Posts tagged red flag
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.