Posts tagged Janus v. AFSCME
COMMENTARY Is a Worker Revolt Brewing After Michigan Repeals Its Right-to-Work Law?
September 5, 2023 // Michigan employees affected by this law don’t have to put up with this violation of their freedom of association. They don’t need to pay dues to a forced-membership organization. They don’t have to keep supporting a union’s radical political agendas. They don’t have to watch a portion of their paychecks going to pay for union oligarchies out of state. They certainly don’t need to pay for fancy dinners, cars, vacations, and political junkets and pad the pockets of union bosses. By tossing out the union altogether, employees can keep their money in their own hands and out of the hands of political machines and their elected attendants. The Center for Independent Employees, which assists employees seeking to prevent unionization at the workplace or remove an unwanted union, is already hearing rumblings of this revolution through our offices and our ground game in Michigan.
The Supreme Court’s Janus v. Afscme Sequel?
August 25, 2023 // Alaska’s courts have blocked Mr. Dunleavy’s plan from taking effect. In a May ruling, the state Supreme Court said that “neither Janus nor the First Amendment required the State to alter the union member dues deduction practices set out in the collective bargaining agreement.” This is a crabbed view of free speech and free association. Although Janus involved a union nonmember, Alaska tells the U.S. Supreme Court in its petition that “the decision applies to all involuntary fees and has clear application to members and nonmembers alike.” Consider the devious policies that make canceling a paycheck deduction into a “byzantine process,” Alaska says. In California, “certain public employees cannot stop their dues unless the union receives a signed revocation letter ‘postmarked’ precisely ‘between 75 days and 45 days before’ the employee’s ‘annual renewal date.’” The point is to trap workers and keep that dues money coming. The authorization form for the Alaska State Employees Association was even stricter, making union dues irrevocable except during a magical 10-day window each year, though the petition says the union eventually promised not to enforce it after the state sued.
Congress Should Protect Federal Workers from Union Coercion
August 10, 2023 // Any other business enterprise attempting to sell nearly irrevocable memberships without disclosing the terms up front would swiftly find itself in the sights of federal regulators. Just last month, the Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon in federal court for “failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose all material terms of the transaction” before signing people up for Prime memberships and “failing to provide a simple cancellation mechanism.” It’s time unions started playing by the same rules. The Paycheck Protection Act, just introduced in Congress by Representative Eric Burlison (R., Mo.), would increase union accountability by ending the collection of union dues via payroll deduction by federal agencies. Given the ubiquity and ease of electronic payment methods, there is simply no good reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a dues-collection system for a private, politically divisive special-interest group.
Despite President Joe Biden’s repeated boasts, union membership continues to fall
July 18, 2023 // Union members do not always agree with Democrats on policy matters. Biden's own green energy agenda is coming up against labor resistance, with organized auto workers prepared to strike over the hazards and lack of benefits in electric vehicle production. Biden must also work to keep blue-collar union members from slipping into the Republican column as candidates like former President Donald Trump play up American manufacturing and the virtues of import tariffs. But more recent headlines showcase unions fighting their traditional battles over pay, benefits, and worker protections.
CUNY Professors’ Lawsuit Challenging Forced Association with Antisemitism-Linked Union Continues at Second Circuit
June 5, 2023 // City University professors challenge NY law that forces them to be represented by hostile union hierarchy Six City University of New York (CUNY) professors have taken their federal civil rights lawsuit against Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union officials to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The professors, Avraham Goldstein, Michael Goldstein, Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Mitchell Langbert, Jeffrey Lax, and Maria Pagano, charge PSC union bosses with violating the First Amendment by forcing them to accept the union’s monopoly control and “representation” – “representation” the professors not only oppose, but find extremely offensive and in contradiction to their personal beliefs.
Arkansas teachers freed from compulsory union membership; what about Kansas?
April 28, 2023 // K.S.A. 75-5501 currently has an unconstitutional minimum 180-day dues-withholding requirement with no provision for employees to resign and stop paying dues whenever they wish. The Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) only allows teachers to resign and stop paying dues in August. Restrictions of this nature effectively make union membership compulsory. There have been several attempts to protect public employee rights in the Legislature, but teachers’ and other public employees’ rights are still not recognized in Kansas, but legislators are not giving up.
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.
Supreme Court Misses an Opportunity to Protect Workers from Public-Sector Unions
January 26, 2023 // The Supreme Court decided today that it will not grant certiorari in the case Wright v. SEIU Local 503, one of several union-forgery cases currently working their way through the court system. By not hearing the case, the Court is allowing confusion about public-sector workers’ constitutional rights to persist. The Freedom Foundation, a conservative union-watchdog group, has found about a dozen cases where unions allegedly forged someone’s signature in order to keep taking money from their paycheck. Though it may seem like a simple question, lower-court rulings have failed to address the issue head-on.
Workers’ rights case appealed to Supreme Court by Washington think tank
November 30, 2022 // Kurk attempted to withdraw from the union in September 2018, but union officials denied the request, saying she could not resign until 30 days prior to the end of the collective bargaining agreement, Jun. 30, 2020. The Freedom Foundation sued LRCEA in 2019, asserting the union contract violates the First Amendment. Given the Janus ruling, the maintenance of membership provision is unconstitutional, the suit argued. Further, the 2017 California law could not be retroactively applied to Kurk. The suit was summarily dismissed by Judge Kimberly Meuller of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. The dismissal was upheld on appeal.