CPR: The Friedrichs lawsuit should have done the trick. The case — full name: Friedrichs v. California Teacher’s Association — which would have made belonging to a public-employee union optional as a condition of employment nationwide, was set to pass muster with the Supreme Court last year. But when Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, the almost certain fifth and deciding vote went with him, thus keeping half the country’s government workers forcibly yoked to unions.
But now a case similar to Friedrichs is upon us. On June 6, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation asked the Supreme Court to hear Janus v. AFSCME, a case involving plaintiff Mark Janus, a child-support specialist who works for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and is compelled to send part of his paycheck to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, even though he says that the union does not “represent his interests.” Right-to-work proponents are optimistic that the Court will hear the case and that Neil Gorsuch, Scalia’s replacement, will come down as the fifth vote on the side of employee freedom and overturn the 40-year-old precedent established in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court held that states may force public-sector workers to pay union dues, while carving out an exception for the funds that unions spend on political activity. Not surprisingly, the squawking from the union crowd has already begun. At Education Week, Mark Walsh refers to the litigants as “anti-union.”
That would be the beginning of the end for the service unions. Skilled trades have an actual purpose the others, not so much.
Allowing already overpaid and overprivileged government employees to unionize is iinsane. It’s adding Insult to Injury.
Dissolve all government unions. At all levels.
Enforce the Hatch Act while we’re at it.
Drain The Swamp.
Oh, so THAT’S why they killed Scalia (said in my no-where-near voice of Alex Jones)!
What is the government unionized? They are supposed to be doing the work of THE PEOPLE, but how can you serve 2 masters?
@Claudia July 2, 2017 at 7:41 pm
It was suicide.
Nation-wide Act 10!
If you are in a union, look into Beck vs CAN (1989?). You can have the percentage of your dues that used for charitable and political contributions reimbursed. Each union probably has a different set of hoops to jump through. I have been doing this for the last 18 years and get back about 18% to 23% each year.
I’m with Rufus. Phuck the unions.
I hate all unions and I hate professional unions the most.
I wouldn’t take a union job if I was starving and I was and I didn’t