The Heritage Foundation has just put up an interesting -- if at times confusing -- new web memo on possible alternatives to compulsory unionization. One of the more salient points the author raises is that the legislation governing workplace relations - the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) - is almost entirely obsolete. Times have changed since 1935 (the year the bill was first drafted), and the workplace now emphasizes cooperation over confrontation between management and labor:

That economy no longer exists. Businesses today rely on feedback and communication from employees. Employers do not simply give top-down orders, but incorporate bottom-up communication and employee discretion. The line between workers and management has increasingly blurred, and most workers want cooperative—not adversarial—relations with their employers.

Unfortunately, Big Labor hasn't changed with the times. If anything, union officials are promoting an increasingly adversarial relationship with management that relies on hate-the-boss rhetoric, vicious corporate campaigns, coercive card-check organizing drives, and scurious lawsuits to force companies to herd their employees into forced-dues-paying union collectives.

Would a more cooperative approach benefit employees? According to the memo, alternatives to the current system is certainly popular with American workers:

The fact that few workers want to join traditional unions does not mean that they do not want a voice in workplace relations. Surveys show that workers want to participate in decisions in the workplace and want to be heard by their supervisors, but they do not want hostile relations with management.

Ultimately, the policy prescriptions put forth in the web memo are unfortunately vague on the vital isues of compulsory union dues and monopoly bargaining.

If Heritage's proposed reforms eliminate forced dues, monopoly bargaining, or both, then they would be a step forward for employee rights. However, if the "reforms" do nothing to dismantle these extraordinary monopoly union privileges and make unionism more voluntary, then it is hard to see how trying to add "employee involvement" programs to the NLRA would be anything other than a gigantic waste of time and resources.

The Rocky Mountain News recently published a misleading op-ed by union organizer James Hansen. The article contains a number of misleading claims, but the following passage’s description of a Right to Work law is so fundamentally wrong that it has to be addressed:

“A right-to-work [sic] law would allow the government to intervene in labor-management relations, undermining the freedom that employers and workers now have to negotiate the best agreement possible for both sides.”

Union officials in Colorado already have government granted power to force every employee - member or not - to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their job (or getting a job in the first place). No other organization or association is allowed to extort forced fees from individuals.

State Right to Work protections simply eliminate this extraordinary government intervention, which is the exact opposite Hansen’s claim.

Further, if Hansen was really concerned with government intervention into employer-employee relations, he would call for the repeal of government imposed monopoly bargaining (that allows union officials to forcibly represent every employee) or the numerous other special government-granted powers that unions have.

But contrary to Hansen’s assertion, union officials are not at all concerned about preventing government intervention into employee-employer relations, as they long ago rejected AFL-CIO founder Samuel Gompers' call for purely voluntary unionism. For the better part of the last 100 years, union bosses have built their empire on special government-granted powers, with forced dues as the most glaring example of the power.

As we've said before in this space, defending the rights of employees' not to be forced to pay dues to get or keep a job is the right thing to do no matter the economic ramifications. Fortunately though, there are economic benefits to protecting employees' Right to Work, as many studies by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research have found.

And a new paper released yesterday by the Michigan-based Mackinac Center, again confirms the Right to Work economic advantage:

In the key metrics of economic growth, Right to Work states have a distinct advantage when it comes to unemployment rates, income growth, population increases and jobs.

You can read the Mackinac paper in its entirety here. The paper also looks at the devastating economic impact that forced unionism has had on Michigan.

The Foundation's sister organization, the National Right to Work Committee, reports that it is increasingly gaining traction in efforts to pass a Right to Work law through the Michigan legislature.

Today's Wall Street Journal points out that union officials are pouring upwards of a billion dollars, much of it in compulsory dues, into the 2008 election cycle. The goal? A sea change of American labor law.

"This is an all-in bet for them in 2008," says Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, a group that fights down in the trenches against coercive union power. "As market cycles go, they're in their peak, we're in our trough, and they're looking for a clear two-year run" in an all-Democrat Washington.

Then there's the crown jewel:

Tucked into the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act is a provision called 14(b), which allows for "right to work" states. Big Labor last took a run at deleting this section, and forcing more unionization, in the Johnson administration.

Aside from abolishing employees' free choice of whether or not to join or pay dues to a union, wiping the current 22 state Right to Work laws off the map would deal a crushing blow to the American economy.

According to a recent study by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, forced unionism cost the American economy upwards of $436 billion in GDP between 2000-2006 alone.

The yoke of compulsory unionism already takes a severe toll on states without Right to Work laws, the last thing America needs is to expand its reach.

A new buzz word paid union operatives throw around when they decide to strike against a facility they have absolutely nothing to do with is that they're simply holding an "informational" picket. As in this instance in Tennessee, union officials hold such pickets for pretty much any reason under the sun, but usually for simply being non-union.

This, no doubt, leaves employees forced to foot the bill for this activity scratching their heads. Why are they forced to pay the salaries of paid union professionals to picket facilities that they don't even work at?

Here's some recent "informational picketing" out of Albany, New York:

In Washington State, Susan Wiggs, a teacher with a religious objection to paying union dues, fought tooth-and-nail against the Vancouver Education Association (VEA) over her right to divert those dues to charity. VEA union officials refused time and again to accommodate the teacher’s wishes.

Citizenlink.com has the story:

“[Union officials] absolutely don't want a precedent of religious objectors being able to choose their own charity," Wiggs said.

After the seemingly never-ending battle, a labor board ruled last week in favor of the teacher, but the VEA won’t give up and still refuses to approve Wiggs’ choice.

For more information on your rights as a religious objector, read the Foundation’s pamphlet entitled, “An Employee's Guide--To Union Dues and Religious Do Nots.” The guide describes how to obtain as accommodation of an employee's religious beliefs against joining or financially supporting a labor union.

At a United Auto Workers (UAW) conference yesterday, Senator Teddy Kennedy (D-MA) – chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee – told attendees that he wouldn’t give up trying to push the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” down the throats of America’s workers.

The Daily Labor Report highlighted:

"We're going to bring it back again and again, until we prevail,” Kennedy said. “And I guarantee this: we get a Democrat in the White House and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will be the law of the land.”

Meanwhile, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) released a report today entitled “Card-Check Forced Unionism Would Hurt Employees and Employers” that details the economic devastation that would result from increased union monopoly power.

The detailed 13-page research report highlights how Big Labor’s number one legislative priority (you guessed it, EFCA) will exacerbate forced unionism and expand unions’ monopoly bargaining privileges over employees.

NILRR’s report points out some of the following about card check organizing and forced unionism:

• “Card-check” organizing empowers union officials to force a business’s employees to accept a union as their monopoly-bargaining agent solely through the acquisition of signed union authorization cards.
• Key provisions in the legislation would effectively ban employee secret-ballot elections over unionization in the private sector and replace such elections with so-called “card checks.”
• Private sector job growth is nearly three times as fast in low union-monopoly states.

To read all the facts, download the full NILRR report on the card check forced unionism bill here.

National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix details the Foundation's efforts to help Sai Ly Acosta and other musicians in Hollywood after union officials indicated they would be arrested for showing up for rehearsal.

The following movie clip is actual FBI undercover footage of a United Transportation Union (UTU) bagman accepting a cash bribe on behalf of the union’s president.
The footage underscores why the National Right to Work Foundation is leading the fight to free America’s workers from forced unionism, and how compulsory unionism and corruption go hand-in-hand.

The readers’ forum section in West Virginia’s Charleston Gazette featured a great commentary from one local reader about the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act,” a bill that would lead to even more union intimidation during organizing drives. The following was his response after one AFL-CIO union boss claimed that “employees are not being allowed to join unions.”

“The Employee Free Choice Act is not for employees. It is for unions, period. Under that proposed act, unions can get employees signed up on union cards, even in a pizza parlor after three beers, before three or four other pushy union officials.”

For more information about in-your-face card check schemes, read these studies conducted by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.