Check out the Foundation's latest Right to Work Video Report on compulsory unionism in the workplace. John McHenry, a Philadelphia worker and union member his entire life, never knew he could resign his formal union membership and stop paying full union dues. But when union bosses rammed a corrupt pension plan down his throat, he turned to the National Right to Work Foundation for help:

For more Right to Work video updates, remember to check back regularly at the Foundation's YouTube channel or Eyeblast.tv channel.

Regular Freedom@Work readers know that we've been following the SEIU's aggressive "growth at any cost" policies for quite some time.

This entry from the Philadelphia Inquirer alludes to the reality of what Big Labor seems to be offering these days -- help us or go bust.  Although most of the article focuses on a failed attempt to unionize security guards, the author also describes the union's hostile relationship with Aramark, a food services vendor:

"In 2005, Aramark entered into a neutrality agreement with SEIU and
UniteHere, another union, Aramark spokeswoman Kristine Grow said.

Aramark, which provides food service at colleges, ballparks, companies
and schools, would remain neutral in union-organizing drives, if their
clients agreed.

In 2006, Aramark decided to terminate the neutrality agreement, which
expired last summer. Since then, SEIU has applied hard pressure to the company."

Aramark's experience highlights the dark underbelly of the SEIU's "corporate campaign" strategy. Having withdrawn from this so-called neutrality agreement designed to force unwilling workers into union ranks, Aramark found itself again targeted by a series of PR broadsides, including an SEIU-sponsored website where users anonymously post unverified attacks on Aramark's performance and services.

Folks, this is what union organizing has become: when workers aren't interested, just bloody the company until it essentially agrees to do the organizing for you.  Par for the course when it comes to the SEIU.

The Philadelphia Inquirer today reports:

Accusing trade unions of standing in the way of minority hiring objectives, City Council yesterday declared the $700 million Convention Center expansion open to nonunion contractors and workers - an unprecedented gesture in a city dominated by organized labor.

Union officials commonly shut out minority and nonunion contractors from such projects through so-called "project labor agreements." These cynical pacts require all contractors, whether they are unionized or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization in order to work on a government-funded construction project.

For more information on the harmful effects of PLAs, see this study from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.

National Right to Work attorneys' recent victory for employee free choice at the NLRB was the topic of much debate at a meeting of the pro-forced unionism American Bar Association, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Union partisans typically condemned the newly established rights for employees. Once again, however, the meeting attendees did not get to hear from any representative from the National Right to Work Foundation, the group actually winning the main cases at issue and leading the charge to protect employees from "card check" organizing abuses.

Despite the hue and cry of union officials, the actions of the Bush NLRB to correct literally dozens of activist, pro-compulsory unionism rulings issued by the Clinton NLRB have been limited, delayed, and sparse. The Bush NLRB has a lot of work left to do and little time to do it.

When a company official told Perfecseal, Inc. employee John McHenry and his coworkers that the only way out of a union-controlled pension fund was to “quit, be fired, or die,” they fought back.

With help from Right to Work attorneys the employees forced Teamsters Local 14-M officials to stop requiring the pension fund contributions, though union officials stopped short of returning the pension fund money that John and others already contributed.

Like many employees, John continues to feel intimidated at his workplace. But when one company official said John’s “name was mud” and claimed that “corporate” was “pissed” at him for standing up for his legal rights, John refused to back down.