Over at the Times Herald’s opinion section, another union boss whined about the growing Right to Work movement in Michigan. The ex construction union chief had this to say:

“If Michigan becomes a right-to-work state, you might as well pack your bags and leave it.”

The problem is (as we have repeatedly reported here) Michiganders are already leaving the state – precisely because of Big Labor’s forced unionism stranglehold. The lack of a Right to Work law has not only deprived employees of their freedom of association, but it has also contributed to Michigan’s skyrocketing unemployment levels and heavy taxes.

Right to Work laws guarantee that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join, nor to pay dues to a labor union. It’s no wonder Michiganders are packing their bags for Right to Work states.

Let’s hope that this situation changes before the state’s economy collapses.

Of course, from time to time public figures will spew some pretty surprising statements to the media. This can be especially true when union bosses put their own needs in front of the American workers they claim to “represent.”

Here’s what some union officials had to say about their liking to compulsory unionism:

• Pushing Big Labor’s “card check” organizing scheme over the employee-preferred secret ballot elections, Mike Fishman, SEIU Local 32BJ chief, said: “We don’t do elections.” –Wall Street Journal

• Speaking against Iowa’s 60 year-old Right to Work law, Jan Laue, a top official of the Iowa AFL-CIO said, “If you don't want to be a part of it, then you ought to go work somewhere else.” –River Cities’ Reader

• The National Right to Work Foundation hired 24-hour security detail after United Auto Workers union militants distributed driving directions to a dissenting employee’s home. UAW union Region 8 boss Gary Casteel claimed to disavow use of vandalism or physical threats to those who opposed unionization. Yet, Casteel seemingly encouraged the reprisals when the labor boss said this about the dissenting employee, “He did put himself in limelight.” –High Point Enterprise

• Tim Welch, spin doctor for the WFSE union, speaking about employees’ right (or lack-thereof in Washington state) to choose: “You can choose to be a member of the union, you can choose to pay a fee. But ultimately, if you do not like that, you can choose to be unemployed.” – Spokesman Review

• Former chief of the United Mine Workers union, Richard Trumka, implied that employees who work during a strike deserve whatever happens to them. In 1993, he had this to say after a heavy equipment operator was shot in the back of the head as he drove past militant UMW strikers: "I'm saying if you strike a match and put your finger in, common sense tells you you're going to burn your finger." –Washington Times

Labor union officials enjoy many extraordinary powers and immunities created by legislatures and the courts, including the powers to shake down workers for forced dues payments and even to wage campaigns of violent retaliation against nonunion employees.

Sadly, union violence is protected by judicial decree under the federal Hobbs Act. Meanwhile, many states similarly restrict the authority of law enforcement to enforce laws during strikes. As a result, thousands of incidents of violent assaults by union militants have gone unpunished.

A prime example today -- the Indianapolis Business Journal chronicled union violence directed at nonunion workers a Hilton construction site:

“Pickets…slashed 14 tires, cut a telephone line to a trailer and put glue in locks late last week…. The superintendent, Kim Lackey, also said the union-based picket line hurled racial and sexual slurs at the construction workers, many of whom were minorities and women.”

But despite this thuggery and property destruction, law enforcement was AWOL:

“...if violence occurred on the picket line, police should have made arrests.”

Union officials enjoy numerous exemptions and special privileges – and workers pay a high price which sometimes includes their lives. To read the full list of Big Labor’s Top Ten Special Privileges, click here.

Randy Boettjer experienced years of harassment by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 47 union officials.

Randy (pictured) had dared to raise concerns about health care benefits, but an IBEW official simply scorned, “we don't like your kind.” Having been so disgusted by union officials’ deceptions, he created his own website critical of the IBEW union hierarchy.

Once the union bosses learned he was exercising his freedom of speech, union officials filed a lawsuit against Randy for libel and tried to extract $25,000 from him in Orange County Superior Court. Moreover, the union expelled Randy and levied $250,000 in trumped-up fines against him.

But in the end, Foundation attorneys helped Randy obtain federal labor prosecution of the union, forcing union officials to rescind the $250,000 fine and to stop all forced dues claims against him.

Randy is just one of hundreds of thousands of employees the National Right to Work Foundation has helped. Read about other individuals courageously defending their rights in the face of ugly union coercion here.

Laborers' International Union of North America Local 79 union thugs are back at it again.

New Jersey residents Joseph Chetrit and his family have been targets of a LIUNA union intimidation campaign for weeks.

Chetrit explained that union militants “have been abusive and confrontational to his family” after they placed the infamous 15-foot inflatable rat outside his home. In what they described as going through a “gauntlet” to leave their own property, Chetrit and his family (including his wife and their four children) cannot even walk to their synagogue without fear for their safety.

Sadly, one of Chetrit’s children is seeing a counselor as a result of the union’s ugly intimidation campaign. Meanwhile, a judge agreed with Chetrit that “[i]t is the hostile placement immediately adjacent to the home, towering over the sidewalk, directly facing the home, with the rat's claws and teeth bared, that creates the intimidating and menacing effect.”

NorthJersey.com has the full story here.

In a paper union officials will undoubtedly ignore, Michael Oswalt, a graduate of the AFL-CIO’s “Law Student Union Summer” program, observed an obvious truth: unions in Right to Work states are more accountable to their members because they have to be.

Citing AFL-CIO founder Samuel Gomper’s own opposition of forced unionism, Oswalt writes that “simple logic” shows that when forced dues are eliminated union officials must be more accountable to the concerns of individual members:

Indeed, simple logic suggests that when dues are guaranteed, attentive member servicing may not be, cultivating a frustrated and apathetic rank and file. The right-to-work environment, alternatively, stands in sharp relief. Where dues are linked to member satisfaction, leadership’s responsiveness embodies a special urgency…

In other words, if Oswalt’s former bosses at the AFL-CIO were really concerned with what is best for rank-and-file workers, they would support a National Right to Work Act.

Yesterday, longtime number-two union boss at the AFL-CIO, Linda Chavez-Thompson announced she would be retiring later this month. Amazingly, in a 1999 interview Chavez revealed that she had no idea what Right to Work means:

Of course, Right to Work protections have nothing to do with at-will employment. Rather, Right to Work laws – like the one in Texas – simply guarantee that employees cannot be required to pay dues to a union to get or keep a job.

Perhaps that ignorance of the concept of employee freedom of choice made it easier for Chavez to collect her salary of over $240,000 funded by individual workers who would fired if they refused to pay.

Set to replace Chavez is another longtime union official Alrene Holt-Baker who came over to the AFL-CIO with Chavez-Thompson from the AFSCME union in 1995. Holt-Baker, who already collects over $100,000 a year, can expect a sizable raise for her new position – funded, naturally, with forced union dues taken from workers under threat of termination.