Free Republic

Union leader also tells rally-goers that powerful opponents "can go straight to hell" Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D.) and Ed Markey (D.) spoke at a Boston rally Monday supporting public-sector unions’ right to extract mandatory dues. These Democrats made the case that the Supreme Court should maintain government agencies’ right to mandate so-called fair share fees, Mass Live reported. They joined with union leaders to fight for the defendant in this case, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 31, as the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments about it. The senators from the Bay State...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Hundreds of local union members rallied in downtown Pittsburgh on Monday, then marched through city streets to voice their concern over a case being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court that they believe is funded by big business and could threaten unions.

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...

In the summer of 2016, government workers in Illinois received a mailing that offered them tips on how to leave their union. By paying a so-called fair-share fee instead of standard union dues, the mailing said, they would no longer be bound by union rules and could not be punished for refusing to strike. “To put it simply,” the document concluded, “becoming a fair-share payer means you will have more freedom.” The mailing, sent by a group called the Illinois Policy Institute, may have seemed like disinterested advice. In fact, it was one prong of a broader campaign against public-sector...

The Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in the case of Mark Janus, a child support specialist from Illinois, who is suing AFSCME because he has no interest in financially supporting the union’s political activities. Since Janus is not a member of the union, he doesn’t pay the same amount in dues as union members. But thanks to a Supreme Court decision in 1977, he is forced to pay the union “agency fees,” feeding the coffers of an organization he wants nothing to do with. The high court will determine whether these agency fees are unconstitutional. Since freedom of association is...

An Ohio sheriff said hundreds of local school employees signed up for a class to receive training on how to use a firearm in the aftermath of a high school shooting in Florida that left 17 people dead. “We put it online, we thought we’d get 20 school teachers maybe. Within 20 minutes we had 40. Within an hour we had 100. Within four hours we had 200. By the next morning, at 300, we cut it off,” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said on “Fox & Friends.” There are currently only a few schools in the state that allow...

In Janus v. AFSCME, it could decisively affirm that workers have a right not to compel speech they disagree with. Overturning mistaken decisions is an occasional duty of the Supreme Court, whose noblest achievement was the protracted, piecemeal repudiation, with Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and subsequent decisions, of its 1896 ruling that segregated “separate but equal” public facilities were constitutional. This Monday, the court will hear oral arguments that probably will presage another overdue correction. The issue is: Are Mark Janus’s First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association (which entails the freedom not to associate) violated...

CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) - The West Virginia Education Association and American Federation of Teachers leaders say the statewide work stoppage will continue. Schools across West Virginia will be closed on Monday. The AFT-West Virginia, West Virginia Education Association, and the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association released the following statement:

Bringing guns into schools ‘does nothing to protect’ our students, educators from gun violence Washington, DC - February 21, 2018 - In a listening session at the White House today, Donald Trump proposed to arm teachers and school staff in an attempt to prevent mass shootings.The following can be attributed to NEA President Lily Eskelsen García:“Bringing more guns into our schools does nothing to protect our students and educators from gun violence. Our students need more books, art and music programs, nurses and school counselors; they do not need more guns in their classrooms. Parents and educators overwhelmingly reject the...

The sheriff’s deputy who failed to engage the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “believed he did a good job” because he called in the location of the massacre and gave a description of the shooter, a top union official said Thursday. School resource officer Scot Peterson, who resigned in disgrace from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, was “distraught” about shooting that killed 17 people — but believed he did his duty, according to the president of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association. “He believed he did a good job calling in the location, setting up the perimeter and...

When Mark Janus got his first paycheck working as a child support specialist for the state of Illinois in 2007, he was stunned to see a nearly $50 deduction for union dues. He had worked for the state in the 1980s and didn’t remember anything like it. “I’m going like, ‘I’m not a member of the union. What’s going on here?’” he said. Worse yet was where he saw the union dues going, such as to efforts demanding wage increases at a time when Illinois was struggling with a crippling pension debt. Now Mr. Janus is taking his case to...

At issue are “project labor agreements,” collective bargaining agreements unique to the construction industry that require companies to recognize unions and agree to their rules for a work project. Former President Barack Obama signed an executive order in 2009 encouraging federal agencies to require PLAs in contracts exceeding $25 million. Business lobbyists have been pushing the Trump administration to undo the rule. “We have had conversations with them on it and we think it is something that they are looking at,” Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory, labor, and state affairs for Associated Builders and Contractors, told the Washington Examiner.

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.

Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in response to President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address, which he attended last night: Last night, President Trump painted an everything-being-great picture of America that while optimistic, is not the reality for most working families. That may be how his friends are living, but the working men and women we represent aren’t seeing the same America; and his policies are making it worse. The truth is many of the things he says are undermined by the actual policies he supports. While he’s rightly acknowledged problems in trade, America’s workers are still...

SUNBURY, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania teacher has apologized for intentionally misspelling Hillary Clinton's name to emphasize the word "liar" in a sixth-grade student's letter. Shannon Reinard tells The Daily Item her 11-year-old stepdaughter, Mary, asked Shikellamy Middle School teacher Benjamin Attinger for help writing the letter to the former presidential candidate. She wrote the letter and Attinger addressed it Hiliar Rodham Clinton. Her stepmom noticed the misspelling and in a voicemail the teacher said it was "kind of a joke." The Reinard family met with the teacher and school officials on Tuesday. Shannon Reinard says the teacher apologized to...

The Democrats want open borders, since their future election chances depend on massive demographic shifts through mass third-world immigration. To their consternation, the #SchumerShutdown fight whimpered out because the public doesn’t want more immigration. That avenue for increasing their voter base is closing on them. Democrats are ignoring another declining base of support to their hurt: organized labor. For decades, labor unions ensured victory. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer won his Senate Seat because labor unions held him crushed his Republican opponent in 1998. Unfortunately, despite two major opportunities for long-term pro-labor reforms, unions have seen Democrats taking them for granted....

The Teamsters union wants to prohibit United Parcel Service Inc. from using drones or driverless vehicles to deliver packages. That was one of the labor union’s initial demands as it kicked off high-stakes contract talks with UPS this week. The Teamsters also want the parcel giant to eliminate late-night deliveries and add another 10,000 workers to the ranks, among other things. The two sides are starting to negotiate one of the largest collective bargaining agreements in the U.S., which covers around 260,000 UPS employees and expires in July. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ National Negotiating Committee this week submitted to...

Southington — Oz Griebel, a petitioning candidate for governor who once led the state Transportation Strategy Board, told an audience of construction executives and union members Friday that Connecticut must embrace electronic tolling and higher gasoline taxes to preserve and improve its transportation infrastructure.At a transportation forum for Democratic and unaffiliated candidates, Griebel offered the broadest prescription for how to stabilize and grow a special transportation fund now projected to hit insolvency by 2022, leaving the state unable to borrow money to address a growing backlog of transportation needs.Many of the Democrats, unlike the Republican field at a similar event...

Strong unions help to create strong schools for students and even stronger communities that benefit all of us. This, we know.For generations, unions have been the best path to the middle class for working people, especially people of color and women. But in this rigged economy, unions are under attack, and those attacks are coming not just from the White House and Capitol Hill. They’re happening at the ballot box and at the Supreme Court with cases like Janus.Today, the National Education Association and the American Association of University Professors submitted an amicus brief today with the Supreme Court in...

AFGE union president also warns against steep cuts to non-defense programs WASHINGTON – Federal government programs and services benefiting millions of Americans are in jeopardy due to a potential government shutdown and steep cuts in non-defense spending, the head of the largest union representing federal government workers told Congress. American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. urged lawmakers in a Jan. 18 letter to keep the government running beyond Jan. 19, when current funding expires.“It is very clear that a federal government shutdown could inflict serious pain on everyday working people,” Cox said in the...