Just in time for the Holiday Season, a charming piece of legislation from the great state of Wisconsin:

Wisconsin schools will be required to teach the history of organized labor under a bill signed by Gov. Jim Doyle.

The bill Doyle signed Thursday also requires Wisconsin schools to teach the history or collective bargaining.

The proposal has been around for years but never passed.

This year it cleared the Democratic controlled Legislature despite opposition from school boards and administrators who said they didn’t want the curriculum micromanaged.

Labor unions supported the bill.

No one objects to schools teaching history (which includes the rise of Big Labor in the 20th century), but it’s disturbing to have union-boss allies in the state legislature micromanaging curricula for political reasons and ordering schools to cram union propaganda down impressionable students’ throats. 

For a more balanced view about the impact of union monopoly bargaining, we recommend you check out our page on the history of the Right to Work movement. 

Grocery Store Union Bosses Face Federal Charges After Blocking Workers from Stopping Dues Payments

Local union officials and Fry’s Food Stores management collude illegally to extract forced dues from independent-minded workers

Phoenix, Arizona (December 23, 2009) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, five employees from different Fry’s Food Stores locations have filed federal charges challenging their employer’s and a local union’s efforts to block them from stopping the seizure of union dues from their paychecks.

Disgusted with recent union strike threats, large numbers of employees withdrew from the union, but union officials are now retaliating by refusing to honor their legal rights and getting Fry’s management to deduct and forward the union dues money anyway.

Shirley Jones of Mesa, Karen Medley and Elaine Brown of Apache Junction, and Kimberly Stewart and Kristy Dickenson of Queen Creek – acting for other similarly situated employees – filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 99 union bosses and Fry’s.

Click here to read the full release.

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.

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.

President Barack Obama’s efforts to transition the Department of Labor into a giant, taxpayer-funded extension of Big Labor’s organizing and political fund-raising machine just hit another milestone. President Barack Obama’s January 30, 2009 executive order, aimed to help union bosses seize more forced dues revenue to fund Big Labor’s political agenda, was just printed in the Federal Register — making it official. 

In a nutshell, the EO tears down posted notices to employees of federal contractors which explain they can actually refrain from paying forced union dues spent for union electioneering and the like.

Obama’s directive intends to ensure millions of workers do not learn of their rights and revokes former-President Bush’s February 2001 executive order which required federal contractors to post notices in the workplace simply informing employees of their right to refrain from formal, full-dues-paying union membership and pay only the documented cost of collective bargaining.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys won these rights in their precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court victory in Communication Workers v. Beck (1988).  

Regular Freedom@Work readers may remember Obama’s edict was one of the first in a long line of political paybacks to Big Labor for their use of over a billion forced-dues dollars in 2008 to elected him and his pro-compulsory unionism allies in Congress.  View some other Obama paybacks to Big Labor, including his picks on who controls the Department of Labor and the NLRB, rolling back union disclosure guidelines and reducing union boss accountability, and using taxpayer dollars to fund their forced dues operations and bail out union boss pension funds.

President Barack Obama’s empty promises of unprecedented transparency have "won" him a federal lawsuit.  His Department of Labor has for many months ignored a series of Freedom of Information Act (FIOA) requests that would let the American people know more about the close connections forged this year between the Department of Labor officials and Big Labor operatives.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, discusses in today’s Washington Examiner why the Foundation is pressing the Obama Administration to disclose its entanglements with Big Labor cronies using the Freedom of Information Act:

The foundation’s concerns about possible conflicts of interest start right at the top with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who held a leadership post at American Rights at Work, a group funded by the AFL-CIO and the powerful Service Employees International Union.

The foundation is also seeking information on the role of former AFL-CIO lawyer Deborah Greenfield, now a high-ranking Department of Labor official. Before the election, Greenfield filed suit on Big Labor’s behalf to stop the implementation of some modest disclosure requirements for union officials. Now she’s in charge of gutting those same reporting guidelines.

In his first full day in office, Obama pledged that his appointees "will not for a period of two years … participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to their former employer." Yet Labor Secretary Solis was given a free pass, even though she helped oversee ARAW’s intense lobbying program while serving as a member of Congress (itself a congressional ethics problem).

Meanwhile, as a lawyer with the AFL-CIO, Greenfield sued the Department of Labor over the very regulations she is now rolling back.

Understandably concerned, the National Right to Work Foundation filed a FOIA request for more information seven months ago, only to be stonewalled by Labor bureaucrats. Other than a few cursory status updates, Obama’s Department of Labor has ignored the statutory requirement to provide disclosure. In short, it may be hiding information about whether Solis and Greenfield are coordinating their activities with union operatives.

…

After months of waiting for a response from the Department of Labor, Right to Work Foundation lawyers filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court to force the Obama administration to fulfill its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. Hopefully, this complaint will spur the Department of Labor toward greater disclosure.

The public at least deserves to know the extent to which union operatives are rewriting laws and regulations put in place to ensure minimal standards of union transparency and accountability.

To read all of Mark Mix’s op-ed in today’s Washington Examiner, click here.

Regular Freedom@Work readers may remember a Foundation lawsuit filed in September against the Jefferson County Teacher Association union and its national affiliate, the NEA. Right to Work attorneys are attacking the union hierarchy’s overall monopoly bargaining privilege, as well as its illegal union membership policy that automatically enrolls teachers as union members, holds them hostage in full union membership, and forces unwilling educators to pay union dues.

Although the embarrassment of the lawsuit forced Kentucky union bosses to announce a few minor concessions, Right to Work attorneys are pressing forward to take down the union’s entire forced union dues scheme. Foundation VP Stefan Gleason appeared on the nationally-syndicated Francene Show last Tuesday to discuss the case. 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. 

As we brace ourselves for tonight’s "Job Summit," brought to you courtesy of the Obama Administration and its Big Labor allies, it’s worth considering an idea that might actually help raise the employment rate — passage of more Right to Work laws.

Studies have repeatedly shown that forced unionism states lag behind Right to Work states in terms of job creation, economic growth, and worker income. If the Obama Administration is really interested in creating more jobs, it should take heed of this study from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research:

For many years, U.S. Labor Department data have shown that states with Right to Work laws on the books have far faster private-sector job growth than states that do not protect employees from federal policies authorizing the termination of workers for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union.

Between 1995 and 2005, private-sector jobs in Right to Work states increased by a net 20.2%. That’s a 79% greater increase than the relatively small increase in private-sector jobs experienced by non-Right to Work states over this period.

Of course, the case for Right to Work laws rests on more than just employment numbers, as no worker should be forced to join a union or pay union dues just to keep a job. Unfortunately, union bosses and their political allies have never much cared for workers’ individual freedoms, but will the prospect of skyrocketing unemployment rates cause them to change their tune?  We won’t hold our breath.

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. 

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.