Big Labor is spending north of a billion dollars to get their favored candidates elected, much of it from employees forced to pay dues to keep their job. Union bosses see it as a smart investment given the forced unionism power grabs that could quickly become law if their chosen candidates take office.

As detailed in today’s Wall Street Journal, those power grabs would mean literally billions new forced dues dollars flowing into union bosses’ coffers.  There is no question that Foundation attorneys will be overwhelmed with legal aid requests from workers seeking refuge from the onslaught:

Big Labor is hoping to have a big election next Tuesday, with a goal of building a majority to rewrite negotiating rules between unions and management. Though it has received little media attention, Barack Obama’s pro-union agenda is the most ambitious in decades and has a real prospect of becoming law. His stated goal is to "strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions" by doing the following:

– Mr. Obama is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would eliminate the secret ballot in union organizing elections. Unions would be certified to negotiate pay, benefits and work rules simply by collecting signed "union authorization cards" from a majority of employees at a work site. The law passed the House in 2007 but didn’t come up for a Senate vote.

Under current law, union organizers and management both have the opportunity to present the pros and cons of forming a union. A secret employee vote is then held. Under Mr. Obama’s proposal, unions would be the sole provider of information to the employee, and the worker’s decision whether to organize would no longer be private.

Unions say current law favors management, which can stall to a point where workers lose interest in organizing. But the median number of days between filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and holding an election has actually fallen over the past two decades. In 2007, more than 1,500 such elections were held, and unions won 54% of them, the same win rate of the early 1970s.

– Another labor-friendly provision of the Employee Free Choice Act is mandatory arbitration. Under current law, labor and management are required to bargain in good faith but aren’t obliged to reach an agreement. Under Mr. Obama’s proposal, if the parties can’t settle on a contract within 120 days, the dispute goes to an arbitration panel which can impose a contract that is binding for two years.

As a practical matter, contracts typically involve dozens of provisions dealing with wages as well as seniority, grievances, overtime, transfers and promotions. Rarely is this accomplished in four months. The provision would notably shift bargaining power to unions, which would have an incentive to run out the 120-day clock and let an arbitrator impose a contract that is bound to include much of what unions demand.

– Mr. Obama also supports legislation to reverse the NLRB’s "Kentucky River" ruling last year, which fleshed out the definition of a supervisor for the purposes of organizing. Unions usually prefer a narrow definition of management, because it increases the number of people potentially under their control. Conversely, labor has worked to expand the definition of "employee" to include everyone from temp workers to graduate-student teaching assistants.

– The Democrat also wants to bar companies from replacing striking workers — a right that management has held for some 70 years. Unions made a similar push in the early 1990s, and a bill passed the House but was blocked in the Senate. Mr. Clinton issued an executive order that would have ended the provision for federal contractors. It was struck down in federal court. Mr. Clinton then tried to get the NLRB to make it more difficult to replace striking workers. The courts overturned that too. Mr. Obama says he will "work to ban the provision," but hasn’t provided specifics.

– Mr. Obama supports the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act and has said he’d push for its enactment as president. The bill, which passed the House last year and already has 60 votes in the Senate, would force state and local governments to recognize union leaders as the exclusive bargaining agent for police, firefighters and other first responders. More than half of the states would have to change their laws. Thousands of public safety officers would no longer be able to negotiate directly with their employers on their own behalf.

Read the whole thing here.

For background on Big Labor’s plans, listen to this Right to Work podcast with Greg Mourad of the National Right to Work Committee.

Episode 2 of the Foundation’s weekly podcast is now available online for download.

Foundation VP Stefan Gleason discusses union politics and Big Labor’s massive fundraising apparatus with Stanley Greer, program director at the National Institute for Labor Relations Research. Greer pegs the amount of money (largely funded with dues collected under from workers forced to pay) that Big Labor will be spending on this election at $1.2 billion or more, and explains the many ways union bosses funnel money to their hand-picked candidates. Listen here:

You can also subscribe to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.

This article from the September/October issue of Foundation Action discusses the June 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States Chamber of Commerce v. Jerry Brown.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed arguments, with which the Supreme Court agreed, to overturn a controversial California law that pressured companies to assist in coercive union organizing drives.

Read the whole story here (pdf) and sign up today for a free print subscription.

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This summer, we told you about one of the nation’s largest unions imposing a fundraising quota on locals and workers in an illegal scheme to fund its political action committee. Here’s the latest:

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission asking it to investigate a campaign fundraising scheme adopted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) at its convention this summer.

The union and its officers appear to be violating federal labor law and the Federal Election Campaign Act by imposing financial penalties on local affiliates who fail to meet Political Action Committee (PAC) fundraising targets. On June 3, delegates to the SEIU convention approved Constitutional Amendment #317 in time to take effect for this year’s federal elections.

The policy imposes on each SEIU local an “annual SEIU COPE fundraising obligation.” SEIU COPE is the SEIU’s federal PAC. If a local fails to meet this requirement, the SEIU imposes heavy fines. However, federal election law forbids unions from “utilizing money…secured by…financial reprisals… or the threat of … financial reprisal” to fund a PAC.

Read the full press release here.

Here’s a telling video of former union organizers describing the pressure, intimidation and even outright dishonesty that goes into collecting cards for a card check.

Our latest Right to Work video features Simon Campbell, a concerned Pennsylvania parent who founded stopteacherstrikes.org in the wake of a debilitating public school strike. At the annual Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism Conference, Campbell explained the connection between compulsory unionism and teacher strikes:

As always, check back regularly at the Foundation’s YouTube Channel for more Right to Work video updates.

The official National Right to Work Podcast is now available on iTunes!

Subscribe to the official National Right to Work Podcast on iTunes here and get weekly updates from the Foundation on the latest in the Right to Work movement. Then, download each episode onto your iPod or portable media player and listen to it anytime, anywhere.

Subscribe now and listen to Episode #1 of the National Right to Work Podcast titled "Big Labor’s Agenda and Election 2008" featuring National Right to Work Foundation vice president Stefan Gleason’s interview with Greg Mourad, Director of Legislation for the National Right to Work Committee.