Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Unions Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 27, 2017 9 Comments
When Californian's went to the polls this November to approve the legalization of marijuana for personal use, little did they realize it would morph into a battle between unions and business. The state is now slated to begin distributing licenses to marijuana businesses on Jan 1, 2018. Therefore, the Golden State's legislature is attempting to iron out discrepancies between the already existing medical marijuana rules and the approved ballot measure. The crux of the disagreement between the Teamsters union and business groups is deciding who is in charge of pot distribution.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 06, 2017 16 Comments
Having worked their destructive magic in Detroit, the United Auto Workers union (UAW) has set its greedy sights on the South.  Roundly rejected by Tennessee workers at a Volkswagen auto plant in 2014, the UAW picked itself up, dusted itself off, and redoubled its thirteen-year efforts at a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. The South has long rejected unions, including the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union who tried and failed to unionize Boeing workers in South Carolina last month.  But the UAW is undeterred, even dragging avowed socialist and failed presidential candidate for the 2016 Democratic nomination down from Vermont to try to convince Mississippians that he—and the UAW—knows what is in their best interests.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 22, 2016 5 Comments
On Friday, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law NY State Senate bill S6340, making it illegal in the state of New York to advertise "for the use of dwelling units in a class A multiple dwelling."  This law is aimed at Airbnb, a San Francisco-based homestay network that coordinates the rental of private properties by the homeowners. Not unlike Uber, a transportation network, Airbnb eliminates the often union-driven marketplace for a given service; with Uber it's taxis and with Airbnb, it's hotels.  And as with Uber, unions are not happy with the explosion of Airbnb and lobbied in New York state for the passage of this law that establishes a minimum of at least 30 days for peer-to-peer rental of private property and provides for fines up to $7,500 for those in violation. The Hill reports:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo banned short-term rentals on Airbnb after he signed a bill on Friday making it illegal to list unoccupied apartments on the service for stays under 30 stays.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 27, 2016 8 Comments
Because I have been traveling, I'm late to this important development. In early April we reported how a State court judge throws out Wisconsin Right to Work Law in an absurd decision:
When conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election last Tuesday, we pointed out how important that court has been in upholding union reforms. That may be tested again as Dane County Judge William Foust in Madison just threw out the state’s Right to Work law signed by Governor Walker a year ago. The decision was under the “takings” clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. As in an eminent domain case, the court found that the union’s interest in compulsory dues payments was property, that the property was taken by the right to work law for a public purpose, but without just compensation....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 08, 2016 40 Comments
When conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election last Tuesday, we pointed out how important that court has been in upholding union reforms. That may be tested again as Dane County Judge William Foust in Madison just threw out the state's Right to Work law signed by Governor Walker a year ago. The decision was under the "takings" clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. As in an eminent domain case, the court found that the union's interest in compulsory dues payments was property, that the property was taken by the right to work law for a public purpose, but without just compensation. The decision was announced by Attorney General Brad D. Schimel on the Vicki McKenna Show. The Decision is embedded at the bottom of this post.

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on March 29, 2016 11 Comments
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States, stuck in a 4-4 deadlock, affirmed the lower court's decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a labor union dues case. The one sentence decision offered no explanation and simply stated, "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court."

Should public employee unions be able to impose mandatory dues?

At issue in the case was a challenge to the power of public employee unions to impose mandatory dues, an issue that has been bitterly fought by both sides of the labor union debate. Tuesday's ruling allows the unions to continue to collect dues for collective bargaining costs, pursuant to a prior case from 1977 that allowed these mandatory dues, so long as the employees were not forced to pay for political or ideological activities.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 15, 2016 4 Comments
Two Supreme Court cases with significant public policy implications previously discussed on Legal Insurrection face very different futures in the wake of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death on Saturday. Oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas and even more more so Friedrichs v. California Teachers’ Association suggested the Court would decide for the conservative position in both. Now those cases are thrown into turmoil.  The traditional response when a Justice dies after oral arguments but before a written decision has been to either affirm the lower court without setting precedent, or to order.  Either option is at least a temporary setback for conservatives.

Fisher revisited

I previewed the challenge to the University of Texas's affirmative action scheme in Fisher, here, and discussed the oral arguments, here.   In Fisher, the Court is reviewing UT's admission system that considers race as one factor among many for admitting applicants who did not otherwise qualify for admission for having graduated in the top-10 percent of their Texas high school class. As noted in the case preview:

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 12, 2016 43 Comments
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."  That was Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address, January 20, 1981, and in the years since it has become a rallying cry for small government conservatives. Last week Senator Mike Lee (R. Utah) struck the same notes in an op-ed in Forbes.  Lee writes:

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 03, 2016 13 Comments
The long-running battle between the Chicago Teachers' Union (the "Union") and the Chicago Public Schools ("CPS") has turned even uglier.  The Chicago Tribune reports that the Union rejected CPS's most recent contract offer Monday, and CPS responded by cutting budgets by a cool $100 million. Combative negotiations between CPS and the Union have become the norm.  In September, 2012, the Union went on strike, leaving students and parents alike in the lurch.  In addition to the typical issues in teachers contract disputes (evaluations, pay and benefits, class sizes), Time reported that the Union explicitly demanded mayoral indulgence:
RAHM EMANUEL’S SUPPORT OF UNIONS When Emanuel took the mayorship of Chicago last May, he vowed to overhaul Chicago’s notoriously underperforming schools, particularly on the impoverished south side of the city. But the mayor’s first major negotiation with a city labor union has resulted in this strike, making worse his already poor relationship with union leaders worse. Emanuel has often butted heads with often-hotheaded union president Karen Lewis, after he bypassed the union’s opinion last year and went straight to the schools with an offer of bonus pay if they lengthened the school day. At a news conference, he called Monday’s walkout a “strike of choice,” saying he believed that the two sides were close to an agreement.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 29, 2016 3 Comments
The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") decided earlier this month that unions may "endorse" the boycott, divest and sanction ("BDS") campaign against Israel without running afoul of the National Labor Relations Act's (the "Act") ban on so-called "secondary boycotts." But the case did not affirm that unions actually could engage in the boycott, since that issue was not before the Board. Nonetheless, some people inaccurately are spinning the decision as the NLRB giving BDS a green light. The issue arose when the the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (the "Union") passed a resolution endorsing BDS in August, 2015.  The Union is self-consciously radical - its website calls for "aggressive struggle," blames "bosses and bankers," and promises that it is "Fighting for Workers' Rights in the New World Order."  In addition to a slew of posts about BDS and "build[ing] solidarity" with Palestinians, the Union's Political Action update opposes the TransPacific Partnership, defends Venezuela's farcical "democracy" and effectively endorses Bernie Sanders:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 24, 2016 6 Comments
As the world's governments work to stop terrorist attacks before they happen, one group in the UK is accused of colluding with Islamist groups to undermine these efforts. The Telegraph reports:
Leaders and activists of Britain’s biggest teachers’ union are colluding with Islamic extremists to undermine policies aimed at preventing terror attacks. Private emails leaked to the Telegraph show that Rob Ferguson, a senior National Union of Teachers (NUT) activist in heavily-Muslim Newham, east London, is working with Mend, an extremist front group, and Cage, the notorious organisation which backed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) killer known as “Jihadi John”.
Apparently this union is working to ensure that the government's efforts to identify potential radicalization in young people is thwarted.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 18, 2016 20 Comments
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers' Association last Monday, and the union had a tough day.  Legal Insurrection previewed the case, here.

Background

In brief, public school teachers in California seek to invalidate state law requiring that non-union members must nevertheless pay the public teachers union fees for collective bargaining and related expenses.  Those related expenses are fairly broad and include public relations campaigns on issues to be collectively bargained. Before this case, controlling law from Abood v. Detroit Board of Education allowed such compelled payments on the reasoning that collective bargaining is not political speech, so compelled contributions to collective bargaining expenses does not run afoul of the First Amendment's implied freedom of (and from) association.  However, Abood was internally inconsistent to the extent that it acknowledged that everything a public union does is political in the sense that it has an impact on the public and public policy.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on December 22, 2015 10 Comments
The Boycott, Divest & Sanction ("BDS") movement and the broader campaign to delegitimize Israel has had a tough few weeks.  In academia and industry, the boycott campaign has been exposed as potentially discriminatory and unlawful, and yet another panel of experts has affirmed that Israel's use of force against Hamas is not only legitimate, but exemplary. Law Professors Eugene Kontorovich and Steven Davidoff Solomon of the Northwestern University and University of California - Berkeley, respectively, make the case that boycotts by academic associations are unlawful.  As one might expect, academic associations each have a stated purpose, typically to collect, share, expand and advance knowledge in the relevant field.  Profs. Kontorovich and Davidoff explain that such associations cannot legally do anything other than pursue those stated purposes, and:
Boycott resolutions that are beyond the powers of an organization are void, and individual members can sue to have a court declare them invalid. The individuals serving on the boards of these organizations may be liable for damages. Consider the American Historical Association. Its constitution—a corporate charter—states that its purpose “shall be the promotion of historical studies” and the “broadening of historical knowledge among the general public.” There’s nothing in this charter that would authorize a boycott. And an anti-Israel boycott will do nothing to promote “historical studies” or broaden “historical knowledge.” A boycott by definition restricts study and research: The explanatory material attached to the [American Anthropological Association ("AAA")] resolution, for example, says it would restrict the organization from sharing scholarly journals with Israeli universities.
Accessibility by WAH