Posts tagged Supreme Court
OPM’s Final “Schedule Policy/Career” Rule is Published
February 17, 2026 // On February 6, 2026, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) finalized its rule, Improving Performance, Accountability, and Responsiveness in the Civil Service, aka the “Schedule Policy/Career” rule, for federal employees in policy-influencing positions. Roles under this designation will be merit-based but at will and filled by presidential administrations instead of through the civil service system so that agencies can act quickly when serious performance or conduct failures arise. The rule takes effect March 9, 2026.
William F. Buckley’s Forgotten Contribution to the War Against Union Oppression
February 17, 2026 // In his 1970 lawsuit, Buckley noted that he joined AFTRA when the show was launched in 1966 because union membership and dues were a condition of employment imposed by New York’s WOR-TV, where the show was produced, and its parent company, RKO General, Inc. Later, he came to resent having to support an organization whose values clashed with his own and sought to opt out — just as hundreds of thousands of public employees have since Janus v. AFSCME affirmed their First Amendment right to do so in 2018.
Labor standoff at LA’s Loyola Marymount University a battle over Catholic teaching
February 1, 2026 // On the pages LMU published profiling the dispute, the institution defends its action by stating “invocation of the religious exemption is lawful, grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and consistent with Supreme Court and NLRB precedent. This right cannot be waived and may be exercised at any point.” “The Board reached this decision to protect LMU’s Catholic mission, its students, and its long-term sustainability,” Griff McNerney, LMU’s senior director of media and public relations, told OSV News in an e-mailed statement. “After months of discernment, trustees concluded that direct partnership with faculty — without SEIU’s involvement — would enable faster, more mission-aligned progress toward shared goals.” McNerney noted, “From December 2024 to Summer 2025, LMU reviewed 39 proposals and made counterproposals, none of which were accepted by the union.”
Some Post-Gazette workers call for new union leadership
January 25, 2026 // The division comes roughly three weeks after the paper’s publisher, Block Communications Inc., announced the decision to shutter the paper in May. It followed failed attempts to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a lower court order that required the company to make changes to its health insurance coverage for union workers.
Editorial: Those Lying Teacher Unions
January 20, 2026 // A recent lawsuit against the Utah Education Association is a long-overdue gut punch to the smug, self-righteous teachers union machine that's been lying to its own members for years.
Op-ed: If the justices don’t reinforce their Janus ruling soon, unions will ignore it to death
January 20, 2026 // In the case of Janus, unions and their allies in the judiciary have grown increasingly brazen over the years in their contempt for the ruling. And yet the justices have steadfastly refused to revisit and give it teeth. And they’ve had plenty of chances. Between 2018 and 2023, more than 70 Janus-related cases were appealed to the Supreme Court, and there have been more since. Not one has been accepted for oral argument, let alone decided in the plaintiff’s favor.
US Senate confirms Trump nominees for labor board paralyzed after member’s firing
December 19, 2025 // Trump's appointees to the board are expected to undo a series of decisions issued by Wilcox and other appointees of Democratic former President Joe Biden that have been criticized by business groups and Republican lawmakers. Under a decades-old policy, the board typically does not overturn its existing precedent unless three members vote to do so. Trump has not yet named a nominee that would give the board a third Republican member, but Mayer and Murphy in the meantime could issue decisions narrowing the reach of Biden-era decisions. That includes a 2023 ruling that allows unions to represent workers in some instances even after losing an election, a ban on the common employer practice of holding mandatory meetings to discourage unionizing and an expansion of monetary remedies available to workers who are fired for supporting unions or other protected conduct.
Trump’s Cuts to U.S. Labor Board Leave Festering Disputes and a Power Struggle
December 17, 2025 // “There is no room for parallel or complementary state legislation,” said William B. Cowen, the labor board’s acting general counsel. Mr. Cowen said the agency remained effective despite the lack of a sitting board, because the vast majority of cases are resolved in earlier stages. In the 2024 fiscal year, according to the board’s data, regional offices settled 96 percent of cases that advanced past filing. “I’m not saying that what the board does is unimportant. It’s very important. They decide the most important, the most contentious issues,” Mr. Cowen said. “It is a very small percentage.”
NY patients come last as 1199 SEIU angles for $200M-a-year Medicaid payday
December 15, 2025 // Hochul’s law makes PPL a private “employer,” so unionizing its caregivers would mean 1199 could force every one of them to pay a 2% tribute — or get fired. At the current number of CDPAP caregivers, 1199 would snag another $200 million a year. PPL is likely cooperating because doing so is something akin to buying protection from mobsters. Everyone in Albany has seen the 1199-financed attack ads lobbed at governors and other state officials who question the size or efficacy of Medicaid. If this unionization scheme succeeds, such public lobbying would explode. The union won’t just have an incentive to keep the caregiver sign-up rules loose — it will have a fiduciary duty to keep wasting public money, and to pressure lawmakers for more.
Opinion: The Senate can stop the NLRB’s threats to American freedom
December 8, 2025 // Trump’s nominees will restore the balance and discipline needed to repair the NLRB’s legitimacy and credibility with American workers. They understand that the NLRB’s role is not to pick winners and losers, but to protect workers’ rights and uphold secret ballots, as well as ensure union accountability and that information is not hidden from workers. Confirming them would restore the constitutional guardrails that keep government honest and workplaces free.