Free Republic

Democrats hate the gig economy, since they can’t force independent contractors to join unions (and thus rake off their union dues). So Biden’s NLRB issued a “joint-employer standard” to force companies to treat gig employees and subcontractors as subject to union representation. Well, a federal judge in Texas squashed that rule. Last week, a federal judge in Texas issued a ruling that struck down a new joint-employer standard by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would have classified numerous companies as “employers” of specific contract and franchise employees, obligating them to negotiate with unions representing those workers. U.S....

Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job. The top four public labor unions in the U.S. lost more than 200,000 members since the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job, a new report shows that. The Commonwealth Foundation released the report, which found that the top four public labor unions – AFT, AFSCME, NEA, and SEIU – lost nearly 219,000 members altogether since the Janus v. AFSCME ruling. “The Janus decision to end forced...

Suit seeks to overturn union-withdrawal windows.. A railway worker is petitioning the Supreme Court to stop unions from forcing members and nonmembers to fund union political lobbying against their will. The worker asks the Court to draw on its 2018 Janus decision, which barred public sector employers from mandatory union dues on First Amendment grounds. The petition, filed Tuesday, argues the 5-4 ruling did not go far enough in cracking down on union attempts to subvert right-to-work laws through mandatory dues deductions. "This case is an ideal vehicle to resolve the exceptionally important question whether the First Amendment or the...

Labor unions are collecting dues from public employees without their “affirmative consent” in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling that state laws requiring nonunion government workers to make such payments are unconstitutional, a new lawsuit alleges. The Freedom Foundation, a free market think tank based in Washington state, joined with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to sue on behalf of 10 government employees in Oregon who argue that union dues or fees should not be deducted from their paychecks after they officially resigned from their union. “This is one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever witnessed from...

A Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) worker is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the union dues he was forced to pay must be returned, thanks to the 2018 Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME) decision. Benito Casanova was forced to pay dues to the local chapter of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) that represents CTA workers. He is represented by attorneys for the National Right to Work Legal Foundation (NRTWLF). The Court held in Janus that public sector employees who do not wish to join a union cannot...

Educators in ActionWorker Rights June 27, 2018 • 10:23AM Supreme Court Ruling in ‘Janus’ Deals Blow to Working Families By John Rosales The collective voice of American workers was undermined today by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in ​Janus v. American Federation of County, State Municipal Employees. In a 5-to-4 decision, which casts aside decades of precedents and laws, the court has eliminated a public-sector union’s ability to collect “fair share” or “agency” fees from workers who choose not to join as union members but are still protected by union agreements. The ruling undermines the ability of educators to come...

The Supreme Court was sharply divided Monday during high-profile arguments in a case that could deal a blow to public-sector employee unions across the country – and the justice seen as a key vote was not showing his hand. At issue are so-called “fair share” fees that nonmembers pay unions to help cover the costs of contract negotiations. Justices split on the issue 4-4 when it came up two years ago – but with Justice Neil Gorsuch now filling the vacancy left by the late Antonin Scalia, all eyes were on him Monday morning in Washington. Gorsuch, however, said nothing...

Paying union dues and baking a wedding cake may not seem like classic examples of free speech—except perhaps at the Supreme Court. This year, the high court is poised to announce its most significant expansion of the 1st Amendment since the Citizens United decision in 2010, which struck down laws that limited campaign spending by corporations, unions and the very wealthy.

California union workers will continue to be in the dark about how their dues are spent after a bill that would’ve forced unions to post this information online was killed along a party-line vote. California’s public employee unions used their muscle this week to fight back a legislative bid to open their books, killing in committee a bill that would force them to post online how dues are spent -- and a second bill requiring a union vote every two years. "These members want to belong to a union. They want to be represented by a union. They just want to...

As the nation and official Washington prepared to mourn the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, watchers of the high court began to assess the immediate impact of his death on several pending cases whose decisions might have had momentous political implications. Among these is Friedrichs v. California Teacher’s Association, set to have been a landmark case regarding the mandatory collection of union dues and their use for political purposes. The ruling could have meant the death knell of collective bargaining and the political might of America’s unions. newzf After oral arguments in the case in January, The Washington Post...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court seemed poised on Monday to deliver a severe blow to organized labor. The justices appeared divided along familiar lines during an extended argument over whether government workers who choose not to join unions may nonetheless be required to help pay for collective bargaining. The court's conservative majority appeared ready to say that such compelled financial support violates the First Amendment Collective bargaining, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, is inherently political when the government is the employer, and issues like merit pay, promotions and classroom size are subject to negotiation. The best hope for a victory...

EUREKA, Ill. (AP) — Republican presidential contender Scott Walker promised to tackle union power at the federal level just like he did as governor in Wisconsin, saying in a fiery speech Thursday that he wants to "wreak havoc" on Washington. The governor chose Ronald Reagan's alma mater of Eureka College for a speech aimed at invigorating his flagging campaign less than a week before the second GOP debate. Walker spoke on the same stage where Reagan, as a freshman in 1928, gave a speech during a student strike, and his remarks were infused with references to the late president. Walker...

As you watch your children board the school bus for the first day back to classes, consider this: That school bus driver is likely forced to pay fees to a union as a condition of driving that bus. Why? Because he or she works in one of the 25 forced-unionism states in America — states where it is lawfully permissible to force a worker to pay fees to a union as a condition of employment. You're not alone if this sounds absurd. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly 80 percent of your fellow Americans agree: No worker should be...

Federal authorities indicted the former president of a Florida teachers’ union on fraud charges on Thursday, even as he faces additional charges in his home state over allegedly illegal campaign contributions to Hillary Clinton. The Justice Department charged former Broward Teachers Union (BTU) president Patrick Santeramo with two counts of mail fraud for his alleged role in embezzling more than $35,000 in payments from a local school district. “It is alleged that after the BTU received the $80,000 payment from the School Board of Broward County, Santeramo authorized payments from the [union’s] Accountability Program account for himself and at least...

WASHINGTON (June 30, 2015) — The Supreme Court will consider limiting the power of government employee unions to collect fees from non-members in a case that labor officials say could threaten membership and further weaken union clout. The justices said Tuesday they will hear an appeal from a group of California teachers who say it violates their First Amendment rights to have to pay any fees if they disagree with a union's positions and don't want to join it.

Here’s how the scam works: Near the end of each academic year, APSCUF informs their members that it miraculously found an extra $25 per person in dues that it doesn’t need. The union then portrays itself as an honest broker and offers the money back as a “rebate.” The rebate form gives members three options for their $25: 1. Let the union keep it; 2. Donate it to APSCUF’s political action committee; or 3. Have it sent back to them. Presenting this “found” money with these options and urging members to donate to APSCUF’s PAC has proven extraordinarily effective —...

Raising the wages of low to unskilled workers to $15.00 an hour will only help the Democrats and the extortionist unions who “represent” these workers. If low level salaries are doubled to $15.00 an hour, causing half of a shop’s workforce to be fired, the unions are way ahead. They will just double the dues for the remaining workers and not lose a cent in income. Better still, when employers fire half their workers just to survive, there will be half the number of members to bother union thugs with demands for services. The unions will still be able to...

The New Republic (NR) is trying a new approach to saving the Democrats’ ATM machine unions. NR is offering the novel argument that since the Republicans have been so successful in chopping away at the power of unions they should now stop their attacks because the weakened unions are finally not worth the effort to attack. This position sounds more than a little “please don’t throw me in the briar patch-ish.” Unions have not generally been a good thing for America’s workers for a very long time. They have been the Democrats’ “bagman” – collecting and sharing dues money from...

Anti-union forces claim UAW ‘stuffed’ ballot box. Workers in Alabama are staging a fourth attempt to kick the United Auto Workers (UAW) out of their plant following claims that stuffed ballot boxes derailed their last vote. Employees at the NTN-Bower Corporation, a ball bearings manufacturer, have unsuccessfully tried to boot the labor giant out of their factory for two years. Workers voted to decertify the UAW in an earlier election, but an Obama-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) panel threw out the election. Another election was held in January of this year. The UAW prevailed, but it was later revealed...

he California Teachers Association (CTA) has quietly started to prepare its members for life after extortion. It has put together a report titled “Not if, but when: Living in a world without Fair Share,” in which it acknowledges that the days of being able to extort teachers to bribe Democrats may be fast coming to an end. Automatic, compulsory union membership for teachers is being challenged in court and the thugs that run the state’s biggest teachers union can see the outcome will lead to an end of their cushy lives. They have prepared a slideshow outlining the “terrible consequences”...