NLRB Reverses Let's Employees Speak, well sort of

NLRB Reverses Let's Employees Speak, well sort of

From the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation: Worker Advocate Blasts Labor Board Ruling to Allow Charleston Workers Minimal Say in Boeing Case  Big Labor watchdog slams ruling as insufficient; ploy to quietly sweep workers’ stories under the rug Washington, DC (June 20, 2011) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C. has ruled three Charleston-area Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) employees are allowed to intervene, albeit minimally, in the NLRB’s high-profile case against Boeing. With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, North Charleston Boeing employees Dennis Murray, Cynthia Ramaker, and Meredith Going, Sr. filed a motion earlier this month to intervene in the NLRB’s unprecedented case targeting the company for locating production of some of its 787 Dreamliner airplanes in South Carolina, in part due to its popular Right to Work law. An NLRB Administrative Law Judge in San Francisco denied the workers’ request and the workers were forced to file an emergency appeal with the national Board in Washington, D.C. The Board in D.C. has ruled that the employees can only file a brief in the case once the hearings, occurring in Seattle, Washington, are concluded.
Finally, Someone Takes on the Obama Administration's Big Labor Paybacks in Court

Finally, Someone Takes on the Obama Administration's Big Labor Paybacks in Court

The National Right To Work Legal Defense News Release (5/24/2011): Union Member Seeks to Block Obama Labor Department’s Efforts to Roll Back Union Disclosure Rules Department guts disclosure rule that has exposed numerous corrupt union boss schemes and let rank-and-file members know how dues are spent Washington, DC (May 23, 2011) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a Maryland county government employee is asking a federal court to stop the Obama Administration from allowing union bosses to conceal lavish and corrupt union expenditures from workers. Chris Mosquera, a member of a Municipal County Government Employee Local of the United Food and Commercial Worker (UFCW) union, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for rescinding a union boss disclosure rule which would make it less difficult for workers to hold union officials accountable. Unions covered by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) with total annual receipts of $250,000 or more are currently required to submit annual financial statements to the U.S. Department of Labor. LM-2 forms are the public disclosure documents for these larger unions and are available online on the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) website. These forms have helped workers and citizen activists expose many unscrupulous union boss schemes, including lavish benefits to high-ranking union officials and loyalists, superfluous spending on union boss transportation (including private jets), and shady political spending (such as the Service Employees International Union bosses’ links to the disgraced political organization ACORN). Mosquera seeks to intervene for the millions of workers who are forced by federal mandate to accept union boss “representation” and pay union dues or fees to a union in order to get or keep their jobs. The lawsuit alleges that Solis exceeded her power as Secretary of Labor by repealing a January 2009 LM-2 Final Rule because the rule put a “burden” on union officials to report their expenditures to the public. However, under federal law, Solis cannot use “burden” as a justification for rescission of a rule. Solis further overstepped her legal authority by singlehandedly creating a new rule that allows union bosses to more easily evade and circumvent the LMRDA.
Finally, Someone Takes on the Obama Administration's Big Labor Paybacks in Court

Finally, Someone Takes on the Obama Administration's Big Labor Paybacks in Court

The National Right To Work Legal Defense News Release (5/24/2011): Union Member Seeks to Block Obama Labor Department’s Efforts to Roll Back Union Disclosure Rules Department guts disclosure rule that has exposed numerous corrupt union boss schemes and let rank-and-file members know how dues are spent Washington, DC (May 23, 2011) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a Maryland county government employee is asking a federal court to stop the Obama Administration from allowing union bosses to conceal lavish and corrupt union expenditures from workers. Chris Mosquera, a member of a Municipal County Government Employee Local of the United Food and Commercial Worker (UFCW) union, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for rescinding a union boss disclosure rule which would make it less difficult for workers to hold union officials accountable. Unions covered by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) with total annual receipts of $250,000 or more are currently required to submit annual financial statements to the U.S. Department of Labor. LM-2 forms are the public disclosure documents for these larger unions and are available online on the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) website. These forms have helped workers and citizen activists expose many unscrupulous union boss schemes, including lavish benefits to high-ranking union officials and loyalists, superfluous spending on union boss transportation (including private jets), and shady political spending (such as the Service Employees International Union bosses’ links to the disgraced political organization ACORN). Mosquera seeks to intervene for the millions of workers who are forced by federal mandate to accept union boss “representation” and pay union dues or fees to a union in order to get or keep their jobs. The lawsuit alleges that Solis exceeded her power as Secretary of Labor by repealing a January 2009 LM-2 Final Rule because the rule put a “burden” on union officials to report their expenditures to the public. However, under federal law, Solis cannot use “burden” as a justification for rescission of a rule. Solis further overstepped her legal authority by singlehandedly creating a new rule that allows union bosses to more easily evade and circumvent the LMRDA.
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.
Could a Wisconsin-style union backlash happen in Maryland? It should

Could a Wisconsin-style union backlash happen in Maryland? It should

Government employee union woes are being felt from California to Maryland.  George W. Liebmann, executive director of the Calvert Institute for Policy Research Inc., lists several problems in Maryland in his Baltimore Sun op-ed: Marylanders need instruction in how entrenched the state's teachers' unions are: 1. Eleven counties, including all the more populous ones, allow unions to collect "agency fees" from nonmembers, generating huge war chests. While in theory such fees are not supposed to be used for political purposes, a famous [NRTW] lawsuit in Washington state revealed that nearly 80 percent of "agency fees" are in fact so used. 2. The State Board of Education has only qualified authority over teacher certification. A special board, eight of whose 24 members are named by unions and six of whom are from teachers' colleges, can only be over-ridden by a three-fourths vote of the State Board. 3. Under a law signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley last year, another special board, two of whose five members are named by unions, has the last word in resolving impasses in school labor negotiations. 4. Local union contracts impose maximums on the length of the school year, limitations originally derived from the needs of agricultural societies 5. Maryland's charter school law is one of the few that binds charter school teachers to union contracts, and it provides few checks against refusal of applications by self-protective county boards.  Experimentation with "virtual schools" and distance learning is limited by a law binding employees to union contracts. 8. Contracts severely limit teacher attendance at PTA meetings, in some counties to two hours per year; and at post-school meetings, frequently to one hour a month. Evaluations and observations are severely limited; only a handful of teachers are ever found to be incompetent. 9. In all but three counties, third-party arbitrators, rather than the local board of education, are given the last word in grievance proceedings. There is a three-to-five step grievance procedure, making discipline of tenured teachers all but impossible. Out of a tenured force of more than 5,600, no more than two Baltimore City teachers were fired for cause, per year, between 1984 and 1990.