Free Republic

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state Supreme Court has overruled a lower court injunction that blocked West Virginia’s right-to-work law, chastising a circuit judge for the pace of decision-making and for issuing the injunction in the first place. The state’s unions failed to establish the likelihood of success based on the merits of three constitutional claims, wrote Justice Menis Ketchum in the court’s majority opinion. The state AFL-CIO issued a statement noting that the Supreme Court ruling applied specifically to the injunction, saying unions will continue to fight during a broader hearing in circuit court and anticipating an eventual appeal of...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It’s possible there could be additional delays before a decision is made on the constitutionality of the West Virginia Workplace Freedom Act following an hour of oral arguments Tuesday before the state Supreme Court. Justice Margaret Workman questioned the decision by the office of state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey to bring the right-to-work law to the Supreme Court before there’s been a full hearing on the merits of the case in circuit court. “I just think you all are taking a shortcut coming up here wanting all of the answers without the lower court having made any...

The basic case for right-to-work is simple: Forcing workers to pay money to a union they don’t support is wrong. This is why polling consistently shows that Americans overwhelmingly support right-to-work, including strong majorities of independent, Republican and Democratic voters. There are other reasons to support right-to-work, too. Workplace freedom is an economic engine, with private-sector job creation rates in right-to-work states double those in forced-unionism states between 2006 and 2016. Plus, right-to-work laws make union officials more accountable to rank-and-file members. Without right-to-work, employees must pay up or be fired. With voluntary dues, workers can withhold financial support from...

In the middle of August, Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO union hierarchy, exercised expert -- and malicious -- timing to embarrass the President Donald Trump. But Trumka never would have had the opportunity without White House advisors’ assistance. Back in January, Trumka and his deputy chief of staff, Thea Lee, had happily accepted invitations from the Trump Administration to serve on the newly-established Presidential Manufacturing Council and Policy Forum. Apparently, at least some Trump advisors thought it was a good idea to solicit the advice of a man who had, just a few months before, publicly denounced the...

I believe every citizen deserves the right to work and the right to organize and I don't believe these rights should be mutually exclusive I come from a union family. I grew up in a union home. The good pay and benefits gained by one of America’s greatest unions provided for my room and board every day that I lived at home. My father and my uncles were all proud union members. My brother and some of my best friends spent their entire careers as union workers and the unions are providing them with generous pensions and great benefits. I...

AFL-CIO group paid D.C. consultants $431,114 for grassroots petition effort Union activists, with the help of a Washington, D.C., firm, reportedly have enough signatures to block Missouri from implementing its right-to-work law and force a ballot measure on the question in 2018. Missouri AFL-CIO President Mike Louis said that the We Are Missouri movement, which shares headquarters with the union, has gathered almost 300,000 signatures supporting the ballot measure—three times more than the 100,000 needed to force an election. The union plans to deliver the signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State's office after assembling at the state capitol on...

In a test of labor’s ability to expand its reach in the South, workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi have overwhelmingly rejected a bid to unionize. Out of roughly 3,500 employees at the Canton-based plant who voted Thursday and Friday, more than 60 percent opposed the union. It was an emphatic coda to a yearslong organizing effort underwritten by the United Automobile Workers, which has been repeatedly frustrated in its efforts to organize major auto plants in the region.

Early this year, Missouri became the 28th state to enact a Right to Work statute, thereby preventing workers from being fired just because they won’t pay dues to the union that officially represents them. (It’s worth noting that very few of the workers who are in unions have ever had the opportunity to vote yes or no on union representation, a point Akash Chougule of Americans for Prosperity makes in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, “A Union Card Shouldn’t be an Heirloom.”) As has been the case in every instance when a state has adopted Right to Work in recent...

Labor unions have been known to do many despicable things to grab dues money from workers who don’t want anything to do with them. A current Minnesota case is about as bad as you’ll ever find. In 2013, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) got one of its favored politicians, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton, to sign an order declaring that home healthcare providers who receive Medicaid money to care for disabled family members were government employees. But they were “employees” only because that made them eligible for unionization. The SEIU figured that it had a good shot at finagling a...

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – Nearly 3,000 production workers at Boeing’s South Carolina plant have voted not to join the Machinists, maintaining southern reluctance toward unionization. “We’re disappointed the workers at Boeing South Carolina will not yet have the opportunity to see all the benefits that come with union representation” said IAM lead organizer Mike Evans said in a statement. “But more than anything, we are disheartened they will have to continue to work under a system that suppresses wages, fosters inconsistency and awards only a chosen few.” The first round of voting began early Wednesday. A second round was set...

Senate Republicans on Monday advanced a measure that would add Colorado to the list of so-called "right to work" states, prohibiting mandatory union membership. Despite opposition from throngs of union members and leaders, as well as many in the business world, Republicans on the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee pushed the bill along on a party-line vote. Senate Bill 55, sponsored by Sen. Tim Neville of Littleton, would prohibit an employer from requiring someone to join an organized labor group or pay dues as a condition of employment. It also would create civil and criminal penalties for violations.

In the 47 years between 1964 and 2011, just three states adopted a right-to-work law – Louisiana (1976), Idaho (1985) and Oklahoma (2001). But in the last five years, five more states have made it illegal for employers to make workers pay unions as a condition of employment: Indiana (2012), Michigan (2013), Wisconsin (2015), West Virginia (2016) and Kentucky (2017). In the opening days of its 2017 legislative session, Missouri took a step toward becoming the 29th right-to-work state, when its Republican-controlled House approved a bill to adopt the policy. Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana all passed right-to-work laws when...

You can’t really pin this one on the Trump Effect because it’s been in the works for a while, but Missouri’s legislature sent a new bill to the Governor this week which will be making some big changes on the labor front. If you were somehow able to buy stock in labor unions on Wall Street, this would be a good time to sell it because the Show-Me state is about to show forced unionization to the door. (St. Lois Today) A moment long dreaded by the state’s labor unions and their supporters arrived on Thursday, as Missouri lawmakers...

Union membership in Wisconsin has declined nearly 40 percent since legislation was passed that gutted collective bargaining for public workers, according to federal data. The percentage of public and private workers who were union members was about 8 percent, or 219,000 people, in 2016, down by 136,000 members from 2010 levels, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The agency’s report shows the percentage of Wisconsin workers in unions is below the national average of 10.7 percent, The State Journal reported. …

Mish ShedlockJanuary 7, 2017 In a major setback for organized labor, Kentucky passed right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. “Organized labor suffered its first major legislative setback due to the 2016 elections on Saturday, when Kentucky Republicans gave final approval to right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. Both bills are expected to be signed into law by the governor, and will take effect immediately. Labor leaders were equally troubled by the legislature’s move to gut the state’s prevailing wage law. Such laws require that employers pay certain minimum wages on work funded by public...

Live Stream of debate / upcoming vote on bill to enact Right to Work and repeal of "prevailing wage" law. Union members can be heard screaming in protest in the background.

FRANKFORT Angry union workers packed the hallways of Kentucky’s Capitol Annex on Wednesday as Republican lawmakers pushed ahead with bills that would ban mandatory union dues and repeal a law that requires regional prevailing wages for workers on public construction projects. The chants of union workers were little deterrent to Gov. Matt Bevin and his GOP colleagues in the Kentucky House and Senate, who have made approving the bills their top priority of the 2017 General Assembly. Shouts and banging could be heard from the hallway, but the meeting room itself was packed with supporters as the House Committee on...

On the ballot Tuesday in two states (Washington and South Dakota) voters will find deceptive initiatives to vote on. Both were concocted by the forces of Big Labor for the purpose of getting and keeping more money from workers who don’t want to pay them. Businesses that operate in a competitive market under the rule of law need to persuade consumers to buy whatever goods and services they offer. That’s good: consumers get to decide what’s worth parting with their money and what isn’t. Also, buyers are free to stop buying any time they become dissatisfied or discover better uses...

With her unpopular positions and repulsive mindset, the real question is why isn’t Hillary Clinton 50 points behind in this election? In a bizarre video message this week to the Laborers International Union of North America, Hillary Clinton asked, “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” She seemed concerned that her opponent, Donald Trump, had closed the gap in the polls. Clinton claimed that Trump was staunchly opposed to labor unions, but she had a long history of support. She also noted her strong opposition to Right to Work laws. According to Clinton, “Right to Work is wrong for workers and...

Democrats love to talk about rights. They say people have the "right to affordable health care," the "right to a debt free college education," the "right to choose," and so on. But there's one right they apparently want to erase: The right to work. Here's how Hillary Clinton put it in a videoconference this week at the Laborers' International Union of North America: "I will fight back against so-called right to work. Right to work is wrong for workers and wrong for America." Come again? The right to work is wrong for America? Clinton is referring to state right-to-work laws...