Month: September 2017

SCOTUS Is on the Verge of Decimating Public-Sector Unions—But Workers Can Still Fight Back

On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Janus vs. AFSCME, the case that will likely turn the entire public sector labor movement into a “right-to-work” zone. Like a lazy Hollywood remake, the case has all the big money behind it that last year’s Friedrichs v. CTA did, with none of the creativity. In Friedrichs, the plaintiffs argued that interactions between public sector unions and government employers are inherently political. Therefore, the argument went, mandatory agency fees to reimburse the union for the expenses of representation and bargaining were forced political speech, violating employees’ purported First Amendment right to not pay dues. The case ended in a 4-4 deadlock in March 2016, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who had appeared poised to vote against the unions’ interests. Much like Friedrichs, the Janus case has rocketed through the federal courts. The National Right to Work Foundation, which represents the […]

The Right Wing Has a Vast, Secret Plot to Destroy Unions for Good. Here’s How to Fight Back.

The vast right-wing network of Koch brother-funded “think tanks” is now plotting to finish off the public sector labor movement once and for all. In a series of fundraising documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy of Madison, Wis., and published in the Guardian, the CEO of a cartel of 66 well-funded arch-conservative state capitol lobbying outfits promises funders a “once-in-a-lifetime chance to reverse the failed policies of the American left.” Tracie Sharp, the leader of the States Policy Network (SPN), goes on to explain that the pathway to permanent right-wing victory is to “defund and defang” unions that rely on the legal protections of state labor law. Though less well-known, the SPN is something of a sister organization to the American Legislative and Exchange Council (ALEC), which writes cookie cutter “model legislation” for right-wing state legislators. SPN affiliates, like Michigan’s Mackinac Center and Ohio’s Buckeye Institute, promote […]

A New Bill of Rights for Workers: 10 Demands the Labor Movement Can Fight for and Win

ON A CLOUDY AFTERNOON IN APRIL 2006, ROGER TOUSSAINT LED A PROCESSION OF UNION WORKERS ACROSS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE. Toussaint, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100 and an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, was on his way to surrender himself to the authorities to serve a 10-day jail sentence. His crime? He led the largely Black and Latino union membership in a 60-hour strike the previous winter, shutting down the city’s subway and bus system in violation of a judge’s injunction and New York’s 1967 Taylor Law, which bans public-sector strikes. The court also slapped the union with a $2.5 million fine and suspended its ability to collect dues for a year. Individual strikers were fined two days’ pay for each day on strike. Punishments this draconian are rare outside the world of labor law. Toussaint saw more jail time than any of the top bank executives responsible for […]

The Right to Organize at Work Deserves Constitutional Protection

On Labor Day, alongside stories about parades and final trips to the beach, we can expect to read the usual depressing statistics about the decline of labor unions in the United States. The problem with this coverage isn’t the facts, which are undeniable — it’s the tone of inevitability. Today, less than 11 percent of workers, including just 7 percent in the private sector, are members of a union — a dramatic drop from the 1950s, when more than one-third of the workforce was unionized. The recent loss by the United Auto Workers at a Mississippi Nissan factory, where workers voted by a three-to-one ratio against union representation, is just the latest in a long string of defeats for the labor movement. And this decline has a real effect on families’ financial security: Researchers have shown that nearly half of the decline in middle-class incomes is due to the shrinking […]