Of course. EL DUCHE showed us the way.
Posted on 03/12/2011 10:32:19 AM PST by GVnana
A group of conservative U.S. senators has introduced a bill to restrict unions from forcing workers to join and pay dues as a condition of employment.
The move on Capitol Hill comes as several states consider what's known as "right-to-work" legislation -- proposals that have met stiff resistance. Indiana Republicans recently shelved their right-to-work bill after it sparked protests at the capital and after Democrats fled the state to block it, mimicking the tactic used by Wisconsin lawmakers holding up Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union proposal.
But GOP senators in Washington said national legislation is needed to stop the "strong-arm political tactics" they claim labor bosses are using to compel new employees into joining their ranks. They introduced the National Right to Work Act Tuesday.
-snip-
DeMint was joined by seven other co-sponsors, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; James Risch, R-Idaho; Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; and David Vitter, R-La.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
There's a petition in support at http://righttoworkcommittee.org/rprtwa_petition.aspx?pid=he2
A neutral question - is this a proper use of federal authority?
Glad to see there is fight in them, but I would rather see it be done at the state level. The states are on a roll and they need to keep it going.
I’d be happy with the repeal of the check-off that allows Unions to deduct money for dues directly out of worker’s paychecks. Right now, workers don’t really have any idea how much the Unions are skimming off their weekly pay.
Make them collect dues by having the workers write a dues check directly to the Union. That way, workers get a real sense of how much they have to shell out to Union Bosses and ‘rat politicians.
Dues would plummet, and ‘rats would find it difficult to get money without this pool of cash.
Make the unions pass their own hat around and the unions will self destruct all by themselves.
Private Are ok. Govenrment ones should be banned.
That is a very good question. I would say no. It sounds like a state right under the 10th Amendment.
Agreed. The same procedure should also be applied to federal state and local taxes with the due date as close to election day as possible.
A valid question. I don’t see a problem. Just because some states are more cowed by the unions than others doesn’t justify depriving people of their basic rights.
I'm open to this beind defended. But we should not succumb to temptation just because we might agree with the outcome. There needs to be a truly Constitutional rational for this.
I think all unions should be a choice. I was a forced AFL-CIO factory worker and hated it but needed the job.
I wanted to get paid on my merits rather than what the union and company negotiated for all.
I’m distressed by the fact that the narrative currently in vogue, (even among conservatives, even on this very thread) seems to run like this,
“Public sector unions are REALLY bad. There are some bad things in private sector unions, too, but they aren’t pure evil like public sector unions. Private sector unions, especially at the turn of the century, were actually pretty good.”
Here’s how the purely evil, anti-American, communistic, welfare-begging private sector unions work…..
I set up a factory, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY (my capital and/or cash money).
I pay for the space, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay the taxes using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I supply the parts and inventory, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay for the insurance, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay the labor, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I recruit, hire, and advertise, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Oftentimes an entire life’s savings (MY PRIVATE PROPERTY) is at stake.
My future, my standing in the community, my credit, and MY PRIVATE PROPERTY are all at stake.
If I fail, I stand a good chance of being economically crippled for life.
One day, on MY PRIVATE PROPERTY that I own and acquired using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, one of my employers, who is only in my presence because of the risk of MY PRIVATE PROPERTY comes to me and says, “Here’s the story, Bub. From this moment forward I am going to begin organizing your other employees to work AGAINST YOUR PRIVATE INTERESTS and do everything in our power to TAKE BY FORCE AS MUCH OF YOUR PRIVATE PROPERTY AS WE CAN GET OUR HANDS ON. We are going to spend a great deal of time and effort ORGANIZING AGAINST YOUR INTERESTS TO DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO GROW STRONGER AT YOUR EXPENSE, IN ORDER TO TAKE YOUR MONEY. You might as well have your business competitors working here on the shop floor. If you do not agree to our demands, we will go on strike, make your life miserable, harass and threaten and/or MURDER IN COLD BLOOD anybody you may want to hire in our place.”
Now the one and ONLY way that such a thing could EVER take place is for the government to step in and say, “Mr. Employer, if you fire this union man, you are going to jail.” Plainly and simply, no union could ever exist in a free society. Yes, in a free society, you should be able to form and join a union of any type at any time for any purpose whatsoever. And your employer should be able to fire your happy ass in a heartbeat for doing so. Freedom is a two way street.
I find this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Truly. A man strolls onto the PRIVATE PROPERTY of another man and tells him how he will employ his PRIVATE PROPERTY going forward, OR ELSE!, and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people the world over think that the first man is not only somehow better than sub-human filth, they actually see him as a hero! To me, this is one of the most perverse and mystifying examples of twisted human thinking the world has ever seen. I can’t say it enough, you come onto my PRIVATE PROPERTY, and bargain with me, using the THREAT OF GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED FORCE, about how much of my PRIVATE PROPERTY you will allow me to keep! And this is somehow acceptable?
As I say, even conservatives, (who have escaped the liberal brainwashing that begins when we are still in the womb on guns, race, US history, etc., etc., and do not subscribe to the easy notions that are so readily picked up by the unthinking) seem to fall for this trap. Seem to believe that…“The work place is filled with mean managers and mean bosses who were/are really mean to kids and women and workers and paid them pennies instead of the legitimate millions that they REALLY earned, making evil white male capitalists even richer and they enslaved them and coerced them and made them work real hard and were really, really mean. THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for the government stepping in and saving women and children from mean bosses and really mean white capitalist men.”
Needless to say, each and every single word of that narrative is as totally false and ridiculous as the liberal narrative on US history, or bad guns, or evil white men. If you know people who believe that stuff, you cannot help them. Do not waste your breath on them, do not do their research for them; have them read Sowell or Williams or von Hayek, or von Mises, or Friedman, or even Stossel when they write of “sweatshops” either in today’s 3rd world or in America at the turn of the century.
In the private sector unions, there is a “Last Man Standing” rule that applies to the companies that are signatory to specific union locals.
Example: In a given city, there are 6 construction companies that are union contractors, signatory to the Carpenters union that has a total of 150 members and the IBEW electrical workers that have a total of 130 members.
In a bad economy, two of the companies go bankrupt, and two shut down because the owners decide to retire from business.
Under the “Last Man Standing” rule, the two contractors remaining in business are responsible for the pensions of ALL THE UNION MEMBERS in the Carpenters and IBEW, regardless of whether those workers were ever employed by them!
http://cei.org/sites/default/files/Vincent%20Vernuccio%20-%20Union%20Pensions%20in%20Crisis.pdf
http://www.openmarket.org/2010/10/18/killed-by-honest-accounting/
http://www.workerfreedom.org/big-labor-backs-democrats-hopes-pension-a3828
Most large unions enroll their employees in a multiemployer defined benefit pension system. Operating under the “last-man-standing” rule, every employer is liable for every retiree in the pool. Initially thought to reduce risk by pooling pensions together, the real result has been to burden employers with bankrupt companies’ pension payments. The underfunding of multiemployer pension plans is so pervasive that in 2009 Moody’s estimated that multiemployer plans were underfunded by $165 billion.
I really dont know, but seems to me that if it isnt we should be able to unload the National Labor Relations Board too.
But if (as a layman), I had to guess, I would say the courts would allow it on grounds that unions affect interstate commerce.
I’m not sure the legislation is a good idea either. This is something that needs to be done within the states.
At this point I also think we need to drive a wedge between public and private sector unions.
Maybe a 1st Amendment approach - freedom of association - forced unionism violates such.
We are getting ready to hit the CPUSA and the American communist movement so hard that they wont have time to crawl back under the rocks they came out from.
Time to kill the WAGNER ACT dead once and for all
No worker in the US should be held hostage to unions period, compulsory union dues are unconstitutional under the first and 14th amendments, and the unions need to be stripped of their ability to steal money from workers paychecks on a national level.
If the workers love unions so much they will be happy to voluntarily send them dues.
There’s nothing patently illegal about a POTUS issuing an executive order immediately ending withholding of union dues nationwide, and ordering the National Labor Relations Board to get a Federal Court Order enforcing the Presidents decision
Lets fight it out in the courts, and lets make it a campaign issue, with the promise to end compulsory withholding of union dues one of the first acts of the new GOP Administration.
Its stupid to allow the left (Communists) to use the same mechanism the IRS uses to fund themselves.
That son of a bitch Warren in US Vs. Brown threw out the provision in Taft Hartley that required union leadership to sign affidavits that they were not communists.
As a result, union leadership is comprised of nothing but.
U.S. Supreme Court
UNITED STATES v. BROWN, 381 U.S. 437 (1965)
381 U.S. 437
UNITED STATES v. BROWN.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.
No. 399.
Argued March 29, 1965.
Decided June 7, 1965.
Respondent was convicted under 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, which makes it a crime for one who belongs to the Communist Party or who has been a member thereof during the preceding five years wilfully to serve as a member of the executive board of a labor organization. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding 504 violative of the First and Fifth Amendments. Held: Section 504 constitutes a bill of attainder and is therefore unconstitutional. Pp. 441-462.
(a) The Bill of Attainder Clause, Art. I, 9, cl. 3, was intended to implement the separation of powers among the three branches of the Government by guarding against the legislative exercise of judicial power. Pp. 441-446.
(b) The Bill of Attainder Clause is to be liberally construed in the light of its purpose to prevent legislative punishment of designated persons or groups. Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333; United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 . Pp. 447-449.
(c) In designating Communist Party members as those persons who cannot hold union office, Congress has exceeded its Commerce Clause power to enact generally applicable legislation disqualifying from positions affecting interstate commerce persons who may use such positions to cause political strikes. Pp. 449-452.
(d) Section 504 is distinguishable from such conflict-of-interest statutes as 32 of the Banking Act, where Congress was legislating with respect to general characteristics rather than with respect to the members of a specific group. Pp. 453-455.
(e) The designation of Communist Party membership cannot be justified as an alternative, “shorthand” expression for the characteristics which render men likely to incite political strikes. Pp. 455-456.
(f) A statute which inflicts its deprivation upon named or described persons or groups constitutes a bill of attainder whether its aim is retributive, punishing past acts, or preventive, discouraging future conduct. In American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382 , where the Court upheld 9 (h) of the National [381 U.S. 437, 438] Labor Relations Act, the predecessor of 504, the Court erroneously assumed that only a law visiting retribution for past acts could constitute a bill of attainder, and misread the statute involved in United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 , which it sought to distinguish from 9 (h), as being in that category. Pp. 456-460.
(g) The legislative specification of those to whom the enacted sanction is to apply invalidates a provision as a bill of attainder whether the individuals are designated by name as in Lovett or by description as here. Pp. 461-462.
334 F.2d 488, affirmed.
Solicitor General Cox argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Yeagley, Nathan Lewin, Kevin T. Maroney and George B. Searls.
Richard Gladstein argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Norman Leonard.
Briefs of amici curiae, urging affirmance, were filed by Melvin L. Wulf for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California et al., and by Victor Rabinowitz and Leonard B. Boudin for the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we review for the first time a conviction under 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, which makes it a crime for a member of the Communist Party to serve as an officer or (except in clerical or custodial positions) as an employee of a labor union. 1 Section 504, the purpose of which is to protect [381 U.S. 437, 439] the national economy by minimizing the danger of political strikes, 2 was enacted to replace 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act, which conditioned a union’s access to the National Labor Relations Board upon the filing of affidavits by all of the union’s officers attesting that they were not members of or affiliated with the Communist Party. 3 [381 U.S. 437, 440]
Respondent has been a working longshoreman on the San Francisco docks, and an open and avowed Communist, for more than a quarter of a century. He was elected to the Executive Board of Local 10 of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union for consecutive one-year terms in 1959, 1960, and 1961. On May 24, 1961, respondent was charged in a one-count indictment returned in the Northern District of California with “knowingly and wilfully serv[ing] as a member of an executive board of a labor organization . . . while a member of the Communist Party, in wilful violation of Title 29, United States Code, Section 504.” It was neither charged nor proven that respondent at any time advocated or suggested illegal activity by the union, or proposed a political strike. 4 The jury found respondent guilty, and he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed and remanded with instructions to set aside the conviction and dismiss the indictment, holding that 504 violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. 334 F.2d 488. We granted certiorari, 379 U.S. 899 .
Respondent urges - in addition to the grounds relied on by the court below - that the statute under which he was convicted is a bill of attainder, and therefore violates Art. I, 9, of the Constitution. 5 We agree that 504 is void as a bill of attainder and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals on that basis. We therefore find it unnecessary to consider the First and Fifth Amendment arguments. [381 U.S. 437, 441]
Private Are ok.
Agree, but no payroll deduction of dues should ever be legal. Otherwise, the employer is participating in coercion.
It would be one thing if the deduction only covered negotiation expenses, but as it stands now, the worker’s money is being taken to pay for activities and causes he doesn’t know about and wouldn’t otherwise support.
In a sane society, that is called theft.
Of course. EL DUCHE showed us the way.
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