Posts tagged public employee
UTAH: Unions consider strikes, referendums on bill banning public employee collective bargaining
February 25, 2025 // "This is a statewide issue," he told FOX 13 News in an interview on Monday. "And if the Salt Lake Education Association is the only organization that walks out? It’s not going to be effective." Meanwhile, other labor unions are exploring a referendum on House Bill 267, which bans collective bargaining among public employee unions.
Unions organize against bill cracking down on public employee collective bargaining
January 24, 2025 // Rep. Teuscher said he is planning a proposed amendment enshrining Utah's "Right to Work" law in the state constitution. If that were to pass, it would be placed on the ballot for voters to decide. "Your employment, whether they hire you or fire you, cannot be based on whether you are or are not a member of a union. That’s been in state law for over 50 years. My constitutional amendment would bring that into the state constitution," he said.
A California Teacher Was Denied a Union Board Seat Because of His Race. He Fought Back — and Won
November 4, 2024 // In October, the long-time history teacher ran for a Racial Equity At Large board position newly created by the union to replace the one that barred white candidates. This time the position has no overt racial stipulations. He received about 21 percent of the vote while his opponent received a little more than 78 percent. “I can quit the union in frustration, but that’s what everyone else has done,” he said. “Most people who would agree with me have left the union and that means most voters who would agree with me are gone.”
MEMBERSHIP IN SEIU 1000, CALIFORNIA’S LARGEST STATE EMPLOYEES UNION, FALLS BELOW 50 PERCENT
June 20, 2024 // In May 2018, the month before Janus was decided, 96,229 state employees worked under SEIU 1000 contracts, effectively all of whom had union dues or fees deducted from their paychecks by the state. The next month, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, the number of represented employees with union payroll deductions had dropped to 58,953 — a membership rate of 61.4 percent — reflecting the loss of fee payments from nonmembers rendered unconstitutional by Janus.
Has Pushback to Full of ‘S’ Labor Unions Finally Arrived?
June 10, 2024 // Written by I4AW’s Sam Adolphsen and F. Vincent Vernuccio, the study warns that the initial “Environmental” focus of ESG is being supplanted by labor leaders, who are focusing on the leftist acronym’s “social” component in order to intimidate companies and force membership growth: With help from the whole of Biden’s big government, Big Labor is replicating the ESG strategies used by environmentalists and other activists. These groups aim to cajole fossil fuel-producing companies and other businesses they consider socially unacceptable into abandoning profitable business ventures. The tactics of the Big Labor plan call for hijacking the shareholder resolution process through proxy voting and shareholder activism to force pro-union policies. Unlike typical shareholder proposals, those supported by Big Labor do not seek to advance shareholder value. Instead, they seek to increase union membership and strengthen Big Labor’s power.
NEW YORK: The Union Gave Them the Wrong Data. The Pols Cited It Anyway.
April 12, 2024 // Meanwhile some school districts are considering layoffs because they used temporary COVID funds to staff up (again, contrary to union claims about Tier 6 hindering hiring). Finally, Senator Jackson and Mayor Evans borrowed a dubious line from labor, bemoaning how state law now “mandates a retirement age of 63 with 40 years of service.” Trouble is, it doesn’t. Nothing in state law requires anyone to work 40 years for anything. People need only work five years to vest in a public pension in New York (which Governor Hochul and lawmakers trimmed from 10 years in 2022). And they can begin collecting a reduced pension as young as age 55. Malik Evans
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.
Membership plunges again for Michigan and national teachers unions
January 5, 2024 // Since school employees got a choice in union membership, the MEA’s total revenue has declined by nearly $40 million annually. Despite a hike in dues, Michigan’s largest public sector union is bringing in more than 30% less each year.
FREEDOM FOUNDATION WINS $75,000 FROM SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY IN PUBLIC RECORDS CASE
August 11, 2023 // Last November, the Superior Court of San Bernardino County agreed the Freedom Foundation was entitled to the contact information for county employees— information already freely provided to the unions — and ordered the county to compensate the organization for the costs incurred in the lawsuit. During the entire ordeal, county officials continued to drag their feet and cause needless — and expensive — delays. “The meter was running,” said Eric Stahlfeld, the Freedom Foundation’s chief litigation counsel. “The longer the case dragged on, the more time we spent on it and the higher their bill kept getting. “In cases like this, government agencies know they’re playing with house money,” Stahlfeld explained. “They couldn’t care less how much the process costs or how long it takes. That’s why ordinary people either don’t bother suing the government or don’t stick with it very long. They don’t have endless streams of money to pay lawyers.”
New York: Union Pressure Aims to Hit Home
May 10, 2023 // The bill (S6477) was filed last month by Senate Civil Service and Pensions committee chair Robert Jackson. It would let the unions representing government workers request each person’s home address and subject employers to penalties if they don’t turn it over. In his bill memo, Jackson falsely claims this information is “necessary to represent their members under the duty of fair representation,” under the state’s public-sector collective bargaining law, the Taylor Law. The unions, however, have no legal or other obligation to contact someone who has chosen not to pay them. Those workers, among other things, don’t get to vote on union contracts or the union officers who negotiate on their behalf. The interest here is strictly financial: New York’s largest public employee unions have shrunk since 2018 due to both a reduction in public employment and people choosing not to join after the U.S. Supreme Court held they couldn’t be forced to pay a union. The rate of union membership in state government slid from 89 percent in 2018 to 85 percent last year.