Posts tagged exclusive representation
Commentary: How to end the ‘free rider’ problem with union representation
July 21, 2025 // It’s a fair compromise that empowers workers by giving them more choices. They can still join in collective bargaining with their fellow workers if they want or go it on their own if they think they can do better. It may prove to be beneficial to unions as well. It will prod them to become more customer-oriented towards their members, rather than taking them for granted. A union won’t have the drain of providing for non-members. Unions that can prove they’re doing well by their members will have a solid recruitment message.
Comfort Systems USA Pipefitters and Welders Win Two-Year Battle to Escape Steamfitters Local 52 Union
July 15, 2025 // Union officials made dubious charges concerning pipefitter who collected worker signatures opposing union, but charges were dropped just before hearing
One Big Beautiful Law on American Radio Journal
July 7, 2025 // This week on American Radio Journal: Lowman Henry talks with Vincent Vernuccio from the Institute for the American Worker about the proposed Employee Rights Act of 2025;
Op-Ed: Federal union bosses: To ‘save democracy,’ let us finish destroying it
June 30, 2025 // How are federal union bosses reacting now that a president is finally taking action to put a halt to a system that, as former union attorney Kurt Hanslowe foresaw back in 1967, empowers “entrenched and mutually supportive government officials and collective bargaining representatives” over whom the public has “diminishing control” to make joint decisions about tax rates and other public policies? True to form, union officials are claiming Trump’s efforts to restore representative government are anti-democratic! For example, American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley, whose union filed the pending lawsuit to block E.O.14251, unsurprisingly claims the Trump Administration’s actions “represent a clear threat” to “every American who “values democracy.”
A ‘War’ on the Civil Service or Controlling a Powerful Union Political Machine?
May 17, 2025 // Fed unions remain unable to strike — enforced by President Reagan’s firing striking air-traffic controllers — so unions became powerful in more subtle ways. A study by the Institute for the American Worker documents how Federal government unionization works today. “Generally, federal employees are not permitted to strike, and their unions are limited in what conditions of employment they may bargain over.” Management rights and other matters “specifically provided” for by federal statute are still not bargainable. “This includes pay, health insurance, retirement, and certain workplace insurance (e.g., workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance), among other benefits.” The study continues,
Challenging Exclusive Representation: A Fight for Free Speech and Union Accountability; Disunion: The Government Union Report podcast
November 14, 2024 // Osborne and McGrath delve into the legal implications of exclusive representation, where a union speaks for all employees in a bargaining unit, including non-members, and restricts individual negotiations. They discuss how exclusive representation in New York grants significant union power, even allowing the union to pursue anti-Israel stances as part of its collective bargaining scope. This case, they suggest, could reshape public sector labor rights and potentially dismantle exclusive representation if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case and finds that it infringes on employees’ rights to free speech and association.
Labor Relations Radio E145: Did you know that 95% of unionized employees NEVER VOTED to unionize? I4AW’s Vinnie Vernuccio explains.
September 4, 2024 // As Americans, every two, four, or six years, we head to polls to cast our ballots for who we want to represent us. For unionized workers in the private sector, the vast majority never voted to unionize. According to a new study [in PDF] by the Institute for the American Worker (I4AW), 95 percent of private sector union workers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) are represented by a union they have never voted for.
Op-Ed: Public Sector Unions Should Only Speak for Their Members
September 3, 2024 //
Circuit Court Keeps CUNY Professors Trapped in ‘Anti-Semitic’ Union; Appeal Promised
March 20, 2024 // Six profs, five of whom are Jewish, are suing for the right to reject the representation of a union they view as anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. The Supreme Court could decide their case.
Some Workers Try to Free Themselves from Unionization, Biden Officials Try to Dragoon More In
January 5, 2024 // If the union loses the election, it often files an “unfair labor practice” charge against the company, seeking to invalidate the election. It used to be that after such a charge (assuming that an NLRB administrative law judge found it credible, which was usually the case), the remedy would be to order a new election. But now, the NLRB is making the remedy an order that the union has “won” and that the company must bargain with it. (Compulsory bargaining is another concept that’s contrary to the freedom that common law protected.) That was the ruling in I.N.S.A, Inc. This is “administrative law” at its worst. Under the Constitution, Congress, not unelected bureaucrats, is supposed to make the laws. But Biden’s pro-union appointments to the NLRB are determined to make the law under the guise of “interpreting” the NLRA. This ruling will lead to more compulsory unionism.