The alarming trend of politicians forcing workers into union ranks continues in Illinois as Governor Pat Quinn -- in order to win Big Labor's political support -- is resurrecting the sordid legacy of disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich (and Gray Davis of California) subverting workers' rights to benefit forced dues-hungry union bosses.

Quinn recently signed an executive order arbitrarily reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care providers as state employees -- thereby opening them up to forced unionism under state law.  Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union organizers, armed by the state with the addresses of Illinois's nearly 3,500 in-home health-care providers, are competing to corral home health-care providers into compulsory union membership by going door-to-door to solicit support for their respective unions.

Pam Harris, a mother who stays home to take care of her son with special needs, was visited by two aggressive out-of-state SEIU organizers at her front door.  Understandably, Ms. Harris is worried that the Detroit-style labor relations that destroyed America's auto industry could also destroy her right to care for her son as she wants. (To say nothing of the union dues she will be forced to pay for the "privilege.")

Because she does not live in a state with Right to Work protections, if SEIU union bosses are successful in corralling all home health-care providers into forced dues membership, Ms. Harris will be forced to pay tribute to union bosses just to continue to take care of her own son -- even if she refrains from formal union membership.

However, as many Freedom@Work readers may already be aware, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Just last month, National Right to Work President Mark Mix reiterated in the Wall Street Journal NRTW's previous warnings that union bosses are working to unionize the health-care industry and that under Obamacare, the very thing that is happening in Illinois will happen nationwide:

Following [the Davis/Blagojevich] playbook, pending government-run health care bills create a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation on hundreds of thousands of folks like Ms. Harris to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (CLASS)" reimbursement plan.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy...

Nonunion Worker Challenges San Diego’s Discriminatory School Construction Scheme

Right to Work attorneys argue pact between San Diego school district and
union officials intends to illegally coerce workers into union ranks

San Diego, CA (October 7, 2009) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys today filed federal unfair labor practice charges against local area unions for establishing a discriminatory, union-only construction scheme with the San Diego Unified School District. The agreement enriches union officials, punishes nonunion workers and employers, and sticks taxpayers with the bill.

The discrimination against nonunion construction workers is facilitated by a so-called “Project Labor Agreement” (PLA) – essentially a collective bargaining agreement signed by contractors as a condition of performing work on a government-funded construction project. Arguing that the PLA between the school district and various unions (including the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters and San Diego Building & Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO) illegally discriminates against construction workers who exercise their right to refrain from union membership, Foundation attorneys are defending the interests of the vast majority of construction employees in California who have opted against unionization.

(Read the full press release)

As the current economic downturn continues, many states across the nation are starting to find it increasingly difficult to stay afloat after having capitulated to the union bosses' extortionate demands.  Last week, the Wall Street Journal cited the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) -- an anti-compulsory unionism think tank that exposes the harm forced unionism inflicts on workers -- when discussing Big Labor's contribution toward the severe financial difficulties California, New York, and New Jersey are experiencing and the migration of workers leaving these forced-unionism states:

Powerful unions. Mr. Obama believes union power is a ticket to the middle class. The middle class is getting creamed in all three of these "progressive" states, where organized labor is king. The unionized share of the workforce is 20% in California, 19% in New Jersey and 27% in New York compared to 13% across the country. All three are non-right-to-work states, have super-minimum wage requirements and provide among the nation's most generous public-employee pensions.

Workers in these paradises are indeed uniting -- by leaving. New York ranks first, California second and New Jersey third in moving vans leaving the state. A study by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found that over the past decade these and other high-union states (mostly in the Northeast) had one-third the job growth of states with low union penetration.

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.

Perhaps it's also worth revisiting a Wall Street Journal article penned late last year by National Right to Work President Mark Mix, reminding us that a massive expansion in forced unionism power played a key role in making the Great Depression longer and deeper.

Regular Freedom@Work readers may remember the plight of Mandy Diasselliss, a Santa Monica-based studio tutor whose career helping child actors stay on top of their studies is threatened by compulsory unionism. The case underscores the reality of the union boss stranglehold in Hollywood.

Union operatives from the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 884 had Diasselliss fired for not joining the union despite the fact she actually tried to become a member (joining is just what you DO in Hollywood), her excellent workplace track record, and the fact that her temporary employment status meant she could not be compelled to join IATSE Local 884 in the first place.

The Foundation's original unfair labor practice charges challenged this illegality, seeking her immediate reinstatement as well as any back pay owed since her illegal termination.

Foundation attorneys have subsequently amended the unfair labor practice charges, alleging that IATSE operatives also limited access to a union hiring hall to protect existing union members and exclude newer employees (like Diasselliss) from obtaining employment opportunities, even though they would be working under the same union contract. Union members received preferential access to the hiring hall to find work, whereas nonunion employees were denied access to similar opportunities, effectively freezing them out of the local job market.

Unfortunately, this latest development isn't particularly surprising. As Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason noted in the original press release, “Union bosses in the entertainment industry have routinely ignored federal labor laws in an effort to maintain monopoly control of who is hired and who is fired."Freedom@Work will continue to post updates on the Foundation's ongoing efforts to challenge this coercive union scheme. 

A California union boss is under investigation for soliciting bribes from financial firms who wanted to invest in Big Labor's pet political projects. 

Sean Harrigan, a former top official with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFWC) union, was also a board member of California's massive public pension fund (CalPERS). Instead of working to safeguard workers' pension plans, however, Harrigan used his position to steer lucrative state investments toward financial firms who agreed to contribute to the UFCW's political programs:

Financial firms showered nearly $1 million in political cash on the United Food and Commercial Workers union in California while a top union leader sat on the boards of big public pension funds in the state, an analysis of campaign finance records shows.

Sean Harrigan [2], the union's former executive director, is now under scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has charged several firms and individuals with making improper payments to win investments from pension funds in New York and New Mexico.

Harrigan, 62, stepped down from the board of the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension [3] system last month in response to the SEC inquiry into his dealings while at the fund. He was appointed to the LA fund in 2005 after serving as a trustee and board president at CalPERS from 1999 through late 2004.

Whoops. Apparently, appointing corrupt union bosses to oversee millions of public dollars is a bad idea. The Sacramento Bee has a helpful list of Harrigan's greatest hits:

An examination of campaign contribution records, disclosures CalPERS board members file when they have contacts with money managers and documents outlining approved deals show the UFCW campaign fund received contributions from money managers as their deals were being considered by the CalPERS board. 

Among the examples:

• In July 2001, CalPERS closed a $125 million deal with urban developer CIM Group after board members – including Harrigan – initially rejected it.

On March 18, 2003, the board approved up to $280 million with the CIM California Real Estate Fund, supplementing the initial $125 million. Seventeen days later, CIM donated $12,000 to the UFCW union fund, records show.

Harrigan, meanwhile, bought a penthouse apartment at Sky Lofts, one of the CIM projects that CalPERS backed in downtown Los Angeles for $887,500 in 2006, according to property records.

In other words, firms' investment proposals magically sailed through as long as UFCW bosses got their cut. Adding insult to injury, Harrigan allegedly received a favorable real estate deal from the same firm whose investment fund he'd just approved.

Keep in mind that these are the same union bosses who routinely disburse millions of dollars in compulsory union dues from employees across the country. Harrigan himself was the former Executive Director of the UCFW - do you think he was any more trustworthy with workers' dues than he was with California's pension fund? 

The answer, of course, is no. Corruption is endemic to Big Labor's massive political fundraising apparatus, and this sordid incident of corruption is just one more example why union bosses should not be given the power to force workers to pay dues or be fired.

Here's the latest from the Foundation's press room:

With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Los Angeles Times employee has filed unfair labor practice charges against newspaper and union officials for threatening him with an illegal lawsuit.

Over the past six months, union officials from the Graphic Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (GCC/IBT) Local 140-N have repeatedly ordered Leon Carey, Jr. and similarly situated employees to join the union and pay full dues or face a lawsuit in California civil court, citing a clause in the union’s contract with the Los Angeles Times. Carey’s charges allege that these actions violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which prohibits union officials from restraining or coercing workers who refrain from formal, full dues-paying union membership.

Click here to read the whole thing. For more on the Foundation's frequent courtroom clashes with the notoriously-corrupt Teamster union, click here. 

Last month, a California Agricultural Relations Board Administrative Law Judge threw out the result of a 2007 E&J Gallo’s Sonoma County vineyards employees election to oust the United Farm Workers (UFW) union as their monopoly bargaining agent.

The 2007 decertification election was the second time in less than five years the E&J Gallo's workforce voted to remove the unwanted UFW union from their workplace.  The judge ruled that the company failed to provide an accurate list to the UFW union bosses in the lead up to the election.  Unfortunately, the clear will of the employees and a 30-vote margin was ignored due to the scorned union bosses' exploitation of an apparent clerical error on the part of the company.

However, the case isn’t over yet.  National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are helping lead petitioner Roberto Parra appeal the judge's erroneous decision.  Of course, the Foundation will keep you informed on any developments in this case and others on our website and on our Freedom@Work blog.

Two years ago, an employee at a San Diego-area childrens' hospital filed a union decertification petition to eject an unwanted SEIU local. Instead of submitting to a formal decertification election, SEIU union officials filed a series of frivolous "blocking charges" in an attempt to indefinitely delay any decision.

After years of legal wrangling, however, the SEIU's charges were finally resolved. But rather than face a union decertification election, SEIU officials opted to withdraw from the bargaining unit, knowing full well that they'd lose employees' votes by a wide margin.

This is the paradox of union "representation": instead of allowing themselves to be held accountable to workers through a secret ballot election, SEIU lawyers took advantage of a few loopholes to stall the entire process -- when that ultimately failed, the union bosses finally took a hike. Does anyone think these cynical antics resulted from a sincere desire to represent workers' interests?

Here's a copy of the union's letter (.pdf) disowning any interest in retaining its monopoly bargaining privileges at the hospital. Here's the National Labor Relations Board's decision (.pdf) formally revoking the union's workplace authority. The San Diego Tribune also featured a decent article on the union's decision to withdraw from the hospital. 

After a long and vicious feud, it seems CNA and SEIU bosses have finally buried the hatchet... in the backs of independent nurses:

Two of the nation’s fastest-growing labor unions — the Service Employees International Union and the California Nurses Association — ended a bitter yearlong dispute on Wednesday by agreeing to work together to unionize hospital workers and push for universal health coverage.

For the last year, the two unions have viciously denounced each other, with the service employees accusing the nurses of sabotaging efforts to organize 8,300 hospital workers in Ohio, and the nurses’ union accusing S.E.I.U. officials of stalking and harassing its leaders.

“We have buried the hatchet,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

So the SEIU and CNA bosses have tabled their ugly little internecine war to focus on what's REALLY important to them -- corralling more nurses into forced-dues-paying ranks!

Given the circumstances, we're not too suprised by this touching reconciliation. The heart of the CNA-SEIU feud -- CNA criticisms of coercive SEIU organizing tactics -- was pretty much a dead letter after CNA operatives were implicated in the exact same practices at Houston and Philadelphia-area hospitals. For those of you who missed it, here's the Foundation's video report on coercive CNA organizing abuses in Texas:

Last year, Freedom@Work reported on the allegations of corruption against Tyrone Freeman, former boss of the largest Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in California. Freeman spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars of rank-and-file workers' forced union dues on his wife's and mother's companies and on a luxurious fat-cat lifestyle. The Los Angeles Times later reported Freeman's SEIU affiliate "charity" failed to spend a single cent on its charitable mission in two of the four years it has been in existence.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports another SEIU union official corruption scandal, this time executive vice president of the SEIU's Illinois-Indiana health care affiliate and national SEIU union board member Byron Hobbs.

Hobbs is accused of billing the union for $9,000 for personal expenses. The LA Times continues its report by putting the latest scandal in context:

...[former Freeman Chief-of-Staff] Rickman Jackson, was removed as head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local, because he allegedly received improper lease payments for his Bell Gardens house.

Annelle Grajeda, president of both a second L.A. local and the SEIU's state council, has been on leave since August, when the union began investigating whether she had improperly used her influence to keep her ex-boyfriend on the county payroll...

Last month, the union imposed a trusteeship on an Oakland-based local and fired its officers, accusing them of misusing dues money to wage a political battle against SEIU President Andy Stern.

And of course, who can forget that it was a SEIU union boss who was engaged in pay-to-play talks with former [and corrupt] Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich -- to allegedly buy Obama's then-vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Unfortunately, the people most hurt by union boss corruption are the rank-and-file workers, especially in forced unionism states. Right to work laws, allow workers to hold union officials more accountable by exercising because workers can cut off union dues if they don’t like union officials' so-called “representation,” politics, corruption, or fat-cat lifestyles.