In her latest syndicated column, Michelle Malkin highlights the National Right to Work Foundation’s request that Attorney General Eric Holder investigate National Labor Relations Board Member Craig Becker for violating his ethics pledge by participating in cases involving his former employer, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

As Malkin notes, Becker’s weak standard for recusal rests on a faulty distinction between the national union and its local affiliates.

It’s no surprise that Becker now refuses to hold himself accountable for the ethics pledge he himself signed in April. As the past two years have taught us, Team Obama’s operational slogan is: Rules are for fools. The contractual ethics commitment states: "I will not for a period of two years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts." Yet, Becker has participated in numerous NLRB cases involving the SEIU and its affiliates — and is parsing the definition of "former employer" by arguing that local SEIU chapters are "separate and distinct legal entities" that don’t fall under the ethics rules.

The National Right to Work Foundation, which has fought both national and local SEIU officials in court on behalf of rank-and-file workers’ rights, eviscerates Becker’s lawyerly blather. SEIU’s own constitution considers local affiliates "constituent subordinate bodies" of the national union, the foundation notes. "Moreover, in 2009 over 85 percent of the SEIU’s receipts came from a per capita tax on the locals’ membership dues and fees. The national union even has the power to assume control over its locals if they do not conform to International policies."

Malkin also rightly ties Becker’s installment onto the federal labor board into the Obama Administration’s pattern of granting special privileges and hidden paybacks to the union bosses.

Read Malkin’s entire column here and more from our Freedom@Work blog on Craig Becker here and here.

The Wall Street Journal slammed Obama recess appointee Craig Becker this week for participating in cases before the National Labor Relations Board involving his former employer, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU):

In his few months at the NLRB, Mr. Becker, former associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union, has refused to recuse himself from most cases involving his former employer. This despite the fact that Mr. Becker signed the Obama Administration’s vaunted ethics pledge, in which he promised to refrain for two years from participating in "any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer."

In true lawyerly fashion, Mr. Becker is now running for the loopholes, arguing that the SEIU proper is a "distinct legal entity" that is different from local SEIU unions. Having liberated himself from that legal barrier, Mr. Becker says he intends to continue judging disputes that feature local SEIU shops. He even convinced the NLRB’s inspector general—who was asked to investigate one of the failure-to-recuse cases—to buy the separate legal entity line.

From a technical legal standpoint, SEIU locals may well be distinct from Mr. Becker’s former employer. Yet the clear intention of President Obama’s ethics pledge was to eliminate obvious political conflicts of interest. The example of a former SEIU lawyer like Mr. Becker sitting in judgment on cases featuring SEIU locals is Conflict 101.

No one understands better than Mr. Becker the deep organizational and financial ties between the SEIU and its locals, having been the attorney who crafted national legal strategies for use by SEIU locals everywhere. NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman (another Obama appointee) has applied a more rigorous and appropriate standard of recusal for herself in cases involving her former employer, the Teamsters.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is representing workers in several cases involving SEIU locals, sent a letter Monday requesting that the Department of Justice investigate whether Mr. Becker has violated his pledge. Let’s hope Attorney General Eric Holder isn’t as cavalier about that request as President Obama was with Mr. Becker’s appointment.

Read more about the Foundation’s letter to Attorney General Holder.

Manny Lopez from the Detroit News comments on the United Autoworker (UAW) union hierarchy’s "new" strategy of organizing workers, (i.e. using even more intimidation and harassment to force additional workers into their dues-paying ranks):

Bob King, the new president of the UAW was stumping for democracy yesterday, and you’d think that it would be hard to corrupt such a thing.

But he did. See, democracy to the unions means do it our way, or no way.

King said the UAW will try a new tactic to organize foreign automakers. The membership-declining union is going to draft a set of principles that will bar companies from using derogatory, untruthful or threatening statements to dissuade workers from organizing (as if that was a one-way street).

"Any company that does not agree to the UAW principles is essentially declaring war on freedom of speech and assembly," he said.

Ta-da, the "shame campaign" (my interpretation, not his).

Those that don’t sign on will be labeled as being against the First Amendment.

But as Lopez correctly points out, UAW union hypocrites seem the least bit interested in protecting Michigan workers’ rights to also not be forced to associate with something they want no part of:

In fact, the UAW’s push for freedom could be a good thing if it were universally open to such a thing. How about the UAW abide by its own new interest in openness and allow its members in Michigan and other forced unionism states to also have the freedom to decide whether they want to be in the union?

I’ll buy into the UAW’s campaign for the First Amendment and the freedom of speech and assembly when it gives its workers in every state that same opportunity.

How about it Mr. King? Let’s make Michigan a right-to-work state. Or is the freedom to choose limited to certain circumstances?

And not only would Right to Work protections be great for workers’ rights, it would also be good for their wallets.  Now that’s a "new" strategy Michigan’s families could support.

Right to Work President Mark Mix sat down with nationally-syndicated radio host Lars Larson to discuss Obama Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan’s support for forcing workers to contribute to union political activism. 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.  

Right to Work President Mark Mix sat down with Richmond, Virginia’s Jimmy Barrett Show to discuss how forced unionism is hurting our chances at a strong economic recovery. 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.  

Not only is forced unionism bad for workers’ rights, it’s also bad for business. As we’ve documented elsewhere, wasteful union work rules and extravagant, company-funded union boss salaries tend to drag down productivity and innovation. That’s why it’s no surprise to find Right to Work states at the top of CNBC’s 2010 "Best States for Business" rankings. Seven of the top 10 and 10 of the top 15 states identified by CNBC enjoy Right to Work protections.

Of course, protecting workers’ rights and combating union coercion remain the best reasons for states to adopt Right to Work laws. But the beneficial economic side-effects of Right to Work protections – particularly in the midst of an economic downturn – aren’t bad inducements, either. 

Earlier this week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, was published in the Washington Examiner warning about the threat the Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill (pdf), which just passed the House last week, poses not only public safety workers’ rights, but also state and community budgets. As we noted before, public officials across the country are waking up to the fact that public sector forced unionism is behind the financial crises in their communities.

From Mark Mix’s commentary:

(I)n the 22 states which prohibit forced union dues for government employees and most of which don’t authorize public-sector union monopoly bargaining, fewer than 30 percent of public workers are unionized. Not one of these 22 states was to be found on last month’s Business Insider’s list of the states “most likely to default.”

Business Insider ranked heavily unionized California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin as the worst default risks. And the Hirsch-Macpherson data shows that an average of 61 percent of public-sector employees in these nine states were under union monopoly bargaining — 20 percent higher than the typical state.

In these nine worst default-risk states from 1999 to 2009, aggregate private-sector jobs fell by 4.2 percent, but heavily unionized state and local government jobs increased by 9 percent. Since annual state and local government employee compensation costs nationwide come to $1.1 trillion, or half of all state and local government spending, it’s not hard to see that the Big Labor-driven growth in government payrolls is a fiscal catastrophe for states like California, Illinois, and New Jersey.

…

But government union bosses are expecting to have the last laugh if fed-up taxpayers and their allies limit themselves to going after just bloated public-sector payrolls and unsustainable public pension plans, rather than root of the problem itself.

Laws empowering government union officials to negotiate the contract terms for all front-line employees at a public agency, even for those employees who want nothing to do with the union, are behind the messes in Sacramento, Springfield and Trenton. And laws that authorize the firing of public servants for refusing to pay union dues or fees to an unwanted union make matters even worse.

Long-term solutions to state budget crises will require addressing the core problems of union monopoly bargaining and forced union dues in the public sector.

Until then, hopefully the Senate will spare police officers, firefighters, and EMTs from forced union “representation” that will make budget matters worse for the numerous states that have already rejected it.

Read the entire Washington Examiner guest commentary by Mark Mix here.

From the San Jose Mercury News, here’s an excellent op-ed from retired teacher Larry Sand on forced teacher union dues:

So why does CTA not let its members decide if they want to contribute to CTA’s various political funds? It is simply because the union knows that if these donations were voluntary, the vast majority of teachers wouldn’t contribute a penny.

So does CTA really care about the needs and opinions of its teachers, or does it just see its members as convenient ATMs to further its own political agenda?

Teachers should closely examine whether they want to continue giving their hard-earned money to candidates and causes in which they have no interest or find repellent. And CTA needs to fess up to its arrogant attitude that it knows what’s best for teachers, when, in fact, what teachers actually think about various issues is of no concern to it.

As Sand notes, even if teachers opt-out of dues for union political activism, they’re still forced to pay over $700 annually in so-called "agency fees" to teacher union bosses. And even that’s no guarantee that their money won’t be used to fund union political activism – as many Foundation-assisted employees can attest, union officials often funnel forced dues collected for "workplace bargaining" to union-backed political causes. 

The solution, of course, is for California to adopt a Right to Work law, which would make all union dues strictly voluntary. Right to Work laws ensure that union officials only accept voluntary contributions from all employees, including public school teachers. 

Federal Labor Board Hits Nurses Union
Hierarchy with Complaint for Keeping Workers in Dark

Warwick, RI (July 8, 2010) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office in Boston issued a formal complaint indicating that local union officials have kept nurses in the dark about the amount of compulsory union dues.

The NLRB’s regional director investigated unfair labor practices charges filed by a Kent Hospital nurse with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation. The regional director found merit to the charges that United Nurses & Allied Professionals (UNAP) union officials failed to meet federal financial disclosure requirements and will now prosecute the union before an administrative law judge.

In September 2009, Jeanette Geary and other nurses informed UNAP union officials that they were exercising their right to refrain from formal union membership and to the payment of any fees for non-bargaining activities including politics and member-only events.

Read the full release by clicking here.

As reported in today’s Washington Examiner, the National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix sent a letter to the U.S. Senate opposing Elena Kagan’s confirmation as a Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court for misrepresenting her views regarding the use of forced union dues for union boss political activity.

From the Examiner:

(Mark Mix argues) Kagan should not be confirmed because when she was asked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT, about a 1996 email she wrote while serving in the Clinton administration, she falsely claimed she was merely repeating the chief executive’s views, not her own.

In his letter to the senators, Mix quoted Kagan’s email in which she said:

"It is unfortunately true that almost any meaningful campaign finance reform proposal raises constitutional issues. This is a result of the Supreme Court’s view – which I believe to be mistaken in many cases – that money is speech and that attempts to limit the influence of money on our political system therefore raises First Amendment problems."

Kagan could not have simply been echoing somebody else’s view in that email, Mix argued, because a memo later in 1996 from her and other White House staff members to then-White House chief of staff Leon Panetta "incorporated Ms. Kagan’s argument that the First Amendment does not protect the right to spend money for political activities. In short, in 1996 Ms. Kagan both suggested and endorsed that crabbed view of the First Amendment."

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has repeatedly fought to protect workers who are forced to pay union dues and fees as a condition of employment to also support union boss political activities with which they disagree before the U.S. Supreme Court and various other courts across the country.

Mark Mix’s letter also noted that Kagen expressed opposition to the Foundation’s Supreme Court victory in Communications Workers v. Beck in which the Court affirmed the right of private-sector workers to exercise the same freedom from coerced support of union boss politics under the National Labor Relations Act:

(Ms. Kagan) recommended that President Clinton oppose any legislation protecting the right of workers not to be forced to subsidize union politics, despite the First Amendment’s guarantee of that basic worker freedom of speech and association.

…

Ms. Kagan emailed… her recommendation that (the Administration)… “state strong opposition to Beck legislation, no matter what it is attached to.”

Ms. Kagan… disagreed with the well-established legal principle that underlies the long line of Supreme Court decisions recognizing the constitutional right of workers not to be compelled to subsidize union political activities as a condition of employment… (putting) her far outside the judicial mainstream and (demonstrating) a disdain for the rights of independent-minded American workers.

To read Mark Mix’s letter, click here.