In an expose published last week in the New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse profiles several UNITE HERE union organizers who claim that union bosses demanded they reveal intimate details of their personal lives — including whether or not they have even been sexually abused — and then collected this sensitive information and shared it with other union staff and organizers in a disturbing process known as "pink-sheeting."

The union organizers’ accounts of what they claim is a widespread problem within UNITE HERE are simply horrifying and speak for themselves:

“It’s extremely cultlike and extremely manipulative,” said Amelia Frank-Vitale, a Yale graduate and former hotel union organizer who said these practices drove her to see a therapist.

…

“This information is extremely personal,” said Matthew Edwards, an organizer who had disclosed that he was from a broken home and was overweight when young. “It is catalogued and shared throughout the whole organizing department.”

…

“I wanted to change conditions at my workplace,” Maria said. “I was ready to fight for respect for workers. But this entire thing felt like a total lack of respect. I quit the union because I felt this was psychological abuse.”

The full article has many more accounts, and it’s a must-read for those concerned with the lack of accountability within the union hierarchy.   The union organizers claim that their supervisors relied on "pink-sheeting" to ensure the organizers remained loyal to the union bosses and never questioned their authority or instructions. However one feels about unions in general, everyone should agree that these tactics are an affront to basic human decency and should have no place in the workplace.

The comments section contains several replies from Times readers claiming to be current or former  union staffers or organizers backing up the veracity of the accounts in the article.  One commenter claims to have heard the real goal of pink-sheeting "is to expunge the staffer of middle-class values."  It’s understandable to question the accounts of anonymous commenters, but these current and former organizers deserve to be heard for coming out against these outrageous union boss practices.

Of course, while ignored by the notoriously pro-forced unionism Times, the article raises more fundamental questions, including:

• If this is how union bosses treat organizers, how can union bosses be trusted to "represent" rank-and-file workers who vocalize opposition to unionization?

• And perhaps most timely: With such horrific tactics continuing to come to light, why are so many politicians still intent on handing union bosses even more special privileges?

There’s nothing new about forced-dues-hungry union bosses complaining about how volunteers and nonprofits don’t pay union dues, but this is a new low:

Last week at a city council meeting in Allentown, Pa., a top official of the local Service Employees International Union chapter ranted about 17-year-old Scout Kevin Anderson’s park cleanup work. Anderson devoted some 200 hours to the job in order to earn an Eagle Scout badge. He picked up trash and helped clear a 1,000-foot walking path with fellow members of Boy Scouts Troop 301 of Center Valley.

But SEIU’s Nick Balzano gave them hell instead of thanks.

Balzano disparaged altruistic efforts in city parks and asserted that "there is (sic) to be no volunteers" since his union members were laid off. He then issued a witch hunt threat: "We’ll also be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails. We may file another grievance on that." Citing union rules, he gave the Allentown city council, the Boy Scouts and all potential volunteers an iron-fisted ultimatum: "None of them can pick up a hoe. They can’t pick up a shovel. They can’t plant a flower. They can’t clear a bicycle path. They can’t do anything. Our people do that."

Michelle Malkin has more on this outrage here.  Boy Scouts, and anyone else who voluntarily gives up their free time to improve our communities, should be commended for their service, not ridiculed by selfish union bosses.  This kind of union demagoguery is quickly becoming a widespread national problem.  Malkin asks National Right to Work president Mark Mix why (emphasis added).

In California, union heavies in the Sacramento area sued a nonprofit environmental group for using college-age volunteers on a state-funded project to clean up a canyon and build a community trail. Big Labor dusted off an old law that requires community service volunteers to be paid prevailing wages for doing the same kind of cleanup that Allentown Boy Scout Kevin Anderson was punished for doing freely. The law was finally repealed, but not without a brass-knuckles fight.

As National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix, whose group monitors forced union abuses, pointed out during the battle: "Discerning California union bosses’ real agenda … is not hard. Volunteer workers don’t have to pay compulsory union dues to serve their communities, but most paid workers on public projects in California do. … (It) is yet another example of how government-authorized compulsory union dues corrupt the political process and furnish unscrupulous union officials with an enormous incentive to act against the public interest."

A recent story in the Providence Journal serves as a stark reminder of union bosses’ historical ties to the mafia and the propensity of union militants to mask their corruption and violence under pleasant-sounding goals like social justice.

U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith gave Nicholas Manocchio, a former director of the Laborers’ New England Region Organizing Fund, three years’ probation for accepting cash, liquor, rental cars and gift certificates from an undercover FBI agent posing as a contractor seeking business in Rhode Island.

Before being sentenced, Manocchio told Smith that he was "ashamed and embarrassed and repentant." He had worked for social justice causes, he said, and had tried to break through the labor movement’s culture of favoritism. "I hope you don’t define me by that single act."

While Manocchio may have committed just a "single act" of corruption, union bosses across the country think they’re above the law. This Right to Work video report shows that union violence is all too real, and that often the victims are rank-and-file workers.

Compulsory unionism itself is to blame.  With all the special privileges — including immunity from federal prosecution for union-related violence — union bigwigs have garnered through their political power, why wouldn’t they think they’re above the law?

Yesterday, The National Right to Work Foundation announced an offer of free legal aid to workers forced to go on strike by UFCW union bosses in Arizona. Now it seems that employee discontent has forced the union hierarchy to back-off its strike threats and bargain with Safeway and Fry’s.

However, reports are that union officials has still not agreed to a new contract, so workers dissatisfied with union representation can:

1) Resign from union membership and revoke their union check-off forms to stop paying union dues. Here’s a link to a sample dues cancellation letter for Arizona UCFW members. If you want to stop paying union dues, all you have to do is fill in your personal information and send it to the address provided on the form. For more information on opting out of union dues if you’ve signed a check-off form and live in a Right to Work state, click here. 

2) Independent-minded workers can also initiate a decertification petition to kick the union out of the workplace entirely. For more information on decertification petitions and elections, click here. 

As always, Right to Work attorneys stand ready to help workers who are tired of putting up with union boss antics, threats of crippling strikes, and excessive union dues. 

The November/December 2009 issue of Foundation Action is now available for download as a PDF. This is the Foundation’s official bimonthly publication that provides an excellent overview of hard-hitting legal actions being taken by Foundation attorneys every day to combat forced unionism.

Stories covered in this issue include:

• Teachers Challenge NEA Union Forced Dues and Membership Policies
• Obama’s DOL in Foundation’s Legal Crosshairs
• Right to Work Loses Great Benefactor, Advisor, and Friend
• Nurse Pushes Back Against Union Boss Intimidation
• San Diego School District Tells Nonunion Workers to Get Lost
• The Wall Street Journal — Read the Union Health-Care Label

In addition to to reading Foundation Action online, you can sign up to receive a free subscription by mail here.

The Charleston Daily Mail recently outlined Mayor Danny Jones’ concerns about pending federal legislation, best known as the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill, that would grease the rails for the forced unionization of every first responder in the country.

"It’s going to change things. The relationship (between the city and the police union) will become adversarial," Jones said.

"If you look around the states, the most unionized states are the ones that are the most broke."

Jones is not alone in his position. The National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties both have urged their members to oppose the legislation, with the cities’ group issuing a formal call to Congress asking for the act to be rejected.

"The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2009 (H.R. 413) would federalize what has historically been a state and local responsibility. With so many other pressing issues, there is no compelling reason for the federal government to intrude in this arena," the group’s letter states.

Mayor Jones isn’t the first mayor to stand up to the union bosses.  In July, National Right to Work president Mark Mix wrote in the Washington Examiner about Miami’s Manny Diaz, the outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who was outraged when the Obama Administration refused to attend the conference’s meeting in Providence, RI — at the request of International Association of Firefighters (IAFF/AFL-CIO) union President Harold Schaitberger.  Mix wrote:

As the national recession and exploding government deficits are forcing mayors across the country to make difficult decisions to keep their cities from going bankrupt, Schaitberger is leading a crusade to intimidate local and state elected officials. Specifically, he and his lieutenants are trying to deter local and state politicians from reforming the outrageous public-safety union pension systems that are driving cities like Providence into insolvency. The Obama White House is apparently eager to go along.

Not long before the mayors’ meeting, Schaitberger and the bosses of IAFF Local 799 in Providence announced that they would be setting up a picket line outside the conference. The White House then vowed that no one from the Obama administration would defy the union brass by attending. In a June 5 IAFF union press release, Schaitberger was quoted gloating about the Obama administration’s "unqualified support" for "organized labor."

If the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill becomes law, cities’ budget woes will become even more severe, and union brass will attain even more political power to enact their own agenda at the expense of the taxpayers.  For more background on the bill, read this report (PDF) by Stan Greer of the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.

Worker Advocate Offers Free Legal Aid to Employees Ordered Off the Job During Fry’s/Safeway Strike

National Right to Work Foundation releases legal notice to inform workers of their rights during likely upcoming UFCW-ordered strike

Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona (November 12, 2009) – America’s preeminent workers’ rights advocacy organization which helps victims of union coercion is offering free legal aid to workers whose rights are abused during the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union-ordered strike scheduled to begin tomorrow.

Union officials apparently intend to impose fines upon union members who wish to continue to go to their jobs in opposition to the union’s militant approach.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has received numerous calls from Arizona Safeway Stores, Inc. and Kroger-owned Fry’s Food Stores employees who want to continue providing for themselves and their families during the UFCW union-ordered strike.  The Foundation encourages workers to learn about their rights from independent sources and posted a special legal notice for workers on its website at https://www.nrtw.org.

"Not long ago, UFCW union bosses ordered an unpopular strike in Southern California, and for five months employees were out of work," said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation.  "Now the union brass wants to replicate that situation in Arizona, and concerned workers are contacting the Foundation seeking help."

(Read the full press release)

A heated battle is raging in Congress between major shipping companies United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) and FedEx Corporation and the rights of literally tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of employees hang in the balance.

You see, UPS is regulated under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and is heavily unionized, as 240,000 of its total 425,000 employees are required to accept union bosses’ monopoly bargaining "representation."  Meanwhile, FedEx is under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) — which also gives union bosses monopoly bargaining privileges, but only if an absolute majority of workers in a given bargaining unit vote to accept union bosses as their monopoly bargaining agent — and so only 4,700 of 290,000 FedEx employees have been unionized. 

So now UPS is backing legislation in Congress that would switch FedEx employees to the jurisdiction of the NLRA, making it easier for union bosses to corral FedEx’s employees into union ranks and force them to pay union dues just to keep their jobs.

ReasonTV has just released a video — parodying UPS’s famous "Whiteboard" commercials — detailing the UPS/FedEx dispute:

Unfortunately, FedEx employees’ workplace freedoms are not only in jeopardy by Congressional action, but also by federal bureaucratic fiat.

Big Labor is pushing for the National Mediation Board (NMB) — a government agency charged under the RLA with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries — to make dramatic changes to its enforcement of the RLA, greasing the skids for union organizers to force tens of thousands of non-union railway and airline industry workers into union membership.

Big labor partisans from over 30 unions, led by AFL-CIO, are pushing to change the threshold union organizers need to impose unions on workers in the railway and airline industries to just a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to make that decision for the whole group.

What seems like a small procedural change is in reality a major game changer, as it makes it exceedingly difficult for independent-minded workers to resist Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine, particularly since these campaigns must be run across an entire, often-nationwide bargaining unit.  Also, independent-minded FedEx employees would either have to take affirmative action to oppose union "representation" or otherwise potentially allow far less than a majority of their colleagues impose an unwanted union on them.

Unfortunately, regardless of how individual workers lose their rights — through actions of Congress or through executive branch machinations — Big Labor and Big Government are likely to be the only winners in the UPS-FedEx war.

Late last week, notoriously corrupt Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 1000 brass sent a clear message to those who object and attempt to expose their shady underbellies.  When California state employee and part-time reporter Ken Hamidi, a vocal critic of SEIU boss corruption, arrived at a SEIU Local 1000 meeting as in preparation for a cable access show exposing the local’s misconduct, SEIU union thugs assaulted him:

Hamidi says he came to the hall to expose how he says SEIU union leaders are spending tens of thousands of dollars on a political race, he claims, they have no right to do.  After he and a photographer walked in to the meeting, it didn’t take long for Hamidi to be right out the door and on his way to the hospital.

After Hamidi entered the meeting, SEIU union bosses ordered union militants to "beat the hell out of him." Three or four union thugs then held Hamidi down and beat him until he was "covered in blood."  SEIU union toughs then reportedly warned Hamidi that if he ever showed up again, they would probably kill him.

Hamidi was treated at the hospital for lacerations to his head and face and the district attorney is investigating the incident.

Sadly, if workers in California were protected by a Right to Work law, this incident may have been adverted.  Right to Work laws promote accountability of union officials to rank and file workers, thereby reducing union boss corruption.  If SEIU Local 1000 officials were obligated to be accountable to their members, it would have been much less likely Mr. Hamidi would have reason to investigate them and their questionable political schemes.

Last August, a health care protester was assaulted by union thugs for daring to voice his opinions at a political rally. Now Kenneth Gladney is stepping forward with his own account of what happened:

 

He [the union protester] shouted at me, “What kind of nigger are you?!” Then, he grabbed my board, so I quickly grabbed it back, then the man punched me in the face and charged at me . I put my hands up to block the second blow from the large man, when two other people from that group grabbed me and threw me to the ground and started punching and kicking me. I was kicked in the head and in the back, legs and buttocks. Then a white woman ran up to me while I was on the ground and began kicking me in my head as well.

Big Labor activism is frequently characterized by outbreaks of physical violence. Richard Trumka, the newly-installed head of the AFL-CIO who has condoned bloody violence, has made a career out of bullying and aggressive tactics. The powerful Service Employees International Union is also no stranger to physical coercion.

But why are union operatives so eager to stifle dissent over health care reform? Simple: they know that a massive expansion of Big Labor special privileges is at stake. A few weeks ago, Foundation President Mark Mix took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal to explain why union bosses are so invested in the health care debate.