Big Labor is spending north of a billion dollars to get their favored candidates elected, much of it from employees forced to pay dues to keep their job. Union bosses see it as a smart investment given the forced unionism power grabs that could quickly become law if their chosen candidates take office.

As detailed in today’s Wall Street Journal, those power grabs would mean literally billions new forced dues dollars flowing into union bosses’ coffers.  There is no question that Foundation attorneys will be overwhelmed with legal aid requests from workers seeking refuge from the onslaught:

Big Labor is hoping to have a big election next Tuesday, with a goal of building a majority to rewrite negotiating rules between unions and management. Though it has received little media attention, Barack Obama’s pro-union agenda is the most ambitious in decades and has a real prospect of becoming law. His stated goal is to "strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions" by doing the following:

– Mr. Obama is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would eliminate the secret ballot in union organizing elections. Unions would be certified to negotiate pay, benefits and work rules simply by collecting signed "union authorization cards" from a majority of employees at a work site. The law passed the House in 2007 but didn’t come up for a Senate vote.

Under current law, union organizers and management both have the opportunity to present the pros and cons of forming a union. A secret employee vote is then held. Under Mr. Obama’s proposal, unions would be the sole provider of information to the employee, and the worker’s decision whether to organize would no longer be private.

Unions say current law favors management, which can stall to a point where workers lose interest in organizing. But the median number of days between filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and holding an election has actually fallen over the past two decades. In 2007, more than 1,500 such elections were held, and unions won 54% of them, the same win rate of the early 1970s.

– Another labor-friendly provision of the Employee Free Choice Act is mandatory arbitration. Under current law, labor and management are required to bargain in good faith but aren’t obliged to reach an agreement. Under Mr. Obama’s proposal, if the parties can’t settle on a contract within 120 days, the dispute goes to an arbitration panel which can impose a contract that is binding for two years.

As a practical matter, contracts typically involve dozens of provisions dealing with wages as well as seniority, grievances, overtime, transfers and promotions. Rarely is this accomplished in four months. The provision would notably shift bargaining power to unions, which would have an incentive to run out the 120-day clock and let an arbitrator impose a contract that is bound to include much of what unions demand.

– Mr. Obama also supports legislation to reverse the NLRB’s "Kentucky River" ruling last year, which fleshed out the definition of a supervisor for the purposes of organizing. Unions usually prefer a narrow definition of management, because it increases the number of people potentially under their control. Conversely, labor has worked to expand the definition of "employee" to include everyone from temp workers to graduate-student teaching assistants.

– The Democrat also wants to bar companies from replacing striking workers — a right that management has held for some 70 years. Unions made a similar push in the early 1990s, and a bill passed the House but was blocked in the Senate. Mr. Clinton issued an executive order that would have ended the provision for federal contractors. It was struck down in federal court. Mr. Clinton then tried to get the NLRB to make it more difficult to replace striking workers. The courts overturned that too. Mr. Obama says he will "work to ban the provision," but hasn’t provided specifics.

– Mr. Obama supports the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act and has said he’d push for its enactment as president. The bill, which passed the House last year and already has 60 votes in the Senate, would force state and local governments to recognize union leaders as the exclusive bargaining agent for police, firefighters and other first responders. More than half of the states would have to change their laws. Thousands of public safety officers would no longer be able to negotiate directly with their employers on their own behalf.

Read the whole thing here.

For background on Big Labor’s plans, listen to this Right to Work podcast with Greg Mourad of the National Right to Work Committee.

Episode 2 of the Foundation’s weekly podcast is now available online for download.

Foundation VP Stefan Gleason discusses union politics and Big Labor’s massive fundraising apparatus with Stanley Greer, program director at the National Institute for Labor Relations Research. Greer pegs the amount of money (largely funded with dues collected under from workers forced to pay) that Big Labor will be spending on this election at $1.2 billion or more, and explains the many ways union bosses funnel money to their hand-picked candidates. Listen here:

You can also subscribe to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.

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.

Read the whole story here (pdf) and sign up today for a free print subscription.

To receive the entire issue via email, just type your email address into the box in the top right corner of this page.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/.