The proximity of the New Hampshire and South Carolina Republican primaries sets up an interesting discussion over the fate of right-to-work among the states. Indeed, after New Hampshire’s Republican voters cast their ballots for their party’s nominee for the general election, its legislators were already holding hearings to determine whether or not to transform New Hampshire into a right-to-work state. On the other hand, South Carolina’s status as right-to-work was made famous by President Obama’s assault on non-unionized jobs brought to the state by Boeing Co.

Remembering the old adage, “all politics is local,” Republican candidates weighed in on this topic during two consecutive debates in New Hampshire earlier this month. Mitt Romney claimed “Right-to-work legislation makes a lot of sense for New Hampshire.” In fact, it makes more sense for New Hampshire’s legislature to implement this policy than for most other local governments. How can the “Live Free or Die” state deny its workers the basic liberty to choose which organizations they associate with and contribute money to? Why would one of the first states to ratify our national Constitution continue to impose a policy that contradicts that document’s emphasis on freedom of assembly? In a nation of citizens who value their freedoms, right-to-work should be a common sense principle rather than a rare policy only enacted by 22 of 50 states. No one is doubting a worker’s right to join a union, so why must today’s liberals doubt their right to not join one?

Next Rick Perry asserted that a right-to-work labor market would make New Hampshire a “powerful magnet” for jobs in the region. Indeed since no other Northeastern state has adopted similar legislation yet, if New Hampshire became right-to-work, that state would be the first in the region to do so. As a result, any skilled workers in the area hesitant about union membership or businesses unable to meet the demands of unreasonable union bosses would flock to New Hampshire, providing a significant boost to its economy.

Although purporting to be the party that supports workers’ rights, the Democrats have risen in unified opposition to guaranteeing American laborers one of their most fundamental freedoms: the ability to choose whether or not to join a union. For instance, the Democratic Governor of New Hampshire, John Lynch, vetoed a previous right-to-work bill passed overwhelmingly by his state’s legislature.

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The SEIU’s Insidious Tentacles continue to infiltrate government and politics at the expense of its own rank and file without attracting national media attention. Interestingly enough the mainstream media will not peek beneath the covers and investigate reports by employees and employers, such as those detailed in The Devil at My Doorstep, who have been abused by the SEIU’s ruthless tactics and/or the reports of corrupt political connections , government infiltration and pay-to-play ties to the current administration. Several interesting stories have surfaced during the past month, yet not one has received the national attention it deserves through investigative journalism by the national mainstream media.

Among the events:

1. )  On November 10, 2011 a Washington Examiner article reported on SEIU activities in Michigan, a state desperately attempting to pass a RTW bill to stop big labor from usurping employee rights and money, involving the SEIU’s infiltration of state government and how the SEIU Siphons ‘Dues’ from Mich. Medicaid Payments.

2. )  On November 16, Michelle Malkin revealed that  former SEIU President Andy Stern utilized his membership on the board for a California pharmaceutical company to facilitate a half billion dollar drug deal for the company.  See the article: Obama’s Half-Million-Dollar Crony Drug Deal; Related non-shocker: SEIU endorses Obama.

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You may be aware of this week’s NLRB showdown, where two Democratic Members of the National Labor Relations Board will try on Tuesday to overhaul rules governing 6 million workplaces and about 100 million working Americans to make it easier for union bosses to organize new members. The consequences are serious: employees will get less information about what they’re signing up for and employers will have less chance to talk to their workers. The unelected bureaucrats say they’re helping employees, but really it’s just to help the big political spenders from Big Labor. But you can help stop this farce!

While the Obama administration doesn’t seem to want to listen to small business owners, other leaders in D.C. will get the message. So sign a petition to top national leaders via Halt The Assault or contact your Member of Congress to support commonsense legislation to make the playing field fair once again (Americans For Prosperity’s site can help if you wish to support the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act).

Bloggers can do even more by embedding a petition code into their site.

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Continuing a fiat governance style that is right out of the Obama playbook, Democratic and Working Families Party Governor Dannel Malloy issued two executive orders yesterday that will force daycare providers and home healthcare workers in Connecticut to join unions.

The orders, his ninth and tenth since taking office in January, will force the state’s 4,000 daycare providers to add over $1 million in dues to union coffers, and remove the right to secret ballot election for these workers by instituting a card check process.

The governor said:

“I have said repeatedly that I believe in the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain, and personal care attendants and family child care providers are often-times the hardest-working, and lowest-paid workers in our job force,” said Governor Malloy.  “These executive orders will enable them to begin informal conversations with DSS and the Workforce Council immediately on quality-of-life issues, with an eye toward establishing formal collective bargaining rights in the future.  It is important that those who care for both our youngest and oldest citizens receive equitable pay and workforce security.”

According to Zachary Janowski, Mr. Malloy came through for the unions where the Connecticut legislature failed. A bill that would have converted “family child care providers” into state employees, for the purpose of collective bargaining, had been introduced in the state Senate, but never made it to a vote.

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Co-authored with Trey Kovacs

Until recently, union bosses—not elected representatives—have been in control of the government employee compensation process. Using taxpayer dollars they obtain through mandatory dues, they elect the management they later negotiate with. However, across the country in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan, taxpayers are fighting back and the tide of Big Labor control is starting to change.

Now there is a new online tool to give taxpayers and policy makers critical information on which states favor Big Labor. The Competitive Enterprise Institute and Crossroads GPS recently launched a “Big Labor versus Taxpayer Index” that analyzes 1,150 labor laws and regulations throughout the country and exposes states that make coddling Big Labor a top priority.

For the first time ever, government union members outnumbered those in the private sector in 2009. These unions are at the forefront of the movement for more expansive and expensive government. They use collected forced dues to lobby for greater pay, lavish benefits and more members. They also have a legal monopoly over public services and, if they strike, can deprive citizens of essential services such as education and safety.

The result is a vicious circle. Politicians cater to government unions, and these unions in turn support these politicians’ election campaigns. Once these pro-Big Labor candidates are elected, they can provide the increased pay and benefits to government employees that is demanded by their unions. The unions then collect dues from their members, which enables them to give more political support to friendly politicians, and the cycle goes on.

Politicians can put the interest of government unions ahead of taxpayers in a multitude of ways. Below are a few examples rated by the index on how Big Labor can be put head of citizens.

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[Ed. Note: This article was co-authored with Clint Bolik.]

The Obama Administration has fired its opening salvo against a cornerstone of democracy: the right to secret ballot.

Last fall, voters in four states voted overwhelmingly to amend their constitutions protect the right of workers to vote by secret ballot in deciding whether or not to form unions. That right has been enshrined in federal law for 75 years but is threatened by bills pending in Congress.

Nonetheless, the Obama National Labor Relations Board has filed a lawsuit against Arizona seeking to halt its protection of the right to secret ballot. Federal law governs labor relations, the NLRB asserts, and states cannot provide greater security for worker rights.

Why is the Obama Administration taking such a profoundly anti-democratic position? The answer is simple: it’s pay-off time for the massive labor union support Barack Obama received in the 2008 election.

Private-sector unionization has been dwindling for a long time. To reverse that, unions pushed a “card-check” system that would replace secret-ballot union-recognition elections with a system by which unions are automatically created once 50 percent of employees in a workplace sign cards requesting them. The card-check system is an open invitation to intimidation by both unions and employers. Only in the privacy of the ballot booth can workers express their true views.

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You may recall that Sodexo slapped the SEIU with a RICO suit in March, citing the labor union’s “blackmail, vandalism, trespass, harassment, and lobbying law violations designed to steer business away from Sodexo USA and harm the company.”  SEIU had filed a motion to dismiss the suit, but according to a press release just issued,  a United States District Judge has denied the SEIU’s motion and ruled that Sodexo’s case can proceed.

“The court has validated our decision to file this lawsuit using the federal racketeering statute,” said Sodexo General Counsel Robert Stern. “This ruling clears the path to discovery and trial, allowing us to present evidence the SEIU has conspired to extort Sodexo by threatening financial damage unless we cave in to its demands. The SEIU’s campaign was designed to illegally threaten our company. We will continue to challenge the SEIU’s illegal behavior until it ends.”

The food services corporation has accused the SEIU of engaging in nefarious activities intended to harm the company, some of which include:

• Hacking into a Sodexo education website, in knowing violation of federal computer crime laws, and posting a link to one of the union’s own websites where malicious and disparaging claims were made about Sodexo
• Infiltrating, under false pretenses, a prestigious medical conference and throwing plastic roaches onto the food being served by Sodexo
• Falsely claiming that the Company’s food production plants have “rodent problems” and scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold, flies and maggots, and that Sodexo provided linens contaminated with the “remnants of someone else’s hospital waste”
• Harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing

The complaint also describes, among many other things, activities that are similar to other instances of the SEIU’s exploitation of college students to manufacture outrage against Sodexo and opposition to the company’s food services on campus.

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Today, delegates to the NAACP’s 102nd annual convention are meeting to consider this year’s resolutions. Last year’s resolution condemning the Tea Party for racism was the subject of intense media coverage.

This year, the Tea Party does not appear in any of the forty-plus resolutions under consideration. The bulk of the resolutions deal with civil rights, criminal justice, and socioeconomic issues, to which the NAACP proposes familiar left-wing solutions.

These include support for the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” (a.k.a. “card check”) in addressing labor relations.

It is ironic, given the NAACP’s focus on voting rights at this year’s convention, and given the way the NAACP has described voter ID laws as an attack on black civil rights, that the NAACP would back a piece of legislation designed to strip workers of their right to a secret ballot in union elections.

Another NAACP resolution supports for collective bargaining rights for public workers, which it describes as “sacrosanct”–and includes a call to all NAACP members to “join in public protests and rallies in support of public and private employees and their efforts to maintain or preserve their rights to union representation and collective bargaining.”

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Brett McMahon to discuss the unchecked power of the NLRB, their attack on American small business and their attack on Boeing in South Carolina.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

HTA Fights Back Against NLRB Ambush Elections Rule
Why the Rule Change from Team Obama If Unions Already Win Most Elections?
Today’s NLRB hearing shows nominations have consequences
Beyond The Big City Blues
Halt the Assault
Brett McMahon

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Seeing the forest through the trees and the practical through the partisanship.

This week, on Monday and Tuesday, an “open meeting” occurred at President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board over the NLRB’s proposal to move toward ambush elections. Though largely a waste of time, since the union appointees running the NLRB have little intent to listen to the practical side of labor relations and will do the unions’ bidding, there is a simple solution to resolving this entire matter that is straightforward, fair and apolitical.

Here’s the background: For the last five years, there has been a bill in Congress that unions have pushed using deceptively biased and flawed data. The hallucinogencially-named Employee Free Choice Act, if enacted, would effectively strip employees of their right to a secret-ballot election on the issue of unionization. With the process known as “card check” as a key component, the job-killing legislation passed the House of Representatives in 2007 but stalled in the Senate, yet has had employers on edge since it was first introduced.

Since card check has laid comatose following the election of Sen. Scott Brown [R-MA] in February 2010, several states have passed amendments to their state constitutions preserving the secret ballot, only to be later sued by Obama’s union appointees at the NLRB. (more…)

How do unelected Obama appointed NLRB board members bring about Card Check and bypass congress and secret ballot elections? On Thursday July 7th as the House Education & Workforce Committee was trying to get to the bottom of the NLRB actions in a Capitol Hill Hearing, the National Right To Work was busy giving the answers to congress.

Enclosed in the book The Devil At My Doorstep, a first-hand account written by Dave Bego of the extremes Big Labor is willing to go to avoid having a secret ballot election, was a letter briefly explaining the NLRB’s steps toward implementing Card Check through regulations and other NLRB activity (click image to read letter).

On Thursday, The National Right To Work Committee distributed the book to members of congress to provide them the opportunity to read about the turmoil that card check corporate campaigns have on the lives of individual employees, their families, and communities.

In the hearing on Thursday, Larry Getts, a former union steward, who lived through a community dividing UAW campaign, was prepared to answer any questions regarding the anguish individual workers, their families, and his community suffered.

But, Democrat members refused to actually ask a real employee about what happens or how he felt about the NLRB’s actions. Outrageously, one congressman spent his five minutes reminiscing about the wonderful 1930’s and the Wagner Act that created the NLRB and federally sanctioned forced unionism.

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Controversial card check drive by AFSCME and SEIU aims for governor’s executive order

Thousands of licensed Minnesota day care providers may soon become unionized at the stroke of Governor Dayton’s pen via executive order as an increasingly contentious, yet largely unknown, organizing campaign apparently nears an end, according to opponents.

The effort to organize the approximately 12,000 licensed home-based daycare providers goes back at least five years.  The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) appear to be working in different counties throughout the state to form two separate unions:  Child Care Providers Together-AFSCMEand SEIU-Kids First.  The unions have patterned the drive after similar campaigns in other states that targeted providers with clients that receive state childcare subsidies.

The process does not involve a secret ballot or a vote, but rather a controversial method called card check. Organizers go door-to-door to childcare providers on the job asking them to sign cards that give the union collective bargaining rights.  The unions set out to collect signatures of more than half of the available providers or approximately 3,000 signed cards apiece. After the cards are certified, it is believed Governor Dayton will be asked to sign an executive order designating AFSCME and SEIU as collective bargaining units to negotiate with the state. In addition to personal contributions made by influential union leaders, AFSCME and SEIU PACs contributed  $14,000 to Dayton’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

“Just about everybody we have spoken to has said they were not told by signing that card they were supporting a union,” said Jennifer Parrish, a Rochester provider who’s leading opposition to the union. “The main theme seems to be people are being told they can sign up for more information or be put on a mailing list.”

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Hey, remember that one time — like a couple days ago — that we recapped some of the craziest things the National Labor Relations Board wants to do? Well, today, it announced a massive campaign to rewrite the rules on how union bosses can try to organize employees.

The rule changes would include: electronic voting, which may open up fraud, as well as coercion and intimidation of voters who no longer have the protection of private ballots; rushed elections so employees don’t have time to inform themselves about having to pay union dues, live and work by union rules, and support a vast leftwing political machine; the inability for employers to challenge the validity of voting employees until it’s too late; and giving digital readouts of the home address and contact information for all the employees the union is targeting.

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Now we know why unionists were fighting so hard for a federal “card check” law.  Organizers can unionize private and public employees, forcing them to pay hundreds in union dues, before they even know anything about it.

That’s the situation at the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans, Massachusetts.

Last week news broke that the reputable charter school was the second in Massachusetts to be organized by the American Federation of Teachers.

Various sources indicated that the unionization effort was somewhat less than forthright. Several teachers complained that they were never informed about the process and were never asked to vote on the issue.

“The union effort was coordinated by group of teachers and staff that did not include all employees,” one teacher wrote. “In fact, a number of employees were not approached at all and found out, quite by accident, that a union had been formed without our input.

“A full vote of the faculty and staff was never taken and plans to unionize went ahead, anyway.”

Unionization without a vote of the staff? That sounds like the nasty little practice of “card check,” which allows pro-union employees to gang up on co-workers and pressure them to sign a union membership card. Once 50 percent of them do so, the union is automatically certified.

There are no private ballots involved in the process. Those who refuse to sign are exposed to all the pressure and intimidation that the union can muster. Under those conditions, it probably doesn’t take very long to gain 50 percent approval.

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My name is Philip Christofanelli. I was a student in the University of Missouri’s “Introduction to Labor Studies” course.  The class was taught simultaneously by Professor Don Giljum of University of Missouri-Saint Louis (UMSL) and Professor Judy Ancel of University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) through the use of a live video feed that linked the two classrooms. The class met every other Saturday for seven hours, including breaks. All of the classes were recorded and put on the class website.

Class slide by Prof. Judy Ancel instructing students on how to "re-frame" messages for "State Battles" against right-to-work legislation in Missouri and elsewhere

Since that time, an organization known as Insurgent Visuals has released videos of the class, which have gained considerable media attention.  To be clear, I am not Insurgent Visuals, nor am I associated with them.  I did not edit any videos or put them online. I did, however, download the original videos off of the class website and give them out in their entirety to a number of my friends in order to obtain other opinions on the propriety of what occurred in the class, and of the steps I should take moving forward.

In this post, I will try to describe, with careful attention to context and accuracy, what occurred in these public classrooms over the course of the semester.  I believe that any reasonable person who takes the time to read this post in full will come to the same conclusion that I did: Professors Giljum and Ancel used a public university class to promote their own radical political opinions and organizations, and to train students and union members in negotiating tactics that are apparently illegal, and profoundly unethical.  Their behavior was highly unprofessional and inappropriate, and the University of Missouri should simply admit that fact and take steps to ensure that classes are not taught in that way ever again.

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Union officials who have been challenged to accept a federally supervised secret ballot election for Hyatt hotel employees have sought and received protective cover from the Obama Administration. Thus far, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has rejected four petitions from hotels in California and Indiana asking for a straight up and down vote on unionization. Although it is unusual for an employer to ask for an election, this option has existed at the NLRB for 75 years.

The NLRB had scheduled hearings to review petitions for three of the four properties, but later cancelled those hearings when it became clear UNITE HERE was not asking for the election. The idea now is for the union to hide behind and NLRB procedure so it can sustain its corporate campaign and pressure Hyatt into accepting “card check” as a substitute for a secret ballot election.

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA),” which provides for “card check,” has been a top legislative priority for union leaders but with Republicans now in control of the House it is unlikely to move. Even with Democrats in control of Congress and the White House in the first two years of the Obama administration, the legislation ran into stiff opposition.

“The lesson from this episode is clear: although unions couldn’t convince Congress to force card check on the American people, it remains their preferred method of organizing and they’ll do whatever they can to intimidate workers and employers into using it,” said Glenn Spencer executive director of the Workforce Freedom Initiative with the Chamber of Commerce.

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It’s been established that when the Obama administration can’t get part of its agenda legislated; they simply turn around and push it through the web-like bureaucracy at their disposal. Last year’s failed pro-union legislation was no exception; when ‘card check’ met a dead end in Congress, obscure government agencies like the National Mediation Board (NMB) put rules in place to ensure that unionizing elections swung in the unions’ favor anyway.

The NMB was created by that union-hating, capitalist pig Franklin Delano Roosevelt to oversee union elections in the air and rail industries. Under Obama, the board made its first pro-active rule in over 75 years of existence, changing the way union votes are counted to enable an entire workforce to be forced to unionize by a minority of votes.

The House has an opportunity to pass legislation that will turn back the clock on the administration’s overstepping of its boundaries, and send a strong “game over” message to the union bosses counting on the Democrats to line their pockets. Namely, the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act, which includes a provision to overturn the NMB’s new rule and re-instate the system that has worked for decades.

The airline workers want this, and with a Republican majority in the House it should be a sure thing, right? Well, it’s not that easy. A handful of House Republicans, largely in union-heavy districts, are clearly more concerned with their re-election than with the mandate of fiscal responsibility and smaller government that put them in power in the first place.

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Although the energy and influence of organized labor has shifted over to the public sector, union bosses are ambitious to regain their footing in the private sector. This much is evident from the rulemaking changes the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) now seeks to enshrine. With media attention understandably focused on the confrontation between Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, and the teachers unions, private industry advocates should not lose sight of administrative activity in Washington D.C.

In just a few weeks, the Obama Administration attorneys who dominate the board could open the way for labor bosses to burrow into private companies with “mini-unions” built around small clusters of employees. At issue, is a seemingly narrow case involving nursing home workers that could potentially reshape the way bargaining units are created in six million companies covered under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), industry advocates have warned.

Despite losing on major legislative priorities like “card check” and binding arbitration, which were included in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor could still find a way to regain its footing in the private sector through rulemaking changes. Brian Haynes, a Republican member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), explains how this can occur in a strongly worded dissent attached to the Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile case.

Under the current system, organizers must gain support from over 50 percent of an entire storewide bargaining unit. However, the legal reasoning at work in Specialty makes it possible for just 10 pharmacy workers, or 15 auto shop workers, or 20 loading dock personnel to all form separate unions.  Employers would have to negotiate separate contracts with each group, while losing the flexibility to reassign workers to different jobs within the organization.

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The same sort of deception and unfairness by Big Labor that would have allowed union organizers to replace workplace elections with coercion-prone “card check” is rearing its ugly head, and this time it may be Girl Scouts who pay the highest price.

President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board is currently considering Roundy’s v Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades, AFL-CIO. The union is hoping to persuade the NLRB that if an employer lets one outside party onto their premises, they have to let everybody in. Since, you know, there’s no real difference between allowing a charity to collect a few bucks and inviting in a union organizer who’s trying to get your customers to boycott your store …

Should the federal government force employers to treat all outside organizations alike, the clear answer for anyone with half a brain is to deny access to everyone equally. One business owner, Brett McMahon, writes at Halt The Assault:

If this new request by union leaders is allowed to become law, its effect will be for many business operators like myself to have no choice but to close doors to any outside groups. The impact to charities ability to operate and reach support would be devastating. Ultimately, unions are trying to make sure that no one wins.

Sorry, Girl Scouts. Sorry, Boy Scouts. Sorry, Red Cross. And the local soup kitchen. This is not hyperbole. This is a direct threat to the ability for small business to say who comes onto their property and how they affect their business.

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Now that the election is over and we’ve seen in stark light the rebuke that Obama has received, many are wondering if he’ll moderate his far left agenda. But a few movements in the Labor Dept. will disabuse anyone of the notion that Obama intends to drop his left-wing agenda.

Leave it to an Obama appointee to the National Labor Rights Board (NLRB) to want to push votes to install unions in the workplace on an accelerated schedule. I guess all the payoffs and special favors that Obama and his cohorts have given to labor unions in these two of the longest years any president ever had have not been enough.

On Oct. 21, NLRB Member Mark Gaston Pearce said that the time period between filing and the holding of elections for new union representation in a company should be “as brief as possible.”

Of course, this shortened election period is nothing but a sop to Big Labor and intended to hurt businesses that might try to put up a fight against the encroachment of unions.

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