Legislating from the Bench: Court Strikes Down Wisconsin Right-to-Work Law
Posted: April 8, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Politics | Tags: Dane County, Illinois, Lincolnshire, Republican Party (United States), Right-to-work law, Scott Walker (politician), Trade union, Union dues, United Auto Workers, Wisconsin Leave a commentRight-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. Twenty-four other states have such laws.
Wisconsin’s right-to-work law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down Friday as violating the state constitution.
Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident it would not stand. Schimel has not made a decision on whether to seek an immediate suspension of the ruling while the appeal is pending, spokesman Johnny Koremenos said.
“We are confident Wisconsin’s freedom-to-work law is constitutional and will ultimately be upheld.”
— Governor Scott Walker, on Twitter
Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. Right-to-work laws prohibit businesses and unions from reaching agreements that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. Twenty-four other states have such laws.
The unions argued that Wisconsin’s law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who don’t pay dues. Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust agreed.
“Once again, a liberal Dane County judge is trying to legislate from the bench. No one should be forced to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.”
— Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester
He said the law amounts to an unconstitutional governmental taking of union funds without compensation since under the law unions must represent people who don’t pay dues. That presents an existential threat to unions, Foust wrote. Read the rest of this entry »
Gawker Employees Vote to Unionize, Join Writers Guild of America
Posted: June 6, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: AFL–CIO, Associated Press, Digital Media, Gawker Media, Online newspaper, The New York Times, Trade union, Voting, World Wide Web, Writers Guild of America Leave a commentIn a Web posting, Gawker Media writers said they voted 75 percent to 25 percent to join the Guild. The union said 90 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.
Gawker first said it was planning to unionize in April. The employees said in the post Thursday that the next step will be determining what they want to bargain for and forming a bargaining committee.
While no digital media sites have been unionized, The Associated Press, The New York Times and other newspaper staffers have union representation. Read the rest of this entry »
SMIDGEN REPORT: Email Reveals Lerner Ignored Union Political Expenditures
Posted: September 1, 2014 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Judicial Watch, Lerner, Lois Lerner, Office of Labor-Management Standards, OLMS, Trade union, Twitter Leave a commentConnor D. Wolf reports: The official at the center of the Internal Revenue Service tea party scandal once dismissed complaints that labor unions were not reporting millions of dollars in political activities on their tax forms, according to an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“We believe this difference in reporting does not necessarily indicate that the organization has incorrectly reported to either the DOL or the IRS.”
In 2007, Lerner responded directly to a complaint that some major labor unions reported completely different amounts of political expenditures when filing with the IRS and the Department of Labor.
At the time of the email, Lerner was the Director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS. Read the rest of this entry »
Thugocracy: Most Union Members Have Ties to Government
Posted: July 5, 2014 Filed under: Politics, U.S. News | Tags: American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Rutgers University, Service Employees International Union, Teamsters, Trade union, United Food and Commercial Workers 1 CommentFor the Associated Press, Tom Raum reports: Unions representing government workers are expanding while organized labor has been shedding private sector members over the past half-century.
A majority of union members today now have ties to a government entity, at the federal, state or local levels.
Roughly 1-in-3 public sector workers is a union member, compared with about 1-in-15 for the private sector workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, 11.3 percent of wage and salary workers in the United States are unionized, down from a peak of 35 percent during the mid-1950s in the strong post-World War II recovery.
The typical union worker now is more likely to be an educator, office worker or food or service industry employee rather than a construction worker, autoworker, electrician or mechanic. Far more women than men are among the union-label ranks.
In a blow to public sector unions, the Supreme Court ruled this week that thousands of health care workers in Illinois who are paid by the state cannot be required to pay fees that help cover a union’s cost of collective bargaining.
The justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with stances taken by unions.
The ruling was narrowly drawn, but it could reverberate through the universe of unions that represent government workers. The case involved home-care workers for disabled people who are paid with Medicaid funds administered by the state.
Also in June, a California judge declared unconstitutional the state’s teacher tenure, dismissal and layoff laws. The judge ordered a stay of the decision, pending an appeal by the state and teachers union.
“The basic structure of the labor union movement has changed, reflecting changes in the economy,” said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “Manufacturing is a diminishing segment of the economy. Also, a lot of the manufacturing that’s being done today is being done nonunion.”
Union members continue to be a powerful political force in politics, and Baker said he didn’t see the role of unions diminishing. “I just think the colors of the collars are changing,” Baker said.
In 2013, 14.5 million workers belonged to a union, about the same as the year before. In 1983, the first year for which comparable figures are available, there were 17.7 million union workers.
The largest union is the National Education Association, with 3.2 million members. It represents public school teachers, administrators and students preparing to become teachers. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama Administration Wants to Require Companies to Give Workers’ Numbers, Addresses to Unions Before Labor Elections
Posted: April 21, 2014 Filed under: Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Daily Caller, Fred Wszolek, National Labor Relations Board, NLRB, Obama, Obama administration, Patrick Howley, Trade union, Twitter 2 CommentsFor The Daily Caller, Patrick Howley reports: The Obama administration is poised to change regulations to allow for union “ambush elections” in which workers have less time to decide whether or not to join a union — and in which workers’ phone numbers and home addresses are provided to unions.
The administration’s National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposed rules would allow for union elections — in which workers at a company vote whether or not to unionize — to be held 10 days after a petition is filed. And what, exactly, would be happening to the unions during those 10 days? The new rules require employers to disclose workers’ personal information, including phone numbers, home addresses, and information about when they work their shifts.
Insiders close to the situation believe the new rules will almost certainly go into effect with few or no fundamental changes. Read the rest of this entry »