Springfield, Va. (July 25, 2005) – The following is a statement of Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, in response to the announcement by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials over the weekend that the union will leave the AFL-CIO labor conglomerate.

“The rift within the top echelon of the AFL-CIO is more about laying blame and jockeying for control of the union hierarchy than about helping workers. At the end of the day, both sides of the controversy are working toward the same goal of expanding their power and forcing more workers to join unions.

“The argument is over two sides of the same coin. Some union bosses would like to see even more resources diverted into politics with the goal of passing new laws that grant more coercive organizing privileges.

“Other union officials – such as those at the SEIU and Teamsters, and at the grocery, hotel, and textile unions – would like to see even more resources diverted to corporate campaigns and top-down organizing. These tactics involve attacking companies until they agree to hand over their employees into forced unionism without even so much as a vote of the employees.

“This political posturing within ultra-elite union hierarchies amounts to nothing more than a shell game by power-hungry union officials bent on control over more than $10 billion in compulsory union dues. In the end, it doesn’t matter who is steering Big Labor’s ship as long as individual workers continue to be strapped to the mast.

“Rather than working to preserve and expand their power to order workers to ‘pay up or be fired,’ union officials should work to improve their product in order to attract workers’ voluntary support.”

To schedule an interview with a Right to Work spokesperson, call Justin Hakes at 703-770-3317.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in more than 250 cases nationwide per year.