Program Maximizes Right to Work Gains in ‘Year of Opportunity’
(Source: November-December 2014 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter)
Thanks to National Right to Work Committee members’ generous assistance, the Committee’s federal candidate Survey 2014 has checked a massive Big Labor electioneering blitz and sharply increased support in Congress for repeal of federally-imposed forced union dues.
To mobilize Right to Work supporters, the Committee distributed a total of roughly 5.5 million federal candidate Survey “information packets” through the U.S. Postal Service this year. Above and beyond that, Survey 2014 had a massive Internet component, including approximately two million e-mails transmitted in October and early November alone. All this plus TV and newspaper advertising.
The packets, e-mails and ads let pro-Right to Work citizens know where their candidates stood on compulsory unionism.
And most of the packets were mailed out during the last five weeks of the fall election campaign to specifically targeted states and districts across the country.
In a year in which voters were already extremely concerned about Big Labor encroachment of employee freedom and destruction of jobs, the survey program maximized Right to Work gains in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
Big Labor Had Calculated Forced-Dues Machine Would Minimize Electoral Losses
Compared to the House that will permanently disband after an end-of-the-year “lame duck” session, the House that convenes in January will have 12 more members identified, based on their campaign pledges and voting records, as 100% Right to Work supporters.
In the Senate, where just 36 out of 100 seats were up for election this year, compared to 435 out of 435 House seats, Right to Work reaped a net gain of at least seven seats, and quite possibly eight, depending on the outcome of the Louisiana run-off still pending as this Newsletter edition goes to press.
Given the persistently low public approval ratings of union-label President Barack Obama, Big Labor strategists clearly did not expect to do very well in congressional races this fall.
At the same time, union kingpins calculated that their forced dues-funded phone banks, get-out-the-vote drives, and propaganda mailings would help a number of otherwise doomed Big Labor politicians in both legislative chambers win close races this year.
But throughout the final weeks of campaign 2014, the Committee’s federal candidate survey program ensured that politicians who had sought to conceal their pro-forced unionism agenda were held accountable.
West Virginia lawyer Nick Casey, who this year sought to capture his state’s Second Congressional District, a narrow, but 300-mile long jurisdiction spanning from the Ohio to the Maryland border, is a characteristic example.
Candidates Got to Choose: Repudiate Forced Unionism, or Face Political Consequences
During the final weeks of his U.S. House campaign, the Committee called public attention to the fact that Mr. Casey was gratefully accepting massive campaign support from Big Labor even as he refused to say how he would vote on Right to Work-related legislation. As part of its federal Survey program, the Committee repeatedly contacted roughly 9,300 targeted households in the district.
In the end, roughly 37,000 pieces of Right to Work surface mail alone were sent to households in West Virginian’s Second Congressional District.
After being mobilized by the Committee, thousands of citizens asked Mr. Casey to take a clear stand against forced unionism. He never complied.
Apparently, Mr. Casey believed he could pull through with Big Labor on his side. Union bigwigs poured nearly $200,000 in cash into his campaign, plus an unknown, but surely far larger, sum in hidden, “in-kind” support.
It wasn’t enough. In the end, GOP candidate Alex Mooney, the former executive director of the National Journalism Center and a 100% Right to Work supporter, defeated Mr. Casey by roughly 4900 votes.
“The sole purpose of the survey program is to highlight candidates’ positions and voting records on Right to Work and to mobilize freedom-loving citizens to lobby the candidates,” said Committee Vice President Matthew Leen.
“Candidates who don’t like the public hearing about their close ties to Big Labor special interests can always distance themselves from union kingpins and pledge to support Right to Work in the future. When candidates actually do that, freedom-loving citizens are typically very forgiving. But candidates who thumb their noses at Right to Work supporters’ pleas must be prepared to accept the potential political consequences.”
California’s Big Labor-concocted A.B.5, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, made it almost impossible for workers and firms to bounce back after 2020’s COVID-19 lockdowns. Now Biden bureaucrats want to federalize A.B.5!
Mr. Fain undoubtedly knows full well that there is a complete disconnect between the UAW hierarchy and the UAW rank-and-file on the Biden presidency and whether workers will benefit from its extension for another four years.
On average, forced-unionism states are 23.2% more expensive to live in than Right to Work states. And decades of academic research show that compulsory unionism actually fosters a higher cost of living.