Posts tagged First Amendment
UNION PRESIDENT APOLOGIZES TO FREEDOM FOUNDATION CLIENT
April 23, 2024 // The Washington State Supreme Court, in Allen v. Seattle Police Officers’ Guild, made clear that the right to fair representation is not dependent on a worker’s membership status. Nor is it lawful for an exclusive bargaining representative to “restrain or coerce an employee” in the exercise of their right to not join a union.” “I needed something I would be able point to the next time I need representation,” Fix said. “This letter gives me security and lets others know the union can’t discriminate against them.” The irony is that Fix isn’t anti-union per se, and had even negotiated on behalf of WFSE in the past. Fix went out of his way to aid the union in its collective bargaining functions and was mistreated just because he exercised his First Amendment right to opt out. Mike Yestramski,
The Liberty Justice Center Sues Union for Forcing Jewish Lawyers to Support Speech They Consider Antisemitic
April 12, 2024 // Congress recently launched an investigation into the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys due to whistleblower reports of antisemitism by union members. The Liberty Justice Center is suing the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Legal Aid Society, and the City of New York on behalf of Mr. Levine and Mr. Popper, alleging that these defendants are violating the attorneys’ First Amendment rights by forcing them to subsidize political speech as a condition of employment. The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from compelling a person to subsidize a union’s speech. In Janus v. AFSCME, the Court held that a government could not force its employees to pay a union as a condition of their employment. And in Harris v. Quinn, the Court held that a government could not compel recipients of government funds, through a state program to provide services to other private individuals, to pay money to a union.
Labor employees show up to protest for more telework
April 3, 2024 // Ernst and Franklin wrote to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su seeking more details about what the protest cost the department. “Clearly, these employees know how much more effective they can be when they show up in person. We just wish they had the same level of dedication to serving Americans that they do to serving themselves,” the lawmakers wrote. “As White House Chief of Staff [Jeff] Zients said in January, agencies are still ‘not where they need to be’ on returning employees to the office. If your employees can show up to the office to protest, they can show up to the office to work.” Ernst and Franklin want Su to respond to answers to three questions by April 10: How much taxpayer-funded union time did representatives of AFGE Local 948 log with the Department of Labor (DOL) in the four weeks preceding their rally on March 19, 2024? Were the DOL employees paid—either through taxpayer-funded union time reimbursements or otherwise—for their protest against returning to the office, which they staged at their office? If so, what is the cost to the DOL including but not limited to labor and resources—of this protest?
FREEDOM FOUNDATION TAKES ON UNIONS AT 9TH CIRCUIT
March 22, 2024 // But the U.S. Supreme Court has been clear that a public employee, and only a public employee, can waive their First Amendment rights and agree to fund a union’s speech. Otherwise, when a union uses state law to take an employee’s money and force them to fund its politics, the employee’s speech is compelled, and the employee may seek remedies against the union. Under these clear and plain rules, the applicable unions compelled Craine, Morejon, and Bourque’s speech. Let’s hope the 9th Circuit agrees.
PODCAST: An Unholy Incubator, Will Swaim breaks down the new regulation that took effect on March 15 which affects every independent contractor in America.
March 21, 2024 // The President of the California Policy Center, host of National Review’s Radio Free California podcast, and watchdog journalist warns about the new federal regulation that effectively makes CA-AB5 national and ends independent contractor status as we know it. As goes California, so goes the nation—from a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers to rampant homelessness, crime, and reparations—the recovering communist dissects examples of what’s happening in the Golden State and yet to come nationally.
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.
Michigan Senate bills would revive dues skim for home health workers
March 19, 2024 // Senate Bill 790, which was submitted Thursday by Sen. Kevin Hertel, D-St. Clair Shores. Officially, the 15-page bill says it would create the Home Health Caregiver Council, a seven-member board that would oversee issues involving those workers. The council would set compensation rates and issue checks for home health workers. It would also be authorized to deduct union fees. Under the previous iteration of dues skim, the Service Employees International Union pulled in about $34 million between November 2006 and February 2013.
Right to Work Foundation SCOTUS Brief: Workers Exercising Right to Oppose Unions Isn’t “Harm” to Be Eliminated
March 1, 2024 // Foundation attorneys argue that “the Court must require the NLRB to prove employees were unlawfully coerced not to support a union because, absent such proof, employees have every right to make that choice”
NYC profs see Supreme Court as ‘only hope’ in fight with ‘antisemitic’ teachers union
January 26, 2024 // In 2021, one such teachers union, Professional Staff Congress/CUNY (PSC), adopted a "Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People" which the group of six professors viewed as antisemitic, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. These professors chose to then resign from the union, but under state law are still required to affiliate with and be represented in bargaining by that same union. "My family and I suffered severe anti-Semitic harassment and persecution at the hands of the Soviet Union for over fifteen years," professor of mathematics Avraham Goldstein said in a statement. "I hoped it was all in my past. But now I am forced to associate with a union that makes anti-Semitic political statements in my name without my permission or consent."
CALIFORNIA: 2023 WAS A YEAR OF TRANSFORMATION
January 22, 2024 //