WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the AFL-CIO endorsed Al Gore's presidential candidacy late last year, the Clinton-Gore Administration handed Big Labor the power to seize the forced-dues cash needed to execute its most ambitious nationwide political campaign in living memory.

Flouting the will of the U.S. Supreme Court, the administration's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) handed down a ruling that gives union bosses nationwide the power to get workers fired for refusing to fund union political activities.

Political junkets and mailings subsidized by forced dues

Foundation attorneys filed Eggleston v. Transport Workers of America (TWU) at the NLRB for union-abused employees at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The employees refused to foot the bill for the TWU union bosses' huge political projects in Washington, D.C. [Because the workers were on exclusive federal property, Florida's popular Right to Work law does not protect employees from compulsory unionism.]

Despite the fact that (under the Foundation-won ruling in Communications Workers v. Beck) lobbying and other political activities cannot be charged to employees as a condition of employment, the NLRB ruled that employees could be fired from their jobs specifically for refusing to fund union political junkets, mass mailings to Congress, and long distance telephone calls to politicians.

"The NLRB's flagrant attempt to force workers to subsidize Big Labor's political machine is the type of brazen lawlessness we've come to expect from this administration," said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the Foundation.

Clinton and Gore give away store to Big Labor

Furthermore, the NLRB refused to stop the union bosses from charging employees the expenses of union organizing at other work sites, an expense workers may not be forced to pay under the Foundation-won Supreme Court decision Ellis v. Railway Clerks. Instead, the NLRB remanded the issue to "adduce additional evidence" and "findings of fact." Clearly, the Board is hoping for a trial record similar to the Mulder v. UFCW case, where union-hired "expert" witnesses provided the orchestrated testimony needed to argue that forcing workers to finance Big Labor's empire-building is somehow related to collective bargaining.

These abuses of power have not gone unnoticed by public officials like Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who recently exclaimed on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives: "It is an outrage that the tax dollars of working men and women are wasted on an agency that flouts Supreme Court rulings in support of its forced-unionism agenda."

Foundation attorneys are vigorously fighting in the appellate courts to bring the out-of-control labor agency back into line.

Union bosses to spend almost $1 billion on electioneering

Meanwhile, Big Labor is firing up its political machine in all 50 states as it prepares to spend an unprecedented $1 billion on full-time political organizers, TV attack ads, literature distribution, boiler-room phone banks, and soft money donations to political campaigns.

AFL-CIO president John Sweeney vowed that he intends to "take a broom to the U.S. House of Representatives" and elect political candidates who adhere to the AFL-CIO's high-tax, Big Government agenda.