Finally, a voice of reason in the NYT. Coerced payment of union dues from employees who hold values about property, life, freedom in a much different light from those who are running the union should never have been permitted. Sadly, most leftists cannot grasp the simple meanings of words like fairness, equality or independence. Some years ago (more likely, ongoing to the present) a teacher’s union donated 99% of its political “gift” to Democratic congressional candidates. What about those ‘forced’ union members who held the Philosophies and/or leanings of the Republican or Libertarian or Independent candidate? Oh well. Seriously, who believes 99% of the union members voted for the Democrat?
2
Combining this SCOTUS decision and the one on abortion and 'required speech', it would seem that the obligation of unions to represent non-members who choose not to pay has been ended. How could the union be forced to speak in the service of someone who does not have a contract with it?
1
After reading some of these comments, I wonder if unions are so good and beneficial to workers, why is membership declining? Surely they have an argument that can draw people back into unions, No?
It's not workers rejecting unions, it's corporations. I think you'll find most union members are happy and proud to be part of a labor organization. And lucky. Companies bend over backwards to keep unions out. Over the last 70-80 years they have perfected a wide array of tactics to minimize and prevent union activity. A supreme court ruling such as Janus is the desired result of many years of work by those who want to see unions eviscerated.
3
The Janus case was, in my opinion, decided correctly. However, there needs to be an obvious corollary to this decision. The rule that union negotiated benefits and contracts must apply to all workers, whether members of not, must also be struck down.
If people are free to join a union and receive the benefits of union negotiations, or not join and negotiate their own deals with management, then the both the upside and downside of membership will be plain to the workers and they can make a rational choice.
The unions will then be rid of the free riders problem and can concentrate of letting the workers know why it is in their best interest to join and pay up. The workers can, in turn, see exactly what their dues are buying them.
2
It’s not going to make a better bureaucracy. Anybody who thinks it will is very foolish.
2
"... taking public unions down a peg has another important effect:"
That statement... has a sadistic tone... The author ... is actually savoring the pain this SCOTUS decision will inflict on members of the lower economic classes.
Such a delicious prospect. A SCOTUS routinely inflicting pain on the middle class... a dog biscuit for a 'Snuffles'... Snuffles the sadist dog... who becomes euphoric every time he hears the collective groan of the inferior/ gentry threatening peasant class.
3
I do believe that the newspaper of record should not give valuable space to ideological shills. They have their own outlets, ones with no editorial principles and no concern for the facts. Let them play in their own sandbox.
2
DiSalvo is wrong: biased, ill-informed, out-of-touch, and, most importantly, a "senior fellow" at a right-wing think tank. What would anyone expect from a corporate sponsored fellow traveler?
3
That's right, let's take unions down a peg because those working stiffs have way too much power & influence.
Interesting that you only combine the political spending of pharma, oil, & tobacco to compare with unions' political spending. How does that comparison hold up if you add up ALL the corporate interest/lobbying groups? When you add in the corporate-supported PACs & Super-PACs? Now that'll mess up your math a bit!
I don't know where you got your information, but non-members do NOT pay for the political & other activities of unions. By law, non-member fees strictly pay for the cost of collective bargaining... that thing that gets you better pay and better benefits.
I'm not aware of any union that requires workers to write an annual letter, stating they don't want to be union members.
Before I retired, my last job of 16 years was at a public university. I signed a union card when I was hired. Several years later, the union had workers, who wanted to be union members, sign a card again. That's it, twice in 16 yrs. Non-members just didn't sign cards, and they paid the LOWER fees covering collective bargaining. Union members paid HIGHER fees to cover bargaining & political spending, etc. The union gave the names of members to the payroll officer, and payroll deducted the appropriate fees from paychecks.
If workers don't want to pay union dues, then then shouldn't get the same wages and benefits as union workers - except that's illegal, right?
What a SCAM!
4
That the writer of this piece has the gall to ludicrously suggest that unions, which are nearly absent from the private sector and decidedly on the way out in the public sector, need to be reined, in essence are too powerful, only serves to provide all-too-ample evidence for the grim state the of world in which we live today. That the paper of record would deign to publish such pablum provides evidence even grimmer.
5
Take them down a peg?
The modern American self described conservatives are not conservative at all but boy are they one hundred percent snotty.
3
Currently promoted on the home page of the Manhattan Institute is a book entitled, "The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture."
I don't know what is meant by "our culture", oh yes, I do, she means white culture.
So, let's be clear, the author here, Mr. DiSalvo represents a radical Institute.
This is not your old Republican Party. Marge Roukema, who I voted for in my first election, would not be a part of this institute.
But you can be this radical when you receive 3 million dollars from the Koch Brothers over the last 20 years, as the MI has.
But public unions are the problem.
Not the accumulation of too much money by a few.
Thanks for clearing that up, New York Times.
3
Seriously? And who funds this commentator's "Stink Tank" podium? The usual sources, of course.
2
If tomorrow, the right wing institute stopped paying you to be a traitor to your colleagues in academia, would you still hold your position, or would you come running back to those of us who didn't sell out our souls and ask for our collective bargaining power?
Kagan was right spot on. This decision was nothing more than a collapse of the independent judiciary in which four white males and one wanna be white male basically abandoned a precedent that they have been paid- as you have- not to like.
And let's be real. Lots of people were pro-unions till it gave protections to women and blacks.
3
We need a real revolution in this country. It's way overdue for workers to place their boot heels firmly on the necks of corporate America.
4
Authoritarian governments, especially ones striving to become fascist, like ours, hate unions. Show me a country with weak or no unions, and I will show you a country in, near, or becoming a ruin.
5
Enough of this drivel. This industry shill won't stop until the workers are totally powerless. Meanwhile Texas with part time government complains about the Federal Government not stopping the sex traffic in Texas and blames it on immigrants fleeing crime and tyranny. Now we are going to have a Supreme Court in the pocket of right wing so there is no hope in my lifetime for civil rights or a balance between labor and management.
4
I see. Corporations get to speak. Unions need to sit down and shut up.
Got it.
Trust me, this will not end well. Even the Trumpists will eventually figure out they're getting the short end of the stick with this one.
5
This is SPOT ON. Unions are ruining the country right now with their heavy-handed bludgeoning of civil and corporate rights! Workers are sucking up all the profits of corporations and shareholders! The gap between worker's pay and CEO salaries is WAY too narrow! Workers are sitting around, lazily collecting benefits, while they brazenly abuse fair-minded politicians. Just look at worker productivity: it is WAY down while, while their inflation adjusted pay is WAY up.
OK, excuse me, I am due back on planet earth now.
4
It is ironic that people like Daniel DiSalvo have nothing to say about the corruption of politics and the court by Big Business, especially after Citizens United (decided by the Supreme Court in 2010) and the raise of Super-PAC which follow. As Ralph Nader said so well: "Sure, money talks freely, doesn't it?"
2
I remember when Trump got rigged into the presidency and some radio and other media commentators scorned Democrats for being “hysterically” upset. It’s unbelievable how destructive this presidency is to our country and the middle class. At this rate American workers will have the worst wages and benefits of any developed country. Corporations will be able to get cheap labor here - no need to move.
4
The US will no longer BE one of the developed countries. We're going for third world dictatorship with plenty of serfs.
3
Mr Di Salvo-- You and all your right wing hit people just can't seem to get enough of lying! This is not about forcing people to pay for support of views they don't agree with. This is about people paying for the work of people representing them to their employers. Unions are required to provide that representation to the free-loaders like Janus. I would love to see a two tier system-- where those who pay for the union get the benefits of the collective bargaining and the takers, like Janus, are left to their own devices to bargain for their pay and working conditions. (Though, of course, the real villains are the billionaires and banksters who have funded this misanthropic endeavor. Otherwise known as the author's paymasters.)
Like the mythical Janus-- may the two faces bring us an exit to your corrupt ideology and a return to the collaborative society that has gotten us this far.
4
As the playing field has grown less level between labor and management, the need for mechanisms for collective bargaining has grown and yet those very workers who are slowly but surely being reduced to serfs disparage unions.
Consider it a win for mass ignorance. Thanks Betsy DeVos.
4
What utter tripe. There are so many other interest groups that wield far greater power—and have wreaked much greater havoc on our country—than unions.
You will not find another group in the country that has the strength, time, energy, and resources to fight for causes like a higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, more sick/vacation time, the reduction of income inequality, and so much more. That is the reason that unions have been in the crosshairs of the right since their inception. They are loathed by business because they're bad for business; yet they are quite good for the average American.
Janus will be one more step towards a complete corporate consolidation of power over our (quasi-) democratic institutions. It is class warfare, pure and simple.
3
In the private sector, the most ardent unionists are the most competent, confident & productive. The neer-do-wells & the incompetent are almost always sycophants, slackers & company men. My bet is that this also applies to the public sector.
.
Gifting the boss or procuring his morning Danish & delivering it personally are typical of the right to work types. Working through break time & into lunch hour is especially valued. If you're slower & have comprehension problems, no problem.
Wages & benefits are dictated by market forces! Right to work realists are smart!
1
You don’t want to pay union dues? Negotiate your own pay and benefits.
3
I understand the core issues. Unions here in Australia have been slowly strangled to death over the past 30 years. Our Neo-Liberal governments still believe in trickle-down economics and mostly consist of Ayn Rand worshippers. They believe in employers working together, but not workers.
As John Steinbeck said, "one day we'll have serfs again."
2
Public sector unions should never have been allowed to begin with. The example of pension obligations in Oregon is just one of many that show how these unions are leeches on the taxpayer, who has no power to push back.
2
I heard an interview with Janus today, he refused to answer when asked if it was ok that free riders get the benefits of union representation without any of the responsibility of paying for the work others are putting in on his behalf. Fits in very well with trump’s belief that paying taxes,(your fair share), is for fools.
3
"In principle and in practice, the court’s ruling is a good one. It protects public workers’ constitutional rights and will improve the fiscal health of state and local governments. And public unions can go on politicking — just with the money of workers who actually want to be their members."
As a society founded on the principle of human inequality, the current Supreme Court has reiterated that the American polity in the 21st century should reassert the 18th century anti-democratic ideas informed the original constitution.
More important, should citizens who have no confidence in the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court, request that the percentage of their taxes going to finance the judicial system be returned to them by the federal government?
1
Remember when Citizens United was being debated and many people said it was OK, that it would just balance the political power of the corporations and the unions, that the rights of people would still be protected from corporate power, that the demands of the wealthy would not be favored over the needs of working people? I do.
6
If you don't like the political positions of a company whose stock you own, you're free to sell the stock and be done with it. Until now, if you disagreed with the political positions of a union you were required to join in order to work, tough luck.
And if you're an employee of a company? If employees are to be protected from the speech of people who negotiate on their behalf, how do employees get the same protection from some of their effort funding the company's positions?
Don't say "they're free to leave the job" because you'd have to apply the same to Janus, and let him find non-union work somewhere. At an employer whose positions he's happy to support, of course.
1
I own stock in a number of corporations, both individually and through several mutual funds. These organizations contribute mightily to political campaigns and lobby the government in Washington as well as in many state capitals to get what they want. The Supreme Court (via Citizens United decision) has unleashed these corporations to spend unlimited amounts to further their goals. I disagree with so many of their positions, such as weakening a worker's right to bring class action suits to demand relief from unfair working conditions, to threatening the environment by pressuring politicians to weaken regulations on greenhouse gases, to this very latest effort to dismantle unions. Doesn't their activity, therefore, threaten my rights to free speech by co-opting me- as an owner- to be a participant in these messages?
4
I have nothing against private unions as they are required for a fair living wage, however many of the public unions around the country have taken advantage of the taxpayers and have locked in contracts with guaranteed benefits and COLAs without any self contributions with a pay grade that is way above the average. There is something wrong when Police and Fireman, park administrators, and other assorted public employees make more than their last yearly salaries during retirement. This is breaking the state and county budgets and the Public Unions with their political clout are able to put the burden on all the taxpayers who are struggling to earn a middle class wage.
4
If public unions pay way above the average, that's only because private workforce unions have been slowly decimated since the mid-1970s.
I'm old enough to remember when the private workforce was 30+% unionized. That was back when the unionized and non-unionized private workforce often made more money than the unionized public workforce. Now, the unionized private workforce is well below 10%, and wages and benefits have stagnated or dropped for non-union workers; their pensions have all but disappeared.
I am retired from a public university where I worked for 16 years. I collect Social Security and a state-funded pension, which, when combined, adds up to under 50% of what I earned in my last year at work.
Instead of dragging and knocking DOWN the public unions a peg (or more!), fight to raise the wages and benefits of the private workforce. Bring the private workforce UP, so that we're all better off.
3
I am struggling to see how unions, steadily in decline as we have eliminated manufacturing, are a threat of huge power. Sure we have public unions, a vestigial presence in comparison to the glory days of labor.
As unions declined so did most of the protections we took for granted. Pensions are now 401Ks, and some are barely funded. Healthcare covers less, employees pay more, and some don't even get it. Ageism is rampant and goes unchecked as we toss people who have finally reached the years when they can save for the retirement they must pay for themselves, leaving them with huge healthcare expenses and no prospects.
And all of this loss of power, political and economic, is counter weighted by the corporate lobbying power vested by Citizens United.
Labor is gutted, capital is exalted, and people will get poorer. Generally, and you can look around the globe and verify the assertion, this is a formula for unrest, rebellion and civil war. Oh, goody. But hey, as long as we finally kill unions, it is all good.
7
I don't hear anyone complaining that they are paying money for pharmaceuticals or to banks or to utilities or to the chemical industry that are used to promote and lobby policies that are not in the consumers' best interests. But you have to pay the price the market will bear. What I think will happen is workers will look to the colleague next to them who is in the union when they are not and say "Hey, give me a hand here, I can't do this alone". And the union worker will respond "I'd love to, but I am too busy here to help you". Everything you do has a price associated with it. You may think you have won here, but give it time. Be careful what you wish for.
3
I have long felt public worker unions were too strong and I wonder if these workers should be allowed to have a union at all. As a taxpayer I have felt the system is very out of balance when the city and state workers here have far better pay and benefits than the average taxpayer who they work for. The unions also stand in the way of work rule changes making the productivity of NYC workers probably the lowest in the world.
7
The conversation regarding unions seems consistently to be framed in extremes and generalizations. The extreme negligence of WVA and OK in the way they have funded public education. The extreme nobility of unions and union leadership to protect all the very hard working state employees -- all employees, every one, regardless of their real performance and dedication. The extreme crushing the burden on taxpayers to pay for what are by most private industry standards rich retirement pensions, and health care plans. I understand that this is fundamentally a political conversation and therefore given to simplicity and extremes. Nevertheless the reality is decidedly complex in fact and on the ground.
5
Non-union members want the benefits of our union's bargaining. That's crazy. If they don't want to help pay the cost, they should not receive the benefits. Let them negotiate their own package. That would be fair.
6
This is just what is needed to make the mean spirited employees realize that unions are worth joining.
1
I do not believe public-employee unions should be permitted at all. Their employers are not greedy corporations, but their fellow citizens and taxpayers. The government, as a sovereign and democratic entity, should be allowed to set their wages and working conditions. No one has to work for the government, and those who don't like what is offered can work in the public sector and try to prosper in competitive capitalism.
2
Better yet, bring back the draft and fill not only military staffing needs but state and local government with conscripts paid a small stipend for essentials. Every eighteen year old male who has received a public school education has an obligation to serve and it would save the taxpayer a fortune.
2
@FWIS - This is not realistic. The army nowadays needs educated soldiers to operate complex computerized weapons, and the same thing is true of the governments. They would have to pay a competitive wage to attract the workers they need.
The main problem now is that governments pay much higher than the market for low-skilled employees.
1
The author's argument boils down to the notion that collecting mandatory fees from non-members to fund political speech that goes against these people's beliefs is against the First Amendment. But isn't that exactly what our government does by forcing taxpayers to subsidize churches that support policies and politicians that a lot of us find abhorrent? If we follow the same logic we should end the tax exempt status of all religious organizations that engage in any kind of political speech. I wonder how the conservatives would feel about that.
12
Yes, of course, it makes so much sense. Unions have too much political power. Especially compared to corporations, who don’t have enough.
14
Without our union to fight for cost of living wage increases, most employees would see our salaries decrease in purchasing power. We have to threaten strikes just to keep up. Think teachers in the public sector: underpaid and under appreciated.
10
Progressive pro-union commenters, particularly those advocating that employees who opt out be denied the union negotiated wage and benefit packages that their union negotiates, are wildly missing the point!!! The BEST thing that could happen to members who leave a union IS to be placed OUTSIDE the Union bargaining control umbrella.
It is absolutely indisputable that: "In a union workplace, the MOST productive worker is, by definition, the most UNDERPAID, while the LEAST productive worker is, by definition, the most OVERPAID.
The outcome of placing the opt outs outside the union's control will be that the most productive workers will opt out of the union and then will easily be able to individually bargain for higher wages than the union package because of their higher productivity and economic value to the firm! Once that precedent has been set, the more ambitious and hardest workers will follow suit.
Which is why in non union hospitals female RNs make 9% less than men adjusted for experience, overtime and education right? Men are just more productive!
Unless unions help enforce equal pay for equal work by clarifying just what equal work is and creating a method for ensuring everyone gets paid the same for it, not extra for just being a guy.
6
I'd say workers who opt-out from union membership should not benefit from pay increases or other goodies for which the Union has negotiated.
Let these employees bargain solo and see how many and how large of raises they get.
You either believe in a free labor market or not.
25
That is what most workers in the US do. A large number of them are paid high salaries. Employers are not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, that's the market wage.
1
Yes but then... there will be a race to the bottom. The scabs end up getting all the jobs... and lower benefits. That's how it really works.
AH, the Kochtopus weighs in. Good to know Unions fought hard to get us:
40 hour workweek
safety in the workplace
child labor laws
health care, retirement benefits, vacation and sick days, and other benefits
and a host of other forms of progress towards fairness to workers
The "good old days" Trumpians long for were earned at high cost by unions.
The union of billionaires, now that's another matter. They have the right to skim the cream, ever more of the share goes to those who have the power to take but not to share.
SHaring is "communist", you see ... nothing more "evil" than someone who cares and thinks we should work together to solve problems, aka a Democrat.
They don't care. Do U?
27
Mr. DiSalvo claims these employees are deprived of First Amendment rights. They aren't. They are free to express themselves however they want. He also fails to mention how these same workers wages and benefits are protected by the Union they don't want to join! This is typical Republican behavior: "I want all the perks, I don't want to have to pay for them!" "Go to war in Iraq, but give me a tax break! Send your kids, don't send mine!"
I hear, over and over, "Unions are ruining this country!" Really? Less than 6% of workers are ruining it for the other 93%?! Or perhaps are the other 93% ruining wage gains for all of us?
32
Unions fight to represent middle class workers. They make their job environment safer, their lives and security stronger, and their pay adequate to live a good life.
The Manhattan Institute and other right wing organizations have spent decades trying to weaken unions and workers voices, and stop progress on a host of social, environmental, and energy issues.
Glad they're here on the op ed pages to remind NY Times readers how nefarious they are.
27
Modern fascists don't use brute force and police raids to close down union headquarters. Instead, they use the massed money of oligarchical billionaires to buy politicians and stack the court.
But the result is the same: The evisceration of democracy, the disempowerment of workers and the increase on human misery to the benefit of the super-rich.
34
So giving workers a choice is Fascist? I thought Progressives were PRO choice?
Intellectual consistency does not exist on the left.
vonmisian, you aren't really interested in "giving workers a choice." That is just an Orwellian catchphrase to hide the true motive, which is to deny workers a voice. With the crushing of unions, workers will have far LESS choices than they do with strong unions.
Excellent. These "unions" are nothing but extensions of the Democratic Party, grown fat, as all too many Democrats have, on the proceeds forced from working people. Sorry -- what was that again? What percentage of working-class people in 2016 voted for...who was that again?
5
and won't it be down right enjoyable when all those "working class" folks who continue to support the GOP find themselves with nothing...
1
Yep.
The candidate that told working-class people constantly, they were payed too much. MAGAt's will happily accept, less/no healthcare. Less/no pension or retirement. Less pay and raises. Less safe water/air and soil. No safety inspections nor corp. oversight.
May Trump voters enjoy their 3rd world poverty and working conditions. They asked for it. Brought to you from your leader who still hasn't moved his manufacturing to America. Who asked for, again, more H2B workers cause he didn't want to hire Americans. From the employer who consistently stiffed vendors and workers who had to sue him to get paid. From the guy that lies to them over 5 times a day and is ruining family farms and driving business out of our country.
Excellent you say.
Real patriotic I say. /s
4
When you have no way of caring for an ailing parent, when you have no retirement package beyond what is left of social security, when you cannot send your older child to a first rate college
even though she earned it, when you send your younger kid out of the door to a third rate grammar school—will you be snarky then?
3
The author of this op-ed is in the employ of a think tank bankrolled by a number of billionaires. The lawsuit was bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, a billionaire. Small world.
29
It is necessary to force people to do things that are objectively good for them, especially when disinformation has lead these people to believe that these good things are against their interests. Vaccines and seatbelts save many lives because they are required. Union dues are necessary in our current political system, so we have to force them on people.
11
This op-ed is exactly right. Unions that operate in the public sector have no interest in separating the “public interest” from that of their member’ private interests. They confound the latter with the former. The Supreme Court has finally called their bluff. No amount of huffing and puffing can change the simple fact that the public interest is far broader that anything a Union can claim to represent. So enough. Unions as every other interest including corporate cronies must not be allowed to claim their interests as the same as the public interest. That’s what this Supreme Court has ruled today, nothing more nothing less.
8
Indeed. To commenters claiming that Unions are in the best interests of the public, I recommend the NY Times Dec 2017 expose on the MTA construction, entitled "The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth." Powerful entrenched Unions are just another special interest group: good for those in them, and extracting money from everyone else.
1
Public unions are a conspiracy against the public. This decision is well-decider.
7
Union dues are little more than forced campaign contributions. And a one-party campaign at that.
One wonders how all of the self-righteous union boosters in this space would feel if their mandatory dues wound up in Republican coffers. Yeah, that’s what I thought...
8
Dues can’t be used for politics. It’s the law. That’s why unions created opt-in PACS. Don’t know how it works? That’s what I thought.
24
@Dean
Dues are routinely used for political purposes, and you have to opt-out... hence this case and this ruling. Did you read the story? That’s what I thought.
1
Google the law? I thought not.
DiSalvo's op ed is illustrated with an angry union member raising his fist. That's false to the reality of what Unions do for their members.
Why not illustrate the good that unions accomplish for working people? Why not a picture of a union man at home in his back yard preparing steaks on the grill for his family, including his wife and two kids, one disabled? The caption beneath the picture would tell us that "Joe Sixpack" is able to care for his disabled child and the family because of the benefits he obtains at his workplace through his union.
20
What nonsense. Those workers moaning about having to contribute to the union don't complain about the pay raises and benefits that the union secures for all. They want to reap the benefits while contributing nothing to the effort.
One has only to look at the recent teachers' strikes to see what happens in those states that have worked to destroy unions for decades now. We have teachers and other public employees who don't make enough to support themselves or to raise their children. Unions were formed for a reason: Very few employers care about or consider the needs of their workers when setting terms of employment or deciding policy. Unions are the one bulwark against the overwhelming power of the owners. Those who applaud this decision are the same people who applaud the rising tide of inequality.
I no longer recognize the country in which I live.
39
Makes me chuckle to think of all the Trumpians who voted for the Repubs who will lower their bargaining power with their employers, increase the cost of imported goods, hey Walmart shoppers, decrease the futures for pork and soybeans and soon we'll see the nice reduction in Federal debt with the soon to fall payments for Medicare and Social Security. Ha Ha, I'm laughing at you all the way to my bank.
11
"Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion agreed. The collection of agency fees, he wrote, “violates the free speech rights of non-members by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern.”"
Gee, when does the Supreme Court grant employees of firms the right to claw back funds the company spends on political speech? Workers would have a bit more money in their pockets, and while Mr. Manhattan Institute predictably moans about unions favoring causes good for employees, he's silent about the opposite trend of spending by corporate interests, where employees are powerless to avoid contributing to speech which be against their own best interests.
Corporate interests spend far more than unions, too.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/03/31/vital-stats-corporate-a...
But the Manhattan Institute is just another anti-regulation pressure group. Slightly off-topic, but: "The Manhattan Institute's Joke of a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed"
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/14/wall-street-journal-cass-oren-manh...
16
Oh yeah, working people have entirely too much power. No wonder their incomes and wealth just keep expanding while the poor mistreated wealthy technocrats and capital owners are going broke. NOT!
17
Unions saved capitalism. Owners and managers of great industrial enterprises had so much control over the labor market that they could pay people whatever they liked. Given the nature of markets even employers who saw how socially destructive this was could not break the practice. Unions could and did allow employees to enjoy a greater share of their productivity. The huge middle class of fifty years ago was due to unions.
Public employees are even more vulnerable to exploitation because unless they have strong contacts to protect them the pressure from elected officials to please constituents causes them to under pay and over work them. As it is, when revenues are down, they reduce paid hours but demand the same output, and when overtime is required they expect the employees to take time off instead of paying them more money. And that is with union contracts.
The dream of Marxist revolution was not ended by employees eager to work longer hours for less but by mitigating efforts to resolve inequities, especially unions, that made capitalism more socially useful.
14
Anybody who has stood in line at the post office on a Friday afternoon can tell you how great union backed government employees are to the consumer.
8
In 2006 the GOP fed the USPS a poison pill (pre-funded pension obligations unique in government) in order to force deep reductions in service. They want the service to fail and be replaced by private, for-profit carriers, like FedEx and UPS. If that collapse were to come--say, by allowing the corporates to carry first-class mail, while the USPS is forced to handle unprofitable junk mail--rates would skyrocket and hundreds of remote communities would go unserved.
3
Funny isn’t it?
Corporations are “people” with the right of free speech but Unions that actually ARE people are loosing it.
17
Thank you to my union for negotiating my wages and work conditions for me. I am a member and as a member I have rights to participate in deciding who the leadership is and how we conduct business. This is freedom of speech!
Unions are participatory organizations where people pay someone to negotiate for them, understand their profession and provide support. This is not unlike hiring a lawyer, publicist or buying malpractice insurance to do the same. Why would anyone have a problem with that?
DiSalvo's argument that "the power of unions make it impossible for governments to address the rising costs of pensions and retiree health care, which are crowding out other spending" is distorted. So is it unions that are responsible for the rising cost of health care? Doesn't make sense to me. And shouldn't public workers, as well as private workers, receive pensions when their ability to work is ended by old age?
16
You nailed it. But I could explain further why DiSalvo's contention that public sector unions are in the wrong for supposedly "crowding out other spending" is so distorted. State and local governments are not short on cash because of greedy DMV employees. Providing retirees the benefits they were promised is as much a government responsibility as paving the roads. In America, the contract is sacred. Budgets are tight and priorities are not being funded because of the right wing economic and social philosophies that are so deeply entrenched we don't even think about their insanity anymore. Forty-six of 50 states require balanced budgets by law. The notion of creating *more* tax brackets, not fewer, so as to capture more revenues from higher-earning individuals and corporations while not lumping in more modest, but still successful, ones is never thought about.
We've robbed ourselves of the tools of flexibility at the state and local level. And thus, times are tight.
7
Why should any employer, public or private, be expected to pay anyone for other than their work performed today? What does an employer gain from spending on their workers future retirement? How is that even legal for any publicly traded company? And how does paying them enough to support a family benefit the company? Are the spouse and kids going to come in an pick up a shift. My employer is hostile to people with families and doesn’t allow them for managers because they are a financial burden to the company, they’re a major distraction from work and they are something that should be earned not automatically guaranteed. After all, how do the middl and lower level employees rate what the boss has? Otherwise what’s the point of success.
1
The quality of your entire diatribe is exemplified by your choice of Oregon as your example of a state struggling under pension obligations.
Oregon created this mess all by itself, and did it for the most Republican of reasons. They created outrageously expansive, and insanely lopsided pensions. They failed, as many other states have done, to fund the pensions they agreed to choosing to spend the money elsewhere without having to account for it.
If they're struggling its because they're incapable of managing their own budgets.
To lay this at the feet of unions, or any employees, is an outright lie. And does not reflect well on the rest of your fraudulent argument.
1
I consider myself a conservative, or at least a right leaning moderate, and I for the lure of me don't understand how a supposedly freedom-living Republican party refuses to support, or at pray accept (on ideological grounds) the right of workers to engage in the democratic process within the workplace. It's more or less a parallel of our form of government, yet it's not allowed at work, in order to balance the insane balance of power that large employers have in setting terms and conditions of employment?
17
WELL, HOW ABOUT REINING IN CORPORATE/FINANCE-CAPITAL'S POWER, Ay?
Best to know what kind of war-struggle-contest is faced (when going into contact with any adversarial power). "Freedom of Choice' here is one- crazy argument; considering the total lack of freedom as a 'wage-slave' that employees
'just happen to somehow always be the power disadvantage that employers have over the employed.
Let alone the fact that employees do the work that is the value that the Employer monopolizes.
A ridiculous Op-Ed here from the Not- so Jolly-Good, 'Fellow'! 'Freddy the free-loader?' No way...
...Hell-bent
7
Better headline: Supreme Court Cements Corporate Power for Two Decades. Then Earth Cooks.
14
Daniel DiSalvo and the entire right-wing extremist Manhattan Institute is supporting the curtailment of worker rights.
So, DiSalvo and his right-wing cronies now agree that it's okay to gain economically from the dollars and work of others without having to contribute anything of your own.
It's a vile position to take but this really isn't "news" given the Manhattan Institute's long history of spreading propaganda in the service of their benefactor's dictates.
7
Guaranteed this guy has never worked before or even understand what that means.
13
It seems to me that the author's PhD in political science hardly qualifies him to comment, let alone pretend to be an expert, on unions or even labor law (state or federal)
I am a a retired (1995-2010) field (prosecuting) attorney for the Phoenix Region of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB enforces the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act) 29 U.S.C. Sections 151-159.
And although state employees are not covered under the NLRA this decision has now imposed what is essentially a federal "Right to Work"(RTW) law on union represented state government employees. Moreover, assuming that unions have a duty of fair representation under state law, the goal of this decision, like state RTW laws is to bankrupt unions. In this regard, a union can easily spend several thousand dollars on a single arbitration. If all the represented employees decide to become "free riders" the union, with just a few arbitrations,could go bankrupt, or would, more likely, "Disclaim Interest" (i.e. walk away). Hmmm! It' just what red state governments wanted.
My qualifications:
During my career at the NLRB I investigated hundreds of Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges (over 95% of these charges were filed against employers; litigated more than a dozen ULP Complaints winning 90% of them (all but one were against employers; and conducted more than a dozen secret ballot Representation elections.
15
Apparently you were a part of the problem that SCOTUS just solved.
You don't want to pay your dues like every member does then you should not get the same pay, benefits or working conditions!
Everything else asserted is a straight up lie.
22
Agreed. Let them negotiate their own contracts and see how that works out for them. These free riders have little appreciation for how much the unions have done to protect them. They could actually get the money that was used for political purposes refunded by simply writing a letter, but that proved too "daunting". What kind of normally functioning human being is intimidated by written correspondence? Really.
4
We are already looking at creating a separate class for non-union professors. If you don’t join the union, you don’t get the benefits and must negotiate your own salary. Good luck with that. Tenure? Right. If you get denied, who will arbitrate? You? A lawyer? Good luck with that. Sabbaticals? LOL. You will be a 12 month employee unable to do research. No? Well, you won’t get a job because some freshly minted PHD will foolishly take the position, unless they do the smart thing and join the union.
1
Writing a letter once a year is daunting. I hope they'll keep that in mind when judging laws that burden women who want an abortion.
12
Or wants to vote after missing an election once.
1
Haymarket square. The Pullman strike 1890’s. Fisher body sit down strikes in the 1930’s. Triangle Square Shirtwaist factory disaster circa 1911 in New York. Street car wars in Chicago in post Civil War America. Harlan County, Kentucky. Meat packing industry in Chicago. These are only a few of the breadth of injustices imposed on working people. Of course the biggest American injustice of all was 250 or more years of chattel slavery. These injustices have in common the fact that the capitalists and oligarchs that controlled these environments had to be forced to the table before changes could be made. That was not an easy thing to accomplish. Before then, deaths and maimings on the job were callously considered a business expense. The profits of this system were privatized, the costs socialized.
Now a secretive class of huge resources wants to take us back to what they consider the halcyon days of the 19th Century in which workers got what these monopolists thought they deserved—starvation wages. Just the wages. And the doctrine of employment at will ensured that workers would be reluctant— very reluctant—to speak up for themselves.
15
Chet, you do realize that this court ruling deals only with public-sector unions, right? All the cases you mentioned are in the private sector. The monopolists now are the government unions that prevent anyone from becoming a public school teacher or cop, for instance, without paying a large fee to the prescribed union. What's wrong with choice?
4
There’s no denying parts of our ugly past. but our darkest moments should not be polished and remembered fondly in an attempt to spin history.
Right, worker abuse never existed in the public sector.
The only public employee unions that need to be brought down a peg are those representing the police.
11
The Manhattan Institute and similar propaganda mills for the oligarchs need to be restrained.
15
Spoken like someone who doesn't have to navigate this low paying, gig economy inspired labor market. I don't read one word of this that demonstrates any understanding of the realities laborers face in today's markets where wages don't afford the cost of living.
15
Who will speak for us? The UFT has vision and dental plans and will SHOW UP if a member has a legal dispute. They fought against the Special Education online system because it was mandatory before many system failures had been corrected and we were compensated for hours of work done at home. The dental and vision plan is divine.
The dues are manageable in comparison to the benefits.
Shame on Janus.
Jen L
12
Humanity and propaganda have been waging a war and humanity has decisively lost.
16
I wonder if Justices Thomas, Roberts and Alito’ fathers are rolling in their graves.
Thomas - son of a farm worker - probably needed a union
Alito - both parents teachers (union)
Roberts - steel worker but in management so probably bitter toward them
6
It is “daunting” to have to submit a single letter to opt out?
Imagine how “daunting” it is to try and register to vote in this current era if you are old and have responsibly surrendered your DL, or a college student residing in other than your state of birth, or you just haven’t voted for a few years so have been purged from the voting rolls as part of the “voter cleansing” process? Or acquiring the necessary ID is beyond your financial means or the proper place to acquire such an ID has now been conveniently moved many miles away and you can’t get there? And innumerable voting sites have been closed to save money and you can’t register to vote that day and your provisional ballot somehow always gets lost in the shuffle?
8
Alito: "the right of both the rich and the poor to sleep under bridges shall not be abridged."
7
If one does not wish to join the union so be it. However, one then should not receive the union negotiated wages, health benefits, legal representation, work conditions. All terms of employment for a person who does not wish to join the union should be negotiated on an individual basis. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
21
I'm in a union, and there's nothing I want to do more than micromanage the smart, overworked, and underpaid leadership. I was really feeling oppressed and lacking "freedom" over all the good work they've done for me, like the raise I got last year, or the health insurance I got that's pretty good, or the successful lobbying campaign they ran that has made my institution run more smoothly and expand our offerings. Gosh, thank god I have all this freedom.
Maybe I can take on a second job in critically assessing every decision the union makes. I sure hope I get to attend more meetings. Maybe I can vote constantly about where to put money instead of voting once for the union reps that I trust to make those decisions. That sounds efficient.
Thank you for "restoring my political right to decide what causes to support." What a joke, professor.
19
Welcome back, everyone, to the 19th Century!
20
So the NYT illustrates this corporate propaganda with what they think is a scary picture of a union supporter wearing a Teamster shirt. He even clenches his fist. Shocking, Shocking! Would it be better if he stood there with hat in hand? Long live Teamster Local 282. DiSalvo claims its all about "free speech". How much "free speech" is there on a job where the boss thinks he's an emperor and if you talk about wage rates or mistreatment you risk getting fired? If you're looking for free speech go to any union meeting. Pay and benefits are "political" matters when the employer is the government says DiSalvo and so off bounds. Touching to see such devotion to government which his fellow conservatives want to reduce to the size of a bathtub and then drown. OK, the billionaires own the judges and will try to use the entire power of the courts to make workers grovel. Expect more of what went on in West Virginia and Arizona this year. No unions, just massive walkouts. I've been in the American Federation of Teachers since 1969 and I'm sticking to the union. Solidarity forever.
16
Thanks to the union, a Teamster can retire with some dinity with a pension that can supplent his Social Security, another workers's afeguardwhich republicans hAave tried to abolish since its inception..
1
Taking right-wing think tanks "down a peg" would rebalance power between those who work for a living and those who only think about others working.
18
Please lets rein in unions. They are just filled to bursting with power these days. And while we are at it, how about more restriction of civil rights and voting rights. Minorities and vulnerable populations also seem to always seem to get their way on everything these days! And can there finally be some relief for big business, and high income folks, it just isn't fair that no one hears them.
All in all its about time we balance things out, otherwise people might think our Constitutionally endowed separation of powers into Executive, Congressional, and Judicial branches is being warped by concentrating government into the hands of a wealthy minority.
Then they might actually be duped into thinking that instead of living in a true democracy that instead they are living in a Darwinian plutocracy where a minority of wealthy individuals use dark money to win seats in a gerrymandered Congress, elect a soulless lackey President despite losing the popular vote by millions with the pleasing knowledge that a packed Supreme Court will justify their actions.
Why if that were ever to happen, what kind of country would they think they were living in?
30
Oh, the poor unions...Now they have to make their money the old-fashioned way...
They have to earn it by earning the trust of the people that fund their activities...
And if they can't do that, then they have no business trying to do so...Time for that union to let go of the the spigot full of money and let another union...or bargaining alliance...take over the job.
4
Unions are time-tested the most effective means to give workers leverage in their inherently unequal relationship with management. When one side controls the decision making of a company and the hiring and writes the paychecks, the advantage goes to them.
There's a saying I'm sure you've heard - United we stand, divided we fall. This is the animating force behind union organization. Unions were born in response to the predations on worker's lives that came from unchecked corporate greed. The rise of unions paralleled the rise of the American middle class - no accident. The decline of unions also parallels the decline of our middle class. Again, no accident.
This decision is a potentially massive blow against the last, strongest bastion of union strength, the public sector unions. Only the latest move in a decades long strategy to undermine workers' strength and protection.
Union members are not among the 1%, and they are not the enemy! I cannot understand the opposition to paying hard working people a decent living wage and retirement. If we cannot offer that for the workers of this country, then the American Dream is nothing more than myth.
9
Yeah... let the unions EARN their way.
Not like Wal-Mart or Mc D's who have their workers' pay subsidized because they do not pay living wages. In my view of the world, a business that cannot pay its workers a living wage are parasites on society, with government subsidizing both business and workers.
But multi-billion dollar multi-nationals living large off the public trough is zero problem, totally supported by every Conservative out there.
7
Unions enabled by the manufacturing sector helped drive the post-War economic boom. At one time you could see bumper stickers that said:
"Buy American!" and
"Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign."
The same folks who had those bumper stickers on their cars and trucks were an integral part of the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party never missed a chance to boast about the "people who built this country".
Now we have globalism and, I'm sorry to tell you this, all that it entails: imports, outsourcing and off-shoring as a central tenet of the the Democratic Party.
Does this mean shopping at Walmart is now considered the mark of a progressive thinker and folks on this board will stop making fun of them?
What a world, what a world!
Unionized burger flippers will not bring it back.
2
Corporations should have political freedom of speech.
Unions shouldn't.
Got it.
25
If corporations are people then why are not unions?
4
Unions make non-members pay? Curious.
Here, you can opt in to a union or not, therefore you have the choice to pay. Joining the union gives you representatives and potentially lawyers, not joining means, well, you’re on your own. Pay, however, is different. In some jobs it is the unions who hammer out pay negotiations with bosses - but for all staff, not just members.
I would never join a job where I couldn’t join a union. When I had to retire prematurely with ill-health I was lucky in having a union deputy as my line manager.
9
"Unions make non-members pay? Curious.
Here, you can opt in to a union or not, therefore you have the choice to pay."
It's not that simple. State cases focus on home care workers, paid by the state, but unions want dues. Here's just one state.
Well, the response should be that union contract only covers union members, same with grievance processes, if you are not a member you have no representative. No free riders.
3
Sorry, link here.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-supreme-court-public-em...
Real wages have been stagnant since the early 1970's, but, "unions and workers rights need to be reigned in"? Is that the conservative argument here? Do I have that right?
Is it because paying people a living wage for their manual labor is antithetical to everything the GOP has stood for since Reagan? After all, think how much more profitable companies would be if they didn't have to pay any of their "low-level workers". And the "trickle down" from this great boon to the execs? Well, we all know what that looks like. We've been looking at it under every Republican administration for decades.
The middle class hasn't seen a real wage increase in 50 years. Meanwhile the top 1% have had the best three decades in recorded history. I hope the people who voted Republican enjoy working for their new regulation-free overlords. I can already hear them complaining on the unemployment line about how "those democrats" caused all of the problems visited on them by the GOP - and their own ignorance, indifference, and belief that the servants of the 1% somehow had their interests at heart.
THE UNION IS DEAD
6
Justice Alito claims that writing an opt-out letter is “daunting”? Even my ever-suffering teenagers, pressed into penning their birthday gift thank-you notes, can’t manage that level of drama (with a straight face, that is).
10
You have to remember that Samuel Alito is down there on the bottom rung of legal talent with Clarence Thomas. Alito was installed to be a zombie conservative, not for his intellectual brilliance of fair-mindedness.
3
Really simple, write the letter once,undated and unsigned,make a lot of copies. Every year date and sign one copy and mail it.....not so daunting is it?
4
I eagerly await the companion article decrying the ability of billionaires like Sheldon Adelson to distort by himself our electoral process with political contributions in the millions.
8
Oh please. You want to rein in excessive political power, start with the Koch Brothers, or Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, a right-wing hedge fund billionare who recruited Janus, after Rauner was denied standing. Unions political power has been thin gruel compared to the sides of beef being swung by the oligarchs since Citizens United. Unions must now get tougher and meaner, and realize that this is class warfare, plain and simple.
20
When a corporation donates money to a political party or candidate, why are they not required to get the written approval from the owners (shareholders) ? Seems fair.
22
Lets just get this over with - ban unions - end work rules - sick time and benefits.
8
Hear hear! And end the 40 hour work week, bring back child labor! Corporations are good people!
3
I have a simple solution to the problem and that is to get rid of the requirement that everyone has to be covered with the contract... let’s see how those non union guys make out with their own bargaining and lack of job protections....
12
My solution is let's get rid of the bloated unions paying huge salaries to fat cat officers. It is coming to that.
Welcome to the 21 century!
My experience as a worker in the U.S. was that just trying to organize a union was grounds for dismissal. That this was illegal made no difference, as the lawyer said "It's the Nixon NLRB, they won't even listen to your case". Anything that weakens unions is part of what destroys them. This ruling will undoubtedly lead to smaller, emasculated unions. The Editorial Board can say all it wants about how the Unions must save themselves, but when all the institutions are opposed, it is most likely that they will disappear. More gig labor. More debt, and less middle class. The U.S. is looking more and more like a third world country.
13
The Editorial Board hasn’t “said” anything. This is an OP-ED piece—as in “opposite the editorial page” (and clearly labeled as such), penned by someone NOT affiliated with the paper’s editorial board and, in all likelihood, espousing a position contrary to that of the editorial board.
The process to NOT donate to the political actions of the union does not resemble the description of the author. You have to opt IN. You do not have to resign membership. You do not have to write a letter. The claims of the author are simple lies in the case of most contracts.
The GOP called people who take benefits without paying for them "moochers". Seems apt. In my 30Y in public education the teachers who opposed the union and were not members did not have to pay anything. In other states, that may or may not be the case. Regardless, they gladly took the raises to the bank, used the sick leave, and enjoyed the terms and conditions of employment negotiated without their contribution.
Everything in education is political. The author condemns the unions for actually being politically active to support the goals of the schools and students. The board that is elected ( a political process) is who the union negotiates with.
This article is just another right wing attempt to paint any effort to level the playing field as being unfair. To management.
12
Workers shouldn't be allowed to collectivize, but it's alright for business people to collectivize in the form of corporations that wield disproportionate power over working people depriving them of their constitutional rights. Interesting that the law is applied one way for the business elite and another for working people. That's the American way.
15
The difference between corporations and unions, is that for the corporation, the stockholders have the option of selling the stock...
And while the employee has the option of quitting the job, that sort of "false equivalence" is astonishingly inappropriate.
4
The divide between working people and non-working people (the owl) has gotten so big that a lot of people don’t even know what it’s like to sweat on the job anymore or what a hard days work looks like. The class war is very real.
Excuse me, I worked from the time I was sixteen until I was seventy-three, the last thirty five as the owner of my own business.
I have worked in union shops and non-union shops, and it was my experience that the non-union shops had far happier and more productive with a lot more cooperation between management and labor.
And while my experience may not reflect what others might see, two of the three unionized companies were amongst the largest in the world, and the third the most respected in its industry.
Unions have their place, and a good union fosters good communications and cooperation between all parties. Bad unions, however, end up existing for sole benefit of their leaders.
Thanks to the Republican Supreme Court the Koch's and the other oligarchs have plenty enough money to birth the speechifying of Mr. DiSalvo and countless others in their innumerable thought tanks. Now thanks to this ruling weak state governments will be free to heed the demands of the oligarchs free of the tyranny of government employees. And with the unions brought to heel, the oligarchs of the Republican party and their allies will be able to dominate the eviscerated oligarchs and their allies in the Democratic party. I liked America better when there was at least the pretense of a Republic. Still, I say let all the poison in the mud seep out.
3
One would hope unions are going to have to work harder and smarter to keep paying members .. unfortunately, I see intimidation being the easy way out
2
Intimidation has always been the go-to method of the unions...
That's why they have gained the awful reputations that they have had in the past.
3
I've heard that powerful businessmen have been choir boys throughout history.
Sure can't wait to get rid of those corrupt unions so that the financial class can really turn up their honesty and good-will.
I'm gonna celebrate this decision by refusing to pay my contractor, just like our honest president.
5
As a 40 year member of unions and a now-retired state employee, what I would like to say to Mr. DiSalvo would probably not be printed by the NY Times. So instead let me make a few other points.
It's always about money. The destruction of unions has been a long-term project of the rich, the kind of people who fund the Manhattan Institute. They are against public spending of any kind that doesn't go into their pockets. They are rich enough to dispense with government - and don't care about the rest of us who need what it provides.
Living hand to mouth? Thank people like Mr. DiSalvo whose efforts have turned the economy into a wealth concentration machine for the .1% All growth in the economy mostly goes to them these days, instead of to raise worker salaries and benefits.
Mr. DiSalvo can rail against pension funds, salaries, and other benefits - but what he doesn't mention is that money goes right back into the economy. Union workers are not piling up stock dividends and tax shelters - they are paying rent, buying food, buying homes, putting their kids through school, buying things. That money goes around and around, making everyone better off.
If you need government services, you need people to provide them, and you want the best people you can get. Living wages, decent benefits - and job stability are how you get them. These are becoming rarer than ever in the private sector.
This will cripple government in the long run. You get what you pay for.
14
Excuse me...But if you cripple the government, you could well get fired...
And there are millions of people that would be more than willing to work for the government because of the protections and benefits entrained in Civil Service Act.
Not corporate entity offers more benefits or protections than the government...
And the pensions and pension rules haven't been represented in the private sector in decades.
3
When I said cripple the government, I was referring to how the Janus excision will make it for government to attract good people.
Your faith in Civil Service protections is touching, but those too are under attack in the name of "efficiency", "reform", "flexibility", contracting-out, and all the other tricks,
As for the private sector pensions and rules no longer being found for decades, why do you think people are so desperate these days as they get older and discover 401k's are worth nothing?
Ok, so I guess that means that because your boss gave you bad benefits everyone else should have crummy benefits too.
Alternately you might ask if there's any relationship between your crummy benefits and the decline of unions.
I also think you misunderstand wages in the public sector, vs the private, as well as the sacrifice that public employees make for our collective well-being. In contrast to the "it's not our problem" sensibility of the private.
The reason that the private and public sectors are different is bc they do different things. The logic of business is a poor philosophy for institutions oriented to more idealistic and social purposes.
3
Notice how lucky President Trump keeps getting. First, Democrat pictures and audio of crying children draw so much attention to immigration that people see that their real solution to the problem is close to open borders and non-enforcement of the law, something most people reject. Then they put another stake through their own hearts by nominating a congressional candidate in New York who calls for abolition of ICE, essentially the same thing. Then they're aghast when the Supreme Court finally stops Democrat allied unions from filching from non-union workers' paychecks! And President Trump's approval ratings keep going up. Funny how Presidents tend to get lucky when they're on the right side of issues. And now he gets another Supreme Court pick. Gloria Victoria!
4
This only makes sense if those who refuse to contribute to the costs of negotiations, are required to negotiate pay and benefit on their own. Otherwise, it allows freeloading. And this is all because some right wing evangelicals don't like unions negotiating benefits for women ( birth control) and LGBTQ people. Nice.
4
A victory for business men and women but a loss for workers. This further cements the power of this CEO president and the ruling class which he represents. Remember, 45 tried to break the union at his money losing casino.
Let's go to the polls and take back our country this November.
12
The argument that all negotiations with a public employee union are "political questions" would be laughable if it were not such a clear example of conservative insanity that has swept reason from our national discourse.
6
Excuse me...
If the City Council of Baltimore approved 30% pay hikes to the teachers, police, fire, and other workers in city government, don't you think that your taxes would go through the roof?
Your tax bill is CERTAINLY a political question when it is phrased in those terms...
And when you come right down to it, that same argument is valid no matter what the City Council agrees at to the salary and benefits schedules of municipal employees.
Yet your head back in the game, Mr. Bennett...Your logic needs some serious attention.
2
Your vision of taxation and it's role in running a modern society is the only questionable logic here. You think like a teenager
1
Are you telling me that a 30% raise to government employees wouldn't see a rise in the taxes being levied?
That's absurd.
Impartial interpretation, and application, of today's Janus v. AFSCME decision would be this: surrender of constitutional protections cannot be a condition of employment (or any contract). The implications are massive! Non-disclosure clause? Unconstitutional. Mandatory arbitration clause, in lieu of civil suit? Unconstitutional. Noncompete clause? Unconstitutional.
Of course, the current Court will not interpret their own decision that way, because such interpretation would erode longstanding asymmetric advantages enjoyed by employers and holders of capital.
But that is what they decided today.
9
It is a long establish legal principle that the law CANNOT take away a right given to The People by the Constitution of the United States...
That is the whole basis of the Roe v Wade decision and many of the other "extensions" of rights that the Supreme Court has endorsed.
I you are willing to make that argument as regards to enforced union membership, then you are going to have to give it up in some of the areas of legal jurisprudence that are very dear to your liberal ideology.
Put another way. You're not going to get away with having it both ways, not matter how convenient you might think it to be.
1
Actually, I did not advocate for ANYTHING. I offered an interpretation of today's ruling, which states: Forfeiture of constitutional rights cannot be a condition of employment or a condition of engagement in any contract.
I know I'm not going to get away with having it both ways, or anything else. I do hope the corporate pigs who run this country also do not get away with having it both ways. So, yes, now I'm advocating for something: consistent application of the law and the Constitution. We liberals sometimes do that.
1
Wow, such an insightful interpretation of the constitution.
To the contrary - this is just another step in the 0.01% blow-by-blow evisceration of working peoples' ability to push back against overwhelming corporate power .
The result will be more non-union strikes - as we saw with the teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma and other "red" states that already have eviscerated unions.
The balance of power in this country is so extremely skewed toward the billionaires and their political representatives in elected or appointed (Supreme Court) office - that something will give; soon.
8
Win elections, Concerned Citizen...
Win enough of them and you might have some influence as to how the political course is charted.
Your problem, sir, is that over the past decade, you have ceded almost 1000 seats at the state and national tables.
And let me suggest that the embrace of the further left has historically not treated the Democratic Party very favorably.
See: Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Fritz Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry; even Hillary Clinton
1
If one no longer wishes to pay dues to a government that doesn't represent my interests....perhaps one can divert his or her federal taxes to state taxes come April?
15
Fine, don't join the union, but don't expect the same benefits. Those employees not paying in should have to negotiate their own terms.
20
Language, especially the english language, is a very nuanced construct. What the right has done, and done well, is to co-opt language to muddle meaning and confuse the easily confused. When a union negotiates terms of employment and benefits for workers they do so at considerable expense. I have sat across a bargaining table with a highly paid lawyer, from a white shoe firm, whose fees were paid by a deep-pocketed corporation. It is a daunting task, as a volunteer union negotiator, to attempt to negotiate with an experienced and highly trained professional. Mr. DiSalvo misrepresents the balance of power. The best cards lay in the governments hand. When workers do not contribute to the financial cost of the unions negotiation but share in the benefits won, they are allowed to partake in a meal that they didn't pay for. Management counts on these divide and conquer tactics to strengthen their already powerful position. The photo of the angry worker that accompanies this article suggests that unions are populated by vicious thuggish fellows, ignoring the fact that doctors, professors, teachers, and artists are also union members. Unions may not be perfect, but they offer workers of all professions a fighting chance when negotiating with deep pocketed firms and a conservative legal climate that favors the corporations. If a union - which advocates one person-one vote-denies free speech then what does a Supreme Court who equates a corporation to a person do.
22
Yeah. What he said. An lemme add this:
Mr. DiSalvo I don't like a man who speaks as you do.
All your learning is in how to deceive. And at the heart is very unfriendly.
The substance of this is obvious to a fourth grader who just took the Rouge Plant tour. Maybe that's yesterday.
And its corollary: Name me any sector of American society that's developed less, in operation, utility, or quality than the American labor movement.
We're here now. Hold your hat on the facts and do your part. Watch out for guys like this.
Way to go, Michael
1
Anyone who trash talks unions, does not understand or respect the role unions play in creating the middle class. I am a retired teacher who taught in three different districts in three different states. One of the great lessons about unions came during summer school in Hawaii, where unions did not represent the summer school teachers. The result was considerably lower pay, no benefits, no sick days, or no breaks during the day. This is one of the reasons we could not find certified teachers to fill every slot and in a few cases couldn't even find college graduates to teach.
This was a bad decision and I suggest that when the Democrats gain control of Congress and the White House, that they increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court to 11 or even 15 to bring justice back to the working men and women.
13
"Anyone who trash talks unions, does not understand or respect the role unions play in creating the middle class."
It was the manufacturing sector that created the middle class. With mass production higher labor costs could be absorbed.
Nonunion workers can opt out of the part of the fees used for political purposes. And I don't buy that the process is so "cumbersome" or "daunting". If a worker is is truly concerned about not having their fees used for political causes they don't approve of is an annual letter REALLY so much to ask? On the other hand, if workers are unwilling to pay the part of the fees that goes to support the union's negotiations, then please tell me...how is it just in any way for those workers to expect to share in the benefits of those negotiations?? THAT is the real issue here! Those who accept the obligations of union membership, including financial, should not be expected to carry the freeloaders who don't.
12
The reasoning of the court, and it is a good one, is that no one should be required to "opt out" in order to preserve his constitutional rights.
How would it be if you had to "opt out" in order to be the beneficiary of your Fifth Amendment rights, and have to do so year-after-year or risk waiving them all together.
I think you can get the point if you think about it for a while, Ms. Peterson; you seem to be a reasonable contributor here.
1
Owl, I simply don't agree that having to opt out is such a big deal if a person is genuinely concerned about the issue. And you're not addressing the whole argument about workers unwilling to pay to support negotiations expecting to receive the benefits of those negotiations, which I consider to be of major importance. How do you feel about that?
(BTW, thanks for saying I seem reasonable!)
Why should I address the whole argument, Ms. Peterson, when the whole issue founders on one of the most fundamental principle of all...
That "constitutional rights" are "rights" granted by the constitution, and that no one should be required to do anything to assure them.
How much more fundamental can it get?
I have no problems with non-union employees sharing expenses for negotiating of contracts. That is only fair.
But when it is the UNION that dictates solely what is "fair" without independent assessment and verification, the "sharing" of costs has more in common with extortion than anything else.
Thanks to the Supremes, voracious unions who somehow still represent maybe 6 percent of workers will now play on a level playing field.
4
So, too, will many of the politicians that the union coffers supported have to play on a level playing field.
I think that is a plus well worth the sacrifice.
4
Won’t be a level playing field until the Koch brothers and their ilk stop buying politicians. But you knew that.
So many keep writing that this decision hurts workers and benefits management. Don't your realize -- with public sector unions, "management" is us! Unions are negotiating with our representatives for more benefits, and then we have to pay for it with higher taxes and lower spending elsewhere. The unions spend money to elect people who will give them more taxpayer money and threaten those who do not.
FDR was opposed to public unions and especially collective bargaining for public employees for that reason.
9
The right to freely negotiate for wages and working conditions is recognized as a basic human right. In fact, every year the U.S. Department of State issues a report on human rights conditions around the world, measuring, among other things, every other nation on the degree to which they uphold those labor rights.
Apparently, we give away those rights when we decide to enter into public service.
3
Can you tell me where in the constitution, other than with the right to associate, that that "right" is codified?
And isn't it also true, that concomitant with the right to associate is the right NOT to associate?
Why is it that the one NOT wanting to associate has to opt out of an organization in which he had no interest in being in the first place?
There is no "right" in our Constitution that says that an individual has to be part of an association against his will.
If there is, please point to the exact clause the at you are using to support your argument and provide us with the logic that says your argument it valid.
If you can't, then you need to understand that you have proven the point made by Alito in the Janus decision.
Go back in time before there were unions and remember what life was like for working people. Since Reagan unions have been under constant attack and have declined in numbers and power. Such is the dream of hard right forces in this country in addition to the elimination of anything public. Soon the privileged few will be living in gated, secure communities in the Hamptons and the rest in tenement housing like the good old days. Be grateful for your minimum wage, diseases, and shortened lives.
21
The middle class wealth started its decrease in 1973.
Unions have their place.
But the problems with unions is that they do not go away when they are no longer needed or morph into organizations more interested in the comforts and affluence of the leadership than they are in the comforts and affluence of their members.
1
Workers have not gotten the upper hand over management in my entire working life and now they will possess even less leverage in getting a living wage, benefits, pension, maintaining a safe work environment, due process in hearing workplace grievances, employer discipline including termination. The lived experience of all workers will suffer in our country despite what a right wing think tank academic will argue.
19
In his last two paragraphs Mr. DiSalvo makes clear the real reason for the Court's ruling.
DiSalvo and the Court's majority believe municipal workers are overpaid.
Busting the municipal unions is one means of reducing worker pay and benefits.
DiSalvo is fundamentally dishonest.
Consider New Jersey.
When Christine Todd Whitman defeated incumbent government Florio, Whitman claimed she could balance her budget by cutting taxes.
She won and she cut taxes but she also ran large deficits because of loss of revenue.
To make up for the deficit she underfunded the municipal workers' pension funds.
Now conservatives like DiSalvo want to reduce workers' pensions to pay for a deficit the workers did not cause.
The cause of the deficit was tax cuts for the rich.
On the national level the GOP passed huge tax cuts for the rich that they want to pay for by cutting programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Conservatives like DiSalvo should be honest about their real purpose and not spew out this 1st amendment nonsense.
44
When I was growing In Philadelphia by the time I graduated from high school in the seventies, high paying union factory were gone or dying out.
If you weren’t going to college,the only hope for decent job with benefits was the public service job, firefighters, police officers and municipal service workers etc.
Many of those in my high school drifted into those, also my two brothers worked at city owned gas company as well as my dad.
They didn’t pay as well as some of those well paying factory jobs but had good benefits and a pension.
They were all union jobs and what I saw in Philly,better than a lot of private employers were paying and in some cases better than college educated employment.
I wonder if the Trump supporters who are more likely working these kind of jobs realize that they just been stabbed in the back by Trump’s appointee to the Supreme Court and the rest of the anti worker Republican Party
God bless the America I use to know.
27
I agree with you Martin. The Trump supporters have been fed a bill of goods. They think they're getting worker protections and good paying jobs. What they're actually getting is---sold out.
The America I used to know? R. I. P.
3
When did America, or the Trump half of it, get this stupid? I get that the religious right is fine with wrecking the economy so long as there’s a chance of overturning Roe v Wade, and that gun lovers would rather lose healthcare than the right to own an assault rifle, and that former coal miners and factory workers can’t abide migrants because their work ethic, frugality and all-round decency —they’ve left their loved ones to travel thousands of miles to work like dogs, live many to a room and wire home most of what—because it exposes their own lack of gumption; their unwillingness to move even a few hundred miles, much less thousands, to where employers are hiring, or to learn a new skill, much less a new language. But what of the educated—the millions not blinded by religious zealotry or brainwashed by the NRA? How did they get so stupid as to buy whatever Fox News is selling, to normalize bald-faced lies, blatant racism, semi-literate tweets, rampant corruption, gross incompetence, endless insults and put-downs, tax reform that explodes government debt, diplomacy that leaves alliances in tatters.
I can see that if a union were able to negotiate a 'closed shop' provision in its collective agreement, it could be argued that such a provision violated the right of freedom of association of a person seeking employment with the employer in question but who did not want to join the union. I could even accept that an employer's employee could refuse to pay that portion of an 'agency fee' that didn't relate directly to collective bargaining or to the administration of a collective agreement covering that employee.
I have real difficulty agreeing, however, that an employee that benefits from a collective agreement can choose to not pay their fair share towards the union's expenses to negotiate and administer a collective agreement under which the employee derives benefits. It's like me arguing on the grounds of freedom of association that I don't have to pay a municipal tax earmarked to pay for a park that I use ( presumably that I don't want to be forced to associate with those that pay the tax in question).
6
So says someone who likes to give other people "free stuff" Non union members benefit for wage and benefit negotiations without paying, in other words, a conservative supporting takers, not makers.
13
I didn't realize that "cumbersome" payment systems were a constitutional issue in need of remedy by the Supreme Court.
I also find Mr. DiSalvo's argument disingenuous, as he spends more time pointing out what he doesn't like about unions rather than reflecting on what the court did right.
The court claimed that an agency fee is somehow compelled speech, but they overlook the fact that the law also compels unions to negotiate on everyone's behalf.
Unions are forced by law to work for everybody, but the people they work for can choose whether or not to pay for said service.
That doesn't seem like a sensible decision, let alone a defensible one.
15
It is important to note that "represent everybody" includes taking up employment actions on behalf of persons with no connection to the union, These individuals have not only been included in the benefits gained by negotiation from the employer, while, now, contributing nothing.
Arbitrations are very expensive actions for unions; malcontents can now savage both the employer careless enough to hire them, as well as the union on their way out the door.This action demonstrates that the GOP has succeeded in politicizing the SCOTUS.
Thinking this is a deliberative body rendering wise and dispassionate is just silly. There may well be a collegial spirit to the group. When they vote, the 5 right wingers are all in the bag together.
3
“The subjects of negotiations — employee pay, benefits, work rules — are political questions about how to spend tax dollars and best provide public services. So, unions’ demands for better pay and benefits are, in effect, political positions that nonmembers are forced to underwrite.”
So, what is the bottom line? That some public employees want to be even poorer? Why is it that some states have unfunded pension funds? Maybe because they disinvest and rob employees?
At some point everyone will quit.
7
https://twitter.com/DeanBaker13/status/1012051276392214528
Dean Baker @DeanBaker13
Apparently no one told Justice Alito that in this country workers are free to work for another employer. That is what conservatives tell workers who don't like the pay/benefit/or hours package on offer from an employer.
Steven Greenhouse @greenhousenyt
Justice Alito is clearly inviting a new case to further weaken public-sector unions. On page 2, he suggests exclusive representation is unconstitutional: "Designating a union as the employees’ exclusive representative substantially restricts the rights of individual…
12:13 PM - 27 Jun 2018
4
This would be the easy way to fix this issue, why should a card carrying member of the union pay for lazy workers that simply want something for nothing. The company can have different levels of healthcare, and leave, and pay. The company representatives would also let those people know that they can't file grievances.
They want the union benefits, all of them, including the right to file a grievance against management, they just don't want to pay for them. Who in their right mind would say, naa, I don't want better benefits, pay, healthcare, paid time off. I'm happy making substantially less than the guy next to me that's part of the union. If I was a member of a union, I would demand that the union exclude those who don't want to pay, that want to ride for free off those who want the union and the protections it brings. Remember the TV ad for the garment sewers union,
"Look for the union label, when you are buying a coat, dress or blouse. Remember somewhere our union's sewing, our wages going to feed the kids and run the house, We work hard but who's complaining. So, always look for the union label,
it says we're able to make it in the U.S.A".
For those RWA (right wing authoritarian), let them wallow in their whiny self imposed I', aggrieved, and my first amendment right are being usurped, leave them in low paying jobs, with bad benefits. They need to learn a valuable lesson, nothing in life is free, and corporations won't willingly give the worker ANYTHING.
13
I too have that song by heart. It was catchy. You left out a line.
We work hard but who's complaining,
'Cause through the ILG we're paying our way!
So, always look for the union label,
it says we're able to make it in the U.S.A".
And what you say is true.
Unions Needed to Be Restrained
[ A heading I noticed in the New York Times, I do not care what the essay is about or who wrote it and will not read it. The point is that liberalism is being taken apart in the country, and defeats are defeats and no more. Liberal defeats are only victories for conservatives, for wild, extreme-minded conservatives.
Oh well. ]
6
If "daunting" and "cumbersome" are the legal standards to apply, what about all the voter id laws that Republicans have enacted???
"Unions offer a remedy to workers who don’t want to support their political positions, but it is cumbersome. They must renounce their membership, write a letter annually to opt out of political spending, and then wait for the union to send them a check for the percentage of their agency fees it says it spent on politics.
Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion rejected that solution. The problem is that the onus is on dissenting workers to ensure the protection of their First Amendment rights. They must write opt-out letters (often year after year) or risk underwriting union political activity they oppose. The opinion called the process “daunting.”"
6
"Justice Alito argued that the “line” between the two “has proved impossible to draw with precision” and resulted in endless litigation."
That exact same problem didn't seem to bother Alito one iota when it came to the income and race-gerrymandering of congressional districts.
Plaintiffs like Janus (appropriately named) are aggressively sought out by conservative lawyers.
18
Labor unions need to expand to reign in out-of-control plutocratic unions that can afford extravagant legal teams, lobbyists, PR teams, and consultants whose only purpose is to run the economic board with little to no regard of those who need to put a roof over their heads, eat, clothes themselves, and hopefully be able to get medical treatments when needed.
1
"Janus Decision Reins in Unions’ Political Power"
Janus is a start, but unfortunately the damage has already been done. For the past 25+ years public employee unions have pushed for, and been granted, lavish retirement benefits. Benefits that are not close to being fully funded. Benefits that will bankrupt many states and local government entities.
FDR was right, public employee unions are not in the best interests of the public.
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/18/the-first-blow-against-...
8
Two of the last three Presidents win without a majority of the votes.The Senate will not even vote on Obama Supreme Court candidate. Are these court decisions really the will of the people? Union busting has been dangerous in the past, it needs to be again.
25
Mr. DiSalvo,
You misunderstand the main function of collective bargaining. Individual workers have little power to bargain with a large wealthy company or a government agency. Collective bargaining gives them the ability to to make that inequality more equal, to create a more level playing field.
In return, the individual union member is required to pay dues so that the union can pay representatives or lawyers to bargain with these behemoths.
The destruction of unions, both public and private, is creating more and more inequality in this country. If it isn't
stemmed, it will create more hatred between capitalists and workers and between the latter and their bosses in the agencies.
21
He has no misunderstanding of the benefits of collective bargaining. He is a member of an elite group that believes everyone is overcompensated for their services but them. They don't want to participate in this process. He just puts the learned academic spin on the argument. Having been on both sides of the fence, I've seen and heard this attitude expressed many times. The non union worker has been indoctrinated he can cut a better deal. History tells us otherwise.
4
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.
How does an individual with the "feeble strength of one" ever cut a better deal?
The whole cult of "rugged individualism" in the GOP is snake oil. So is the racism they work so hard to stoke. It's all just a cover for "divide and conquer."
@Diogenes
The whole column is riddled with dissembling. "Misunderstanding" is what he's paid to do!
Unions have too much power, but not the billionaires and corporations who bought themselves another tax cut.Not sure I agree. How about we get rid of campaign contributions(bribes) altogether.
57
Your suggestion about getting rid of all contributions is perfect. Why can a regular federal employee, say your letter carrier, get fired for accepting a $20 Christmas tip, but for a member of Congress, the sky's the limit so long as it's for his or her campaign. Who asked for their campaigns anyway?
2
To the Manhattan Institute, any power unions have is too much power, so this guy and the Institute's right-wing benefactors will be making the same spurious arguments until there are no unions. To them, workers should have no rights. That's where we are headed as long as Republicans are running all three branches of government.
57
One dream that Trump sells to his base that under his presidency, the high school graduate can go directly to a well paying factory job. After this ruling, no unions to organize workers to pressure for fair pay and good working conditions.
Public sector unions used to force governments to set the standard for proper treatment of employees. No more. Now, more power to the employers, less power to the workers.
I suppose we cannot withhold taxes for policies we do not approve.
24
Unions should be reined in just after anti-trust rules are enforced to keep large companies like United Technologies from gaining excessive power in the markets. We let UTC buy any company they like, while a bunch of workers in one building are not allowed to consolidate their power.
12
I think workers have a right to join a union if they don't want to, nor pay anything to the union they didn't join. But they have no right to any of the raises, rights, or benefits union workers gain through contracts and arbitration, they should have no access to the contracts union workers approve, and if the govt. in question chooses to pay non-union workers less or grant them fewer benefits, no legal basis to sue for such.
32
but I believe that the freeloaders get what everyone else gets.
1
Mr DeSalvo neglects to mention that Mr Janus fully supported the work of the union on his behalf. He just objected to the political bent of the union. Janus asked that his contributions not be used to support the groups political activities and the union complied. This case was solicited from the bench and the supreme court jumped at the chance to engage in some good old-timey union bustin'.
Expect more of this and worse with the cons coming solid majority.
27
There needs to be a balance. What is fair for the goose is fair for the gander. If union members can opt out of paying dues that support a political position or candidate with which they disagree; then corporate stockholder should be able to opt out and not have a portion of their profits applied to the support of a political position or candidate with which they disagree.
33
And consumers should have the right to not have their costs increased by corporate lobbying either. Unions are required to break out non-representational costs under Beck. As consumers we pay corporate lobbying costs. These include a portion of dues paid to the US Chamber of Commerce, NFIB, and basically every business organization who all do lobbying. Time for a rebate!
8
Let us not forget that the first order of business for any union is to stay in business. Why do unions have to take money out of a working persons check anyway? Why can't people donate to a union as they do to a religious organization or charity? You don't see them going broke.
5
Religious organizations and charities do not exist to serve as a counterbalance against the massive wealth and power of corporate upper management and ownership. They did not grow out of an era of incredible worker abuses and atrocities incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't earnestly researched them. And while charitable contributions benefit others, union contributions directly benefit the individual who contributed.
As to why they take money out of a working person's check: they do so because that check would be significantly smaller without their efforts. A lot of working folks, including conservatives, are about to discover that hard truth in the coming years.
8
Kurt- "Why do unions have to take money out of a working persons check anyway?"
Who pays the legal fees if you file a grievance against your employer? Should the union lawyers work pro-bono?
6
I can only assume that Kurt Pickard is kidding. You don't see them going broke because they collect fees to pay for lawyers during negotiations, support striking workers, defend their members who file grievances, etc. Sheesh.
3
I am a member of a public sector union, and the description of how to opt out of political contributions is false. I had to opt IN to political funds. Besides, if Janus does not believe he should be making the salary he is, he is more than welcome to write a check back to his employer. It is even tax deductible.
28
But I know a physician in Ohio who had no choice but to be member of the state union as a state hospital employee. I also know of Illinois teachers who in principle did not want to belong to union, but had to pay fee. They are against teachers having ability to strike, ever.
3
Josh: the same is true in Los Angeles: the teachers' union does not use union dues for political activism, and I as a member have an option to pay into a political fund. Though I agree with many of their political opinions, I don't believe that political activism is their job, therefore I don't pay into that fund. The Supreme Court engaged in Republican/oligarch activism here, the same as it did in Citizens United.
16
Right. They just want all the pay and benefits that the union negotiated for. If they think they can get those on their own they are delusional.
1
Big ambiguity in the press coverage: does this decision stomp on just public employee unions? Or all unions?
Makes a big difference. The former have a dramatic remedy available to them that reflects their level of public support: the strike. Teachers, police, firefighters, all have this option to make their case directly to the people who pay them.
If it's all unions, this could be heralding a new approach to workers' rights once the people are back in power: a national measure that helps all workers, not just those in the Rust Belt industries.
Now is the time for Democrats to start advancing that solution instead of kowtowing to the 10 percent or so in a union and claiming this signals their support for working people.
1
In most states public employed unions are not allowed to strike.
2
My personal opinion is that unions do not have too much power but with one exception - Police Unions. Police unions abuse their power by protecting their members no matter what. It doesn't seem to matter how many times police officers shoot down unarmed black men and boys. It doesn't seem to matter whether it is caught on camera (body camera or otherwise). It doesn't seem to matter how many multi-million dollar lawsuits are filed against city governments. Chicago has paid out something in the range of $500 million over the past couple of decades. It doesn't seem to matter if they torture of abuse citizens. Chicago, like many other cities, has a horrible history in this regard. THE POLICE UNIONS PROTECT THEIR MEMBERS FROM OVERSIGHT, PROSECUTION, JUSTICE. And they prevent the public, who the police are sworn to protect, from protection.
17
Of course police unions protect their members.
Leadership, good order, discipline, and enforcement of standards is the job of the Chief and those he appoints down the line to lead the Department. It is not the union's job. If the union started to do it, then we'd all have reason to complain.
The courts don't prosecute either, and juries find them innocent. The racism goes deep. This is not the unions fault alone.
2
Mr. DiSalvo conveniently forgets that unions represent people who work for a living. Lobbyists for industries represent the lavishly paid executives and board members of large corporations.
36
Ahh! Stepping on individual rights . Why I could never support libertarianism in these modern times. In macro-history ,as man progressed ,we have misplaced belief that the reason we have progressed is due to intellect rather than pragmatism. Progress is due to increased numbers (population) & the need for efficiency in our expanded population. Expanding population means we have to change. If we want peace, prosperity & a long life ,we need organization & cooperation,therefore limiting liberties. The alternative is death, stagnation, & deteorating environment. So in this case,by the ruling, why should unions share their negotiated contracts with non-unions? I am for that. Also, Mr. Janus sidestepped something,why does he not help steer the unions? You see ,I consider a union the same as our government, a Union of the highest order. Your only choice is be apart of governing (Union ,management ,investors & government) , or sit on the sidelines & throw a tantrum. Mr. Janus is throwing a tantrum. A problem we have today, everyone throwing a tantrum because they are not getting what they want. Especially baby boomers. So Justice Kennedy ,great timing. I hope your retirement is cut in half. That's what your party wants.
8
"The problem is that the onus is on dissenting workers to ensure the protection of their First Amendment rights. They must write opt-out letters (often year after year) or risk underwriting union political activity they oppose. The opinion called the process “daunting.”"
The real problem is that after you have gone through this "daunting" process, the amount of dues deemed to be "political" and refundable are laughably small.
The California government is a wholly owned subsidiary of the public employee unions. The entire system is corrupt. The public sector unions use their high levels of funding and organization to elect friendly government folks who, in turn, hand out higher pay and benefits. There is no "management" function, no one actually looking out for the best interests of the enterprise. There are just lots of folk trying to ensure maximum benefits for government workers -- at all levels. One key result: grossly over promised and underfunded pension plans.
12
DiSalvo tells a highly selective "truth" which distorts the reality.
For many years, state and local governments have resisted pay raises commensurate with inflation and the market value of the labor they employ. Many public sector workers need substantial education and/or specialized training; some of them do jobs that are highly stressful or grueling.
Without adequate pay raises, the only way to hire enough capable people has been the added incentive of benefits (including pensions) better than those available to most private sector workers.
I understand that the average person looks at typical public service pensions and health packages with envy. But the total compensation (pay + benefits) is typically in scale with private sector work requiring comparable qualifications.
Because POLITICS (not the workers) shifted so much of the compensation into pensions, politicians of the Greed Over People ilk have, in many states and towns, found it convenient to rob pension funds in order to fund irresponsible tax cuts. [State and local governments usually can't snowball budget deficits the way the Federal government does.]
This enables government-hating shills like DiSalvo to blame the robbery victims for the unfunded pension plans -- those stubborn unions!
Note that part of the argument before SCOTUS was that workers were _forced_ to support "political" pay and benefit increases. How many workers were actually opposed?
DiSalvo's argument is, at its heart, dishonest.
17
True, local government has chosen to put off expenses into the future, promising pensions and medical care later instead of pay raises now. Then they don't fund the promises. Whose fault is that?
1
For people who don't believe in unions for their profession, this will be popular.
Some questions it raises:
What about those benefits unions procure?
Also, who will speak for the rights of non-union employees if they need some workplace protections?
Also, will non-union employees be easier to fire?
6
From what I read of this ruling, the non-union member gets all the benefits of the union w/o having to pay for it. They get the pay, the benefit package, they get the same rights only the union has to speak for them.
They get what union workers get w/o any dues. They get a free ride w/o having to do anything.
2
The late Justice Rand would be turning in his grave. Whatever happened to the notion of "no free riders". The argument that opting out is too cumbersome is totally without merit. A majority of the Supreme Court has no compunction about protecting States that impede voting rights with truly burdensome requirements in order to stifle Democratic voters, but deny unions there right to charge for their bargaining services which they are under a statutory duty to provide. The majority are "legislating" not "interpreting" the Constitution - something the "right" always accuse supposed liberal judges of doing. If you want to overturn a 40 year old precedent at least have the guts to do it through Congress.
15
Amazing how those who say that they want to bring back the golden age of the 1950s so frequently neglect to mention that union membership was much higher then than now.
I suspect that what they really want to bring back was what they see as the Golden (ahem, "Gilded") Age of the 1880s and 1890s, where those who didn't know their place were dealt with rather harshly and employees did what they were told and were cast off when broken.
38
I'm personally hoping this begins to eat at teacher unions from which begins to chip away at public education. We should abolish public education and focus on private education in the form of Lawrenceville School and other elite private schools. These would expand with public education out of the way and would be far more efficient at teaching their students.
Ideally more states become right to work states and eventually with Kennedy retiring maybe we can push to repeal the National Labor Relation Act along with the Railway Labor Act. Further I hope we re-litigate ACA and overturn it.
3
Yes that makes sense. Everyone who can't afford to attend Lawrenceville can just be a 12-year-old farmhand instead. That worked excellently until the late 19th century, no reason not to bring it back.
Efficiency in education is extremely important. Best to get the kids in, tested, and out. Doesn't matter whether they learn anything, as long as the ROI is high.
And yes, I'm sure that the Chief Justice will be happy to overturn NFIB v. Sebelius, the case he decided on the basis of the tax and spend power, departing from almost 60 years of commerce power jurisprudence. That seems likely.
12
You assume a lot. You can devise a system where those who are low on money can attend without taxing.
I assume nothing except the extreme inadvisability of backpedalling from universal education. There isn't a single developed country in the world that does not offer public education, many underdeveloped countries offer it as well. Indeed, education is a fundamental constitutional right in this very country. Unless someone can demonstrate a working model wherein a system of solely private schools can meet this constitutional burden, I will continue to disregard any opinion that public education should be abolished.
This news is as bad as any of the other decisions that have rolled out of the Supreme Court, and I wish it were receiving more attention.
Unions are one of the last options available to workers to organize for better wages, safer work conditions, and benefits that allow them to work in dignity. It's no wonder that conservatives want to chip away at those options, pitting individual against individual instead of allowing workers to band together for their common good. And shame on any worker who benefits from the hard work of their union without supporting their efforts.
I don't think the words common good have much meaning to Mr. DeSalvo, who must believe (like Mr. Trump) that since he got his, the rest of us can make do with whatever is left over.
15
How unsafe is it to be a teacher or a governmental employee?
2
Actually, Richard, I just spent the last two days working in 107 heat inches from traffic, walking along a two-foot roadway shoulder, adjacent to steep drop-offs, working on a public safety project. So, yes, in many cases, public sector work can be very hazardous! The multiple memorial stickers on the back of my hard hat that mark the lives lost while on the job, attest to that!
Richard- are you serious? No risk to firefighters or policemen??? Really? Teachers risk being shot due to our lax gun laws, quite a few HAVE been shot and died! Nurses deal with patients with dangerous contagions like AIDS, hepatitis, dangerous communicable diseases and the mentally unstable. Social workers go into drug infested, gang infested neighborhoods, FBI investigate drug rings and crime syndicates. Teachers work in schools with gang violence, drug addictions and mentally unstable students. Teachers have been raped by students, attacked by parents. Our former mailman was beaten because the driver behind him was po'd that the delivery vehicle kept stopping at mailboxes. The DEA handles drug crime. Border Patrol deals with drug smuggling. But yeah, just a cake walk.
To be clear: Mr. DiSalvo wants his readers to think that this decision protects Mr. Janus from having to pay for speech in favor of political views he disagrees with--as when a union gives money to politicians with an interest in, say, promoting environmental regulations, or pro-choice politics. But that's false.
In fact, the law already bars the use of fair share fees for such political purposes. They can be used only to pay for the union's negotiations on behalf of workers.
In short, Mr. Janus has won the right to be protected from speech advocating his own workplace interests.
Enjoy your symptom, Mr. Janus.
21
Public employee union actions are by their nature political.
1
Ok, so what? Right to work laws are not "political"?
The politics that this decision freed Mr. Janus from being "forced" to support was the politics of decent pay and work for Mr. Janus and his co-workers. Now he has won the right to end up with worse pay and working conditions. Good for him. Too bad for millions of other public sector workers, and too bad for tens of millions of Americans who will no longer be protected from the politics of their billionaire betters by the organized resistance of unions.
The unions and their more conscientious members need to start a NEW campaign called "DOUBLE MY DUES" which is the most effective way for workers to fight back against this horrific, anti-labor missive from the Trump Court.
3
Nah, just "Screw the scabs."
Drive them out of the workplace. Their small minded selfishness has made them management tools to hurt everyone else.
2
I'm old enough that I grew up with the idea that a good job meant working 9-5 (including one hour paid lunch) five days a week. Your pay included a pension if you stayed with the company long enough. The pension required no contribution from you.
This was all due to unions. It led to the largest, most successful, middle class society in history.
In the last 35 years of destroying unions, the result is that Americans today work 24-7. With two or more adults working to make ends meet.
The only retirement is whatever they can put at risk in financial instruments never meant to replace pensions.
Workers protections have been largely destroyed.
We are almost back to the pre-1929 "utopia" where owners/corporations have all the power and workers have no rights.
Sadly, this is the norm in human history.
Our solution worked beautifully (for white folks at least) for about 50 years (with the help of the economic engine of WWII.)
I'm afraid a true, safe middle class society was but a blip.
59
Yes, these people supporting this have no clue as to what it was like before unions.
They think they have it bad now, with this decision means people won't have the right to work in safe conditions. They won't have the right to decent wages. They won't have the right to be able to retire.
But they will have the right to be as poor as possible. They will have the right to no rights as a worker. Just the way it was before unions came along.
There is a reason why the late 19th century was called the Age of the Robber Barons. Workers had no rights at all, in some cases they didn't even have the right to quit. The working model back then was that the corporation provided you with the lowest wages and most unsafe working conditions. You lived in their housing shacks, bought your goods at the company store, and the prices were more than your pay. So you always owed money to the corporation. Thus the corporation owned you and force you to stay on.
This is what they are bringing us back to, when the rest of the people lived in poverty under the thumb of the rich.
It was unionizing that ended all of that. W/o them, we wouldn't have fair labor practices nor decent wages like we did in the 50s'.
But as you note, the unions have been under fire and losing ground. And people are ending up being wage slaves once again. This decision will hurt the unions more and there will be no ability to stop the rich from doing away with all the protections workers still have.
4
Perhaps it is out of fashion now, but Galbraith's theory of countervailing powers comes to mind. The unions aggregate the power of individuals to balance the power of large corporations. The power of corporations, especially their political power, has been steadily increasing since Galbraith's time, with a particular surge after the Citizens United decision. Now, the power of a particular type of union, in particular their political power, is being sharply diminished by another Supreme Court decision. Between the conservative bent of the Supreme Court and the conservative control of the other two branches of government, the future looks bright for corporations, but not so for workers.
46
DiSalvo notes that "unions’ demands for better pay and benefits are, in effect, political positions that nonmembers are forced to underwrite." Clearly Janus restores workers' right to accept lower pay and fewer benefits. A triumph for justice!
51
The same employees who claim that their first amendment right is being violated by implicitly supporting a lobbying group, have reaped the benefits that unions have brought about to the average worker. Fine. If you choose not to support the union, then feel free to come into work on Saturdays. Work for 18 hour shifts as those before you did until they sprung into collective action for better working conditions.
Mr. DiSalvo writes, "In California, the public unions spent more on political campaigns in the first decade of this century than the pharmaceutical, oil and tobacco industries combined." How is this supposed to justify your argument? You mean the collective dollars of unions, thousands of citizens, outspent the groups representing the elite and narrow interests? That's how it should be. It is striking how quickly we are to forget our recent history. As if life has always been this way.
36
So in other words, workers can't be forced to contribute to unions who support Democrats, but Citizens United permits the companies for which they work to support Republicans, and since corporation can now have religion, the companies they work for can discriminate against gay people too?
In the words of Mr. Pickwick, you, sir, are a humbug.
99
Why does the burden of a $25 billion shortfall in pension funding in Oregon fall upon the employees rather than those tasked with pension management, AKA the employers? And what is this conflation of unions with oil and pharmaceutical lobbies? Unions represent real people and real workers, while oil and pharma companies represent the profit of shareholders. Unions are not the same as 'big corporations,' and the comparison of the two just shows how successful corporate-funded attacks on unions actually are. And the irony, of corporate interests understanding the rising tide of aversion to corporations, and using that against unions! As individuals, we have agency and are powerful in a democracy, but no individual can hold the same weight of what we can do together. DiSalvo is correct in saying this ruling isn't a death blow to public-sector unions, but for the wrong reasons. Collective action will live on.
64
"In California, the public unions spent more on political campaigns in the first decade of this century than the pharmaceutical, oil and tobacco industries combined."
Is data not available after 2010, or is it just convenient for the argument to forget that Citizens United was decided that year and would allow much more private spending on campaigns?
32
Though there are a few points here I would take issue with here, I feel this is a well-reasoned argument, and I think it's good that the Times is presenting this viewpoint. There are plenty of pro-union progressives who feel that public-sector unions have over-reached in numerous cases, protect problem employees, and refused to compromise in good faith when it comes to pensions.
7
And what might that compromise in terms of pensions be. When a public employee is hired, they don't dictate how much will be put into their pension, and they sure in the heck have no say in whether or not that state puts their end into the PERS (Public Employees Retirement System) of public employees. It seems to me that employees have held up their end of the bargain, and put into their PERS account. Contrary to what the author of this article is leading some readers to think, public employees contribute to their PERS account. In fact public employees don't contribute to Social Security, however, that same amount 6.2% of their pay must be deducted and put into the employees PERS account.
If there's a short fall it isn't the fault of the employee, in fact it's the employer that hasn't put their matching contribution, how is that the fault of the employee. Those hired into public jobs, are promised a pension, they aren't holding anyone hostage and forcing the state to make promises in terms of pension funding. As an ex-state of Alaska employee, I'm well aware of the PERS issues, and like with any government entity, the mismanage money, which exactly what has happened. And the driving force behind that is the fact that companies lobbied the government to create a pension insurance program, to make up the difference in the employer created shortfall.
8
Why should I give up my promised pension and benefits in lieu of a lower pay at the time when I did the work. I kept my end of the bargain by working. I deserve to be paid what was agreed on.
They didn't compromise on my wages, telling me that I was getting those wages back with my pension. I accepted that agreement for that promised pay in the end. Now they want to take away what was promised because they screwed up?
I have watched the state refuse to fund the pensions properly, to take money out of the fund for other things. They created that shortfall, not me. They knew that someday the bill would come due and they didn't work to solve it at all. And now I am expected to let my money, THAT I EARNED, to be taken away from me?
Obviously since it is my money you wish to take away and not yours, it is ok. I bet you would be really accommodating if your employer said to you, sorry I can't pay you what I owe you. You are going to have to give up getting paid for the work you did. I bet you would just go along with that. Sure, you would just say yes sir, I'll go w/o pay. I bet.
I didn't get wage increases as inflation went up. I did w/o so that I would be able to retire and live decently. So I wouldn't have to eat catfood and live on the street. So I could have healthcare as I age.
I worked as an union rep (w/o pay) for my fellow workers. And when someone was a problem, they were called on it. And got fired if they didn't change their behavior since they got a warning 1st.
3
Daniel DeSalvo's Manhattan Institute is a right-wing 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank that focuses on 'welfare reform' (dismantling social programs), 'faith-based initiatives' (blurring the distinction between church and state), and 'education reform' (destroying public education)"....all so billionaires can suck the last dollar of profit from the American middle class and the poor.
It was also recognized as leading the Republican/corporate efforts to destroy Ralph Nader (consumer protection and citizen's rights) and his supporters in the 1990s.
The Manhattan Institute has received funding from the Koch brothers.
The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations, reported giving $2,075,000 to the Manhattan Institute between 2001 and 2012.
At a time of record income inequality, record corporate power and influence, moneyed speech, the most expensive healthcare rip-off in the world and collapsing public infrastructure, DiSalvo wants workers to shut up and be quiet, keep their heads down, enjoy their slave labor wages and be thankful for their gruel.
He thinks billionaire moneyed speech is okay, but union speech is a real problem.
DiSalvo is a right-wing hitman in a mad race to the economic bottom for the American worker.
He's a frontman for Robber Barons and Reverse Robin Hoods.
He's a radical Republican hellbent on destroying living worker wages.
Where do they find these misanthropes ?
D to go forward; R for Grand Old Poverty.
227
Thank you for pointing out this obvious bias and conflict of interest on the part of the author. Opinion writers should be required to declare potential conflicts, like authors of clinical studies.
2
This comment should have been the article.
1
Spot on, Socrates. This article is shockingly partisan for this publication. All I need to know about this new blow to the middle class and aging:
Can unions opt out of protecting and bargaining for non-members? On NPR this morning, The head of the NEA in Illinois said they are obligated to bargain for non-members. What is fair about that?
Unions have made it clear they do not use this money for political purposes, only contractural, legal protections, and bargaining, so that is a lie, NYT. Print a correction.
Any article which does NOT TELL ME WHO FUNDS LIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER, which searched out this man, this "child support specialist" who helps destroy child support, simply violates the tenets of Fourth Estate responsibility. You won't meet your responsibility? I will.
Per the Economic Policy Institute:
"The Liberty Justice Center (LJC) is the legal arm of an Illinois-based conservative think tank called the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI). A review of LJC and IPI’s 990s provides a limited view of their financial profile, but it is clear that they survive off of the same core group of corporate-backed organizations that contribute to many political and legal fights against unions. Donors Trust, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, Dunn’s Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking, and the Charles Koch Institute have supported the Illinois Policy Institute and Liberty Justice Center."
This piece is pure propaganda.
1
It's not a coincidence that the decline of union power, the stagnation of middle class wages and the increases in economic inequality all began at the same time. The last 40 years in this country are a testament to how necessary unions are for a healthy economy.
46
Funny how the "prosperity for all" that Republicans pine for was built with the help of union labor in the '50s, but now those same Republicans hate unions because they cut into the profits of the 1%. Last one out please turn off the light for our Democracy...
41
When I was in a non-traditional healthcare workers union a couple of decades ago, those who had an objection to belonging to the union were able to donate an amount equivalent to their union dues to a non-profit charity. It was called "fair share" so people didn't get something for nothing, but had to contribute a fair share to something else worthwhile.
14
When reading Daniel DiSalvo's opinion piece in support of the Janus decision by the Supreme Court, one gets the impression that public employee unions are too powerful, extremely self-serving, very greedy and not interested in the common good. Having worked for most of my life in the public sector as a member of public sector unions in K-12 and now higher education, I must strongly disagree with his claims. The loss of agency fees will doubtless impact the ability of public sector unions to advance their priorities, and what exactly are those priorities? A decent, living wage, health care for all, workplace protections against health and safety hazards, and defenses against abusive management practices. As a college professor, Mr. DiSalvo knows full well that in higher education, the dominant labor force model today relies on low wage, non-permanent faculty whose compensation is only a pittance in comparison to tenured, permanent faculty members. Without strong unions for non-permanent higher education faculty, the exploitation of those faculty members will only get worse, and a tangible result of the Janus decision will be to weaken the ability of non-permanent faculty to bargain effectively for improved wages, benefits and job security. The effect of Janus will be to place even more power in the hands of management, and make it even harder for public employees to sustain a middle class existence.
43
Hurts workers and their families. Weakens protections and political clout for all workers so it strengthens big business and the rich and powerful. Just another day in Trump's America. Sad.
28
Wrong. You are arguing for unilateral disarmament. If the unions need reined in, so do the oligarchs.
123
The idea that the "playing field" needs to be rebalanced to rein in the power of unions is absurd. Corporate America, with its unlimited funds allowed by the Citizens United decision, has a great deal more resources than unions. Also, for all of those who don't believe in contract negotiations, good luck negotiating for yourself. We can see how well free agency works by observing Uber drivers and Amazon delivery people.
Remember, union members, that the union is you, just as our nation's democracy is you. When these institutions are gone, you will have no voice, and there will be no one left to speak but corporations who by necessity must put the rights of the shareholders over those of the workers. Unions, like our precious school boards, are ways for citizens and workers to have some control over national institutions. Stand with your union.
69
bv in Sacramento,
True. Last figures I read were that for business interests, including the Chamber of Commerce, and other industry-paid lobbyists, there were over 600 of them *for every member of Congress, both House and Senate.*
Google search says, from the Center for Responsive Politics:
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c&showYear=2018
that *just* three of the top 4 business sector spenders, "Health" and "Financial/Insurance/Real Estate," and "Communications/Electronics" outspend the entire Labor lobbying effort by a ratio of almost 36:1
Who besides Labor is lobbying for the average working American? The Koch Brothers' lobbyists? I think not!
1
I guess if they don't want to pay for union representation, they should not reap the benefits unions negotiate for. They might decide it's worth the money spent to have safety features, lunch breaks, weekends and a living wage.
38
So many people are against the money and power of unions. Weirdly enough, so many of these same people are not against the wielding of money and power by the Koch Brothers and friends. Maybe the supreme court should declare that unions are people and their money is free speech just like they did for corporations.
155
Two wrongs does not make one right
Yes, David Bible, so true. Let us also note that under NAFTA, the so-called free trade agreement, capital is free to slosh across the border as investors purchase land for factories in Mexico so that cheaper labor can be purchased there. Meanwhile, labor in Mexico can only come across the border "illegally" even though the jobs on this side are being offered by capital -- of course!
Not only is this not a "free trade" agreement -- labor is essentially excluded from the negotiation of the "deal" and the resultant agreement, the whole thing is actually only incidentally a trade agreement. It's actually an investor protection agreement (thanks, Professor Chomsky for the clarification).
You can see that it's really about protecting investors and not primarily about trade because the environment that we all breathe, drink, and live in is also not protected by the agreement; the agreement gives the final say on the environment to -- you guessed it -- investors and some "arbitration" process that is paid for by -- you guessed it -- investors.
So, if perchance someday the environment should become too toxic to breathe, to drink, or to live in, the arbitration mechanism will find the investors, uh, not responsible, leaving any bills payable for the taxpayers, which, if memory serves, does not include Il Presidente Trumpolini.
2
Janus was wrong about not having a voice in how his union dues were being spent. Unions elect their representatives just like we do in our Government. Those representatives then decide what to do with the money we pay them. Sometimes we like what they do sometimes we don't.
78
Unions have no political power if there is no public support for it.
The recent examples of the teachers protesting on the front lawns of the state capitols was a good show of force, but if the public didn't back them up they would have gotten a mere pence of what they asked for.
Employers do not like unions because they have to deal with a group, but in the long run they are better off because everyone is treated the same and generally most unions want to work with there employers because without them there is no need for a union.
6
I'm skeptical that there will actually be that many free riders who opt out of their public-sector union membership. Time will tell whether this is really all that devastating. A setback perhaps, but the opt-out rates will probably be less than predicted.
I'd personally prefer to see less "big money" dominating the elections on both sides, whether it's the public employee unions or the large business interests that have been granted first amendment access to election campaign finance. Same problem with ballot initiatives in states like California. Not that we need every campaign to be crowdfunded, but the concentration of financial power on both sides has corrupted the U.S. political system. Some might say that the two wrongs offset each other; I say they don't make it right.
3
Mr. DiSalvo's bad faith here is galling, and his logic as illuminating as a cloud of tear gas.
The political organization that fair-share fee payers are required to contribute to so as "to keep their job" exists solely to bargain for decent wages and working conditions for the jobholder. The bad faith proposition here is that fair-share fee payers are harmed by the union's success in doing so, because, supposedly, of those payers' ideological commitment to lower pay and worse working conditions for public sector workers. In other words, Mr. Janus has been harmed by having to pay a few dollars for "speech" that won him better pay and working conditions than he believes any public sector workers--not just him!--deserve.
The tear-gassy logic comes when Mr. DiSalvo fudges that absurd ideological commitment with unions' political support for policies and candidates. But the law already requires that fair share fees not include any contribution to these ends.
Bad faith and false logic are the symptoms of propaganda. The Janus decision is meant to do what Trump has already claimed it was meant to do: defund and disempower progressive politics. The free speech claim is an absurdly transparent pretext.
84
A great day for (real) America and real Americans indeed.
Then Justice Kennedy will be gone in one month, the first of more rather likely vacancies on the SCOUT for President Trump to file in remaining six years of his presidency.
On November 6th, 2016, we were really fortunate. Really scary to imagine that the Clintons would be at the White House again.
6
Real americans don't want this world of yours. They want decency, they want fair pay, they want sanity, they want leaders who are not selling out the country for the highest profit while the rest of us get nothing for our work.
You are a minority, the majority won't accept what you are doing. There is always a backlash.
The rich already have most of the wealth of the country and you will give them the little remaining wealth we have.
The election of Trump was the 1st step in destroying our democracy and country. And now republicans are proving that is what they wanted all along.
4
Well Mr." Refugee from EastEuro Communism":
We don't need no refugees here,anymore-didn't you catch the memo?
1
It's interesting to read someone suggest public unions should be reined in. The bigger issue in this country is the need for an expansion of union power.
Right now, public unions are the last bastion of strength for workers. Public unions also have large numbers of women in the ranks, and this affords one place where we have made inroads in equal pay.
Workers in general are at a decided disadvantage, and given our political climate, it's going to get worse. To suggest weakening bargaining power is in order is to be tone deaf to overall employer - employee relations in America.
118
But Disalvo, Manhattan Institute and the rest of their ilk are definitely not tone deaf to the wishes of their rich masters. They don't bite the hand that feeds them, do they?
My dad was a lifelong union member. I joined a union whenever I could -- most places in Texas and Oklahoma don't have unions; the owners fear and loathe them; they even made us attend employee meetings decrying the awfulness of unions, which always raised my blood pressure.
Despite my approval of unions, I never thought it was right to force those employees who hate them to pay union dues. That strong-arming takes away their money and their right to make their own life choices. That's un-American.
That said, most unions would greatly help most American workers get a better deal. Working conditions and pay were unacceptable in most of my places of employment, places that were very profitable, like casinos.
10
Then get a job SOMEWHERE else!! It is extremely unfair to receive collective bargaining benefits you don't pay for. Teachers can go work at private schools or charter schools and get paid $15.00 an hour with minimal benefits if being in a union is so onerous. Police can become security guards making minimum wage and nurses can go work in nursing homes and make subsistence wages. Post Office workers can go work for Fedex and drive around in their OWN vehicles delivering packages. There's plenty of private sector jobs that pay far less if they're so offended at having to pay union dues. No one is forcing them to work at a union job, be it public or private. But no-one should get a free ride for bargained benefits that others pay for. Funny the republicans always talk about being the no-free lunch crowd but they sure don't want to have to pay for anything. Especially benefits that are only gained through union membership and protection. Good luck when your manager's son-in-law needs your job. No union protection? Job security is out the window!
32
I pay union dues for collective bargaining why should they get benefits without paying for them. people who do not pay and get the same benefits. They should have to do their own negotiating for their own benefits and pay. I'm sorry, I have a right to say how my money is being used too and I feel that someone who has not contributed to the coffer should not be allowed to reap the benefits of my contributions.
14
One union I was in, though, was worthless. Even the president of the union said that we didn't need a union. Our union dues were, thus, wasted. I stayed in anyway. Dues were affordable.
I just like freedom to spend my money as I wish. But, also, like you, I disapprove of free riders. It's complex.
Thanks for reading and responding to my comment. All the best. And I hope your union is a good one.
Maybe this is a silly question, but why isn't the expense of operating a union that exists in the interests of all of the employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement incorporated in that same CBA? Let the political activities be voluntary.
Citizens United should be overturned, and all political donations should be on an individual basis. After all, it's "We the People" - not corporations, unions, churches, industry groups, universities, whatever.
12
Yes. and every individual should negotiate their wages with the bosses who have a staff of million dollar lawyers and accountants on their side.
One on one. Sounds real fair.
4
Unions can go too far, demand too much, of this there can be no argument. That said, companies unfettered by a strong union can also go too far. At one time, I worked in a non-union automotive parts plant. Stuff that would never be allowed in the unionized plant was done on a daily basis in the non-union plant. What stuff, you ask. Working with acids without protective gear, for instance. Running huge, and very dangerous press, without a properly functioning safety gate. That kind of stuff. In both plants you might be asked to do such dumb and dangerous stuff but in the unionized plant the union steward would quickly put a stop to it. In the company run plant, one might simply be let go. The companies are not stupid. The real reason would not be the one given on the pink slip but it would be clear to all why the worker was canned. It would be a warning to the remaining staff. After working at both kinds of plants, I came to appreciate unions.
57
Anyone doing industrial work has to expect dangers on the job. They aren’t accountants after all. If you don’t have four years and a quarter million dollars invested in learning your trade, you cannot reasonably expect an employee to treat you like gold.
2
Gee, I thought you were going to mention sexual harassment. Good luck trying to take that to the Corporate HR. Some female or our golden boy exec in training? Tough choice.
1
This is so ridiculous it's hard to know where to start.
Unions have been under relentless attack from the right - read big corporations and the politicians who are paid to represent them - since Reagan. And it's been very effective. Falling for social wedge issues, the middle class has repeatedly voted to economically destroy itself, mostly by ceding its own hard-won collective bargaining power.
The "First Amendment infringement" this plaintiff is so aggrieved over is actually the entire reason he enjoys a decent salary, health coverage, retirement benefits and recourse against unfair treatment. Employers don't grant those necessities of life out of the goodness of their hearts. They grant them because unions have the power, including political, to oppose their hegemony.
Kill unions and you kill the middle class, which is exactly what has happened in this country over the past 38 years. The irony is that workers themselves have helped administer the fatal blows.
52
DiSalvo's piece is a disingenuous defense of a brutal decision. There is ample proof that unions lift wages and working conditions for all workers, even at non-union shops; and that's the real problem corporate America is trying to solve, not threats to the First Amendment.
Furthermore, the distinction DiSalvo makes to justify this bald power grab--that public unions are inescapably political--will be dropped, as soon as the decision begins its dirty work. The Manhattan Institute, and the various billionaire angels for anti-democratic measures, masquerading as defenders of the little guy, will lobby, create deceptive memes and spread cash around Capitol Hill to extend the blight to private-sector unions (as Wisconsin did), arguing that there is *really no difference between the two*.
And they will be right, but for the wrong, neo-feudal reasons.
14