Rather than seeing the Super Bowl as a big event for Indiana, Maddow’s guest, Indiana State Rep. Scott Pelath, sees it as a “national platform” for Big Labor “education” through disruption.

Indiana AFL-CIO union boss Nancy Guyott pulls no punches describing the chaos she intends to create; she has declared war on Super Bowl spectators. From Sterling Wong at Minyanville.com:

“They think they won a war because you fought this little skirmish like it was a war,” said Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott. “I know the Indiana labor movement and our opponents haven’t seen nothing yet.”

So Super Bowl fans, the storming of Super Bowl Village on Wednesday was just a warm up for Big Labor’s Sunday fracas. Rather than working to make their current union members want to remain union members, Big Labor thugs would rather use their forced-dues-filled coffers to create chaos at the Super Bowl and in the streets of Indiana. Their goal is to disappoint millions of Americans and bring back legislation that compels people to pay to unions.

These Super Bowl shenanigans may become a game changer. Big Labor intimidation tactics may finally be seen for what they are: an attempt bully the nation. Maybe politicians like Pelath and commentators like Maddow will begin to feel the heat for embracing Big Labor’s thuggish tactics.

And, congratulations Indiana for giving Right To Work freedom Hoosiers so they can choose to join and pay for these thugs, or keep their own wages from them.

*** Just In *** Washington Post reports unions have backed down and will not disrupt the Super Bowl.  “The president of Indiana AFL-CIO is promising union members will not disrupt the Super Bowl festivities in Indianapolis”

From the National Right To Work Committee release:

Today, Mark Mix, President of the 2.6 million-member National Right to Work Committee, praised the Indiana House and Senate for passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law.

Mr. Mix said, “This is a great day for Indiana’s workers and taxpayers.

“After a ten-year struggle involving hundreds of thousands of mobilized Hoosiers, Indiana will finally be able to enjoy all the benefits of a Right to Work law,” said Mr. Mix.

“Today, the Indiana Senate passed the Right to Work Bill by a vote of 28 to 22. The bill has already passed the House, so it now goes straight to Governor Daniels, who has vowed to sign it, making Indiana America’s 23rd Right to Work state,” continued Mix.

Mr. Mix continued, “The Right to Work Law will free nearly 200,000 Hoosiers who have been forced to pay tribute to a union boss for the privilege of getting up everyday and going to work so they can provide for their families.”

Proponents of the bill expect that passage of the Right to Work law will provide significant economic benefits for Indiana and Indiana workers.

For the past decade, non-agricultural employment in Right to Work states grew twice as fast compared to that in non-Right to Work states like Indiana, according to data from the Department of Labor.

“On the job front,” said Mr. Mix, “virtually every site selection consultant on record has testified that as many as half of their clients will not even consider expanding or relocating to non-Right to Work states.”

Governor Daniels experienced this problem firsthand, reporting recently that when Volkswagen was looking to build a production facility in America, he was unable to get the company to even return his phone calls.

Volkswagen ended up choosing to open its new facility in the Right to Work state of Tennessee.

Today’s action makes Indiana the first Right to Work state in the Manufacturing Belt, and supporters say it will give Hoosiers a significant advantage over all of its neighbors and the rest of the 27 non-Right to Work states.

“Besides enjoying an influx of new jobs, Right to Work states also enjoy higher personal income,” said Mr. Mix.

In particular, Mr. Mix drew attention to a study by Dr. Barry Poulson, a past president of the North American Economics and Finance Association and also a professor of economics at the University of Colorado, who compared household incomes in 133 metropolitan areas in Right to Work states with those of 158 metropolitan areas in non-Right to Work states.

“Among other results, he found that the average real income for households in Right to Work state metro areas, when all else was equal, was $4,258 more than non-Right to Work state metro areas,” said Mr. Mix.

Mr. Mix concluded, “I want to take a moment to thank Governor Daniels, House Speaker Bosma, Senate President Long, bill sponsors Jerry Torr and Carlin Yoder, and the men and women of the Indiana Legislature who stood up for the rights of the individual worker and voted to pass Right to Work.

“But most of all, I want to thank the thousands of dedicated Hoosiers who have stood up over the years to demand passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law.”

Facing a legislative vote that would make Indiana a right-to-work state … Labor activists are deciding whether to go ahead with protests that could include Teamsters clogging city streets with trucks and electricians staging a slowdown at the convention center site of the NFL village.

“The last thing the city needs is a black eye,” said Jeff Combs, organizing director for Teamsters Local 135.  [But, apparently Combs is willing to give it one.]

“You can tell them we’ll take the Super Bowl and shove it,” said Combs, the Teamsters organizer. Teamsters gathered at the Statehouse Wednesday wearing T-shirts with the roman numerals 46, referring to the Super Bowl, crossed out on the back.  He said truckers would be willing to risk arrest by causing traffic jams.

Why does Big Labor from across the USA plan to converge on Indianapolis?  Union bosses fear ‘Voluntary Unionism’ and the freedom that Right To Work will bring to Hoosiers.  Without ‘Compulsory Unionism,’ currently imposed in Indiana, union bosses will have to create reasons for employees to join their union; and, that is a lot more work that state-sanctioned compulsion.

In an expected vivid example of “union organizing,” international and state union bosses are about to disrupt and diminish what should be one of the most important weeks in football players’ lives. Super Bowl Week is the week of festivities that leads up to the Super Bowl kickoff on Sunday, February 5^th.

The Big Labor irony is that both teams playing the game contain players from compulsory unionism states, New York (New Jersey) and Massachusetts.  This means both teams are loaded with union members and/or forced fee-payers.  These few players appear to be nothing but pawns in the Big Labor machine as it poises to crush one the biggest weeks of these players’ lives, and disappoint the thousands of fans in the stadium, as well as the millions of football fans who will be watching the game on television.

Perhaps, the real Super Bowl is playing right now underneath the Dome of the Indiana State Capitol:  the bulky old Compulsory Unionism team versus the freedom embracing Voluntary Unionism team.  Maybe, this Super Bowl will be settled before Big Labor tries roll over the NFL’s Super Bowl.

This is the first legal challenge regarding these NLRB Board appointees who Obama appointed without a U.S. Senate confirmation process; but, more are expected.

From the NRTW release:

Washington, DC (January 13, 2012) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed a motion in federal court challenging the legality of President Barack Obama’s recent purported recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The legal challenge is part of a larger case attacking controversial new NLRB rules that require every employer to post incomplete information about employee rights online and in the workplace, even if they’ve never violated or been accused of breaking federal law. The NLRB’s posting rules do not require union officials to issue information about workers’ rights to refrain from union membership or opt out of union dues. Currently employers can only be required to post notices if the Board has ruled that a violation of labor law occurred.

The Foundation’s case has been consolidated with other legal challenges to the biased NLRB notice posting rules brought by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), and two small businesses. Those parties filed the joint motion today raising the issue of the NLRB’s lack of authority to implement the rule given the unprecedented recess appointments.

The new filings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia case comes after NLRB lawyers notified the court that President Obama’s recent recess appointees were now parties in the ongoing legal battle. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s New Process Steel decision, the NLRB needs three members to act. However three of the five current NLRB members were installed by unilateral Presidential appointment earlier this year, despite the fact that the Senate was not in a self-declared recess.

In the motion papers, Foundation attorneys argue that the controversial appointees to the Board are not legitimate because the U.S. Senate is still in session per the body’s rules, so there was no “recess” for the President to make appointments without Senate confirmation. Therefore the NLRB lacks the necessary quorum to implement the new posting rules. Foundation attorneys are asking the judge to rule on the constitutionality of the three recess appointees.

“President Barack Obama has already shown time and again that he is willing to abuse his executive authority to force more workers into union-dues-paying ranks,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Now Obama’s executive abuse jeopardizes the constitutional balance our country holds very dear, all in the name of paying back his Big Labor benefactors.”

The implementation of the NLRB’s new posting rules, originally supposed to be in August of last year, has been twice delayed due to the legal challenge in the Foundation’s case. The rules are currently scheduled to be effective on April 30, 2012.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is also a party in the case, but is not party to the Foundation’s motion.

The nation will watch as Big Labor Democrats will likely flee to Illinois again in 2012 rather than allow their constituents the right to pay or not pay union fees without the threat of losing their jobs.

And employers from Illinois to Ohio will be watching to decide if they can stay in the Midwest or even remain in the U.S.

Indiana is located at one of the crossroads of America, and it has the opportunity to become a free state where workers can no longer be forced into union servitude. Indiana has the opportunity to become the anchor that saves Midwest economic viability.

The Right To Work decision in Indiana may become the first and most important political decision made in 2012. And, it’s a simple choice: live free or under union boss compulsion.

Above is the internal OLMS Regional Director meeting minutes that confirm what my source has been telling me. (PGHDO = Pittsburgh District Office)  What Lund is doing, is much more than fixing parking tickets; he is interfering with potentially serious criminal charges.

As Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) Director, Lund heads the office primarily responsible for criminal investigations regarding union embezzlement. A union’s failure to file its union financial disclosure report in a timely manner automatically prompts a series of actions taken by the DOL personnel. A financial report delinquent more than 90 days is usually followed-up personally by DOL investigators.  But, ‘former’ labor union consultant Lund has short-circuited normal procedures; he is literally telling union officials “not to deal with OLMS investigators” and “send the reports directly to” him.

The office Lund heads is responsible for investigating and reviewing union financial reports and union official conflict-of-interest disclosures. The office functions somewhat similar to the   Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) but for unions rather than businesses.

If you will, imagine Lund as an SEC Director, giving corporations the same instructions do “not to deal with SEC investigators, just deal with me directly.”   Congress and the Inspector General would rush to investigate, and the media would provide full coverage of every detail.  Speculation would be rife within the media, and generate frequent headlines.  The union officials who went see Lund would be under the microscope as well as their unions. Their financial records for the past decade would be reviewed and each questionable trip to Las Vegas or Australia would be questioned.

More importantly, union members and those forced to pay dues to these unions would likely be painted as victims that they are.  Perhaps the press would even look back at the last three years of union disclosure elimination that John Lund has orchestrated that has no benefit for the rank-and-file.  No, Lund has been systematically dismantling union financial disclosure and union boss conflict-of-interest reporting to the benefit of his union boss clients.

As OLMS Director, Lund wields the power to instigate, influence and/or shut down criminal investigations or union audits.  This kind of authority requires responsible oversight and unimpeachable ethical standards, which, it appears, are not being maintained, and thus destroying public confidence in the integrity of OLMS.

According to the official DOL minutes excerpted above, Lund is not only “directly” providing his personal services to delinquent union disclosure filers, but he has also instructed union officers “not to deal with OLMS investigators.”  If this does not violate federal employee ethics, then there are no federal employee ethics.

John Lund has betrayed the trust of the American public and the hard-working union members and forced-dues payers who never have a say in where their money goes and now may never know where it went.

Have we all become so jaded that we EXPECT this type of systemic corruption from a Big Labor consultants appointed to DOL positions?  Regardless, there is no reason to allow these allegations to go uninvestigated.   Union members and forced-dues payers are entitled to know what or who their hard-earned money is buying. The criminal justice system should not be subverted.

Until Lund’s actions were exposed two weeks ago, it was not certain that the White House knew about Lund’s unethical and possible criminal behavior.  If the White House had cared to confirm Lund’s behavior, it would have only taken one call to his DOL supervisor, or perhaps White House staff could have just asked Dick Trumka during their daily conversations.   We must infer from its inaction that the Obama Administration condones this misuse of federal oversight.

Congress must act quickly to thoroughly investigate these questionable activities at DOL.  When John Lund’s actions are combined with the past three years of OLMS regulatory changes; it is clear that DOL is concealing how forced dues are being spent by Big Labor bosses, with the Department’s late reporting insider treatment, conflicts-of-interest, union trust funds, and union receipts.

It is time for Big Labor Secretary Hilda Solis appear before Congress and defend her Department’s actions that benefit Big Labor Bosses at the expense of justice and the rank-and-file.  Will she admit that the Obama’s Ethics Executive Order is a joke and try to defend John Lund’s actions?  Or, will Congress finally call this Obama DOL to the carpet and let Solis know that there is a new Sheriff in town?

20111019 OLMS REgional DIrector Meeting Minutes

As previously noted on BigGovernment.com, Obama’s OLMS Director John Lund has his own conflict-of-interest problems since he arrived at the U.S. Department of Labor regarding his Big Labor clients.  Lund has teamed up with similarly-conflicted former AFL-CIO lawyer, and now DOL’s Deputy Solicitor of Labor Deborah Greenfield.  (Greenfield was suing DOL to try to eliminate 2007 Form LM-30 disclosure reports, the one’s that the Solicitor of Labor’s office just approved eliminating.)   It is not surprising with these two at DOL, that it has chosen to promulgate a rule that guts union officer conflicts-of-interest reporting.

John Lund’s union clients and Deborah Greenfield’s AFL-CIO comrades will directly benefit from DOL’s new rule, and under their advice will accomplish what Greenfield’s AFL-CIO lawsuit couldn’t accomplish through the courts.

Even though 'Jobs' is supposed to be the Obama Administration's #1 priority, it appears that the U.S. Labor Department's focus is on regs that will only help union bosses.

The Labor Department has even become so bold that it does not appear to care what it writes as justification for its actions.   For example, the LM-30 final rule describes an obvious potential for a conflict-of-interest even as it states there is no potential for conflict-of-interest.

“Employers have historically agreed to compensate stewards, safety and health committee representatives, and others for such work because they see it as adding value to their organizations. …Having employees serve on employee assistance programs and wellness committees is also seen as a cost-effective business decision by many employers. The Department concurs with those commenters who stated that union leave and no docking arrangements increase the speed of grievance adjustments, and otherwise benefit labor-management relations. The Department does not view the section 202 reporting provisions as requiring the reporting of such mutually beneficial arrangements between employers and employees.”

It is bizarre.

Employers paying union officials to serve on do-nothing committees does not present a conflict-of-interest?  Employers paying so-called union stewards or business agents a full-year salary with annual raises, promotions, and benefits while these union stewards and business agents work for the union 100% of the time – this does not present the potential for conflict?  These are ‘no-show’ jobs for the employer and DOL does not see how these arrangements could cause a conflict-of-interest?  DOL states that these Employer-paid arrangements “increase the speed of grievance adjustments;” yet it fails to consider employees whose grievances were settled quickly were satisfied with the speed of that settlement or with the final outcome.  DOL fails to consider that those employees whose fates these employer-paid agents representing them control would also like to know what these so-called union officials were getting in terms of special pay and treatment from the employer.  Whose interest is the union official really representing?

Under DOL’s new rules, as long as a transaction or an arrangement with an employer is not referred to as a bribe, and even though it benefits only union officials; then these usually hidden side agreements will likely go undisclosed to employees working under a collective bargaining agreement.  This lack of disclosure only benefits union officials.

The new Obama DOL Union Officer and Employee Conflicts-of-Interest Disclosure Reports will no longer require disclosure of:

• Salary payments by employers to union officials who do absolutely no work for the employer except grease the skids in “grievance adjustments”;
• Bonuses and raises paid by employers to union officials who do absolutely no work for the employer;
• Promotions by employers to union officials who do absolutely no work for the employer;
• Director stipends of $20,000 or more to union officials for attending annual or quarterly labor-management conferences often held at a lush resorts;
• Labor union presidents’ spouses who receive payments of $250,000 a year from a HERE union pension trust will no longer be required to disclose it because Obama’s DOL believes that congress was uninterested in these types of conflicts.

The list goes on and on of what does not have to be reported or who no longer has to report.  This is a shameful and negligent action by DOL to create this weak rule with its unjustified reduction of conflicts-of-interest disclosure.

On his first full day in office, President Obama declared that he would end the old way of Washington insiders.  He has ended the old ways.  Obama has put it into Chicago-style overdrive.  Big Labor lobbyists and insiders control the U.S. Department of Labor in a manner not seen in decades.

Union bosses have control over billions of forced-dues every year, and this Department of Labor continues to cut away at any public disclosure regarding these funds, to the detriment of employees who toil under collective bargaining agreements.  All the while, DOL modifies rules to benefit union bosses, especially to benefit corrupt union bosses who will use these loopholes to continue to enrich themselves and their cohorts at the expense of those who they supposedly represent.

At a time when President Obama is struggling to find gifts for union bosses – it is not surprising his Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, former treasurer of an AFL-CIO front group, would wipe away conflicts-of-interest disclosures for union bosses.

But, if this and other rescissions by DOL are allowed to stand under legal challenges and congressional reviews, it will prove to be a green light for a new Administration to completely rescind Obama’s rules and finally produce rules that will expose every union boss-controlled financial transaction – allowing sunlight to finally enter the black hole known as union recordkeeping