Wednesday’s Daily Labor Report (subscription required) featured a self-serving article likely placed by the National Labor Relations Board’s PR flacks in which the two remaining board members assert that the NLRB "might actually be functioning more efficiently" with three vacancies than with a full five-member panel. Hmmm. Perhaps Congress should take another look at the NLRB’s excessive funding levels.

We at Freedom @ Work also take issue with a false claim by the Board contained in the article:

Applying current board precedent, regardless of whether either of the two members disagrees with it and thinks it should be overturned, "hasn’t been difficult, because as usual we generally try to decide cases based on extant board law," [Chairman Peter] Schaumber said. The two members explained that they are following longstanding board policy not to make new law or set new rules without at least a three-member majority voting for the change.

Oops, Mr. Schaumber. Not so. Just a few weeks ago, the two-member Board issued a controversial ruling which changed the law and further encouraged union-stooge congressmen to engage in deception and union coercion. As a Foundation press release explained (emphasis mine):

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a controversial and ground-breaking ruling that gives Congressmen and other public officials the green light to stage fake “certification” ceremonies that give the misimpression of official government recognition of a union during “card check” organizing drives.

The case dismissed objections to the conduct of Congressman Robert Andrews (D-NJ) and other government officials who participated in a televised sham union “certification” ceremony and public announcement that workers had selected a union immediately prior to a NLRB certification election last summer at the Trump Plaza Hotel in Atlantic City.

The NLRB’s ruling raised the burden of proof requirements for arguing that conduct tainted a certification election. Earlier Board law did not require challengers to present incontrovertible evidence that many employees were actually aware of the objectionable conduct – only that it was likely that many were.

Either Schaumber was confused when deciding this Trump Plaza Hotel case, or he’s being disingenuous to the press.

Here at Freedom @ Work, we often discuss card check by citing examples of employees being harassed, misled, or lied to by union organizers.

But simple common sense also says that when (often intimidating) individuals shove a piece of paper in your face, and tell you that it is in your interest to sign, you may well do it — even if you aren’t exactly sure what you are signing.

Case in point are two videos — both done for television shows — of people signing absurd petitions. In both cases, the signature collectors don’t even lie to the people whose signatures they seek about what they are signing.

In one video, two comedians set up a table at a fair and easily collect dozens of signatures, mostly from women, to "end women’s suffrage." Meaning that without even lying, they got dozens of women to sign a petition in favor of eliminating their right to vote.

In another video, shown below, a women collects hundreds of signatures to ban "Dihydrogen Monoxide" — better known as water — at a rally of environmentalists. Like, the "end women’s suffrage" pranksters, the signature collector truthfully informs prospective signers about the chemical (water) that they want to ban:

As these videos show, just because someone signs a petition or card, doesn’t mean they really understand what they are signing. Furthermore, Foundation legal cases have shown outright lies about the meaning or effect of the cards. These realities are something that must be remembered when union bosses or their allies in Congress attempt to impose more card check coercion on workers.

Yesterday, the AFL-CIO officially endorsed its candidate for president. The endorsement should come as no surprise, of course, since Big Labor has always used member dues — and forced dues from nonmembers — to support its Far Left political agenda. But this year’s campaign will apparently be the largest and most expensive yet:

This year, the AFL-CIO is carrying out its largest grassroots political mobilization in history. Thousands of volunteers are helping educate millions of workers and mobilizing them to get to the polls to elect Barack Obama and a working family-friendly Congress. The AFL-CIO union movement is focusing on mobilizing more than 13 million union voters?including union members, families of members, retirees and members of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America?in 24 priority states, working to elect U.S. senators and representatives, as well as state and local candidates.

An Associated Press report reports how much money Big Labor is admitting it will spend on electioneering. (While large, the numbers below understate by several hundred million dollars Big Labor’s true political spending this year, according to our research.):

As expected, the leaders of the nation’s largest labor organization voted unanimously to endorse Obama, freeing the organization and its 56 unions to spend some of its $200 million war chest on his campaign.
…
Between the AFL-CIO and its chief rival, the Change to Win labor organization, the nation’s labor movement plans to spend around $300 million on the 2008 elections. Change to Win, made up of seven powerful unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005, already has endorsed Obama. The AFL-CIO represents 9 million union members; Change to Win, 6 million.

Big Labor "represents" so many workers because forced unionism laws compel workers in 28 states to join or pay dues to a union. Even in Right to Work states, many workers are unaware of their rights, and in some cases union bosses pretend Right to Work laws don’t even exist. Legally, thanks to Foundation-won Supreme Court cases Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America v. Beck, workers can be forced to pay dues for unwanted bargaining, but may opt out of paying dues which union bosses use on non-bargaining activities such as union politics, lobbying, and member-only events.

But as we so often see, union officials frequently trample these constitutional rights. Last week, the Foundation announced a settlement reached between an Alaska state employee and the Alaska State Employees Association union, an AFL-CIO affiliate. ASEA union officials threatened Hunsick’s dismissal for refusal pay full union dues. Hunsick did not want to support the union’s political and ideological agenda, but union bosses continually denied him the procedural safeguards guaranteed under Hudson.

When an AFL-CIO activist knocks on your door and hands you a pamphlet explaining who to vote for, keep in mind that the funding behind it all might just be seized at gunpoint (figuratively speaking, in most cases) from folks like Robert Hunsick.

A few Right to Work-related updates from over the weekend:

1.) Does the AFL-CIO owe $14 million in back taxes? Perhaps an IRS audit will reveal other problems with the AFL-CIO’s overtly partisan and massive campaign expenditures. The author overstates the good that comes from oversight of union finances by the Office of Labor Management Standards, but he does point out the amusing fact that Democrats are in favor of "smaller government" in this one instance:

One of the branches of the Department of Labor that provides a real services to all Americans is the Office of Labor-Management Standards. These are the guys who make sure that labor unions are being transparent about their finances. Or they try, when the Democrats don’t cut their budget. But, for now, you get to see how unions spend their money.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to ensure greater union financial disclosure, subscribe to the latest issue of Foundation Action. The July/August newsletter features a story on the DOL’s latest half-hearted attempt to promote financial transparency — any why a crippling "confidential information" loophole would render DOL’s whole exercise as useless.

2.) More good stuff from the Washington Examiner. John Barnes has a informative post entitled "Why public sector labor unions are a bad idea." Here’s the money quote:

This is how the cycle works: state workers are forced to join a union, even if they don’t want to — the unions collect mandatory dues from state worker paychecks — the unions use that money to support campaigns for the very elected officials with whom they bargain for contracts — not surprisingly, the unions tend to get favorable contracts that usually result in higher membership dues that in turn provide the unions with more money to fund "friendly" elected officials. Add a growing state workforce, repeat cycle, and stir. What’s the basic ingredient here? Your tax dollars.

For those of you who missed it, Freedom@Work spotlighted Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire’s incestuous relationship with union officials last week. The Seattle Times article detailing her connections to Big Labor is well-worth a read.

The cover story of the July/August issue of Foundation Action is now available for download here.

The story details former United States Solicitor General Paul Clement’s efforts to undermine the Foundation’s Locke v. Karass U.S. Supreme Court case. The article also shows that this isn’t the first time that the Solicitor General, who recently-resigned his position, has undercut a Foundation Supreme Court case.

You can get your own free subscription to Foundation Action here.

In May, a devastating piece from the Far Left New Republic highlighted the Teamsters’ officials attempts to get rid of the Independent Review Board (IRB), a federal oversight body intended to police the union’s well-documented connections to organized crime. Here’s a particularly choice example of Teamster union "representation" from the article:

But Hoffa’s efforts [to get rid of the IRB] were derailed by a sensational IRB report that appeared late that year detailing the efforts of Chicago Teamsters, working with a Chicago labor broker, Richard Simon, whom Stier [a former federal prosecutor] would later describe as "having ties to organized crime," to undermine a Teamster local in Las Vegas by negotiating non-union, low-wage agreements to service the city’s numerous business conventions.

Now a former Teamsters boss has written in to announce he’s shocked – shocked – by the magazine’s allegations of corruption. Having already been ejected from the union by the IRB for innappropriate conduct, his credibility on this issue is somewhat strained. Fortunately, the author ably defends his original contentions:

The IRB found that the two men [two Teamsters officials — one of whom wrote in to object to the first article] tried to get the Teamsters local 631 in Las Vegas, which provided workers to convention shows, to allow Richard Simon, a Chicago labor broker, to provide non-union workers to conventions. The workers, which would be provided by Simon’s United Temps, would not receive benefits or overtime. All in all, they would earn less than half of the Teamster workers; and under the labor agreement that the Teamsters had with the conventions, Simon’s cut-rate contract could then become the standard for all convention employees. The Teamsters would be screwed, but Simon would come out ahead, and so would Hogan’s brother Michael, who was the vice president of Simon’s company, and also the head of a convention company that would be hiring Simon’s workers.

Notably, the IRB’s investigation was later validated by a federal court:

"Having carefully reviewed the hearing record," the Appeals Court wrote, "we concluded that the IRB’s findings are supported by substantial evidence, are not arbitrary or capricious, and plainly demonstrate that Hogan and Passo were negotiating a contract that they knew would have harmed the union."

While more oversight may seem desirable, it’s no substitute for real reform. Corruption will remain endemic to labor unions like the Teamsters as long as union officials have access to a bottomless source of mandatory dues payments. Furthermore, the entire structure of monopoly bargaining gives employees no meaningful recourse to combat union fraud and corruption, as union officials are essentially installed for life as workers’ sole representatives [this National Institute for Labor Relations Research paper is good primer on the relationship between compulsory unionism and union corruption].

Good-faith efforts at union oversight are also vulnerable to changes in the political environment. According to this Wall Street Journal article, one presidential candidate has already announced his support for dismantling the IRB and giving the Teamsters free reign to police themselves. Unfortunately, we already know how that strategy will turn out (from the original TNR article):

To build an argument for getting rid of the IRB, Hoffa set up his own internal oversight group. It was called RISE (or Respect, Integrity, Strength, and Ethics) and was run by a former federal prosecutor and organized crime expert Ed Stier.

. . .

For Stier, however, those hopes were dashed the next year when he began investigating Chicago-area Teamster locals for corruption. As he later detailed in a report, Stier discovered "multiple issues related to organized crime [and] corruption" in Local 714, and similar issues in five other area locals. The report concluded, "Issues related to organized crime infiltration and associated corruption in the Chicago area are numerous and cut across jurisdictional lines." But in the fall of 2003, as Stier was still in the midst of his investigation, the Teamster leadership began objecting vociferously to it, and in February 2004, Hoffa shut it down.

A couple of weeks ago, Will Collins blasted Denver Post deputy editor Bob Ewegen for his misleading column denying the economic boom underway in Right to Work states. This weekend, Ewegen once again spouted the talking points of compulsory unionism (emphasis mine):

Despite the label, "Right to Work" laws don’t guarantee anybody a job — unless you’re a lawyer. Unions have filed a lawsuit alleging widespread fraud by the petition gatherers hired by the anti-union forces. The challenge could knock the initiative off the ballot, though sponsors have asked for the right to seek extra signatures to "cure" those defects.

Big Labor and its media stooges love setting up a tired false dichotomy about Right to Work. The Right to Work principle is not at all "anti-union." The Right to Work principle makes no judgment on whether workers should join/support a union for whatever reason. That is a decision best left up to the individual. The Right to Work principle is therefore anti-compulsory unionism and pro-freedom of choice.

Whether he knows it or not, Ewegan actually ends up highlighting an injustice flowing from forced unionism later in his column:

Amendment 27, the 2002 Colorado campaign finance law written by Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, allows labor unions to contribute up to $4,000 to candidates to the legislature. Businesses and private citizens are limited to one-tenth as much as unions can contribute, no more than $400 per election season.

That’s because Amendment 27 allows "small donor committees" to give politicians 10 times as much as any other person or group if they get only $50 or less per contributor. Unions are well positioned to exploit that loophole because, for example, the Colorado Association of Public Employees/Service Employees International Union, can deduct $4 a month from a member’s $15 monthly dues for political purposes and count the resulting $48 a year as a "small donor" contribution from a member who may not even be aware that she made that particular "donation."

Let’s sum up: Colorado law (1) limits the amount of money an individual person can choose to donate to a political campaign and (2) refuses individual employees the right to decide whether they want a union’s "representation."

But when it comes to unions, Colorado law (1) allows unions to donate up to ten times as much as individuals to political campaigns and (2) grants union officials the government-backed coercive power to seize dues from individuals and divert them into the union’s political agenda.

Ewegen also laments that Right to Work does not guarantee employment. That’s true, and Right to Work doesn’t guarantee rainbows or sunshine either, although it is worth pointing out that Right to Work laws certainly do help create jobs.

Next time, instead of shilling for Big Labor and complaining about Right to Work laws’ lack of mystical powers, Ewegen should acknowledge the fact that compulsory unionism guarantees special privileges for Big Labor at the expense of individuals’ freedom of association.

A few Right to Work-related updates from over the holiday weekend:

1.) July 5th marked the 73rd anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act. This legislation, originally enacted in 1935, imposes union officials as middlemen between management and workers. While reformers thought they were curtailing the worst excesses with the Taft-Hartley Amendments in 1947, the NLRA continued to give government backing to Big Labor’s monopoly bargaining privileges while actually increasing the government force behind an immoral policy of forcing workers to pay dues for often unwanted union "representation."

Here’s a good primer on the NLRA’s evolution from Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

2.) Reason Magazine has a good post up on the racially-charged history of mandatory collective bargaining. Here’s the money quote:

The NAACP’s publication The Crisis, for example, decried the monopoly powers granted to racist unions by the NRA, noting in 1934 that "union labor strategy seems to be to obtain the right to bargain with the employees as the sole representative of labor, and then close the union to black workers."

Institutional union racism continues to this very day.  And it is aided and abetted by Big Labor’s monopoly bargaining privileges which give union officials inordinate power over employees’ livelihood.  It is all too common for union bosses to retaliate against employees for any arbitrary reasons, including race. In fact, one need not go back any further than a week to find allegations of racism by union officials.

On July 4, former Senator Jesse Helms passed away in Raleigh, North Carolina at the age of 86. Best known for his tireless conservative advocacy, Senator Helms was a staunch defender of employees’ Right to Work and a fierce opponent of compulsory unionism.

Once dubbed "Public Enemy #1" by North Carolina AFL-CIO top boss Wilbur Hobby, Helms’ impressive legislative record included several notable accomplishments on behalf of the Right to Work movement. In 1978, his timely filibuster single-handedly de-railed Big Labor’s efforts to pass the infamous Pushbutton Unionism Bill (or so-called "Labor Law Reform"), a piece of legislation designed to impose draconian penalties on any employer resisting compulsory unionization. Helms struck another blow against Big Labor in 1995, successfully opposing Senator Ted Kennedy’s attempts to pass the Pushbutton Strike Bill.

In the 1990s, Helms actively assisted the National Right to Work Committee’s efforts to safeguard employee freedom through passage of the National Right to Work Act. Not only did Helms reintroduce the legislation in 2001, he also wrote letters and recorded messages on behalf of the Committee. Through his efforts, Helms helped mobilize hundreds of thousands of citizens against compulsory unionism.

In 2001, then Foundation President Reed Larson paid Helms the ultimate tribute: "No member of Congress – nobody in the whole United States – has done as much to help [us] advance the Right to Work cause as Jesse Helms."

Last week, officials from the United Steelworkers union and "Unite the Union" — among the largest unions in North America and the United Kingdom — announced that they had signed an agreement to merge into a single, global union. From their joint press release:

Consistent with this calling, Workers Uniting will "match our words with action and resources, utilizing our collective expertise and knowledge through collective bargaining, organizing, global political action and international solidarity."

What might this "global political action" include? Among other activities… "Exposure to the political processes in each other’s countries, including Democratic Party primaries and Labour Party conferences."

Initially, the two unions claim, "Workers Uniting" (though "Union Bosses Uniting" would be a more accurate name) will operate with a budget of several million dollars.

Of course, the press release fails to mention that the bulk of the budget will be funded by forced union dues from American workers who never asked for globalist union "representation" in the first place.