Rats have speech rights, too: Unions, protests and balloons
Outside a strip mall on Staten Island, a giant balloon rat lies deflated. I can’t imagine a less auspicious scene for the free-speech fight of the century. But it’s here the Trump administration has chosen to argue that free speech is for corporations — and not for workers. And it’s here that unions have an opportunity to reverse decades of anti-union legal dogma. Last month, the National Labor Relations Board sought an unprecedented injunction against Laborers Local 79 in Staten Island to stop them from inflating a rat balloon. Previously, agency staffers leaked word that Peter Robb, Trump’s NLRB general counsel, “hates” the rat and was determined to exterminate it. The NLRB is a federal agency tasked by statute to protect the rights of workers. But under Republican administrations, it does the opposite. Now, by taking aim at the inflatable rodent, the NLRB invites a First Amendment challenge. Conservative jurists […]
Can the Courts Strike Down Right-to-Work?
Last week, in a move that’s as likely to baffle union activists as it is to encourage them, a West Virginia judge struck down key portions of the state’s “right-to-work” law. The Kenawha County judge’s ruling may amount to no more than a temporary hiccup in West Virginia Republicans’ war to destroy unions. But it’s another example of how hotly provisions of the 1947 federal Taft-Hartley Act are being contested in the courts as it becomes clearer that the anti-union impact of the law has contributed to an era of massive inequality that threatens our democracy. West Virginia’s “right to work” law was rammed through on a party-line vote prior to 2016’s presidential election and the recent statewide teachers strikes. It had survived a Democratic gubernatorial veto and a previous injunction based in part on its ridiculously sloppy drafting. Last week, however, siding with a coalition of unions that included the building […]
Will Trump’s Labor Board Say Workers Have No Right to Float a Balloon?
Union activists eager for a free speech fight after the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME attack on union rights may have found one in the form of a giant inflatable rat. Bloomberg reported last week that Trump-appointed General Counsel Peter Robb wants to issue a rule making it illegal to engage in any protest activity in the company of a balloon rat. Cartoon rats—often with nasty red eyes, gnarly teeth and occasionally suitcases and neckties—have been a feature of worker demonstrations in the United States for almost 30 years. Initially conceived as a way to circumvent the Taft-Hartley Act’s restrictions on unions coming to the aid of fellow unions during a strike, they have since become a routine presence at legal picket lines and protest rallies. When not nicknamed “Scabby,” a rat is often named in ways that satirize an unfair boss. Many workers who find themselves in tough fights are warmed by […]
The Case for “A Right to Your Job” Campaign
[This article was co-authored by Moshe Z. Marvit.] It is time for the labor movement to campaign for a “Right to Your Job” law. With anti-union Republicans in control of Washington, this might not seem like the best time to think and plan about workers’ rights. But to surrender to a mere survival mentality would be a mistake. We are on the verge of a major opportunity for labor renewal. Among congressional Democrats, there is a growing recognition that a strong labor movement is vital to building a constituency for progressive change, and that delivering tangible wins for workers is vital to gaining and maintaining office. As one small example, the official labor bill that the Senate Democrats are currently offering is essentially a repeal of Taft-Hartley.[note]Moshe Marvit, “‘A Better Deal’ Ensures Long- Overdue Worker Protections,” The Century Foundation, November 3, 2017, available at https://tcf.org/content/commentary/better-deal- ensures-long-overdue-worker-protections/.[/note] This could be opposition […]
Here’s How a Supreme Court Decision To Gut Public Sector Unions Could Backfire on the Right
Janus v. AFSCME, which begins oral arguments on February 26, is the culmination of a years-long right-wing plot to financially devastate public-sector unions. And a Supreme Court ruling against AFSCME would indeed have that effect, by banning public-sector unions from collecting mandatory fees from the workers they are compelled to represent. But if the Court embraces the weaponization of free speech as a cudgel to beat up on unions, the possibility of other, unintended consequences is beginning to excite some union advocates and stir fear among conservative constitutional scholars. The ruling could both wildly increase workers’ bargaining power and clog the lower courts with First Amendment challenges to routine uses of taxpayer money. At a minimum, it has the potential to turn every public sector workplace dispute into a constitutional controversy—and one Midwest local is already laying plans to maximize the chaos this could cause. Toward labor’s bill of rights […]
Trump’s Labor Board Wants to Make It Harder for Workers to Organize. Here’s How We Fight Back for Free Speech
A Republican party that survives through voter suppression may be replicating its model in the workplace. In December, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) invited public commentary on a possible revocation of a rule that makes employers provide union organizers with contact information for workers in advance of a representation election. Ostensibly, the Board, which will almost certainly remain in control of Republicans until 2021, is reconsidering Obama-era rules that sped up the timeline of union elections and added phone numbers and email addresses to the list of contact info that unions must be furnished before an election. But outgoing Board Chairman Phil Miscimarra’s bellyaching about “employee rights of free choice and privacy” implies openness to removing any legal right of union organizers to talk with potential members. The very fact that Trump’s NLRB is inviting public comment indicates that it is considering reversing a much older precedent: the 52-year-old […]
A Better Way to Protect Workers
[This op-ed was co-authored with Moshe Z. Marvit.] Maybe we should thank Joe Ricketts for closing his Gothamist and DNAinfo websites in petty retaliation for the writers’ vote for a union. Or maybe the NBC News executives who turned a blind eye to Matt Lauer’s harassment of female colleagues until the #MeToo movement empowered enough of them to make their complaints too official to ignore. Or the federal contractor that fired a bicycle-riding employee who flipped off the president’s motorcade, a gesture captured in a photo that went viral. These bosses revealed that a workers’ rights system that is applied unequally to only some workplaces and only some employees is no way to ensure that everyone’s rights are respected. Workers may have the right to do their jobs free from sexual harassment and assault, but it has become increasingly clear that employers violate those rights by exploiting the power disparity […]