Posts tagged amicus brief
BOARD DEFIES FEDERAL APPEALS COURT IN DECISION THAT THREATENS FREELANCERS, INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS ACROSS NATION
June 15, 2023 // “In today’s decision, the Board reinstates a test for determining employment status that was explicitly rejected by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The Board’s decision will force workers into work arrangements they do not want – all for the sake of giving unions new potential members. With this decision, the Board has chosen to ignore the concerns raised by the employer and freelance communities, and its actions threaten to destabilize a number of industries and deprive many independent contractors of the flexible work methods and entrepreneurial opportunities they value. “The Board’s actions are all part of the Biden administration’s war against small businesses and entrepreneurs and will invite confusion and litigation. As we explained in our amicus brief, the NLRB should continue to follow the standard set in SuperShuttle DFW and emphasize the significance of entrepreneurial opportunity when considering a worker’s proper classification.”
OREGON LEGISLATIVE STAFF OPPOSED TO FORCED UNIONIZATION GET THEIR DAY IN COURT
June 6, 2023 // “We have an executive agency, the Employment Relations Board, interfering in the business of the legislative branch of government by making itself the authority on the wages, hours and working conditions of legislative assistants,” said Freedom Foundation attorney Rebekah Schultheiss. “By placing all Legislative Assistants — regardless of political party — into the same bargaining unit, ERB has destroyed the essential trust between Legislators and their Assistants.” Earlier on in the litigation, twenty-eight Oregon Lawmakers and staffers additionally filed an amicus brief supporting the Freedom Foundation’s efforts to get the Employment Relations Board ruling overturned, claiming that the certification of a political union as representative of legislative assistants “will have a paralyzing effect on Legislators.”
Michigan: Unions Can’t Discriminate Against Non-Members
April 27, 2023 // Unions must not be allowed to charge non-members exorbitant fees for the right to voice complaints to their employer, according to an amicus brief filed by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy to the Michigan Supreme Court. The brief was filed in the case Technical Professional and Officeworkers Association of Michigan v. Renner. Unions have monopoly power over employment rules and conditions, including how grievances must be addressed. In this case, the union refused to represent Daniel Lee Renner in a dispute with his employer unless he paid $1,290 just to start the grievance process. The collective bargaining agreement negotiated by TPOAM prohibits individual employees like Renner from filing grievances on their own behalf. This forces those employees to obtain union representation if they wish to have their voices heard. “This policy is meant to strongarm public employees who have made it clear that they do not want to associate with a union,” said Patrick J. Wright
Foundation Brief to Court of Appeals: Lower Court’s Decision Conflicts with SCOTUS’ Janus Ruling
April 7, 2023 // The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed an amicus brief with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on April 5. The brief was filed in Littler v. OAPSE, brought by plaintiff Christina Littler. She attempted exercise her right to withdraw union membership and financial support, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, only to be denied by union officials. In the Foundation-won and argued Janus case, the Supreme Court recognized that the First Amendment protects government employees, like Littler, from being forced to fund union activities, and further that dues may only be deducted with the affirmative consent of an employee. Littler is a school bus driver who, shortly after the Supreme Court issued its seminal decision in Janus, notified the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) that she resigned her union membership and revoked her dues deduction authorization. Rather than honor Littler’s timely request to stop paying union dues, union officials had her government employer continue to seize full dues from her paycheck. This prompted Littler to file a lawsuit to recover the dues OAPSE seized from her in violation of her First Amendment rights.
The Michigan Education Association Improperly Took COVID-19 Relief Funds
March 6, 2023 // “The Michigan Education Association applied for money intended for struggling businesses during the height of the pandemic,” said Joseph G. Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “The union and MESSA obtained some of the largest PPP loans in the country. They took these funds, for which they were clearly ineligible, while shuttered restaurants, stores, other businesses and their workers struggled to stay afloat.” Private businesses and some nonprofits were eligible for the loans, but 501(c)(5) and 501(c)(9) organizations, like the MEA and MESSA, were clearly prohibited from receiving PPP funds. The Mackinac Center was eligible as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but did not apply for assistance. In April 2020, the MEA and MESSA both applied for PPP funding. The MEA received $6.4 million while MESSA received a $6.1 million loan. Officials of both organizations certified that they had read the eligibility requirements of the program and asserted they were eligible for the loans. Money from the program ran out within weeks. While the union and MESSA eventually returned the improper funds in December 2020, taking them in the first place denied eligible businesses from receiving them.
EXCLUSIVE: US Postal Service is accused of sharing private information from 68 million households that applied for free Covid-19 tests with labor unions that could potentially be used for their political campaigns
February 10, 2023 // AFFT CEO Elisabeth Messenger said she fears that if passed to unions by USPS, the data could be used for political campaigning. 'We're talking over 70 million households by now. That's more than half the households in the United States,' she told DailyMail.com.
Supreme Court to Ponder Union Rights for National Guard Techs
January 10, 2023 // The US Supreme Court will hear oral argument over whether to strip federal-sector labor law rights from the National Guard’s dual-status technicians, a unique type of federal employee who works for state militias. The justices on Monday will review a federal appeals court decision blessing the Federal Labor Relations Authority’s jurisdiction over a dispute stemming from the Ohio National Guard’s attempt to oust an American Federation of Government Employees affiliate that represents Guard technicians. The high court is hearing Ohio’s bid to evade federal oversight—an obstacle to ejecting the AFGE affiliate—despite agreement among all six federal appeals courts that have ruled on the issue.
SCOTUS Should Rein in Rogue Federal Labor Board in Ohio National Guard Case
November 21, 2022 // Americans for Fair Treatment (AFFT) today filed an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in Ohio Adjutant General’s Department v. Federal Labor Relations Authority. This little-known case could rein in a rogue federal labor board that has dramatically expanded the definition of a federal agency and ignored public employees’ First Amendment rights—all to benefit public-sector union officials. The case concerns the Ohio Adjutant General’s authority to determine Ohio National Guard technicians’ conditions of employment, including collective bargaining rights. In 2016, the Adjutant General announced that he would stop abiding by a two-year-expired collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that previously represented National Guard technicians. The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) then ruled on the union’s behalf in an unfair labor practice charge, ordering the Adjutant General to reinstate the union and abide by the expired CBA.
THE SYSTEMIC RACISM OF TEACHERS UNIONS
November 21, 2022 // Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could reverse the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, in which SCOTUS asserted that the use of an applicant’s race as a factor in an admissions policy of a public educational institution does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The current case specifically cites the use of race in the admissions process at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, maintain that Harvard violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, “which bars entities that receive federal funding from discriminating based on race, because Asian American applicants are less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants.”
Worker Advocate Files Supreme Court Brief Opposing Union Boss Attempt to Evade Liability for Property Damage
November 8, 2022 // . Union officials also have the privilege to foist monopoly “representation” over all workers in a workplace regardless of whether they are union members or voted for the union in power. Probably the most abusive union boss privilege of all is the power to force employees in non-Right to Work states to pay union dues or fees just to stay employed, while maintaining monopoly bargaining control in a workplace with no effective term limits. “This Court should treat unions like all other citizens or entities, clarifying that they can be liable for damages in state courts under ‘the common law rule that a man is held to intend the foreseeable consequences of his conduct,’” the brief concludes.