Today's Wall Street Journal points out [1] that union officials are pouring upwards of a billion dollars, much of it in compulsory dues, into the 2008 election cycle. The goal? A sea change of American labor law.

"This is an all-in bet for them in 2008," says Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, a group that fights down in the trenches against coercive union power. "As market cycles go, they're in their peak, we're in our trough, and they're looking for a clear two-year run" in an all-Democrat Washington.

Then there's the crown jewel:

Tucked into the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act is a provision called 14(b), which allows for "right to work" states. Big Labor last took a run at deleting this section, and forcing more unionization, in the Johnson administration.

Aside from abolishing employees' free choice of whether or not to join or pay dues to a union, wiping the current 22 state Right to Work laws [2] off the map would deal a crushing blow to the American economy.

According to a recent study [3] by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research [4], forced unionism cost the American economy upwards of $436 billion in GDP between 2000-2006 alone.

The yoke of compulsory unionism already takes a severe [5] toll [6] on [7] states without Right to Work laws, the last thing America needs is to expand its reach.