Posts tagged Janus
“Membership… at an all-time low”: NEA report credits Freedom Foundation for historic decline in Oregon, and offers an ironic solution
September 10, 2024 // It’s difficult to overstate the irony: To reverse the membership losses resulting from the Freedom Foundation’s educational campaign to teachers, the NEA directed funds to SKEA to implement a reform, transparent collective bargaining, the Freedom Foundation has supported for years — and that government unions themselves have long opposed. There’s an admission in there, isn’t there?
Commentary: The Rise of “Pro-Labor” Conservatism
September 9, 2024 // Yet O’Brien’s move has attracted the attention of commentators from both sides of the political spectrum who see it as a bellwether. It is what conservative commentator Sohrab Ahmari has called a “brave gambit” and veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse dubbed a “huge gamble.” “A glacier of hostility has divided the GOP from organized labor for two generations,” Ahmari wrote in Compact. But the Teamsters president “took a pickaxe to that glacier” by speaking at the RNC. Ahmari attributes the rise of this strain of pro-labor, anti-union conservatism to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), a MAGA firebrand who has come out as perhaps the lone GOP senator to oppose right to work legislation, the anti-union laws on the books in 28 states.
Beleaguered CUNY Professors Appeal to SCOTUS for Relief from Union They Claim Is Antisemitic
August 6, 2024 // The cert petition says the heart of their complaint is the question, “Can the government force Jewish professors to accept the representation of an advocacy group they rightly consider to be anti-Semitic?” They claim that various Supreme Court rulings, including Janus and NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., articulate their First Amendment right to “eschew association for expressive purposes” and “boycott entities to express a message.” The petition charges the lower courts have misinterpreted Knight, saying that ruling “did not sanction a state forcing Jewish faculty members who are ardent Zionists to accept the representation of a union that supports policies they consider anti-Israel,” and urges the Court to grant to petition to “clarify Knight and make clear that the First Amendment protects individuals’ right to dissociate themselves from advocacy groups that support policies contrary to their deeply held beliefs.”
AZ Supreme Court Strikes Down Union ‘Release Time’ on Taxpayers’ Dime
July 31, 2024 // In this case, the city signed a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, with a local unit of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union. Under that MOU, the city gave the union several release time benefits, including four full-time release positions. In other words, the city paid four employees to work exclusively for the union on the taxpayers’ dime. The MOU said the cost of release time counted as part of the “total compensation” paid to all unit employees, whether members of the labor union or not. But that raised a problem: if release time was being paid as part of their “total compensation,” then it violates the free expression and association rights of these employees to force them to give up their compensation to fund the political speech of union representatives with whom these employees disagree. That was just what the U.S. Supreme Court said in the 2018 landmark Janus ruling.
Right-to-Work law repeal more than doubles federal complaints
July 24, 2024 // Since February, the number of cases filed with the National Labor Relations Board has doubled the total for last year, according to one advocate for workers. The National Right to Work Foundation says it fielded over 27 inquiries concerning workers’ rights in the last six months, and it has filed 10 cases with the federal agency. In 2022, the foundation filed six complaints on behalf of workers in Michigan. It filed four in 2023 but has filed at least 10 as of July 18. A foundation employee said that another 10 are likely.
As Janus anniversary draws nears, public workers retain right to union representation
June 28, 2024 // A union is required to represent even workers who are not members, due to its “duty of fair representation.” “It’s crucial that public employees understand the duty of fair representation to ensure their rights are protected,” Delie told CapCon. Unions have this duty because they also have the right of “exclusive representation.” Under it, the union negotiates with management as the exclusive representative of a group of employees known as a bargaining unit. Members and nonmembers alike are part of the bargaining unit, and the union must represent them all, including at any disciplinary hearings they may face.
Commentary: Public employers should not collect dues for unions
June 3, 2024 // A bill passed last year in Arkansas is one that Washington state lawmakers should add to and propose, pass and send to the governor of our state. The Arkansas law prohibits school districts from deducting dues from employees' paychecks. Educators can pay a union on their own, of course. The new law also requires union member applications to contain a notice letting public workers — again, paid by taxpayers — know of their “rights to join or refrain from joining a labor organization.”
OHIO: STATE SEES 68 PERCENT BUMP IN OPT-OUTS
April 29, 2024 // The spike in opt-outs in March was led by Ohio Association of Public School Employees, Ohio Civil Service Employees Association and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 8 members. All three of these unions saw more than 20 members choose to halt their dues deductions. The bump from 2023 was due entirely to the hard work of the Ohio’s outreach team, which sent out thousands of pieces of mail and emails to union members’ homes and inboxes.
Commentary: The Teachers’ Unions Are More Political than Ever
April 18, 2024 // Americans for Fair Treatment, a national nonprofit organization that educates public employees about their rights in a unionized workplace, recently released a report detailing the National Education Association’s (NEA) financial filings from Sept. 1, 2022, through Aug. 31, 2023. The NEA declared that its political spending totaled $50.1 million during the fiscal year, though the true number is much higher. During the most recent reporting period, the union disclosed that it spent “$126.3 million on ‘contributions, gifts, and grants,’ which is where most unions detail their charitable giving.” However, a closer look at the union’s “contributions, gifts, and grants” shows that the NEA is directing more money towards political causes than it reports.
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.