A few Right to Work-related updates from over the holiday weekend:

1.) July 5th marked the 73rd anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act. This legislation, originally enacted in 1935, imposes union officials as middlemen between management and workers. While reformers thought they were curtailing the worst excesses with the Taft-Hartley Amendments in 1947, the NLRA continued to give government backing to Big Labor's monopoly bargaining privileges while actually increasing the government force behind an immoral policy of forcing workers to pay dues for often unwanted union "representation."

Here's a good primer on the NLRA's evolution from Michigan's Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

2.) Reason Magazine has a good post up on the racially-charged history of mandatory collective bargaining. Here's the money quote:

The NAACP's publication The Crisis, for example, decried the monopoly powers granted to racist unions by the NRA, noting in 1934 that "union labor strategy seems to be to obtain the right to bargain with the employees as the sole representative of labor, and then close the union to black workers."

Institutional union racism continues to this very day.  And it is aided and abetted by Big Labor's monopoly bargaining privileges which give union officials inordinate power over employees' livelihood.  It is all too common for union bosses to retaliate against employees for any arbitrary reasons, including race. In fact, one need not go back any further than a week to find allegations of racism by union officials.

A few Right to Work-related updates from over the weekend:

1.) Does the AFL-CIO owe $14 million in back taxes? Perhaps an IRS audit will reveal other problems with the AFL-CIO's overtly partisan and massive campaign expenditures. The author overstates the good that comes from oversight of union finances by the Office of Labor Management Standards, but he does point out the amusing fact that Democrats are in favor of "smaller government" in this one instance:

One of the branches of the Department of Labor that provides a real services to all Americans is the Office of Labor-Management Standards. These are the guys who make sure that labor unions are being transparent about their finances. Or they try, when the Democrats don't cut their budget. But, for now, you get to see how unions spend their money.

If you're interested in reading more about the Foundation's ongoing efforts to ensure greater union financial disclosure, subscribe to the latest issue of Foundation Action. The July/August newsletter features a story on the DOL's latest half-hearted attempt to promote financial transparency -- any why a crippling "confidential information" loophole would render DOL's whole exercise as useless.

2.) More good stuff from the Washington Examiner. John Barnes has a informative post entitled "Why public sector labor unions are a bad idea." Here's the money quote:

This is how the cycle works: state workers are forced to join a union, even if they don't want to -- the unions collect mandatory dues from state worker paychecks -- the unions use that money to support campaigns for the very elected officials with whom they bargain for contracts -- not surprisingly, the unions tend to get favorable contracts that usually result in higher membership dues that in turn provide the unions with more money to fund "friendly" elected officials. Add a growing state workforce, repeat cycle, and stir. What's the basic ingredient here? Your tax dollars.

For those of you who missed it, Freedom@Work spotlighted Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire's incestuous relationship with union officials last week. The Seattle Times article detailing her connections to Big Labor is well-worth a read.

Yesterday, the AFL-CIO officially endorsed its candidate for president. The endorsement should come as no surprise, of course, since Big Labor has always used member dues -- and forced dues from nonmembers -- to support its Far Left political agenda. But this year's campaign will apparently be the largest and most expensive yet:

This year, the AFL-CIO is carrying out its largest grassroots political mobilization in history. Thousands of volunteers are helping educate millions of workers and mobilizing them to get to the polls to elect Barack Obama and a working family-friendly Congress. The AFL-CIO union movement is focusing on mobilizing more than 13 million union voters―including union members, families of members, retirees and members of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America―in 24 priority states, working to elect U.S. senators and representatives, as well as state and local candidates.

An Associated Press report reports how much money Big Labor is admitting it will spend on electioneering. (While large, the numbers below understate by several hundred million dollars Big Labor's true political spending this year, according to our research.):

As expected, the leaders of the nation's largest labor organization voted unanimously to endorse Obama, freeing the organization and its 56 unions to spend some of its $200 million war chest on his campaign.
...
Between the AFL-CIO and its chief rival, the Change to Win labor organization, the nation's labor movement plans to spend around $300 million on the 2008 elections. Change to Win, made up of seven powerful unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005, already has endorsed Obama. The AFL-CIO represents 9 million union members; Change to Win, 6 million.

Big Labor "represents" so many workers because forced unionism laws compel workers in 28 states to join or pay dues to a union. Even in Right to Work states, many workers are unaware of their rights, and in some cases union bosses pretend Right to Work laws don't even exist. Legally, thanks to Foundation-won Supreme Court cases Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America v. Beck, workers can be forced to pay dues for unwanted bargaining, but may opt out of paying dues which union bosses use on non-bargaining activities such as union politics, lobbying, and member-only events.

But as we so often see, union officials frequently trample these constitutional rights. Last week, the Foundation announced a settlement reached between an Alaska state employee and the Alaska State Employees Association union, an AFL-CIO affiliate. ASEA union officials threatened Hunsick's dismissal for refusal pay full union dues. Hunsick did not want to support the union's political and ideological agenda, but union bosses continually denied him the procedural safeguards guaranteed under Hudson.

When an AFL-CIO activist knocks on your door and hands you a pamphlet explaining who to vote for, keep in mind that the funding behind it all might just be seized at gunpoint (figuratively speaking, in most cases) from folks like Robert Hunsick.

An article in The New Republic points to the tens of millions of dollars being spent by union officials on politics and specifically focuses on the massive involvement by the so-called "Change to Win" union coalition in politics.

The article calls Change to Win's decision to endorse Obama an "about-face," citing Change to Win's early declarations that it would not focus on politics but on organizing. Yet, Change to Win's emphasis on politics (led by SEIU top boss Andy Stern) really wasn't that hard to predict.

In fact, back in 2005 when Change to Win union bosses split from the AFL-CIO union hierarchy National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason had this to say:

This political posturing within ultra-elite union hierarchies amounts to nothing more than a shell game by power-hungry union officials bent on control over more than $10 billion in compulsory union dues. In the end, it doesn’t matter who is steering Big Labor’s ship as long as individual workers continue to be strapped to the mast.

Ultimately, it is not Change to Win's flip-flop on its rhetoric about that political spending that is the real hypocrisy, but the split itself...

Change to Win left the AFL-CIO because Change to Win union officials objected to how dues money was being spent and they didn't like the representation they were receiving from the AFL-CIO. Yet, everyday individual employees who object to how their dues are being spent and to the representation that they are getting from union bosses are told to just pay up or be fired.

AFL-CIO top boss John Sweeney and Virginia AFL-CIO chief James Leaman recently had an article in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star that shows just how union officials view the workers they claim to represent.

The headline of the article rhetorically asks: "Without labor unions, who speaks for the worker?"

The implication is that workers are incapable of representing themselves. This also implies that workers who reject union membership are too stupid to know what is best for them.

That contemptuous view of workers and their ability to look after their own best interests explains why Big Labor is constantly claiming to have employees' best interests in mind while trying to limit the ability of those very employees to exercise free choice when it comes to unionization.

According to the union boss mentality, forcing workers to be represented by the union (as happens nationwide under monopoly bargaining), forcing workers to pay dues to a union (as happens in non-Right to Work states), and eliminating the protection of a secret ballot (as happens in a card check drive), are all just ways of coercing workers into doing what the union bosses think is best for them.

With such a condescending view of the workers they want to represent, it is no wonder that when actually given the choice, fewer and fewer employees are choosing unionization. Unfortunately, the union bosses are intent on "solving" that problem by eliminating that choice.

Carl Horowitz has an article up today at National Review Online about the SEIU union and its top boss, Andy Stern. The article plays up the supposed split in organized labor between the so-called “Change to Win” coalition (led by Stern’s SEIU) and the AFL-CIO over whether to emphasize politics and lobbying or more aggressive organizing through the abusive card check scheme.

Horowitz’s article deals mostly with the SEIU’s immigration policies, but the most important thing to take away is that both “Change to Win” and the AFL-CIO really have only one goal: sweeping more workers into their forced dues-paying ranks, and using card check to do it.

This is illustrated clearly by Horowitz who describes a secret sweetheart deal the SEIU struck to get employer assistance in forcing workers into union ranks:

In a secret 2003 agreement with California nursing-home chains — according to Bay Area alternative newspaper SF Weekly — the SEIU committed to: discouraging patients and their families from suing for negligence; and supporting a four-year, $2 billion increase in MediCal subsidies to nursing homes. In return for supporting these industry-backed measures, the union retained the right to organize other nursing homes.

In other words, whether pushing for the card check bill in Congress, or joining industry lobbying efforts in exchange for handing sweeping access to employees, the end is always the same: more forced dues dollars in the pockets of union bosses.

Syndicated columnist Doug Bandow has a piece out detailing efforts by the AFL-CIO brass to enlist the help of the United Nations affiliate International Labor Organization (ILO) in attaining more special privileges to corral workers into forced unionism.

Bandow cites that union officials are:

"...no longer are satisfied playing solely by U.S. rules."

How true. The column also addresses the controversy over the forced unionization of TSA screeners, an issue the National Right to Work Foundation has weighed in on during past years.

The AFL-CIO hierarchy has taken its latest beef with Right to Work attorneys' victory for employees up with the International Labor Organization (ILO). About the complaint, AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney says:

"The Bush NLRB is kryptonite for America's workers."

This is like Lex Luthor complaining that his kryptonite doesn't work well enough. While the recent Dana victory was an encouraging step forward for employee freedom, the Bush NLRB still has lots of work left to do.

And as we see everyday, compulsory unionism abuse is the real kryptonite for America's workers.

AFL-CIO head honcho John Sweeney and SEIU chief Andy Stern both chimed in about last week's victory on behalf of employees by Right to Work attorneys. Sweeney cites a previous NLRB decision calling coercive card check unionization drives "a favored element of national policy."

What a joke. As previously cited, the Board in this decision cited:

“Card checks are less reliable because they lack secrecy and procedural safeguards… union card-solicitation campaigns have been accompanied by misinformation… workers sometimes sign union authorization cards…to get the person off their back.”

Stern, however, gets one thing right when he says:

"The NLRB has become a caricature of itself, and as a nation, we should be embarrassed by governing bodies that fail to consider even the most basic needs and rights of workers.”

How true. The NLRB has failed America's workers in many other Foundation cases. Here are just a few.

With the strike ordered by UAW officials against GM ending early this morning, it's important to draw a few lessons.

As Patrick noted Monday, the UAW hierarchy was willing to sell out some rank-and-file workers on wages so long as GM promised union officials the ability to organize its nonunion suppliers to bolster compulsory dues revenues.

Second, despite the misconceptions held by some, the fact that union officials can shut down nationwide employers and industries demonstrates that they are clearly still relevant. The widespread impact and attention the strike attracted is proof positive.

Addtionally, because of their ability to compel dues from workers in the 28 states without Right to Work laws, union officials are major players politically. Why just last friday, the AFL-CIO announced plans to deploy 200,000 union operatives and $200 million to influence the 2008 elections.