Posts tagged union dues
How the Mafia Infiltrated American Labor Unions
August 12, 2024 // While law enforcement agencies continue to monitor Mafia infiltration of labor unions, labor racketeering has become less prevalent than it was decades ago. In part, that’s because union membership plummeted after the McClellan Committee exposed the extent of labor racketeering. At its zenith in the mid-1950s, union membership comprised one-third of the labor force, but now union members only represent approximately 10 percent of American workers.
The Cases Against Sectoral Bargaining: The Practical Case
August 11, 2024 // The effect of sectoral bargaining on union corruption would be unclear. Scholars of union corruption have blamed enterprise bargaining combined with union monopoly representation for America’s unusually high levels of labor racketeering. There is truth to this, but it is also not the case that American unions involved in industries with more-sectoral-style approaches are “cleaner.” The New York City garment industry, which was exempted from various Taft-Hartley regulations on union conduct, was believed by the federal government to have been Mob influenced as recently as the 1990s. More recently, the United Auto Workers, which conducts a sort of pseudo-sectoral bargaining with the unionized Detroit Three automakers by “patterning” its contracts, was forced into a regime change after the largest union corruption scandal of the 21st century. Putting more power in the hands of America’s long-standing class of union officials, who are known for having their hands in the cookie jar, certainly is not an obvious approach to reducing or surveilling corruption in organized labor.
Illinois Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers spend a lot, but not on teachers
August 8, 2024 // The federal filings of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and its national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, reveal questionable spending, with little spent on representing teachers, millions spent on politics and deficit spending while the big boss got $500K.
Washington: Worker’s story illuminates unions’ dirty little secret
August 6, 2024 // It’s demonstrably unconstitutional to recognize the workers’ rights only when you feel like it, but so far the courts have let unions get away with it. The Freedom Foundation deals with such machinations daily, recognizing them as dirty tricks meant to discourage members from ending their dues. The organization’s mission is to navigate these obstacles and ensure workers can exercise their rights at the appropriate times. WFSE, Washington’s largest state worker union, saw its membership numbers drop precipitously last year, losing about 700 members — which equates to roughly $700,000 in lost annual revenue.
Liberty Justice Center Sues New Jersey Union For Violating Plumber’s Constitutional Rights
August 5, 2024 // Upon learning about his rights under the Janus decision, Giangrasso sent a letter to UA Local 9 resigning his union membership and requesting an end to the dues deduction. However, the union refused, arguing that the Janus decision didn’t apply because the deductions were termed “assessments” rather than “dues.”
Florida judge rejects a lawsuit challenging public-employee union restrictions
August 2, 2024 // Unions argued that the ban on withholding dues from paychecks would force them to use other, more-difficult methods to collect money from members. The membership authorization forms drew criticism, in part, because of wording required by the state that many union members found objectionable. Also, the changes required unions to be recertified as bargaining agents if fewer than 60 percent of eligible employees have submitted the membership authorization forms and paid dues. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Florida Education Association, the United Faculty of Florida, unions representing employees of the Alachua County, Hernando County, Lafayette County and Pinellas County school districts and the University of Florida and UF professor Malini Schueller. Defendants are members of the Public Employees Relations Commission, members of the University of Florida Board of Trustees and the school boards in Alachua, Hernando and Pinellas counties.
Podcast: Rich Lowry with guest Vinnie Vernuccio; How Unions Are Failing American Workers
July 31, 2024 // National Review's Rich Lowry is joined by Vinnie Vernuccio, President of the Institute for the American Worker, to discuss how unions have reduced worker freedom, the underhanded tactics unions use to gain power and stifle dissenting voices, how the government enables unions, and how Americans can use free market principles to restore workers' rights and bring about positive labor reform.
School employees take union dues case to Ohio Supreme Court
July 23, 2024 // The appeal wants the Supreme Court to tell the state’s lower courts they have jurisdiction in these cases rather than the State Employment Relations Board. “‘Have your day in court’ is a truism that we learn from a young age,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “But if you were a member of a government union – a union still taking money out of your paycheck – getting your day in court is not that easy. This must change, and Darling v. AFSCME presents the Ohio Supreme Court the opportunity to clarify that common pleas courts have jurisdiction to decide private contractual disputes like the ones presented in this case.”
Security Guards at Federal Buildings Across Delaware Voting Soon on Whether to End SPFPA Union’s Forced-Dues Power
June 27, 2024 // SPFPA union officials drew the ire of Bowden and his colleagues by signing a contract with GXC Inc. management without the workers’ knowledge or consent. While voting the union out of the workplace would be their next logical step, the NLRB’s so-called “contract bar” allows union officials to immunize themselves from worker-backed decertification attempts for up to three years after a union contract has been finalized. The “contract bar” appears nowhere in the text of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal law the NLRB is charged with enforcing, but is the product of union boss-friendly decisions made by partisan NLRB members over the years.