Today's Washington Post has a good rundown of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's alleged pay-for-play deal with a high-ranking Service Employees International Union boss we've been telling you about. This paragraph is particularly revealing:

[SEIU president Andrew] Stern has emerged as a central player in the labor movement by pressing aggressively to expand union rolls, along the way irritating AFL-CIO leaders, whom he accused of being complacent, and leaders of some SEIU chapters who accuse him of cutting deals with business and government that enhance his profile while undercutting local chapters. Among his victories was Blagojevich's decision to let SEIU, and not the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, organize Illinois' child-care workers.

Stern's personal machinations to secure his own PR are entirely at odds with workers' interests. But more importantly, take a look at that last sentence again: "Among his victories was Blagojevich's decision to let SEIU, and not [AFSCME], organize Illinois' child-care workers."

Far Left magazine The American Prospect summarized the SEIU-AFSCME battle in 2005. In Blagojevich's first race for governor in 2002, the SEIU provided a thousand volunteers in the weeks before the primary election, enough to push the Congressman over his nearest rival by just one percent. As governor, Blagojevich repaid the SEIU by issuing executive orders that effectively ensured that the SEIU (and not AFSCME) would "represent" the 5,000 home-care workers and 48,000 child-care workers in the state.

This potentially unconstitutional scheme to impose monopoly bargaining on home care providers has resulted in many hundreds of thousands of new forced union dues payers across America. It's a huge new cash cow for union bosses.

The fact is, if union bosses spend millions of dollars to get a candidate elected, they expect something in return. Blagojevich was happy to oblige.

Sometimes, that means giving union bosses like Andy Stern and his ilk close access to governors like Blagojevich to let them pick political appointments. Sometimes, it means legislative power grabs like the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (aka the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill). And, of course, union bosses use their political power precisely to gain even more revenue and political power.

And that's the bigger picture in the Blagojevich scandal -- Big Labor's influence wouldn't be possible without forced unionism.

Earlier today, we reported on the developing pay-for-play scandal involving humiliated Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich which allegedly involved offer the SEIU the power to name Barack Obama's replacement as Senator in return for a cushy job with the SEIU's Change to Win coalition or a new SEIU-funded lobby group.

One news source indicated the SEIU official mentioned in the indictment was none other than SEIU president Andrew Stern.  But NPR reports that the official involved was one step down from Stern -- Tom Balanoff, the union's Illinois chief

Our research today indicates that Andy Stern's SEIU has been Blagojevich's biggest financial backer for years. According go the Illinois Sunshine Database, the SEIU Illinois Council PAC was the governor's top contributor in his re-election effort, giving $908,382 in the 2005-2006 cycle. That same cycle, PACs for the Laborers and Teamsters unions, also Change to Win partners, were also among Blagojevich's top 15 contributors.

The relationship between Blagojevich and the SEIU's political fundraising arms go back years. In his first gubernatorial election in 2002, the SEIU PEA International gave his campaign $821,294, making the PAC his second largest contributor that cycle (the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had contributed $900,000 to the then-Congressman).

All told, union PACs poured more than $8 million into Blagojevich's two gubernatorial campaign coffers.

You get what you pay for. But do SEIU members know where their money is going?

[For more on this scandal, see this post: SEIU Bosses Gave Gov. Blagojevich More Than $1.7 Million Already, Not Including Possible Payout for Senate Seat]

By now, many of you have already heard about the pay-for-play scandal enveloping Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Unsurprisingly, Blago's corrupt antics are intimately connected to Big Labor. In return for a cushy appointment at the SEIU's Change to Win coalition, he apparently offered to name SEIU's hand-picked candidate to Barack Obama's newly-vacant senate seat (from the federal complaint .pdf):

Defendants ROD BLAGOJEVICH and [his aide] JOHN HARRIS, together with others, attempted to use ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s authority to appoint a United States Senator for the purpose of obtaining personal benefits for ROD BLAGOJEVICH, including, among other things, appointment as Secretary of Health & Human Services in the President-elect’s administration, and alternatively, a lucrative job which they schemed to induce a union to provide to ROD BLAGOJEVICH in exchange for appointing as senator an individual whom ROD BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS believed to be favored by union officials and their associates.

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HARRIS said they could work out a three-way deal with SEIU and the President-elect where SEIU could help the President-elect with ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s appointment of Senate Candidate 1 to the vacant Senate seat, ROD BLAGOJEVICH would obtain a position as the National Director of the Change to Win campaign, and SEIU would get something favorable from the President-elect in the future.

The SEIU, of course, is denying any connection to the Blagojevich bribe, which is a bit hard to swallow given the circumstances. Here's another damning excerpt from the charges (emphasis mine):

On November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH spoke with SEIU Official, who was in Washington, D.C. Prior intercepted phone conversations indicate that approximately a week before this call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH met with SEIU Official to discuss the vacant Senate seat, and ROD BLAGOJEVICH understood that SEIU Official was an emissary to discuss Senate Candidate 1’s interest in the Senate seat. During the conversation with SEIU Official on November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH informed SEIU Official that he had heard the President-elect wanted persons other than Senate Candidate 1 to be considered for the Senate seat.

SEIU Official stated that he would find out if Senate Candidate 1 wanted SEIU Official to keep pushing her for Senator with ROD BLAGOJEVICH. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that “one thing I’d be interested in” is a 501(c)(4) organization. ROD BLAGOJEVICH explained the 501(c)(4)idea to SEIU Official and said that the 501(c)(4) could help “our new Senator [Senate Candidate 1].” SEIU Official agreed to “put that flag up and see where it goes.”

For those of you wondering, "Senate Candidate 1" is Valerie Jarrett, the SEIU's once-favored choice for the Illinois senate vacancy. As the excerpted segment shows, the feds also have an anonymous SEIU official agreeing on tape to convey Blago's proposed bribe to his superiors.

BREAKING NEWS: Notwithstanding SEIU denials, Politico reports a Democrat source has revealed the unnamed SEIU official is none other than President Andrew Stern himself.

UPDATE: NPR now reports that the SEIU official was actually Tom Balanoff, the union's Illinois chief.

Blago's abortive bargain was a pretty sweet deal. The Illinois governor would have picked up a plum SEIU job funded by forced union dues, while Big Labor would have gotten another bought-and-paid-for senator.

The workers funding Blago's lavish new salary and the SEIU's vast political apparatus may have felt left out of the deal, but that's just the way Big Labor operates.

Just another example of the corruption that goes hand-in-hand with the injustice of forced unionism.

This summer, we told you about one of the nation's largest unions imposing a fundraising quota on locals and workers in an illegal scheme to fund its political action committee. Here's the latest:

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission asking it to investigate a campaign fundraising scheme adopted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) at its convention this summer.

The union and its officers appear to be violating federal labor law and the Federal Election Campaign Act by imposing financial penalties on local affiliates who fail to meet Political Action Committee (PAC) fundraising targets. On June 3, delegates to the SEIU convention approved Constitutional Amendment #317 in time to take effect for this year’s federal elections.

The policy imposes on each SEIU local an “annual SEIU COPE fundraising obligation.” SEIU COPE is the SEIU’s federal PAC. If a local fails to meet this requirement, the SEIU imposes heavy fines. However, federal election law forbids unions from “utilizing money…secured by…financial reprisals… or the threat of … financial reprisal” to fund a PAC.

Read the full press release here.

The cover story of the September/October issue of Foundation Action covers efforts by the Foundation to expose an SEIU union political fundraising scheme that coerces workers to support union politics, and to get the Department of Labor and Department of Justice investigate the scheme.

Read the whole story here (pdf) and sign up today for a free print subscription.

To receive the entire issue via email, just type your email address into the box in the top right corner of this page.

A few Right to Work-related updates from around the web:

1.) The Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog helpfully summarizes the corruption allegations surrounding Tyrone Freeman, head of California's SEIU chapter. What's worse, union mismanagement goes all the way to the top. According to the LA Times, SEIU national brass received word of Freeman's corrupt practices six years ago and still failed to act. (This is the same local union against which Foundation attorneys won a federal court settlement securing the return of almost $10 million in illegally seized forced union dues.)

Read the whole entry here.

2.) The New York Sun featured a great editorial yesterday on union bosses' half-hearted efforts at workplace "representation." Money quote:

But even as unions promote counterproductive economic policies, and push for legislation allowing them to essentially force more workers into their ranks, a look at union finances shows that many unions aren't looking after the members they already have — especially their retirement plans.

The Sheet Metal Workers International Union says prominently on its Web site that "Union Members Have Strong Retirement Plans."

But it turns out — as disclosed in unions' mandatory annual financial reports to the Labor Department — that the Sheet Metal workers' union pension plan is underfunded and so risks the future pensions promised to its members. Many other union pension plans are in similar straits.

This isn't an isolated incident, either. Check out the rest of the article for an in-depth look at the glaring disparity between union bosses' lavish salaries and the shortfalls facing rank-and-file workers' pension funds.

3.) Townhall.com has an article up on unions' efforts to ram the misleadingly-titled "Employee Free Choice Act" down workers' throats. The piece also mentions the Foundation's efforts to hold the SEIU accountable for a questionable political fundraising scheme:

In fact, alleged coercion for political gain is already occurring. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation asked the Department of Justice to investigate the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The basis for the request centers on this fact:

“The union adopted a new amendment to its constitution at last month's SEIU convention, requiring that every local contribute an amount equal to $6 per member per year to the union's national political action committee. This is in addition to regular union dues. Unions that fail to meet the requirement must contribute an amount in ‘local union funds’ equal to the ‘deficiency’ plus a 50% penalty.” (The Wall Street Journal, 7/28/08)

Can you name any other company or organization that could compel its membership to fund political organizations that rank and file membership may or may not agree with?

For more information on the Foundation's efforts to deter illegal union campaign fundraising, check out here, here, and here.

Union boss hypocrisy is nothing new, but this recent case, filed by two nurses in Houston, Texas against the CNA union and Tenet Healthcare shows just how blatant that hypocrisy can be.

When the SEIU bosses got themselves a sweetheart deal to organize nurses from the top down with Catholic Healthcare Partners in Ohio, CNA/NNOC denounced the deal as an illegitimate sell out of workers’ rights to a free and fair election, and workers’ rights to choose or reject unionization with full information, and without coercion or discrimination:

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the nurses association, condemned this [SEIU] agreement. She called it “a rigged scam” in which the service employees union would bargain only half-heartedly if it won the vote.

“This was a top-down deal between an employer and a hand-picked union,” Ms. DeMoro said. “There was a gag order on everyone, and as a result this was a banana republic election.”

CNA/NNOC even went so far as to create anti-SEIU websites accusing that union of selling out workers while cutting secret sweetheart deals with management, in exchange for assistance organizing new workers from the top down.

This is the game that union bosses play nowadays: they increasingly fail in organizing workers the old fashioned way, since workers increasingly aren't buying what the union bosses are selling. So, the union bosses try to organize companies, not workers, in what is known as “top down” organizing.

But all of this moaning and whining about SEIU’s secret “neutrality” deals has not stopped the CNA/NNOC brass from cutting their own secret sweetheart deals with companies. CNA/NNOC’s latest deal is a secret “neutrality” agreement with Tenet Healthcare, a nationwide hospital chain.

Under the agreement, Tenet is gagged from saying anything about the union, nurses' personal information is handed to the union without their consent, and union agents get wide access to campaign inside the hospital facilities while anti-CNA nurses are barred from effectively providing an opposing view in their own workplaces. Perhaps worst of all, the NLRB is cut out from overseeing the process, which results in Potemkin Village “consent elections” in which the NLRB does nothing other than tally up “yes” votes and “no” votes and provide a veneer of legitimacy.

Sounds like a sweetheart deal to us: nurses handed over to the union with no real campaign about the effects of unionization, and no effective federal agency to oversee the process!

In fact, CNA chief DeMoro's description of a "rigged scam," a "top-down deal between an employer and a hand-picked union," and a "banana republic election" is a strikingly apt description of DeMoro's own CNA union's secret deal with Tenet.

Shameless...