Friday, August 15, 2008

WORKERS IN 22 STATES MAY BE FORCED TO JOIN UNIONS AS BILL IN CONGRESS TO ELIMINATE STATES' RIGHT-TO-WORK STATUS IS SECRETLY INTRODUCED

Unions: Pay Us Or Be Fired!

Going largely unnoticed in the media and blogosphere over these past few weeks is a bill that was introduced in the House of Representatives on July 10th which, if enacted, will eliminate the Right-to-Work provisions of the 1947 Labor Management Relations Act (better known as the Taft-Hartley Amendments). To view the bill, click here.

While the bill has little chance of passing before 2009, it should send a clear warning to workers and employers in the 22 "Right-to-Work" states that labor bosses at the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations are hell bent on requiring workers to pay dues or be fired.

Some readers may not understand the ramifications of this, so here is a brief explanation of Right-to-Work versus Non-Right-to-Work:

Prior to the Taft-Hartley Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, it was legal for unions in all 50 states (48 at the time) to negotiate "union (income) security" clauses into collective bargaining agreements (CBA), which requires all workers covered by a CBA to finance the union through dues or fees or be fired. In essence, if a workers fails to pay the union, the union (under the CBA) has the right to require the employer to terminate the employee.

In 1947, over President Truman's veto, Congress amended the NLRA by passing the Taft-Hartley (LMRA) amendments. This allowed states, for the first time, to pass so-called "right-to-work" laws, which enable workers to work at a unionized employer without being fired for refusing to pay union dues.

There are currently 22 Right-to-Work states. To see a map of which states provide the freedom to pay or not pay a union without the threat of termination, click here.


If unions succeed in getting their union-backed candidates elected this fall and this bill passes, workers who choose to keep their own money from the pockets of the union bosses will suddenly be faced with the choice to either pay union dues or be fired.

Clearly, the agenda of today's union bosses is to force workers into unions by any means possible--be it the hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act, the equally moronically-named Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (HR 980) (which forces unionization on state and municipal police, fire and EMS personnel) or the elimination of workers' choice to refrain from paying dues in Right-to-Work states.

Union bosses now dictate the agenda of the Democrat Party's candidates making the November elections determinative as to whether union bosses get their way with the American worker.
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Hat-tip to Bret at Maverick Solutions for alerting us to this.

For more union-related news, go to EmployerReport.com

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