Supreme Court to Take Up Challenges to Union Practices

Labor leaders and businesses are closely watching a Supreme Court case to be argued this Wednesday that involves a popular strategy used by unions to successfully organize hundreds of thousands of workers.

That strategy — widely deployed by the Service Employees International Union and the Unite Here hotel workers union — involves pressuring an employer into signing a so-called neutrality agreement in which the employer promises not to oppose a unionization drive. By some estimates, more than half of the recent successful unionization campaigns involve such agreements, which sometimes allow union organizers onto company property to talk with workers.

Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor law at Harvard Law School, said the case before the Supreme Court was potentially “the most significant labor case in a generation.”

Professor Sachs said that if the court ruled against labor, it could significantly hobble efforts by private sector unions to organize workers. He added that the other big labor case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this session could have a significant impact on public sector unions. In that case, a home-care worker has asked the court to rule that the state of Illinois violated her First Amendment rights by requiring her to pay “fair share” fees, much like dues, to a union she did not support.

That strategy — widely deployed by the Service Employees International Union and the Unite Here hotel workers union involves pressuring an employer into signing a so-called neutrality agreement in which the employer promises not to oppose a unionization drive.

.....involves a popular strategy used by unions to successfully organize hundreds of thousands of workers.

I love that phrase popular strategy. The use of the word popular to describe the methods in which unions seek to organize the work force is much too serious, ominous to be funny.

What they really mean by the unions use of popular strategy has the word popular being synonymous with that of being most effective. You need not burden your brain with the sort of methodologies unions utilize to pressure an employer towards organizing the labor force of any said company because coercion, intimidation, blackmail, threats of every kind, illegal tactics, and other popular forms of persuasion (wink, wink) come easily to mind.

The fact is, without these popular(questionable) tactics in which organizers have gotten employers to pay attention, unions would never have achieved anywhere near the considerable market penetration it has managed to get done on whispering sweet nothings, flowers and candy alone.

Hey, dis is Tony da Terminator, your union rep at Workers United. I'd like to stop by your home (ordinarily unlisted )at so and so street to have you reconsider your decision not to unionize. and oh, BTW: make sure your wife gets home safely because her car won't be able to be going anywhere tonight.

At one point, I felt the Supreme Court offered the last, final vestige of untainted political decision-making left in America, but which of late I've gotten to know differently.

By some estimates, more than half of the recent successful unionization campaigns involve such agreements, which sometimes allow union organizers onto company property to talk with workers.
***I was on a worksite when the union folks showed up. They had NO such agreement with the employer. Their viewpoint was that it was allowed under the law. The employer viewed it the same way. Maybe this is a state-by-state thing.

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