Posts tagged union dues
Op-Ed: Public employees deserve truth from union officials
June 27, 2025 // In 2020, Colorado union officials gained mandatory collective bargaining affecting state employees. Three years ago, they landed compulsory organizing of many county workers. And the following year, Colorado lawmakers granted more favorable rules on how certain municipalities, universities, schools, and hospitals interact with and speak about unions. Now, union officials want to fundamentally change the state’s labor landscape once again.
Bid Protests Offer a Way Around PLAs, But Will a Slow, Steady Precedent Win the Day?
June 25, 2025 // The OMB memo instructs federal agencies to maintain the labor pact requirements but also points to a Federal Acquisition Rule provision that provides an exception to the PLA requirement for large construction projects when its use would substantially reduce the number of bidders and impact the price. But it has left neither contractor groups nor NABTU happy. "To that extent this isn’t what we hoped for, it is definitely better than what was in place with the Biden administration,” Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and workforce at AGC told ENR. “In addition, given the recent court decisions, it is hard to see how the administration will be able to impose a mandated PLA without facing successful bid protests."
Op-ed: Who Are Unions Really Fighting For?
June 20, 2025 // Let’s not forget: Weingarten’s AFT represents 1.7 million workers, including educators, healthcare professionals, and public servants across the country. Many of them are not Democrats. Many are centrists, independents, or conservatives. And yet their dues continue to support a relentless stream of partisan causes, political campaigns, and social crusades that often run completely counter to their own values. In fact, more than 90% of union political contributions go to Democrats – despite the fact that union households are politically diverse. Roughly 41% of union members voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, while 57% supported Kamala Harris. The disconnect is undeniable: nearly half of union members are effectively subsidizing political causes and candidates they do not support.
Cornell Univ. Graduate Students Hit UE and GSU Unions with Discrimination Charges for Harassing Religious Objectors to Compulsory Unionism
June 20, 2025 // As their charges explain, rather than comply with their valid requests for religious accommodations, UE union bosses instead sent “questionnaires” containing invasive and legally irrelevant questions to religious objectors. The questionnaires include intrusive demands like, “[P]lease include the name and address of the organization sponsoring the [religious] services you attend and the name of the faith leader(s),” and “How long have you had your religious belief?” The end of the questionnaire indicates that union officials may not even respect a student’s religious objection after completion of the form, stating ominously that “The UE national union will review your religious objection upon receipt and may have follow-up questions” (emphasis added).
Nearly 1 in 3 Illinois school contracts mislead teachers about fees they owe
June 18, 2025 // Seven years after they were freed from being forced to pay unions, at least 267 of Illinois’ 866 school districts still have “fair share” language in their teachers union contracts. Those contracts are wrong and should be fixed so teachers get the truth about their pay.
Opinion — Medicaid Is A Slush Fund For Labor And The Left
June 10, 2025 // Stripped of this Medicaid-funded, taxpayer-underwritten war chest and forced to support their failed candidates and causes solely through voluntary donations from people who actually agree with them, unions and their pet politicians would face an even bleaker future than the one already confronting them. The law has always intended for Medicaid payments to be made directly and in full to Medicaid providers, but government unions have figured out a way to use it as a slush fund for Left-wing politics. President Trump has the ability to end this scheme by implementing a rule change to uphold the integrity of federal Medicaid laws and stop the diversion of Medicaid funds to unions.
Op-ed: Virginia Must Clarify Its Labor Laws
June 9, 2025 // The ideal outcome for Virginia would be to repeal the Democrats’ 2020 law and return Virginia to being one of the few states that outright prohibit collective bargaining in the public sector. North and South Carolina have for decades, and Utah joined them with a new law signed by Governor Spencer Cox (R.) this year. But with Democrats currently in control of the Virginia General Assembly, a repeal effort would go nowhere. In the meantime, the proposed regulations are needed to make sure local government unions are following the law. Virginia is a right-to-work state with many strong protections for employees in unionized workplaces. Public employees deserve those protections just as much as private employees do.
MVH nurses speak out against unionizing efforts
June 4, 2025 // But some at Miami Valley Hospital say they are happy with the current management. Three clinical nurses from MVH reached out to 2 NEWS, saying they believe a union would cause them to lose more than they would gain. They say their fellow nurses should consider the consequences of this decision on the entire staff if union terms were negotiated.
Youngkin administration moves to protect public employees and taxpayers from union excesses
May 27, 2025 // First, the regulations would expressly extend to public employees the right to select a union pursuant to a secret-ballot election. In so doing, the proposed rules would protect public employees from being pressured or coerced into unionization via the infamous “card check” process, by which union organizers approach employees directly about publicly signing union petition cards. In its brief comment on the proposed regulations, the Virginia Education Association (VEA) claimed that, “All collective bargaining resolutions adopted by Virginia school boards, to date, provide for free and fair secret ballot elections…” But, as the Freedom Foundation documented in its comment, this is simply incorrect:
Gov. Jared Polis’ coming labor bill veto will strain Democrat’s labor ties — and set stage for ballot fight
May 15, 2025 // Polis has said that Colorado’s 81-year-old labor law has worked well and that he wants maximum employee input in negotiating union dues. He added Thursday that he wanted a deal that would bring stability to business-labor relations in the state, referring to fears that a change to the status quo would usher in a tug-of-war over competing ballot measures and legislation. Asked about Polis’ skeptical views of SB-5, Dougherty said those were concerns “that were not relayed to us when he was running for governor.”