Posts tagged condition of employment
Pennsylvania Musician Opposed To Funding Lefty Causes Challenges Forced Unionization
March 13, 2023 // “Before Covid, my contact with the union had been peripheral at best,” Wilkofsky said in an interview. “My union membership was forced on me as a condition of my employment. But I have found that the union is very politically active and does not really represent my interests. In fact, I would say the union is really a left-leaning political action committee that masquerades as an advocate for musicians. They support one political party nearly 100 percent of the time, and it looks to me like they spend zero percent of their time representing musicians.” The PAC for the American Federation of Musicians donated 100 percent of its contributions to Democrats in the 2019-2020 election cycle, according to campaign finance data.
As Membership Rate Falls, Unions Double Down on Politics
March 10, 2023 // Labor unions portray themselves as champions of the little guy – standing up for workers against powerful special interests. But declining union membership rates suggest that many workers are no longer convinced that unions speak for them. The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2022, the overall union membership rate fell to its lowest levels since the government began tracking it in 1983. Just 10.1% of wage and salary workers belonged to a union, down from 10.3% in 2021 – only about half the 20.1% rate of 1983. In other words, nearly 9 out of 10 American workers are not in a union, despite union efforts to organize them.
Video: ALEC’s Labor of Love: A History of Championing Worker Freedom
March 10, 2023 // Today, ALEC debuts its first episode, “Worker Freedom,” in our 50th anniversary video series. The episode features ALEC champions Scott Walker (45th Governor of Wisconsin), Matt Hall (Michigan House Minority Leader and ALEC Board of Directors Member), and Vinnie Vernuccio (Senior Fellow, Mackinac Center), discussing ALEC’s pivotal role in securing Worker Freedom policy wins across the states. In some states, private sector workers can be forced to join, leave, or pay fees to a union as job requirement. The Right-to-Work Act, which ALEC task forces approved as a model policy, provides a solution to this issue. It prevents private employers from requiring or banning union membership (or fees) as conditions for employment, giving workers in Right-to-Work states a guaranteed right to support a union or not to support a union without this choice affecting their hiring or job security.
Southern IL Aluminum Worker Forces IBEW Union Bosses to Abandon Illegal Dues Demands, Termination Threat
March 2, 2023 // Penn Aluminum International employee Mary Beck has successfully forced International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 702 union officials to stop illegally demanding money from her paycheck. National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys represented her for free before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Beck hit both the IBEW union and her employer with federal charges in June 2022, maintaining that union dues were coming out of her paycheck under a defective contract, and that union officials had ignored her resignation of union membership and her request to pay only the amount of dues necessary to keep her job under federal law. She added additional charges in August 2022, stating that union officials had acknowledged her demand, but threatened to get her fired if she didn’t pay an unspecified amount of money to the union. Beck filed charges to defend her rights under the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision, which forbids union officials from having employees in non-Right to Work states like Illinois fired for refusal to pay for union politics and other expenses outside the union’s “representation” functions.
Right-to-work resurfaces at the Montana Legislature, as do dozens of pro-union opponents
February 22, 2023 // The bill, Buffalo Republican Rep. James Bergstrom’s House Bill 448, would prohibit private sector union contracts that require employees to join a union or otherwise pay fees for their representation. It’s the latest legislative swing at unions in Montana, a state with a deep history of labor activism that has repeatedly resisted right-to-work legislation even as national union density has declined and neighboring states have passed similar laws. “Blood has been spilled on the streets of my district for the rights we have today,” Rep. Derek Harvey, D-Butte, a union firefighter, told more than 70 union workers and officials representing a wide variety of trades on the Capitol steps Friday.
EP. 53: ILLINOIS VS. TENNESSEE
September 29, 2022 //
Judge orders NYPD union members fired over vax mandate reinstated
September 26, 2022 // In the stunning decision, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank wrote that the city’s vaccine mandate on the Police Benevolent Association was invalid “to the extent it has been used to impose a new condition of employment” on the union. The mandate was also invalid because it issued enforcement beyond “monetary sanctions” prescribed in the law, Frank wrote — ordering that all PBA members put on leave or canned be reinstated. Department of Mental Health and Hygiene,
Union organizers debate ‘Workers Rights Amendment’ as November vote draws near
June 20, 2022 // Bailey said many groups, such as the Illinois Policy Institute, have been spreading misinformation about the amendment, saying it would allow unions to raise taxes on taxpayers. “I was a lobbyist for five years, wrote and passed a lot of bills. I never saw anything in this amendment that allows us to set the tax rates,” he said. Annalise Peterson, Illinois Right to Collective Bargaining Measure, Amendment 1, Northwestern University Library Workers Union, NULWU, Josh Honn, Neva Legallet, Northwestern University Graduate Workers, Prof. Daniel Galvin, Safe Ride drivers,
Right-to-work protections do work
May 24, 2022 // Even industries that are not union dense showed positive gains from adoption of right-to-work laws. Our estimates indicate counties in right-to-work states experienced increases in the employment share in the food services and accommodations industry. Nearby counties in non-right-to-work states, by contrast, saw employment share declines in this industry.
Opinion: Why I put my job in the Allentown Symphony on the line to not pay union dues
May 20, 2022 // The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that public-sector employees can’t be forced to pay a union as a condition of employment. I’m relying on that precedent, and representation from the Fairness Center, a nonprofit law firm, to defend my rights against those who would misuse their power and deny them.