Nat'l Right to Work Comm / LDF

dark %$ doc says ati is sub-unit?notes several names that are similar, maybe "arms"?see koch, lorri, union, aleccollective bargain, union, labor tagLDF is legal def fdncapt 6/16 natRTW also 1018<div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions</a></div><div>
</div><div>don weiner</div><div>519</div><div>
</div><div>The same corporate-funded groups that bankrolled a successful ten-year campaign to cripple public employee unions by having the U.S. Supreme Court strike down “fair share” fees for nonmembers in Janus v. AFSCME last year are now suing to retroactively recover fees paid before the Court’s ruling.This is the latest move in the right-wing’s quest to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“defund and defang”</a> public sector unions with a goal of delivering a “mortal blow” to progressive politics, and mirrors similar “clawback” suits filed across the country over the past year.Two groups that spearheaded the Janus case, the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Justice_Center" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Liberty Justice Center</a> (LJC) and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation</a> (NRTWLDF), have now filed a federal lawsuit in Illinois seeking repayment of $2 million in fair share fees paid by 2,700 Illinois public employees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) between May 1, 2017 and June 27, 2018.Public employee unions are required to represent all workers, whether they join the union or not, so unions have collected <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/janus-and-fair-share-fees-the-organizations-financing-the-attack-on-unions-ability-to-represent-workers/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“fair share” fees</a>, also known as agency fees, for many decades to cover the basic costs of bargaining for higher wages and benefits. That practice was upheld by the Supreme Court unanimously in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977, but the Court turned its back on that precedent in <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Janus_vs.AFSCME,U.S.Supreme_Court_Case" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">the Janus case</a> and struck them down on First Amendment grounds.A similar lawsuit by the two groups filed in a different federal district court was thrown out earlier this year when the judge ruled that AFSCME had collected the dues “in good faith.”“That ruling echoes what more than a dozen other federal and state courts have decided in similar cases,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-fair-share-lawsuit-20190501-story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> the Chicago Tribune. “The anti-worker, corporate-funded front groups prolonging this failed litigation want to use the courts to further their political attack on working people and our union. Their repeated lawsuits are nothing but a greedy grab for more.”In its Janus decision, the Court’s majority acknowledged that public sector unions would now have to represent nonunion members even without their agency fees, creating an entire class of free-riders.With respect to both lawsuits and the earlier Janus case, public sector unions note that the plaintiffs never complained about receiving the wage increases, health insurance coverage, vacation time, and other benefits that the union negotiated for on their behalf.In addition to the new lawsuit, LJC and NRTWLDF <a href="https://www.sj-r.com/news/20190327/former-state-worker-janus-asks-court-to-order-union-fee-repayment" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">have appealed</a> the original case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lawsuits Bankrolled by Corporate Foundations and a Megadonor</h2><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Uihlein" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Richard Uihlein</a>, an Illinois businessman and GOP megadonor, the Koch brothers’ donor network, and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation have bankrolled much of the groups’ legal war on public sector unions.The LJC, part of the right-wing <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Illinois_Policy_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Illinois Policy Institute</a> at the time of the Janus ruling, has received $1.7 million since 2010 from the Koch donor network’s funding vehicles, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, and $320,000 since 2009 from the Bradley Foundation, which the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) exposed in a <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">series of articles</a> in 2017.Uihlein has given over <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-policy-institute-john-tillman-transactions" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$8.6 million</a> to Illinois Policy Institute since 2009 and at least another <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Uihlein_Family_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$800,000</a> since 2014 to LJC. Uihlein is notoriously anti-union and spent millions to support the gubernatorial campaigns of the anti-worker governors Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner.Uihlein has also given <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Uihlein_Family_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$300,000</a> since 2014 to NRTWLDF, which has received $1.3 million since 2003 from Bradley and $833,000 since 2010 from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, according to IRS filings.LJC’s most recent <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6022369-Liberty-Justice-Center-2017-990.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">IRS 990 filing</a> shows that its revenue jumped from $494,000 in its fiscal year 2016 to $692,000 in 2017, a 40 percent increase, while it was working on the Janus case. LJC’s chair, John Tillman, was paid over $400,000 in 2017 from affiliated nonprofits, principally the Illinois Policy Institute.LJC is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). In the states, SPN groups peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.Bradley Foundation grants to SPN “affiliate” and “associate” members stretch back decades and amount to approximately $133 million, according to Bradley grant summary documents <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/09/05/bradley-foundation-funnels-millions-state-policy-network-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">tallied</a> by CMD.A 2016 Bradley internal file on SPN <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/09/05/bradley-foundation-funnels-millions-state-policy-network-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">notes</a> that SPN’s focus in recent years has been on “catalyzing further efforts to curb public-sector unions’ excesses” and “mobilizing nonprofits, donors and citizens to uphold the principles of donor privacy and freedom of speech.” The right-wing effort is part of a concerted campaign to bankrupt unions in order to cripple the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the progressive movement.The new wave of legal assaults on public employee unions as we head into the 2020 elections appears to be the latest stage of that campaign.David Armiak contributed research to this report.</div><div></div>* wow origins, koch<a href="http://documentedinvestigations.org/2018/07/12/janus-decision-rooted-koch-wishlist/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://documentedinvestigations.org/2018/07/12/janus-decision-rooted-koch-wishlist/</a>With last month’s monumental Janus decision by the Supreme Court, the Koch family won a major victory in their multi-generational attack on unions.The ruling spreads to the entire public sector one of the laws the Koch fortune first helped push through in Kansas 60 years ago: “right-to-work.” And in doing so it enshrines the union-busting agenda their fossil fuel money has helped advance for decades.(This story was first <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/21294/koch_anti_union_janus_supreme_court" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">published</a> by In These Times.)Through a single vote, the Court’s 5-4 Janus decision reverses decades of legal precedent that had obstructed part of the Koch’s pro-corporate agenda. That vote was secured with the Kochs’ help in bankrolling efforts that include: helping to maintain a GOP Senate majority; helping the Senate block President Obama from filling the February 2016 Supreme Court vacancy; and helping to win the confirmation of right-wing corporate activist Neil Gorsuch.Janus helps cement the nation’s highest court as the Koch Court, and Charles Koch wants to keep it that way.As Documented <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/25/koch-brothers-trump-administration/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">first detailed</a> in partnership with the Intercept, for months the Kochs had been investing heavily in anticipation of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Court, which was announced on June 27, the same day as Janus. Earlier this year, the Koch group “Americans for Prosperity” (AFP) hired Sarah Field from the Koch-funded Federalist Society to spearhead its campaign to extend the Koch hold on the Court for perhaps a generation or more.Despite claims by AFP that helping to seat Gorsuch was their “first” foray into Supreme Court nominations, the Koch effort to influence who becomes a judge and how they interpret the law goes back much further.In fact, the Kochs have been investing in reshaping the law to suit their personal agenda for decades. For example, the Koch group Citizens for a Sound Economy, AFP’s predecessor, <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-09-15/news/9103100215_1_national-black-nurses-family-research-council-national-jewish-coalition" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">backed</a> Clarence Thomas’ controversial confirmation to the Court more than 25 years ago.The Kochs’ long-term agenda to remake the United States in their image is a multi-pronged effort that includes changing both the law and who makes or interprets the laws, including the anti-union Janus decision.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;">THE SEEDS OF JANUS</h3>The effort to roll back union rights actually began almost a century ago, as wealthy industrialists objected to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, known as the Wagner Act, which enshrined the right to collective bargaining in the United States.Many tycoons of the time, like Alfred Sloan, head of General Motors, opposed those rights along with other business reforms of FDR’s New Deal.Fred Koch, co-founder of the corporation that later became Koch Industries, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Wichita-Brothers-Americas-Powerful/dp/B01LTHXJT6" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">harshly criticized American workers</a> under New Deal policies in 1938. He extolled the economic policies of Emperor Hirohito and fascists Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">Although nobody agrees with me, I am of the opinion that the only sound countries in the world are Germany, Italy, and Japan, simply because they are all working and working hard… The laboring people in those countries are proportionately much better off than they are any place else in the world. When you contrast the state of mind of Germany today with what it was in 1925 you begin to think that perhaps this course of idleness, feeding at the public trough, dependence on government, etc., with which we are afflicted is not permanent and can be overcome.</blockquote>Only recently, through the investigative work of Jane Mayer, has the public learned that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307947904/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_1?encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QFB6YX7BC9EZ3Y02VSEP" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">the Koch fortune was actually built in part on directly aiding Hitler</a> by building the oil-cracking factory that became “a key component in the Nazi war machine.” As Mayer noted in her 2016 book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, that factory <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13014/koch-daddy-and-nazis-revealing-timeline" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">refined high-octane fuel needed for the Luftwaffe</a>, which targeted, terrorized, and killed many thousands of innocent civilians. Fred Koch’s praise of Germany came after <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2015/12/30/inenglish/1451462698_825891.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Hitler’s air bombers helped murder 136 men, women, and children in Guernica</a> in the Basque region, a tragedy made famous by the mural painted by <a href="https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Pablo Picasso</a>.Meanwhile, industrialists like Sloan pursued efforts to undo New Deal reforms. In 1947, Congress amended the Wagner Act with the Taft-Hartley Act. It gave states the power to pass “right-to-work” laws that undermined collective bargaining by not requiring workers who benefit from bargained rights to pay dues to the unions that secured and enforced them.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;">HOW THE KOCHS FERTILIZED “RIGHT-TO-WORK”</h3>As Mayer noted:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">[Fred Koch] was an early and active member of the Wichita-based DeMille Foundation for Political Freedom, an anti-labor group [founded in 1945] that was a forerunner of the National Right to Work Defense Foundation. In a revealing private letter, one of its staff members explained the group’s ‘Astroturf’ strategy. In reality, he said, big-business industrialists would run the group, serving as its ‘anonymous quarterbacks,’ and ‘call the turns.’ But he said they needed to sell the ‘yarn’ that the group was ‘composed of housewives, farmers, small businessmen, professional people, wage earners-not big business industrialists.’ Otherwise, he admitted, the movement was ‘almost certainly doomed to failure.’</blockquote>By 1954, an engineer from Wichita, Kan., Reed Larson, took a leave from his job at the Coleman Company, to launch <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mmZkf7dselMC&pg=PA18714&lpg=PA18714&dq=%22Reed+Larson%22+%22temporary+leave%22&source=bl&ots=lzSBcfR-pD&sig=8bOKm0KpqTMXOdD1BJnKMFtu2wk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm6M7es-bAhVfHDQIHUnRB40Q6AEINjAC#v=onepage&q=%22Reed%20Larson%22%20%22temporary%20leave%22&f=false" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Kansans-for-the-Right-to-Work</a>. The following year, former Rep. Fred Hartley, Jr., (R-N.J.) co-founded the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC). By 1958, the NRTWC was targeting six states to adopt right-to-work laws but it failed in every place, except Kansas.“Fred [Koch] co-led a referendum drive to alter the state constitution in order to make it harder for unions to take root in Kansas,” Duke University Professor <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Democracy_in_Chains.html?id=iW4ADAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=snippet&q=Right-to-Work&f=false" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Nancy MacLean noted</a>.On Nov. 9, 1958, the New York Times reported that right-to-work won in Kansas <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/11/09/92655331.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">because</a> anti-union views had taken hold, noting:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">More campaign efforts and more money were expended on the emotion-provoking issue than on the campaigns of all Republican and Democratic state and Congressional candidates combined. … For the last 10 days or so before Election Day an organization called Kansans-for-the-Right-to-Work flooded newspapers, television channels and other advertising media with appeals to ‘vote yes.’ These by far outnumbered the ‘vote no’ advertisements of unions opposing the amending.</blockquote>A month later, Fred Koch joined Robert Welch and ten other men in Indianapolis to found the extreme rightwing group dubbed the “John Birch Society” (JBS).As the Washington Post noted in its 1961 profile of JBS:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">At the top of the Society’s structure in Wichita are several very wealthy industrialists. Oil engineer Fred Koch is president of the Rock Island Oil and Refining Co. A millionaire several times over, he is on the Society’s national council. … Wichita is the John Birch Society’s center of strength in Kansas, and one of its greatest in the country. … The leadership of the Birch Society overlaps heavily with the leadership of the organizations that successfully campaigned in 1958 for a right to work amendment to the State’s Constitution.</blockquote>As detailed by Group Research Inc. in its 1962 <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/files/rtw_group_research.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">history of JBS</a>, Koch worked with both NRTWC and the Christian Crusade in arguing against union dues like those at issue in the Janus case.A History of HostilityIn 1959, Fred Koch joined the Executive Committee to plan the JBS strategy to push back against what it viewed as communism in nearly every American institution.In 1960, Koch published his <a href="http://justtheevidence.blogspot.com/2014/08/an-american-businessman-looks-at.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">polemic “A Business Man Looks at Communism”</a> and distributed it to JBS chapters across the country. That pamphlet makes a variety of hysterical claims against unions, including:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">Labor Unions have long been a Communist goal. How far they have been penetrated by Communists I have no idea, but it must be very far indeed, judging the hatred andvenom poured out in some labor papers….</blockquote>Koch also accused the U.S. Supreme Court under former Gov. Earl Warren (R-CA) of issuing pro-Communist decisions, the universities of having thousands of Communist professors, the United Nations of being subversive, and former GOP President Dwight Eisenhower of being soft on Communism.Similar sentiments were expressed in numerous other publications the JBS also pushed. The organization pitched a screed against the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00685LGUY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">union workers who organized against Kohler</a> fixtures in Wisconsin. It pushed attacks on the UAW’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Reuther-autocrat-bargaining-Hardcover/dp/B003WBJIOI" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Walter Reuther</a>, who was posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.It published and peddled right-wing writer Rosalie Gordon’s <a href="http://www.thechristianidentityforum.net/downloads/Nine-Liberties.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">attack on the U.S. Supreme Court</a> for decisions enforcing collective bargaining rights as protecting the “labor-union monopoly,” along with what she called the “plague” of desegregation caused by Brown v. Board of Education.The JBS also pushed reprints of tomes by Ludwig von Mises attacking unions as <a href="http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/2200/Mies_1459_LFeBk.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">illegitimate intervenors</a> in the “free market,” <a href="https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Human%20Action_3.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">artificial inflators of wages</a> for workers, and <a href="https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/The%20Anti-Capitalistic%20Mentality_3.pdf?file=1&type=document" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">thieves of the profits of tycoons</a>. It promoted F.A. Hayek’s vilification of government regulation of corporations as leading to fascism and Hilaire du Berrier’s <a href="https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/biography/item/20110-passing-of-a-patriot" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">conspiracy theories</a> that American labor unions were supposedly using union dues to finance communist terrorist violence abroad.Fred Koch’s son Charles <a href="http://dizerega.com/gus-dizerega/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">urged</a> visitors to the John Birch Society bookstore in Wichita to read copies of JBS pamphlets, including those by anti-labor writers from the Austrian School of Economics, <a href="http://dizerega.com/gus-dizerega/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">like Mises</a>.Indeed, as the present author <a href="http://progressive.org/dispatches/like-dad-charles-koch-bircher-new-documents/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">first documented</a> for the Center for Media and Democracy, Charles Koch became active in JBS after returning home to Wichita to help with the family business. Charles was a leader and fundraiser for JBS, including underwriting its publications and national radio network, while it attacked collective bargaining and leaders of the civil rights movement such as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;">CHARLES KOCH IN ACTION</h3>Though he left JBS in 1968, Charles Koch never abandoned its core anti-union agenda and the lessons of his father’s commitment to right-to-work. He did try to shed some of the rhetoric around communist conspiracies, though of late he was painted by Koch political strategist Richard Fink as a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/koch-brothers-recording_n_5757592.html?1409750594" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">martyr against “collectivism</a>,” in audio obtained by the Undercurrent, which also included outlandish claims linking fascism and the minimum wage.It was Charles Koch’s investment in lifting up the work of Mises and Hayek, who made similar claims, that helped preserve and extend their legacy. As Stephen Moore noted in a 2006 <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114687252956545543" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">profile on Charles</a> for the Wall Street Journal:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">The authors who have had the most profound influence on his own political philosophy include <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZBXFeAj5lM" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">F.A. Hayek</a>, Ludwig von Mises, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Simon, Paul Johnson and Charles Murray. Mr. Koch says that he experienced an intellectual epiphany in the early 1960s, when he attended a conference on free-market capitalism hosted by the late, great Leonard Reed.</blockquote>Charles brought Mises to Wichita to speak and <a href="https://mises.org/library/ihs-and-rebirth-austrian-economics-some-reflections-1974%E2%80%931976" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">deployed F.A. “Baldy” Harper’s Institute for Humane Studies</a> (IHS) to promote Mises and his protégé Hayek. As lauded by Reed’s Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Hayek <a href="https://fee.org/articles/hayek-on-the-rule-of-law-and-unions/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">argued that unions violated the very idea of the “rule of law”</a> and that the Wagner Act was central to that violation, a sentiment he promoted in numerous writings.Charles Koch is deeply devoted to an alternative universe in which collective bargaining undermines the rule of law and is not a major cause of increased wages.Moore <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114687252956545543" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">noted</a> in his interview:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">As we continue, Mr. Koch becomes increasingly animated. He discusses another seminal work in his collection, F.A. Harper’s 1957 Why Wages Rise. The book demonstrates ‘that wages rise not because of unions or government action, but because of marginal productivity gains — people get more money when they produce more value for other people.’ Then he confides, “I was so thrilled by this revelation that I had what Maslow called a ‘peak experience.’'”</blockquote>Koch has also supported the NRTWC, which “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pQ4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140&dq=sought+to+put+a+new+face+on+the+anti-union+campaign+by+building+its+rhetoric+on+the+arguments+of+Hayek&source=bl&ots=qETvylyYue&sig=7UMKva7cgTiU9T9ZQ9ToQiagSgw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicgJmty_DbAhXiIjQIHetuAD4Q6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=sought%20to%20put%20a%20new%20face%20on%20the%20anti-union%20campaign%20by%20building%20its%20rhetoric%20on%20the%20arguments%20of%20Hayek&f=false" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">sought to put a new face on the anti-union campaign by building its rhetoric on the arguments of Hayek, Mises, and others</a> with a ‘respectable’ pedigree.” The NRTWC argues that:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">Compulsory unionism itself violates the dignity of the individual worker, regardless of how the forced union tribute is spent. As the late Nobel Prize-winning economist <a href="https://cafehayek.com/2014/01/hayek-on-unions.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Friedrich A. von Hayek</a> wrote: “[T]he coercion which unions have been permitted to exercise … is primarily the coercion of fellow workers.</blockquote>Deep Devotion and InvestmentHayek and Mises are not the only two virulently anti-union economists Charles Koch backed. As Nancy MacLean documented in Democracy in Chains, one of the key architects of the Koch agenda domestically and internationally, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533763/democracy-in-chains-by-nancy-maclean/9781101980972/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">James Buchanan</a>, also railed against the so-called “union monopolies” for distorting “free market” wages.And, as <a href="http://www.unkochmycampus.org/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">UnKoch My Campus</a> has detailed, Koch money has funded scores of academics to push their agenda at universities, buying control over content and personnel with restrictive dictates attached to their donations.Many of the rightwing groups Charles Koch is known to have made a major investment in since the 1970s have pushed right-to-work or attacked collective bargaining rights. These include <a href="http://reason.com/archives/1975/11/01/trends/print" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Reason</a> magazine, the <a href="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2010/1/cj30n1-9.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Cato Institute</a>, <a href="https://americansforprosperity.org/setting-record-straight-right-work-janus-v-afscme/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Americans for Prosperity</a>, the <a href="https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Right_to_Work_Act_Exposed" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>, the <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">State Policy Network</a> and many more.During David Koch’s 1980 bid to become vice president, running on the ticket of Libertarian Ed Clark—which was pushed by Charles and fueled with Koch cash—the campaign platform included <a href="https://lpedia.org/1980_National_Platform" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">making right-to-work the law of the land</a>:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">[W]e urge repeal of the National Labor Relations Act, and all state Right to Work Laws, which prohibit employers from making voluntary contracts with unions. We oppose all government back-to-work orders as imposing a form of forced labor.</blockquote>That is, there would be no need for state right-to-work laws if there were no NLRA that protects collective bargaining rights. As a result, right-to-work would be effectively nationalized at the determination of the employer.After badly losing that election, the Kochs have invested heavily in changing the culture—and courts of America—to make their anti-union vision a reality.Right-to-work is part of that vision.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;">MILLIONS SPENT</h3>A leak of the Kochs’ summer retreat in 2010 revealed that they <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/memo-health-insurance-banking-oil-industries-met-with-koch-chamber-glenn-beck-to-plot-2010-election-3c1a0908a245/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">featured NRTWC leaders at their gathering of billionaires</a> to plot plans for that year’s midterm elections.In 2012, before most of America even knew that the Kochs had branded their billionaire conclave as “Freedom Partners,” that group <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/national-right-to-work-committee/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">injected $1 million directly into the NRTWC</a> among the more than $200 million of its known spending that cycle.In 2016, they <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/10/16/koch-brothers-gop-senate/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">focused</a> much of their known political spending on keeping a GOP majority in the Senate, and they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/04/05/gop-senator-more-convinced-than-ever-that-garland-should-get-hearing/?utm_term=.4007c477ab73" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">influenced</a> the make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court by helping to block Judge Merrick Garland’s confirmation.For the 2018 election, they’ve pledged to spend more than $400 million through the Seminar Network, the latest rebranding of their network of tycoons.To be clear, the Koch family fortune is not the only one that has been expended pushing right-to-work laws to try to weaken the power of ordinary people to negotiate through unions. A major funder of right-to-work effort has been the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, along with Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which Mother Jones has dubbed “the ATM” of the right wing.Collective bargaining has provided women with greater economic opportunities and job security. Right-to-work laws also have a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/26/17053328/janus-afscme-supreme-court-unions-minorities" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">disproportionate impact on people of color,</a> who are union members at a higher rate than whites. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/black-women-will-be-most-affected-by-janus/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Black women will likely be the group most adversely affected</a> by the Janus case. Notably, workers in <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-states-have-lower-wages/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">right-to-work states also have lower wages</a> than in states that have rejected this agenda.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;">UNDERMINING PROGRESSIVES TOO</h3>The spread of right to work through Janus also will affect our elections.As In These Times has documented with the Center for Media and Democracy, the national push for right-to-work is designed to <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">undermine</a> the power of unions and to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">defang and defund</a>” them as a way to weaken the chances for progressives to win in politics and policy.The Koch investment in making right-to-work a national reality represents one of the longest and deepest commitments to this agenda, aside from NRTWC itself.And this year marks the 60th anniversary of Fred Koch’s victory of making right-to-work legally binding in Kansas.Now, six decades later, Charles Koch has helped make his father’s wish binding on the rest of America through helping to make the Janus ruling a reality.<hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 1px; overflow: visible; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;" />Lisa Gravesref 1962 memo:<a href="https://www.prwatch.org/files/rtw_group_research.pdf">https://www.prwatch.org/files/rtw_group_research.pdf</a>Ties to Other Groups: Employer MAR 2 5 1963 23Chamber of Commerce UNIVFRSITY OF CALIFORNIA 23BERKELEY National Association of Manufacture 27American Farm Bureau Federation 29XIL Ties to Other Groups: Right-Wing Political 30John Birch Society 31Other Right-Wing groups- 32American Enterprise As oc. ; Arkansas Free EnterpriseAssoc. ; Christian Crusade; Christian Freedom Foundation;Christianity To ; Committee for Constitutional Govern.ment; Council for Individual Freedom; Kent and PhoebeCourtney; DeMille Foundation for Political Freedom; HeritageFoundation; Human Events; Labor Policy Assoc.; ManionForum; Nat'l Labor-Management Foundatio7n-o Nat'l Right toWork Federation; Young Americans for Freedom.<div>...</div><div><div>...</div><div> THE NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK COMMITTEE</div><div>1025 Connecticut Avenue, N. W.</div><div>Washington 6, D. C.</div><div>With major references to other leading groups on the "right-to-work"</div><div>front.</div><div>Background of the "Right-to-Work" Movement</div><div>The current so-called "right-to-work" movement is merely the latest</div><div>phase in the long-standing opposition of employer groups to such forms</div><div>of union security as the closed shop and the union shop. In the period</div><div>of the 1920's and '30's the preferred public relations title for the open</div><div>shop movement was "American Plan. " Since the 1940's it has been</div><div>"right-to-work. " Just who originated the latter term is not certain.</div><div>At least as early as 1935, the Automobile Manufacturers Association</div><div>was stating, as part of its opposition to the Wagner Act, that "men</div><div>have an inalienable right to work, free from coercion . .. "('if. Y.</div><div>Times 4/7/35 quoted in John G. Shott, How "Right-to-Work" Laws Are</div><div>Passed, Public Affairs Institute, 1956) The National Association of</div><div>Manufacturers referred in 1939 to "the right to work or not to work</div><div>."(N. Y. Times 12/3/39 quoted in ibid.) Possibly the first to</div><div>use the term as a full-blown slogan was Vance Muse, a professional</div><div>right-winger whose activities dated back to before the First World War.</div><div>In 1936, Muse was an organizer of the Christian American Association,</div><div>Inc., an anti-Negro, anti-Semitic group which had as an affiliate something</div><div>called "the Right to Work Union. " (See 1945 membership card reproduced</div><div>in John Roy Carlson's The Plotters, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1946,</div><div>p. 267)</div><div>In Arkansas and Florida</div><div>...</div><div>
</div><div>In Arkansas and Florida-the first two states to adopt "right-to-work"</div><div>laws-the Christian American Association and a related group called the</div><div>Veterans Industrial Association both played important roles. As noted,</div><div>a prime mover in the first group was Vance Muse, of Houston, Texas.</div><div>Muse was a protege of John Henry Kirby, oil and lumberman and onetime</div><div>President of the N.A. M. Among the Kirby-Muse organizational</div><div>enterprises were the American Taxpayers' League, the National Council</div><div>of State Legislators, the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution,</div><div>and the Southern Tariff Association. While their funds frequently came</div><div>from such big names as John J. Raskob, Alfred P. Sloan and the duPonts</div><div>(all prominent anti-Roosevelt Liberty Leaguers), Kirby and Muse were</div><div>not above joining forces with the dean of American anti-Semites, Gerald</div><div>L. K. Smith. (See George Wolfskill, The Revolt of the Conservatives,</div><div>Houghton-Mifflin, 1962, pp. 175-8, 234 and 240-2)</div><div>Sec 4 - SPECIAL #12</div><div>The Veterans Industrial Association was founded in 1946 by an Arkansan,</div><div>James T. Karam. It appears to have worked closely with the Vance</div><div>Muse organization in the early period. (See Arkansas Gazette 6/16/46)</div><div>The Karam group operated as a strike-breaking organization, among</div><div>other things, and talked about "The Communist-dominated labor unions"</div><div>and " 'foreign' labor bosses." (Advertisement in Arkansas Gazette 3/3/46</div><div>and materials reproduced in Carlson, op. cit., p. 263. See also N. Y.</div><div>Times 8/26/46) It had the support and cooperation of George S. Benson,</div><div>President of Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas, an outstanding figure</div><div>in today's right wing. (See advertisement in Arkansas Gazette 2/21/46</div><div>and Carlson, op. cit., pp. 265-6)</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>...The Christian American Association was credited with being a major</div><div>sponsor of the successful "right-to-work" campaign in Arkansas in 1944.</div><div>(N. Y. Times 11/8/44 and St. Louis Post-Dispatch 10/17/46) The Veterans</div><div>Industrial Association organized a branch in Florida to assist in the</div><div>campaign to enforce the new law there, coming at the specific invitation</div><div>of the state's Attorney-General, who had been a leading proponent of the</div><div>1944 adoption of a "right-to-work" amendment in Florida. (Miami Herald</div><div>5/24/46 cited in Shott, op. cit.) Both organizations have since disappeared</div><div>from the scene.</div><div>
</div><div>Two years after Florida and Arkansas had adopted "right-to-work" anelidments,</div><div>three more states followed suit: Arizona, Nebraska and South</div><div>Dakota. The following year, which also saw the passage of Taft-Hartley</div><div>with its Section 14(ki) invitation to state action in the field of union security,</div><div>no less than six more states adopted such laws: Georgia, Iowa, North</div><div>Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. In 1948, North Dakota was</div><div>belatedly added to the list. A-three-year gap intervened before the next</div><div>state (Nevada in 1952) adopted a "right-to-work" law. Alabama did so</div><div>in 1953 and in 1954 Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina put such a</div><div>law on the books (Louisiana narrowed its act to cover only agricultural</div><div>workers in 1956). Thus, as the National Right to Work Committee was</div><div>being formally established, 17 states - 11 southern and 6 others</div><div>already had "right-to-work" laws.</div><div>Formation of the National Right to Work Committee was announced in</div><div>January, 1955 by E. S. Dillard, then President of the Old Dominion Box</div><div>Co. of Charlotte, N. C., and Fred A. Hartley, Jr., former Congress--</div><div>man (R-N. J.) and co-sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act. The purpose of the</div><div>group was a "national educational and information program" against "comen!</div><div>pulsory unionism, " by which was meant the union shop. (See Wall Street</div><div>Journal 1/31/55)</div><div>The announcement was not unexpected. Republican Secretary of Labor</div><div>James Mitchell's condemnation a month earlier of "moves by employer</div><div>groups to form a national organization dedicated to the adoption of</div><div>...</div></div>sarah arnold whistleblower<article id="post-2073" class="clearfix post-2073 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-campaign-spending category-elections category-news category-politics tag-2018-legislature tag-american-tradition-partnership tag-art-wittich tag-commissioner-of-political-practices tag-dark-money tag-frank-garner tag-jonathan-motl tag-montana-citizens-for-right-to-work tag-montana-politics top-term-post_tag-2018-legislature featured-media featured-media-image" style="margin-bottom: 24px; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(170, 170, 170); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="entry-content" style="margin-bottom: 24px;"><h2 class="entry-title" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; line-height: 1.1; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><a href="https://montanafreepress.org/right-to-work-shady-activities/" title="Permalink to Complaint: dark money Right to Work group engaged in illegal political activities" rel="bookmark" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Complaint: dark money Right to Work group engaged in illegal political activities</a></h2>Republican Kalispell Rep. Frank Garner files complaint against group, which was at the center of allegations of illegal third-party influence in state primaries in 2008, 2010 and 2012March 12, 2018 | <a href="https://montanafreepress.org/right-to-work-shady-activities/" title="https://montanafreepress.org/right-to-work-shady-activities/" rel="" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">https://montanafreepress.org/right-to-work-shady-activities/</a></div></article><article id="post-1519" class="clearfix post-1519 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-campaign-spending category-corruption category-elections category-government category-news category-politics featured-media featured-media-image" style="margin-bottom: 24px; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(170, 170, 170); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="entry-content" style="margin-bottom: 24px;"><h2 class="entry-title" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; line-height: 1.1; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><a href="https://montanafreepress.org/former-right-to-work-staffers-take-stand-in-wittich-trial/" title="Permalink to Former Right to Work Staffers Take Stand in Wittich Trial" rel="bookmark" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Former Right to Work Staffers Take Stand in Wittich Trial</a></h2>Sarah (Anderson) Arnold, a former Right to Work employee, fields questions from Quentin Rhoades, Rep. Art Wittich’s attorney.March 29, 2016 | <a href="https://montanafreepress.org/former-right-to-work-staffers-take-stand-in-wittich-trial/" title="https://montanafreepress.org/former-right-to-work-staffers-take-stand-in-wittich-trial/" rel="" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">https://montanafreepress.org/former-right-to-work-staffers-take-stand-in-wittich-trial/</a></div></article><article id="post-1485" class="clearfix post-1485 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-campaign-spending category-corruption category-elections category-government category-news category-politics tag-mtleg tag-mtpol tag-art-wittich tag-atp tag-campaign-finance tag-commissioner-of-political-practices tag-corruption tag-courts tag-dark-money tag-jonathan-motl tag-political-speech tag-quentin-rhoades tag-wtp featured-media featured-media-image" style="margin-bottom: 24px; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(170, 170, 170); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="entry-content" style="margin-bottom: 24px;"><h2 class="entry-title" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; line-height: 1.1; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><a href="https://montanafreepress.org/wittich-corruption-trial-underway/" title="Permalink to Wittich Corruption Trial Underway" rel="bookmark" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Wittich Corruption Trial Underway</a></h2>By John S. Adams, Editor-in-ChiefHELENA — A highly anticipated civil trial to determine whether Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich violated campaign practice laws during his 2010 primary campaign got underway in Helena on Monday.March 28, 2016 | <a href="https://montanafreepress.org/wittich-corruption-trial-underway/" title="https://montanafreepress.org/wittich-corruption-trial-underway/" rel="" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">https://montanafreepress.org/wittich-corruption-trial-underway/</a></div></article><a href="https://montanafreepress.org/documents-detail-right-to-works-involvement-in-montana-elections/">https://montanafreepress.org/documents-detail-right-to-works-involvement-in-montana-elections/</a>1/16<article id="post-1222" class="hnews item post-1222 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-campaign-spending category-corruption category-elections category-government category-news category-politics tag-2008-gop-primary tag-2010-gop-primary tag-2012-gop-primary tag-allison-lefer tag-american-tradition-partnership tag-art-wittich tag-atp tag-campaign-finance tag-christian-lefer tag-citizens-united tag-dimitri-kesari tag-direct-mail-and-communications tag-jedd-coburn tag-jonathan-motl tag-montana-citizens-for-right-to-work tag-national-right-to-work-committee tag-smart-simple-campaigns tag-western-tradition-partnership tag-wtp top-term-post_tag-2008-gop-primary featured-media featured-media-image" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Article" style=""><section class="entry-content clearfix" itemprop="articleBody" style="margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px 278.203px;">HELENA – Thousands of newly uncovered documents and recently filed court records bolster the already mounting evidence tying the anti-union<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiskv_cvcjKAhXCkQ8KHWrrA5IQFggpMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnrtwc.org%2F&usg=AFQjCNEtxHcoY5xlKYXH9kQf8guj_IRfZw&sig2=WbHesVP0UpX5BxMfivN_dw" style=""> National Right to Work Committee</a> to the political activities of conservative nonprofit groups <a href="http://missoulian.com/news/local/american-tradition-partnership-documents-suggest-illegal-coordination-with-gop/article_6c20c00e-223a-11e2-87db-001a4bcf887a.html" style="">accused of improperly coordinating </a>Republican legislative primary campaigns in Montana.Emails, documents, and affidavits recently obtained by Montana’s <a href="http://www.politicalpractices.mt.gov/default.mcpx" style="">commissioner of political practices</a> paint a detailed picture of how the national anti-union group oversaw the activities of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tradition_Partnership" style="">American Tradition Partnership</a>, the group at the center of allegations of illegal third-party influence in Montana Republican primary campaigns in 2008, 2010, and 2012.The National Right to Work Committee is a 501(c)4 “social welfare” group that, <a href="https://www.irs.gov/Charities-%26-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Social-Welfare-Organizations" style="">according to the IRS</a>, is not supposed to engage in “direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”<aside class="scaip scaip-1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Tens of thousands of pages of emails obtained by Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl show a link between top NRTWC officials and political campaign activities in Montana.A former NRTWC employee said in a sworn affidavit filed in Helena District Court that NRTWC staff was relocated to Montana to work on the 2010 primary campaign and their work was overseen by the political director of the national organization, Dimitri Kesari. Emails provided to Motl show that National Right to Work executive director Jedd Coburn was in regular communication with the groups doing political work in Montana and provided text for candidates’ campaign materials.Motl said this latest trove of information is significant because it proves ATP was not acting as independent issue advocacy organizations, as the groups claimed, but were instead part of a massive, coordinated campaign machine funded by an out-of state organization with the goal of changing the make-up of the Montana Legislature.<aside class="scaip scaip-2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="attachment_1228" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 6px 20px 12px 0px; float: left; max-width: 488px;">Christian LeFer as he appears on his Twitter profile.</div>“Christian LeFer was here as a field operative for National Right to Work. Once you get there, then National Right to Work’s central role is more apparent,” Motl said. “I don’t think you can underestimate the significance, or the threat, that a coordinated, funded, centralized corporate-take-over of candidates poses (to elections).”Motl said in 2008, when Western Tradition Partnership first emerged on the scene in Montana, and in 2010 when the group changed its name to American Tradition Partnership, most people, including a previous commissioner of political practices, believed the group was an independent entity.“You can see from looking at all of these documents that it wasn’t,” Motl said.A spokesman for the National Right to Work Committee did not return multiple phone calls or emails seeking comment for this story. Christian LeFer, who was the director of Montana Citizens for Right to work and ran two political nonprofits in Montana, also did not respond to email inquiries.According to a <a href="http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=selectfields" style="">U.S. Senate lobbying disclosure database</a>, NRTWC spent more than $42 million between 1999 and 2016 lobbying the Senate to pass a national “Right to Work” bill. Dimitri Kesari was one of the group’s top lobbyists in Washington, D.C., during most of that period. Montana is one of the few Western states without a “right-to-work” law. Such laws prohibit labor unions from requiring employees to join the union or pay dues as a condition of employment.LeFer’s Montana nonprofit group Western Tradition Partnership made national headlines in 2012 when <a href="http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/big-sky-big-money/story/documents-found-meth-house-bare-inner-workings-dar/" style="">Frontline and ProPublica reported about boxes of documents</a> that revealed how the organization coordinated with Republican legislative candidates.<div id="attachment_1246" class="wp-caption module image alignright" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 6px 0px 12px 20px; float: right; max-width: 353px;">Western Tradition Partnership in 2010 changed its name to American Tradition Partnership.</div>WTP is also the group that <a href="http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/MT-expenditures-decision.pdf" style="">successfully sued the state in 2011</a> and eventually <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2012/0625/Supreme-Court-strikes-down-Montana-law-reaffirming-Citizens-United" style="">overturned Montana’s 100-year-old ban on corporate spending</a> in elections.Former staffers and interns who worked for WTP, its successor group American Tradition Partnership, and Christian and Allison LeFer, the Colorado couple who ran those organizations and a host of other political groups, turned over thousands of emails to Motl as part of an investigation leading up to a civil lawsuit.<a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/politics/new-cache-of-wtp-emails-preview-arguments-coming-in-wittich/article_d8ee4df6-272e-5727-959c-e9f547a781f1.html" style="">Motl is suing Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich</a> in Helena District Court, alleging Wittich broke Montana campaign finance laws by accepting illegal corporate campaign contributions. Motl alleges WTP/ATP and other groups provided coordinated campaign services to Wittich and other conservative Republican candidates at little or no cost to the candidates.Wittich has denied the allegations, saying he paid for the services he was provided. He has accused Motl of engaging in a “<a href="http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2015/12/22/wittich-motl-tussle-continues/77776142/" style="">political witch hunt</a>.”That case is scheduled to go to jury trial March 28.Motl made the email documents available for inspection by reporters in response to a series of public information requests from the Montana Free Press and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.Some of the documents in the emails tying NRTWC to WTP/ATP’s Montana primary campaign activities include:<ul style="margin: 0px 0px 24px 25px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;">Emails showing NRTWC’s executive director, Jedd Coburn, wrote the text of “issue letters” on behalf of Montana Republican legislative candidates;</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;">Emails showing Christian and Allison LeFer, a.k.a. Allie Andrews, and their staff were in regular communication with Coburn and other NRTWC staff and officers regarding WTP/ATP campaign activities;</li><li style="margin-bottom: 12px;">Emails showing that Dimitri Kesari, who was the director of NRTWC’s government affairs department, conducted candidate training seminars in Bozeman for ATP-vetted candidates, and a “Campaign Training School” in a Chicago suburb for NRTWC field staff, which Christian LeFer attended;</li><li style="margin-bottom: 12px;">Emails showing the LeFers and other WTP/ATP staff worked with Kesari on various projects, including a candidate “target list”;</li><li style="margin-bottom: 12px;">Written statements indicating that ATP/WTP staffers were paid by NRTWC, and that Kesari “ultimately cuts checks” to LeFer and other ATP staffers;</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;">A sworn affidavit by former NRTWC employee Dennis Fusaro stating that NRTWC sent four staffers to Montana to work for LeFer in 2010;</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;">A sworn statement by Fusaro that the NRTWC staff, provided “labor, skilled services (e.g. computer work, copy writing), printing, mail preparation, and equipment usage for the benefit of candidates at reduced costs and even, at times, free.”</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;">A sworn statement by Fusaro that NRTWC ran, and paid for, a direct mail program and conducted phone banking on behalf of candidates;</li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 12px;">Emails showing that NRTWC communications director Jeremy Dahl provided “walk lists” and “issue id’d lists” and other valuable voter information to candidates.</li></ul><div id="attachment_1249" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 6px 20px 12px 0px; float: left; max-width: 401px;">Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl identifies an email that NRTWC executive director Jedd Coburn sent to Allison LeFer containing text to be used for candidate “issue letters.” Photo by John S. Adams/Montana Free Press.</div>Many of the highlights of the emails come from Andrew O’Neill, a staffer who worked on graphics and website design on behalf of WTP/ATP and the various campaign services corporations run by the LeFers.A review of the emails indicates O’Neill was deeply involved in the day-to-day operations of the organizations centered on GOP legislative campaigns. The emails indicate O’Neill and other WTP/ATP staffers had regular communication with the LeFers and high-level NRTWC officials surrounding the campaigns of Republican legislative candidates.In one of the emails, a document details the offerings of a turn-key campaign operation called Smart Simple Campaigns which says: “EVERYTHING BELOW WE DO FOR INVITEES IS FREE OR AT COST.”In another email, Christian LeFer invited 26 Republican legislative candidates to candidate training seminar in Bozeman.“Your campaign’s effectiveness and your ability to recruit volunteers, and fundraise will immensely benefit, money-back guaranteed,” the email states, adding, “Please do not forward…”Motl said that is the main problem with the operation: The NRTWC-affiliated groups in Montana provided services and labor to certain candidates without disclosing what was done or how much was spent. In some cases, the documents show, those groups gave away those services for free.“The significant thing for Montanans is that in the 2010 Montana Republican primary elections, there was a group that consistently sought privacy with the candidates it was working with, and provided those candidates services that were compensated by paid professional staff with the payment being from the National Right to Work Committee to those staff people,” Motl said. “Those paid staff provided sophisticated, targeted voter id lists for the legislative districts that candidates were running in. They provided walking lists for the candidates. They did graphics for the candidates; they built websites. And the candidates didn’t pay for it.”<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Andrew O’Neill’s emails</h2><h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">2,101 pages selected from some 14,000 pages submitted to Motl</h4><div id="DV-viewer-2693100-Complete-File-From-Motl" class="DV-container" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 8px;"><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Dennis Fusaro’s affidavit</h2><div id="DV-viewer-2698141-2015-01-16-Dennis-Fusaro-Affidavit" class="DV-container" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 8px;"></div></div></aside></aside></section></article><div class="article-bottom nocontent" style="margin: 0px 249.234px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><aside id="largo-author-widget-2" class="widget widget-1 odd default largo-author clearfix" style="margin-bottom: 24px;"><div class="author-box row-fluid author vcard clearfix" style="width: 965.797px; clear: both; margin: 0px;"><h3 class="widgettitle" style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.3; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.12rem; z-index: 30;">ABOUT <a class="url" href="https://montanafreepress.org/author/jadam984/" rel="author" title="See all posts by John S. Adams" style="text-decoration-line: none;">JOHN S. ADAMS</a></h3></div></aside></div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://montanafreepress.org/2018/03/12/right-to-work-shady-activities/</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">no lmx many</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CAMPAIGN SPENDING / ELECTIONS / NEWS / POLITICS / MARCH 12, 2018</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Complaint: Dark Money Right to Work Group Engaged in Illegal Political Activities</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Republican Kalispell Rep. Frank Garner files complaint against group, which was at the center of allegations of illegal third-party influence in state primaries in 2008, 2010 and 2012</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">HELENA — A group at the center of one of the biggest elections scandals in modern Montana history is actively engaged in the 2018 election, while hiding its activities and spending, according to a complaint filed with state elections regulators.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kalispell Republican Rep. Frank Garner said in a complaint filed March 6 with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices that a field operative for Montana Citizens for Right to Work is actively recruiting candidates to run against him in House District 7. Garner said that activity is illegal because the group has not registered with state elections officials as required by law.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kalispell Republican Rep. Frank Garner filed a complaint against an operative for Montana Citizens for Right to Work for what he says are illegal campaign activities. Courtesy photo.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It appears as if these groups are back and are trying to corrupt our election system once again,” Garner wrote in his complaint.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The complaint stems from a meeting that Montana Citizens for Right to Work assistant director Al Chan allegedly held on Feb. 28 in Kalispell with members of the Flathead County Libertarian Party. According to Kalispell resident Dan Nelson, who said he was at the meeting, the purpose of the confab was for Chan to recruit candidates to run against Garner in the June 5 Republican primary. Nelson later provided Garner with a detailed written account of the meeting, which Garner attached to the complaint.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Al [Chan] said he did not like Garner and talked about him being a liberal and listed off several bills Garner either supported or was against in what seemed to be a negative fashion,” Nelson stated in his account. “Only one of the bills and issue [sic] he talked about as it was related to Garner was related to the Right to Work issue. Al said he also had a personal beef with Frank Garner and implied he had met him before and didn’t like him. Al did not specify what his issue was or why.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner said in an interview that Chan contacted him in February and tried to set up a meeting. Garner said he refused to meet with Chan because of Right to Work’s shady history with Montana elections.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan did not return multiple requests for comment via phone and email.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Calls and emails to Randy Pope, executive director of the Belgrade-based Montana Citizens for Right to Work, also went unanswered.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Montana Citizens for Right to Work, along with its national affiliate, the National Right to Work Committee, was at the center of wide-ranging political corruption scandal in Montana covering the 2008 to 2012 election cycles. Tens of thousands of pages of documents obtained by the state Commissioner of Political Practices revealed how the national anti-union group oversaw the activities of American Tradition Partnership, the group at the center of allegations of illegal third-party influence in Montana Republican primary campaigns in 2008, 2010 and 2012.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl reviews documents in the basement of his Helena office that connect the National Right to Work Committee to political campaign activities in Montana during the 2010 Republican primary election. Photo by John S. Adams, Montana Free Press.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The lengthy investigation spanned years and resulted in former Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl in 2014 pursuing nine Republican candidates on allegations of illegal coordination and failure to report campaign contributions stemming from the 2010 Republican primary elections.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Five Republican plaintiffs eventually settled with Motl, and two others had default judgments entered against them. The settlements and judgments included financial penalties and signed admissions by some of the candidates that they violated state elections laws by illegally coordinating with third-party political groups.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich, was among those who faced illegal coordination allegations.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">After a protracted legal battle, Wittich faced a four-day trial in the spring of 2016 that featured testimony from former Right to Work staffers who helped run the network of private and non-profit companies involved in the massive campaign scheme.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the trial’s conclusion, a jury found Wittich broke Montana law by illegally coordinating with Right to Work-connected groups during his 2010 Senate primary campaign. A judge ordered Wittich to pay $68,232.58 in fines. In a 5-0 decision in August 2017, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the jury’s verdict.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">One final candidate, Terry Bannan, of Belgrade, is still facing allegations of illegal campaign coordination stemming from the 2010 Right to Work scandal. Wittich is representing Bannan in those legal proceedings.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Commissioner of Political Practices is currently suing Montana Citizens for Right to Work and its affiliated organizations for their alleged illegal activities in the 2010 and 2012 elections cycles. That case has not yet been scheduled for trial.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Documents obtained by the Montana Free Press indicate that Montana Citizens for Right to Work has been actively participating in Montana elections since as far back as2008. However, state records show the organization has not registered with the Commissioner of Political Practices, nor has it reported any political activities or election-related spending since at least 2012.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Under Montana campaign finance laws, political committees must file a statement of organization “within five days after appointing a campaign treasurer or making an expenditure to support or oppose a candidate or ballot issue, whichever occurs first.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The extent of Montana Citizens for Right to Work’s political activities during the six years is unclear, but evidence obtained by the Montana Free Press suggests the group was spending money on election-related activity in the state.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Page 186 of Documents detail Right to Work's involvement in MT DocumentCloud</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Page 186 of Documents detail Right to Work's involvement in MT</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Contributed to DocumentCloud by John Adams of Montana Free Press • View document</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Anonymous hit counter for DocumentCloud</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On his LinkedIn page — which as of March 6 had been removed from the popular professional networking website — Al Chan listed his job as “Assistan [sic] Executive Director at Montana Citizens For Right To Work,” a Bozeman-based position he stated he has held since January.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan’s LinkedIn profile also stated he worked for the National Right to Work Committee out of Bozeman from August 2014 through December 2014. Chan lists his work experience during that time as “strategic campaign consulting, executing campaign strategies, and secur[ing] pledges from state House/Senate candidates via survey program.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">[Editor’s Note: See DocumentCloud viewer at the bottom of this story to examine additional documents, including Chan’s résumé.]</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan previously worked for the National Right to Work Committee in Washington state from April 2016 to January 2018, according to his online resume, which was also recently removed.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan also listed a three-and-a-half-month stint as a “Right to Work Committee” field staffer based in Manhattan, Montana during the 2014 election season.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">According to his resume, as a Montana field staffer in 2014, Chan:</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Met with candidates for state house and senate for the purposes of candidate recruitment and candidate vetting”;</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Secured pledges to support Right-to-Work legislation from state house/senate candidates via a survey program”;</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Facilitated mass communications with pro-Right-to-Work voters in targeted state house/senate districts via direct mail.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chan also listed having worked as a Livingston-based Right to Work field staffer from Sept. 2 to Nov. 15, 2012, during which time he “facilitated mass communications with pro-Right-to-Work voters in targeted state house/senate districts via direct mail.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Right to Work was not registered as a political committee, and none of these activities were reported to the state, according to Commissioner of Political Practices records.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sarah Arnold, a former Right to Work staffer, testifies during the 2016 trial of Art Wittich, a former Republican lawmaker a jury found illegally coordinated with the organization during his 2010 Senate primary campaign. Photo courtesy Kim Reed. </div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sarah Arnold, a former Right to Work staffer who provided in-depth testimony about the inner workings of the Right to Work campaign machine during the Wittich trial, said in an interview Friday that it’s inconceivable Chan could have executed the tasks he claims to have done in Montana in 2012 and 2014 without spending money.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It sounds to me like they’re asking for another complaint,” Arnold said when reached Friday at her home in Colorado. “They [Right to Work] are clearly trying to do something under the radar, which is shifty. This definitely sounds to me like they’re trying to keep things hidden, given their previous work.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Arnold said when she worked for Right to Work, direct mail survey campaigns alone cost upward of 60 cents per mail piece. That cost did not include time and labor expenses, Arnold said.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“You can’t do direct mail without spending money,” Arnold said. “At minimum you have to pay for postage and printing.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Federal tax records indicate that salaries were paid to Montana Citizens for Right to Work employees by a group called Conservative Action League, which lists its address as a post office box in Springfield, Virginia.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Montana Citizens for Right to Work sends out surveys like this one to candidates running for office. The group then uses the responses to the survey to vet candidates and attack candidates who don’t respond or don’t support “Right to Work’s” agenda, according to former Right ot Work staffers. Courtesy photo.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">According to IRS 990 records, Conservative Action League received $820,000 from the National Right to Work Committee between 2014 and 2016. IRS 990 records for 2017 were not immediately available.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s unclear how much money the Conservative Action League spent in Montana in salaries or other grants. According to records from 2014 and 2015, the group paid at least $154,182 to “Western States Right to Work,” which is the group that includes Montana Citizens for Right to Work.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Arnold said when she worked in Montana for the Right to Work-affiliated groups she was paid directly by the National Right to Work Committee.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I’m not sure why they would put it through another group unless the other group is trying to hide something,” Arnold said.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner was not aware of the group’s source of funding until contacted by the Montana Free Press.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“People have to decide if they want to be represented by citizen legislators — people they see in the street or in their grocery store every day — or if they want to be represented by dark money groups funded out of a P.O. Box in Virginia,” Garner said. “That’s why I felt I had to bring this information to the commissioner. This isn’t my first run-in with dark money groups, but this is my first complaint. Enough is enough.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Americans for Prosperity went door to door on March 3 handing out flyers criticizing Kalispell Republican Rep. Frank Garner for his support of increasing the gas tax to help fund highway construction. Photo: AFP-Montana’s Facebook page.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner has been in the crosshairs of dark money political groups since 2015, his freshman year in the House.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In February of that year, in the midst of the legislative session, the Koch Brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity held a “town hall” meeting in Garner’s district and didn’t invite the lawmaker to attend. According to the Flathead Beacon, a crowd of about 100 people attended the event at the Red Lion Inn in Kalispell. Some of them received word about the gathering through the postcard mailers, which read, “Tell Frank Garner to stand with us and vote no on ObamaCare’s expansion in Montana.”</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner came under attack from AFP again over the weekend when the group went door-to-door handing out postcards criticizing Garner for his support of a 2017 bill to increase the gas tax. That measure passed the Republican-controlled House 57-43.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Robert Welzel, of Kalispell, filed in January to challenge Garner in the Republican primary. Candidate filing closes March 12.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner is expected to face an aggressive third-party campaign between now and the June 5 primary election.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It would be nice if we were on a level playing field,” Garner said of the outside spending by third-party groups.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garner said as a part-time citizen legislator, he’s required to report who supports his campaign, including their name, occupation and address. The same is not true for dark money groups who are not required to report the names of their donors or, in some cases, their expenditures.</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div><div class="blog-thumbnail-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“In this case, you have groups whose avocation it is to promote their mission, with unlimited amounts of money, who don’t have to tell us who their donors are, and in many cases what their expenses are, as long as they are engaged in so-called issue advocacy,” Garner said. “If we allow dark money groups to spend unlimited amounts of money against people in an elected office, with no controls, no regulations, and aren’t required to follow the rules, then we might as well give them our seats and let them vote for us.”</div></div>Lefer 500K$ (colson prison fellowship? ) [why Bb stranahan out?] bachmann bribed iowa state rep to 180paul staffers domino pizza monaghan ave maria U law schooltenn vwhttp://www.avemarialaw.edu/faculty/john-raudabaugh/<div>=</div><div>mary b and </div><div><h1 class="page__title title" id="page-title" style="line-height: 1.4em; margin: 10px 0px 10px 10px; padding: 0px;">Who Is Behind the National Right to Work Committee and its Anti-Union Crusade?</h1><article class="node-12498 node node-news-article view-mode-full clearfix" style="padding: 0px 17.5938px 17.5938px; line-height: 24px;"><header>Submitted by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/35270/mary-bottari" title="View user profile." class="username" style="text-decoration: none;">Mary Bottari</a> on <time pubdate="" datetime="2014-06-03T12:41:34-05:00">June 3, 2014</time></header></article></div><div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="line-height: 24px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">As the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 session comes to a close, one of the major cases left for a decision is Harris vs. Quinn, which could affect millions of public sector workers in the United States.The case originates in Illinois, where home health care workers have been successfully organized by public sector unions. Now, a small group of these workers, represented by lawyers from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, have sued and their lawyers contend that the agency fees, or the fair share dues that even non-union members of a bargaining unit are required to pay to unions that bargain for higher wages on their behalf, violate the First Amendment. Agency fees are barred in so-called "right to work" states, which have much less unionization and lower wages and benefits.<blockquote style="margin: 10px 0px; font-style: italic; padding: 20px 40px; background-image: url(" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" prw="prw" images="images" blue-quote-mark.png="blue-quote-mark.png" background-attachment="background-attachment" scroll="scroll" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" background-position="background-position" px="px" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat">"the most important labor law case the court has considered in decades..."</blockquote>Joel Rogers, a professor of law and sociology at the University of Wisconsin, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179033/why-harris-v-quinn-has-labor-very-very-nervous" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">calls it</a> "the most important labor law case the court has considered in decades."This is because when the Supreme Court decided to take on the case, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation dramatically expanded the scope of the case beyond the home health care workers to include all public sector workers, from teachers and firefighters to sanitation workers to librarians. If the court follows National Right to Work's lead, every state in the country would essentially turn into an anti-union "right to work" state, which would be a significant blow to public sector unions' collective bargaining efforts and also complicate thousands of existing contracts between organized workers and municipalities, cities, counties, and states across the country.<span style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><img alt="" src="http://www.prwatch.org/files/images/epigraph.png" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 364px; width: 400px; float: right; margin: 5px;" />The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation</a>(NRTWLDF) is the 501(c)(3) arm of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Right_to_Work_Committee" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Committee</a> (NRTWC), a 501(c)(4) organization. Additionally, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research is an affiliated anti-union research shop. Founded nearly 60 years ago, the NRTWC has been a national leader in the effort to destroy public and private sector unions. The groups have increased their funding and staffing in recent years. In 2012, the three groups combined reported over $25 million in revenue, making them a powerful instrument of the corporate and ideological interests that want to keep wages low and silence the voice of organized labor in the political arena.NRTWC's success and the demise of unions in the United States has directly contributed to the erosion of high-paying middle class jobs and to growing inequality, as this chart from the <a href="http://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequality-rises/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Economic Policy Institute</a> graphically illustrates.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">National Right to Work's Deep Connections to the Koch Brothers and the John Birch Society</h2>The NRTWC has deep connections within the national right-wing network led by the Koch brothers. Reed Larson, who led the NRTW groups for over three decades, hails from Wichita, Kansas, the hometown of Charles and David Koch. Larson became an early leader of the radical right-wing John Birch Society in Kansas, which Fred Koch (the father of Charles and David) helped found. Several other founders and early leaders of the NRTWC were <a href="http://cdn.calisphere.org/data/28722/8t/bk0003z7b8t/files/bk0003z7b8t-FID1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">members and leaders of the John Birch Society</a>, specifically the Wichita chapter of which Fred Koch was an active member.The groups remain tied to the Kochs. In 2012, the Kochs' <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Freedom_Partners" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Freedom Partners</a> group funneled $1 million to the <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/national-right-to-work-committee/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Committee</a>, while the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Charles_G.Koch_Charitable_Foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation</a> gave a $15,000 grant to the <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/national-right-to-work-legal-defense-foundation/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">NRTWLDF</a>, which has also received significant funding from the Koch-connected <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DonorsTrust" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">DonorsTrust</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Donors_Capital_Fund" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Donors Capital Fund</a>. Today, at least three former Koch associates work as attorneys for the NRTWLDF.In June 2010, Mark Mix, the current head of the NRTW groups, attended the Kochs' exclusive <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Network" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Aspen strategy meeting</a> to give a presentation on how to mobilize conservatives for the 2010 election, along with representatives from Koch-backed groups such as the Center to Protect Patient Rights (now called <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_to_Protect_Patient_Rights" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">American Encore</a>) and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a>.<div class="clearfix">In addition to the Koch brothers, the NRTWLDF has received significant funding from many big name conservative donors, including the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Walton_Family_Foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Walton Family Foundation</a> (of Walmart), the Coors family's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Castle_Rock_Foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Castle Rock Foundation</a>, Wisconsin's<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bradley_Foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Bradley Foundation</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_M.Olin_Foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">John M. Olin Foundation</a>, and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Searle_Freedom_Trust" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Searle Freedom Trust</a>.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A $33 Million Anti-Worker Lobby Shop with Ties to ALEC, SPN, and More</h2>In order to push their extreme agenda, the NRTWC has launched a massive lobbying effort at both the state and federal level. In the U.S. Congress alone, the NRTWC has <a href="http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=selectFields&reset=1" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">spent</a> over $33 million on lobbying between 1999 and 2013. NRTWC has lobbied Congress to pass a national "Right to Work Act," which is sponsored by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul has lent his name to several NRTWC advocacy and fundraising letters and received over $27,000 in campaign contributions from the NRTWC’s federal political action committee. The NRTWC also strongly opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it easier for workers to organize, while supported legislation that would weaken the regulatory authority of the National Labor Relations Board over employers.The NRTWC also does extensive lobbying on the state level. In 2012, lobbyists registered with the NRTWC were on the ground in <a href="http://www.in.gov/ilrc/files/2012_employer.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">Indiana</a> and <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-1633_11945---,00.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Michigan</a> when both states passed anti-union "right to work" bills and are big supporters of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his efforts to crush public sector unions. The NRTWC was an exhibitor at the 2011 annual conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate bill mill <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed" style="text-decoration: none;">exposed by CMD in 2011</a>. ALEC's "<a href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/c/c8/1R10-Right_to_Work_Act_Exposed.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Right to Work Act</a>," which has been in the ALEC library since at least 1980, is one of its most commonly used "model" bills. When Republicans took trifecta control of 26 state houses in November of 2010, it was a top agenda item at the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/wisconsin-recall-election-right-to-work-b_1553348.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">December 2010 ALEC meeting</a>. According to a <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/ALEC%20Policy%20Initiatives%20(Ballweg)%2011:11:10.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2010 email</a> from ALEC to Wisconsin legislators that CMD obtained, ALEC referred to its "Right to Work Act" as a "solution… for your state's most pressing issues." Currently 24 states are so-called "right to work" states. In 2013, 15 states introduced legislation based on ALEC's "Right to Work Act."The NRTWLDF is also an <a href="http://www.spn.org/directory/organizations.asp" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">associate member of the State Policy Network (SPN)</a>, an $84 million dollar network of 64 state-based "think tanks." The State Policy Network's affiliate in Michigan, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mackinac_Center" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mackinac Center</a>, was one of the major supporters behind "right to work" when the legislature passed the bill in 2012. Through its board, staff, and other activities, the NRTW groups also have close connections to Americans for Prosperity, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cato_Institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Cato Institute</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Conservative_Union" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">American Conservative Union</a>, and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Republican_National_Committee" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Republican National Committee</a>.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Crossing the Line: Whistleblower Alleges New Election Law Violations</h2>From the beginning, the NRTWC had a focus on influencing U.S. elections. The NRTWC has spent millions in dark money electoral ads, including <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2019577918_apusmissourisenateakin.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">$7 million during the 2012 election</a>. Although a leading group on the right, the NRTWC has also attacked Republicans such as John Boehner and Bob Dole for not adhering to their extreme policy agenda.The NRTWC's long history of pushing the line in campaign finance and electoral activity as a nonprofit led to an FEC case against it at the <a href="http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation_CCA_FEC_N.shtml" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">U.S. Supreme Court in 1982</a>, in which the court ruled against the NRTWC for illegally raising money for electoral activities. The NRTWC continued to engage in controversial campaign-related activities, and evidence suggests that the <a href="http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation_CCA_FEC_N.shtml" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Committee spent $100,000 on private detectives</a> in 1984 to infiltrate the AFL-CIO, NEA, and Walter Mondale's presidential campaign. By the time that case was brought to court, the statute of limitations had expired.Today, the NRTWC continues to generate controversy for engaging in campaign related activities. In January 2014, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/01/strong-evidence-emerges-on-right-to-work/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">the Center for Responsive Politics</a> detailed whistleblower allegations that the NRTWC was running "a massive off-the-books mass mailing operation" attempting to influence the 2010 election in Iowa and possibly other states. The NRTWC did not disclose that it was participating in political activity that year to the IRS. The whistleblower also alleged that the NRTWC was coordinating its activities with candidates' campaigns during the election. Former IRS official Marcus Owens commented to the news outlet that "people have gone to jail for precisely the facts that you are describing." At the center of the controversy was then-NRTWC Vice President Doug Stafford, who is the former chief of staff for U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NRTWC Lawyers Push Their Agenda through the Courts</h2>The legal arm of NRTWC was launched in 1968 to take the anti-worker agenda to the courts. With the Harris v. Quinncase, the NRTWLDF is seeking to re-litigate the Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education Supreme Court case it lost in 1977, which upheld the constitutionality of fair share dues. Over the years, the NRTWLDF has done little to improve wages, benefits, health or safety protections for American workers, but has tried scores of cases against unions and organized labor revealing its political agenda. With a large team of lawyers and millions in funding from national right-wing sources, the NRTWLDF is currently trying cases in Arkansas, Missouri, California, Michigan, Colorado, and Ohio.NRTWLDF's also recently filed suit to block workers in the Volkswagen Chattanooga plant from voting for union representation and to prevent Volkswagen from <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/13/us-autos-vw-lawsuit-idUSBREA2C1VJ20140313" style="text-decoration: none;">voluntarily consenting</a> to any future organizing drives.Professor Rogers and other labor experts contend that the NRTWC's success in the U.S. Supreme Court "would be a disaster for labor, particularly for the public sector unions that traditionally rely more heavily on agency shop agreements." As Rogers points out, it is technically possible to form a union in a "right to work" state, but when union members are free to stop paying their dues, the union becomes a weak and ineffective organization. The results for American workers are clear. <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-michigan-economy/" style="text-decoration: none;">Research show</a>s that "right to work" states have lower wages, less health care and more poverty.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-13 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px; background: url(" sites="sites" all="all" themes="themes" prw="prw" images="images" tag_blue.png="tag_blue.png" left="left" no-repeat="no-repeat" scroll="scroll" rgb="rgb"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; padding-right: 1em;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/democracy" style="text-decoration: none;">Democracy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; padding-right: 1em;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/labor" style="text-decoration: none;">Labor</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; padding-right: 1em;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/social-justice" style="text-decoration: none;">Social Justice</a></div></div></div></div><div></div><div><h2 style="margin: 1.5em 0em 0.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.1em;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color">FEC v. NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK COMMITTEE (90-0571)</h2>On February 15, 1996, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the FEC was barred from suing for a civil penalty in this case because the 5-year statute of limitations had expired. 28 U.S.C. §2462. Additionally, the court ruled that injunctive relief was not warranted because the defendant had not violated the law again for more than 10 years.<h3 style="margin: 1.5em 0em 0.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.1em;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Background</h3>The National Right to Work Committee (NRWC) is a nonprofit corporation that defends workers' rights to refuse to join or support a labor union. In 1984, the NRWC spent $100,000 to hire private detectives to infiltrate the AFL-CIO, the National Education Association (NEA) and the Mondale for President Committee for the purpose of gathering evidence that the unions were using their general treasury monies to provide support to Walter Mondale's Presidential effort. (The use of labor union money in connection with a federal election is prohibited by 2 U.S.C. §441b.) The NRWC used the information gathered by its hired detectives to file administrative complaints with the FEC.In October 1984, the NEA filed an administrative complaint with the FEC that accused the NRWC of violating the same federal election laws that the NRWC had accused the NEA of violating. The NEA complaint contended that the NRWC's payment of $100,000 represented illegal contributions and expenditures because the payments funded the services of detectives who, in the course of conducting their clandestine information gathering, rendered services to the Mondale campaign.On May 23, 1989, the Commission found “probable cause” that the NRWC had violated §441b. On March 13, 1990, the FEC filed this lawsuit.<h3 style="margin: 1.5em 0em 0.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.1em;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Statute of Limitations</h3>In general, federal government agencies must initiate proceedings to assess civil penalties, fines and forfeitures within 5 years from “the date when the claim first accrued.” 28 U.S.C. §2462. In FEC v. National Republican Senate Committee, the court ruled that this statute of limitations applied to the FEC and that the statute of limitations began to run when the alleged offense was committed. The FEC conceded that the NRWC's hired detectives ceased their undercover operations by September 1984. The court noted that the Commission did not file this lawsuit until March of 1990. The court concluded that the 5-year statute of limitations ran out on this case and the FEC was therefore barred from pursuing a civil penalty in this matter.Furthermore, the court ruled that because the FEC failed to put forth any compelling evidence that the NRWC had violated the law since 1984, it was both unnecessary and unwarranted to issue injunctive relief.
Source:   FEC Record -- <a href="http://www.fec.gov/pdf/record/1996/apr96.pdf#page=11" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">April 1996</a> [PDF]. 
FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, No. 90-0571 (D.D.C. Feb. 15, 1996).http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation_CCA_FEC_N.shtml</div><div>= 5/9https://zcomm.org/zmagazine/reed-larson-and-the-national-right-to-work-committee-by-chip-berlet/The National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) is a major player in the effort to block the pro-union "Card Check" legislation officially called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Behind the curtain at the formation of the NRTWC in 1955 was a group of ultraconservative southern businesspeople who opposed what they called "the bid for dictatorial power on the part of some entrenched union leaders." For 45 years anti-union impresario Reed Larson was executive director of the NRTWC.When rightists defame community organizers or accuse the Obama administration of imposing socialist collectivism; when you hear phrases such as "big government" or "union bosses"; when the administration of FDR is denounced as a failure—these are rhetorical frames devised to help greedy corporations and wealthy elites retain their unfair power and privilege. Reed Larson and the National Right to Work Committee pioneered these themes as part of a post-WWII realignment on the U.S. political right, which emerged in the late 1970s.When Larson stepped down in 2003 the Washington Times quoted him as saying: "This has been an opportunity for me to have the greatest impact in defeating the entity I feel is very detrimental to individual freedom…. The unions are for more government, more taxes, more regulation, and they operate under a set of rules and laws that are designed to give special privileges to organized labor."It was a rare moment of candor in a career spent claiming that he and the National Right to Work Committee were not against unions—just against abuses by unions. That certainly sounds reasonable. Dig a little deeper into that claim, however, and the anti-union quote by the then 80-year-old Larson seems the more accurate reflection of reality. Larson may have let his guard down in talking to the Washington Times, the ultraconservative newspaper owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. He was, after all, talking to a reporter for a key component in the hard right political network that Larson entered in the 1950s as a young and energetic anti-union organizer active in the local Wichita, Kansas Junior Chamber of Commerce.Since its founding, the NRTWC has been an essential part of a coordinated campaign to undermine the rights of working people to organize on behalf of their economic interest, ensure worksite health and safety, and defend their basic dignity.Utraconservatives relaunched a campaign for political power after their Republican candidate Barry Goldwater was trounced in the 1964 presidential election. Goldwater and his followers were seen as far to the right of the main branch of the Republican Party. Today, this network, which the NRTWC helped create, has significant influence in the Republican Party.Even after the election of Obama, the New Right coalition remains a major force in shaping public policy debates in the United States. Through skillful reframing of issues, coalition building, and tireless mobilizing of voters, ultraconservatives have convinced many Americans to oppose the guarantee of basic human rights and dignity to working people both inside and outside of labor unions. And, at the same time, they have stepped on the rights and aspirations of women, people of color, gay people, immigrants, and the working poor.Although the Republican Party is in disarray, they have not been defeated with one election. To illustrate the ultraconservative frame, here are more quotes from Larson, delivered in 1999 in Michigan at the ultraconservative Hillsdale College in a speech titled "Government-Granted Coercive Power: How Big Labor Blocks the Freedom Agenda":"The union hierarchy, operating on billions of dollars plucked from workers’ paychecks, comprises a political machine unmatched by any other in America—a political machine whose philosophy consistently lines up with the socialist fringe in its assault on the rights of individual citizens to live their lives free of government intervention."Unless we deal with this fundamental injustice, all of the valiant efforts to prevent our country from being engulfed in a flood-tide of leftist social engineering are destined to failure. The special coercive privileges enjoyed by union officials under federal law have enabled them to amass a degree of political power behind their collectivist schemes that no other special interest comes close to matching. Their power to dictate public policy is out of all proportion to the number of persons whose views they truly represent."Whatever your concern, whether it be taxes, education, health care, the economy, or myriad other issues that need addressing, you can be assured that the propagation of the statist, anti-freedom position on each of those issues is being funded largely with union money, essentially seized at gun point from workers."Most working people who have read a union contract, sat through a local union meeting, or been elected a delegate to a national union convention will find these phrases to be overblown rhetoric and, frankly, somewhat bizarre. Historians, political scientists, and sociologists, however, will recognize the language of ultraconservative political ideologues who think America went down the tubes in the 1930s when Franklin Delano Roosevelt used "collectivist schemes" of "social engineering" to steer the nation toward "statist, anti-freedom" policies—we know them as Social Security, unemployment insurance, public assistance, low-cost housing, and public health care—were embraced as sensible and useful by most Democrats and Republicans for decades. To see how pervasive these themes are on the political right, try plopping both "collectivist schemes" and "social engineering" into an Internet search engine.Since the election of Richard Nixon as president in 1960, there has been a serious erosion of support for public policies and programs that seek to "establish justice," "insure domestic tranquility," "promote the general welfare," and "secure the blessings of liberty." The NRTWC played a major role in undermining these promises, but it has not acted alone.It’s not some secret conspiracy; it is a loosely knit network of intelligent and talented people and groups who marshal profound and passionate ideological arguments in defense of their views. When ultraconservative activists look in the mirror every morning, they think of themselves as patriotic people rescuing America from a "flood-tide of leftist social engineering."What is the source of these themes? In the late 1930s it was obvious to employer associations that unions were looking to organize the South. The "southern textile industry, for example, presented a tempting target to industrial unionists," explains labor historian Gilbert J. Gall. President Eisenhower, from 1952 to 1954, was sending mixed messages to labor and management on how to reform provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, reported Samuel H. Cohen in the Nation magazine in 1954. Some union leaders suggested mounting a campaign to push for reform or even repeal of the Act, but the effort failed.
Now there is another push for reform of labor laws. Ultraconservatives and other groups promoting unfettered corporate power have now lined up to block the pro-union "Card Check" legislation. A broad coalition is working to pass the legislation. Which side are you on? Let’s get busy.<div style="line-height: 20px; text-align: right; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Z</div><hr style="border: none; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chip Berlet is a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, co-author of Right-Wing Populism in America, and a vice president of the Defending Dissent Foundation. His views here are his own.</div>=</div><div></div><div>
</div><div><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/koch-tied-group-pushes-ne_b_6263462.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/koch-tied-group-pushes-ne_b_6263462.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Just weeks after Wisconsin’s controversial Governor Scott Walker was elected to a second term, a group with ties to the billionaire Koch brothers has launched a new effort to destroy unions.</div><center style="box-sizing: inherit;"></center><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">In 2011, Wisconsin passed Act 10, a complex bill that forced public sector unions to re-certify annually, made it harder for unions to collect dues, and eliminated the incentive of people to join unions by severely limiting issues on the bargaining table. The bill was designed to destroy public sector unions, a powerful force in Democratic politics in the state, and subsequently union membership dropped dramatically.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Now out-of-state special interests and the Wisconsin GOP will use that drop in membership <a href="http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/1201wrtw.PDF" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">to argue</a> that private sector workers deserve the same “choice.” The poison pill for private sector unions is likely be a <a href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/c/c8/1R10-Right_to_Work_Act_Exposed.pdf" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">model bill</a> from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) with the Orwellian name of “right to work.”</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">The A Team: Americans for Prosperity, ALEC and ACCE</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">So-called “right to work” laws allow non-union members to enjoy the benefits of union representation, like higher wages, improved working conditions and a voice in the workplace, but without paying the costs of that representation. Supporters of the measures say they want to give workers the “freedom” not to join a union, but <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-research/" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">studies have shown</a> that wages are lower for both union and non-union members in states with right to work laws, workers are less likely to have health insurance and more likely to have dangerous work places.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Funding from the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch has found its way to a multitude of think tanks, advocacy organizations and legal centers, like the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">National Right to Work Committee</a>, dedicated to destroying organized labor, the most powerful voice for average Americans in the workplace.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">On December 1, a new 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization calling itself “Wisconsin Right to Work,” popped up in Wisconsin promising to “aggressively promote sound public policies and individual freedoms from a grassroots citizen engagement organization.” The language is familiar to those who read press releases cranked out by David Koch’s <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Americans for Prosperity </a>(AFP) group, so it is no surprise that new group is led by Lorri Pickens, who has worked for the Koch brothers for years, most recently as AFP’s Director of State Operations in Washington, D.C. Pickens was previously associate state director for AFP’s Wisconsin chapter from 2005 until 2009. The group is organized as a 501 (c) 4 “social welfare” organization designed to disguise its funders. The group’s website was <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/freedomtowork_domain_registration.png" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">registered</a> by Kurt Luidhart of the Indiana-based “Prosper Group,” a GOP digital media firm that Walker’s campaign hired in 2014 to run their online fundraising. Luidhart <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/luidhart_walker_tweet.png" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">attended</a> Walker’s election night party, and has <a href="http://prospergroupcorp.com/blog/june-22-2009/americans-prosperity-patients-united-now-campaign" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">previously done contract work</a> with AFP.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">The Kochs and AFP have spent millions in recent years in support of Wisconsin’s GOP leadership. AFP was very active in providing astroturf or phony grassroots support for right to work <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/12/11903/michigan-passes-right-work-containing-verbatim-language-alec-model-bill" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">when the state of Michigan took it up</a>, verbatim from the ALEC bill, in 2012.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Although AFP says it is not behind the Wisconsin push, the legislation has long been a priority for the Kochs, whose funding network bankrolls AFP as well as ALEC and the American City and County Exchange (ACCE) the new ALEC-style entity for city and county level politicians.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">ALEC and ACCE are meeting in Washington this week for the annual “State and Nation” policy summit. <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/11/12666/alec-buoyed-election-results-lays-blueprint-2015" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">CMD recently reported</a> that the top of the agenda items at this week’s meeting is state preemption of local ordinances to raise the wage and a new proposal fresh off the drawing board at the Koch-funded <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/08/local-governments-can-increase-job-growth-and-choices-by-passing-right-to-work-laws" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Heritage Foundation</a> for local right to work laws.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Wisconsin ALEC Members Enthused</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">While Walker repeatedly during the campaign that had no interest in further divisive union-busting measures, Wisconsin’s two most powerful legislative leaders, both members of ALEC, quickly followed the announcement with words of support.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald told the Wisconsin State Journal: “Sen. Fitzgerald has previously expressed his openness to a discussion of making right-to-work legislation a priority for the upcoming legislative session.” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the former ALEC state chair for Wisconsin, said earlier this year that right to work was not on the agenda for 2015, but celebrated the arrival of the group. “I have long been a supporter of right-to-work and drafted a proposal in the past,” Vos <a href="http://journaltimes.com/news/local/right-to-work-group-launches-after-governor-legislators-say-issue/article_79fb0d9c-4f86-513f-95ae-53b53c4aa014.html" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">told</a> the Racine Journal Times. “I look forward to a healthy discussion as the case is made for the benefits of being a right-to-work state.”</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">The day after Wisconsin Right to Work launched, ALEC member Rep. Chris Kapenga <a href="http://fox11online.com/2014/12/02/legislator-to-introduce-right-to-work-legislation/" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">announced</a> that he would be introducing a right to work bill in 2015.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Pickens Is Longtime Wisconsin Activist</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Lorri Pickens, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Right to Life Group, has long been active in Wisconsin politics. She was implicated in the 1997 campaign finance coordination probe that resulted in the harshest penalty ever levied for election violations in the state, and which established the legal precedent for the ongoing<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12473/reporters-guide-john-doe-investigation" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Walker criminal investigation</a>.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">In 1997, Pickens was an <a href="http://www.quest-online.com/NewFiles/Quest_Newsroom_46.html" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">officer</a> in the group Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation, which illegally coordinated $200,000 worth of “issue ad” mailings with the campaign of Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox. Her husband Brent Pickens was fined $35,000 and barred from politics for five years. Wilcox’s campaign manager,Mark Block, was fined $10,000 and banned from politics for three years. Pickens was not penalized.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Block would reemerge years later as the head of AFP-Wisconsin, with Lorri Pickens as associate director. Block later gained national attention in 2012 as Herman Cain’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhm-22Q0PuM" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">cigarette-puffing</a> presidential campaign manager.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">The Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation prosecution — and the 1999 Court of Appeals case that upheld it — <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12475/scottwalker-john-doe-darkmoney-sixthings" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">set the stage</a> for the criminal investigation into coordination between Walker’s 2012 campaign and Wisconsin Club for Growth, an “independent” group led by Walker’s top campaign advisor R.J. Johnson and longtime Koch associate Eric O’Keefe. O’Keefe has spent an enormous amount of money fighting the probe in state and federal courts and arguing, with limited success, that the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation precedent is no longer valid.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Notably, Pickens worked for O’Keefe’s Sam Adams Alliance between 2009 and 2010. The Walker probe is currently stalled pending a decision from Wisconsin appellate courts.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Walker Spoke Candidly to Billionaire Funder About Plans to “Divide and Conquer” Public from Private Sector Unions</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Walker has publicly claimed that he has no intention of extending his anti-union effort to the private sector, even stating in 2012 that “private sector unions are our partners in job creation.” Yet, Walker has sung a different tune when speaking to funders in private. Just days after Walker was first sworn-in as governor, he spoke frankly about his plans to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/167840/scott-walker-promised-500k-donor-he-would-divide-and-conquer-unions#" target="blank" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“divide and conquer”</a> Wisconsin unions in a taped conversation with billionaire GOP financier Diane Hendricks, which became public more than a year later. Hendricks gave Walker $500,000 for his 2012 recall effort, and gave $1 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin in 2014.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;"></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">“Any chance we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions?,” Hendricks asks in the January 2011 video.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">“Oh, yeah!” says Walker.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">“And become a right-to-work [state]?,” Hendricks asks.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Walker replies: “Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.... That opens the door once we do that.”</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Some Wisconsin ALEC members have been floating the idea of right to work sinceRepublicans took control of the legislature in 2010.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">In a December 2010 roundtable discussion, Majority Leader Senator Scott Fitzgerald, a former ALEC state chairman, was asked by Jeff Mayers of WisPolitics about making Wisconsin a right to work state.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Fitzgerald replied: “I just attended an American Legislative Exchange Council meeting and I was surprised about how much momentum there was in and around that discussion, nothing like I have seen before.”</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">“Here We Go Again”</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Many in the state feel under assault by out-of-state special interests. “Here we go again” was a common refrain.</div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em;">Kevin Gundlach is the head of the South Central Federation of Labor, which represents private sector unions in the southern part of the state. “All year round, we knock on doors in South Central Wisconsin and we ask people what is on their minds. Never have I heard anyone say ‘we need right to work’. People are worried about low wages, health care, benefits and making ends meet in this economy. Right to work will take us in the opposite direction from where people want to go.”</div><div class="tag-cloud" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" more="more" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 30px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 16px;"><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 8px 10px 8px 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5rem; visibility: visible; display: inline-block;">More:</h2> <a class="tag" data-beacon="{" p="p" mpid="mpid" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/Scott%20Walker/" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; padding: 7px; margin: 5px 5px 5px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 5px; display: inline-block; background: rgb(242, 242, 242);">Scott Walker</a> <a class="tag" data-beacon="{" p="p" mpid="mpid" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/Koch%20Brothers/" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; padding: 7px; margin: 5px 5px 5px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 5px; display: inline-block; background: rgb(242, 242, 242);">Koch Brothers</a> <a class="tag" data-beacon="{" p="p" mpid="mpid" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/right%20to%20work/" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; padding: 7px; margin: 5px 5px 5px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 5px; display: inline-block; background: rgb(242, 242, 242);">Right To Work</a> <a class="tag" data-beacon="{" p="p" mpid="mpid" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/american%20legislative%20exchange%20council/" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; padding: 7px; margin: 5px 5px 5px 0px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 5px; display: inline-block; background: rgb(242, 242, 242);">American Legislative Exchange Council</a></div></div><div></div>reutersusiness | Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:59pm EST Related: ELECTION 2016, POLITICS, REGULATORY NEWSDemocrats lash Bush's "hostile" labor boardCongressional Democrats on Thursday criticized the U.S. government's labor relations board under the Bush administration as hostile to workers' rights, while Republicans complained of political grandstanding.Amid controversy over a wave of recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board, a committee questioned NLRB Chairman Robert Battista and member Wilma Liebman at a joint hearing of Senate and House of Representatives panels.The NLRB "is supposed to protect the voice of American workers, but the board is no longer fulfilling that responsibility," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and ally of the labor movement.California Democratic Rep. George Miller said, "Workers' rights have been under near-constant assault in the years since the start of the Bush administration."Battista, whose five-year term as chairman expires in three days, defended the NLRB's record. He said figures showed the board was more productive and efficient under his leadership."The agency is successfully carrying out its statutory mission," Battista said, accusing the board's critics of "special-interest attacks designed to gain support for their position in the coming election cycle."California Republican Rep. Howard McKeon said Democrats convened the joint hearing "to appease the labor union special interests that helped put them in office by attacking decisions of the NLRB that they do not view as sufficiently pro-union."In a country where strikes are rare, union membership is in decline, and Wall Street no longer even bothers to factor "labor risk" into stock valuations, the labor movement is trying to reassert itself and the Democratic Party is helping.Unions played a role last year in Democrats' regaining control of Congress and are working for similar 2008 results by backing Democrats in the race for the White House.In return, unions are now getting a forum on Capitol Hill to air long-standing grievances accusing the Bush administration of pursuing years of pro-business and anti-union policies. The NLRB is a particular target of union ire.Illinois Democratic Rep. Phil Hare said he did not see the hearing as a political stunt, but as an important inquiry."I don't think I have ever seen a labor board so tilted against working people," Hare said at the hearing.Set up during the Great Depression amid severe labor strife, the NLRB's original legal mandate was to help reduce strikes and other economic disruptions by "encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining."Since then, the board has see-sawed with every change in administration, leaning more pro-union during some presidencies and less in others, said Liebman, a frequent dissenter in recent NLRB decisions and its longest-serving current member."But something different is going -- more 'sea change' than 'see-saw.' The current board, it seems to me, is divorced from (1935's) National Labor Relations Act, its values, and its goals. Its decisions have demonstrated as much," she said.In September, the board issued a ruling in a case involving car and truck parts maker Dana Corp. Liebman said the decision will make it more difficult for workers to form and keep a union based on their signing of authorization cards, rather than voting in an NLRB-supervised election.Other September decisions eroded the NLRB's enforcement powers by cutting help available to victims of unfair labor practices, she saidbsSimply Prevents the Firing of Employees for Refusal to Pay Union Dues or FeesS.391 (U.S. Senate)- National Right To Work Act H.R.612 (U.S. House) - National Right To Work Act
Model State Right To Work Law
  -- The National Right To Work Committee model legislation for elected officials and staff as recommended language for Right To Work legislation.Mark Mix is President of the National Right to Work Committee, a 2.8 million-member public policy organization.  He also serves as President of the Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.Prior to joining the National Right to Work Committee in 1990, Mr. Mix worked for several state-level Right to Work groups. He joined the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in 1999.Mr. Mix frequently appears on national television shows including Fox News Channel’s Your World: With Neil Cavuto and Fox & Friends, as well as CNBC’s Power Lunch. Mr. Mix also often serves as a guest on nationally syndicated radio shows such as the Michael Reagan Show and the Jim Bohannon Show.Similarly, Mr. Mix’s writings have appeared in national outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times and National Review. His pieces have also been featured in widely-read regional publications across the country including the Detroit Free Press, the Orange County Register and the San Antonio Express-News.Mr. Mix is also a sought after speaker on political technology and grass-roots lobbying tactics. He often travels across the country, speaking and training participants in the political process.https://nrtwc.org/about-2/officers/<blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 15px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 5px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgba(0, 2, 23, 0.6); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; line-height: 21px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chairman of the Board of Directors
Charles R. SerioVice Chairman of the Board of Directors
Cornell W. Gethmann</blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 15px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 5px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgba(0, 2, 23, 0.6); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; line-height: 21px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President
<a title="President Mark Mix" href="https://nrtwc.org/about-2/officers/mark-a-mix/%20" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Mark Mix</a>Secretary
Anne M. CasperVice President 
Matthew M. LeenVice President & Treasurer
Stephen O. GoodrickVice President
Greg W.  MouradVice President
Mary J. King</blockquote>=<h1 class="title" itemprop="name" style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1; letter-spacing: -0.05em; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">VOICES: Media fails to reveal anti-union agenda of labor 'experts' in Tennessee</h1><div id="node-13099" class="node node-type-article node-promoted clearfix" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><article class="article-content"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Chris Brooks<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The United Auto Workers (UAW) are going in for round two at the Chattanooga Volkswagen (VW) plant. The National Labor Relations Board will be conducting a union representation election at the East Tennessee factory on Dec. 3 and 4. The election, which was <a href="http://www.labornotes.org/2015/10/volkswagen-reverses-its-union-neutrality-workers-say" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">contested by Volkswagen</a>, is for a so-called "micro-bargaining unit" of approximately 162 maintenance employees, who work to maintain the machines and assembly lines in the plant.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The UAW is hoping that a micro-unit election will provide a different result from the previous, internationally scrutinized union vote at the Chattanooga plant that ended in failure for pro-union workers. In that election, out-of-state corporate front groups, such as Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform,<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/business/outsiders-not-auto-plant-battle-uaw-in-tennessee.html?r=0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">descended on Chattanooga</a> to join the chorus of Republican state leaders, such as Gov. Bill Haslam and U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, in condemning unions and spreading nightmarish fantasies of the devastation that would be unleashed should the UAW be voted in. The results were announced on Valentines Day 2014, with workers voting 712 to 626 against the union. As a result, the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant remains the lone factory in the Volkswagen Group that has no official mechanism, through either a recognized union or a works council, through which workers can formally articulate and advocate on behalf of their interests.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Following the failed election, <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/16505/emails_show_bob_corkers_chief_of_staff_coordinated_with_anti_uaw_groups" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">documents leaked to Nashville's News Channel 5</a> exposed the extent to which Republican politicians, professional anti-union consultants, and employer groups coordinated their efforts to defeat the UAW. John Logan, professor of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University, said that this may be the first time in U.S. history that the government and third party groups, but not the employer, were actively involved in an anti-union campaign, <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/23197-truthout-interviews-john-logan-on-the-antiunion-campaign-in-tennessee" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">which Logan described</a> as "top-down class warfare in Tennessee" and "a zero-sum ideal where the freedom of the wealthy and powerful is premised on the subordination of everyone else." Much and more of the coordinated attack on the union organizing drive has been <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22842-the-firm-behind-the-anti-uaw-videos-in-chattanooga" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">reported in progressive media</a>, but with all the examples of outright political threats and overt anti-union propaganda, the more banal, and therefore normalized, examples of how the business press has presented anti-union perspectives with an air of supposed objective authority often got lost in the mix.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One example was <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/10/how-tennessee-papers-are-helping-the-anti-union/197987" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">a report by Media Matters for America</a>, a progressive research and information center, which criticized prominent Tennessee newspapers for aiding the antiunion efforts by "omitting critical context in their coverage of the union vote." The "critical context" that Media Matters accused Tennessee newspapers of omitting was that "unionization enjoys majority support among Volkswagen workers" in the lead-up to the union election and that news reports "conspicuously" avoided the connections between "right-wing group's ties to the union opposition."<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the Tennessee papers criticized by Media Matters was the Chattanooga Times Free Press (CTFP), which is the paper of record for the region in which the Volkswagen plant is located and the majority of the workers live. The CTFP has engaged in particularly astonishing sins of omission in its continued reporting on the UAW organizing drive at Volkswagen. For example, from August 2013 to November 2015, the CTFP printed 16 stories that contained quotes from prominent union buster John Raudabaugh. Of those stories, only five (see <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2014/jan/30/anti-union-group-seeks-probe-of-nlrb-in/130429/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>,<a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/feb/09/pro-anti-uaw-activity-gears-up-ahead-of-vw/131300/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2014/feb/19/clock-ticking-for-uaw-in-vw-vote/132144/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2014/feb/21/volkswagen-faces-uaw-suv-decisions/132359/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a> and <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/feb/22/uaw-appeals-vw-union-vote/132454/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>) contained any reference in the text of the article to Raudabaugh's being employed by the National to Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), while 11 of those 16 did not (see <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2013/aug/11/volkswagen-union-yea-or-nay-ex-nlrb-members-say-ua/115664/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2013/sep/12/the-fight-for-vwuaw-says-most-chattanooga-workers/118573/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2014/jan/31/uaw-election-at-vw-could-have-high-stakesunion/130534/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/feb/15/road-to-chattanooga-uaw-vote-has-been-bumpy/131855/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/feb/23/blip-on-the-screen-or-smudge-on-our-nameopinions/132494/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/apr/08/vw-eyes-uaw-recognition-chattanooga-plant-group-sa/136589/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>,<a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2014/jun/03/fight-over-unionizing-vw-plant-goes-on/142015/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/aug/27/vw-workers-seek-their-own-union/265618/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2015/sep/06/labor-groups-seek-breakthrough-vw/323390/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2015/nov/03/vw-against-maintenance-only-worker-vote/333774/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>, and <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/apr/22/uaw-pulls-appeal-talk-turns-to-vw-incentives/137938/" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">HERE</a>).<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an investigation of the NRTWLDF, <a href="http://progressive.org/news/2014/06/187725/who-behind-national-right-work-committee-and-its-anti-union-crusade" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The Progressive described</a> the organization as "a national leader in the effort to destroy public and private sector unions" that raised over $25 million in 2012 alone, making the NRTWLDF "a powerful instrument of the corporate and ideological interests that want to keep wages low and silence the voice of organized labor in the political arena." The NRTWLDF's power was on full display in Chattanooga, as Raudabaugh provided free legal representation to anti-union Volkswagen workers in their fight against the unionization drive on <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/case/10-CA-114589" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">several</a> <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/case/10-CB-115311" style="font-weight: inherit; text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">occasions</a>.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And yet, the local Chattanooga paper, in 11 out of 16 stories in which he was quoted, refused to make mention of Raudabaugh's connection to the NRTWLDF, where he has worked since 2012. In one particularly scandalous example, the Chattanooga Times Free Press published an article entitled <a href="http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2013/aug/11/volkswagen-union-yea-or-nay-ex-nlrb-members-say-ua/115664/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">"VW union, yea or nea? Ex-NLRB member says UAW not needed in Chattanooga for works council" </a>that was entirely centered on Raudabaugh's theory that VW workers and the company could "reach a win-win  outcome without having to pay a third party." As in the other 10 articles, the paper referred to Raudabaugh as a former National Labor Relations Board director and law professor at Ave Maria School of Law without any mention of his affiliation with the NRTWLDF. Yet, even the descriptions that they do provide are missing "critical context."<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">According to his <a href="http://www.nrtw.org/en/nlrb-watch/" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">profile</a> on the National Right to Work website, Raudabaugh "hold's [sic] the Reed Larson Professorship of Labor Law at Ave Maria School of Law. The Professorship was jointly established by the Foundation and Ave Maria to offer courses on workplace litigation and employee freedom." The NRTWLDF <a href="http://www.nrtw.org/en/press/2012/03/worker-rights-advocate-announces-add" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">press release</a> issued to announce his hiring states that Raudabaugh splits his time between providing legal assistance to anti-union workers and teaching at the "jointly established" professorship at Ave Marie law school, where <a href="https://www.avemarialaw.edu/Content/Campuslife/November2014DeanNewsletter.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">law students work with Raudabaugh</a> on research and the writing of briefs on behalf of the NRTWLDF.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Both the Ave Maria University and the the town of Ave Maria are owned by former Domino's pizza owner and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/14/business/taking-the-gospel-to-the-rich.html?pagewanted=all" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">extreme right-wing billionaire</a> Thomas Monaghan, who financed the construction as part of his dream to create an insulated conservative  Catholic community. According to the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113168144594694575" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Wall Street Journal,</a> Monaghan's medieval vision for this project, which has cost him hundreds of millions of dollars, is to create a town in which he can "control what goes on there" and residents "won't be able to buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine" and businesses are specifically forbidden from selling "the pill or the condoms or contraception." Thanks to a special law passed by the Florida state government at the behest of Monaghan, he and the Barron Collier development corporation not only own a majority of the town's property but are <a href="http://www.naplesnews.com/news/local/ave-maria---a-town-without-a-vote-now-and-forever-ep-398411826-343995352.html" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">the ultimate government authority in Ave Maria</a>, and can remain so forever. Empowered by the state government to a dictatorial reign, Monaghan's Catholic corporate dystopia has become a reality and Ave Maria has been described as a <a href="https://au.org/church-state/january-2015-church-state/featured/a-catholic-city" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">"miniature theocratic fiefdom"</a> and compared to<a href="http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/ave-maria-university-a-catholic-project-gone-wrong-6384870" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">"fascist regimes.</a>" It's not hard to see why the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation would feel right at home.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Unfortunately, the Chattanooga Times Free Press is not alone in functioning as an organ of anti-union propaganda. Both <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/06/us-autos-vw-uaw-idUSBRE9850VM20130906" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Reuters</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/11/19/us/ap-us-volkswagen-union.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">the Associated Press</a> have provided space for Raudabaugh to make anti-union statements while failing to make any mention of his being employed by the NRTWLDF. Parsing the corporate media's treatment of Raudabaugh, we can see a recurring theme: By avoiding "critical context," a prominent union buster, employed by a multimillion-dollar anti-union political operation in partnership with an extreme right-wing Catholic university founded by a conservative billionaire in a 21st century company town, magically becomes just another more-or-less neutral authority on labor relations, even after filing charges on behalf of anti-union Volkswagen workers against both the UAW and the company.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2015/12/voices-media-fails-to-reveal-anti-union-agenda-of-.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.southernstudies.org/2015/12/voices-media-fails-to-reveal-anti-union-agenda-of-.html</a><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 19.5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Chris Brooks is a graduate student in the Labor Studies program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an organizer living in Chattanooga.)</article></div></div><div></div><div>kochtopus:</div><div>
</div><div>Ugly heads have been popping up lately from the National Right to Work Committee and the National  Right to Work Legal<strike style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Attack</strike> Defense Foundation. The Foundation supported the case against the Teamsters that resulted in <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/01/ruh-roh-court-sides-with-kochs-in-nlrb.html" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Friday's court ruling</a> that President Obama's recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional. The former showed up at a <a href="http://uppermacungie.patch.com/articles/pa-right-to-work-fight-battle-lines-drawn" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pennsylvania news conference</a> advocating a No Rights At Work bill: <blockquote style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Tuesday’s announcement was made at a news conference with about three dozen lawmakers, business officials, school board directors and political advocates, 20 of whom gave personal testimony on why they believe Pennsylvania should become a right-to-work state. </blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px;">That included non-union member and public school employee Neil Weidman, and Mary Burkholder, a nurse and former union member. There was also a presence from the national right-to-work movement, including Justin Davis of the National Right to Work Committee.</blockquote>We thought we'd expose the vast right wing conspiracy behind these groups. (You didn't think it was working people, did you?)  They are part of an interlocking, billionaire-funded network that has a staggering reach. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Castle_Rock_Foundation" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sourcewatch</a> tells us the National No Rights At Work Legal Attack Foundation is funded by five foundations: Castle Rock, John M. Olin, Shelby Cullom Davis, Jaquelin Hume and Roe. Here are the gory details: Castle Rock Foundation <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Castle_Rock_Foundation" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Castle Rock</a>, founded by the union-busting <a href="http://www.corporations.org/coors/index.html" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Coors</a> family, gives money to more than 40 other billionaire-backed groups. (You can see them <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Castle_Rock_Foundation" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">here</a>.) Some of our least favorite phony think tanks and astroturf organizations are on the list: Dick DeVos' Mackinac Center, smear merchant Brent Bozell's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Media_Research_Center" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Media Research Center</a> and  <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4328899339135469869#editor/target=post;postID=5761933841267963756" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Barre Seid</a> and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bradley's</a> Scott Walker-loving <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heartland_Institute" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Heartland Institute</a>. And of course the Coors help out the <a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2011/10/bombshell-kochs-sold-oil-equipment-to.html" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strike>Benedict Arnold</strike></a> <a href="http://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/anatomy-koch-thon-sham-budget-hearings-brought-you-koch-brothers" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Koch brothers'</a><a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ALEC</a>, Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Heritage Foundation, Landmark Legal Foundation, the National No Rights At Work Legal Defense Foundation. To name a few. The money just sloshes around these groups. John M. Olin Foundaton <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_M.Olin_Foundation" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John M. Olin</a>, who made his fortune in munitions, created the foundation to promote free enterprise. Never mind that the biggest purchaser of munitions is government.  The foundation funds the same groups that the Castle Rock Foundation funds. According to Sourcewatch, the John M. Olin Foundation teams up with: <blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Joseph Coors and family, and Richard Mellon Scaife, to create a chain of anti-environmental, pro-business, legal advocacy organisations.</blockquote>Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Shelby_Cullom_Davis_Foundation" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Davis</a> was an investment banker (charming) who set up the foundation to support many of the same anti-worker groups supported by the Kochs, the Coors, the DeVoses, et al. The foundation is thankfully defunct. Jaquelin Hume Foundation <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19911005&id=D2RPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QgMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3383,908151" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hume</a> was a right-wing, Ronald Reagan-loving California businessman who made his fortune in dehydrated garlic and onion.<a href="http://dbacon.igc.org/Strikes/12Hume.htm" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hume tried to bust the union at his Basic Vegetables plant</a> in 1999 -- members of Teamsters Local 890. Now his union-busting legacy lives on in the foundation. Roe Foundation Thomas Roe was a South Carolina businessman who founded Builder Marts. He also founded a group called the State Policy Network, an ALEC-lite organization that gets money from -- you guessed it, Castle Rock, et al. Andy Kroll at <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining" style="line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mother Jones</a> reported in 2011: <blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...the State Policy Network (SPN) is a little-known umbrella group with deep ties to the national conservative movement. Its mission is simple: to back a constellation of state-level think tanks loosely modeled after Heritage that promote free-market principles and rail against unions, regulation, and tax increases... </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Founded in 1992 by businessman and Reagan administration insider Thomas Roe—who also served on the Heritage Foundation's board of trustees for two decades—the group has grown to include 59 "freedom centers," or affiliated think tanks, in all 50 states. SPN's board includes officials from Heritage and right-wing charities such as the Adolph Coors and Jacqueline Hume foundations. Likewise, its deep-pocketed donors include all the usual heavy-hitting conservative benefactors: the Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation, which funds the Cato Institute and Heritage; the Castle Rock Foundation, a charity started with money from the conservative Coors Foundation; and the Bradley Foundation, a $540 million charity devoted to funding conservative causes.</blockquote>The National Right to Work Committee is linked directly (of course) with the Attack Foundation.  It's a little more secretive than the Foundation. Our friends at <a href="http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/the-anti-union-network/national-right-to-work/" style="line-height: 16.9px;">American Rights At Work</a> report, <blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A lawsuit revealed that 84 percent of the National Right to Work Committee’s 1973 budget was funded by corporations, and other employers. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px;">Early known donors include:
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px;">Wofford Camp who served on a U.S. Chamber of Commerce committee and was a California grower who fought efforts by farm workers to organize unions. </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px; line-height: 16.9px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin: 1em 20px;">Roger Milliken, former president of Milliken & Company, who shut down one of his southern textile plants as retaliation against his employees’ vote to form a union…</blockquote>...the Committee’s first chairman of the board was Edwin Dillard, president of Old Dominion Box Company, who vehemently fought his workers’ efforts to organize his company’s plants in the South.9  Fred Hartley, the Committee’s first president, was the former Congressman who sponsored the Taft-Hartley Act amending the National Labor Relations Act to expand employers’ rights, not workers.</blockquote></div><div>
</div><div>2013</div><div></div>

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Right_to_Work_Committee" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Right to Work Committee</a><span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (NRTWC),

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/node/12498">http://www.prwatch.org/node/12498</a>

<p style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 session comes to a close, one of the major cases left for a decision is Harris vs. Quinn,which could effect millions of public sector workers in the United States.

The case originates in Illinois, where home health care workers have been successfully organized by public sector unions. Now, a small group of these workers, represented by lawyers from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, have sued and their lawyers contend that the agency fees, or the fair share dues that even non-union members of a bargaining unit are required to pay to unions that bargain for higher wages on their behalf, violate the First Amendment. Agency fees are barred in so-called "right to work" states, which have much less unionization and lower wages and benefits.

Joel Rogers, a professor of law and sociology at the University of Wisconsin, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/179033/why-harris-v-quinn-has-labor-very-very-nervous" target="_blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">calls it</a> "the most important labor law case the court has considered in decades." This is because when the Supreme Court decided to take on the case, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation dramatically expanded the scope of the case beyond the home health care workers to include all public sector workers, from teachers and firefighters to sanitation workers to librarians. If the court follows National Right to Work's lead, every state in the country would essentially turn into an anti-union "right to work" state, which would be a significant blow to public sector unions' collective bargaining efforts and also complicate thousands of existing contracts between organized workers and municipalities, cities, counties, and states across the country.

The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation</a> (NRTWLDF) is the 501(c)(3) arm of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Right_to_Work_Committee" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Committee</a> (NRTWC), a 501(c)(4) organization. Additionally, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research is an affiliated anti-union research shop. Founded nearly 60 years ago, the NRTWC has been a national leader in the effort to destroy public and private sector unions. The groups have increased their funding and staffing in recent years. In 2012, the three groups combined reported over $25 million in revenue, making them a powerful instrument of the corporate and ideological interests that want to keep wages low and silence the voice of organized labor in the political arena.

NRTWC's success and the demise of unions in the United States has directly contributed to the erosion of high-paying middle class jobs and to growing inequality, as this chart from the <a href="http://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequality-rises/" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Economic Policy Institute</a> graphically illustrates.

<h2 style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Right to Work's Deep Connections to the Koch Brothers and the John Birch Society</h2>

<p style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The NRTWC has deep connections within the national right-wing network led by the Koch brothers. Reed Larson, who led the NRTW groups for over three decades, hails from Wichita, Kansas, the hometown of Charles and David Koch. Larson became an early leader of the radical right-wing John Birch Society in Kansas, which Fred Koch (the father of Charles and David) helped found. Several other founders and early leaders of the NRTWC were <a href="http://cdn.calisphere.org/data/28722/8t/bk0003z7b8t/files/bk0003z7b8t-FID1.pdf" target="_blank" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">members and leaders of the John Birch Society</a>, specifically the Wichita chapter of which Fred Koch was an active member.

The groups remain tied to the Kochs. In 2012, the Kochs' <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Freedom_Partners" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Freedom Partners</a> group funneled $1 million to the <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/national-right-to-work-committee/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Committee</a>, while the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Charles_G.Koch_Charitable_Foundation" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation</a> gave a $15,000 grant to the<a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/national-right-to-work-legal-defense-foundation/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">NRTWLDF</a>, which has also received significant funding from the Koch-connected <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DonorsTrust" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">DonorsTrust</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Donors_Capital_Fund" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Donors Capital Fund</a>. Today, at least three former Koch associates work as attorneys for the NRTWLDF.

In June 2010, Mark Mix, the current head of the NRTW groups, attended the Kochs' exclusive <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Network" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Aspen strategy meeting</a> to give a presentation on how to mobilize conservatives for the 2010 election, along with representatives from Koch-backed groups such as the Center to Protect Patient Rights (now called <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_to_Protect_Patient_Rights" target="blank" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">American Encore</a>) and<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Prosperity" target="_blank" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a>.

In addition to the Koch brothers, the NRTWLDF has received significant funding from many big name conservative donors, including the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Walton_Family_Foundation" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Walton Family Foundation</a> (of Walmart), the Coors family's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Castle_Rock_Foundation" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Castle Rock Foundation</a>, Wisconsin's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bradley_Foundation" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Bradley Foundation</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_M.Olin_Foundation" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">John M. Olin Foundation</a>, and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Searle_Freedom_Trust" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Searle Freedom Trust</a>.

<h2 style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A $33 Million Anti-Worker Lobby Shop with Ties to ALEC, SPN, and More</h2>

In order to push their extreme agenda, the NRTWC has launched a massive lobbying effort at both the state and federal level. In the U.S. Congress alone, the NRTWC has <a href="http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=selectFields&reset=1" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">spent</a> over $33 million on lobbying between 1999 and 2013. NRTWC has lobbied Congress to pass a national "Right to Work Act," which is sponsored by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul has lent his name to several NRTWC advocacy and fundraising letters and received over $27,000 in campaign contributions from the NRTWC’s federal political action committee. The NRTWC also strongly opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it easier for workers to organize, while supported legislation that would weaken the regulatory authority of the National Labor Relations Board over employers.

The NRTWC also does extensive lobbying on the state level. In 2012, lobbyists registered with the NRTWC were on the ground in <a href="http://www.in.gov/ilrc/files/2012_employer.pdf" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Indiana</a> and <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-1633_11945---,00.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Michigan</a> when both states passed anti-union "right to work" bills and are big supporters of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his efforts to crush public sector unions. The NRTWC was an exhibitor at the 2011 annual conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate bill mill <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">exposed by CMD in 2011</a>. ALEC's "<a href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/c/c8/1R10-Right_to_Work_Act_Exposed.pdf" target="blank" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Right to Work Act</a>," which has been in the ALEC library since at least 1980, is one of its most commonly used "model" bills. When Republicans took trifecta control of 26 state houses in November of 2010, it was a top agenda item at the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/wisconsin-recall-election-right-to-work-b_1553348.html" target="blank" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">December 2010 ALEC meeting</a>. According to a <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/ALEC%20Policy%20Initiatives%20(Ballweg)%2011:11:10.pdf" target="_blank" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">2010 email</a>from ALEC to Wisconsin legislators that CMD obtained, ALEC referred to its "Right to Work Act" as a "solution… for your state's most pressing issues." Currently 24 states are so-called "right to work" states. In 2013, 15 states introduced legislation based on ALEC's "Right to Work Act."

The NRTWLDF is also an <a href="http://www.spn.org/directory/organizations.asp" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">associate member of the State Policy Network (SPN)</a>, an $84 million dollar network of 64 state-based "think tanks." The State Policy Network's affiliate in Michigan, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mackinac_Center" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Mackinac Center</a>, was one of the major supporters behind "right to work" when the legislature passed the bill in 2012. Through its board, staff, and other activities, the NRTW groups also have close connections to Americans for Prosperity, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cato_Institute" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Cato Institute</a>, the<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Conservative_Union" target="blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">American Conservative Union</a>, and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Republican_National_Committee" target="_blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Republican National Committee</a>.

<h2 style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Crossing the Line: Whistleblower Alleges New Election Law Violations</h2>

The NRTWC's long history of pushing the line in campaign finance and electoral activity as a nonprofit led to an FEC case against it at the <a href="http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation_CCA_FEC_N.shtml" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">U.S. Supreme Court in 1982</a>, in which the court ruled against the NRTWC for illegally raising money for electoral activities. The NRTWC continued to engage in controversial campaign-related activities, and evidence suggests that the <span style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation_CCA_FEC_N.shtml" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">National Right to Work Committee spent $100,000 on private detectives</a> in 1984 to infiltrate the AFL-CIO, NEA, and Walter Mondale's presidential campaign. By the time that case was brought to court, the statute of limitations had expired.

Today, the NRTWC continues to generate controversy for engaging in campaign related activities. In January 2014,<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/01/strong-evidence-emerges-on-right-to-work/" target="_blank" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">the Center for Responsive Politics</a> detailed whistleblower allegations that the NRTWC was running "a massive off-the-books mass mailing operation" attempting to influence the 2010 election in Iowa and possibly other states. The NRTWC did not disclose that it was participating in political activity that year to the IRS. The whistleblower also alleged that the NRTWC was coordinating its activities with candidates' campaigns during the election. Former IRS official Marcus Owens commented to the news outlet that "people have gone to jail for precisely the facts that you are describing." At the center of the controversy was then-NRTWC Vice President Doug Stafford, who is the former chief of staff for U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

<h2 style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NRTWC Lawyers Push Their Agenda through the Courts</h2>

The legal arm of NRTWC was launched in 1968 to take the anti-worker agenda to the courts. With the <em style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: italic;">Harris v. Quinn case, the NRTWLDF is seeking to re-litigate the <em style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: italic;">Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education Supreme Court case it lost in 1977, which upheld the constitutionality of fair share dues. Over the years, the NRTWLDF has done little to improve wages, benefits, health or safety protections for American workers, but has tried scores of cases against unions and organized labor revealing its political agenda. With a large team of lawyers and millions in funding from national right-wing sources, the NRTWLDF is currently trying cases in Arkansas, Missouri, California, Michigan, Colorado, and Ohio.

NRTWLDF's also recently filed suit to block workers in the Volkswagen Chattanooga plant from voting for union representation and to prevent Volkswagen from <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/13/us-autos-vw-lawsuit-idUSBREA2C1VJ20140313" style="font-weight: normal; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">voluntarily consenting</a> to any future organizing drives.

Professor Rogers and other labor experts contend that the NRTWC's success in the U.S. Supreme Court "would be a disaster for labor, particularly for the public sector unions that traditionally rely more heavily on agency shop agreements." As Rogers points out, it is technically possible to form a union in a "right to work" state, but when union members are free to stop paying their dues, the union becomes a weak and ineffective organization. The results for American workers are clear. <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-michigan-economy/" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Research show</a>s that "right to work" states have lower wages, less health care and more poverty.

</div>

<li class="field-item even" style="border: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px !important;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/democracy" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Democrac</a>y</li>

</li><li style=" list-style: none;">

</li><li class="field-item odd" style="border: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px !important;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/labor" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Labor</a></li>

</li><li style=" list-style: none;">

</li><li class="field-item even" style="border: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px !important;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/social-justice" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Social Justice</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

===

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation</a>

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF) is an non-profit <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=501%28c%293" title="501(c)3" class="mw-redirect">501(c)3</a> non-profit organization that launches legal actions against labor organizations. "No force is inflicting more damage on our economy, citizenry, and cherished democracy than the union bosses," it claims on its website. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#cite_note-0" title="">[1]</a>

The NRTWLDF was founded in 1968. They say: "The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee" title="National Right to Work Committee">National Right to Work Committee</a> was then active in Congress and state legislatures...but it was not structured to give legal aid. So by 1968, the time had come...rather than working in the legislative arena, such an organization could fight through the court system." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#cite_note-1" title="">[2]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="javascript:toggleToc()" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#Administrative_Officers">1 Administrative Officers</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#Funding">2 Funding</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#Website">3 Website</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#Sources">4 Sources</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#External_links">5 External links</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Administrative Officers</h2>

<ul>

<li>Chairman of the Board of Trustees - Dr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Frederick_C.Fowler,III&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Frederick C. Fowler, III (page does not exist)">Frederick C. Fowler, III</a></li>

<li>Chairman of the Executive Committee and Treasurer - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reed_E._Larson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Reed E. Larson (page does not exist)">Reed E. Larson</a></li>

<li>President - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_A._Mix&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mark A. Mix (page does not exist)">Mark A. Mix</a></li>

<li>Vice President and Legal Director - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Raymond_J.LaJeunesse,Jr.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Raymond J. LaJeunesse, Jr. (page does not exist)">Raymond J. LaJeunesse, Jr.</a></li>

<li>Vice President and Assistant Treasurer - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stefan_H._Gleason&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Stefan H. Gleason (page does not exist)">Stefan H. Gleason</a></li>

<li>Vice President - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alicia_A._Auerswald&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Alicia A. Auerswald (page does not exist)">Alicia A. Auerswald</a></li>

<li>Secretary - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_M._Smith&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Virginia M. Smith (page does not exist)">Virginia M. Smith</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Funding</h2>

The NRTWLDF has received 25 grants totaling $2,094,500 (unadjusted for inflation) from a handful of conservative U.S. foundations between 1991 and 2002.<a href="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?1128" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?1128" rel="nofollow">[1]</a>

Funding foundations have included:

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Castle_Rock_Foundation" title="Castle Rock Foundation">Castle Rock Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_M._Olin_Foundation" title="John M. Olin Foundation">John M. Olin Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Shelby_Cullon_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Shelby Cullon Foundation (page does not exist)">Shelby Cullon Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jaquelin_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jaquelin Foundation (page does not exist)">Jaquelin Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roe_Foundation" title="Roe Foundation">Roe Foundation</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Website</h2>

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation

8001 Braddock Road

Springfield, Virginia 22160

Phone: (703) 321-8510 and (800) 336-3600

Fax: (703) 321-9613

Web: <a href="http://www.nrtw.org" class="external free" title="http://www.nrtw.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.nrtw.org</a>

<h2>Sources</h2>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#cite_ref-0" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.nrtw.org/hcih/" class="external text" title="http://www.nrtw.org/hcih/" rel="nofollow">"How Can I Help?"</a>, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, accessed October 2007.</li>

<li id="cite_note-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation#cite_ref-1" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.nrtw.org/b/foundation_history.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.nrtw.org/b/foundation_history.htm" rel="nofollow">"A Brief History of the Foundation"</a>, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, accessed October 2007.</li>

</ol>

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?1128" class="external text" title="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?1128" rel="nofollow">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation</a>, accessed October 2004.</li>

<li>Debra England, "<a href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DebraEngland/2006/12/16/top_10_charitable_gift_ideas_for_this_holiday_season" class="external text" title="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DebraEngland/2006/12/16/top_10_charitable_gift_ideas_for_this_holiday_season" rel="nofollow">Top 10 charitable gift ideas for this holiday season</a>," TownHall.com, December 16, 2006.</li>

</ul>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Labor" title="Category:Labor">Labor</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Law" title="Category:Law">Law</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:United_States" title="Category:United States">United States</a></div>

</div>

===

The National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC), headquartered in Virginia, describes itself as "a nonprofit, nonpartisan, single-purpose citizens' organization dedicated to the principle that all Americans must have the right to join a union if they choose to, but none should ever be forced to affiliate with a union in order to get or keep a job." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-0" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[1]</a>

According to its 2007 financial report, NRTWC is related to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Institute_for_Labor_Relations_Research&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="National Institute for Labor Relations Research (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">National Institute for Labor Relations Research</a>, sharing facilities and employees with the group. NRTWC shares facilities and employees with the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_and_Education_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation</a>. In 2007, NRTWC also reported that its taxable subsidiary, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Phone_Center&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Liberty Phone Center (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Liberty Phone Center</a>, had $1,179,825 in income in 2007. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-IRS2007-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[2]</a>

<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; width: auto; display: inline; background-image: none;">Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">hide</a>] </div>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#Issues" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1 Issues</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#Lobbying_and_political_action_committees" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2 Lobbying and political action committees</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#Personnel" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">3 Personnel</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#Financial_information" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">4 Financial information</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#Contact_details" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">5 Contact details</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#Articles_and_resources" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6 Articles and resources</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#Related_SourceWatch_articles" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.1 Related SourceWatch articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#References" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.2 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#External_resources" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.3 External resources</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#External_articles" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6.4 External articles</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Issues</h2>

NRTWC opposes the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Employee_Free_Choice_Act" title="Employee Free Choice Act" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Employee Free Choice Act</a>, calling it "forced unionism" and claiming that it would "empower union bosses to force a business's employees to accept a union as their exclusive bargaining agent solely through the acquisition of signed union authorization cards from employees in a particular bargaining unit." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[3]</a>

NRTWC opposed the nomination of then-Congresswoman <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hilda_Solis" title="Hilda Solis" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Hilda Solis</a> as President <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Barack_Obama" title="Barack Obama" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Barack Obama</a>'s Labor Secretary. NRTWC's Mark Mix called Solis "a die-hard forced unionism activist who apparently believes that all workers should be gathered into union collectives whether they like it or not." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[4]</a> An NRTWC press release stated, "The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Department_of_Labor" title="U.S. Department of Labor" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">U.S. Department of Labor</a> is not supposed to be the U.S. Department of Big Labor. The Labor secretary should be on the side of workers, not union bosses who seek to trample workers' rights." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[5]</a>

In Colorado in 2008, NRTWC spent $300,000 in support of a "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Right_to_work&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Right to work (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">right to work</a>" state ballot measure. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[6]</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lobbying and political action committees</h2>

NRTWC spent $1,440,000 on lobbying in 2007, and $930,000 in 2008, according to its lobbying disclosure reports. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-lobbyists.info-6" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[7]</a> In its 2007 financial report to the IRS, NRTWC reported $4,871,212 in "lobbying and political expenses." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-IRS2007-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[2]</a> NRTWC's in-house lobbyists are <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_J.Clair&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Richard J. Clair (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Richard J. Clair</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jeddidiah_Coburn&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jeddidiah Coburn (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Jeddidiah Coburn</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dimitri_N.Kesari&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Dimitri N. Kesari (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Dimitri N. Kesari</a>,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Raymond_J.LaJeunesse_Jr.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Raymond J. LaJeunesse Jr. (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Raymond J. LaJeunesse Jr.</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_A.Mix&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mark A. Mix (page does not exist)" style=" text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Mark A. Mix</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Douglass_A._Stafford&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Douglass A. Stafford (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Douglass A. Stafford</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greg_Mourad&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Greg Mourad (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Greg Mourad</a> for the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Employee_Rights_Campaign_Committee&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="State Employee Rights Campaign Committee (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">State Employee Rights Campaign Committee</a>. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-lobbyists.info-6" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[7]</a>

NRTWC runs two <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Political_action_committee" title="Political action committee" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">political action committees</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee_PAC&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="National Right to Work Committee PAC (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">National Right to Work Committee PAC</a> and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Employee_Rights_Campaign_Committee&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="State Employee Rights Campaign Committee (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">State Employee Rights Campaign Committee</a>. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-lobbyists.info-6" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[7]</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Personnel</h2>

NRTWC's officers, and the amount they were paid in 2007, are as follows (those with no payment specified were not compensated in 2007): <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[8]</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[9]</a>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_R._Serio&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Charles R. Serio (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Charles R. Serio</a> - Chairman of the Board of Directors</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cornell_W._Gethmann&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Cornell W. Gethmann (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Cornell W. Gethmann</a> - Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors</li>

<li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reed_E._Larson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Reed E. Larson (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Reed E. Larson</a> - Chairman of the Executive Committee - paid $28,375 in 2007</li>

<li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_A._Mix&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mark A. Mix (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Mark A. Mix</a> - President - paid $77,309 in 2007</li>

<li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anne_M._Coulter&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anne M. Coulter (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Anne M. Coulter</a> - Secretary - paid $65,767 in 2007</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Douglass_A._Stafford&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Douglass A. Stafford (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Douglass A. Stafford</a> - Vice President & Treasurer - paid $100,467 in 2007</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Matthew_M._Leen&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Matthew M. Leen (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Matthew M. Leen</a> - Vice President & Asst. Treasurer - paid $108,164 in 2007</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stephen_O._Goodrick&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Stephen O. Goodrick (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Stephen O. Goodrick</a> - Vice President - paid $24,388 in 2007</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=L.A.Vernon&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="L. A. Vernon (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">L. A. Vernon</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Annabelle_Fetterman&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Annabelle Fetterman (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Annabelle Fetterman</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sandra_Crandall&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sandra Crandall (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Sandra Crandall</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=R._Bruce_Simpson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="R. Bruce Simpson (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">R. Bruce Simpson</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Dr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_M.Baird,Jr.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="James M. Baird, Jr. (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">James M. Baird, Jr.</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Morton_C._Blackwell" title="Morton C. Blackwell" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Morton C. Blackwell</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=R.R.Ebbing&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="R. R. Ebbing (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">R. R. Ebbing</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Erik_J._Hanson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Erik J. Hanson (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Erik J. Hanson</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Franklin_A.Partin,Jr.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Franklin A. Partin, Jr. (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Franklin A. Partin, Jr.</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greg_Hagenston&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Greg Hagenston (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Greg Hagenston</a> - Director</li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dennis_Norman&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Dennis Norman (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Dennis Norman</a> - Director</li>

</ul>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Financial information</h2>

In 2007, NRTWC reported $6,636,267 in income ($6,063,520 of that came from contributions), and $6,590,980 in expenses. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[10]</a>

In total, NRTWC paid its officers $506,444 in 2007, and its employees $2,460,084 (not including $168,429 in pension plans and $194,252 in other employee benefits). It reported having 181 employees in 2007. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-IRS2007-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[2]</a>

NRTWC reported $4,871,212 in "lobbying and political expenses" in 2007. The group spent $165,868 on "legislative research and strategy, public relations and membership"; and gave $232,000 to other nonprofits in 2007. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_note-IRS2007-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[2]</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Contact details</h2>

8001 Braddock Road, Suite 500

Springfield, VA 22160

Phone: (800) 325-7892

Fax: (703) 321-7342

Web: <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.nrtwc.org/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">http://www.nrtwc.org</a>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Articles and resources</h2>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Related SourceWatch articles</h3>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Agriculture_for_a_Democratic_Workplace" title="Agriculture for a Democratic Workplace" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Agriculture for a Democratic Workplace</a></li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alliance_to_Save_Main_Street_Jobs" title="Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs</a></li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Union_Facts" title="Center for Union Facts" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Center for Union Facts</a></li>

<li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Coalition_for_a_Democratic_Workplace" title="Coalition for a Democratic Workplace" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Coalition for a Democratic Workplace</a></li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Employee_Free_Choice_Act" title="Employee Free Choice Act" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Employee Free Choice Act</a></li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Employee_Freedom_Action_Committee" title="Employee Freedom Action Committee" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Employee Freedom Action Committee</a></li>

<li style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Front_groups" title="Front groups" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Front groups</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rick_Berman" title="Rick Berman" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rick Berman</a></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a></li>

<li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Workforce_Fairness_Institute" title="Workforce Fairness Institute" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Workforce Fairness Institute</a></li>

</ul>

<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; width: auto; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">References</h3>

<li id="cite_note-0" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-0" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nrtwc.org/about/" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">About NRTWC</a>," National Right to Work Committee website, accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-IRS2007-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-IRS2007_1-0" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-IRS2007_1-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2.1</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-IRS2007_1-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2.2</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-IRS2007_1-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2.3</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments//2007/510/147/2007-510147724-04497179-9O.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcaqaaaanowc2aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaae5jrefuef5lykekgdambdf="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAAAnOwc2AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAE5JREFUeF5lykEKgDAMBdF" es="Es" qkiosicburxizjoozohmwex6gwmkcei="QkiosiCBURXIzJooZohmweX6gwmkCeI" oqc2c1fnvnf2ejlqyu0tlk2njy6f="Oqc2C1FnvnF2ejlQYU0tLK2NjY6f" l8v12ti7uhffgdj19b58ewxuqkaaaaabjru5erkjggg="=" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">National Right to Work Committee IRS form 990 for 2007</a>," via GuideStar.org, accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nrtwc.org/facts-issues/cardcheck.htm" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">'Card-check' forced unionism</a>," National Right to Work Committee website, accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "Incoming labor secretary vows to work for 'hardworking families'," CNN.com, January 9, 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Press release, "Worker Advocate: Solis Nomination Slap in the Face to America's Independent Minded Workers," National Right to Work Committee, December 18, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-5" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> Burt Hubbard and Joanne Kelley, "Political donations skyrocket: Economic woes fail to curb cash in ballot battles," Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), October 29, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-lobbyists.info-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-lobbyists.info_6-0" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">7.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-lobbyists.info_6-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">7.1</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-lobbyists.info_6-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">7.2</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.lobbyists.info/detail.cfm?organization_id=8369&page=1&RequestTimeout=1500" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">National Right to Work Committee</a>," Lobbyists.info (sub req'd), accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-7" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nrtwc.org/about/officersboard.php" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Officers</a>," National Right to Work Committee website, accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-8" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www2.guidestar.org/ReportOrganization.aspx?ein=51-0147724" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Organization report - people: National Right to Work Committee</a>," GuideStar.org, accessed March 2009.</li>

<li id="cite_note-9" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Committee#cite_ref-9" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">↑</a> "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www2.guidestar.org/ReportOrganization.aspx?ein=51-0147724" style="text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaagxrfwhrtb2z0d2fyzqbbzg9izsbjbwfnzvjlywr5ccllpaaaafzjrefuef59z4ejadeiq1f36k7u5e7zkxeuqpacj3wk7unokvxvk9khnqh7by9hbdydhnxgjprlqflo4m2ggfyjhhjq8v4agfrgpqx3jtjqgbofmchga="AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA" nakks="nAKks" jajfaaaaaelftksuqmcc="JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">Organization report - financials: National Right to Work Committee</a>," GuideStar.org, accessed March 2009.</li>

</ol>

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<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Categories</a>:

<li style=" margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left-style: none; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em; zoom: 1;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Labor" title="Category:Labor" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Labor</a></li>

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Mark Mix is President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. He also serves as President of the National Right to Work Committee, a 2.6 million member public policy organization.

He became President of the Foundation in 2003. Under the leadership of Mr. Mix, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has continued to provide unparalleled free legal assistance to workers and has utilized cutting-edge legal strategies to protect workers from the abuses of compulsory unionism.

Mr. Mix frequently appears on national television shows including Fox News Channel's Your World: With Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck and Fox & Friends, and has also appeared on multiple times on CNBC and CNN. Mr. Mix also often serves as a guest on nationally-syndicated radio shows such as the The Lars Larson Show, Jason Lewis Show, Michael Reagan Show and the Jim Bohannon Show.

Similarly, Mr. Mix's writings have appeared in national outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Investors Business Daily, Washington Examiner and National Review. His pieces have also been featured in widely-read regional publications across the country including the Detroit Free Press, theOrange County Register and the Detroit News.

Mr. Mix is also a sought after speaker on political technology and grass-roots lobbying tactics. He often travels across the country, speaking and training participants in the political process.

Mark Mix holds a BA in Finance from James Madison University and an Associate Degree in Marketing from the State University of New York. Prior to joining the National Right to Work Committee in 1990, Mr. Mix worked for several state-level Right to Work groups. He joined the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in 1999.

Documents obtained by Progress Missouri indicate that the Republican leaders in Jefferson City are working directly with national, extreme front groups to silence Missouri workers and increase corporate power. Leaders from the the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Western Michigan Policy Forum and National Tax Limitation Committee are scheduled to speak at tonight’s strategy session at 8pm in Hearing Room 3, per House leadership communications.

Further demonstrating the involvement of extreme corporate front groups, the so-called “right to work” legislation introduced by Rep. Eric Burlison and co-sponsored by Speaker Tim Jones comes <a href="http://www.progressmissouri.org/house-leaderships-anti-worker-proposal-comes-straight-alec-corporate-bill-mill" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none;">directly from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)</a>, a Progress Missouri analysis has shown.

“Our legislators need to be listening to Missourians and solving Missouri problems, not following the orders of extreme billionaires and their secretive front groups,” said Sean Soendker Nicholson, Executive Director of Progress Missouri. “These bills are all about limiting the political voices of workers and the middle class on behalf of CEOs and corporations.”

“<a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/martin_luther_king_on_right_to_work/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; background-color: transparent;">As Martin Luther King said in 1961</a>: ‘In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights.’”

------------------

BACKGROUND:

Corporate supporters of RTW laws claim that they ensure a more business-friendly climate and lead to economic growth, but recent studies show that these laws actually suppress wages and reduce the standard of living. In fact, a state’s RTW law has no impact on economic growth, has no influence on employment, has no influence on business capital formation, and is actually correlated with a decrease in wages. [Source:<a href="http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/state-battles/right-to-work/new-research-counters-arguments-for-right-to-work-laws-20110111-945-415-415.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; background-color: transparent;">“New Research Counters Arguments for ‘Right-to-Work’ Laws,”</a> American Rights at Work, 03/11]

On the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation:

<li style=" background-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund and National Right to Work Committee Have Goal of Weakening Unions, Not Protecting Workers

According to the Chicago Tribune, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is "associated" with the National Right to Work Committee, which is an "organization that lobbies for so-called right-to-work laws that let workers refrain from paying union dues, thus weakening unions' power." [Chicago Tribune, 2/1/2013]</li>

</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has direct ties to the Koch Brothers’ network of extreme organizations. Mark Mix, President of the National Right To Work Committee and President of the National Right To Work Legal Defense Fun, is directly connected to the Koch network.

<li style=" background-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mix was a presenter at a <a href="http://littlesis.org/list/111/Koch_Network_Participants,_Aspen_2010/pictures" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">Koch Conference in Aspen, Colorado</a>, where he discussed coordinated electoral strategies. His organization, National Right to Work, receives <a href="http://www.theihs.org/ksfp-host-search" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">free summer employees</a> from the Koch summer fellows program.</li>

<li style=" background-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mix attended the 2010 <a href="http://littlesis.org/list/111/Koch_Network_Participants,_Aspen_2010/pictures" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">Koch Conference in Aspen, Colorado.</a></li>

<li style=" background-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mix <a href="http://images2.americanprogressaction.org/ThinkProgress/secretkochmeeting.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">presented</a> a session entitled “Mobilizing Citizens for November,” on the topic: “Is there a chance this fall to elect leaders who are strongly committed to liberty and prosperity?” alongside Sean Noble and Tim Phillips of the Koch Funded Americans for Prosperity.</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mix is a Speaker for the <a href="http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/breakfast/bio.cfm?speaker=14531" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Leadership Institut</a><a href="http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/breakfast/bio.cfm?speaker=14531" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">e</a>, an organization that received over<a href="http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/organization/Leadership_Institute/funders" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">$100,000</a> from Koch-funded foundations. [Source: <a href="http://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/anatomy-koch-thon-sham-budget-hearings-brought-you-koch-brothers" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">People for the American Way</a>]</li>

</ul>

</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Backed by "Reactionary" Coors Foundation

According to The Center for Media and Democracy publication Sourcewatch.com, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is backed by the Castle Rock Foundation. According to Salon.com, the Castle Rock Foundation is an "obscure but reactionary" foundation started by the Coors family. [The Center for Media and Democracy, Link; Salon.com, 10/22/2004]</li>

</ul>

On the National Tax Limitation Committee:

Lew Uhler is the activist behind a California measure to force the unions to get written employee consent before they can spend dues money for political purposes. “While Uhler is the author of the measure, it is a Laguna Niguel- based campaign committee called the Coalition for Employee Rights that is paying for the effort. Identities of the committee's financial backers, however, remain a mystery. Committee treasurer James V. Lacy said he'll disclose his donors when it's required.” [Sacramento Bee, 3/20/05]</li>

</ul>

On the West Michigan Policy Forum:

According to Salon.com, the West Michigan Policy Forum is headed by former Amway CEO and one time Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dick Devos. They wrote, "Dick Devos, a former Amway CEO, was the GOP’s self-funded (failed) gubernatorial nominee in 2006. During that campaign, he said he had no interest in right-to-work. But like Snyder, he’s had an apparent change of heart. The business group West Michigan Policy Forum, which Devos chairs, recently announced that it was prepared to get a right-to-work law on the ballot if legislators didn’t send one to the governor’s desk." [Salon.com, 12/11/2012]

</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;">Jared Rodriguez of the Western Michigan Policy Forum has a long history of working with extreme anti-worker organizations. Rodriguez is a former senior vice president of the west-Michigan Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, and was the treasurer for a campaign funded by right-wing ideologues, including Missouri’s Ethelmae Humphreys, to stop a pro-worker a ballot initative in Michigan in 2012. [Source: <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/09/24/10958/national-unions-and-chamber-commerce-face-michigan" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">Public Integrity</a>, September 24, 2012; <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/state-amendment-scare-tactics/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent;">FactCheck.org</a>, 10/26/12] </li>

</ul>

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Published on National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (http://www.nrtw.org)

The Foundation's Litigators

Raymond J. LaJeunesse, Jr., Vice President and Legal Director (2001-present)

Foundation Staff Attorney, 1971-2001; Legislative Assistant (part-time), Virginia House of Delegates, 1972-73; self-employed political research consultant, Washington, DC, 1969-71; Research Director, United Republicans of America, Washington, DC, 1967-68; Martindale-Hubbell® AV® Peer Review Rated [1]; American Lawyer Media 2013 Top Rated Lawyer in Labor & Employment and Virginia Top-Rated Lawyer; received Avvo's "Superb" rating in "Constitutional" and "Employment/Labor" law categories. Bar Admissions: Virginia, 1967; District of Columbia, 1972; U.S. Supreme Court, 1982 (admitted only in VA & DC). Law School: Washington & Lee University, LL.B., 1967. College: Providence College, A.B., Humanities, cum laude, 1964. Member: Vice Chairman, Labor and Employment Practice Group, Federalist Society National Lawyers Division, 2000-present; Advisor for Labor-Related Agencies, Office of the President-Elect, 1980-81. Publications: "The Controversial 'Card Check' Bill, Stalled in the United States Congress, Presents Serious Legal and Policy Issues," 14 TEXAS REVIEW OF LAW & POLITICS 209 (2010); "Workers' Experiences in Attempting to Exercise Their Rights Under Communications Workers v. Beck", ENGAGE, Apr. 2002, at 102; "The Future of Unions," FEDERALIST SOCIETY LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW NEWS, Spring 1999, at 1; Comment on T.R. Haggard, "Union Security in the Context of Labor Arbitration," 1994 PROCEEDINGS OF NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ARBITRATORS124; "Employees' Freedom from Ideological Conformity: A Right Without a Remedy?," 5 JOURNAL OF LABOR RESEARCH 265 (1984); Case Comment, "A Struck Carrier's Right to Attempt to Operate," 24 WASHINGTON & LEE LAW REVIEW 80 (1967). Reported Cases (partial listing): Marquez v. Screen Actors Guild, 525 U.S. 33 (1998); Airline Pilots Ass'n v. Miller, 523 U.S. 866 (1998); Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Ass'n, 500 U.S. 507 (1991); Wessel v. City of Albuquerque, 299 F.3d 1186 (10th Cir. 2002), after remand, 463 F.3d 1138 (10th Cir. 2006); Hohe v. Casey, 956 F.2d 399 (3d Cir. 1992); Ferriso v. NLRB, 125 F.3d 865 (D.C. Cir. 1997); Bromley v. Michigan Education Ass'n, 82 F.3d 686 (6th Cir. 1996); Harrington v. City of Albuquerque, 222 F.R.D. 505 (D.N.M. 2004); Lutz v. Machinists, 121 F. Supp. 2d 498 (E.D. Va. 2000); Browne v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, 485 N.W. 2d 376 (Wis. 1992).

Bruce N. Cameron, Staff Attorney (1976-present)

Reed Larson Professor of Labor Law, Regent University School of Law, 2007-present; Intern, U.S. Attorneys Office, Justice Honors Program, Atlanta, GA, U.S. Department of Justice, 1975-76. Bar Admissions: Georgia, 1976; U.S. Supreme Court, 1982; District of Columbia, 1984; Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1984 (admitted only in GA, DC & MA). Law School: Emory University, J.D., 1976. College: Andrews University, B.A., Business Administration/Political Science, with honors, 1973. Member: Federalist Society Faculty Division; Christian Legal Society. Publications (partial listing): "The Hardison Case," LIBERTY, Sept.-Oct. 1977, at 15; "Rebuttal: Right to Work Law Note," 14 GEORGIA STATE BAR JOURNAL 138 (1978); "Labor Unions and Rights of Conscience," LIBERTY, May-June 1981, at 6; "Caution: Agency Fee Payers Can Be Harmful to Your Financial Health," ILLINOIS PUBLIC EMPLOYEE RELATIONS REPORT, Summer 1987, at 7; Co-author, "Agency Service Fee Litigation," in LAWYERS WEEKLY, A JUDICIAL GUIDE TO LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT 423 (1990); "Union Dues and Ethical Don'ts," VISION, July-Aug. 1996, at 4; "An Employee's Guide to Union Dues and Religious Do Nots [2]," monograph published by the Foundation; "Jethro Was Right: Arbitrate, Not Litigate," ADVENTIST LAWYER 2002; "Your Other Right," 97 LIBERTY, July-Aug. 2002, at 21. "Card Sharks and Marks," LIBERTY, Jan.-Feb. 2006, at 26; "Religious Accomodation in Forced Dues Environments," ENGAGE, Mar. 2006, at 122; "Where Are The Bridges of Madison?" 106 LIBERTY 12, July-August 2011; "EI, EI, Oh What An Employee: The Biblical Basis for Teaching Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace [3]," (2011). Reported Cases (partial listing): Equal Opportunity Employment Commission v. University of Detroit, 904 F.2d 331 (6th Cir. 1990); Wilson v. NLRB, 920 F.2d 1282 (6th Cir. 1990); Machinists Lodge 720 v. NLRB, 626 F.2d 119 (9th Cir. 1980); Katter v. Ohio Employment Labor Relations Bd., 492 F.Supp.2d 851 (S.D. OH 2007); Sheridan v. Electrical Workers Local 455, 940 F. Supp. 368 (D. Mass. 1996); Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. AFSCME Council 82, 937 F. Supp. 166 (N.D. N.Y. 1996); Wareham Education Ass'n v. Labor Relations Commission, 713 N.E.2d 363 (Mass. 1999); Conley v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, 539 N.E.2d 1024 (Mass. 1989); Lyons v. Labor Relations Commission, 492 N.E.2d 343 (Mass. 1986); School Committee v. Greenfield Education Ass'n, 431 N.E.2d 180 (Mass. 1982).

Milton L. Chappell, Staff Attorney (1976-present)

Foundation Law Clerk, 1975-76; Legal Intern, Counsel for the Columbia Union Conference Association of Seventh-day Adventists, Takoma Park, MD, 1974-75. Bar Admissions: Maryland, 1976; District of Columbia, 1977; U.S. Supreme Court, 1980 (admitted only in MD & DC). Law School: Catholic University, J.D., 1976. College: Columbia Union College, B.A., Sociology/Political Science, summa cum laude, 1972. Member: Federalist Society. Publications: "Protecting the Rights of State Employees Against Compulsory Unionism," CALIFORNIA PUBLIC EMPLOYEE RELATIONS, No. 143 (Aug. 2000); "Legislative and Practical Alternatives to the Current Monopoly Bargaining Model That Will Enhance the Viability of Independent Teacher Groups," GOVERNMENT UNION REVIEW, Summer 1995, at 1; "From Abood to Tierney: The Protection of Nonunion Employees in an Agency Shop: You've Come a Long Way," 15 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 1 (1988). Reported Cases (partial listing): Davenport v. Washington Education Association, 551 U.S. 177 (2007); Otto v. Pennsylvania State Education Ass'n, 330 F.3d 125 (3d Cir. 2003); Damiano v. Matish, 830 F.2d 1363 (6th Cir. 1987); Swanson v. University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, 269 F. Supp. 2d 1252 (D. Hawaii 2003); Leer v. Washington Education Ass'n., 172 F.R.D. 439 (W.D. Wash. 1997); George v. Baltimore City Public Schools, 117 F.R.D. 368 (D. Md. 1987); Chamberlain v. FEC, 457 F. Supp. 1102 (D.D.C. 1978); Elvin v. Oregon Public Employees Union, 832 P.2d 26 (Or. 1992); Albro v. Indianapolis Educ. Ass’n, 585 N.E.2d 666 (Ind.App.), aff’d sum nom., Fort Wayne Educ. Ass’n v. Aldrich, 594 N.E.2d 781 (Ind. 1992); Ball v. City of Detroit, 84 Mich. App. 383, 269 N.W.2d 607 (1978); Marceau v. International Broth. of Elec. Workers, 618 F.Supp.2d 1127 (D. Ariz. 2009); Wilson v. NLRB, 920 F.2d 1282 (6th Cir. 1990).

Richard J. Clair, Corporate Counsel and Staff Attorney (1993-present)

Foundation Staff Attorney, 1979-1993; Tax Law Specialist, Exempt Organizations Division, IRS, Washington, DC, 1977-79. Bar Admissions: Louisiana, 1976; Virginia, 1977; U.S. Supreme Court, 1982 (admitted in only LA & VA). Law School: Loyola University, New Orleans, LA, J.D., 1976. College: Catholic University, B.A., Spanish, 1972. Member: Federalist Society. Publications: "Catholic Social Teaching and the Right to Work," monograph published by the Foundation (http://www.nrtw.org/a/Catholic.pdf [4]). Reported Cases: (partial listing):Machinists Local 2771 v. DynCorp, Aerospace Operations, Sheppard ENJJPT Division, 796 F. Supp. 976 (N.D. Tex. 1991); Davidson v. Cook, 567 F. Supp. 225 (E.D. Va. 1983), aff'd, 734 F.2d 10 (4th Cir. 1984);National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation v. United States, 487 F. Supp. 801 (E.D.N.C. 1979); Food & Commercial Workers Locals 951, 7 & 1036, 329 N.L.R.B. 730 (1999).

Amanda K. Freeman, Staff Attorney (2013-present)

Judicial Clerk, Honorable Glen A. Huff, Virginia Court of Appeals, August 2011–August 2013; Judicial Clerk, Honorable Robert J. Humphreys, Virginia Court of Appeals, August 2009–July 2011; Intern, Lentz, Stepanovich & Bergethon, PLC, Virginia Beach, VA, May 2008–August 2008, October 2008; Paralegal, Mauck & Baker, LLC, Chicago, IL, Summer 2007 and Feb. 2006–Aug. 2006. Bar Admission: Commonwealth of Virginia, 2009; U.S. Supreme Court, 2013 (admitted only in VA). Law School: Regent University School of Law, J.D., 2009; Study Abroad: International Human Rights, Strasbourg, France, Summer 2007. College: Bob Jones University, B.S. cum laude, 2005. Member: Federalist Society. Publication: Does "Emergency" Trump Conscience Thus Drawing Another Line In the Sand For Pharmacists?, 21 REGENT U. L. REV. 181 (2008).

Matthew B. Gilliam, Staff Attorney (2014-present)

Associate Attorney, Robinson & McElwee, PLLC, 2013-2014; Legal Associate, Cato Institute, Center for Constitutional Studies, 2012-2013; Law Clerk, U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Office of General Counsel-Legislative and Correctional Issues, 2010-2011; Intern, Bullard Falla Ezcurra, Summer 2009; Territory Manager, Marathon Petroleum, Marketing Division, 2000-2007. Bar Admission: New York, 2012; West Virginia, 2013; U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia, 2013 (admitted only in NY and WV). Law School: Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. 2011. College: Transylvania University, B.A. 1999, magna cum laude. Spanish-fluent.

Sarah E. Hartsfield, Staff Attorney (2011-present)

Legal Intern, The Singer Legal Group, Virginia Beach, VA, 2010-2011; Intern and Executive Assistant, The Ashcroft Group, L.L.C., Washington, DC, 2010; Legal Intern, Chesapeake Public Defender's Office, Chesapeake, VA, 2009. Bar Admissions: Virginia, 2011, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, 2012 (admitted only in VA). Law School: Regent University School of Law, J.D. 2011. College: University of Texas, B.A. 2008. Member: Federalist Society.

Geoffrey M. MacLeay, Staff Attorney (2011-present)

Associate, CRC Public Relations, Alexandria, VA, 2010-2011; Associate Director, The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, Alexandria, VA, 2009-2010; Koch Associate, The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Arlington, VA, 2009-2010; The Leadership Institute, Arlington, VA, 2008-2009; Co-Founder, Young Professionals for Growth in Florida, Orlando, FL, 2007-2008; Attorney, Tierney, P.A., Winter Park, FL, 2007-2008; Student Trial Attorney, Emory Criminal Defense Clinic, Atlanta, GA, 2007; Summer Associate, Wicker, Smith, O'Hara, McCoy and Ford, P.A., Orlando, FL, 2006; Legal Intern, United States Dept. of Homeland Security, Atlanta, GA, 2005. Bar Admissions: Florida, 2007; U.S. Supreme Court, 2012 (admitted only in FL). Law School: Emory University, J.D. 2007 College: Tulane University, B.A. 2004 Member: Federalist Society.

Nathan J. McGrath, Staff Attorney (2012-present)

Associate Attorney, Lawlor & Lawlor, P.C. Pittsburgh, PA, 2010-2012; Intern, Honorable Robert J. Humphreys at Virginia Court of Appeals, August 2008-April 2010; Legislative Assistant, U.S. House of Representatives, Representative Donald A. Manzullo, June 2005-July 2007; Director of Communication, National Right to Work Committee, November 2004-June 2005. Bar Admissions: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 2010; U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania, 2010; U.S. Supreme Court, 2014 (admitted only in PA). Law School: Regent University School of Law, J.D., 2010. College: Grove City College, B.A., 2004. Member: Federalist Society; Pennsylvania Bar Association. Publications: Reed v. UAW: An Adverse Ruling on Adverse Action, 23 REGENT U. L. REV. 391 (2011).

William L. Messenger, Staff Attorney (2001-present)

Foundation Law Clerk, 2001, 1999-2000; Law Clerk, National Association of Manufacturers, Washington, DC, 2000-01; Law Clerk, Office of General Counsel, Federal Election Commission, Washington, DC, 2000; Intern, Assistant Majority Leader's Office, U.S. Senate, 1998; Intern, Republican Policy Committee, U.S. Senate, 1997; Intern, Office of U.S. Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH), 1996. Bar Admissions: Virginia, 2001; U.S. Supreme Court, 2009 (admitted only in VA). Law School: George Washington University, J.D., cum laude, 2001. College: Ohio University, B.B.A., 1997. Member: Federalist Society. Publications: "Does the First Amendment Allow States to Compel Recipients of Government Monies to Support State-Designated Representatives?," ENGAGE, Sept. 2010, at 88; "Pre-Recognition Agreements: Can Employers Lawfully Acquire Control Over the Future Representative of their Employees under § 8(a)(2) of the NLRA?," ENGAGE, Oct. 2006, at 131. Reported Cases: Mulhall v. UNITE HERE Local 355, 618 F.3d 1279 (2010), after remand, 667 F.3d 1211 (11th Cir. 2012), cert. dismissed, 134 S. Ct. 594 (2013) (per curiam 6-3 decision) (argued Nov. 13, 2013); Dana Corp., 341 N.L.R.B. No. 150, 2004 WL 1329345 (June 7, 2004).

John N. Raudabaugh, Staff Attorney (2012-present)

Reed Larson Professor of Labor Law, Ave Maria School of Law, 2012-present; Nixon Peabody LLP, 2010-2012; Baker & McKenzie LLP, 2006-2010; Butzel Long, 2004-2006; Matkov Salzman, 1993-2004; Member, U.S. National Labor Relations Board, 1990-1993; Constangy Brooks & Smith, 1989-1990; Powell Goldstein, 1977-1989. Bar Admissions: Georgia, 1977; U.S. Supreme Court, 1982; District of Columbia, 1993; Michigan, 2005 (admitted only in GA, DC, and MI). Law School: University of Virginia, J.D. 1977; Graduate School: New York State School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Cornell University, M.S. Labor Economics and Econometrics, 1974. College: Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania, B.S. Labor Economics, cum laude, 1968. Military Service: Flag Lieutenant, U.S. Navy Supply Corps, 1968-1972. Member: Senior Advisor, Labor and Employment Practice Group, Federalist Society National Lawyers Division; Labor and Employment Relations Association; American Bar Association. Publications and Testimony: "Labored Law: Bilateralism or Pluralism, Ossification or Reformation?," 87 Indiana L.J. 105(2012); "Protecting Private Ballot Rights for American Workers," U.S. Senate Republican Conference, 2008; "NLRB Representation Elections and Initial Collective Bargaining Agreements: Safeguarding Workers' Rights?", U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, 2008; "National Labor Relations Board 2007 Year in Review: Fueling Union's Demand for Euro-Centric Labor Law Reform," CCH Labor Law Journal, Spring 2008, pp. 16–25; "Contract Modification and Unilateral Change—Bath Iron Works," ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law, 2006; "Secret Ballot Protection Act of 2004," U.S. House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, 2004; "Foreward," A Guide to Sources of Information on the National Labor Relations Board, 2003; "Employee Voting Rights: Industrial Stability vs. Employee Free Choice," ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law, 2001; "Electromation: An Opportunity Lost or Just Postponed?" Chapter 29, Non-Union Employee Representation, 2000; "Employee Relations Law Reform," Industrial Relations Research Association, 50th Anniversary Volume, Government Regulation of the Employment Relationship, 1997; "One Former Board Member's Recommended Changes to the National Labor Relations Act," IRRA, 1995; "Perspectives on Labor Law Reform," IRRA Spring Proceedings, 1994.

Brandon K. Rowland, Staff Attorney (2012-present)

Koch Associate, Charles Koch Institute, Arlington, VA, 2012-2013; Legislative Correspondent, Office of U.S. Congressman Tim Scott (R-SC), Washington, DC, 2011; Deputy Campaign Manager, Tim Scott for Congress, Charleston, SC, 2010; Associate Attorney, Lowe & Associates, P.C., Charleston, SC, 2008-2009; Owner, Cherokee Vending, LLC, Athens, TN, 2007-2012; Law Clerk, Office of the 10th Judicial District Attorney General, Cleveland, TN, 2003; Intern, Office of U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), Chattanooga, TN, 2002. Bar Admissions: South Carolina, 2007; U.S. District Court, District of South Carolina, 2008; United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, 2012; District of Columbia, 2012 (admitted only in SC & DC). Law School: Charleston School of Law, J.D. 2007. College: The Citadel, B.A. 2004. Military Service: Captain, Judge Advocate General's Corps, South Carolina Army National Guard, 2010-Present.

John C. Scully, Staff Attorney (1982-89, 1992-present)

Counsel, Washington Legal Foundation, Washington, DC, 1989-92; Captain, Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Army, 1978-81; Intern, Special Projects Division, Missouri Attorney General's Office, 1977. Bar Admissions: Missouri, 1978; U.S. Supreme Court, 1983 (admitted only in MO). Law School: George Washington University, LL.M., 1987; Missouri University, J.D., 1978. College: George Mason University, M.A., History, 1998; Creighton University, B.A., History, cum laude, 1974. Member: Federalist Society. Publications: "Mandatory Pro Bono: An Attack on the Constitution," 19 HOFSTRA LAW REVIEW 1229 (1991); "Hidden Scheme to Finance Radical Lawyers Plagues Pacific Northwest," Washington Legal Foundation Legal Backgrounder, Mar. 31, 1992; "Washington Legal Foundation Brings Contingency Fee Reform to the State Of Washington," Washington Legal Foundation Legal Backgrounder, Mar. 31, 1992; "Lawyer Associations' Use of Dues and Client Money Is Politicized and Must Be Stopped," Washington Legal Foundation Legal Opinion Letter, Oct. 23, 1992; "Victims of Special Interest Lawyers Fight Back in the Pacific Northwest," Washington Legal Foundation Legal Opinion Letter, Dec. 6, 1991. Reported Cases (partial listing): Lee v. NLRB, 393 F.3d 491 (4th Cir. 2005); NLRB v. Pueblo of San Juan, 276 F.3d 1186 (10th Cir. 2002); Andrews v. Education Ass'n of Cheshire, 829 F.2d 335 (2d Cir. 1987); Paperworkers Local 1033, 320 N.L.R.B. 349 (1995), review denied sub nom. Buzenius v. NLRB, 191 F.3d 641 (6th Cir. 1999); Teamsters Local 1150, 323 N.L.R.B. 1173 (1997); Carpenters Local 943, 322 N.L.R.B. 825 (1997); Elvin v. Oregon Public Employees Union, 793 P.2d 338 (Or. Ct. App. 1990), aff?d, 832 P.2d 26 (Or. 1992); Weissenstein v. Burlington Board of School Commissioners, 543 A.2d 691 (Vt. 1988).

Aaron B. Solem, Staff Attorney (2012-present)

Koch Associate, Charles Koch Institute, Arlington, VA, 2012-2013; Legislative Assistant, Office of U.S. Congressman Geoff Davis (R-KY), Washington DC, 2011-2012; Committee Administrator, Minnesota House of Representatives Education Finance Committee, St. Paul, MN, 2011; Summer Associate, Bryan Cave, Phoenix, 2009. Bar Admissions: Minnesota, 2012 (admitted only in MN). Law School: University of Notre Dame Law School, J.D., cum laude, 2010. College: University of Minnesota, B.A., 2006. Member: Federalist Society.

Glenn M. Taubman, Staff Attorney (1982-present)

Law Clerk, Senior Circuit Judge Warren L. Jones, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, Jacksonville, FL, 1981-82; Staff Attorney, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville, FL, 1980-81. Bar Admissions: Georgia, 1980; New York, 1981; U.S. Supreme Court, 1983; District of Columbia, 1985 (admitted only in GA, NY & DC). Law School: Georgetown University, LL.M., 1985; Emory University, J.D., with distinction, 1980. College: State University of New York at Stony Brook, B.A., Political Science & Urban Policy, 1977. Member: Federalist Society. Publications: "'Neutrality Agreements' and the Destruction of Employees' Section 7 Rights," ENGAGE, May 2005, at 101; Co-author, "Union Discipline and Employee Rights," monograph published by the Foundation (http://www.nrtw.org/RDA.htm [5]). Reported Cases (partial listing): Nat'l Ass'n of Mfrs. v. N.L.R.B., 846 F. Supp. 2d 34 (D.D.C. 2012), aff'd in part, rev'd in part, 717 F.3d 947 (D.C. Cir. 2013); Lucas v. NLRB, 333 F.3d 927 (9th Cir. 2003) , on remand, IATSE Local 720, 352 NLRB 29 (2008); Penrod v. NLRB, 203 F.3d 41 (D.C. Cir. 2000); Production Workers v. NLRB, 161 F.3d 1047 (7th Cir. 1998); Food & Commercial Workers Local 951 v. Mulder, 31 F.3d 365 (6th Cir. 1994); NLRB v. Office Employees Local 2, 902 F.2d 1164 (4th Cir. 1990); Tierney v. City of Toledo, 824 F.2d 1497 (6th Cir. 1987), further proceedings, 917 F.2d 927 (1990); Lowary v. Lexington Local Board of Education, 854 F.2d 131 (6th Cir. 1988), further proceedings, 902 F.2d 422 (1990); Masiello v. US Airways, Inc., 113 F. Supp. 2d 870 (W.D.N.C. 2000); Jordan v. City of Bucyrus, 739 F. Supp. 1124 (1990), further proceedings, 754 F. Supp. 554 (N.D. Ohio 1991); Dana Corp., 351 N.L.R.B. 434 (2007); California Saw & Knife Works, 320 N.L.R.B. 224 (1995), enforced, 133 F.3d 1012 (7th Cir. 1998); IAM (L-3 Communications), 355 NLRB 1062 (2010).

W. James Young, Staff Attorney (1989-present)

Associate, Borland & Borland, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1989; Intern, Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney's Office, Atlanta, GA, U.S. Justice Department, 1988-89; Martindale-Hubbell® AV® Peer Review Rated [6]. Bar Admissions: Pennsylvania, 1989; District of Columbia, 1991; U.S. Supreme Court, 1992 (admitted only in PA & DC). Law School: Emory University, J.D., 1989. College: Hampden-Sydney College, B.A., with Honors in Political Science and History, magna cum laude, 1986. Member: Federalist Society. Publications: "Casting an Overdue Skeptical Eye: Knox v. SEIU [7]," CATO SUPREME COURT REVIEW, September 2012, at 333; "Making Windows into Litigants' Souls: The Pernicious Potential of Gilpin v. AFSCME [8]," ENGAGE, Apr. 2004, at 90; Co-author, "Big Labor's Tyranny of the Minority: Forced Union Dues in Politics [9]," FEDERALIST SOCIETY FREE SPEECH & ELECTION LAW NEWSLETTER, Fall 1996. Reported Decisions (partial listing): Knox v. SEIU Local 1000, 132 S.Ct. 2277 (2012); Locke v. Karass, 555 U.S. 207 (2009); Cummings v. Connell, 402 F. 3d 935 (9th Cir. 2005); Prescott v. County of El Dorado, 177 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 1999), vacated, 528 U.S. 1111, reinstated in part, 204 F.3d 984 (9th Cir. 2000); Knight v. Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, 131 F.3d 807 (9th Cir. 1997); Johnson v. Lafayette Firefighters Ass'n, 51 F.3d 726 (7th Cir. 1995); Weaver v. University of Cincinnati, 942 F.2d 1039 (1991), further proceedings, 970 F.2d 1523 (6th Cir. 1992); Dixon v. City of Chicago, 948 F.2d 355 (7th Cir. 1991); Orr v. National Football League Players Ass'n, 147 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2845 (Va. Cir. Ct. 1994), aff?d, 150 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2191 (Va. 1995).

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Source URL: http://www.nrtw.org/en/b/legal_staff.htm

Links:

[1] http://martindale.com/xp/legal/About_Martindale/Products_and_Services/Peer_Review_Ratings/ratings.xml#

[2] http://www.nrtw.org/ro1.htm

[3] http://ssrn.com/abstract=1972519

[4] http://www.nrtw.org/a/Catholic.pdf

[5] http://www.nrtw.org/RDA.htm

[6] http://martindale.com/xp/legal/About_Martindale/Products_and_Services/Peer_Review_Ratings/ratings.xml#

[7] http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2012/9/scr-2012-young.pdf

[8] http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20080313_LaborYoung.pdf

[9] <a href="http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/big-labors-tyranny-of-the-minority-forced-union-dues-in-politics">http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/big-labors-tyranny-of-the-minority-forced-union-dues-in-politics</a>

<a href="http://www.nrtw.org/en/print/1073">http://www.nrtw.org/en/print/1073</a>

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