Free Republic

Because the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) empowers union bosses to represent workers who don’t want a union, Big Labor apologists contend, it must also empower union bosses to force unwilling workers to pay union dues or fees. Otherwise, the workers who wish to remain union-free will get a so-called “free ride.” Ever since the Right to Work challenge to compulsory union membership, dues and fees emerged during the early 1940’s, this thin broth has been the mainstay argument of union officials and other opponents of voluntary unionism. One simple and obvious response to Big Labor complaints about the purported...

Few people would deny that, as a rule, parents want what is best for their children and keep their children’s needs, including their material needs, in mind when they make important decisions for their families. If this eminently plausible supposition is correct, then there is clear evidence that government-authorized forced unionism makes it more difficult for parents to provide their children with a comfortable standard of living and good prospects for the future. At this time, 22 states have yet to adopt Right to Work laws protecting employees from being forced to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union...

AFL‑CIO President Richard Trumka (UMWA) spoke at the Missouri AFL‑CIO’s 29th Biennial Convention yesterday, rallying a packed audience of local union leaders and working Missourians in the fight against Prop. A. He recalled the charge that President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered to Americans in the midst of the Great Depression: “True patriotism urges us to build an even more substantial America where the good things of life may be shared by more of us.” Working people in Missouri are speaking out and mobilizing their neighbors against a corporate-backed attack on our fundamental economic rights. As union leaders gather in St....

Early last year, Kentucky and Missouri respectively became the 27th and 28th states to adopt Right to Work laws. But what they have experienced since with regard to labor policy is not at all the same. The Bluegrass State Right to Work law took effect in January 2017 and has remained in effect ever since. A union boss-instigated lawsuit to overturn the statute was dismissed this January; union lawyers’ appeal has at this writing yet to be heard by the Kentucky Supreme Court. The Show-Me State Right to Work law, in contrast, has yet to take effect. Union bosses were...

Educators in ActionWorker Rights June 27, 2018 • 10:23AM Supreme Court Ruling in ‘Janus’ Deals Blow to Working Families By John Rosales The collective voice of American workers was undermined today by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in ​Janus v. American Federation of County, State Municipal Employees. In a 5-to-4 decision, which casts aside decades of precedents and laws, the court has eliminated a public-sector union’s ability to collect “fair share” or “agency” fees from workers who choose not to join as union members but are still protected by union agreements. The ruling undermines the ability of educators to come...

Melinda Gates says she will preference women and non-whites over men and white people, specifically for these immutable characteristics that have nothing inherently to do with business success. Melinda Gates has decided to enter the venture capital world by sending her money to people based at least partly on their sex and skin color, she said in a recent Fortune interview. Disparate Outcomes Can Signal Broader Possibilities In the Fortune interview, Gates says “I think real change can occur when the VC community starts to demand that the people it invests in have diversity, the right values, and the right...

A drawn-out dispute over the terms of the PLA — the project labor agreement — covering the construction of a new terminal at the Kansas City International Airport is now threatening to delay the planned demolition of the airport’s current Terminal A this fall and the subsequent construction work scheduled to begin in 2019. On one side of the impasse are Missouri construction union bosses. They are demanding that every single frontline job on the KCI project be unionized, and that all workers be forced to pay union dues or fees in order to participate. This big labor demand is...

Well, this is certainly interesting. A group of Democrats, led by Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker have filed legislation designed to essentially gut the ability of individual states to pass right-to-work laws and hand back iron-fisted control of the workplace environment to labor unions. The fact that Democrats oppose right-to-work laws is nothing new, nor is the reality that labor unions fund a large part of their election efforts. But do you notice anything that those names I listed have in common? Every one of them has been repeatedly mentioned as a possible 2020 presidential candidate....

The liquidation of labor unions threatens to further weaken the entire system of protection of labor rights in the Russian Federation. On January 10, 2018, by decision of the St. Petersburg City Court, one of the strongest Russian trade unions was liquidated - the Interstate Trade Union Workers Association ( MPRA ). The union was accused of receiving foreign financing with simultaneous participation in political activities. The MPRA appealed the decision of the court and is awaiting further hearings. The judgment on the MPRA is not just a neutralization of the protest mechanisms before the elections. The extension of the...

Organized labor took off the gloves Monday, warning the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court that freeing public employees from mandatory union dues would lead to strikes and union violence. It was ugly. The Court heard oral arguments challenging laws in 22 states and the District of Columbia that force public employees to pay unions to represent them, even if they disagree with the union's demands and politics. Mark Janus, a child support specialist and public employee in Illinois, claims his First Amendment free speech rights are being violated when he is forced to pay money to a union --...

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...

Canadian negotiators are demanding the United States roll back so-called "right to work" laws – accused of gutting unions in some U.S. states by starving them of money – as part of the renegotiation of the North American free-trade agreement. The request is part of a push by Ottawa to get the U.S. and Mexico to adopt higher labour standards under the deal

One group of negotiators spent all day Sunday working on the labour file, according to a schedule of the talks obtained by The Globe and Mail. One source familiar with the discussions said Canada wants the United States to pass a federal law stopping state governments from enacting right-to-work legislation; the source said the United States has not agreed to such a request. Canada believes that lower labour standards in the United States and Mexico, including right to work, give those countries an unfair advantage in attracting jobs.

Canada is demanding goodies from the United States Congress as part of the renegotiation of NAFTA.From The Globe and Mail: One group of negotiators spent all day Sunday working on the labour file, according to a schedule of the talks obtained by The Globe and Mail. One source familiar with the discussions said Canada wants the United States to pass a federal law stopping state governments from enacting right-to-work legislation; the source said the United States has not agreed to such a request. Canada believes that lower labour standards in the United States and Mexico, including right to work,...

Canada will enter talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with a goal to seek exemptions from Washington's Buy America directives, and push for stronger labor and environmental standards in the pact. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday provided broad outlines on what Canada's bottom line on Nafta renegotiations, which begin in earnest on Wednesday in Washington. ... She said local-content provisions, such as Buy America, "are political junk-food -- superficially appetizing, but unhealthy in the long run." Ms. Freeland said Canada also wants to make Nafta more "progressive," through tougher labor and environmental standards. On the...

In his commentary "Unions ignore long history of excluding minorities from jobs," Missouri Rep. Shamed Dogan (R) highlighted past discriminatory practices in organized labor’s history as reason for implementing our state’s currently pending "right to work" law, along with other anti-worker measures such as ending prevailing wage and minimum wage requirements. To claim that unions continue to exclude minorities and are detrimental to working people is ridiculous and erroneous in the face of the facts. The truth is, enacting right to work and other anti-worker laws would only hurt the minority communities Dogan seeks to protect, by lowering wages, reducing benefits and...

A veteran flight attendant at Southwest Airlines says she was fired from her job after speaking out about her faith and criticizing her union. Charlene Carter of Aurora, Colo., filed suit against the company and union in a Texas federal court. She said her employment was terminated after she expressed her religious beliefs regarding abortion in Facebook posts and messages to union president Audrey Stone.**snip** and activity in opposition to Local 556." Carter criticized the union for using employee dues to fly two dozen officials and flight attendants to attend January's Women's March protest.

Last year, West Virginia became the 26th state to enact Right to Work legislation. The bill was enacted over the veto of then-governor Earl Ray Tomblin, as I discussed in this piece. Organized labor almost invariably launches desperate legal challenges when states enact RTW and West Virginia was no different. The state’s AFL-CIO looked around for a friendly circuit judge and found one in Kanawha County’s Jennifer Bailey. The argument they presented was that the RTW law would do them “irreparable harm” and should be stayed pending a challenge to its constitutionality. The unions argued that the law is unconstitutional...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — United Mine Workers Union President Cecil Roberts says the West Virginia Supreme Court stepped beyond its authority in its decision on the attempted overturning of the state’s right-to-work law. Y “They basically told her (Kanawha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey) how to rule, which is not what they should have done. They, as they say, ‘got over their skis on this,'” Roberts said. UMWA President Cecil Roberts was a guest Thursday on 580 Live on 580 WCHS Radio in Charleston. Roberts gave his take on the case during an appearance Thursday on the talk show 580-Live on...

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...