Posts tagged mandatory union dues
Grand Rapids TerryBerry Workers Vote to Remove Unwanted Machinists Union from Workplace
May 16, 2023 // Mary Soltysiak and her coworkers at TerryBerry Company filed for a decertification vote on April 14, 2023, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Her decertification petition contained signatures of a majority of the employees in the unit. Soltysiak has been under the protections of the Michigan Right to Work law since 2018. Under federal labor law, workers can trigger such a decertification vote with the support of 30% of workers in a unionized workplace. The NLRB should then promptly schedule a secret ballot election to determine whether a majority of workers want to end union officials’ power to impose a contract, including forced dues, on workers. The NLRB scheduled a vote for May 15, 2023. On May 15, TerryBerry employees made their position on the union clear, voting to remove the union from their workplace. Barring any objections by union officials that seek to overturn the vote, the workers will be officially free of the union in one week.
With Right to Work Repeal Coming, Michigan Workers Seek a Vote to End Union ‘Representation’ They Oppose
April 26, 2023 // TerryBerry Company employee Mary Soltysiak filed a petition for dozens of her coworkers with the National Labor Relations Board Region 7 (NLRB) seeking a vote to remove the International Association of Machinist of Aerospace Engineers (IAM) District Lodge 60/Local Lodge 475 union officials’ forced representation powers. This workers’ decertification petition comes in the wake of Michigan legislators ramming through a bill to repeal their state’s decade-old and highly popular Right to Work law. When the repeal law takes effect, union officials will once again have the power to force workers to pay up or be fired in workplaces where the union has forced “representation” powers. Mary Soltysiak and her coworkers at TerryBerry Company filed for a decertification vote on April 14, 2023, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Previously, she had been under the protections of the Michigan Right to Work law since 2018. Her decertification petition contained signatures of a majority of the employees in the unit. Under federal labor law, workers can trigger such a decertification vote with the support of 30% of workers in a unionized workplace.
The weak support for mandatory payments to unions
March 24, 2023 // As political organizations, unions tend to support Democrats, regardless of the proportion of their members who vote otherwise. Unions’ political spending, which is only a subset of their total political support, almost exclusively benefits Democrats. By requiring workers to pay unions, Democrats voted to mandate payments to political organizations that support Democrats. People might be more inclined to believe that this was not about such crass self-interest if the law’s supporters tried to justify and explain the bill’s mechanics. Instead, its political supporters projected their fantasies onto the bill.
Michigan House votes to repeal Right-to-Work, restore prevailing wage
March 9, 2023 // The legislation, now headed to the Senate for final votes as early as next week, would end a 2012 law that prohibits compulsory union dues or fees. The House also voted to restore a construction-industry “prevailing wage” law the GOP repealed in 2018. Democrats touted the union-backed measure as a restoration of worker rights to collectively bargain for wages, benefits and workplace safety. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer supports the repeal, but in the past has blasted GOP efforts to make policy bills referendum-proof by including appropriations, decrying it as a form of legislative "abuse."
GOP Rep. Joe Wilson Reintroduces National Right To Work Act To Prevent Mandated Union Dues
February 28, 2023 // “As we near the fifth anniversary of the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision this June, which clarified the constitutional rights of all public-sector workers in America to refrain from joining or paying a union as a condition of employment, it’s time to expand worker choice to all private-sector workers in America, too,” Austen Bannan, senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity, told the Daily Caller
Opinion: Democrats Are Pushing A Labor Policy Even Their Own Voters Oppose
February 7, 2023 // Now, after the multi-year UAW corruption investigation that saw the conviction of 2 former union presidents and a host of other union officials, Michigan Democrats want to strip away a worker’s ability to hold their union answerable and accountable; in essence to legislate away a worker’s power and give it back to the holders of the union’s purse strings. But the culture has adapted. It’s changed. Compulsion is no longer an acceptable union business model.
Op-ed: SCOTUS should halt rogue labor board’s power grab in Ohio
February 2, 2023 // Americans for Fair Treatment, a community of public employees concerned about the potential for union officials to abuse their power, filed an amicus brief in solidarity with the technicians whose constitutional rights are under threat. Thousands of other similarly situated employees could also be harmed if the status quo stands. The FLRA further seeks to force Ohio’s adjutant general to post and email notices saying he agrees with the board’s position, and to require technicians to view that compelled speech. That order not only raises serious First Amendment issues of compelled speech, but also undermines federalism itself. By striking down the actions of the rogue labor board, the Supreme Court can rein in out-of-control bureaucrats while reinforcing the principle that Americans should not be forced to financially support a union against their will.
Teacher Unions Suffer Pandemic Backlash
December 13, 2022 // A big complaint of union members is that the National Education Association and its state affiliates report spending more than twice as much money on political expenditures than they do representing its members. According to a Freedom Foundation investigation, the Oregon Education Association (OEA) has lost just shy of one in five of its members. They have taken advantage of the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that mandatory union dues violate public employees’ First Amendment rights
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s to-do list: gun control, tax cuts, Right-to-Work repeal
November 16, 2022 // Republicans and some leading business groups argue repealing the law would make Michigan less competitive in the global fight for automotive and other manufacturing jobs. Voters in Tennessee – where Ford is building a major electric vehicle manufacturing plant – last week voted to protect a Right-to-Work law by adding it to their state’s constitution.