Posts tagged Public Employees
Unions sue Trump over immigrant drivers license crackdown
October 28, 2025 // The employee unions challenged a rule implemented by Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy restricting foreign individuals from receiving commercial drivers licenses. Commercial drivers licenses are used for operating large vehicles such as tractor-trailers and buses. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia allow unauthorized immigrants to receive commercial drivers licenses. In California, more than 25% of commercial drivers licenses were improperly issued, according to a Department of Transportation press release.
Seven years after Janus, public employees still can’t quit their unions
October 24, 2025 // Seven years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision established that public employees cannot be compelled to pay union dues, a troubling pattern has emerged: unions nationwide are systematically obstructing workers’ rights to resign. Consider Chaquan May, a California in-home caregiver, who has spent more than two years trying to resign from SEIU Local 2015.
Shasta County Board of Supervisors to Appeal Ruling in Free Speech Case Against California Public Employment Relations Board
October 15, 2025 // The lawsuit, filed on March 17 by the Freedom Foundation on behalf of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors and a county employee, challenges California statutes that prevent public employers from informing employees about their First Amendment right to opt out of union membership. Two specific statutes within the California Government Code restrict the board’s ability to communicate freely about union membership options and infringe on employees’ constitutional right to receive truthful information. These statutes can best be characterized as California’s Gag Rule statutes because they force public employers into silence regarding a matter of public concern.
Thousands of Michigan home health care workers vote to unionize
October 14, 2025 // The Mackinac Center of Public Policy is leading that lawsuit. Senior Attorney Derk Wilcox said the state can’t just label people as state employees for the sake of unionizing them. “The state constitution specifically says that all employees of the state government go through the civil service. The civil service manages them and sets the terms of employment. And this is an attempt to bypass that,” Wilcox said. The complaint cites language in Article 11, Section 5 of the state constitution, which details who counts as a part of the state civil service and falls under the Michigan Civil Service Commission’s purview.
A College Players Union Is Not Going to Happen. Here’s Why.
October 14, 2025 // While the NCAA fights off challenges and Congress slouches towards a solution, the idea of a pro-style Collective Bargaining Agreement is appealing but totally unworkable
Kamala Harris pro-union X post inspires major Labor Day backlash
September 2, 2025 // An X post from former Vice President Kamala Harris on this Labor Day has generated hundreds of mostly critical comments. “When unions are strong, our communities and our country are strong. Every person in our nation has benefited from the labor movement. This Labor Day, we celebrate the workers and unions who have fought for fair wages, safe workplaces, and sick leave for all of us,” posted Harris. One commenter posted in response, “The Dems talking point for today is…UNIONS. Today is literally for the worker but in true form, democrats make it about the evil system.”
NEW YORK: Opt-outs up by 63 percent
August 25, 2025 // Compared to last July, opt-outs have surged 63 percent. Since just last month? Another 51 percent spike. This isn’t a one-off. It’s a movement. And if the pace continues, New York will crush last year’s totals. Union executives can’t ignore it. New Yorkers are waking up to where their dues are really going — political slush funds, six-figure union salaries and agendas that don’t represent them.
Op-ed: Ohio needs to wrest control of public schools from the teachers’ un
August 25, 2025 // Bureaucratic schools where merit doesn’t matter. Unions have used their clout, including their ability to elect pro-union school boards, to secure lengthy, incredibly detailed employment contracts that advance their interests while tying up school leaders with red tape. These contracts include job protections (even for incompetent teachers), onerous procedural hoops that schools must follow to evaluate or discipline an employee, and benefits that exceed what many private sector employees enjoy (e.g., generous healthcare, even for retirees, and paid leave). Moreover, following a union-supported state law, these contracts require Ohio teachers to be paid according to rigid salary schedules that reward seniority and degrees instead of classroom effectiveness and individual talent—a merit-based approach to compensation that has proven to benefit students in the (few) places where it has been tried. Escalating spending.
Newsom used telework as a bargaining chip. State worker unions see opportunity
August 22, 2025 // With this win over telework, an issue which unions previously had little leverage over, labor groups hope they can gain even more traction in future negotiations, to secure even stronger protections over when employees can work from home. On top of that, labor’s argument against requiring state employees to be in the office four days a week received a boost from the independent audit released last week. “Now we actually have an audit that backs up what we have been saying,” said Susan Rodriguez, the chief negotiator for SEIU Local 1000. Auditors surveyed departments, many of which reported their employees were just as or more productive working from home, which Rodriguez said the union has been touting all along. Telework “saves money for the state so they can use it towards more meaningful programs,” she said.
USDA plant inspectors challenge exclusion from union rights
August 19, 2025 // Due to the change, the USDA no longer recognizes the National Association of Agriculture Employees and refuses to honor the terms of an existing collective bargaining agreement between the union and the federal government, according to the complaint. These actions exceed the government’s authority and violate the free speech and equal protection rights of APHIS plant inspectors, according to the complaint. The lawsuit has asked a federal judge to declare that the exclusion of APHIS inspectors from union representation was unlawful and to order the USDA to recognize the National Association of Agriculture Employees and abide by the collective bargaining deal