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.