Posts tagged Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
A New York Bill Protects Unions, Not Workers
June 15, 2026 // Assembly Bill A10835A makes it illegal to “falsely impersonate” a union representative. It gives Attorney General Letitia James power to investigate, fine and subpoena any organization in any state for communications she believes to be “impersonation” of a union. The fine is $1,000 per incident. The Freedom Foundation communicates with tens of thousands of workers. Do the math. The bill’s real purpose isn’t stopping impersonation. It’s stopping workers from hearing what unions won’t tell them: that the Supreme Court decided eight years ago this month in Janus v. Afscme that no public employee can be forced to fund a union. Since then, we’ve helped more than 278,000 workers nationwide opt out—nearly 7,500 in New York, including some 1,400 this year. Each opt-out means lost dues revenue, so rather than make a better case for membership, unions asked Albany to make it illegal.
Should Union-Backed Fraud Be Legal?
October 11, 2022 // Last week, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued rulings in cases brought by the Freedom Foundation alleging that government unions forged public employees’ signatures on membership agreements in order to continue deducting dues from their pay. Perhaps the most egregious of the decisions is found in Zielinski v. SEIU 503, in which SEIU forged Mr. Zielinski’s signature twice on two separate dues authorizations. These decisions essentially authorize government-employee unions to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME by engaging in state-sanctioned fraud.
California tribal casino workers could be one step closer to unionizing under new ruling
May 23, 2022 // Although the tribe has rights as a sovereign government, “there is no sovereign immunity to arbitration because a party is only obligated to arbitrate when that party agreed to arbitrate, as Sycuan did” when it signed the TLRO, Judge Milan Smith said in the 3-0 ruling. He said all disputed issues, including the tribe’s claim that the agreement conflicts with federal labor law, must be referred to arbitration.