Posts tagged union fees
Support Staff at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children Vote to Eject SEIU Union Officials
December 20, 2023 // Large unit of over 270 medical assistants, office coordinators, and others will now be free of union control
COMMENTARY: By Ending Forced Representation, New Proposal in Congress Could Benefit Workers and Unions Alike
December 14, 2023 // Exclusive representation muffles the voices and denies the rights of at least a minority of workers, and imposes undue burdens on unions. Prioritizing workers’ choices and reducing government barriers to work pursuits are crucial to elevating workers’ voices, improving their well-being, and expanding their opportunities.
Majority of Austin, MN, Mayo Clinic Medical Assistants, Care Specialists Request Vote to Remove Steelworkers Union
December 12, 2023 // A patient care specialist at the Mayo Clinic location in Austin, MN, has just submitted to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) a petition backed by her colleagues seeking a vote to remove United Steelworkers (USW) Local 11-005 union officials from power at their facility. The patient care specialist, Erin Krulish, filed the petition with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
U.S. House Holds Hearing Today on Landmark Worker Freedom Bill
December 1, 2023 // The one-page bill, which is currently cosponsored by 117 members of the House of Representatives, would end Big Labor’s federally authorized power to force workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. Poll after poll demonstrates that 70% to 80% of Americans (or higher) consistently express support for the Right to Work principle that union membership and financial support should be the choice of every individual employee. Testifying before the Subcommittee alongside National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix were two employees who have successfully challenged illegal union boss practices with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Opinion: Say it again, Supremes: Forced union dues in government are illegal
November 3, 2023 // Far from making sure that employees “clearly and affirmatively consent” before union fees are deducted from their pay, these states — under pressure from mobilized unions — deny them any independent workplace source of information about their right to refuse. Often new hires are simply given a dues-withdrawal form to sign along with all the other first-day paperwork. When disgruntled dues-payers later learn of their rights and seek to withdraw their agreement, they are routinely confronted with confusing rules intended to make it almost impossible to stop paying. The Freedom Foundation, a workers’ rights education and litigation institute, documents dozens of such cases in a recent Supreme Court filing.
Oklahoma City Starbucks Employees Latest to Demand Vote to Remove SBWU Union from Workplace
October 11, 2023 // Smith and her coworkers’ effort is the latest in a chain of SBWU decertification pushes across the country. Since May, Starbucks employees in Manhattan, NY; Buffalo, NY; Pittsburgh, PA; Bloomington, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; and Greenville, SC, have all sought free Foundation legal aid in pursuing their decertification petitions at the NLRB. Last month, workers at Good Karma Café, an independent coffee shop in Philadelphia, successfully voted out the SBWU union with Foundation help. The flurry of decertification attempts is occurring roughly one year after SBWU union agents engaged in an aggressive unionization campaign against Starbucks employees. Federal labor law forbids workers from decertifying a union for a year after its installation, meaning many workers are seizing on the earliest possible opportunity to rid themselves of the SBWU union’s “representation.”
NJ Medieval Times Employees Appeal to National Labor Relations Board in Ongoing Joust with Union Officials
September 21, 2023 // he Request for Review notes that AGVA union officials were “secretive, self-interested, and divisive,” and “regularly advocated that the [Medieval Times] employees go on strike, something that had no support among the unit employees.” After waiting out the statutory one-year bar on union elections that follows a union’s certification, Morley filed the petition requesting a union decertification vote. According to the Request for Review, instead of processing the petition as NLRB rules dictate, NLRB Region 22 issued a complaint against the employer and dismissed Morley’s petition based on unproven “blocking charges” AGVA union officials filed against Medieval Times management. The Request for Review argues that the hasty dismissal violated NLRB election rules, the Administrative Procedure Act, and well-established NLRB precedent requiring a hearing to demonstrate whether union allegations of employer misconduct actually caused employee discontent with the union. “None of the alleged unfair labor practice allegations…concern the Employees’ collection of the decertification signatures or the Employer’s domination of the Union. Thus…an election should be held and the votes immediately counted,” the Request for Review contends. “Even if the Board determined the allegations warranted consideration under [NLRB rules], its plain terms prohibit dismissing a petition prior to an election.”
The Supreme Court’s Janus v. Afscme Sequel?
August 25, 2023 // Alaska’s courts have blocked Mr. Dunleavy’s plan from taking effect. In a May ruling, the state Supreme Court said that “neither Janus nor the First Amendment required the State to alter the union member dues deduction practices set out in the collective bargaining agreement.” This is a crabbed view of free speech and free association. Although Janus involved a union nonmember, Alaska tells the U.S. Supreme Court in its petition that “the decision applies to all involuntary fees and has clear application to members and nonmembers alike.” Consider the devious policies that make canceling a paycheck deduction into a “byzantine process,” Alaska says. In California, “certain public employees cannot stop their dues unless the union receives a signed revocation letter ‘postmarked’ precisely ‘between 75 days and 45 days before’ the employee’s ‘annual renewal date.’” The point is to trap workers and keep that dues money coming. The authorization form for the Alaska State Employees Association was even stricter, making union dues irrevocable except during a magical 10-day window each year, though the petition says the union eventually promised not to enforce it after the state sued.
Despite President Joe Biden’s repeated boasts, union membership continues to fall
July 18, 2023 // Union members do not always agree with Democrats on policy matters. Biden's own green energy agenda is coming up against labor resistance, with organized auto workers prepared to strike over the hazards and lack of benefits in electric vehicle production. Biden must also work to keep blue-collar union members from slipping into the Republican column as candidates like former President Donald Trump play up American manufacturing and the virtues of import tariffs. But more recent headlines showcase unions fighting their traditional battles over pay, benefits, and worker protections.