As a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, Big Labor has long embraced

As a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, Big Labor has long embraced "the necessity for coercion"

Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, blasts Big Labor's "shameless pretext" for fighting without abandon against Right To Work Freedom: SOON -- PERHAPS AS EARLY AS TODAY -- Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign legislation making Indiana the nation's 23rd right-to-work state. Labor unions angrily oppose the change, but their opposition has no legitimate or principled basis. State right-to-work laws, authorized by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, are not anti-union. They are pro-choice: They protect workers from being forced to join or pay fees to a labor union as a condition of keeping a job. In non-right-to-work states, employees who work in a "union shop" are compelled to fork over part of each paycheck to a labor organization -- even if they want nothing to do with unions, let alone to be represented by one. Laws like the one Indiana is poised to enact simply make union support voluntary. Hoosiers can't be required to kick back part of their wages to the Republican Party or the Methodist Church or the Animal Liberation Front; the new measure will ensure that they don't have to give a cut of everything they earn to labor unions, either. Most Americans regard compulsory unionism as unconscionable. In a new Rasmussen survey, 74 percent of likely voters say non-union workers should not have to pay dues against their will. Once upon a time, labor movement giants like Samuel Gompers, a founder of the American Federation of Labor, agreed. "I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty -- the principles of voluntarism," declared Gompers in his last speech to the AFL in 1924. "No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion." Those words can be seen chiseled on Gompers's memorial in Washington, DC. So as a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, it is easy to understand why Big Labor long ago embraced what liberal scholar Robert Reich (who served as Bill Clinton's secretary of labor) dubbed "the necessity for coercion." In order "to maintain themselves," Reich said in 1985, "unions have got to have some ability to strap their members to the mast." Or, as Don Corleone might have put it, to make them an offer they can't refuse. But is there any ethical reason -- any honorable basis -- for the union shop?
Indiana Passes Right To Work -- National Right to Work Committee Statement

Indiana Passes Right To Work -- National Right to Work Committee Statement

Indianapolis, Indiana – Today, Mark Mix, President of the 2.6 million-member National Right to Work Committee, praised the Indiana House and Senate for passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law. Mr. Mix said, “This is a great day for Indiana’s workers and taxpayers. “After a ten-year struggle involving hundreds of thousands of mobilized Hoosiers, Indiana will finally be able to enjoy all the benefits of a Right to Work law,” said Mr. Mix. “Today, the Indiana Senate passed the Right to Work Bill by a vote of 28 to 22. The bill has already passed the House, so it now goes straight to Governor Daniels, who has vowed to sign it, making Indiana America’s 23rd Right to Work state,” continued Mix. Mr. Mix continued, “The Right to Work Law will free nearly 200,000 Hoosiers who have been forced to pay tribute to a union boss for the privilege of getting up everyday and going to work so they can provide for their families.” Proponents of the bill expect that passage of the Right to Work law will provide significant economic benefits for Indiana and Indiana workers. For the past decade, non-agricultural employment in Right to Work states grew twice as fast compared to that in non-Right to Work states like Indiana, according to data from the Department of Labor. “On the job front,” said Mr. Mix, “virtually every site selection consultant on record has testified that as many as half of their clients will not even consider expanding or relocating to non-Right to Work states.” Governor Daniels experienced this problem firsthand, reporting recently that when Volkswagen was looking to build a production facility in America, he was unable to get the company to even return his phone calls. Volkswagen ended up choosing to open its new facility in the Right to Work state of Tennessee. Today’s action makes Indiana the first Right to Work state in the Manufacturing Belt, and supporters say it will give Hoosiers a significant advantage over all of its neighbors and the rest of the 27 non-Right to Work states. “Besides enjoying an influx of new jobs, Right to Work states also enjoy higher personal income,” said Mr. Mix. In particular, Mr. Mix drew attention to a study by Dr. Barry Poulson, a past president of the North American Economics and Finance Association and also a professor of economics at the University of Colorado, who compared household incomes in 133 metropolitan areas in Right to Work states with those of 158 metropolitan areas in non-Right to Work states. “Among other results, he found that the average real income for households in Right to Work state metro areas, when all else was equal, was $4,258 more than non-Right to Work state metro areas,” said Mr. Mix.

Big Labor planning to disrupt Super Bowl activities

The pull quote: “'You can tell them we’ll take the Super Bowl and shove it,' said Combs, the Teamsters organizer." From BigGovernment.com: Recently, former-SEIU Radio Voice, current-MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow and Indiana State Rep. Scott Pelath appeared eager to see Big Labor’s anticipated disruption of Super Bowl Week in Indianapolis, site of the 2012 event. Threats of using the Super Bowl to intimidate lawmakers have been increasing over the past weeks. From the Associate Press: Facing a legislative vote that would make Indiana a right-to-work state … Labor activists are deciding whether to go ahead with protests that could include Teamsters clogging city streets with trucks and electricians staging a slowdown at the convention center site of the NFL village. “The last thing the city needs is a black eye,” said Jeff Combs, organizing director for Teamsters Local 135. [But, apparently Combs is willing to give it one.] “You can tell them we’ll take the Super Bowl and shove it,” said Combs, the Teamsters organizer. Teamsters gathered at the Statehouse Wednesday wearing T-shirts with the roman numerals 46, referring to the Super Bowl, crossed out on the back. He said truckers would be willing to risk arrest by causing traffic jams.
Attention MI Gov. Snyder: Right To Work Debate Worth Having

Attention MI Gov. Snyder: Right To Work Debate Worth Having

As Indiana soon becomes a haven for business in the "Rust Belt," an influential columnist in Michigan is imploring Gov. Rick Snyder to display leadership on Right To Work. Tom Walsh writes: By discouraging a right-to-work debate in Michigan, is Gov. Rick Snyder guilty of "kicking the can down the road" — and thereby perpetuating the stigma that Michigan has an unfriendly business climate dominated by militant labor unions? It's an interesting question, especially since the kick-the-can analogy has been used so often — by Snyder himself, among others — to assess blame for allowing Michigan's other economic woes to reach crisis proportions. Snyder has said that the state of Michigan, too, suffered from a kick-the-can refusal to face up to fiscal problems until he took office last year.So why do I raise the kick-the-can issue now in connection with right-to-work? Several reasons:
Damn Our Union Members,

Damn Our Union Members, "There's Bigger Fish to Fry"

Why Right To Work Laws Are Important While Big Labor Bosses continue to pour forced-union dues into campaigns to stop Right To Work freedom, they also continue to shower Barack Obama with forced-dues money even-though Obama just killed a pipeline project that would have created jobs for 20,000 workers, many of which would be union members. If most of their members had the Right To Work, they could stop paying dues and force union officials to pay attention to union member jobs rather playing politics with union families' income. From Lachlan Markay's post: The Obama Administration’s decision to forego the Keystone pipeline has forced the country’s labor groups into a bitter civil war. At issue is the central purpose of the labor movement: those who feel it should represent workers in the workplace generally oppose the administration’s decision; those who see unions as primarily political organizations have generally supported it. Unions that had a stake in the Keystone decision were livid that the administration abandoned it, and equally angry at their fellow union members who had supported that decision, according to a Friday report from Politico Pro ($): “People are p****d,” said one U.S. labor official who supports the proposed TransCanada pipeline. “The emotions are really, really raw right now. This is a big deal.” “It’s repulsive, it’s disgusting and we’re not going to stand idly by,” Laborers’ International Union of North America General President Terry O’Sullivan told POLITICO. “The rules have changed. So we’ll react accordingly.”… But other top figures in the labor movement defended the decision. Their argument: re-electing President Obama is a higher priority than preserving union jobs, and to that end, unions had to prevent Republicans from gaining the upper hand on the top political issue of the day.
Damn Our Union Members, "There's Bigger Fish to Fry"

Damn Our Union Members, "There's Bigger Fish to Fry"

Why Right To Work Laws Are Important While Big Labor Bosses continue to pour forced-union dues into campaigns to stop Right To Work freedom, they also continue to shower Barack Obama with forced-dues money even-though Obama just killed a pipeline project that would have created jobs for 20,000 workers, many of which would be union members. If most of their members had the Right To Work, they could stop paying dues and force union officials to pay attention to union member jobs rather playing politics with union families' income. From Lachlan Markay's post: The Obama Administration’s decision to forego the Keystone pipeline has forced the country’s labor groups into a bitter civil war. At issue is the central purpose of the labor movement: those who feel it should represent workers in the workplace generally oppose the administration’s decision; those who see unions as primarily political organizations have generally supported it. Unions that had a stake in the Keystone decision were livid that the administration abandoned it, and equally angry at their fellow union members who had supported that decision, according to a Friday report from Politico Pro ($): “People are p****d,” said one U.S. labor official who supports the proposed TransCanada pipeline. “The emotions are really, really raw right now. This is a big deal.” “It’s repulsive, it’s disgusting and we’re not going to stand idly by,” Laborers’ International Union of North America General President Terry O’Sullivan told POLITICO. “The rules have changed. So we’ll react accordingly.”… But other top figures in the labor movement defended the decision. Their argument: re-electing President Obama is a higher priority than preserving union jobs, and to that end, unions had to prevent Republicans from gaining the upper hand on the top political issue of the day.