As we recounted earlier this month, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys are fighting a blatant political payback scheme initiated by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to hand over all home-based child-care providers who provide services to state-subsidized low-income families over to government union bosses.

Last week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, and Carrie Schlaud, the courageous lead plaintiff of the providers' class-action lawsuit against Granholm and the United Autoworker (UAW) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions appeared on the Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends to discuss the case:

To view more videos regarding the lawsuit, including Mark Mix's appearance on the Fox Business Network's Willis Report and Michigan child-care provider Peggy Mashke's appearance on the Fox Business Network's Varney & Company, check out the Foundation's Youtube channel here.

Via Big Government, here's a damning video explaining the wasteful contract created by New York/New Jersey Police Union officials, which mandates that officers collect overtime pay even after they've been suspended for misconduct:

Of course, the Police/Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill threatens to spread this and other wasteful union boss instituted work rules to states and counties who have no desire to hamstring their public safety employees with union monopoly bargaining. If Big Labor gets their way on Capitol Hill, this video is a frightening portent of things to come. 

Here's a must-read editorial from National Review on Big Labor's Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill:

Lacking the evolutionary finesse that keeps most parasites from killing their host organisms, the American labor movement has driven the private firms that once employed its members offshore or into bankruptcy. Consequently, the only growth market remaining for the union movement is government: More union members today are employed by government than by the private sector. The union bosses, being neither blind nor stupid, see the advantages of sitting on both sides of the negotiating table, and their influence on politics has been predictably baleful. Unfortunately for those who would curtail their influence, they enjoy a steady stream of cash, expropriated from the paychecks of their members, and a ready supply of foot soldiers available for get-out-the-vote and rent-a-mob duties.

That’s a problem for conservatives. One of the more dynamic Republican leaders in the country, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, is battening down his political hatches for the hurricane of union abuse headed his way in response to his sober efforts to get his state’s finances in order. It is going to be ugly, with the unions employing the same tactics they used to derail the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger. So why in the name of Barry Goldwater would a single Republican, much less a half-dozen senators, support extending the influence of the people who made New Jersey New Jersey? The Senate Republicans supporting the bill include not only the usual practitioners of Me-Tooism — the Maine ladies, Lisa Murkowski — but also Scott Brown of Massachusetts and New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg. (What, no Lindsey Graham?) It would be cheaper and better for the country if these Republicans would just go ahead and make a direct donation to the Democratic National Committee, an act to which supporting this bill is equivalent. If Sen. Mike Johanns really wants to turn Lincoln, Neb., into Trenton on the Prairie, let him confine his efforts to his own state and leave the other 49 to go their own way.

Click here to read the whole thing. For more editorials opposing this terrible piece of legislation, check out our earlier blog post on the groundswell of public opposition to expanding Big Labor's control over public safety employees.

National Right to Work President Mark Mix discusses the consequences of the Police/Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill on Richmond, Virginia’s Jimmy Barrett Show. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:

As always, you can also listen to the Foundation's podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.  

From the Washington Post on down, magazines and newspapers across the country are editorializing against the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill, a Big Labor power grab that would shove thousands of public safety employees into union collectives and usurp state and local laws across the country.

Here's Right to Work President Mark Mix in the Richmond Times Dispatch:

With Reid and his Big Labor allies in Congress in full payback mode, Sen. Jim Webb's and Sen. Mark Warner's votes could easily determine the fate of Virginia's public safety workers.

If passed, the Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill could turn over police and firefighters of local governments to union-boss control by federal mandate. It overrides the laws of at least 25 states, including states like Virginia that have a complete ban on granting union officials bargaining privileges for public-sector employees.

The Virginian-Pilot also editorialized against the bill:

After retreating from one misguided intrusion into labor law, congressional Democrats are mustering another clumsy campaign to appease their union donors.

Much like the failed card-check legislation, the latest initiative is an unnecessary federal interference with employment matters. If adopted, the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act would require state and local governments to engage in collective bargaining with police officers, deputies, firefighters and emergency medical workers over wages and work conditions.

As did the Charleston Daily Mail:

Really, members of Congress are shameless sometimes. Unions are huge contributors to Democratic campaign coffers, and they expect favors in return.

This is one that members of Congress should not grant. There is absolutely no justification for the federal government overcalling state-developed law on collective bargaining.

The Denver Post:

Reid's measure would require that public safety workers be given collective bargaining rights without voter approval. The Colorado Municipal League, which opposes the measure, points out that the federal mandate would instantly affect thousands of employees and Colorado taxpayers at every level.

We agree. Brushing away the current structure not only tramples on local control, it could result in higher budgets at a time tax revenue is down and local governments are struggling.

The National League of Cities also opposes this legislation, as it would override the laws of 19 states other than Colorado. NLC lobbyist Neil Bomberg tells us the measure could arrive in the form of an amendment to small-business legislation or as a free-standing bill on the Senate floor next week.

And the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

While a boon to unions, this law would seriously damage our federalist system by taking away a large measure of local control over police and firefighters unions and lead to higher costs to local governments and taxpayers, costs that neither will be able to affect at the ballot box. 

And some related commentary from National Review:

Organized labor — increasingly dominated by public-sector workers — sees this as compensation for the failure of their card-check effort. The losers in this scenario will be taxpayers.

We can only hope that elected officials take note of the near-unanimous level of public opposition to this terrible idea.

UPDATE: Yet more editorials against the Police/Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill from the San Francisco Examiner, Watertown Daily Times, Charleston Post and Courier, Newport Daily Press, and the Silver City Sun-News.

National Right to Work Legislative Director Dmitri Kesari appeared on the Lars Larson show to discuss Big Labor's latest effort to push the Police/Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill into law. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:

As always, you can also listen to the Foundation's podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.   

Many Freedom@Work readers are already following the latest Big Labor offensive on Capitol Hill. Under the guise of protecting our first responders, pro-forced unionism politicians are attempting to ram home the Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill.

This legislation would force states to adopt monopoly union bargaining for all police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians. Not only would this bill push unwilling public safety employees into Big Labor's forced dues-paying ranks, it would also usurp the right of state and local governments to determine if their employees unionize.

In fact, this power grab is so egregious that even the often pro-Big Labor Washington Post has taken notice. Here's the Post's blistering editorial against the bill:

What this bill would do is impose a permanent, one-size-fits-all federal solution in an area -- public-sector labor relations -- that has traditionally been left to the states, and where state flexibility is probably more necessary than ever. The imposition on Virginia would be dramatic, of course, but even union-friendly Maryland, which lets each county decide whether and how to bargain with its employees, might find itself in costly, time-consuming contention with the feds. Farther afield, Colorado's "fire protection districts," special units of government dedicated to providing that service, would face costly collective bargaining even where firefighters and management are working harmoniously without it.

We share the bill sponsors' esteem for first responders. They should be adequately, even generously, compensated. Still, many outsized pensions now threatening state and local governments were awarded by politicians to curry favor with public-safety unions. To be sure, the bill includes acompromise provision assuring states that they don't have to bargain over pensions. But it hardly matters. The bill further empowers an already strong lobby that could use its additional clout to pressure state legislators to allow pension-bargaining anyway -- or to enact such benefits by statute. This bill is a bad idea whose time, we hope, has still not come.

Read the whole thing here. And remember, if Big Labor sympathizers at the Washington Post are astounded by this unpopular bill, imagine how bad it must be for the rest of us. 

If the goal of Obama's Deficit Panel is to increase government budget deficits then naming SEIU top boss Andy Stern makes perfect sense. But since the supposed goal is to reduce the record budget shortfalls, Stern's nomination is a real head-scratcher.

As many union members know, the self-interest of union bosses to corral more workers into dues-paying ranks often has severe costs.  And now that more than half of our nation's government workers are now under union boss monopoly bargaining control, it's becoming abundantly clear that one of these costs is the growth of government to fiscally unsustainable levels.

It's no wonder mayors from across the country are standing up to oppose the Police & Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill, currently pending in Congress, which would force first responders into forced-dues-paying ranks by federal fiat.  As Charleston, WV, mayor Danny Jones told the Charleston Daily Mail, 

If you look around the states, the most unionized states are the ones that are the most broke.

So while SEIU boss Andy Stern continues his using his frequent White House visits to push for a new federal policy that could add $100 billion a year to the federal budget (while forcing employees of federal contractors into union coffers) and the costs of Big Labor's public sector growth become more clear, concerned citizens can only wonder what kind of recommendations Andy Stern will make on President Obama's deficit panel.

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) just released a new study detailing the disturbing trend of the forced unionization of government workers.  In it, NILRR points out that in 2008 and the first 11 months of 2009, unionized private-sector workers lost their jobs at more than double the rate than their private-sector non-unionized colleagues.

Meanwhile, for the first time ever, more than half of our nation's government workers are now under union boss monopoly bargaining control and the number is growing with disastrous consequences:

While today 51% of unionized workers nationwide are government employees, as recently as 1981 there were more than twice as many unionized private-sector workers as their were unionized public-sector workers. The ever-increasing concentration of Big Labor’s power and influence in government employment will greatly exacerbate the harmful tendency of public employment to grow faster than private employment over time.

Not only that, but Congress is considering passing legislation that would help union bosses corral more city and local government emergency responders into union ranks -- legislation that local government officials are warning will make their already-severe budgetary woes even worse.

Combined with NILRR's recent analysis that taxpayers are fleeing forced unionism states, it's easy to see their conclusion:  Unless states take action to cut back Big Labor's numerous government-granted special privileges, fewer and fewer American private-sector workers and their employers are facing a greater tax burden to sustain an ever-growing government -- especially in forced unionism states.

Read NILRR's report here.

And for more on the history of Big Labor's campaign to acquire incredible power over local, state, and national government, order your free copy of Stranglehold: How union bosses have hijacked our government today.

True to form, compulsory unionism advocates are exploiting a serious situation to try to force more workers into union monopoly control. In this case, union bosses have long set their sights on forcing America's airport screeners into union ranks. From the Wall Street Journal:

The notion that unionized airport baggage screeners in Detroit could have prevented Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane in Amsterdam or Lagos doesn't make much sense. But sure enough, some in Congress are using the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack to argue that a new leader for the Transportation Security Administration could have saved the day.

Rahm Emanuel's famous declaration that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste seems to have become a way of Washington life.

That's the meaning of the political and media beatdown now being visited on Republican Senator Jim DeMint for the high crime of putting a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers to head TSA, which runs the 50,000 airport screeners. Mr. DeMint objects because Mr. Southers has refused to say whether he would reverse current policy and back collective bargaining for baggage and passenger screeners, which the Obama Administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill support.

...Mr. DeMint's objection is rooted in a substantive concern that union practices and work rules will compromise security. TSA uses a performance pay system that tries to reward ability and effort, with the goal of recruiting and retaining the best employees. Unions prefer seniority-based pay that puts a premium on time served rather than performance.

TSA also needs to be able to change its procedures or move personnel to high-risk locations on short notice. Agency managers now have the ability to do that, but under union work rules they might need to get the permission of union leaders, who won't want to upset the rank-and-file.

In other words, Congressman Thompson has it exactly backwards. If the goal is to have a "nimble, responsive" TSA, a non-union work force makes more sense.

The Journal correctly points out that union boss work rules can hamper TSA's efforts to keep our skies safe. But also, union bosses often put the expansion of their forced unionism empire before the safety of the public and even the very employees they claim to represent.

But it doesn't stop at airport screeners, Big Labor is actively pushing to subject America's first responders to union monopoly control as well.