Right to Work Legal Foundation battles for truck driver’s rights against Teamsters and wins

Right to Work Legal Foundation battles for truck driver’s rights against Teamsters and wins

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation battles for truck driver’s rights against the Teamsters and wins legal victory. Allyson Bird of the Charleston Post and Courier: A state judge has ruled that a Teamsters union local discriminated against a North Carolina trucker and owes the driver $55,500 in back pay for preventing him from working on the television series "Army Wives." The Lifetime cable drama currently is filming its fifth season locally. The labor dispute arose during the show's third season, which left a makeup truck driver from Wilmington, N.C., named Thomas Troy Coghill out of work. "Army Wives" typically uses 15 to 20 drivers daily when filming, according to a court filing. Coghill began working for the show during its second season, when many drivers with the South Carolina-based International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 509 had committed to working on the movie "The New Daughter," also shot locally. Local 509's business agent, L.D. Fletcher, threatened to picket, according to the court filing, unless "Army Wives" cut all drivers who were not members of his organization. "Army Wives" transportation coordinator Lee Siler told Coghill that he should move to South Carolina and join Local 509 if he wanted to work the third season, the court filing says. Coghill testified that he wrote and called the local -- even while in India -- but months passed without a response. Eventually, Fletcher told him the union was closed but that he would add Coghill to a "B list." Fletcher later admitted that no such list existed, according to court documents.

Media Ignores Union Thuggery

Glenn Reynolds, aka the "InstaPundit," has it the nail on the head.  Big media ignores big labor's history of violence and brutish tactics even when it happens in front of their faces: Just a couple of months ago, in the wake of Jared Loughner's shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, simple talk of "targeting" a political opponent for defeat was treated as beyond the pale. But let's look at some more recent language -- and conduct -- that our bien-pensant punditry can't be bothered to notice, let alone condemn. In Michigan, protesters opposed to Gov. Rick Snyder's austerity budget broke a window to get into the capitol building. One faces felony charges after assaulting police with an edged weapon; 14 were arrested. In Washington, DC, the windows at GOP headquarters were shot out, not the first time that Republican offices have been subject to such attacks. And blogger Ann Althouse -- a Wisconsin law professor who voted for Barack Obama -- received nasty threats for the crime of posting video depicting this thuggish conduct on YouTube: "We will f--- you up," the threateners wrote. This was not the first threat she has received for her blogging.In Madison, Wis., the state capitol was occupied for weeks by teachers-union members and their supporters. Doors and windows were broken; a mob tried to keep Republican state senators from entering the Senate chamber to vote. The GOP state senators who supported Gov. Scott Walker's budget also received death threats, including an e-mail reading, in part: "I want to make this perfectly clear. Because of your actions today and in the past couple of weeks I and the group of people that are working with me have decided that we've had enough. We feel that you and your republican dictators have to die. "This is how it's going to happen: I as well as many others know where you and your family live, it's a matter of public records. We have all planned to assult [sic] you by arriving at your house and putting a nice little bullet in your head.
Big Labor Disdained 'Alleged Religious Beliefs'

Big Labor Disdained 'Alleged Religious Beliefs'

(Source: February 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Unjust Firing Helped Make Frank Partin a Right to Work Leader There are many paths to becoming a leader in the Right to Work movement. Frank Partin's was an unusually difficult one. In 1973, Mr. Partin was working for Philco-Ford at the New Hampshire Satellite Tracking Station in New Boston, when the facility was targeted by International Association of Machinists (IAM/AFL-CIO) union organizers. Mr. Partin’s Efforts to Keep His Job Honorably Ran Into Big Labor Wall The Big Labor campaign soon succeeded, and in short order IAM officials obtained from Philco-Ford a forced-unionism contract with a clause requiring the termination of any employee who refused to become and remain "a member in good standing of the Union" once the contract had been in effect for 30 days. Mr. Partin's problem was not simply that he didn't want to join the IAM union, but that he couldn't do so without compromising his faith in God. He was then, and remained for the rest of his life, a member of the Church of the Kingdom, a Christian denomination that teaches, as a matter of doctrine based on its understanding of the Bible, that no member may belong to, join, or participate in any labor union. But Frank Partin still hoped, for a time, that IAM officials would accept an alternative arrangement he proposed and thus allow him to keep his job without going against the doctrine of his faith. 'We Have No Alternative But to Process Your Termination' In a letter to the secretary-treasurer of his IAM local, Mr. Partin offered to "donate to the union the equivalent of initiation fees and monthly union dues if it was understood I was not a member of the union, and the union in turn donated that amount to a bona fide charitable organization." IAM Local 2503 Secretary-Treasurer Dwight Mercer was unmoved. Even a signed affidavit from Mr. Partin's pastor certifying that he was a member of the Church of the Kingdom and could not remain one if he joined or participated in a labor union did not cause Mr. Mercer to budge. In an icy letter, dated March 19, 1973, Mr. Mercer sneered that Mr. Partin's "current alleged religious beliefs" did not give him any protection from forced payment of a union initiation fee and full monthly dues. And IAM bosses would spend the conscripted money exactly as they wanted. Frank Partin refused to compromise his faith in the way the IAM hierarchy demanded. Consequently, on March 28, 1973, he received a letter from Philco-Ford stating that, in accordance with Article II of the union contract (the forced-unionism clause), "we have no alternative but to process your termination as soon as possible." 'He Was the Kind of Guy Who Really Loved Life' Subscribe to The National Right to Work Committee® Website Updates by Email
Big Labor Disdained 'Alleged Religious Beliefs'

Big Labor Disdained 'Alleged Religious Beliefs'

(Source: February 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Unjust Firing Helped Make Frank Partin a Right to Work Leader There are many paths to becoming a leader in the Right to Work movement. Frank Partin's was an unusually difficult one. In 1973, Mr. Partin was working for Philco-Ford at the New Hampshire Satellite Tracking Station in New Boston, when the facility was targeted by International Association of Machinists (IAM/AFL-CIO) union organizers. Mr. Partin’s Efforts to Keep His Job Honorably Ran Into Big Labor Wall The Big Labor campaign soon succeeded, and in short order IAM officials obtained from Philco-Ford a forced-unionism contract with a clause requiring the termination of any employee who refused to become and remain "a member in good standing of the Union" once the contract had been in effect for 30 days. Mr. Partin's problem was not simply that he didn't want to join the IAM union, but that he couldn't do so without compromising his faith in God. He was then, and remained for the rest of his life, a member of the Church of the Kingdom, a Christian denomination that teaches, as a matter of doctrine based on its understanding of the Bible, that no member may belong to, join, or participate in any labor union. But Frank Partin still hoped, for a time, that IAM officials would accept an alternative arrangement he proposed and thus allow him to keep his job without going against the doctrine of his faith. 'We Have No Alternative But to Process Your Termination' In a letter to the secretary-treasurer of his IAM local, Mr. Partin offered to "donate to the union the equivalent of initiation fees and monthly union dues if it was understood I was not a member of the union, and the union in turn donated that amount to a bona fide charitable organization." IAM Local 2503 Secretary-Treasurer Dwight Mercer was unmoved. Even a signed affidavit from Mr. Partin's pastor certifying that he was a member of the Church of the Kingdom and could not remain one if he joined or participated in a labor union did not cause Mr. Mercer to budge. In an icy letter, dated March 19, 1973, Mr. Mercer sneered that Mr. Partin's "current alleged religious beliefs" did not give him any protection from forced payment of a union initiation fee and full monthly dues. And IAM bosses would spend the conscripted money exactly as they wanted. Frank Partin refused to compromise his faith in the way the IAM hierarchy demanded. Consequently, on March 28, 1973, he received a letter from Philco-Ford stating that, in accordance with Article II of the union contract (the forced-unionism clause), "we have no alternative but to process your termination as soon as possible." 'He Was the Kind of Guy Who Really Loved Life' Subscribe to The National Right to Work Committee® Website Updates by Email
Right to Work on the March in Statehouses

Right to Work on the March in Statehouses

Subscribe to The National Right to Work Committee® Website Updates by Email (Source: February 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Economic Reality Puts Compulsory-Unionism Apologists on Defensive In a hand-wringing January 21 commentary for the leftist Huffington Post, international Teamster chieftain Jim Hoffa joined the ranks of prominent union officials bemoaning the recent introduction of legislation prohibiting forced union dues and fees in state capitols across America. Mr. Hoffa called on his militant followers to "fight like h***" against what he called "dangerous attacks." In reality, of course, the Right to Work measures he decried would do nothing more than prohibit firing or denying a job to an employee simply because he or she refuses to join or bankroll an unwanted union. Echoing the rhetoric of his late father Jimmy Hoffa, who filled out his last four years as Teamster czar while serving a federal prison term for jury tampering, attempted bribery and fraud, Mr. Hoffa proffered a conspiracy theory about why Right to Work legislation is being considered in so many states this year. "A coordinated network of think tanks, business groups, [and other organizations] has for years been working toward passing these right-to-work … laws. Leading the charge is National Right to Work," he fumed.