers nationwide.

Moreover, if these schemes are upheld, Messenger argues, "any individuals that receive monies from a government program, such as contractors with the government and recipients of Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, subsidized housing, and other government entitlements" could soon find themselves subjected to compulsory union representation.

Read the full article here.

Yesterday, former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) chieftain and appointment to President Obama’s "Deficit Panel" Andy Stern was reportedly being investigated by the FBI for his role in a couple of shady dealings while he was at the helm of the forced unionism leviathan.  But that wasn’t the only big story coming out yesterday about widespread SEIU union hierarchy corruption during his tumultuous reign. From Ed Barnes on FoxNews.com:

Despite a finding by the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel that the Service Employees International Union violated election law when it required local affiliates to contribute to its political action fund, the FEC’s full board nonetheless quietly voted to overrule its staff attorney and dismissed the original complaint — clearing the way for the union to squeeze its locals to amass a $9 million war chest for the next election.

Moreover, the group that filed the complaint, the National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF), didn’t receive a full explanation of the FEC’s decision in the case until after 111 days had passed, ensuring that its right to file an appeal had lapsed.

…

The NRWF, long a thorn in the side of the 1.8 million-member union, filed its complaint in October 2008, challenging an amendment to the union’s constitution that required each local to contribute $6 per member to the international’s political action committee. Those locals that didn’t comply would be charged the difference between what they owed and what they raised — plus, a 50 percent penalty.

"To us it was a prima facie case for coercion," [National Right to Work President Mark] Mix said. "Plus, it looked like a money laundering scheme as well, because locals would pay the penalties from their general funds into the political action committee. General union treasury funds are not allowed to be used for political purposes," he said.

Frankly, it’s very unfortunate that the FEC seems interested in allowing Big Labor political corruption.  As Mark Mix explained in the Washington Examiner earlier this month:

Imagine the outcry if McDonalds executives demanded that franchise owners collect “voluntary” contributions totaling $25,000 for the company’s Political Action Committee (PAC) from employees at every restaurant.

What if the fast food titan’s headquarters followed up with a threat – pay us, or face a $37,500 fine? Do you think this heavy handed scheme would raise a few eyebrows at the Federal Election Commission (FEC)?

Replace “McDonalds” with “SEIU” in that description and you’ve got a pretty good idea of Big Labor’s latest political fundraising strategy. To meet their ambitious fundraising targets, Service Employees International Union bosses are now threatening to fine any local affiliate that doesn’t meet its PAC contribution requirements.

The only problem with this racket is that FEC guidelines explicitly prohibit organizations from collecting PAC funds by threatening members with financial reprisals. SEIU bosses aren’t exactly hiding their intentions, either – they actually wrote this fundraising provision into the union’s constitution at their annual convention.

If McDonalds had the nerve to collect contributions from employees using similar threats, you can bet the FEC would be all over the case. The SEIU, however, seems to have gotten away scot-free.

Regular Freedom@Work readers may recall that National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are duking it out in federal court against government union lawyers over a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.  In order to thank union bosses for their political support, Granholm handed all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions.

Granholm, following the Rod Blagojevich blueprint of forced-union organizing, directed state officials to grease the skids for union organizers to railroad the child-care providers under union boss control.

A courageous group of child-care workers asked National Right to Work for assistance, as some of them didn’t even know they were being forced into union dues-paying ranks until it was too late, and they want nothing to do with the union.  This courageous group of workers filed a federal class-action lawsuit to challenge Granholm’s scheme as a violation of their Constitutional rights of free speech, free association, and their right to freely petition government for redress of grievances because, in effect, Governor Granholm is picking the lobbyists of Michigan’s child-care providers.

In mid-July, Foundation attorneys appeared in federal court in Grand Rapids and convinced the judge to proceed with the child-care workers’ case — despite state and union lawyers’ multiple attempts to have the case dismissed.  Wednesday, the Grand Rapids Press called on the federal judge to strike down the forced unionism scheme. As the Grand Rapids Press explains:

Covert unionization violates basic constitutional rights of freedom of association. The formation of the union for Michigan child care providers four years ago was downright sneaky and unfair. A lawsuit in federal court, brought by some affected child care providers, objects to their being shoe-horned into unions — and forced to pay dues — against their will. In that suit, and in one brought in state courts, the child care providers have legitimate grievances. They should prevail.

The forced-unionization travesty occurred primarily because Michigan Democrats wanted to help the UAW and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pad their membership rolls.

In 2006, the UAW and AFSCME partnered to form a union called Child Care Providers Together Michigan. The union represents and draws dues from people who care for children from low-income families. The new union members belong either to the UAW or AFSCME, depending on the part of the state in which they live.

Whatever attempts were made to inform child care providers of the pending unionization must have been feeble at best. Only 15 percent of the state’s 40,000 dues-paying providers took part in the vote-by-mail certification election that formed the union. Fully 92 percent of those voting said yes to the union. But they hardly constitute a valid majority of all the now-dues-paying members. Hopefully, the federal lawsuit will uncover how this election was allowed to occur.

The low-income clients provided a rationale — though not a legitimate one — for the forced unionization. The argument is that because providers take public money in state subsidies for those clients, they are therefore public employees. Union dues are taken directly from the state subsidies, money that should go toward child care. The UAW and AFSCME receive 1.15 percent of the subsidies, amounting to more than $1 million a year.

To suggest that government grants make providers public employees is an epic stretch. The child care workers are employed by the parents who hire them. At best, they contract with the government for child care services for low-income clients.

…The suit in federal court, filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, challenges the unionization as a violation of the workers’ constitutional right to free association.

That is the crucial point.

Indeed. And UAW and AFSCME union bosses are funneling millions of dollars to the campaigns of pro-forced unionism politicians (such as Governor Granholm), and now those same politicians are forcing Michigan’s home-care providers to pay to the tune of $3.7 million into union boss coffers. If Foundation litigators are successful in federal court, the outcome can have a far reaching, national impact in rolling back Big Labor’s state-by-state push of forcing susceptible, unsuspecting home-care providers under union control.

Over the Labor Day weekend, columns by National Right to Work president Mark Mix appeared in newspapers across the country and online exposing Big Labor’s power grabs and coercive practices over American workers.

In Investor’s Business Daily Mix highlighted the extremism and ethics problems of Craig Becker, the Service Employee International Union’s (SEIU) inside man at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

In the face of bipartisan opposition, Obama bypassed Congress and installed Becker at the NLRB through a recess appointment. Now that he’s established at the head of an agency responsible for overseeing American labor law, Becker is poised to expand Big Labor’s privileges even further.

Faced with apparent conflicts of interests brought to light by the National Right to Work Foundation, Becker quickly downplayed any connection to the SEIU, his longtime employer. Despite crafting legal strategies on behalf of that union for much of his career, Becker refused to recuse himself from several NLRB cases involving the SEIU’s local affiliates.

Despite his relatively brief tenure, Becker’s biases are already evident. In one recent case, Becker wrote that the board should consider waiving rules that require union bosses to provide workers with independently audited breakdowns of union expenditures.

On National Review Online, Mix outlined union militants’ stealth to bypass Congress to implement radical changes to labor law that grant new special privileges to union bosses at the expense of hardworking Americans:

By cramming the NLRB full of forced-unionism operatives, Obama has successfully laid the groundwork for a stealthy push to undermine the rights of American workers. The NLRB’s administrative agenda and electronic-voting schemes now threaten to undo much of the hard work that went into defeating card-check legislation.

Some doubt that such sweeping changes could be enacted without congressional approval, but we’ve already seen Big Labor’s strategy in action. The National Mediation Board (NMB), a federal agency that governs airline and railway employees, has just enacted a far-reaching rule change that allows for workplace unionization without the consent of a true majority of employees.

Mix exposed Big Labor’s plot to monopolize government-sector workers in the Washington Times:

The outsized power and privileges of government union bosses clearly are a major force behind the unsustainable growth of government payrolls. According to data furnished by respected labor economists Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson, nonunion government employment nationwide actually fell by 2 percent, but Big Labor-controlled government employment grew by nearly 4 percent from 2007 to 2009.

Government union bosses’ success in expanding the ranks of employees under their monopoly bargaining power – even as private-sector and nonunion government payrolls have shrunk – spells trouble for the future of the American economy. Our country simply must reverse the long-term trend in which the growth of government-union employment far exceeds that of private-sector employment in good and bad times alike.

Otherwise, American taxpayers and businesses are destined to face ever-more-onerous tax burdens to pay for bigger and bigger government in the decades to come.

Finally, in local newspapers nationwide including the Duluth News Tribune, Mix warned that no worker is safe from the union moguls’ designs:

Take Major Stephen Godin, a retired Marine who has instructed ROTC in Worcester, MA, for 15 years. Major Godin’s dedicated service to his country and his students deserves our respect and gratitude.

But three months ago, Massachusetts Teachers Association union officials threatened his dismissal for not paying union dues, even though he is not a member of the union. Because Massachusetts lacks a Right to Work law making union association strictly voluntary, nonmembers can be forced to pay some fees to a union as a condition of employment.

Public outcry prompted the governor to exempt ROTC instructors from forced-dues requirements, but other teachers across the state still labor under compulsory unionism.

Mark Mix also appeared on nationally syndicated and local radio shows coast-to-coast.

National Right to Work Committee Vice President Doug Stafford discussed the importance of employee freedom on The Frank Beckman Show this Labor Day. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below.

As always, you can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.  

Last week, the National Mediation Board ordered a union "representation" election for Delta Air Lines flight attendants. The NMB will conduct the election under its new controversial rules approved by the two former union officials who now comprise a majority of the board.

The new procedure stacks the deck in favor of unionization by granting a union monopoly bargaining power over railway or airline industry workers if the union acquires support from just a bare majority of workers who turnout for an election, no matter how few actually vote.

But Delta flight attendants, and other workers in the airline and railway industries who could soon find themselves in similar situations, won’t know that by reading the Frequently Asked Questions page on the NMB’s website.

28. Q: How do voters vote no?

A: If a voter does not wish to be represented, they should not call the TEV telephone number or access the NMB’s Internet voting website.

As National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman explains in a letter to the NMB (PDF), this is false and should be immediately corrected so workers can vote in accordance with the rule change.

It’s not like the Obama Administration has a habit of keeping independent-minded employees in the dark about their rights or anything…

In The Washington Examiner, Right to Work President Mark Mix takes on the Federal Election Commission’s lax oversight of suspicious Big Labor political fundraising:

Imagine the outcry if McDonalds executives demanded that franchise owners collect “voluntary” contributions totaling $25,000 for the company’s Political Action Committee (PAC) from employees at every restaurant.

What if the fast food titan’s headquarters followed up with a threat – pay us, or face a $37,500 fine? Do you think this heavy handed scheme would raise a few eyebrows at the Federal Election Commission (FEC)?

Replace “McDonalds” with “SEIU” in that description and you’ve got a pretty good idea of Big Labor’s latest political fundraising strategy. To meet their ambitious fundraising targets, Service Employees International Union bosses are now threatening to fine any local affiliate that doesn’t meet its PAC contribution requirements.

In an op-ed this week in the Washington Examiner, National Right to Work President Mark Mix discusses the threat to real education reform posed by teacher union bosses in Washington, DC.

Just a few weeks ago, Samuel Johnson’s centuries-old observation that a man’s knowledge he is to be hanged “concentrates his mind wonderfully” seemed quite applicable to Washington Teacher Union (WTU) President George Packer.

Of course, no one was threatening Packer with the rope or any of its modern-day equivalents when they agreed to a new contract in late June making it significantly easier for D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to dismiss ineffective teachers.

But when he signed off on the new contract, Packer, whose WTU is a subsidiary of the mammoth American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union, faced a Big Labor boss’s worst nightmare, a rapid decline in the number of employees forced to pay to his union dues or fees in order to keep their jobs.

As recently as 2003, there were roughly 5,000 D.C. teachers who had to accept the WTU as their monopoly-bargaining agent and pay union dues or fees as a job condition. Today, there are barely 4,000. Despite the best efforts of Packer and AFT union czarina Randi Weingarten, that number is set to drop still further over the next few years.

Read the full op-ed here.

Over the years, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have provided free legal aid to teachers whose rights have been violated by compulsory unionism.  Read about some of these cases here, here, and here.

Today, House Republican leader John Boehner called on President Barack Obama to veto any controversial legislation that passes during the post-midterm election lame-duck Congressional session. One of those controversial bills is the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.

As Right to Work Foundation legal director Ray J. LaJeunesse details in the Spring 2010 issue of the Texas Review of Law & Politics journal, this draconian bill’s three primary provisions contain many injustices toward American workers and job providers.

Regarding the bill’s provision to strip workers of their rights to a secret ballot election and opening them up to intimidating "home visits":

…the absence of a formal election process works an obvious unfairness, facilitates intimidation and deception of workers, and runs contrary to the American tradition of secret ballots and the freedom to vote in privacy. The United States Supreme Court has already spoken to the issue, recognizing that “secret elections are generally the most satisfactory—indeed the preferred—method of ascertaining whether a union has majority support.”

There also is a serious question whether EFCA will unconstitutionally deny employers and employees their free speech rights… Because there would be no open campaign leading up to a secret-ballot election, EFCA would eliminate open debate, thus curtailing the speech rights of employers and individual employees opposed to the union.

As for the unconstitutational, government-mandated binding arbitration provision:

Mandatory governmentally-imposed binding interest arbitration… runs afoul of various provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, in requiring governmentally-imposed arbitrators to dictate contract terms, EFCA would unconstitutionally take the property of employers and give that property to their employees (as wages, for example) for a non-public use, in violation of the takings clause…

And finally, regarding the lopsided nature of the penalties imposed on job providers:

These drastic new penalties for unfair labor practices that apply to employers but not to unions raise concerns under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and may violate the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.

These one-sided changes in the NLRA’s remedial scheme would adversely affect employees as well as employers. With the Damoclean sword of punitive remedies looming, employers faced with union organizing campaigns will be more likely to gag themselves to avoid unfair labor practice charges by unions, thus depriving employees of the “information opposing unionization,” which they have an implicit “right to receive” under NLRA section 7, and which is necessary to make an informed and free choice about whether to support unionization or not.

As LaJeunesse clearly explains, the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill certainly "presents serious legal and policy issues" indeed.

The full article is published in the Texas Review of Law & Politics Vol. 14, No. 2.