Union tries to fire trustee who asked to audit taxpayer funded account

Hot Air with a hot story about potential union corruption: We should send out another big tip of the hat to Mark Flatten at the Goldwater Institute for yet another piece of investigative journalism where he discovers some of the rather shocking collisions which take place at the intersection of public employee unions and taxpayer dollars. (A pause here, while I realize that it’s probably no longer shocking at this point.) This incident takes place in Phoenix, Arizona at the offices of AFSCME Local 2960, where one of their trustees – charged with monitoring the prudent spending of union funds – apparently exercised the poor judgement to ask if she should be auditing where some of that money goes, specifically in the handling of a large insurance fund. Natasha Nimer had a simple question: As a trustee in a local labor union representing City of Phoenix employees, did she have a duty to check the books of a taxpayer-funded insurance account it managed? So she asked the executive board of AFSCME Local 2960. The response was an emphatic “no.” She dropped the matter and thought it would end there. She was wrong.   In the months that followed, union officials tried to strip Nimer of her duties as a trustee and steward. They tried twice to force her out of AFSCME, only to have the international headquarters order her reinstated.
Michigan Renounces Day-Care Forced Unionism

Michigan Renounces Day-Care Forced Unionism

Last year, Carrie Schlaud appeared on a Fox News broadcast along with Committee President Mark Mix to discuss her and other Michigan home day-care providers' efforts to defend their Right to Work. Credit: Fox News But Union Dons May Get to Keep $4.5 Million Wrung From Providers (Source: June 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Five years ago, bosses of two AFL-CIO unions, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), teamed up to acquire forced-unionism control over home-based day-care providers in Michigan. The UAW/AFSCME joint-venture union, known as "Child Care Providers Together Michigan" (CCPTM), was set up with the express aim of unionizing "all home-based child [day] care providers in Michigan." Then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Big Labor Democrat, was ready from the beginning to pull as many strings as necessary for the CCPTM union. In July 2006, Granholm-appointed bureaucrats helped establish a shell corporation known as the "Michigan Home Based Child Care Council" (MHBCC). The sole genuine purpose of this venture was to act as the entity against which the CCPTM union was supposedly organizing. Many of the 40,500 day-care providers targeted by CCPTM organizers report that they never even heard of this outfit until after it had prevailed in a low-turnout "mail ballot" election. In 2008, forced union fees began being siphoned out of the reimbursement checks day-care providers receive from the government for serving needy families who are unable to pay their own way. With Right to Work Attorneys' Help, Michigan Home Day-Care Providers Fought Back
Workers Forced to Bankroll Agenda They Oppose

Workers Forced to Bankroll Agenda They Oppose

(Source: December 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Union bosses like AFL-CIO czar Richard Trumka claim that forced-unionism policies are in union members' best interest. But a new scientific poll shows union members overwhelmingly support the Right to Work principle. New Nationwide Poll Shows Union Members Support Right to Work A scientific survey of union members nationwide, conducted the week before the November elections by well-known pollster Frank Luntz for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, shows that Big Labor bosses are out of touch with the people they purport to represent as well as the public at large. The poll gauged the opinions of both private- and government-sector union members regarding key aspects of the agenda Big Labor bankrolls with union treasury funds, which consist primarily of dues and fees that workers are forced to fork over as a condition of employment. In the 2009-2010 campaign cycle, union officials funneled forced dues and fees extracted from an estimated nine million union members and forced union fee-paying nonmembers into what appears to have been their largest ever federal mid-term electoral war chest. Top bosses of the AFL-CIO-affiliated American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union openly admit to having spent a total of nearly $87.5 million, mostly union treasury money, on mid-term electioneering. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bosses acknowledge pouring $44 million, primarily forced-dues money, into 2009-2010 politics. National Education Association (NEA) teacher union chiefs have owned up to siphoning $40 million into politicking over the past two years. Altogether, it's safe to say Organized Labor shelled out more than a billion dollars in reported and unreported contributions, including "in-kind" support like phone banks and get-out-the-vote drives as well as cash, to its favored 2010 congressional candidates. Four Out of Five Union Members Reject Forced Union Membership, Dues
Ohio Gov.-elect John Kasich to overhaul state employees collective bargaining rules

Ohio Gov.-elect John Kasich to overhaul state employees collective bargaining rules

Ohio Governor-elect John Kasich intends to overhaul current state employees' collective bargaining rules (passed by Big Labor-financed state legislators and signed by a Big Labor-financed Governor) that he says allow unelected third parties to force the state of Ohio its counties and towns to raise taxes without any say by taxpayers.  Kasich also intends to dismantle federally imposed wage rules that drive up construction costs.  A better idea would be to give all workers in Ohio the right to choose to pay or not pay union dues or fees, rather than being forced to pay dues and fees as a condition of employment.  Ohio needs a Right to Work law to protect all employees. Reginald Fields of The Plain Dealer wrote: COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Public employees who go on strike over labor disputes should automatically lose their jobs, says Gov.-elect John Kasich. "If they want to strike they should be fired," Kasich said last week. "I really don't favor the right to strike by any public employee. They've got good jobs, they've got high pay, they get good benefits, a great retirement. What are they striking for?" Kasich has made it clear that dismantling Ohio's collective bargaining law will be a top priority of his administration. The 1983 collective bargaining law, which gives public employees a right to unionize, was implemented by a Democratic-controlled legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Richard F. Celeste. In particular, Kasich is going after binding arbitration rules … "You are forcing increased taxes on taxpayers with them having no say," Kasich said. The Middletown City Council recently tabled a resolution asking the Ohio General Assembly to revise the state's collective bargaining law. City Councilman Josh Laubach, who authored the resolution, said the city had to dip into reserves to pay police and fire costs this year and is expecting a $2.5 million increase in safety personnel in 2011 despite adding no new positions, according to the Middletown Journal. The 1983 collective bargaining law, which gives public employees a right to unionize, was implemented by a Democratic-controlled legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Richard F. Celeste.
Home-Care Providers Take State To Federal Court

Home-Care Providers Take State To Federal Court

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Press Release: Home-Care Providers Take Case Challenging State Unionization Scheme to Federal Appeals Court Right to Work Foundation assists home-based personal care providers pushed into union ranks against their will Chicago, IL (December 13, 2010) – A group of home-based personal care providers have filed a federal appeal against Governor Pat Quinn and union officials for their agreement to force Illinois’s home-based personal care providers under unwanted union boss control. With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, the personal care providers filed their appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit after a district court judge ruled against them. The appeal stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by the providers after Quinn signed an executive order designating 4,500 home-based personal care providers who care for individuals with disabilities as “public employees” and susceptible to unwanted union boss political “representation.” Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union bosses have been competing to force their monopoly control over the workers, even having out-of-state union organizers making “home visits” attempting to organize the providers through coercive “card check” unionization tactics. Not coincidentally, Quinn received the SEIU union bosses’ political endorsement and support during his closely-contested primary campaign earlier this year. Quinn’s executive order mirrored one issued by disgraced former-Governor Rod Blagojevich, later codified, in which over 20,000 personal care providers were designated as state workers for the purpose of granting union bosses monopoly “representation” and forced dues privileges over them. Quinn’s executive order expanded Blagojevich’s to cover the additional 4,500 providers who were not included in the first executive order.