Union Bosses Out For Revenge in Wisconsin

Union Bosses Out For Revenge in Wisconsin

The implementation and retention of its new state public-sector Right to Work law are critical for Wisconsin's efforts to furnish relief for taxpaying individuals and businesses and reinvigorate private-sector income growth. Credit: Rick McKee/Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle  Pro-Right to Work Legislators Targeted in July 'Recall' Elections (Source: June 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) For at least a decade leading up to the election of Right to Work advocate Scott Walker (R) as governor, Wisconsin, like many other forced-unionism states, was on an unsustainable fiscal path. From 2000 through 2010, total taxpayer costs for compensation of Wisconsin state and local government employees grew by an inflation-adjusted 9.2%, to a total of $19.83 billion last year. By 2010, state and local government compensation swallowed up the equivalent of nearly 17% of all private-sector wages, salaries, bonuses and benefits in Wisconsin. And over the past decade Badger State government employee compensation grew more than two-and-a-half times as fast as private-sector employee compensation, in percentage terms. Upon Taking Office, Governor Properly Focused His Energy On Forced-Dues Repeal Measure
Right To Work Committee Mobilizes Against NLRB Power Grab

Right To Work Committee Mobilizes Against NLRB Power Grab

If the Obama-selected top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board gets his way, Boeing will have no real choice but to abandon a brand-new $2 billion plant and 1,000 good jobs in Right to Work South Carolina. Obama Bureaucrat Eager to Tell Businesses Where They May Expand (Source: June 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Lafe Solomon, the man President Obama has selected to be the top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), outraged millions of Americans across all regions of the country in April by asserting his agency has the prerogative, in many instances, to tell businesses where they may or may not expand. For decades, the NLRB has called the shots with regard to implementation of the National Labor Relations Act, the nation's principal federal labor law. The NLRA covers over 90% of private-sector businesses and front-line employees. The NLRB is thus, no doubt, powerful. Nevertheless, the claim of power by NLRB Acting General Counsel Solomon in his April 20 complaint filed to block Boeing from initiating a new aircraft production line in Right to Work South Carolina is remarkable. As economist Arthur Laffer and senior Wall Street Journal editorial page economics writer Stephen Moore noted in a pungent op-ed appearing in the Journal May 13, this is "the first time a federal agency has intervened to tell an American company where it can and cannot operate a [new] plant within the U.S." Well-informed apologists for compulsory unionism like New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse and former Clinton-appointed NLRB Chairman William Gould don't dispute that the Boeing complaint is, to quote Mr. Greenhouse, "highly unusual." Acting General Counsel: Sensible Business Decision Equals 'Anti-Union Animus'
Right to Work Bill Introduced in U.S. House

Right to Work Bill Introduced in U.S. House

Rep. Steve King is lead sponsor of H.R.2040, the House version of the National Right to Work Act. Credit: Congressman King’s Office Would Bar Firing Employees For Refusal to Bankroll Unwanted Union (Source: June 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) With their hopes buoyed by the passage earlier this year of two new state laws barring the extraction of forced union dues from public servants in Wisconsin and Ohio, pro-Right to Work Americans are now preparing to take the offensive in the U.S. Congress. "National Right to Work Committee members and their grass-roots allies in the Badger and Buckeye States stunned Big Labor in March when they successfully lobbied for legislation removing government union bosses' forced-dues privileges," recalled Committee Vice President Mary King. "Now it's time for Committee members and supporters nationwide to show we can lobby just as effectively in support of legislation that would repeal federally-imposed forced union dues and fees." S.504 and H.R.2040 Would Repeal Federally-Imposed Forced Union Dues Ms. King continued: "When it comes to private-sector forced unionism, Congress is the culprit.
Michigan Renounces Day-Care Forced Unionism

Michigan Renounces Day-Care Forced Unionism

Last year, Carrie Schlaud appeared on a Fox News broadcast along with Committee President Mark Mix to discuss her and other Michigan home day-care providers' efforts to defend their Right to Work. Credit: Fox News But Union Dons May Get to Keep $4.5 Million Wrung From Providers (Source: June 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Five years ago, bosses of two AFL-CIO unions, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), teamed up to acquire forced-unionism control over home-based day-care providers in Michigan. The UAW/AFSCME joint-venture union, known as "Child Care Providers Together Michigan" (CCPTM), was set up with the express aim of unionizing "all home-based child [day] care providers in Michigan." Then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Big Labor Democrat, was ready from the beginning to pull as many strings as necessary for the CCPTM union. In July 2006, Granholm-appointed bureaucrats helped establish a shell corporation known as the "Michigan Home Based Child Care Council" (MHBCC). The sole genuine purpose of this venture was to act as the entity against which the CCPTM union was supposedly organizing. Many of the 40,500 day-care providers targeted by CCPTM organizers report that they never even heard of this outfit until after it had prevailed in a low-turnout "mail ballot" election. In 2008, forced union fees began being siphoned out of the reimbursement checks day-care providers receive from the government for serving needy families who are unable to pay their own way. With Right to Work Attorneys' Help, Michigan Home Day-Care Providers Fought Back