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Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Printable Version

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Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Kaplony - 02-09-2018 03:22 PM

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/09/death-knell-for-unions-supreme-court-gets-to-decide.html

Quote:A $45 monthly fee could end up costing big labor billions. Public unions are getting nervous, while those who don’t like how they operate are claiming the free lunch may be over soon.





An explosive case regarding government employees and the First Amendment that the Supreme Court will hear on Feb. 26 could redefine the relationship between public unions and workers.

Petitioner Mark Janus works at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and didn’t like that a certain amount was deducted from his paycheck — he didn’t believe he should be forced to pay union dues or fees just to be allowed to work for the state. He didn’t agree with the 1.3 million-member AFSCME union’s politics, and so believed, under the First Amendment, he couldn’t be forced to contribute.

In his court filing, Janus quotes Thomas Jefferson, who said to “compel a man to furnish contribution of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.”

Quote:If the Supreme Court finds for Janus, it could have a major effect on labor unions. Without compulsory fees, union funding could decrease precipitously. States might attempt workarounds — paying employees less rather than deducting from their paychecks, and passing along the savings to unions — but that sort of thing could be politically difficult to pull off.

Quote:The central question in “Janus” is this: Should the court overrule its 1977 decision “Abood v. Detroit Board of Education”? In “Abood,” the Supreme Court declared that schoolteachers could be required to pay fees to public unions as long as the money was spent on the costs of collective bargaining and related issues, and not on ideological causes.

Court watchers may be getting a sense of déjà vu from “Janus” -- in the past several years, the Supreme Court has already looked at this question a couple of times.

There was “Harris v. Quinn” (2014), where the court determined that non-union employees couldn’t be forced to pay fees to labor unions, even though they received compensation from government sources that was determined through collective bargaining. The case was decided 5-4, with the five justices generally considered conservative — Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — comprising the majority, and the four Justices generally considered liberal — Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor — dissenting.

More on point was “Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association” (2016), which asked if a school district requiring employees to join a union or pay a fee infringed on their First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly. In other words, the court was being asked to reconsider “Abood.”

And they might have done just that, except that Associate Justice Scalia died before the case could be decided. This left the court split with four liberals and four conservatives, so they simply put out a one-line opinion that affirmed the lower court decision, leaving the question for another day.

And now, with “Janus,” that day has come.

The biggest change since “Friedrichs” then, is not the facts of the case, but the makeup of the court. Scalia has been replaced with Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, and many believe he’ll be the fifth vote to overturn “Abood.” (If President Barack Obama’s choice to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland, had been seated, it’s possible the court wouldn’t even be hearing the “Janus” case.)

In fact, many experts see the decision to take up the case as a sign that the court is ready to side with Janus and overrule their precedent.

Quote:Many states might not be happy with such a ruling, but, as Napolitano notes, the First Amendment supersedes state arrangements with labor. Indeed, Napolitano, a civil libertarian, would hail a decision on behalf of Janus, and hopes “everyone who believes that the First Amendment means what it says would applaud.”

Quote:For his part, Napolitano can’t summon up too much sympathy for these unions, since they’ve gotten themselves into this situation. As he puts it, “some labor leaders believe this will be almost a fatal blow — you know what, that’s their fault….No one is saying that labor unions [shouldn’t] exist; they just have to make themselves attractive so that people join voluntarily, rather than under the state’s compulsion.”



RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - hoopfan - 02-09-2018 03:26 PM

We can only hope.
Public sector unions are abhorrent.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Kaplony - 02-09-2018 06:04 PM

(02-09-2018 03:26 PM)hoopfan Wrote:  We can only hope.
Public sector unions are abhorrent.

Agree. The accounts I would hear from colleagues up north about the amount of control unions had over their departments would astound you.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - umbluegray - 02-09-2018 06:17 PM

#popcorn


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - bullet - 02-09-2018 11:06 PM

(02-09-2018 06:04 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  
(02-09-2018 03:26 PM)hoopfan Wrote:  We can only hope.
Public sector unions are abhorrent.

Agree. The accounts I would hear from colleagues up north about the amount of control unions had over their departments would astound you.

And then they try to entrench the party that put them there.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - stinkfist - 02-11-2018 12:29 AM

kill the unions.....kill 'em all off......just kill 'em.....

they have outgrown their useful intent.....

they rank right up there with many a lobbyist.....

pick 'em off one at a time.....

[Image: fun-fair_anim_11.gif]


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Fo Shizzle - 02-11-2018 02:05 PM

(02-09-2018 03:26 PM)hoopfan Wrote:  We can only hope.
Public sector unions are abhorrent.

I agree. There is no collective bargaining in this paradigm. I as a citizen can not be involved in the bargaining.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - NIUAlum90 - 02-12-2018 08:29 AM

PATCO vs Reagan.

Enough said.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Machiavelli - 02-12-2018 08:33 AM

I agree. There is no collective bargaining in this paradigm. I as a citizen can not be involved in the bargaining.


BS....


You are a citizen and can vote and this is why Gorsuch was such a huge deal. It's a stolen seat.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Machiavelli - 02-12-2018 08:37 AM

Workers in the private sector had used the strike as a tool of leverage in labor-management conflicts between World War II and 1981, repeatedly withholding their work to win fairer treatment from recalcitrant employers. But after Patco, that weapon was largely lost. Reagan’s unprecedented dismissal of skilled strikers encouraged private employers to do likewise. Phelps Dodge and International Paper were among the companies that imitated Reagan by replacing strikers rather than negotiating with them. Many other employers followed suit.

By 2010, the number of workers participating in walkouts was less than 2 percent of what it had been when Reagan led the actors’ strike in 1952. Lacking the leverage that strikes once provided, unions have been unable to pressure employers to increase wages as productivity rises. Inequality has ballooned to a level not seen since Reagan’s boyhood in the 1920s.


Inequality will continue to increase.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - TigerBlue4Ever - 02-12-2018 09:05 AM

I. HATE. UNIONS.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - VA49er - 02-12-2018 09:07 AM

Yeah, this is s good thing. I can see lots of folks being pissed at having their money taken from them by force to pay for something they obviously don't agree with. It's tantamount to legalized extortion.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Kaplony - 02-12-2018 09:13 AM

(02-12-2018 08:33 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I agree. There is no collective bargaining in this paradigm. I as a citizen can not be involved in the bargaining.


BS....


You are a citizen and can vote and this is why Gorsuch was such a huge deal. It's a stolen seat.

Public sector unions are simply legalized organized crime

Public sector union: "You give us this contract and we'll donate to your re-election campaign"

Leftist politician: " Deal! Besides.....it's not my money anyway, it's the taxpayers"

Both: "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Owl 69/70/75 - 02-12-2018 10:58 AM

(02-12-2018 08:33 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  
Quote:I agree. There is no collective bargaining in this paradigm. I as a citizen can not be involved in the bargaining.
BS....
You are a citizen and can vote and this is why Gorsuch was such a huge deal. It's a stolen seat.

When does a citizen get to vote on approving a union contract?

The problem is that collective bargaining is merely one-sided extortion when there are no competing interests at the table. With public sector unions, the union wants everything it can get, and the other side simply wants to get them back to work with minimum or no disruption.

I don't know a way to introduce into the process someone legitimately concerned about where tax money goes, or how much tax money we need. The guys negotiating for the employer don't care about the economics of the deal, because it's not coming out of their pockets. And the ones whose pockets it is coming out of are not at the table. And they can give away huge retirement packages without having to fund them, because that will be somebody else's problem after they are long gone.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Machiavelli - 02-12-2018 11:05 AM

Public sector union: "You give us this contract and we'll donate to your re-election campaign"


This is not how it works and you know that.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - NIUAlum90 - 02-12-2018 11:07 AM

(02-12-2018 11:05 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Public sector union: "You give us this contract and we'll donate to your re-election campaign"


This is not how it works and you know that.

So how large is the WI teacher's union now?

How much money did the state and local communities save once the union was not forcing non-members to pay dues?


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Machiavelli - 02-12-2018 11:13 AM

Thank you,

It’s not about protecting individual members it’s about busting unions.
It’s always been about busting unions and that is why we have a shrinking middle class. The 20’s are upon us again and we all know what came after that. What’s crazy is Trump won because of the Union vote in the Midwest and his Supreme Court pick is going to bust unions.

That’s always has been the goal and they have succeeded. I fully expect this case to favor Republicans and if an Obama appointee was seated it would be decided inDemocrats favor. Our courts have become way too political. We can see where this is going to go. You just need to learn to adapt. Doesn’t make it right though. Just another partisan decision ina polarized society.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Machiavelli - 02-12-2018 11:19 AM

At the end of this....

You get teachers arrested for complaining about a Superintendent making 150,000 why teachers make 50,000. That's where Right to Work leads. Inequality.

Yes, it is happening. You've won. It's just bad for the vast majority of society.


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Machiavelli - 02-12-2018 11:21 AM

Found this about Wisconsin. Fact based article that doesn't take a side. Just the facts. Unions have been decimated. Fast and hard fall.


https://projects.jsonline.com/news/2016/11/27/for-unions-in-wisconsin-fast-and-hard-fall-since-act-10.html


RE: Could Supreme Court case spell the end of public sector unions? - Machiavelli - 02-12-2018 11:24 AM

Meanwhile with Citizens United the Koch brothers have 1.4 billion to spend on 2018 elections multiply this by every other corporation. This is how fascism takes hold. It's a pendulum and 2010 swung fast and hard to the right. It might have been a fatal blow. I know I will be ok though, but I see the end of this and it's not going to be good for society as a whole.