Committee’s Goal: Pro-Right to Work Congress

Breaking Big Labor's stranglehold over federal labor policy will require far more than ousting union-label House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif., shown here with government union czar Jerry McEntee) from the seat of power. Image Credit: Jay Mallin

Survey Presses Candidates to Pledge to Roll Back Forced Unionism

(Source: October 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

If respected Inside-the-Beltway political prognosticators like Charles Cook and Stuart Rothenberg are correct, there is a significant possibility that, come January, union-label Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will no longer be speaker of the U.S. House.

As of mid-September, Mr. Cook and Mr. Rothenberg were both reporting there was at least a 50-50 chance that Republicans would pick up, at a minimum, the 39 House seats they need to hold a majority in the chamber and, presumably, to elect a GOP speaker.

Since virtually all Democratic politicians in Washington, D.C., rely on forced union dues-funded support from Big Labor to get elected and reelected, and few GOP politicians are similarly beholden to the union brass, a partisan House switchover would affect the climate for Right to Work-related legislation.

For example, in all likelihood, the arrival of a GOP House would derail, for the time being, Big Labor’s years-long campaign to mandate “card checks” or in some other way rig union organizing campaigns, and thus make it even harder for independent-minded employees to avoid being corralled into a union.

However, if history is any indication, Republican House leaders are unlikely even to try to reverse federal policies that currently force millions of workers to accept monopoly union “representation,” like it or not, and pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.

Unlikely, that is, unless pro-Right to Work citizens nationwide are mobilized in unprecedented numbers to put the heat on GOP politicians to act.

Right to Work Movement Hasn’t Forgotten About GOP’s 1995-2007 Record

“From 1995 through 2007, Republican politicians like Newt Gingrich [Ga.], Tom DeLay [Texas], Dennis Hastert [Ill.], and John Boehner [Ohio] were calling the shots in the U.S. House,” recalled Doug Stafford, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“For more than 10 of those 12 years, GOP solons were also in charge of the U.S. Senate. And for six of the 12, Republican President George W. Bush sat in the White House.

“Unlike Speaker Pelosi, Speakers Gingrich and Hastert weren’t products of the Big Labor political machine. But very much like Speaker Pelosi, they kept measures to repeal federally-imposed forced union dues and fees bottled up in committee throughout all the years they were in power.

“Committee leaders, members and supporters haven’t forgotten. And our goal now isn’t merely to help forge a House and Senate that will refuse to hand union officials even more special privileges.

“Rather, our goal is a Congress with the fortitude to move to take away, even over the objections of a Big Labor President, the forced-unionism powers that union bosses have already.

“The Committee’s Survey 2010 is critical for this long-term objective.”

Committee Survey 2010 Now in High Gear

Throughout the year, Right to Work leaders have been pouring the Committee’s resources into its Survey 2010 program, which informs freedom-loving Americans about where their candidates stand on compulsory unionism.

Through the federal survey program, hundreds of thousands of pro-Right to Work citizens are now contacting candidates in targeted close races, urging them to pledge opposition to union-boss power grabs and support for forced-dues repeal. (For more information about key U.S. Senate races targeted by the Survey 2010, see this Newsletter’s cover story.)

“Now’s the time when politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, are paying most attention to what the people in their home districts and states have to say,” commented Mr. Stafford.

“That’s why the Committee must do everything possible now to get candidates to go on the record as 100% Right to Work supporters. Our success will greatly enhance the effectiveness of our future efforts to advance the Right to Work principle.

“Mobilizing huge numbers of forced-unionism opponents through the mail and TV and newspaper advertising, as well as the Internet, isn’t cheap. But it is incredibly important. In fact, the survey is the lynchpin of the Committee’s entire lobbying program.”