At a United Auto Workers (UAW) conference yesterday, Senator Teddy Kennedy (D-MA) – chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee – told attendees that he wouldn’t give up trying to push the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” down the throats of America’s workers.

The Daily Labor Report highlighted:

"We're going to bring it back again and again, until we prevail,” Kennedy said. “And I guarantee this: we get a Democrat in the White House and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will be the law of the land.”

Meanwhile, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) released a report today entitled “Card-Check Forced Unionism Would Hurt Employees and Employers” that details the economic devastation that would result from increased union monopoly power.

The detailed 13-page research report highlights how Big Labor’s number one legislative priority (you guessed it, EFCA) will exacerbate forced unionism and expand unions’ monopoly bargaining privileges over employees.

NILRR’s report points out some of the following about card check organizing and forced unionism:

• “Card-check” organizing empowers union officials to force a business’s employees to accept a union as their monopoly-bargaining agent solely through the acquisition of signed union authorization cards.
• Key provisions in the legislation would effectively ban employee secret-ballot elections over unionization in the private sector and replace such elections with so-called “card checks.”
• Private sector job growth is nearly three times as fast in low union-monopoly states.

To read all the facts, download the full NILRR report on the card check forced unionism bill here.

Following up on last week's post, Stan Greer of the National Institute for Labor Relations Research spoke out last week against a recent executive order in Colorado extending union monopoly bargaining over state employees. (NRTW Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond J. LaJeunesse, Jr. spoke at the event.)

According to an article in the Denver Business Journal:

Greer also said that even if legislators approve a law prohibiting
government workers from striking -- and Ritter signs it -- 48 percent
of public sector strikes are technically illegal, meaning that
legislation is not an effective deterrent against strikes.

"By all economic measures, Colorado would be better off without
forced dues and fees and everyone would be better off with right to
work laws."

How true- if strike prohibitions work, how did union officials shut down New York City just before Christmas in 2005" They didn't seem to mind the illegality of that strike. The imposition of forced union dues has also prompted state employees in Washington and Maine to fight back.

A new study conducted by the National Institute for Labor RelationsResearch (NILRR) explains how monopolistic teacher unionism is undercutting math and science education across America.

Stan Greer, senior research associate at NILRR, discusses entrenched teacher union officials and their influence over the “single salary schedule” used to determine teacher pay rates:

And teacher union officials have so far been very successful in blocking significant reforms of the single salary schedule because of state and local public policies authorizing them to act as the “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agents of all the K-12 teachers in a school district.

Visit the NILRR’s website here and download the full report here.

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research released its 2007 fact sheet that confirms those in Right to Work states benefit from faster growth and higher real purchasing power.

Among the most noteworthy, real personal income between 2001 and 2006 grew practically double in Right to Work states with 15.2% versus forced unionism states with only 8.0%. The national average was also higher than that of forced unionism states at 10.5%.

Not only that, but percentage growth in construction employment, manufacturing, privately-owned single family homes, number of the people covered by private health insurance, and the number of children covered by private health insurance all grew in Right to Work states too. In fact, Right to Work states growth repeatedly beat out the national average in all of these categories.

Check out the complete report here to see what other benefits those in Right to Work states enjoy.