Posts tagged Public Employees
Act 10 lawsuit: Wisconsin judge strikes down parts of bill
July 9, 2024 // "The issue was, are people receiving equal treatment?" UW-Milwaukee Professor Emeritus Mordecai Lee said. Republicans argue that Act 10 solved Wisconsin’s deficit problem, while Democrats say it hurts schools and public employee pay.
Proposal giving most Denver employees collective bargaining rights moves forward
June 7, 2024 // Public safety officers, career service employees of the Denver Health and Hospital Authority, employees with managerial duties and hiring capacities, and certain political appointees would be excluded from collective bargaining under the proposal. What's next: If voters approve the measure, it would go into effect on May 1, 2025. Denver would join cities like Detroit, Seattle and Portland with similar rights for its municipal staff if successful
SPEAKER WELCH GOT UNION POWER INTO ILLINOIS CONSTITUTION, NOW HIS WORKERS USE IT AGAINST HIM
June 5, 2024 // Now, members of Welch’s own staff are suing him for refusing to recognize their chosen union. According to the Illinois Legislative Staff Association, Welch has failed to deal with his staff in good faith and is “stonewalling” the process. After 18 months of being “rebuffed” by Welch in their quest for unionization, the association and a member of Welch’s staff filed suit May 31 in Cook County.
COMMENTARY: RHODE ISLAND: CAPTIVE-AUDIENCE MEETINGS FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE
May 30, 2024 // Union leaders are rightfully concerned that hearing the truth will make employees much less likely to join. And they should know because captive audience meetings have long been a staple of the union playbook for decades. In leftist-dominated states throughout the country, lawmakers have passed legislation authorizing unions to meet with newly hired public employees to make an unchallenged sales pitch about union membership. In these sessions, unions have been caught lying, misleading, bullying, and intimidating people into signing away their Constitutional rights. Our government systems have been hijacked by unions for politicization and money laundering. This affects not just bureaucrats but educators, corrections officers, Department of Transportation workers, and public employees of every kind, who increasingly find their autonomy undercut by unscrupulous union practices.
National Right to Work Foundation Issues Notice to University of California Graduate Students Amid UAW Strike Orders
May 21, 2024 // The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has released a special legal notice to graduate students, teaching assistants, and researchers across the University of California system. The notice comes as officials of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union have ordered a strike at UC Santa Cruz over the university’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict and related campus protests.
Return of union dues skim threatens home health workers
May 8, 2024 // With dues skim finally put to rest, home healthcare workers’ true feelings were made clear. In under a year, SEIU lost tens of thousands of members, shrinking from 55,265 to 10,918. By 2022, membership had fallen to 5,031, less than 10% of its membership at the height of dues skim. When given a choice, home healthcare providers fled the union in droves. Despite this, the Michigan Senate has since introduced SB 790-791, which would allow for the untimely return of the dues skim.
Public employee unions took over Michigan. Now they’re eyeing Pennsylvania
May 7, 2024 // Bad as this is for taxpayers, the union-backed legislators have made things even worse for workers. A new law requires government employers to provide unions with employees’ personal contact information within 30 days of hiring. Employers must update and resubmit this information every 90 days. Unions are thus given free rein to inundate workers with political or other material whether it is wanted or not.
Commentary: SEIU 1000 SECURITY BREACH EXPOSES UNION HYPOCRISY ON GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY
April 30, 2024 // Imagine our shock when news broke recently that SEIU 1000, one of the largest unions in California, had been the target of a ransomware attack that led to more than 308 gigabytes of union data being captured by the hackers. This included membership information, such as Social Security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers and birthdates. Where did SEIU 1000 get this information to have it leaked in the first place? Much of the data was included on lists given to it by the state of California, per the union’s bargaining agreement, on a regular basis.
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.
Manchester workers union criticized for ‘free riders’ list of members allegedly not paying dues
April 1, 2024 // Frank Ricci, retired president of a New Haven firefighters union and now a fellow at the conservative Yankee Institute for Public Policy, said, “This pernicious threat equates to raw intimidation and coercion — against hard-working employees’ lawful exercise of their First Amendment rights under the Janus decision.” Joseph DeMeo, a Manchester water treatment plant operator who is a member of the union and not on the list, said it creates “a hostile work environment.”