National Right to Work Committee Legislative Director Greg Mourad sits down with Breitbart TV to discuss Craig Becker, Obama's radical nominee to the National Labor Relations Board. Click here to listen or use the embeddable player below:
A longer video of the show can be found here. You can also listen to the Foundation's podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.
The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) has released a telling study comparing Right to Work states with forced-unionism states in a variety of statistical categories. The statistics, provided by various governmental departments and agencies as well as respected non-profits, show the stunning economic and personal benefits families enjoy from their states' popular Right to Work laws.
The last five years of available data shows that workers in Right to Work states not only enjoy higher non-farm private-sector job growth (9.1% versus 3.6% from 2003-2008), but their real personal incomes are also growing faster (15.8% vs. 9.1% from 2003-2008) and they enjoy a higher disposable income ($34,878 vs. $32,811 in 2008) than their counterparts in forced unionism states.
Families in Right to Work states also benefit from lower taxes and are more likely to buy a home, send their children to college, and gain private, employment-based health insurance for parents and children alike.
While Right to Work is about employee freedom in the workplace, NILRR's analysis shows that rolling back coercive union power has undeniable economic benefits as well.
To view the full details of NILRR's report entitled "Right to Work States Benefit From Faster Growth, Higher Real Purchasing Power -- 2009 Update," click here.
Right to Work President Mark Mix appeared on Fox Business yesterday to explain Big Labor's supposed opposition to the Baucus health care plan. The reality is union bosses are quietly licking their chops, because every pending proposal would hand them billions of taxpayer dollars and grease the skids for the forced unionization of the health care field:
Though it doesn't get nearly as much attention as other high-profile appointments, President Obama has recently nominated several new members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal agency which oversees private sector labor relations and the federal policy of forced unionism.
These appointments have far-reaching implications for employee freedom, so it's important that NLRB nominees are thoroughly vetted before they take office.
Unfortunately, Obama's latest choice for the NLRB, Craig Becker, has radical views on the extent of union coercive power, and he comes directly out of the all-powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) whose bosses have been as thick as thieves with the notoriously corrupt Big Labor front group ACORN. Here's The Wall Street Journal on Becker's troubling history and his role in drafting Obama executive orders while on the SEIU union payroll:
One of Big Labor's priorities in Washington is to place allies in key government jobs where they can overturn existing labor policy without battles in Congress. This is a very good reason for the Senate to hold a hearing on the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Mr. Becker is associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is most recently in the news for its close ties to Acorn, the disgraced housing shakedown operation. President Obama nominated Mr. Becker in April to the five-member NLRB, which has the critical job of supervising union elections, investigating labor practices, and interpreting the National Labor Relations Act. In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, Mr. Becker argued for rewriting current union-election rules in favor of labor. And he suggested the NLRB could do this by regulatory fiat, without a vote of Congress.
Read the whole thing here. As a member of the NLRB, Becker will be in a position to rewrite American labor law and achieve his stated goals of marginalizing employees from the process of deciding whether they are unionized. Allies of worker freedom should be extremely concerned about this nomination.
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Previous Foundation coverage of Becker's radical views can be found here, here and here.
Union officials are apparently getting inside information from the Administration, and the National Right to Work Foundation is demanding the documents to prove it.
Not long ago, the Foundation filed formal comments opposing the Obama Administration's attempt to push government contractors into Project Labor Agreements (PLAs), which discriminate against nonunion employees in favor of unionized contractors.
Along with several other concerned organizations, the Foundation submitted its comments within a prescribed window period that ended on August 13. Interestingly enough, the two biggest construction industry unions - the Building & Construction Trades Department union and the Laborers' Union - evidently failed to submit a response before August 13. After the deadline expired, however, the Administration suddenly announced a special extension to the window period. Because many organizations who oppose PLAs publicly released their comments after the deadline had passed, this gives union operatives the opportunity to file comments in support of PLAs AFTER reviewing anti-PLA comments from organizations like the National Right to Work Foundation.
Moreover, officials from the Building & Construction Trades union had the gall to admit to the Bureau of National Affairs that they didn't plan on filing their PLA comments until mid-September, which strongly implies that key union operatives knew about the extension beforehand.
Given these questionable circumstances, it seems likely that this move was planned ahead of time to give union operatives a leg-up.
There can be little doubt there is an unethical and incestuous relationship between Big Labor and Obama Administration. To further prove this fact, the Foundation has filed a formal Freedom of Information Act request to obtain documents showing Big Labor collaborated with the Administration to extend the comment period at the last minute, allowing union bosses to review previously-submitted comments against PLAs.
Foundation President Mark Mix's latest op-ed takes aim at Obamacare's forced unionism provisions. From the introduction:
In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.
Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.
Read the whole thing here. For more information, check out Mix's interview on Lou Dobbs Radio. Click here to listen or use the embeddable player below:
Experts from the National Right to Work Foundation and Right to Work Committee took to the airwaves and opinion pages across America to remind us what Labor Day is really about — the individual worker.
Mark Mix, president of National Right to Work, reminded Americans that "It's 'Labor' Day, Not 'Union' Day" in his nationally published op-ed which appeared in over 20 newspapers across the country. In his article, Mix offers a stouthearted rebuke to the usual union boss propaganda which has become commonplace on Labor Day:
This Labor Day, big labor bosses will dish out their usual Labor Day propaganda about how awful our lives would supposedly be without them. The reality is that millions of workers and indeed our economy are continuing to suffer greatly under the scourge of compulsory unionism.
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Labor Day should be about honoring the hardworking Americans who make our country’s economy prosper — not union bosses who rely on forced unionism privileges for personal and political gain.
Mark Mix also took to the airwaves, appearing on The Dom Giordano Show, The Martha Zoller Show, and the national CBS radio network. He also appeared on WFTL Morning News the morning after Labor Day. Meanwhile, Mix's Labor Day statement was aired on at least 10 radio stations in Right-to-Work states and forced-unionism states alike.
Mix was also published in the Detroit Newsdiscussing how union boss monopoly bargaining is bankrupting Detroit’s public schools -- pointing out the reality that "[t]he Detroit school district would be much better off if state legislators and [Michigan] Gov. Jennifer Granholm repealed or dramatically rolled back state policies promoting union monopoly bargaining in public schools."
Mix also was published on National Review Onlineexposing the stunning resemblance forced unionism has to the launching of President Barack Obama's political career:
Why is Obama so comfortable with this coercive approach to workplace organizing? Perhaps because his political career was launched under similar circumstances. Few remember it now, but Obama’s electoral debut came in 1996, when he won a seat in the Illinois state legislature. “Won” is a bit of a misnomer, however, as candidate Obama ruthlessly eliminated his opponents by disqualifying signatures collected for ballot eligibility.
As former National Review political reporter David Freddoso detailed in his 2008 book on Obama, voters’ signatures were thrown out for a variety of spurious reasons, including one woman’s failure to list her married name instead of her maiden name. Other voters were struck from the lists for printing instead of signing their names on the eligibility petitions. Obama not only had his main opponent disqualified, he also succeeded in forcing a protest candidate off the ballot. Obama has personally admitted he felt “uncomfortable” with this hardball political tactic, but success has evidently allayed any guilt. After his opponents were disqualified, Obama won a seat in the state legislature by default.
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In 1996, Obama’s team of political operatives succeeded in bypassing an entire election. President Obama now seeks to end elections in every workplace in the country. He has already issued a series of executive orders designed to pressure government contractors to submit to compulsory unionism. Next up on the administration’s checklist: rolling back basic union financial-disclosure guidelines. Forced unionism via card check may not be far behind.
Under card check, employees would have only one choice: submit to unionization and forced union dues. As some Chicago voters discovered in 1996, having only one choice is not a real choice at all.
The National Right to Work Committee also capitalized on the Labor Day holiday to spread the message of individual liberty. Committee Vice President Doug Stafford appeared on the Lars Larson Show on the lead up to Labor Day. Stafford also sat down with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review to talk of the dangers of card check forced unionism and Big Labor's political muscle.
The effort for workplace freedom continues. National Right to Work will continue to expose the evils of compulsory unionism as we work toward a day in which no American if forced to be a member of, or pay tribute to, an unwanted union.
Contrary to the usual propaganda union bosses would like you to believe, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) -- an anti-compulsory unionism think tank that exposes the harm forced unionism inflicts on workers -- released a report today entitled "Union Monopoly Linked to Lower Purchasing Power" that details how workers in least-unionized states enjoy the benefits of higher cost-of-living-adjusted earnings and disposable incomes.
You see, not only does government-granted union monopoly bargaining privileges infringe on employees' individual liberty, it also harms employees' economic interests.
According to NILRR:
As of 2008, according to economists Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson, 8.4% of private-sector employees nationwide were under “exclusive” union representation. But in 15 states -- Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,. Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin --10.0% or more of private-sector workers were unionized.
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In 2008, cost of living-adjusted average weekly earnings in the states with 10.0% or more of private-sector employees subject to union monopoly bargaining were $770.
That’s $48 less than the average in the states with private-sector unionization of 5.0% or less. (These low-union density states are: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia.) That comes to a roughly $2500-a-year disadvantage for full-time workers in states with high monopoly-bargaining density.
Aggregate cost of living-adjusted weekly earnings for states with private-sector union density of 5.1% to 9.9% were $783, or, for full-time workers, nearly $700 a year more than in the highest-union-density states, but more than $1800 a year less than in the lowest-union-density states.
NILRR also reports that "disposable income data tell the same story."
The economic benefits of voluntary union membership should come to no surprise to regular Freedom@Work readers, as we reported last month in "Compulsory Unionism Bankrupting States: Workers Flee to Right to Work States for Jobs":
NILRR recently found an especially strong correlation between a state’s Right to Work status and its job growth, while employees in Right to Work states are benefiting from faster job growth and higher real purchasing power than their compulsory unionism counterparts.
To view NILRR's fact sheet "Union Monopoly Linked to Lower Purchasing Power", click here.
Last week, AFL-CIO bosses viciously accused the grassroots citizens who are increasingly alarmed about unfolding Big Government power grabs (and who are expressing their legitimate concerns at Congressional town hall meetings on government run health care) of orchestrating "extremist disruptions" in coordination with "a growing number of health care reform opponents, including Republican leaders trying to kill President Obama’s reform initiatives."
AFL-CIO operatives are convinced that these so-called "extremist disruptions" are meant "to kill health care reform, not debate it, not refine it, not find a middle ground, just kill it."
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer and heir apparent to AFL-CIO chieftain John Sweeney, had this to say:
"Mob rule is not a democracy. People have a democratic right to express themselves and our elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents -- not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation and attempt to scare our leaders into inaction."
Such over-the-top hyperbole might be dismissed if it didn't come from someone who makes his living coercing and intimidating. After all, union bosses are the ones known for intimidating and shouting-down people who refuse to toe the union line. When anyone questions Big Labor's government-granted special privileges, union bosses frequently resort to intimidation, harassment, or worse to end the discussion.
And Trumka himself has tacitly endorsed such thuggery. Here's how he responded to reports of UMW union violence against independent-minded workers:
"I'm saying if you strike a match and put your finger in, common sense tells you you're going to burn your finger."
The presumptive AFL-CIO president Trumka isn't the only culprit, of course. When California teachers Judy Liegmann and Jeralee Smithspoke out against forced union dues for politics, union bosses rounded up a mob of union toughs to shout down and intimidate them. As Ms. Liegmann and Ms. Smith bravely announced their opposition to funding union political activism, union militants chanted "shame on you" while other Big Labor goons booed and hurled insults. This sounds like REAL "extremist disruption" to me.
