Free Republic

Supreme Court's Janus ruling finally gives a voice to 5M workers The government can no longer force its employees to pay a union as a condition of their employment. That’s what the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday in the case Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. This decision is life-changing for about 5 million government workers in 22 states, who have been forced to give part of every paycheck to a government union just to do their jobs. Workers who chose not to join a union in those states were still required to pay agency fees,...

On heels of high-profile walkouts, new organizing and spiking approval for unions, union leaders see decision as rallying point to unrig economy and put workers first WASHINGTON - June 27, 2018 - The following statement was issued by leaders and members of NEA, AFSCME, SEIU and AFT following the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against working people and in favor of billionaire CEOs and corporate interests in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, holding that requiring fair-share fees in the public sector violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. As millions of American workers recommit to their...

From an email: Dear SEIU Local 1000 Members: Today the Supreme Court issued the long-awaited decision in the case of Janus vs. AFSCME. As expected, we witnessed the highest legal authority in the United States disregard 40 years of their own legal precedents protecting workers’ rights and instead choose to continue to erode unions. The Janus vs. AFSCME case was argued by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation – a group whose sole purpose is to break unions. This case, like many others, is supported and funded by billionaires and corporations who began the “Right to Work” movement....

Plaintiff Mark Janus passes in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after a hearing on February 26, 2018 in Washington, DC. The court is scheduled to hear the case, Janus v. AFSCME, to determine whether states violate their employees' First Amendment rights to require them to join public sector unions which they may not want to associate with. Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images Plaintiff Mark Janus passes in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after a hearing on February 26, 2018 in Washington, DC. The court is scheduled to hear the case, Janus v. AFSCME, to...

Recently, a group of 153 Planned Parenthood support staff at 14 clinics in Colorado has attempted to unionize with SEIU. Clinic workers say they put up with long work weeks for low pay with starting wages at a mere $12 an hour. “Its low compensation for the intense and emotional work we are doing,” says Dominique Silverman, who regularly faces protesters on her way into work. Organized labor has stood in solidarity with Planned Parenthood in their fight to block federal cuts to their funding. Groups like the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and SEIU have all...

From CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage of every leak - real or imagined - out of the Mueller investigation to the East Coast elite media’s obsession with trying to turn President Trump’s bull-in-a-china shop approach into obstruction of justice, the media would have you believe that their top concern is the rule-of-law and rooting out corruption in government. But if that were really so, they would be equally interested in investigating the corrupt collusion between Democratic politicians and left wing interest groups that is happening out in the open in blue states on our nation’s coasts. The state and local governments have essentially...

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains is fighting a unionization attempt from Service Employees International Union, despite the labor giant's emphatic support for the nation's largest abortion provider. In November the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency in charge of union elections and settling workplace disputes, granted SEIU Local 105's petition to hold an election for joining the union at several abortion clinics in Colorado. Planned Parenthood objected to the organization campaign and appealed to the Republican-controlled board. It disputed the fact that SEIU was attempting to organize a micro-unit and improperly excluded Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains...

Many of the minimum wage laws passed in recent years, including in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, include waivers allowing unionized businesses to pay their employees below the minimum. The waivers in effect make unionizing workers a low-cost option for businesses unwilling or unable to pay the new minimum wage, which in cities such as San Francisco and SeaTac, Wash., which also has a waiver, will climb as high as $15 an hour when fully phased in. In those cities, businesses can sign a collective bargaining agreement with a union that sets the wages below...

Another official at the Service Employees International Union has been ousted following accusations of sexual assault. Pedro Malave was first fired from a local Boston-area SEIU chapter in 2014, only to be later rehired at two other local chapters in California, the labor website Payday Report reported last week. Politico‘s Morning Shift newsletter flagged the report on Monday and confirmed that the locals dismissed Malave after they learned of his past alleged conduct. In the summer of 2014, the Boston-area 32BJ SEIU Local 615 investigated Malave, then the assistant director, after a co-worker, Daria Alladio, accused him of sexual assault....

While not on a par with what is happening in Hollywood, the SEIU has its own sexual harassment scandal going on. Buzzfeed reports that one union leader has been fired and another resigned after complaints about their interactions with female staffers..... More than a dozen current and former staffers interviewed by BuzzFeed News said complaints about top-level staff on the Fight for 15 were an open secret, and that complaints about abusive behavior by organizers who reported to top strategist Courtney led to no action. In October, the union suspended Courtney, following his marriage to a union employee. Sources said...

Scott Courtney, an executive vice president at Service Employees International Union, has resigned, according to a statement Monday from SEIU spokesperson Sahar Wali. "This morning, President Mary Kay Henry accepted Scott Courtney's resignation as an elected officer and member of SEIU. This comes a week after she suspended him from his assigned duties based on preliminary information that surfaced through an internal investigation launched to look into questions about to potential violations of our union's anti-nepotism policy, efforts to evade our code of ethics and subsequent complaints related to sexual misconduct and abusive behavior towards union staff," the statement reads....

[I begin] with the story of a series of Socialist scholars conferences that Barack Obama attended when he lived in New York City between the years 1983 and 1985. And when I finally reconstructed what had gone on at these Socialist conferences that Barack Obama attended, I truly was amazed because what I saw was a kind of map of Barack Obama’s entire subsequent political career. It was at this Socialist conferences in New York in the mid-’80s that Barack Obama encountered the groups, the strategies, and the mentors who would guide him throughout his entire political career. [T]hese Socialist...

In a significant timeline change, Sheriff Lombardo reveals Mandalay Bay security guard, Jesus Campos, was shot BEFORE the Las Vegas attack started. “Las Vegas sheriff says Mandalay Bay security guard was shot 6 minutes before first shots were fired at crowd.,” reports ABC News. [SNIP] Paddock shot the unarmed Campos in the leg as he was moving toward the room outside in the hallway, The Daily Beast reported being told by Dave Hickey, president of the International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America. Campos had taken an elevator to the 32nd floor of the hotel because the stairway...

Even as Democrats publicly and loudly decry corporatist political “dark money,” billionaire Democrats and other donors funnel hundreds of millions to radical and violent causes.   Barely a week had passed after Donald Trump’s historic upset in the November 8 presidential election, but some of the world’s richest individuals were already launching a counteroffensive. George Soros and his fellow deep-pocket funders of the Democratic Party and left-wing causes gathered with a lineup of party activists and luminaries from Hollywood, K Street, and Wall Street for a three-day “investment conference” (November 15-17) at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C....

The Supreme Court has announced that it will hear the case Janus v. AFSCME. It will likely prove to be one of the most consequential labor-law cases in U.S. history. At issue is whether public-sector workers can be forced to join or pay fees to a union as a condition of employment. Traditionally, labor unions in America — in both the public and private sectors — have been the “exclusive representatives” of the “bargaining units” that elected them. Essentially, union contracts cover every single worker in the “unit,” whether the worker wants anything to do with the union or not....

RUSH: This will be a great opportunity to delve into the Walter Williams column that I referred to earlier. It’s got nothing to do with the NFL. I mean, that’s not why he wrote it. It comes from way back on September 20th, about a week ago, and the title of his column… Where did this run? The link is so tiny, I can’t read it. It looks like the Daily Signal. “The Black Family Is Struggling, and It’s Not Because of Slavery.” Now, Walter Williams is a former guest host here. He’s brilliant guy, very conservative individual. Let me...

As masked leftists use clubs to shut down free speech at Berkeley and elsewhere, Democrats have unfortunately been reticent to condemn the activity. But Antifa violence is not the only kind of condemnable disruptive activity. Democrats should also disavow the organized campaign to harass Republican congressmen and stop Republican town halls. One group in the thick of this battle is “Indivisible.” The group was founded by a former staffer for Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, and its COO, Matt Traidi, is the research coordinator for the Service Employees International Union. Indivisible provides these instructions on how to prevent other town hall...

George Webb Day 234.11. Hillary's Leakers Hackers and Henchmen SEIU Senate Offices - There Are a Ton of Them (ff 0:15 for partial rough transcript) I realize everyone comes to Washington with their own particular issue and it's hard for legislators to juggle all that at once. So, that's why in my strategy coming up to The Hill I only kind of go three at a time. Then I think about what I'm doing and kind of reassess. It's kind of one of those little loops. You know, observe and then decide and then act. Then kind of wait...

Over the weekend we covered the demonstration at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, where opponents of the M-103 anti-blasphemy motion gathered to protest the encroachment of sharia in Canada and declare their support for free speech. Predictably, the “anti-fascists” came out in even greater numbers to confront the peaceful protestors, and there were at least two significant incidents of violence. One of them, as I mentioned earlier today, was an attack on the journalist Kevin J. Johnston, who nearly lost the top of his ear to an antifa knife. His cameraman was beaten and seriously injured. As I mentioned in one...

House Republicans give the wealthiest huge tax break at the expense of working families WASHINGTON—SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry issued the following statement regarding the House vote to approve the American Health Care Act (AHCA) by 217-213.  “Republicans in the House of Representatives have just voted to destroy the lives of millions of hardworking Americans by gutting Medicaid, ripping away their healthcare, and eliminating millions of jobs. “House Republicans have consciously put the profits of corporations and the wealthy over the health of 1 in 5 Americans who count on Medicaid, including seniors, children and people with disabilities. They...