The National Right to Work Committee has issued a statement on the announcement that Barack Obama intends to name Hilda Solis as the next Secretary of Labor. National Right to Work president Mark Mix had the following to say:

Obama’s appointment of Hilda Solis is very disturbing news for America’s independent-minded workers.

Congresswoman Solis is a die-hard forced unionism activist who apparently believes that all workers should be gathered into union collectives – whether they like it or not. Throughout her political career, she has unfailingly carried water for Big Labor and voted in favor of every forced unionism power grab that has come before her. In fact, she had a 100% voting record from the AFL-CIO, in support of their radical forced unionism agenda.

Hypocritically, she advocated for a secret ballot election in 2007 for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus elections, yet she cosponsored and voted for a bill (H.R. 800) to strip America’s workers of this same right, instead subjecting them to intimidation by union organizers when choosing whether to unionize.

She also cosponsored and voted for another bill (H.R. 980) that would have subjected every police officer, firefighter, and EMT in the country to Big Labor’s forced unionism regime.

The U.S. Department of Labor is not supposed to be the U.S. Department of Big Labor. The Labor secretary should be on the side of workers, not union bosses who seek to trample workers’ rights.

As Secretary of Labor, we fear she will gut the Office of Labor Management Standards, the one division of the agency that works to root out corruption and make unions accountable to workers. Her track record indicates that she will allow the AFL-CIO to use all the tools of the Department of Labor to pressure companies until they hand over their employees to forced unionization.

This appears to be the first in a long line of paybacks that Big Labor expects from President Barack Obama.

You can download the entire statement here.

Posted on Dec 18, 2008 in Blog, News Releases