Randy Boettjer experienced years of harassment by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 47 union officials.

Randy (pictured) had dared to raise concerns about health care benefits, but an IBEW official simply scorned, “we don't like your kind.” Having been so disgusted by union officials’ deceptions, he created his own website critical of the IBEW union hierarchy.

Once the union bosses learned he was exercising his freedom of speech, union officials filed a lawsuit against Randy for libel and tried to extract $25,000 from him in Orange County Superior Court. Moreover, the union expelled Randy and levied $250,000 in trumped-up fines against him.

But in the end, Foundation attorneys helped Randy obtain federal labor prosecution of the union, forcing union officials to rescind the $250,000 fine and to stop all forced dues claims against him.

Randy is just one of hundreds of thousands of employees the National Right to Work Foundation has helped. Read about other individuals courageously defending their rights in the face of ugly union coercion here.

Labor union officials enjoy many extraordinary powers and immunities created by legislatures and the courts, including the powers to shake down workers for forced dues payments and even to wage campaigns of violent retaliation against nonunion employees.

Sadly, union violence is protected by judicial decree under the federal Hobbs Act. Meanwhile, many states similarly restrict the authority of law enforcement to enforce laws during strikes. As a result, thousands of incidents of violent assaults by union militants have gone unpunished.

A prime example today -- the Indianapolis Business Journal chronicled union violence directed at nonunion workers a Hilton construction site:

“Pickets…slashed 14 tires, cut a telephone line to a trailer and put glue in locks late last week…. The superintendent, Kim Lackey, also said the union-based picket line hurled racial and sexual slurs at the construction workers, many of whom were minorities and women.”

But despite this thuggery and property destruction, law enforcement was AWOL:

“...if violence occurred on the picket line, police should have made arrests.”

Union officials enjoy numerous exemptions and special privileges – and workers pay a high price which sometimes includes their lives. To read the full list of Big Labor’s Top Ten Special Privileges, click here.

Of course, from time to time public figures will spew some pretty surprising statements to the media. This can be especially true when union bosses put their own needs in front of the American workers they claim to “represent.”

Here’s what some union officials had to say about their liking to compulsory unionism:

• Pushing Big Labor’s “card check” organizing scheme over the employee-preferred secret ballot elections, Mike Fishman, SEIU Local 32BJ chief, said: “We don’t do elections.” –Wall Street Journal

• Speaking against Iowa’s 60 year-old Right to Work law, Jan Laue, a top official of the Iowa AFL-CIO said, “If you don't want to be a part of it, then you ought to go work somewhere else.” –River Cities’ Reader

• The National Right to Work Foundation hired 24-hour security detail after United Auto Workers union militants distributed driving directions to a dissenting employee’s home. UAW union Region 8 boss Gary Casteel claimed to disavow use of vandalism or physical threats to those who opposed unionization. Yet, Casteel seemingly encouraged the reprisals when the labor boss said this about the dissenting employee, “He did put himself in limelight.” –High Point Enterprise

• Tim Welch, spin doctor for the WFSE union, speaking about employees’ right (or lack-thereof in Washington state) to choose: “You can choose to be a member of the union, you can choose to pay a fee. But ultimately, if you do not like that, you can choose to be unemployed.” – Spokesman Review

• Former chief of the United Mine Workers union, Richard Trumka, implied that employees who work during a strike deserve whatever happens to them. In 1993, he had this to say after a heavy equipment operator was shot in the back of the head as he drove past militant UMW strikers: "I'm saying if you strike a match and put your finger in, common sense tells you you're going to burn your finger." –Washington Times

Following up on this post, today’s Worcester Business Journal contains this editorial which highlights the problems with so-called “project labor agreements,” which often harm both workers and taxpayers. The article states:

“Fair and open competition in public bidding is the American way. Labor unions should compete on the same playing field as anyone else.”

The editorial continues that the U.S. Department of Labor notes 80 percent of the construction workforce in Massachusetts is nonunion. Yet, because the City of Worcester and other Massachusetts communities award only union contractors these public projects, public officials are denying the lion share of the state’s construction workforce a chance to work.

Read about the other multi-million (and sometimes multi-billion) dollar public projects Massachusetts taxpayers have been forced to overpay as a result of PLA’s, here.

As union chief John Sweeney continues to whine over the National Labor Relations Board’s recent workers’ rights victories, Big Labor bosses are meeting with Democrat officials today to press for passage of the horribly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act.”

The Wall Street Journal covered the story, stating that labor officials from around the world have convened in Washington as part of a global push to make it easier for unions to corral workers into union ranks by imposing the “card check” instant organizing scam.

The card check instant organizing process is opposed by most Americans because it curtails employees’ freedom to choose whether or not to unionize and strips workers of the limited protections of a government-supervised secret ballot election.

For more information about the harmful affects of in-your-face card check schemes on employees, check out these studies conducted by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.

Over 4,500 rank-and-file workers have been hung out to dry by their union local in New York City.

The Village Voice had an intriguing editorial about the Carpenters Local 157 union. Apparently the local is infested with corruption, and not just recently either. The editorial reports:

“…the Carpenters union has been unable to climb out of a 30-year-long quagmire of corruption.”

But just as troubling, William Callahan, the union's court-appointed independent investigator, had this to say to Carpenters union chief, Douglas McCarron:

“…Local 157 as ‘a mismanaged mess where [business agents] come and go as they please, following few, if any, rules.’”

Sadly, in an instance like this when the union hierarchy turned its back on its own, it goes to show that union bosses are more concerned about their own well-being than actually respecting the rights of the workers they claim to “represent.”

One National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge recently overturned a very close decertification election and more than suggested that another election take place after union operatives practically rigged a vote in their favor.

Actually, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 399 did win the tainted election – but by a difference of two highly questionable votes.

According the NLRB investigation, SEIU union thugs used intimidation tactics, including threats, harassment of employees, and efforts to bribe the petitioner into withdrawing the decertification petition, in order to help with the electioneering. Administrative Law Judge Gregory Z. Meyerson wrote that the SEIU union’s underhanded tactics likely scared employees so badly, that they were afraid to oppose the union in the decertification election:

“…wherein union business agent Ronquillo verbally and physically threatened Alan Smith…[and] union business agent Rodriguez offered Smith a number of benefits for abandoning his support for the decertification effort, including purple scrubs, a position as a keynote speaker at the Jesse Jackson rally, and most significantly, a job with the [SEIU] Union.”

Meyerson continued that the SEIU union’s low down dirty tactics “prevented the employees from freely and fairly exercising their choice in the election.” It is plain despicable these thugs will do anything in order to keep forced dues coming into their coffers.

Read Meyerson’s full recommendation here.

For some time now, we have highlighted the immense advantages Right to Work states have over forced unionism states. But one particular Midwestern state just keeps inching its way back into the limelight – and not in a good way: Michigan.

Workers in this struggling, economically-depressed state have been forced to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job for years. Correspondingly, the data shows the state’s economy is one of the worst in the nation and has a 7.7 percent unemployment rate.

In this Grand Rapids Press piece, Paul Kersey (director of labor policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy) tells Michiganders that it’s time to take a long, hard look at and the vice grip that compulsory unionism has on workers. Kersey writes:

“…it's time we made union dues optional and let workers decide whether the union is representing them well. States that make union dues optional have been outperforming Michigan for better than 30 years.”

No person should be compelled to pay dues to a union if they don’t want to and Michigan’s situation proves forced unionism doesn’t pay off. Only when the payment of union dues is strictly voluntary, maybe then Michigan’s economy will see prosperity like Oklahoma, which was the most recent state to pass a Right to Work law.