Free Republic

Ohio Senate candidate Ted Strickland joked about the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday, saying it came "at a good time" for union workers since he was unable to cast the deciding vote in a March case that ended up in a 4-4 deadlock. ... Strickland made the remarks in Cleveland, telling AFL-CIO members that Scalia's death "saved labor" from a terrible decision in the case, which could have dealt a blow to the ability of public-sector unions to collect fees from those who decide against joining the union and pay for collective bargaining activities. ... the...

It's been months since the passing of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but Democrats are still seemingly celebrating his death because it paves the way for their political purposes. At The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum on Thursday, Labor Secretary Tom Perez casually noted that Scalia's death helped pave the way for union membership across the country. ... Unfortunately, Perez's comments are not isolated. In August, Ohio Senate Candidate Ted Strickland actually said “the death of Scalia saved labor” at an AFL-CIO event.

In the summer of 2012, the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan think tank based in Las Vegas, initiated a campaign to let local teachers know that they could opt out of their union, the 12,000 member Clark County Education Association, by submitting written notice between July 1 and July 15. The reaction was dazzling. Hundreds of teachers had wanted to leave the union but didn't know that it was possible. Armed with their new-found information, over 400 chose to leave their unions. Building on that momentum, NPRI, in conjunction with the Association with the Association of American Educators, is...

Press release from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (AP story below): Washington, DC (June 21, 2012) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 today, siding with nonmember California state employees challenging a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) political fee charged to them without notice and opportunity to opt out.   The case concludes a prolonged legal challenge affecting some 36,000 California government employees initiated by eight California civil servants who filed a class-action lawsuit with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.   In 2005, SEIU officials imposed a “special assessment” to...

HARRISBURG - A Teamsters rally today drew almost 400 laborers to the Capitol, where union leaders promised to bring thousands next time if lawmakers push through anti-worker legislation. Last week Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Cranberry) introduced a package of bills that would end mandatory union membership for employees of the state's schools, government and businesses. "There is a war on workers going on in Pennsylvania, sadly," said Pennsylvania AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Frank Snyder, also of Cranberry. "We need more jobs. We don't need legislation like this." Others at the rally said Metcalfe's legislation would take resources away from unions and would dilute...

History tells us forcing the Soviets into an arms race they could not win was ultimately what brought them to their end. We “bled them to death” by outspending them. Newly released Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data suggests we have an opportunity to “bleed out” the parasitical labor unions that are impeding our recovery efforts both politically and in terms of our national economic health. For the first time in the sixty years it has been keep track, the BLS has found that aggregate union membership (both private and public sector workers) has fallen below 12% in our country....