Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker:  “collective bargaining in the public sector is not a right; it’s an expensive entitlement.” In USA Today, Nick Schultz goes to the mat for Scott Walker and his needed reforms in Wisconsin:

The claim that “this presidential election is the most important election ever” is an enduring political cliché, and it’s almost always wrong. Consider this year. It’s likely the 2012 race for the White House won’t even be the most important contest of this year, much less of all time.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is currently the target of a recall effort spearheaded by national public employee unions. If his opponents get enough signatures by Jan. 17, Wisconsin will hold a gubernatorial election this summer. The outcome is crucial to the future of the country.

Wisconsin has emerged as a central battleground in the fight over the outsized political role played by, and the enormous privileges enjoyed by, public employee unions. The collective bargaining entitlement enables public sector workers to extract excessive compensation, benefits, and pension packages at the expense of taxpayers.

In March, Walker signed what is now nationally famous legislation that reformed public employee collective bargaining. The bill was crucial to putting Wisconsin on a sustainable fiscal path.

Guess what? It’s working

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which opposed Walker’s collective bargaining reforms, recently noted, “The governor did balance the budget … he did reduce the structural deficit significantly; he did put a lid on property tax increases; he did give schools and municipalities more control over their budgets than they’ve had in years.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was Walker’s opponent in the 2010 election and later attacked his proposals to reform collective bargaining. But with the reforms on the books, Barrett used some of the bill’s provisions to help reduce the city’s health care bill, saying that the alternative was to cut 300 to 400 city jobs.

If they can knock off Walker, they send a powerful signal to other reform-oriented governors not to target collective bargaining.

As political scientist Daniel DiSalvo notes in a recent issue of National Affairs, ”public-sector unions have significant advantages over traditional unions. For one thing, using the political process, they can exert far greater influence over their members’ employers — that is, government — than private-sector unions can. Through their extensive political activity, these government-workers’ unions help elect the very politicians who will act as ‘management’ in their contract negotiations — in effect handpicking those who will sit across the bargaining table from them … Such power led Victor Gotbaum, the leader of District Council 37 of the AFSCME in New York City, to brag in 1975: ‘We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss.’ ”

Collective bargaining reform is also needed to enable genuine education reform.

In a recent discussion, Walker told me that “collective bargaining in the public sector is not a right; it’s an expensive entitlement.” The struggle to rein in and reform expensive entitlements will define American politics for the next generation. A key front line is in Wisconsin.

The former head of the National Labor Relations Board Peter Schaumber is letting the world know that President Obama was willing to shred the Constitution and make “recess appointments” while Congress was in session in order to please the union bosses.

From Media Trackers:

In Wisconsin, Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf issued a search warrant for Florida SEIU organizer Clarence Haynes declaring there is “probable cause that Mr. H [Clarence Haynes] voted without the proper qualifications as an elector when he cast a ballot on April 5, 2011.”

Documents exclusively obtained by Media Trackers revealed that Clarence Haynes, along with two other out-of-state SEIU organizers, voted using the address of a Residence Inn in Glendale in the April 5, 2011 spring election. Media Trackers first uncovered these individuals on October 26, 2011, prompting Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf to investigate the matter.

The gentlemen all share a common affiliation with the Service Employee International Union. Media Trackers first uncovered from SEIU documents that Haynes was listed as a “Senior Organizer in Training” and was previously registered as an SEIU employee in Florida. Haynes’ phone number on his Wisconsin election day registration form listed a Tampa area code.

Mercure also explained that in a conversation with ADA Landgraf, Landgraf explained there was “probable cause” that a crime had been committed and a decision on whether charges would be pressed may come in the next couple weeks.

Roger Pilon, a constitutional scholar from the CATO Institute, makes a compelling case that President Obama’s outrageous appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are unconstitutional:

All of Obama’s appointments yesterday are illegal under the Constitution. And, in addition, as too little noted by the media, his appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is legally futile. Under the plain language of the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, Cordray will have no authority whatsoever.

Yesterday, Professors John Yoo and Richard Epstein, writing separately, made it crystal clear that the president, under Article II, section 2, may make temporary recess appointments, but only when the Senate is in recess. Add in Article I, section 5, and it’s plain that the Senate is presently not in recess, just as it wasn’t under Senate Democrats when George W. Bush wanted to make recess appointments. The difference here is that Bush respected those constitutional provisions while Obama — never a constitutional law professor but only a part-time instructor – ignores them as politically inconvenient. Attempts by Obama’s apologists to say the Senate is not in session are pure sophistry and, in the case of Harry Reid, rank hypocrisy, as this morning’s Wall Street Journal brings out.

But clear beyond the slightest doubt is the language of the statute (itself unconstitutional on any number of grounds not relevant here). As my colleague Mark Calabria wrote yesterday, “authorities under the Act remain with the Treasury Secretary until the Director is ‘confirmed by the Senate.’”  A recess appointment, even if it were constitutional, is not a Senate confirmation. There is simply no wiggle room in that language that gives Cordray any authority, as litigation will soon make plain.

So what is this? It’s politics — Chicago politics, plain and simple. If any doubt remained, three years into his presidency, that Obama is a master demagogue, with class warfare as his central tool, this incident should dispel it.

From the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation:

Worker Rights Advocate Blasts Obama’s Unprecedented Recess Appointments to the NLRB

The President’s legally dubious NLRB recess appointments pave the way for another year of forced-unionism giveaways

Washington, DC (January 4, 2012) – Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s unprecedented NLRB recess appointments:

“Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB, despite there being no formal recess of Congress, show just how much this Administration is in the pocket of Big Labor. In the last two years the Obama Labor Board has repeatedly enacted one power grab after another on behalf of union bosses, to the detriment of the rights of individual employees – especially those who wish to refrain from union activities. The President’s legally dubious NLRB recess appointments pave the way for another year of forced-unionism giveaways.

“Union bosses know their coercive agenda is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people, which is why they’ve turned to unelected administrative agencies like the NLRB to push through much of what they cannot get through Congress. That’s what makes these appointments all the more offensive in the face of Congress affirmatively taking action to block recess nominations.”

National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are already exploring possible legal challenges to these unprecedented recess appointments in defiance of Congress.

AFL-CIO Boss Richard Trumka could not be happier at President Obama’s “recess” appointment of three big labor lackeys to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  The problem is that the Senate was never in recess.  The appointments raise grave constitutional concerns for the nation.  For the union bosses, nothing, including the Constitution, should stand in the way of their ability to extract due’s money from worker’s checkbooks.

Typically before a reelection, Presidents try to avoid creating constitutional battles. Not President Obama, he bypassed the Senate and appointed three NLRB board members.  Effectively, Obama handed the NLRB over to Big Labor Bosses, his biggest political spenders and political ground force, or “his army” as Teamster Boss Hoffa describes it. Election 2012 has already become ugly.

This power grab by a desperate president gives Big Labor control over the NLRB, which was supposedly established to referee labor relations disputes.  Obama’s actions will make Big Labor the Harlem Trotters of labor disputes. Also, it will create a legal battle with Republicans in congress.  A battle the former constitutional law professor seems to seek.

From the Hill:

The recess appointments President Obama announced Wednesday are “almost certain” to be challenged in court … The recess appointments broke with legal precedent, as they while the Senate is holding regular pro forma sessions. Republicans insist the Senate has not been in recess thanks to the seconds-long sessions held every few days, but White House attorneys determined the procedural move is a gimmick that can be ignored by the president.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) blasted the move as an “unprecedented power grab” and said he expects “the courts will find the appointment to be illegitimate.”

The gambit puts the bureau in “uncertain legal territory,” according to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

From the Washington Times:

Obama defies Congress with ‘recess’ picks; Nominations could provoke constitutional fight

Pushing the limits of his recess appointment powers, President Obama on Wednesday bypassed the Senate to install three members of the National Labor Relations Board and a director for the controversial new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – moves Republicans said amounted to unconstitutional power grabs

Big Labor applauds, from In These Times:

Obama Makes Recess Appointments to NLRB. Is It Enough for AFL-CIO Endorsement?

Today, President Obama made three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—Democrats Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, as well as Republican Terry Flynn. Without the appointments, the federal agency, which mediate labor disputes and oversees union elections, wouldn’t have had a quorum to issue valid rulings. (He also made a much more high-profile appointment of Richard Corday to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in order to make that regulator functional as well.)

With the recess appointments, the board will be able to make key decisions that affect American workers.

The speed in making the appointments may be a move by the White House to gain the support of the AFL-CIO, which has yet to endorse Obama, unlike other major unions like AFSCME, NEA, UFCW and SEIU. It’s unclear as well if the AFL-CIO’s delay in endorsing Obama, or AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s recent call for greater political independence for organized labor played any role in pressuring the White House to quickly make the recess appointments to both the CFPB and NLRB.

The move may give the AFL-CIO necessary cover to endorse President Obama, and offer active support on the ground during the election season.

But the labor federation, and other unions that have yet to endorse Obama, may be looking to see if the president can pass several other tests this year …State legislators in Indiana are planning to bring right-to-work legislation to a vote in the Indiana legislature possibly as early as this week. It’s unclear if President Obama is going to make any public statement about the legislation, which organized labor strongly opposes, in this key battleground state

Late last month, when House Republicans floated the idea of a federal pay freeze as part of a temporary deal to extend the payroll tax cuts, Democratic Senators strongly objected. However, the White House did not object publicly to the freeze being in the deal.

“Federal employees are working with severely limited resources,” National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley wrote in a letter to Congress today. “To ask them to bear such a disproportionate additional burden is unfair and unacceptable.”

Washington, DC (January 4, 2012) - Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, issued the following statement in response to President Obama's unprecedented NLRB recess appointments:

read more

Washington, DC (January 4, 2012) - Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, issued the following statement in response to President Obama's unprecedented NLRB recess appointments:

"Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB, despite there being no formal recess of Congress, show just how much this Administration is in the pocket of Big Labor. In the last two years the Obama Labor Board has repeatedly enacted one power grab after another on behalf of union bosses, to the detriment of the rights of individual employees - especially those who wish to refrain from union activities. The President's legally dubious NLRB recess appointments pave the way for another year of forced-unionism giveaways.

read more

According to Jeff Harris, Indiana AFL-CIO spokesman Right To Work is a “smack at organized labor” and it will “gut unions.”  Apparently, AFL-CIO bosses know that if Hoosiers aren’t forced to pay union dues, then many Hoosiers will spend their own money on something else.  This may be why the AFL-CIO embraces the anti-free market Occupy America movement, because these union bosses know that ‘services’ are overpriced and bear no resemblance to free market pricing.

So, will  Big Labor convince the Democrats to flee to Illinois again in effort to hide from their legislative responsibilities? We don’t know that answer, yet.  But, we do know Big Labor is planning for a January collective hissy fit at the Indiana capitol building.

From Associated Press writers Charles Wilson and Ken Kusmer:

Indiana’s Republican House leader on Tuesday promised swift movement on a push to make his state the first in more than a decade to ban labor contracts that require employees to pay union fees.

Speaker Brian Bosma of Indianapolis told The Associated Press he is confident he can push the “right-to-work” bill through his chamber during the 2012 session that begins Wednesday and is spending a lot “personal capital” to do so.

Bosma, who has been the measure’s most ardent supporter, said he hadn’t yet taken a formal tally of supportive votes, but added he “also wouldn’t bring it forward if I wasn’t confident of success.”

The proposal would bar private employee unions from seeking contracts that mandate all workers pay union fees regardless of whether they are members. Supporters say the law would help attract new business to the state.

Indiana’s House Democrats successfully blocked the measure last year with a five-week walkout that denied House Republicans the numbers needed to conduct daily business. Democratic leaders have so far declined to say whether they will walk out again this session.

Indiana would become the 23rd state to enact a right-to-work law, the first to do so since Oklahoma in 2001.

Republicans hold wide margins in the Indiana Assembly: 60-40 in the House and 37-13 in the Senate and GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels has come out with strong support for the measure.

“There’s nowhere we are we closer than we are in Indianapolis,” said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee, which pushes the measure in Statehouse’s across the country.

The group has maintained a state executive director to coordinate volunteer support for the measure over the last few years and recently sent three or more new staff to shore up support in tough districts Indiana.

The procedural push starts in earnest with a joint hearing of the House and Senate labor committees Friday, just two days after lawmakers return for their 2012 session. But Bosma has been pushing the measure hard since the middle of November, when he declared it would be his top legislative priority.

Bosma calls “right to work” the “jobs bill” of the session, saying that it will attract new business to the state. Like Daniels, he has gone up on the air with TV ads pitching the bill as a tool to combat the state’s 9 percent unemployment rate.

“This is a partisan smack at organized labor that is aimed to gut unions … one of the last organizations standing in the way of corporate control,” said Jeff Harris, Indiana AFL-CIO spokesman.

Internal NLRB e-mails show Lafe Solomon (pictured) was disinclined this March to target Boeing for expanding production in Right to Work South Carolina. Then IAM union chiefs, led by Tom Buffenbarger, apparently got to him. Credit: AP/Bruce Smith

This April 20, Acting National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Lafe Solomon ignited a public-policy firestorm by filing a complaint against Boeing for initiating a second Dreamliner 787 aircraft production line in Right to Work South Carolina.

In several public statements, Boeing executives had made no bones about the fact that their decision to expand in a Right to Work state was prompted largely by their desire to avoid or at least mitigate multi-billion-dollar revenue losses stemming from disruptive strikes.

Agreeing with International Association of Machinists (IAM/AFL-CIO) union kingpins who had repeatedly ordered employees at Boeing’s west coast facilities out on strike, Mr. Solomon claimed these statements showed Boeing was motivated by “anti-union animus.” Consequently, the South Carolina expansion was illegal, declared Mr. Solomon.

Mr. Solomon’s complaint asked an NLRB administrative law judge to stop Boeing’s South Carolina production.

Former Clinton-Appointed NLRB Chairman: Boeing Complaint Didn’t ‘Make Sense’

Lafe Solomon was installed by President Barack Obama, without the U.S. Senate’s advice or consent, as the NLRB’s top lawyer in 2010. From the beginning, Mr. Solomon’s case against Boeing was highly controversial.

In addition to the overwhelming majority of Americans who support the Right to Work principle, even some well-informed apologists for compulsory unionism openly doubted whether Mr. Solomon really understands federal labor law.

For example, William Gould, the ex-union lawyer who was the Bill Clinton-appointed chairman of the NLRB from 1994 to 1998, summed up the case against Boeing this way:

“The general counsel is trying to equate an employer’s concern with strikes that disrupt production and make it difficult to make deadlines — he’s trying to equate that with hostility toward trade unionism. I don’t think that makes sense.”

In response to such criticism, Mr. Solomon protested that, as he saw it, the evidence Boeing had violated the law was clear-cut. “I feel that I really had no choice [but to file the complaint],” he told a New York Times reporter in late April.

Mr. Solomon appeared then to be merely a tunnel-visioned supporter of compulsory unionism. But now it seems that, besides being an ideologue, he is a fraud.

Mr. Solomon Made a Deal With Boeing, Then Broke It

Internal NLRB documents obtained by the educational group Judicial Watch and made public in November show that early this year Mr. Solomon told Boeing he would not target the company and its South Carolina employees if executives made a multi-year pledge not to lay off any unionized employees working on the 787.

The NLRB’s e-mail communications also show that, just as Mr. Solomon specified, Boeing quickly agreed not to lay off any IAM-controlled employees involved in Dreamliner production prior to the expiration of its existing contract with the IAM hierarchy.

But a few weeks later, Mr. Solomon filed his complaint against Boeing anyway, apparently because IAM agents representing union international President Tom Buffenbarger told him they wanted to extract more from the company than a no lay-off pledge.

“The record shows that, far from believing he ‘had’ to file a case against Boeing, as he claimed in public time and again, as recently as this March Mr. Solomon wasn’t planning to file one,” said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“And the obvious reason he finally decided to go ahead with the case after all wasn’t any purported wrongdoing by the company. Mr. Solomon did what IAM bosses told him to.”

Mr. Mourad continued: “National Right to Work and other like-minded groups quickly exposed the anti-employee and anti-business essence of the Boeing case to the American people. Even Mr. Solomon himself, in another internal NLRB e-mail recently made public, came to quip cynically that the case had ‘screwed up the U.S. economy.’

“Finally, in late November, IAM chiefs, acting without the NLRB’s involvement, cut a deal with Boeing and publicly indicated they wanted the case to go away.

“Now that the IAM puppeteers are finished, the NLRB action against Boeing will likely soon end quietly.

“That’s good news for Right to Work supporters, but unfortunately the fork-tongued Big Labor stooge who brought the case remains entrenched as the powerful NLRB’s top lawyer. That means the next attack on Right to Work can’t be far off.”

United Way Worldwide President Brian Gallagher thinks it's a good idea for United Way locals to divert charitable donors' money into Big Labor's lobbying campaign for another round of federal "stimulus" spending. Credit: United Way of America

For nearly four decades, the National Right to Work Committee has been warning charitable donors that the United Way of America (UWA) was diverting millions of their dollars to AFL-CIO union-boss slush funds.

Now such abuses of charitable donations appear to be worse than ever at the United Way Worldwide (UWW), the successor group that came into being in 2009 when the UWA merged with the United Way International.

Documents made publicly available by the UWW and AFL-CIO affiliates indicate that today local United Ways bloat their payrolls by employing more than 160 full-time union operatives, known as “AFL-CIO community service liaisons,” across the country.

And the UWW also openly acknowledges using donors’ money to recruit, “train and help place members of organized labor on the decision-making bodies of health and human-service organizations.”

Moreover, the UWW and many of its affiliates have long operated and continue to operate under “memoranda of understanding” with the AFL-CIO in which they agree to discriminate against goods, services and suppliers that don’t wear the union label.

Many United Way Donors Have Resisted Discriminatory United Way Policies

In 1974, the Committee exposed the discriminatory “Cooperative Memorandum of Understanding Between the United Way and the AFL-CIO” that was then in effect.

Many United Way donors were outraged that contributions intended to aid worthy civic and charitable causes were instead going to enrich Big Labor. They put enormous pressure on the UWA to change its policies.

Unfortunately, only cosmetic changes ensued, and the AFL-CIO hierarchy and the UWW remain “close partners,” as UWW President Brian Gallagher unabashedly put it in a letter this fall distributed to leaders of United Way locals nationwide.

“Any charity has a duty to its donors to get the best price it can on goods and services that meet its needs, without imposing unneeded and discriminatory conditions on suppliers,” said Committee Vice President Mary King.

“The UWW policy, however, tilts the scales against goods and services produced by the vast majority of private-sector workers, who neither belong nor wish to belong to a union.

“The UWW is letting AFL-CIO bosses use contributions intended to help the less fortunate for union-machine organizing.”

On November 13, Mr. Gallagher brought the decades-old “partnership” between his group and top union bosses to a whole new level when he sent out a nationwide letter to United Way local staff urging them to team up with union officials in their area as they lobby for the AFL-CIO’s so-called “jobs agenda.”

Brian Gallagher: UWW, AFL-CIO Elite Are ‘Working Towards the Same Goal’

“Please support your AFL-CIO,” wrote Mr. Gallagher, as it seeks to ram through the U.S. Senate and House a package of so-called “stimulus” legislation that is eerily similar to the failed “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” (ARRA) rubber-stamped by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in 2009.

As many Newsletter readers know, after ARRA became law, it bilked taxpayers out of hundreds of billions of dollars to ensure that bloated, unionized government payrolls stayed bloated, but furnished no detectable net benefit for America’s private sector.

In his letter, Mr. Gallagher explained his exhortation that UWW staff should help union lobbyists foist another round of massively expensive and futile “stimulus” on America: The UWW and the AFL-CIO elite are “working towards the same goal.”

Your Letter to UWW Needed

Ms. King commented: “Sadly, despite the National Right to Work Committee’s persistent efforts over the years to put a spotlight on unfortunate ‘sweetheart’ deals between United Way executives and union kingpins, many well-intentioned charitable donors clearly remain unaware of the problem.”

She vowed that the Committee would continue to work to inform more and more pro-Right to Work charitable donors about Big Labor infiltration of the UWW and many of its locals.

Ms. King also encouraged members to write Mr. Gallagher and urge him to change course. He can be reached at United Way Worldwide, 701 N. Fairfax St., Alexandria, Va. 22314.

Craig Becker has publicly lamented the fact that U.S. labor law does not "mandate" union monopoly bargaining. Credit: www.uncoverage.net

(Source:  November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)

In his writings for academic and “labor studies” journals over the years, union lawyer Craig Becker has repeatedly bemoaned the fact that U.S. labor law “does not,” as he once bluntly explained, “require employees in a plant to select a bargaining agent, if they do not want to.”

Employees’ only choice, Mr. Becker has suggested time and again, should be over which set of union officials get “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining power to negotiate their wages, benefits, and work rules.

Thanks to President Barack Obama, Mr. Becker is in a position as 2011 winds down to begin implementing his extremist vision of what federal labor policy should be.

In March 2010, Mr. Obama did the bidding of the union hierarchy by “recess” appointing Mr. Becker to the powerful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Mr. Becker and Chairman Mark Pearce, another ex-union lawyer installed on the NLRB by Mr. Obama, now constitute a radical Big Labor majority on a rump, three-member NLRB. (Two of the board’s five seats are currently vacant.)

And late this November Mr. Pearce and Mr. Becker okayed changes to the current procedures for NLRB certification of unions that will, in practice, significantly undermine workers’ right to choose against monopolistic union representation.

The Obama NLRB originally planned to go even further to gut workers’ “choice to remain unrepresented” — a choice Mr. Becker has indicated he doesn’t think should be legally protected at all. But intense public opposition, mobilized by the National Right to Work Committee and other allied groups, evidently influenced the NLRB to temper its haste somewhat.

Employers May Soon Be Forced To Hand Employee Phone Numbers, E-Mail Addresses to Union Dons

The revised proposal advanced by the Pearce-Becker team over the vigorous opposition of the third NLRB member, Brian Hayes, would sharply reduce the current median time frame of 38 days between the filing of a union “representation petition” and the conduct of a union election.

The effect of such a change, as former NLRB member and Right to Work supporter Peter Kirsanow has put it, will be to “utterly and completely deprive employers of the ability to communicate vital information to their employees regarding their rights and the effects of unionization.”

Of course, once employers are denied enough time to make their case, employees will ipso facto be denied the opportunity to hear both sides of the story before voting on unionization.

“Apologists for President Obama’s NLRB brazenly claim that the ‘ambush’ election scheme it is now implementing step by step represents only a few modest changes to current practice,” noted Committee President Mark Mix.

“But this is nothing other than an underhanded means of realizing the very objective Craig Becker lauded in his published writings before his NLRB appointment: Workers’ ‘choice to remain unrepresented’ would be rendered almost meaningless.

“And the ‘ambush’ elections just rubber-stamped by the NLRB are only the beginning. The NLRB is still considering a host of other harmful proposals.

“These include new rules mandating that the employer hand over employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses to union organizers at the outset of each ‘ambush’ election campaign.”

Committee Will Consider ‘All Appropriate Means’ to Protect Independent Employees

Mr. Mix vowed that the Committee would consider “all appropriate means” to protect independent employees from the Obama NLRB.

“Unfortunately, as long as Barack Obama remains President and retains his veto power, it will be difficult to rein in the NLRB,” he acknowledged.

“But at the very least, Right to Work supporters on Capitol Hill can and must prevent Mr. Obama from placing another union stooge on the NLRB to replace Mr. Becker once his ‘recess’ appointment ends this winter.”

The November-December 2011 issue of The National Right To Work Committee Newsletter is available for download November-December 2011 Newsletter in an Adobe pdf format for your convenience to read and share.  It is the Committee’s official newsletter publication that provides an excellent monthly overview of the battle against forced unionism.

November-December 2011 issue headlines:

Capitol Hill Support For Right to Work Growing — More Senators, Representatives Cosponsor Compulsory-Dues Repeal

Obama Bureaucrats Bolster Monopolistic Unionism — Labor Board Chipping Away at ‘Choice to Remain Unrepresented’

United Way Chief: ‘Please Support Your AFL-CIO’ — Brian Gallagher Prods Charity Workers to Assist Union Lobbyists

Lafe Solomon ‘Did What IAM Bosses Told Him To’ — E-mails Reveal Why Top NLRB Lawyer ‘Screwed up the U.S. Economy’

College Graduates Flock to Right to Work States — States Seeking a ‘Brain Gain’ Should Bar Compulsory Union Dues

All in All, ‘a Hopeful Year For America’ — Big Labor Bosses Fume as Benefits of Wisconsin Reform Spread

Washington, DC (December 28, 2011) – Three Charleston-area Boeing company (NYSE: BA) employees filed a federal retaliation charge against the Washington State union behind the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) high-profile case against Boeing for building a new facility in South Carolina.

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Danny Douglas and Jay Campbell, have been sentenced to 18 months and 12 months plus one day, respectively, after being convicted of extortion. It seems the two former United Auto Workers bosses agreed to end an 87-day strike at a GM plant in Pontiac, MI back in 1997 – but only after General Motors agreed to hire Campbell’s son and the son of another UAW official for high-paying jobs they were evidently not qualified for.

In Las Vegas, the Clark County School Board is refusing to allow competitive bidding for health insurance for teachers forcing the school district to use a costly insurance program owned by the union itself.  This decision alone could lead to the firing of 1,000 school employees.

As the Education Action Group notes:

The CCEA is not the first teachers union to form its own insurance company and pressure local school boards into purchasing that company’s overpriced coverage.

The Maine Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, established its own insurance entity, the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust, in 1993.

The Benefits Trust “ facilitates” the purchase of employee health insurance for Maine’s public schools, essentially selling them coverage provided by the state’s largest carrier, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

Nearly every school district in the state has been lulled into joining this system over the years, according to officials in several Maine school districts. The Benefits Trust/Anthem scam, which discourages outside competition, has driven insurance prices through the roof for Maine schools.

The Michigan Education Association owns its own insurance company, called the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA). For years local union negotiators have pressedschool boards to purchase MESSA employee health insurance, despite its high cost.

As a result, roughly half of the districts in the state carry some form of MESSA insurance, and many are struggling with the continually rising cost of premiums. As in Maine, many Michigan school officials have accused MESSA of refusing to provide insurance claim records that are necessary to attract bids from competitors.

The Michigan Education Association also receives annual kickbacks from MESSA, in exchange for effective representation at the school board bargaining table. In 2009, MESSA reported net assets of $259 million. In 2010, MESSA shared $5 million with the MEA.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council also created an insurance entity, called WEA Trust, several decades ago. For years local union negotiators pressed school boards to purchase employee health insurance from WEA Trust, often at a very high price.

At one point, about three-quarters of the state’s school districts purchased insurance from WEA Trust, helping the union-affiliated insurance company build assets worth $674 million in 2008, according to government records.

EAG published a 2010 analysis of WEA Trust, which revealed that most of the school districts in the state with the highest insurance costs are clients of WEA Trust. Many school administrators said it was very difficult to convince their local unions to allow them to seek bids for less expensive health coverage.

All three of those union-affiliated insurance companies have attracted close scrutiny since a wave of reform-minded lawmakers were elected in November 2010.

Lawmakers in Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan have recently taken steps to give school districts more freedom to accept competitive bids for employee health insurance, thereby ending or at least eroding the expensive monopoly held by union-affiliated insurance companies.

In Clark County, that job is being left to an arbitrator. All the students and taxpayers can do is hope the arbitrator does the right thing for the school district and community, even if that angers the self-serving union.

The South Carolina Post and Courier shows how workers are often treated as pawn in labor disputes:

Don’t get Glenn Taubman wrong:  He’s glad the National Labor Relations Board union-busting case against Boeing Co. is over.

It’s how it ended that bothers him.

Taubman, a staff attorney at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, represents the three local Boeing employees who won limited participation in the controversial case earlier this year. He said they received a copy of every legal paper filed over the summer and fall, yet they were not invited to participate in the concluding conference call among the varied parties.

During the Dec. 8 call, Administrative Law Judge Clifford Anderson considered whether he needed to hear from the attorney for Dennis Murray,Cynthia Ramaker and Meredith Going Sr. Lawyers from both Boeing and the International Association of Machinists discouraged the idea.

Wrapping up the call, Anderson said, “Even though I have finessed them here, they need to be informed,” according to the call transcript.

A miffed Taubman responded last week: “We’re certainly happy that the case is over, and that there appears to be protection for our clients and the Charleston workers, but the idea that they were excluded in this way shows how rigged the whole process was.”

He said the way the case ended — with a union contract extension in Washington somehow solving the South Carolina claims and then the 24-minute chat between the judge and the lawyers — was “totally bizarre.”

“They haven’t heard the last of it,” he said. “We’re investigating our options of how to proceed in light of what we feel was a failing of the NLRB process.

Trey Kovacs looks at Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton’s quest to empower union bosses by any means necessary:

Minnesota State Senator Mike Parry (R-Waseca) recently caused a stir with strong accusations against Governor Mark Dayton. “It’s no secret that the labor unions helped buy the Governor’s Office for Mark Dayton… he began to return the favor, most recently by trying to help unionize some of Minnesota’s in-home, private child care providers,” said Parry in a fundraising letter.

Sen. Parry’s allegations elicited a strong reaction from Dayton, who called it “inaccurate and deeply offensive.” A review of the facts, however, shows that the real reason the governor is so upset: the truth hurts.

Since 2005, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have been trying to organize child care providers Minnesota. Associated Press found that AFSCME wrote a $125,000 check to Gov. Dayton’s Recount Fund once restrictive campaign contribution limits ceased. Combined AFSCME and SEIU PACs contributed $14,000 to Dayton during his campaign. The Minnesota Family Council calculates that Big Labor stands to gain up to $3.3 million a year in dues from unionizing child care providers.

On November 15, Gov. Dayton issued Executive Order 11-31, calling an election to unionize all licensed, registered, and subsidized child care providers in the state. In defense of his order, the governor claimed that holding a union election would ensure that union membership would be “voluntary” and that child care providers not eligible to vote for unionization would be unaffected. Opponents countered that union dues will be compulsory and costs will rise.

For the most part, child care providers are self-employed. So how could they be unionized? Dayton and the unions have a simple solution: declare them state employees because they receive state aid to serve needy children. Under their view, anyone who receives any form of state aid qualifies as a state employee.

To push back against this power grab, on November 28, a group of 11 child care providers sued to block Dayton’s executive order, arguing that it violates state and federal laws. The National Labor Relations Act and Minnesota Labor Relations Act do not allow employers to form, join, or assist labor organizations.

The Minnesota Labor Relations Act indicates that a union cannot gain exclusive representation of workers, unless a majority of workers choose union representation. Dayton’s mandate blatantly violates that provision, as it excludes a majority of child care providers from the voting process. Only 4,300 government-subsidized providers will cast ballots, but a vote for unionization could also force the state’s 6,700 non-subsidized child care providers into a union.

As a result of the suit, Minnesota District Court Judge Dale Lindman issued an injunction to postpone the union election. He stated that laws must be passed by the legislature and remarked that the order “strikes me as being very harmful to the parties that are involved.”
However, Judge Lindman’s injunction has not dampened Governor Dayton’s commitment to unionize Minnesota child care providers. Gov. Dayton vowed to continue his effort to unionize child care providers and to challenge the court injunction.

As it stands now, child care in Minnesota is among the least affordable and most heavily subsidized in the nation. The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies study shows it can cost up to $12,900 to care for one infant per year in Minnesota.

Becky Swanson, a child care provider for 18 years and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, commented, “Despite the talking points from the governor and union organizers, unionization will affect all childcare providers, but only a select group of providers is being allowed to vote. Since Minnesota is a ‘fair share’ state, non-members can still be required to pay a portion of union dues.” The concerns raised by child care providers have not been answered by either the governor or the unions.

Dayton’s order and succeeding measures led federal officials to ask him to refrain from becoming involved in a labor dispute between American Crystal Sugar and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union.

On December 5, Governor Dayton wrote to Crystal Sugar and the Minnesota AFL-CIO, offering to mediate. Union officials immediately responded positively, while American Crystal Sugar has yet to respond to the offer. The company would be wise to decline.

American Crystal Sugar had little choice other than to lock out employees on August 1, after union officials rejected its contract offer. The final proposal gave workers a 17-percent wage increase over the life of the contract and retained defined benefit pension plans, which are becoming increasingly rare in the private sector. The company also said it was willing to add a clause protecting unionized employees from losing their jobs to outsourcing.

The only concession the company asked of the union was to increase employee health care contributions to help cover increased costs. The average cost of family insurance plans has risen by 9 percent since 2010, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The union to date has rejected every offer and has yet to offer a counterproposal. Instead, it filed four unfair labor practice charges against American Crystal Sugar with the National Labor Relations Board for failing to bargain in “good faith.” The Board dismissed all four charges.

Dayton’s offer to “mediate” the American Crystal Sugar labor dispute gave the union even more reason to stonewall, given the expectation of a resolution favorable to it based on the governor’s transparently pro-union record. Federal officials made the right call in asking him to stay out of it.

So, the next time Governor Dayton fumes publicly over Senator Parry’s accusation, it’s worth keeping in mind the old saying: When you start catching flak, you’re over the target.

Washington, DC (December 22, 2011) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced new guidelines that give union organizers the upper hand over independent-minded employees in representation elections which will be implemented on April 30, 2012.

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