As reported in the Boston Globe and as seen in the New Hampshire debate video, both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich believe it is perfectly okay for the federal government to mandate that every private sector worker in the United States pay forced-dues to labor unions as a condition of getting or keeping a job. Attention Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich: Right To Work is not a states’ rights issue, it is a freedom issue. The Federal government should not mandate compulsory unionism.

Mitt Romney from the Boston Globe, “Pressed by John Kalb, executive director of New England Citizens for Right to Work, about whether he would actively advocate for a federal law, Romney responded, ‘I’m a Tenth Amendment guy. I’d like the states to be the place we carry out this path.’”

It appears that Forced Unionism is a Big Government idea that Newt & Mitt embrace. In fact, it was the brain child of our Biggest Big Government president, before Obama. Franklin Roosevelt’s 1935 Wagoner Act used, for the first time, federal powers to force every working man and woman to pay a third party, Big Labor bosses, in order to get or keep a job. It was wrong then, and it is outrageous now. Why would Gingrich and Romney embrace it?

In 1947, the American public had become so exasperated with Big Labor abuses of power that Congress made a half-hearted effort to fix the problem and passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Harry Truman’s veto. (Truman’s presidential campaign had been heavily financed by forced-union dues.)

The Act gave states the right to opt out of federal forced-unionism created under the Wagoner Act. But, the platform for federally imposed compulsion remains in-effect today. Essentially 50 states had forced-unionism for twelve years before their citizens had an opportunity to opt out of it.

Americans are forced to fight the forced-union dues financed Big Labor political machine to obtain Right To Work freedom. Though freedom is a Big idea, Big Labor “taxes” employees to create political machines that spent, by their own admission, over $1.1 Billion in the 2010 election cycle to prop-up legislators who support forced unionism.

It’s hardly been a fair fight, but thanks to millions of members of the National Right To Work Committee and others there are currently 22 Right To Work states. (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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Has President Barack Obama been deceiving America, with his Ethics Executive Order 13490?  It certainly appears that the actions of the Obama Administration are far from his recent statement that he has “put into place the toughest ethics laws of any Administration in history [pause] in history.” A host of Obama’s appointments call into question the President’s commitment to his own Ethics Order.  Appointments such as U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Sec. Hilda Solis, DOL Deputy Solicitor Deborah Greenfield, and NLRB Board member Craig Becker undermine Obama’s claim of “toughest ethics.”

Now, the National Right To Work Committee introduces John Lund,  Obama’s “overseer” of union financial reporting and disclosure at DOL’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS).  This Obama appointee is a former director of the now-defunct Pacific Northwest Labor College,  a former SEIU union employee , a fomer IUOE union employee, and former director of the University of Wisconsin School for Workers.   Lund’s appointment means that he is now in charge of investigating financial mismanagement and irregularities by the very labor union officials he has trained for decades. (click to view the NRTW shocking handout on Lund)

Big Labor Payback Job One for Obama

Even though Obama campaigned on transparency and a focus on ethics, cronies at DOL focused on eliminating basic financial union disclosure and union officials’ conflict-of-interest disclosures requirements.

At DOL, John Lund cut the number of labor union investigators, rescinded disclosure of union officer benefits, eliminated financial reporting for unions like the Wisconsin Education Association Council, and eliminated conflict-of-interest reporting for thousands of union officials.  Each of these actions benefits Big Labor Bosses, but undercuts those forced to pay union dues and fees as a condition of employment.

John Lund Conflicts-of-Interest

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Outrageously, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis and other DOL Obama appointees appear to have blatantly disregarded the President’s Executive Order #13490 – the Ethics Pledge.

According to a report by the National Right To Work Committee, Solis and several other appointees gave themselves unilateral waivers on the two-year moratorium in direct conflict with President Obama’s two-year mandate:

Revolving Door Ban [for] All Appointees Entering Government.  I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.

The White House Press Office

Solis’ only publicly available signed ethics pledge is provided by Olga Pierce and Christopher Weaver at Propublica.  National Right To Work reviewed it and other ProPublica provided ethics pledges. It is clear that other DOL appointees followed Solis’ lead and granted themselves ethics waivers in conflict with the presidential order.  The report identified Deputy Secretary Seth Harris, Assistant Secretary Phyllis Borzi, Assistant Secretary T. Michael Kerr (SEIU & AFSCME), and Assistant Secretary Jane Oates.

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