News today of more squabbling between SEIU and CNA union officials. A dispute over reigning roughly 8,000 Ohio nurses, and their forced union dues, into compulsory unionism led to a fight at a banquet.

As you can watch described below, not only did union operatives throw punches, hit people with signs, and link arms to block out the arriving police, but an elderly woman was also knocked to the ground.

Following up on the recent upheaval within the SEIU union, a group of nurses from Nevada have recently put out a video decrying the disconnect between rank-and-file nurses and the union hierarchy.

Carl Horowitz has an article up today at National Review Online about the SEIU union and its top boss, Andy Stern. The article plays up the supposed split in organized labor between the so-called “Change to Win” coalition (led by Stern’s SEIU) and the AFL-CIO over whether to emphasize politics and lobbying or more aggressive organizing through the abusive card check scheme.

Horowitz’s article deals mostly with the SEIU’s immigration policies, but the most important thing to take away is that both “Change to Win” and the AFL-CIO really have only one goal: sweeping more workers into their forced dues-paying ranks, and using card check to do it.

This is illustrated clearly by Horowitz who describes a secret sweetheart deal the SEIU struck to get employer assistance in forcing workers into union ranks:

In a secret 2003 agreement with California nursing-home chains — according to Bay Area alternative newspaper SF Weekly — the SEIU committed to: discouraging patients and their families from suing for negligence; and supporting a four-year, $2 billion increase in MediCal subsidies to nursing homes. In return for supporting these industry-backed measures, the union retained the right to organize other nursing homes.

In other words, whether pushing for the card check bill in Congress, or joining industry lobbying efforts in exchange for handing sweeping access to employees, the end is always the same: more forced dues dollars in the pockets of union bosses.

Following up on the internal power struggle within the SEIU union, the gnashing of teeth continues. Today's San Francisco Chronicle says that a new letter from SEIU chief Andy Stern accuses his lead critic Sal Rosseli of misconduct. The article cites Rosseli and others:

"...said the allegations appear to be a prelude to a trusteeship, under which Stern would replace the union's elected leaders with his own appointees."

Sounds like quite the consolidation of power. Stern is a leading proponent of pouring massive amounts of forced union dues into coercive "card check" union organizing, and the outcome of this power struggle could have serious implications for American workers victimized by such campaigns.

If you haven't already, be sure to take a look at this video detailing the coercion inherent in union "card check" campaigns, and how the National Right to Work Foundation is helping employees fight back.

The internal drumbeat against SEIU chief Andy Stern for seeking the union's "growth at any cost" is only growing louder, as articles in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal bear out.

The Times article in particular shows how union officials often sell out workers' interests in exchange for a "card check" deal from an employer that will give them a toe hold in the workplace, and eventually the ability to compel dues from employees:

Michael Torres, a respiratory therapist at U.S.C. University Hospital
in Los Angeles, part of the Tenet Healthcare Corporation, said Mr.
Stern’s approach had hurt Tenet employees. He complained that union
leaders had sought to make a deal that called for not pushing for
pensions or retiree health coverage; in exchange Tenet would not fight
unionization of 23 facilities in Florida.

No wonder the dissention is reaching a fever pitch, with the group even running ads, brought to our attention by a reader, on the pro-forced unionism Daily Kos site decrying "top-down leadership."

Sal Rosselli, a top official in the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) recently resigned an executive committee position with the union to protest power consolidation by the union's chief Andy Stern, according to the Chicago Tribune. As head of a 150,000-member SEIU local in California, Rosselli boasts real sway within SEIU.

Rosselli told the Tribune:

"Over the past two years, a stark difference has evolved between SEIU's projected image and its real world practices," he wrote to Stern. "An overly zealous focus on growth, growth at any cost, apparently has eclipsed SEIU's commitment to its members."

Most representative of this sentiment is the way the SEIU hierarchy has stepped up in-your-face "card check" unionzation drives. The National Right to Work Foundation is helping workers across America fight back.

Ironically, Rosselli's using the same freedom to disassociate himself from the SEIU executive committes that union officials deny workers in the form of a Right to Work law which makes union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary.

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.

Nurses at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in California are today filing a decertification petition, which is a fancy way of saying they're asking for an election to kick out the unwanted SEIU Local 121RN union.

This should come as no suprise as the National Right to Work Foundation helped a nurse at the facility hit Local 121RN with federal charges for threatening nurses with arrests, jail, and fines for refusing to walk off the job during a union-ordered strike. Some union "representation."

Union operatives also distributed a threatening flier, despite a claim to the contrary by a top union official.

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

The employee-led uproar over forced union dues taken by SEIU Union Local 1000 in California has prompted a top union official to campaign in favor of forced dues.

The article states that a "majority of the employees that attended the event disagreed," citing "non responsiveness" on behalf of the union hierarchy. As we've noted before, aside from protecting freedom of choice, Right to Work laws promote accountability of union officials to rank and file workers.

The artcle also states:

Also, employees were not happy that although state employees recently received a three percent pay raise, the Union countered with a 1.5 union fee increase taking away almost fifty percent of the wage increase.

No wonder these employees aren't happy, almost half of their raise was swallowed up by forced union dues!