In Pennsylvania, staff attorneys from the Foundation helped four air traffic controllers reach a settlement with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) union. NATCA union officials were illegally forcing nonmember employees to financially support union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, as well as refusing to provide a legally required independent financial audit of forced-dues union expenditures:

Harrisburg, PA (December 29, 2008) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, four air traffic controllers have forced National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) union officials to halt their illegal forced union dues extraction methods.

The settlement is a result of unfair labor practice charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by Foundation attorneys for the four controllers in September 2008. The unfair labor practice charges challenged the union officials’ confiscatory scheme of forcing nonmember employees to support financially union activities unrelated to collective bargaining, as well as their refusal to provide a legally required independent financial audit of forced-dues union expenditures. The charges also challenged the union hierarchy’s policy that forced nonunion employees to object annually to full, forced-dues paying union membership.

Finalized today, the settlement requires union officials to post public notices informing affected controllers of their right to refrain from formal, full dues-paying membership. The notice also rescinds the union’s onerous annual objection policy – a policy that requires nonunion members annually to inform union officials of their decision not to pay for union activities unrelated to collective bargaining – and commits union officials to providing employees with an audited financial breakdown of all organizational expenditures. The union hierarchy has also agreed to allow nonunion workers to challenge retroactively dues payments unrelated to workplace representation.

Read the rest of the Foundation's press release here.

News today of more squabbling between SEIU and CNA union officials. A dispute over reigning roughly 8,000 Ohio nurses, and their forced union dues, into compulsory unionism led to a fight at a banquet.

As you can watch described below, not only did union operatives throw punches, hit people with signs, and link arms to block out the arriving police, but an elderly woman was also knocked to the ground.

If a recent article in Variety is any indication, it sounds like Hollywood heavyweight George Clooney may share the late Charlton Heston's distaste for forced unionism. He told Variety about his recent decision to resign his formal union membership:

"When your own union doesn't back what you've done, the only honorable thing to do is not participate."

However, Clooney must still pay some union dues since California has no Right to Work law banning forced union dues. The article continues:

Clooney says he would have quit the WGA altogether if he could, but
that would have prevented him from working on all WGA-covered
productions.

If George Clooney or anyone else would like more information or request free legal aid, they can click here.

Senator Ted Kennedy responds to the Wall Street Journal's recent piece that among other things, exposed the coercive nature of "card check" union organizing. He brands the process "simple and fair," but maybe he should watch the video below, which we posted a few weeks back. The only thing simple about such campaigns is how unfair to employees they are. Read more in this letter to the editor from today.

Supporting free choice for employees would be the right thing to do, even if it didn't have economic benefits, but fortunately there are significant economic advantages to Right to Work.

The chart below is from the cover story of the latest National Right to Work Committee newsletter, and shows that Right to Work states create new jobs more than twice as fast as forced-union-dues states.

Today's Wall Street Journal points out that union officials are pouring upwards of a billion dollars, much of it in compulsory dues, into the 2008 election cycle. The goal? A sea change of American labor law.

"This is an all-in bet for them in 2008," says Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, a group that fights down in the trenches against coercive union power. "As market cycles go, they're in their peak, we're in our trough, and they're looking for a clear two-year run" in an all-Democrat Washington.

Then there's the crown jewel:

Tucked into the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act is a provision called 14(b), which allows for "right to work" states. Big Labor last took a run at deleting this section, and forcing more unionization, in the Johnson administration.

Aside from abolishing employees' free choice of whether or not to join or pay dues to a union, wiping the current 22 state Right to Work laws off the map would deal a crushing blow to the American economy.

According to a recent study by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, forced unionism cost the American economy upwards of $436 billion in GDP between 2000-2006 alone.

The yoke of compulsory unionism already takes a severe toll on states without Right to Work laws, the last thing America needs is to expand its reach.

Speaking of "card check," a Washington State University student is calling out the United Auto Workers union on its recent use of a deceptive "card check" drive to forcibly unionize academic student employees. The student writes:

Several students were led to believe they were signing to get
information or support exploring the efficacy of students unionizing.
With a sense of urgency and high pressure tactics, many students filled
out cards.

In addition to noting that students would be forced to pay dues if the UAW was installed, the student adds:

We find it insulting to our intelligence and levels of educational
achievement to mislead, misrepresent and misinform us to gain student
support.

As Karen Mayhew, a National Right to Work Foundation-aided employee from Portland, Oregon, told Congress last year:

...union abuses of a wide variety are the rule in 'card check' campaigns, not the exception.

All the more reason that employees should be aware of their rights during a "card check" drive.

A group of Dana Corporation employees from Albion, Indiana, recently fought their way free of the unwanted United Auto Workers union capitalizing on a ruling won by the National Right to Work Foundation.

Columnist Thomas Sowell points out in an op-ed today the harmful effects of bad economic policies on job creation in "rust belt" states:

In short, the rust belts have been killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

He concludes:

Jobs are always disappearing. The big question is why they are
not being replaced by new jobs. Rust belt policies that drove out old
jobs also keep out new jobs.

Chief among these harmful policies is compulsory unionism. According to a National Institute for Labor Relations Research fact sheet, Right to Work states outperform forced unionism states, which include all of the rust belt, on a litany of economic growth indicators.

Most notably, with regard to job growth, non-farm private sector job growth in Right to Work states nearly doubled that of forced unionism states between 1996-2006. NILRR also notes that Real Personal Income growth also was nearly double in Right to Work states between 2001-2006.

Sounds like the golden goose has fled for greener pastures.

Following up on forced dues for foster parents in Washington State, another op-ed in the Seattle P-I this week says that the California Legislature wants to "unionize Grandma." The article states:

A bill pending in the Senate would create a union to organize family
members who provide child care for their kin and are paid by the state
so that mothers can work outside the home.

Furthermore:

Child-care providers who did not want to join the union would still
have to pay fees -- likely in the same amount as the union dues.

Most disturbingly, this extension of compulsory unionism is part of a broader trend:

The move in California is part of a nationwide strategy by SEIU and the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Since
2005, governors in eight states have issued executive orders or taken
other action giving family child-care providers the right to unionize
and bargain as a group.

And in all of those states without a Right to Work law, those care providers must pay union dues. What a tell tale sign that this is all about the money that union officials must stoop to compelling payment of union dues from people taking care of their own families.