It appears that Change to Win dished out some of its members’ forced dues money this week to buy a full-page ad in the Cincinnati Enquirer attacking rulings made recently by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

“Hyperbole” doesn’t begin to describe this thing. CtW alleges that the NLRB is permitting abuse “as bad as the club-wielding thugs of the past.” The union coalition is angry because the Board issued decisions in September that cracked down on questionable union tactics, such as card check (in which a public, petition-style process replaces the private ballot traditionally used by employees to decide whether or not to unionize) and “salting” (in which union organizers take jobs for the purpose of importing a union to a workplace, with little intention of actually working for the betterment of the enterprise).

The ad is more or less a smokescreen for CtW’s true aim: the passage of the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act into law. This bill would allow unions to use card check even when employers do not consent to it (currently, card check is only allowed when the employer consents), meaning that the traditional secret ballot process of unionization, with the opportunity for employees to vote their consciences in private without coercion or pressure, would go out the window.