The primary goal of any Right to Work law is to safeguard employee rights by ensuring that no worker is forced to join or pay tribute to a union against his or her will. But it’s nice to know that Right to Work states also enjoy faster growth and higher real purchasing power than their forced unionism counterparts. Here’s an excerpt from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research’s latest fact sheet on the issue:

Percentage Growth in Real Personal Income (1999-2009)

Right to Work States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.3%
Forced-Unionism States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.7%
National Average . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.5%

Cost of Living-Adjusted Per Capita Disposable Personal Income (2009)

Right to Work States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35,543
Forced-Unionism States . . . . . . . . . . . . . $33,389
National Average . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $34,256

Click here for the rest of NILRR’s findings. For more on the economic benefits of Right to Work laws, check out these blog posts. 

Earlier this year, Gerry McEntee, president of the powerful AFSCME union, explained to The Hill newspaper that his union’s futile $87.5 million political spending blitz in the 2010 Congressional midterm elections was intended to protect unpopular incumbent Democrats in Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation, was published in Investor’s Business Daily exposing how union members actually overwhelmingly oppose their union bosses’ political spending and agenda. From Investor’s:

Top union officials spent an estimated one billion dollars of union dues in an attempt to re-elect incumbent Democrat politicians back into Congress during the 2010 midterm election cycle. But just how do the rank-and-file workers feel about that?

Despite the claims by union heads based in Washington, D.C., when it comes to the critical political and policy questions of our day, union officials do not espouse the beliefs of the rank-and-file members that they claim to represent…

The poll, conducted October 26-28 by long time pollster Frank Luntz, found that 60% of union members oppose their union bosses’ record political spending in the midterm elections, viewing it a complete waste for union bosses to use union dues and treasuries to protect unpopular incumbent Democrat politicians in Washington, D.C.

The Luntz/National Right to Work poll (pdf) also found:

• A majority of union members even believe that union boss political spending should be used to “throw the bums out” instead, and half support replacing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with someone else while only 30% want her to remain Speaker;
• In light of Big Labor’s 2010 political spending spree, 59% of union membership would actually vote to replace their own “union leadership” if given a secret ballot election to do so;
• Half of union members view President Obama and the Democratic Congress’s healthcare reform bill as a failure, while only 37% view it as a success;
• Majorities also view the 2009 stimulus bill and the 2008 corporate bailouts as failures;
• Overwhelming majorities oppose future government spending and debt to rejuvenate the economy, and two-thirds of union members instead trust entrepreneurs, small businesses, and employers to lead America to better job growth.

But what should scare union bosses the most is that 80% of union members also support the Right to Work principle that would strip union officials of their government-granted special privileges to force workers into paying union dues or fees as a condition of employment. Perhaps next time union bosses should pause before spending massive amounts of workers’ money to push an agenda that the workers disagree with.

At National Review, John Berlau explains how the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act – better known to Freeom@Work readers as the Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill – threatens public safety:

But as with health care, liberals want to take away federalism in fire protection and force all American communities into a one-size-fits-all unionized model. The biggest congressional priority of the IAFF over the past few years has been the so-called Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would force unionization and collective bargaining on every one of the nation’s local fire departments.

And far from delivering fire protection that is quick and efficient, this legislation is almost guaranteed to bring big-city slowdowns to every town. According to the watchdog Public Service Research Council, public-employee strikes quadruple, on average, in the years after state laws mandating public-sector collective bargaining take effect.

So the question is, to paraphrase Krugman: Do you want to live in the kind of society in which this happens? Too bad if you answered “no,” because Krugman’s allies are determined to take the choice of non-unionized fire departments away from fire fighters and homeowners.

Read the whole thing here. As Berlau notes, the consequences of union-instigated fire department strikes have been devastating:

Similar damage and destruction occurred in the 1975 fire fighters’ strike in Kansas City, Mo. In The Municipal Doomsday Machine, his 1970s exposé of corruption in public-safety unions, journalist and National Review founding editor Ralph de Toledano vividly described a city paralyzed by union violence. According to his and other accounts, when fires hit — in suspiciously high numbers, as in Memphis — non-striking firefighters found fire extinguishers that had been filled with flammable liquid, oxygen tanks that had been emptied, and fuel tanks of fire trucks that had been fouled with water.

The 23-day Chicago fire fighters’ strike in 1980 was mostly free of the violence that plagued Memphis, Kansas City, and other places, but its duration made it much more deadly. On February 14, all but 400 of Chicago’s 4,300 fire fighters gave the Windy City a valentine by walking off the job. They formed picket lines in front of its 120 fire stations, shutting down more than half of them.

During the strike, “24 people died in incidents involving calls for help from the fire department,” the Chicago Tribune would recount 20 years later. One tragedy that could have been avoided was the death of brother and sister Tommie and Santana Jackson — ages 1 and 2, respectively — who perished in a fire in an apartment that, according to Time magazine, was “just half a block from a closed fire station.”

The risk of public safety strikes is just one more reason why the Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill is such a bad idea. For more information on the bill, click here. 

As we recounted earlier this month, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are fighting a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to hand over all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to government union bosses.

Last week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, and Carrie Schlaud, the courageous lead plaintiff of the providers’ class-action lawsuit against Granholm and the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions appeared on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends to discuss the case:

In the latest issue of the Federalist Society’s Engage journal, National Right to Work Foundation attorney William Messenger discusses two lawsuits challenging schemes in Michigan and Illinois that force unionization on personal care providers and child care providers.

Two principal groups of individuals are currently being subjected to state-imposed representation. The first group is “Personal Care Providers,” who provide home personal care to disabled, chronically ill, or elderly individuals whose care is paid for by state self-directed home and community-based service (“HCBS”) programs established under Medicaid. This care generally includes assistance with daily living activities, such as dressing, grooming, and homemaking. Although the details of state HCBS programs vary, their core feature is that participants have discretion to hire, fire, and supervise their Personal Care Providers. The state subsidizes participants’ costs for hiring a Personal Care Provider and provides counseling to facilitate the process.

….

The second group is “Childcare Providers,” who provide home childcare (i.e., daycare) services to parents whose childcare expenses are subsidized by state programs established under the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). Childcare Providers include independent contractors who operate daycare businesses from their homes, employees employed in parents’ homes, and relatives willing to watch their grandchildren or other related children in their homes. State programs generally permit participants to hire the private Childcare Provider of their choice, with the state’s role generally limited to paying some or all of their childcare costs.

As Messenger explains in the article, these forced unionism schemes infringe upon the First Amendment rights of compassionate care providers (including grandparents and babysitters) because they are being forced to support political speech and lobbying activities with no vital government interest.

In Michigan, 40,000 child care providers are now forced to pay union dues to joint venture of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions, and the scheme in Illinois forces approximately 20,000 personal care providers to pay fees to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). These schemes funnel millions of dollars into union coffers at the expense of the care recipients.

Hopefully, the federal courts will correct the gross injustice done to these tens of thousands of care providers, but these lawsuits have much wider implications. At least 15 other states have similar schemes, and union bosses are on the move to impose their representation on care providers nationwide.

Moreover, if these schemes are upheld, Messenger argues, "any individuals that receive monies from a government program, such as contractors with the government and recipients of Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, subsidized housing, and other government entitlements" could soon find themselves subjected to compulsory union representation.

Read the full article here.

Yesterday, former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) chieftain and appointment to President Obama’s "Deficit Panel" Andy Stern was reportedly being investigated by the FBI for his role in a couple of shady dealings while he was at the helm of the forced unionism leviathan.  But that wasn’t the only big story coming out yesterday about widespread SEIU union hierarchy corruption during his tumultuous reign. From Ed Barnes on FoxNews.com:

Despite a finding by the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel that the Service Employees International Union violated election law when it required local affiliates to contribute to its political action fund, the FEC’s full board nonetheless quietly voted to overrule its staff attorney and dismissed the original complaint — clearing the way for the union to squeeze its locals to amass a $9 million war chest for the next election.

Moreover, the group that filed the complaint, the National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF), didn’t receive a full explanation of the FEC’s decision in the case until after 111 days had passed, ensuring that its right to file an appeal had lapsed.

…

The NRWF, long a thorn in the side of the 1.8 million-member union, filed its complaint in October 2008, challenging an amendment to the union’s constitution that required each local to contribute $6 per member to the international’s political action committee. Those locals that didn’t comply would be charged the difference between what they owed and what they raised — plus, a 50 percent penalty.

"To us it was a prima facie case for coercion," [National Right to Work President Mark] Mix said. "Plus, it looked like a money laundering scheme as well, because locals would pay the penalties from their general funds into the political action committee. General union treasury funds are not allowed to be used for political purposes," he said.

Frankly, it’s very unfortunate that the FEC seems interested in allowing Big Labor political corruption.  As Mark Mix explained in the Washington Examiner earlier this month:

Imagine the outcry if McDonalds executives demanded that franchise owners collect “voluntary” contributions totaling $25,000 for the company’s Political Action Committee (PAC) from employees at every restaurant.

What if the fast food titan’s headquarters followed up with a threat – pay us, or face a $37,500 fine? Do you think this heavy handed scheme would raise a few eyebrows at the Federal Election Commission (FEC)?

Replace “McDonalds” with “SEIU” in that description and you’ve got a pretty good idea of Big Labor’s latest political fundraising strategy. To meet their ambitious fundraising targets, Service Employees International Union bosses are now threatening to fine any local affiliate that doesn’t meet its PAC contribution requirements.

The only problem with this racket is that FEC guidelines explicitly prohibit organizations from collecting PAC funds by threatening members with financial reprisals. SEIU bosses aren’t exactly hiding their intentions, either – they actually wrote this fundraising provision into the union’s constitution at their annual convention.

If McDonalds had the nerve to collect contributions from employees using similar threats, you can bet the FEC would be all over the case. The SEIU, however, seems to have gotten away scot-free.

Regular Freedom@Work readers may recall that National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are duking it out in federal court against government union lawyers over a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.  In order to thank union bosses for their political support, Granholm handed all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions.

Granholm, following the Rod Blagojevich blueprint of forced-union organizing, directed state officials to grease the skids for union organizers to railroad the child-care providers under union boss control.

A courageous group of child-care workers asked National Right to Work for assistance, as some of them didn’t even know they were being forced into union dues-paying ranks until it was too late, and they want nothing to do with the union.  This courageous group of workers filed a federal class-action lawsuit to challenge Granholm’s scheme as a violation of their Constitutional rights of free speech, free association, and their right to freely petition government for redress of grievances because, in effect, Governor Granholm is picking the lobbyists of Michigan’s child-care providers.

In mid-July, Foundation attorneys appeared in federal court in Grand Rapids and convinced the judge to proceed with the child-care workers’ case — despite state and union lawyers’ multiple attempts to have the case dismissed.  Wednesday, the Grand Rapids Press called on the federal judge to strike down the forced unionism scheme. As the Grand Rapids Press explains:

Covert unionization violates basic constitutional rights of freedom of association. The formation of the union for Michigan child care providers four years ago was downright sneaky and unfair. A lawsuit in federal court, brought by some affected child care providers, objects to their being shoe-horned into unions — and forced to pay dues — against their will. In that suit, and in one brought in state courts, the child care providers have legitimate grievances. They should prevail.

The forced-unionization travesty occurred primarily because Michigan Democrats wanted to help the UAW and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pad their membership rolls.

In 2006, the UAW and AFSCME partnered to form a union called Child Care Providers Together Michigan. The union represents and draws dues from people who care for children from low-income families. The new union members belong either to the UAW or AFSCME, depending on the part of the state in which they live.

Whatever attempts were made to inform child care providers of the pending unionization must have been feeble at best. Only 15 percent of the state’s 40,000 dues-paying providers took part in the vote-by-mail certification election that formed the union. Fully 92 percent of those voting said yes to the union. But they hardly constitute a valid majority of all the now-dues-paying members. Hopefully, the federal lawsuit will uncover how this election was allowed to occur.

The low-income clients provided a rationale — though not a legitimate one — for the forced unionization. The argument is that because providers take public money in state subsidies for those clients, they are therefore public employees. Union dues are taken directly from the state subsidies, money that should go toward child care. The UAW and AFSCME receive 1.15 percent of the subsidies, amounting to more than $1 million a year.

To suggest that government grants make providers public employees is an epic stretch. The child care workers are employed by the parents who hire them. At best, they contract with the government for child care services for low-income clients.

…The suit in federal court, filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, challenges the unionization as a violation of the workers’ constitutional right to free association.

That is the crucial point.

Indeed. And UAW and AFSCME union bosses are funneling millions of dollars to the campaigns of pro-forced unionism politicians (such as Governor Granholm), and now those same politicians are forcing Michigan’s home-care providers to pay to the tune of $3.7 million into union boss coffers. If Foundation litigators are successful in federal court, the outcome can have a far reaching, national impact in rolling back Big Labor’s state-by-state push of forcing susceptible, unsuspecting home-care providers under union control.

Over the Labor Day weekend, columns by National Right to Work president Mark Mix appeared in newspapers across the country and online exposing Big Labor’s power grabs and coercive practices over American workers.

In Investor’s Business Daily Mix highlighted the extremism and ethics problems of Craig Becker, the Service Employee International Union’s (SEIU) inside man at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

In the face of bipartisan opposition, Obama bypassed Congress and installed Becker at the NLRB through a recess appointment. Now that he’s established at the head of an agency responsible for overseeing American labor law, Becker is poised to expand Big Labor’s privileges even further.

Faced with apparent conflicts of interests brought to light by the National Right to Work Foundation, Becker quickly downplayed any connection to the SEIU, his longtime employer. Despite crafting legal strategies on behalf of that union for much of his career, Becker refused to recuse himself from several NLRB cases involving the SEIU’s local affiliates.

Despite his relatively brief tenure, Becker’s biases are already evident. In one recent case, Becker wrote that the board should consider waiving rules that require union bosses to provide workers with independently audited breakdowns of union expenditures.

On National Review Online, Mix outlined union militants’ stealth to bypass Congress to implement radical changes to labor law that grant new special privileges to union bosses at the expense of hardworking Americans:

By cramming the NLRB full of forced-unionism operatives, Obama has successfully laid the groundwork for a stealthy push to undermine the rights of American workers. The NLRB’s administrative agenda and electronic-voting schemes now threaten to undo much of the hard work that went into defeating card-check legislation.

Some doubt that such sweeping changes could be enacted without congressional approval, but we’ve already seen Big Labor’s strategy in action. The National Mediation Board (NMB), a federal agency that governs airline and railway employees, has just enacted a far-reaching rule change that allows for workplace unionization without the consent of a true majority of employees.

Mix exposed Big Labor’s plot to monopolize government-sector workers in the Washington Times:

The outsized power and privileges of government union bosses clearly are a major force behind the unsustainable growth of government payrolls. According to data furnished by respected labor economists Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson, nonunion government employment nationwide actually fell by 2 percent, but Big Labor-controlled government employment grew by nearly 4 percent from 2007 to 2009.

Government union bosses’ success in expanding the ranks of employees under their monopoly bargaining power – even as private-sector and nonunion government payrolls have shrunk – spells trouble for the future of the American economy. Our country simply must reverse the long-term trend in which the growth of government-union employment far exceeds that of private-sector employment in good and bad times alike.

Otherwise, American taxpayers and businesses are destined to face ever-more-onerous tax burdens to pay for bigger and bigger government in the decades to come.

Finally, in local newspapers nationwide including the Duluth News Tribune, Mix warned that no worker is safe from the union moguls’ designs:

Take Major Stephen Godin, a retired Marine who has instructed ROTC in Worcester, MA, for 15 years. Major Godin’s dedicated service to his country and his students deserves our respect and gratitude.

But three months ago, Massachusetts Teachers Association union officials threatened his dismissal for not paying union dues, even though he is not a member of the union. Because Massachusetts lacks a Right to Work law making union association strictly voluntary, nonmembers can be forced to pay some fees to a union as a condition of employment.

Public outcry prompted the governor to exempt ROTC instructors from forced-dues requirements, but other teachers across the state still labor under compulsory unionism.

Mark Mix also appeared on nationally syndicated and local radio shows coast-to-coast.

National Right to Work Committee Vice President Doug Stafford discussed the importance of employee freedom on The Frank Beckman Show this Labor Day. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below.

As always, you can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.  

Last week, the National Mediation Board ordered a union "representation" election for Delta Air Lines flight attendants. The NMB will conduct the election under its new controversial rules approved by the two former union officials who now comprise a majority of the board.

The new procedure stacks the deck in favor of unionization by granting a union monopoly bargaining power over railway or airline industry workers if the union acquires support from just a bare majority of workers who turnout for an election, no matter how few actually vote.

But Delta flight attendants, and other workers in the airline and railway industries who could soon find themselves in similar situations, won’t know that by reading the Frequently Asked Questions page on the NMB’s website.

28. Q: How do voters vote no?

A: If a voter does not wish to be represented, they should not call the TEV telephone number or access the NMB’s Internet voting website.

As National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman explains in a letter to the NMB (PDF), this is false and should be immediately corrected so workers can vote in accordance with the rule change.

It’s not like the Obama Administration has a habit of keeping independent-minded employees in the dark about their rights or anything…