February 23, 2011 NILRR News Clips

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The Politics of Unions: Walker v. Daniels

Today on Coffee and Markets we’re talking with Mark Mix, head of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, about his views on the battle in Wisconsin and elsewhere over public employee unions. We also talk about Mitch Daniels’ surprising attitude towards right to work laws in Indiana.

Labor plans to rally against attack on collective bargaining

A national nonprofit has pushed right-to-work laws for decades but it isn’t “orchestrating” an effort to pass those laws in several states as unions claim, a spokesman said today.

“This is a real grass roots movement,” said Patrick Semmens, spokesman for the National Right to Work Committee. He says unions blame the organization because it frequently points out “hypocrisy” of union leaders.

Rank-and-file teachers speak truth to prog power

Since my days as a columnist for the Seattle Times, I’ve profiled courageous public school educators who have challenged the compulsory dues racket of their teachers’ unions. Here’s my 1999 column on how public school teachers in Washington state challenged their union over their political dues power grab. Here are your rights as a union worker. Here is a backgrounder on the permissible use of forced dues. As I wrote on Labor Day last year, free speech not only means the freedom to voice your political views, but also the freedom from being forced to pay for someone else’s. U.S. Supreme Court precedent established by the D.C.-based National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation guarantees the right to full financial disclosure from a union and a right to challenge the figures in court if they disagree.

America’s Nightly Scoreboard

david: it sounds like it is dead? >> the bill itself will be dead it is still possible to raise the language in another bill as the session continues. david: even the national right to work committee did not get behind it because it exempts too many people including the construction trades. why were they exempted? >> it does because it was a compromise the was worked out to get it passed part of the jobs bill as we become the 23rd right to work straight at — stage with logistics and transportation , the construction companies operate differently and they want to operate with union labor so it is a different dynamic they in the manufacturing that we hope to attract.

Unions And The Right To Work

If unions were formed to protect workers from employer abuse, right-to-work laws were created to protect taxpayers and workers from union abuse. States with such laws enjoy higher growth and purchasing power.

According to statistics compiled by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, real personal income in right-to-work states grew 28.3% from 1999 to 2009 vs. 14.7% in forced-unionism states — almost double. Disposable income in right-to-work states stood at $35,543 per capita in 2009 vs. $33,389, and growth in real manufacturing GDP jumped 20.9% from 2000 to 2008, compared with 6.5% in forced-unionism states

Two governors, only one ready for primetime

In short, Daniels caved, perhaps the surest sign yet that he’s not running for president or doesn’t understand what conservatives expect of a presidential candidate. He told his own party to stand down on right-to-work legislation and had this to say:

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