Perhaps due to their plethora of special privileges under the law, union bosses frequently act and speak as if they were the actual government. Take AFSCME Maryland union boss Patrick Moran, who insultingly blustered to the Baltimore Sun,

This is about democracy, bottom line. If you don't like democracy, then I guess you don't like the country we live in.

You see, Moran's government union -- with the support of union-label politicians like Governor Martin O'Malley -- wants the power to force nonmembers to pay for "services" they didn't ask for and don't want.

"At some point we can't be a charity," said Sue Esty, assistant director for AFSCME Maryland.

Union bosses want the special privilege effectively to tax independent employees as a condition of employment.

Of course, union chiefs refuse to accept the easiest, most fair solution. Rather than lobbying for a new law forcing nonmember employees to pay so-called "fees" to an unwanted union, union bosses could work to repeal any sections of the law which supposedly require them to "represent" nonmembers.

The reason union officials will never accept this solution is simple: they just want the money.

The fees could more than double the union's annual income. Currently, the union collects about $3.8 million in dues from about 10,000 members a year.

Union bosses’ illegal scheme violates employees’ constitutional rights

Harrisburg, PA (February 9, 2009) – Three Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) employees filed a federal suit challenging two Pennsylvania laws that unconstitutionally prohibit workers from leaving union ranks.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, providing CATA employees Brenda Hall, Karen Ilgen, and Martha Hoy with free legal aid, filed the suit today in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Union officials rebuffed the employees’ repeated requests to resign from formal union membership in the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local affiliate 1203B and District Council 83 unions.

Local 1203B and District Council 83 union officials are using the Pennsylvania Public Employee Forced Unionism Law and the Public Employee Relations Act as justification to compel the employees into continuing formal union membership and require the CATA illegally to extract full union dues from the employees.

As well as challenging the state law, the employees are suing for their right to retroactively object to formal union membership and obtain refunds. The employees are backed by decades of case law and U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Click here to read the rest of the Foundation's press release.