In what has become an annual (or rather semi-annual) tradition, the increasingly discredited American Bar Association (ABA) is once again pointedly excluding the viewpoints of individual employees who don’t want a union in their workplace.

The intellectually dishonest organization is holding its second annual Labor and Employment Law Continuing Legal Education Conference in Denver this September. The cover of the event brochure (pdf) trumpets a panel titled "Hot Topic: Neutrality Agreements, Card Checks, and Voluntary Recognition After Dana."

The core case at issue, Dana/Metaldyne, was brought and won by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, and most of the law in this area is the result of Foundation litigation. Yet, the roster of attorneys on the panel again consists entirely of union, company, and government lawyers.

Foundation VP Stefan Gleason wrote the following about the anti-individual worker bias of the ABA back in February, the last time Foundation attorneys were excluded from speaking about its many cases, and the criticism therein is only reinforced by this latest episode:

ABA political hacks have pointedly refused to allow the perspective of employees who may, God forbid, not want a union to dominate their workplace. Once again, a hot topic at the conference was the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s cases defending employees whose rights are abused during card check organizing drives.

And yet again, the ABA meeting planners refused to allow the perspective of workers or their Right to Work attorneys to be heard — instead selecting speakers representing Big Labor and a small faction of squishy, union-boss-friendly management lawyers. (Of course, the views of the speakers were rejected by the NLRB in its recent Dana/Metaldyne ruling, and the views of Foundation attorneys were embraced. Just a technicality, I guess.)

The ABA’s intellectual dishonesty continues to be an embarrassment to America’s legal profession.

Union boss hypocrisy is nothing new, but this recent case, filed by two nurses in Houston, Texas against the CNA union and Tenet Healthcare shows just how blatant that hypocrisy can be.

When the SEIU bosses got themselves a sweetheart deal to organize nurses from the top down with Catholic Healthcare Partners in Ohio, CNA/NNOC denounced the deal as an illegitimate sell out of workers’ rights to a free and fair election, and workers’ rights to choose or reject unionization with full information, and without coercion or discrimination:

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the nurses association, condemned this [SEIU] agreement. She called it “a rigged scam” in which the service employees union would bargain only half-heartedly if it won the vote.

“This was a top-down deal between an employer and a hand-picked union,” Ms. DeMoro said. “There was a gag order on everyone, and as a result this was a banana republic election.”

CNA/NNOC even went so far as to create anti-SEIU websites accusing that union of selling out workers while cutting secret sweetheart deals with management, in exchange for assistance organizing new workers from the top down.

This is the game that union bosses play nowadays: they increasingly fail in organizing workers the old fashioned way, since workers increasingly aren’t buying what the union bosses are selling. So, the union bosses try to organize companies, not workers, in what is known as “top down” organizing.

But all of this moaning and whining about SEIU’s secret “neutrality” deals has not stopped the CNA/NNOC brass from cutting their own secret sweetheart deals with companies. CNA/NNOC’s latest deal is a secret “neutrality” agreement with Tenet Healthcare, a nationwide hospital chain.

Under the agreement, Tenet is gagged from saying anything about the union, nurses’ personal information is handed to the union without their consent, and union agents get wide access to campaign inside the hospital facilities while anti-CNA nurses are barred from effectively providing an opposing view in their own workplaces. Perhaps worst of all, the NLRB is cut out from overseeing the process, which results in Potemkin Village “consent elections” in which the NLRB does nothing other than tally up “yes” votes and “no” votes and provide a veneer of legitimacy.

Sounds like a sweetheart deal to us: nurses handed over to the union with no real campaign about the effects of unionization, and no effective federal agency to oversee the process!

In fact, CNA chief DeMoro’s description of a "rigged scam," a "top-down deal between an employer and a hand-picked union," and a "banana republic election" is a strikingly apt description of DeMoro’s own CNA union’s secret deal with Tenet.

Shameless…

Far Left stalwart and former Democratic nominee for President George McGovern comes out swinging in the pages of the Wall Street Journal against Big Labor’s demand for mandating coercive card check in union organizing drives:

Voting is an immense privilege.

That is why I am concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans. As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor.

The legislation is called the Employee Free Choice Act, and I am sad to say it runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, EFCA risks silencing those who would speak.

The key provision of EFCA is a change in the mechanism by which unions are formed and recognized. Instead of a private election with a secret ballot overseen by an impartial federal board, union organizers would simply need to gather signatures from more than 50% of the employees in a workplace or bargaining unit, a system known as "card-check." There are many documented cases where workers have been pressured, harassed, tricked and intimidated into signing cards that have led to mandatory payment of dues.

Under EFCA, workers could lose the freedom to express their will in private, the right to make a decision without anyone peering over their shoulder, free from fear of reprisal.

There’s no question that unions have done much good for this country. Their tenacious efforts have benefited millions of workers and helped build a strong middle class. They gave workers a new voice and pushed for laws that protect individuals from unfair treatment. They have been a friend to the Democratic Party, and so I oppose this legislation respectfully and with care.

To my friends supporting EFCA I say this: We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election. We are the party that has always defended the rights of the working class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always championed.

Some of the most respected Democratic members of Congress — including Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, George Miller and Pete Stark of California, and Barney Frank of Massachusetts — have advised that workers in developing countries such as Mexico insist on the secret ballot when voting as to whether or not their workplaces should have a union. We should have no less for employees in our country.

I worry that there has been too little discussion about EFCA’s true ramifications, and I think much of the congressional support is based on a desire to give our friends among union leaders what they want. But part of being a good steward of democracy means telling our friends "no" when they press for a course that in the long run may weaken labor and disrupt a tried and trusted method for conducting honest elections.

[Emphasis added]

Good for McGovern for acknowledging a few basic truths about the abuses of card check that Big Labor apologists continue to deny.

McGovern points out, correctly, that card check runs "counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement."  Of course, so does forced unionism generally.  Samuel Gompers founded the AFL on the principles of volunteerism (as opposed to today’s compulsory system).

It’s important to note that, while the current process may be less abusive than mandated card check, majority rule by secret ballot (in the labor law context) is controversial and unjust in and of itself.  No worker should be stripped of his legal right to represent himself in private employment matters and be forced into a monopoly union collective by a vote of even the majority of his peers.

In a breakthrough appellate court ruling, Iron Worker Union officials can now be sued under anti-trust laws for running a union kickback scheme known as "job targeting" which has diverted $500 million in workers wages over the past 5 years.

Job targeting schemes are primary tools used to secure a Big Labor cartel over billions of taxpayer dollars used in federal contracting (as well as many private construction projects). They are used to freeze non-union contractors out of getting work, while lining the union bosses’ pockets with the wages of construction workers.

Attorney Mike Avakian, General Counsel of the Center for National Labor Policy, brought the cutting-edge suit for several New England companies, and National Right to Work Foundation attorneys submitted an amicus curiae (.pdf) brief because job targeting schemes severely undermine non-union employees’ interests. Here’s a quick preview from the Daily Labor Report, a subscribers-only service:

Five nonunion steel erector companies in New England may proceed with their claims that a job targeting fund run by the Iron Workers and other activity in conjunction with union contractors violated federal antitrust and labor laws, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled Aug. 1 (Am. Steel Erectors Inc. v. Local 7, Int’l Ass’n of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental & Reinforcing Iron Workers, 1st Cir., No. 07-1832, 8/1/08).

. . .

The Iron Workers created a job targeting program called the Market Recovery Program (MRP) to help mitigate the disadvantage for union contractors. The union targets certain construction projects and offers a subsidy to signatory contractors bidding on the project. When a signatory contractor wins a contract on a targeted project, the union and the contractor execute an agreement specifying the terms and the amount of the subsidy. The MRP is funded by money withheld by union contractors from union members’ paychecks.

In other words, job targeting schemes enable union officials to seize and funnel part of workers’ paychecks back to the union contractors, enabling such firms to undercut competitors’ bids by artificially lowering operating costs (through kickbacks of artificially high forced union dues). Meanwhile, the workers receive lower wages in effect.

The case also alleges that these funds were used to bully businesses to renege on agreements with nonunion companies by targeting them for picketing, harassment, and intimidation.

All in all, a pretty sordid tale. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit determined that the union was not exempt from federal anti-trust law, allowing the plaintiffs to proceed with their suit in U.S. District Court. Key quote from the decision (.pdf – emphasis mine):

Nonetheless, unions, particularly when acting in concert with non-labor groups, are not given carte blanche to engage in anticompetitive activities. As the Supreme Court has explained, "[i]t would be a surprising thing if Congress, in order to prevent a misapplication of [antitrust] legislation to labor unions, had bestowed upon such unions complete and unreviewable authority to aid business groups to frustrate its primary objective."

Shamefully, the U.S. Department of Labor has been totally AWOL on the job targeting issue even though DOL’s official position is that it violates the Davis Bacon Act. This deliberate enforcement failure has given union bosses a green light to exploit this lucrative and corrupt practice at workers’ and taxpayers’ expense.

In fact, high-level DOL officials — including Secretary Elaine Chao herself — rebuffed direct requests to get involved in this very case which has the potential to mop up billions of dollars in corruption occurring right under DOL’s nose. Even as the seminal case is now breaking the plaintiffs’ way, Bush’s DOL is still sitting on its hands. (Why do these people even bother showing up for work?)

The plaintiffs’ lawsuit is resulting in a major step forward for taxpayers and for high-quality, lower-cost non-union firms and their workers who are effectively blackballed from performing federal contracts, project labor agreements, and other constructions jobs.

The National Right to Work Foundation’s letters calling for an investigation of the SEIU union’s apparently illegal scheme to coerce "donations" for its Political Action Committee (PAC) prompted this excellent editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

Now that editorial has caused a local union official to blow the whistle in this letter to the editor. Aside from cheering the Foundation’s efforts, her letter alludes to another problematic aspect of the SEIU union’s dirty political fundraising scheme.

Marlene Jones, a registered nurse who is also the head of her Pennsylvania-based SEIU local, writes the following:

I have been a member of the Service Employees International Union (1199P) for 27 years. I am the president of a local nurses union in Pennsylvania. Every day I experience the pressure for our local nurses union to have all of our members contribute to the Political Action Committee fund. SEIU even goes as far as telling its locals that if a percentage of its members contribute, they will receive 1% of their high union dues back to the locals.

[emphasis added]

So on top of the SEIU constitutional amendment penalizing SEIU locals by seizing dues money when they don’t hit PAC fundraising goals, Ms. Jones says top SEIU bosses are promising conditional kickbacks of certain union dues seized from workers and sent to the International affiliate. But those kickbacks apparently do not occur if the local union fails to meet the SEIU’s PAC fundraising mandates. This could be yet another way SEIU bosses are in violating federal law by securing PAC "contributions" with the threat of financial reprisals.

Nurse Jones ends her letter with the following plea:

When will it end? Good luck with the investigation. Our members do not want to contribute to the PAC fund.

This month’s issue of the Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch newsletter features a cover story on Big Labor’s attempts to force public safety officers nationwide into monopoly union collectives. The article details many unjust aspects of federal monopoly bargaining power grab, not the least of which is that it trumps state laws while stripping employees of their right to negotiate their own terms of employment or be rewarded for their individual merits.

While the National Right to Work Committee continues to lead the fight against the bill’s passage, Foundation attorneys are preparing for a legal challenge if it becomes law. We have previously reported on this overall situation here.

One passage in the Labor Watch piece is particularly noteworthy:

Congressional Quarterly Today reported on May 30 that Sen. Reid still “intends to call up” H.R.980 for a Senate floor vote prior to this fall’s elections. Whether he actually does this may depend on what action is taken by Senate Republicans who oppose the legislation. If they hold firm, Reid will not be able to secure a final floor vote before the November elections without first allowing several right-to-work amendments to be considered and voted on. The most important of these amendments is sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). It would repeal all provisions in federal labor law that authorize the firing of employees for refusing to pay dues or “agency” fees to an unwanted union.

A Battle For Forced Dues

[Harry] Reid knows that if a right-to-work amendment like DeMint’s comes up for a vote, union officials will oppose it with all their might, and they will order their Senate supporters to oppose it as well. This will, in turn, demonstrate clearly that Big Labor’s battle for [mandated monopoly bargaining for Public Safety employees] is largely a battle for forced union dues. [emphasis added.]

Yesterday, SCOTUSblog reported on the opposition by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys to the Solicitor General’s self-contradictory motion for divided arguments in the Foundation’s Locke v. Karass Supreme Court case. (For more background on the SG’s unwelcome machinations and the Foundation’s principled opposition, read this post.)

The SCOTUSblog post brings to light this new tidbit of news: "Jeremiah Collins, a lawyer for the respondent, said the union did not plan to file an opposition."

Of course he won’t. The Solicitor General is making Big Labor’s legal arguments. Why not add another lawyer to the union legal team at taxpayer expense?

If the Solicitor General forces his way in, Foundation staff attorneys representing a group of Maine State employees may get 5 fewer minutes to argue their case. Looking at his misguided legal brief (which the union later cited 14 times in its own brief), there can be little doubt that the SG would use the time to make the union officials’ case against the employees and the First Amendment.

As the Foundation attorneys’ response makes clear, the Administration’s interest in the case is extremely tenuous and far fetched, and under court rules it should therefore be barred from participation in oral arguments (as in similar situations in the past).

Welcome to Big Labor’s anti-employee legal team, Mr. Solicitor General. Thank you very little.

We’ve just released a mini video segment on the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to hold union officials liable for a campaign of intimidation and harassment against Patricia Pelletier, a Connecticut worker who successfully initiated a decertification election to eject an unwanted union from her workplace. Union hotheads even planted crack cocaine in her work area to try to get her fired. Check it out:

For more background on the case, the Foundation’s press release is available online here. The Hartford Courant’s coverage of the Foundation’s pending lawsuit is available here.

As always, check back at the Foundation’s YouTube Channel for more Right to Work video updates.

The Bush Administration is arguing Big Labor’s legal positions in court again.

Right to Work supporters recall the Bush Administration’s lousy record when it comes to employee free choice and worker freedom. Solicitor General Paul Clement seemed to take pleasure in parroting union lawyer talking points in important legal proceedings like Davenport v. Washington Education Association. Before resigning in May, Clement took another swipe at employee freedom in Locke v. Karass, another Foundation case going to the Supreme Court.

Clement’s successor, Acting Solicitor General Gregory Garre, appears to be picking up where Clement left off. On Friday, Garre filed a motion with the Supreme Court to participate in oral arguments in Locke. Worse, Garre wants to cut into time already allocated to Foundation attorneys.

In Locke, Foundation attorneys are representing 20 Maine state employees who contend that the union which "represents" them — the Maine State Employees Association (MSEA) — is violating their First Amendment rights by sending part of their forced dues to a giant union slush fund which the affiliated Service Employees International Union (SEIU) can use to finance costly litigation, even though such litigation does not directly impact the state employees’ own bargaining unit. SEIU is one of the most radical and politically militant national unions.

On Monday, the Foundation filed its opposition to the federal government’s motion, making several important points to challenge both the SG’s motion to participate and the motion for divided argument.

The Acting Solicitor General has failed to adequately demonstrate the government’s concrete interest in the case. Importantly, no federal statute is at stake. Garre’s motion claims the government’s interest by vaguely pointing to the Secretary of Labor’s responsibility to advise the President on labor policy and carry out Congressional policy and to the National Labor Relations Act, though Garre even contradictorily argues in the motion "that questions arising under the NLRA are distinguishable from this case."

The High Court has the option to simply extend time for oral arguments, but Garre wants to cut into the time of both the Foundation attorneys and MSEA lawyers — even though the Court’s rules permit divided arguments "only in the most extraordinary circumstances." But of the 22 pages of argument in the Solicitor’s amicus brief, 17 are devoted to opposing the pro-worker legal position taken by Foundation attorneys.

Moreover, the MSEA cites the Solicitor’s arguments 14 times in its own brief. If the Court grants the government’s motion, it would "deny the Employees their full opportunity to present their views."

The Bush administration’s stance in Locke is inexplicable. With only a few more months before he leaves office, Bush has no electoral reason to try to appease Big Labor (not that Republican appeasement of union bosses works out very well). But as the Acting Solicitor General’s motion demonstrates, the Bush administration doesn’t have enough significant legal interest either.

Yet, the Solicitor General’s office persists in going out of its way to undercut the rights of nonunion employees forced to pay dues as a condition of employment, despite the administration’s supposed support of the Right to Work. So once again we have to observe the old saying: With "friends" like these… who needs enemies?

And the Solicitor General’s office can’t say it doesn’t know the harm it is doing. Its demand for oral argument time comes after the Foundation asked it to withdraw its legal brief because, if the Justices took it seriously, it would do serious harm to employees’ rights.

Instead, Foundation attorneys may now find themselves arguing not only against Big Labor’s lawyers, but also against the Bush Administration.