Solicitor General Paul Clement resigned yesterday after seven years with the Bush Administration. As reported by Tony Mauro on the Legal Times blog, Right to Work advocates are thrilled to see him go:

"Paul Clement did not leave soon enough," said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in a statement. "He kicked the cause of employee freedom from compulsory unionism in the teeth once again before heading out the door."

Clement's latest offense against the right-to-work movement was a brief he filed with the Supreme Court May 12 in Locke v. Karass, which the Court will consider next term. The foundation is supporting 20 Maine state employees who object to their compulsory agency fees being used to fund nationwide union litigation far removed from the workers' local bargaining concerns. Clement's brief says it is constitutional for fees to be used in at least some kinds of pooling arrangements with other unions for litigation, though it suggests limits on the use. His brief can be found here.

The standard Clement uses is not good enough, says Gleason, who asks on his blog "Is Bush's Top Lawyer Taking Orders from Big Labor?" He says Clement has been soft on unions in past right-to-work cases as well.

No word yet on the reason for Clement's departure. But it was none too soon for rank-and-file workers under Big Labor's thumb. Clement joins the ranks of other ex-Bush administration officials -- such as DOL's former General Counsel Andrew Siff -- who used their positions to deliver goodies to the union bosses.

The May/June 2008 Foundation Action newsletter is now available for download!

In this issue:

• Foundation Helps Volvo Workers Targeted by Union Terror
• Foundation Fights Labor Board's Erosion of Worker Rights
• Big Labor Dumps Hundreds of Millions into 2008 Elections
• The Wall Street Journal: The Union Agenda
• High Court to Review Union PAC Deductions
• 28,000 Employees May Claim $3 Million in Forced Dues
• Remembering Charlton Heston: Legendary Actor and Right to Work Champion

Download the May/June 2008 Foundation Action in PDF form today.

You can sign up for a free subscription to Foundation Action here.

U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top lawyer, has just inflicted more damage on America's working men and women laboring under compulsory unionism. Does President Bush even know what his administration's lawyer is doing?

This week, the too-clever-by-half lawyer filed a brief in the National Right to Work Foundation's latest pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Locke v. Karass, and has taken a position that surely must please the union bosses. The High Court in Locke will examine the criteria for determining how much non-union members must pay to a union where they do not enjoy the fundamental protection of a Right to Work law.

Foundation attorneys argue that the U.S. Constitution does not permit the forced extraction of dues or fees for any expenses not directly tied to representational activity in the employees' actual bargaining unit.

But Mr. Clement apparently has no issue with forcing Maine state workers to pay for union activism anywhere in the world, so long as the union satisfies a vague and weak two-part test. In practical terms, Clement's standard would further empower union bosses to charge workers for almost anything under the sun, unless a worker gets a lawyer and forces them to prove that the forced fees are being used for narrowly prescribed purposes.

This is not the first time that U.S. Solicitor General Clement has taken positions supportive of compulsory unionism. He adopted the AFL-CIO's position and seriously undermined employee freedom during oral argument in the Foundation's Davenport v. WEA case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

With "friends" like Bush's Solicitor General, who needs enemies?

Over at the LRC blog, a reader writes in to say how Grand Theft Auto 4, currently the best selling video game on the market, contains dialog that compares unions to the mafia. At one point the main character is told: "union's just another word for mafia."

Ultimately the pop culture video game comparison of union bosses to mafia dons is more than mere tongue-and-cheek.

As currently constituted, with their many compulsory unionism special privileges, some union officials run what could be compared to a classic mafia enterprise: the protection racket.

Wikipedia defines a protection racket as follows:

an extortion scheme whereby a powerful entity or individual coerces other less powerful entities or individuals to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase "protection" services against various external threats.

In the case of unions, union bosses frequently paint employers to be exploitive and then demand that workers pay money in exchange for "representation." At the same time, in forced-dues states, employees are threatened with the loss of their job if they refuse to pay for the so-called "representation," whether or not the employees want it.

And for another example of how compulsory unionism leads to union officials' involvement in organized crime, watch this video:

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today opposing the federal imposition of monopoly bargaining on America's firefighters, police, and EMTs.

The article lists many compelling reasons to be against monopoly bargaining, but never fully lays out the case for opposition to this form of compulsory unionism as a fundamental issue of employees' individual rights.

The fact is freedom of association should preclude union bosses from being able to force employees to accept their so-called "representation," thereby stripping individuals of their freedom to contract. Even worse, union bosses force employees -- union members or not -- to pay money for the "privilege" of losing their right of self-representation.

Even convicted criminals have the right to choose their own representation. It's deplorable that Congress would try to force states to strip first responders of their freedoms.

The month of May marks the annual 'window period' for employees to obtain a reduction in mandatory dues payments from the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union.

The Foundation has had success challenging these window period schemes designed to trap workers into the union's forced dues-paying ranks, but if you're a CWA-covered employee in a non-Right to Work state who wants to opt-out of dues spent on activities unrelated to collective bargaining it is still recommended that you file your objection this month. (If you are under a Right to Work law you cannot be compelled to pay any dues whatsoever.)

For information on the forced-dues objection process, read this letter by Foundation Legal Director Ray LaJeunesse (pdf). The document includes a sample objection letter for CWA employees to send in to the agency fee administrator.