Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO
  • Home
  • Union City Radio
  • Programs
    • Community Services >
      • Espanol
      • Mission
      • Donate Now
      • Programs
      • Funders
      • Archives
    • Political Action >
      • DC Voting Info
      • MD Voting Info
      • Legislative Updates
      • Archive
      • Mission
      • Elected Officials
      • Endorsements
      • Candidate Questionnaires: Archive 2006-2014 >
        • 2018
        • 2016
        • 2015
        • 2014
        • Other
        • 2012
        • 2010
        • 2008
        • 2007
        • 2006
    • Unemployment Help
    • Hiring Hall >
      • ADMINISTRATIVE
      • COMMUNICATIONS
      • INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
      • INTERNSHIPS
      • LEGAL
      • MISC
      • ORGANIZING
      • POLITICAL
      • RESEARCH
  • About Us
    • Leaders & Staff
  • Calendar
  • Union City News
  • Affiliates
  • DC LaborFest
    • Archive >
      • 2021 Films
      • 2020 Films
      • 2019
      • Films (AFI) 2019
      • Films (other) 2019
      • Music 2019
      • History (2019)
      • Art (2019)
      • Other: Fashion show, Soccer, Solidarity Awards, Trivia (2019)
      • Radio/Podcasts
      • 2018
      • Other events
      • Films (AFI) 2018
      • Films (other) 2018
      • Music (2018)
      • History (2018)
      • Art (2018)
      • Other: Marx, whiskey, pub trivia & radio (2018)
      • 2017 >
        • Films (AFI)
        • Films (other)
        • Music
        • History
        • Art
        • Other: Soccer, Whiskey, Theater
      • 2016 >
        • Films (AFI)
        • Films (other)
        • Music
        • History & Art
        • Soccer, Poetry
      • 2015
      • 2014
  • Affiliate Social Media
  • Allies Social Media
  • Constituency Group Social Media
  • Union Shop
  • Evening With Labor
    • Archive
    • 2019 Evening With Labor
    • 2018 Evening With Labor
    • 2017 Evening With Labor
    • 2016 Evening With Labor
    • 2015 Evening With Labor
  • Council Minutes, Archives, Photo Albums
    • Council meeting reports and documents
    • Union City & photo archives
    • 2020 MWC Directory
    • 2020 Election Documents >
      • 2020 Election Appeal
      • 2020 Election ARCHIVE

Metro Washington Council afl-cio

Bringing DC Labor Together since 1896

High Court Ruling in Public Union Case Could Hurt All Workers

1/11/2016

 
Picture
A negative ruling in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case involving public workers and their unions could hurt all workers nationwide in their fight for their rights and decency on the job, a top public workers’ union attorney warns. Arguments in "Friedrichs vs California Teachers Association" will be heard today, and activists will rally at 9:30a in front of the Supreme Court (see above for details). “This case should be seen for what it is: It would place substantial limitations on the ability of working people to advocate for themselves,” Service Employees Associate General Counsel Maryann Parker says. “In terms of what’s happening in the country” to workers, their wages, their declining standards of living and their rights, “It’s very important,” she adds. "We can see beyond their fancy, misleading labels, and we know their motives," says Tina Adams (right), a school lunch lady -- and union member -- in Mansfield, Ohio. "They want to weaken our unions so they can cut wages and slash benefits." Click below for our complete report on Friedrichs, and here for Adams' story: Friedrichs Is Missing Its Warning Label.

​The nine say such orders and laws violate their free speech rights by forcing them to support union political positions. But in reality, speakers at the Jan. 6 American Constitution Society panel said, Friedrichs is part of a broader movement to strip all workers of their rights.
     The nine dissidents lost, intentionally, in lower courts, but took their case to the High Court at the outright invitation in a prior court ruling by Associate Justice Samuel Alito. In a parallel, but more restricted case two years ago, Alito questioned whether any public worker unions had the right to require non-members to pay agency fees.
     He didn’t win then. If he wins now, there would be wide ramifications for all workers, public and private, union and non-union, Parker said.
     Alito suggested, and the nine – paid for and represented by the National Right to Work Committee and its legal “defense” fund – agreed that anything a public worker union does is political, and thus could violate the individual workers’ free speech rights.
     “In partnership with public sector employers” – state and local governments – “public sector unions“ including SEIU “have helped to decrease costs, increase efficiency  and increase quality while helping to create the middle class,” Parker explained.
     “It’s true that workers, banding together, lift all boats,” she declared. By outlawing the right for unions to charge anyone even “agency fees” – not to mention membership dues – unions would lose funds that help workers band together and fight for their rights and a better standard of living, Parker stated.
     Thus Friedrichs, she added, “is part of a much-larger attack on the ability of working people to band together” to protect themselves and improve their standards of living.
     While Parker did not say so, the attack is highly partisan, led by anti-worker right wingers and business interests and their Republican political puppets, both in the U.S. Congress and in the states.
     Their schemes include so-called right-to-work laws, destruction of public school teacher tenure – and public schools – and destroying decent wages for construction workers through bans on project labor agreements.
     In one outstanding example, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) stripped most Wisconsin public worker unions of collective bargaining rights in 2011. The ones that kept their rights, including their right to collect union dues, were those that backed his 2010 campaign.
     His strong-arm tactics for Act 10 sent 100,000 protesters into the streets of Madison in subzero midwinter weather. After Walker jammed it through the legislature, public union density dropped sharply. A Friedrichs win for the anti-union forces would make every state and local government a “right-to-work” employer, just like Wisconsin. 
     Andrew Pincus, a former top Justice Department official who filed a pro-union friend-of-the-court brief in the Friedrichs case on behalf of constitutional law scholars, noted government workers already have more-limited speech rights than private workers do.
     If they speak out on matters of public concern, the Constitution’s 1st Amendment protects them, he noted. If they’re speaking within the confines of their job, it may not.  “The government can do whatever it wants” to discipline them, within the limits of “a balancing test,” Pincus pointed out.
     That means the nine dissident teachers could easily and publicly oppose their unions’ positions on public issues, like other citizens. And their agency fees don’t cover union political activities, either. But unless the nine prove that contract bargaining and grievance processes – defending workers – are also “political,” Pincus said, the agency fees are constitutional.
     The nine, and their Right to Work backers, contend the fees aren’t constitutional because everything public worker unions do is political.
     Parker and panelist Anisha Gupta, New York state’s deputy solicitor general, also stressed the practical impact of a decision for the Friedrichs dissidents. It would overturn almost 40 years of laws, precedents and cases involving public workers, following a 1976 High Court ruling in a case, Abood, involving the Detroit school board and its teachers unions.
     “Where fair share fees don’t have to be paid, people don’t contribute” to the costs the union incurs to bargain for them and represent them, Gupta said.  A final ruling is not expected before June.
- Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer

Comments are closed.

    Calendar

    Subscribe to "Union City"
    Tweets by @DCLabor

    COVID RESOURCES

    COMMUNITY SERVICES

    en espanol

    UNEMPLOYMENT HELP

    Legislative updates

    MWC STAFF

    UNION City Radio

    mwc ELECTION 2020

    Evening with Labor

    DC LABORFest

    HIRING HALL

    Union City News

    AFFILIATES

    AFFILIATE Social media

    UNION SHOP

    DC LABOR MAP

    Documents

    ​Leaders & Staff

    Labor 411-DC

    Categories

    All
    Cap Files
    Cool Labor Site
    Dclaborfest
    Labor Book
    Labor Humor
    Labor Song
    Labor Video
    Quote Of The Day
    Today In Labor History
    Todays Labor Calendar
    Year-in-review-2015

    Archives

    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

NEW! Share any story to your Facebook or Twitter page or via email! Just click on the story and then click on the appropriate social media icon at right!

COPYRIGHT METRO COUNCIL AFL-CIO 2021
202-974-8150; [email protected]