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?

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) has just released a report entitled "Tax-Paying Families Are Fleeing Forced-Unionism States" that details how and why families are moving from the 28 states that do not protect employees from forced unionism to the 22 states that do:

The IRS’s Statistical Information Service (SIS)… data for the Tax Filing Year 2008 show that a total of 1.523 million personal income tax filers were residing that year in a Right to Work state after residing somewhere else in the 50 states or the District of Columbia the previous year.  Meanwhile, a total of 1.338 million tax filers were residing in a Right to Work state in 2007, but filed from one of the other 49 states or the District of Columbia in
2008.

That means a net total of 185,000 tax filers moved from a forced-unionism state to a Right to Work state between 2007 and 2008.

The SIS also calculates and makes available to the public the aggregate adjusted gross incomes for migrating households in the year immediately following the move.  Personal income tax filers moving to a Right to Work state between 2007 and 2008 reported a total of $76.432 billion in income in 2008, or roughly $50,190 per filer.  Tax filers moving out of a Right to Work state during the same period reported a total of $61.773 billion in income in 2008, or roughly $46,165 per filer.

Both because of their substantial taxpayer losses due to net domestic out-migration, and because the taxpayers they gained earned significantly less per capita in 2008 than did the taxpayers they lost, forced-dues states lost a total of $14.659 billion in adjusted gross 2008 income in a single year.

The research report also highlights how those workers who flee forced unionism benefit with an adjusted gross income more than $4000 higher than their counterparts who moved from a pro-worker freedom state into a forced unionism state.

Of course, the most important aspect of why workers are fleeing to Right to Work states is because Right to Work laws give workers the needed protections to counter Big Labor’s forced dues monopoly in the workplace.  Right to Work laws allow workers to keep their own hard-earned money if they find union dues payment to be objectionable or even just undesirable. Because of that right, Right to Work laws allow independent-minded workers the ability to better hold union bosses accountable for their actions.

To read the full NILRR report, click here.

Recently, the National Right to Work Foundation sounded the alarm about an under-the-radar attempt by Big Labor to make dramatic changes to labor regulations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), enabling union organizers to force independent-minded railway and airline industry workers into unwanted union membership.

Big labor partisans from over 30 unions, led by AFL-CIO, pushed to change the current system requiring union bosses to obtain the consent of a true majority of workers in a given bargaining unit to accept their "exclusive representation."  Instead, they want a new system that allows just a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to impose unionization on the whole group — thereby giving union officials the upper hand over workers who would otherwise decline union affiliation.

Unfortunately, the National Mediation Board (NMB), the government agency charged under the Railway Labor Act with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, voted 2-1 to discard 75 year old precedent and assist Big Labor in maximizing unionization of workers under the jurisdiction of the RLA.  Right to Work litigators sprung into action filing formal comments defending independent-minded workers against the NMB’s draconian maneuver.

Now the Foundation has requested to testify at the NMB’s December 7, 2009 hearing on the proposed policy changes.  Naturally, the Foundation — as America’s preeminent workers’ rights advocacy organization — is in a unique position to provide the needed perspective of individual workers opposed to forced unionism.

Given the opportunity, Foundation attorneys will point out that the proposed changes makes it exceedingly difficult for independent-minded workers to resist Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine — operating across entire, often-nationwide bargaining units — and imposes a greater burden on employees who wish to refrain from union membership by forcing them to either take affirmative action to protect rights that should already be secure or otherwise allow far less than a majority of their colleagues take away their independence.

Last Friday, Right to Work attorneys filed a federal lawsuit with the Department of Labor to force the Obama Administration to release any documents related to high-ranking officials’ connections to Big Labor. Right to Work President Mark Mix recently sat down with nationally-syndicated radio host Lars Larson to discuss the Foundation’s push for greater disclosure. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:

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

The holiday season is upon us, and if you are like me, you still have plenty of presents to buy for family and friends. There has never been a better time to take advantage of the National Right to Work Foundation’s relationship with GoodShop.com.

Through GoodShop, you can shop at more than 700 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to help the Foundation provide free legal aid to victims of compulsory unionism.

Participating online stores include Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Gap, Macy’s, Old Navy, Target, Toys R Us, and many, many more.

It’s free and easy to use. Just go to Goodshop.com, select the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation as your charity, and click on the retailer of your choice.

You can also help the Foundation even more by replacing your search engine with GoodSearch.com. With each search, GoodSearch sends a portion of the advertising revenue to the Foundation.

And if you’re feeling particularly generous, click here to learn about all the ways you can support the Foundation.

Right to Work President Mark Mix recently appeared on the Jason Lewis Show for an extensive interview on the Foundation’s efforts to force the Obama Administration to reveal its close — and apparently unethical — ties to Big Labor insiders. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below.

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

Here on Freedom@Work a couple of weeks ago, we told you about the SEIU union boss threatening to file grievances against Boy Scouts for doing volunteer work and not paying union dues. But if you don’t think this kind of despicable behavior is par for the course — that union militants DON’T routinely put their own self interest above the public good — here’s another almost unbelievable story (emphasis added):

The American Red Cross won a court injunction today against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 929 after its members illegally blocked vehicles from leaving the facility, interfering with blood shipments to local hospitals.

…

The Red Cross says these tactics put patients at risk and required them to take legal action to stop this conduct. Doctors at area hospitals are now waiting for the safe delivery of Red Cross blood and blood products. Earlier today, the Red Cross says it had to inform union members that a two-year-old child’s life depended on our blood delivery before they would allow a Red Cross vehicle to exit the yard to get the necessary blood products to the hospital.

Union Lawyers Deploy Strategy to Overturn Workers’ Protection Against Card Check Organizing Abuse

Nationwide plan afoot to eliminate secret ballot elections to verify whether employees actually wanted to unionize

Washington, DC (December 17, 2009) – In five new cases before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), union lawyers are asking the NLRB to overturn a landmark 2007 decision which gave new protections to workers swept into union ranks through card check forced unionism.

In Dana Corporation, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys won new rights for employees intended to counteract the employee intimidation and harassment waged by aggressive union operatives that frequently occurs during controversial card check organizing campaigns.

The Dana decision granted employees the ability to file a decertification petition and demand a secret ballot election to toss out union officials from their workplace within 45 days after an employer recognizes a monopoly bargaining agent by card check. This important (though modest) check gives workers some ability to stop union organizers from gaining monopoly control over a workplace without even the support of a majority of the employees.

The very Foundation attorneys who originally won the landmark Dana case are providing free legal assistance to Todd Fields, an ARAMARK Uniform and Career Apparel employee in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Mike Lopez, an employee of Lamons Gasket Company in Houston, Texas, in two of the five cases before the NLRB. These two cases seeking to overturn Dana were pressed by Service Workers United (SEIU) and United Steelworkers union lawyers.

Click here to read the full release.

If the goal of Obama’s Deficit Panel is to increase government budget deficits then naming SEIU top boss Andy Stern makes perfect sense. But since the supposed goal is to reduce the record budget shortfalls, Stern’s nomination is a real head-scratcher.

As many union members know, the self-interest of union bosses to corral more workers into dues-paying ranks often has severe costs.  And now that more than half of our nation’s government workers are now under union boss monopoly bargaining control, it’s becoming abundantly clear that one of these costs is the growth of government to fiscally unsustainable levels.

It’s no wonder mayors from across the country are standing up to oppose the Police & Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill, currently pending in Congress, which would force first responders into forced-dues-paying ranks by federal fiat.  As Charleston, WV, mayor Danny Jones told the Charleston Daily Mail, 

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

So while SEIU boss Andy Stern continues his using his frequent White House visits to push for a new federal policy that could add $100 billion a year to the federal budget (while forcing employees of federal contractors into union coffers) and the costs of Big Labor’s public sector growth become more clear, concerned citizens can only wonder what kind of recommendations Andy Stern will make on President Obama’s deficit panel.

Despite union lawyers’ obstruction, workers vote to “decertify” United Electrical union bosses

Pittsburgh, PA (March 12, 2009) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, Pittsburgh Precision Turned Products employees recently overcame frivolous union boss blocking charges to eject the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 623 union.

In November 2009, Kathleen Lobodinsky, an employee at Precision Turned Products, solicited signatures from coworkers to hold an election to eject Local 623 from their workplace. Instead of defending their presence to employees, union officials responded by filing spurious blocking charges with the National Labor Relations Board(NLRB), alleging that company officials unlawfully assisted Lobodinsky’s efforts to collect employee signatures.

Click here to read the rest . . .