Free Republic

A group of California teachers is preparing for a Supreme Court battle to overturn forced union dues in a groundbreaking lawsuit filed in June. For nearly three decades, the Supreme Court has allowed closed-shop unionism, in which public employees must pay dues to labor groups handling collective bargaining negotiations. The Supreme Court established Beck Rights in 1988 allowing workers to opt out of union dues for political activities, while continuing to pay for union negotiating expenses. The teachers are hoping to take that battle one step further by putting an end to all coercive union dues.

Cablevision has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in an investigation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) about complaints involving 22 former workers that were allegedly wrongfully terminated. This battle between the media giant and the Communications Workers of America is hardly new information as they have been fighting for the past year, but this most recent move is telling specifically because of what it implies about the authority of the NLRB. A different case, National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, a court is considering the idea that the NLRB’s members, or at least 3 of them,...

The city of Cedar Park in Texas was the fastest growing city in terms of percentage growth from 2010 to 2012 when it increased 12 percent to 57,957 people, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics. Eight of the top 15 fastest growing cities were in Texas, a right-to-work state. The state was a big reason why 77 of the top 100 fastest-growing cities were in right-to-work states. Eighteen right-to-work states had cities crack the top 100. There were six non-right-to-work states and Washington, D.C., that made the top 100. Three of the top 100 fastest growing cities were from...

Cooper tires is becoming another victim of President Obama’s much too cozy relationship with the union machine. Cooper Tires was bought by an Indian company. After President Obama sent a thank you to the Steelworkers Union and slapped an absolutely brain-dead punitive tariff of tires coming from China, a few things happened: Imports of low-cost tires did not stop. They came from other countries, at tariffs even lower than the old ones on Chinese tires. Not a single new job was created in America, but more than a few jobs at tire importers were destroyed. Americans paid more for tires....

While more than 100 school districts rushed to approve new contracts that impeded implementation of right-to-work before the March 27 deadline, at least two districts took a different approach. Pewamo-Westphalia Community Schools and Hamilton Community School district embraced the concept of allowing its teachers a choice to join a union as a condition of their employment. Both districts approved new teachers’ union contracts before the right-to-work law took effect, but had specific language in their agreements that allowed teachers to opt out of their union. Hamilton Community Schools did it through a memo-of-understanding. "It was important to me and the...

West Ottawa Public Schools teacher Dan Dennis bemoans “life in a right-to-work state” in a story in the recent issue of the Michigan Education Association magazine. In the story, Dennis wrote about how in 1999 he went from making $40,000 a year in Michigan to $30,000 a year when he moved to and taught at a high school in North Carolina, which already was a right-to-work state. Dennis lamented in the story about the cost of living, which he said was slightly higher in North Carolina and complained about not having an all-encompassing health care plan. He wrote: I was...

In another blow to the nation's dwindling labor unions, an appeals court on Tuesday struck down a federal rule that would have required millions of businesses to put up posters informing workers of their right to form a union.

Municipalities throughout the state that signed contracts with their unions to avoid the state's right-to-work law may trigger it anyway if they renegotiate contracts before they expire. And at least one is committed to doing just that. Southgate Community School District Superintendent William Grusecki said the administration and teachers' union have already agreed to reopen their five-year deal, which was signed a day before the March 27 deadline for the right-to-work law to take effect. "We will be reopening the contract each year for wages and insurance," Grusecki said in an email. However, that will allow right-to-work to be enacted,...

Elkhart County in northern Indiana, which borders Michigan to the south of Cass County, increased its employment 6.9 percent in the third quarter of 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That growth is more than any other large county in the country for that quarter, and it far outpaces the national average for employment growth of just 1.6 percent. Elkhart also increased its jobs by 5.6 percent in the second quarter of 2012, the third-fastest growing large county that quarter. Senior Investigative Analyst Anne Schieber recently reported on Elkhart’s economic recovery. Indiana passed a right-to-work law in 2012...

According to a new poll, 59 percent of Michigan adults believe the new right-to-work law will either help Michigan's economy or have no impact on it. But the survey wasn't interpreted like that when the press release for Michigan State University’s State of the State Survey (SOSS) was released Thursday, the same day that state's right-to-work law officially took effect. Instead, the theme was that the right-to-work law "sharply divided" the state. The survey asked respondents to speculate whether the new law would hurt or help the economy. Roughly two out of five, 42.7 percent, of those surveyed said they...

The Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners may have violated state law when it approved 10-year contracts with 15 unions to beat a March 27 deadline to avoid the impact of the state's right-to-work law. The union contracts allowed Washtenaw County employees to switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. However, a state law says that when a pension is changed, an actuarial analysis needs to be provided at least seven days before the plan is adopted. The law reads: "'[P]roposed pension benefit change' means a proposal to change the amount of pension benefits received by persons...

Maryland lawmakers agreed this week to require public school teachers to pay union fees – a move that bolsters the state’s connection to organized labor as others move toward a right-to-work status. The bill passed Thursday in the General Assembly and is headed to the desk of Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley for signing after Monday, the final day of Maryland’s 2013 legislative session. The bill is also part of a larger progressive agenda put fourth this year by leaders of the Democrat-controlled Assembly that includes the approval of tax increases and one of the toughest gun-control proposals in the country.

March 28, 2013 is a day that will be marked in Michigan history. Worker freedom officially takes effect today. Soon, most workers in Michigan will have the choice of whether they want to financially support their union or not. Right-to-work simply means that a union no longer can get a worker fired for not paying them. Despite claims by unions, collective bargaining largely will remain the same. Unions still can negotiate with employers over wages, hours, working conditions and almost anything except for the requirement that workers pay them simply to keep their jobs. Now unions need to prove their...

Just days before the state's right-to-work law goes into effect, a union representing Kroger workers in Michigan pushed through a new contract that locks its members into paying dues or fees to the union for four years. Grocery employees represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 876 ratified the agreement March 22, according to the union's website. The previous union contract was supposed to expire June 15, 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The weeks leading up to the law's start date on March 28 have been filled with public sector unions rushing to approve...

A memo from a community college president clearly spells out that unions suggested having their contracts reopened expressly to circumvent Michigan's right-to-work law. In addition, the memo states that Macomb County Community College (MCCC) offered to cooperate with the unions in that effort. This week, the community college made good on its offer. It approved four renegotiated contracts, including one contract that had been approved just four months ago. In a memo, dated Feb. 15, 2013, MCCC president Jim Jacobs wrote: "Many unions are asking that public employees extend existing contracts for 10 years so as to avoid the impact...

Two state universities have rejected union deals that would have averted the state's new right-to-work law. The Ferris State University Board of Trustees and the Central Michigan University Board of Trustees rejected contracts from unions that included union security agreements. Such agreements prohibit union members from exercising their right to decide if they want to pay dues or fees to be in a union, which is their option beginning March 28 thanks to the state becoming the nation's 24th right-to-work state late last year. Some school districts and some state universities have approved deals that allow unions to forcibly collect...

Wayne State University officials say the state's right-to-work law helped the university get a better deal from its faculty union. However, university officials don't specify what they actually got in return. Last month, WSU reached an agreement with the union on an unprecedented eight-year contract. The deal was struck as the clock was ticking toward the state's right-to-work law going into effect. At stake for the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers was the ability to keep collecting dues and fees from all members through 2021. The state's right-to-work law goes into effect March 28 and gives union...

Negotiating right-to-work-dodging contract extensions could cost Michigan universities millions in state funding. Michigan's new right-to-work law prohibits contracts that require employees pay dues or fees to unions as a condition of employment. However the law doesn’t go into effect until March 28. That means unions have a brief opportunity to try and dodge the law by getting employers to extend existing contracts or agree to clauses that extend the forced dues/fees collection for longer than the contract. Michigan’s 15 public universities are considered prime targets for these union efforts. But some state lawmakers are taking steps to head-off such contract...

On Dec. 11, the Taylor School District closed because so many of its teachers skipped school to go to Lansing to protest right-to-work legislation. As a result, about 7,500 students in Taylor were forced to miss classes that day. For organizing that "sick out" protest, the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan gave Taylor teachers' union president Linda Moore an award for "outstanding organizing." Public Act 112 in Michigan makes public school employees strikes and/or lockouts illegal. In a Jan. 28 announcement posted on Facebook, AFT Michigan boasted that so many union members took Dec. 11 off "that Taylor schools shut down."...

On Dec. 11, the Taylor School District closed because so many of its teachers skipped school to go to Lansing to protest right-to-work legislation. As a result, about 7,500 students in Taylor were forced to miss classes that day. For organizing that "sick out" protest, the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan gave Taylor teachers' union president Linda Moore an award for "outstanding organizing." Public Act 112 in Michigan makes public school employees strikes and/or lockouts illegal. In a Jan. 28 announcement posted on Facebook, AFT Michigan boasted that so many union members took Dec. 11 off "that Taylor schools shut down."...