Elections have consequences.

In 28 states across the U.S., unionized workers can be forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. If workers refuse to pay the union, the union can order them to be fired from their jobs.

However, since 1947, the so-called Taft-Hartley Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act (passed over Pres. Harry Truman’s veto) enabled state legislatures to enact “Right-to-Work” laws which outlaw forced unionism. Currently, there are 22 “right-to-work” states…Unless Congressman Brad Sherman gets his way.

It’s not the first time he’s pushed it.  In 2008, he actually introduced a bill that went nowhere.  However, this time union-bought backed Democrat Congressman Brad Sherman’s effort to end Right-to-Work laws must be take a little more seriously.

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Rather than carryover National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nominee and current AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union lawyer Craig Becker until next year like most of president Obama’s nominees, the U.S. Senate sent a message back to the President about his nominations. While not a severed horse head in his bed … it is like the canary in the coal-mine.

Right after the Becker nomination, The National Right to Work Committee posted this President Obama Personnel Alert video regarding Becker (link here) along with the Committee’s Becker Alert report (link here).

The report highlights the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Founder Wade Rathke’s ringing endorsement of Obama’s Becker nomination. Rathke wrote, “Here’s a big win no matter how you shake and bake it: Craig Becker being nominated for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)!”

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Government employee union officials have enjoyed a big advantage over their political competitors: the power to compel members to contribute funds to their causes.

Such political power has served as a massive force in favor of the unsustainable spending that has forced cities like Vallejo, California into bankruptcy with unrealistic salaries and pension benefits for their unionized employees.

Normally only a tiny fraction of Americans choose to donate to candidates or political causes. Yet many government employee unions enjoy the power to compel virtually all of their members into supporting the unions’ advocacy, regardless of how the individual worker feels about that agenda.

That’s one heck of an advantage on the political battlefield, but it comes at the price of forcing, for example, Republican union members to fund Democrat campaigns. Or, conversely, Democrats in Pennsylvania funding then-Republican Arlen Specter’s re-election.  It’s wrong, and abuse of the practice has led states like Utah and Idaho to ban the practice.

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