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Shouldn't public employees have to OPT IN to have their money sent to unions?

MTAtech said:
Thank you for covering everything I would have said. I have nothing to add, except that destroying unions is/was the objective of these laws and court rulings. Those (owners of corporations) that push these laws do so knowing that making dues voluntary makes unions weak and their own power greater. It's a feature not a bug.
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This particular issue has very little to do with corporations in any direct sense whatsoever, since it dealt exclusively with the wages of public sector workers, not corporations. In a very indirect sense, any corporate support of Janus would have ostensibly been with an indirect goal of weakening the financial support to Democrats from public sector unions. But that is getting very tangential to the legal issue at hand.

Whatever the alleged or assumed "objective to destroy unions," the fact of the matter is that compulsory agency fees from public sector workers is an unconstitutional forced subsidy of political speech, and now employers are not allowed to presume employees want their money withheld and sent to unions, the way they previously could presume based on the way union security clauses would cause them to be fired if they don't. The Supreme Court directed employers to obtain clear and freely given consent from employees that they indeed wish to continue withholding money and sending it to the union. But when employers try to obtain this consent, the union sues them and insists employers keep withholding money from employees and sending it to the union, based on "consent" they gave when they were told they'd be fired for not agreeing (which is now illegal).
 
When workers unions stop giving away membership dues to politicians, I will support workers unions.

Until then..........they can go **** themselves.
 
RetiredUSN said:
When workers unions stop giving away membership dues to politicians, I will support workers unions.

Until then..........they can go **** themselves.
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They actually never did literally give membership dues to politicians. There was (ostensibly) a delineation between membership dues, which were to only be spent on representational activities, and PAC dues, which some full members paid which were entirely voluntary, and this money could be spent influencing politics.

What Janus found was that, when it comes to public sector unions, even representational and bargaining activities are invariably political. It's noted that when public sector unions are negotiating for wage and benefit increases from a government employer, unions have made the lobbying argument within collective bargaining that government ought to do (x) or (y) in order to afford to agree to the union's proposal, and (x) or (y) would be things like raising taxes on the rich and on corporations, or reducing favorable tax treatment to local or in-state corporations, and so forth--which is an extremely political activity. This made collective bargaining/negotiation a clear example of political speech, which makes the basic membership dues that fund collective bargaining activities inherently political, which makes compulsory payment of those basic membership dues a form of forced political speech that had already been considered an unconstitutional free speech violation.

So now we have employers who have a legal requirement to obtain free and clear voluntary consent to withhold money for unions, and unions are suing the pants off them for following the Court's direction. So apparently there may need to be another Supreme Court case that reiterates the same exact thing Janus said. The entire opinion could just say "Yeah, we meant what we said under Janus. Seriously."
 
Neomalthusian said:
They actually never did literally give membership dues to politicians. There was (ostensibly) a delineation between membership dues, which were to only be spent on representational activities, and PAC dues, which some full members paid which were entirely voluntary.

What Janus found was that when it comes to public sector unions, even representational activities invariably are political. It's noted that when public sector unions are negotiating for wage and benefit increases from a government employer, the case is made that government ought to do (x) or (y) in order to agree to the union's proposal, and (x) or (y) would be things like raising taxes on the rich and on corporations, or reducing favorable tax treatment to local or in-state corporations. This made collective bargaining/negotiation a clear example of political speech, which makes the basic membership dues that fund collective bargaining activities inherently political, which makes compulsory payment of basic membership dues a form of forced political speech that had already been considered an unconstitutional free speech violation.

So now we have employers who have a legal requirement to obtain free and clear voluntary consent to withhold money for unions, and unions are suing the pants off them for following the Court's direction. So apparently there may need to be another Supreme Court case that reiterates the same exact thing Janus said. The entire opinion could just say "Yeah, we meant what we said under Janus. Seriously."
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:roll:

Then why are union members upset about their money going to politicians they they don't support?
 
RetiredUSN said:
:roll:

Then why are union members upset about their money going to politicians they they don't support?
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I can't speak for any given union member, but it's either because they aren't aware of the difference between membership dues and PAC dues (and that they were never required to pay PAC dues), or they're upset about the fact that their union as a whole and its executives vocally endorse certain politicians all the time, and maybe they assume the executives' compensation derives from basic membership dues and yet they spend so much of their time and energy lobbying and influencing politics.
 
MTAtech said:
A) Citation?
B) It can't be dues.
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Obviously I just pointed out to RetiredUSN that "financial core" membership dues can't be literally transferred to a politician, their campaign, or a PAC. But whether they have been spent on political activities is another question, and was one that Janus v. AFSCME affirmed. For example, are union officials and executives paid only from PAC funds? In particular, public sector unions? As was pointed out in Janus oral arguments, unions, and especially their executives, express partisan political views constantly, and further and even more importantly, the process of collective bargaining with a government invariably becomes political (essentially a direct act of lobbying) as well. The same reason why PAC dues can't be forced on anyone was the same rationale for why basic membership dues also can't be forced on public sector workers, because collectively bargaining against the government or public sector is inherently political.
 
independentusa said:
First let me say, I was part of a management team that worked and bargained with Unions and never in a union. One thing people who write as you do never mention is that by law unions have to cover all of those people in positions in the bargaining unit whether they belong to the union and whether they pay dues or not. So why pay dues when you can get all the benefits for free. So like most Americans why pay dues when you want something for nothing. In reality without dues, unions can not exist and that is what private businesses have learned and why they have pushed right-to-work laws. And what has happened in the past thirty years since states began passing such laws and unions have died, real wages have either remained stagnant or dropped for working people. So keep telling people they should not pay dues and you help the growing disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us. Just so you know the wealthy 10% in the late 1980's owned 80 percent of the countries wealth and today almost 90%.
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No worker should be forced to join a labor union or pay dues to one. And those who do belong to unions should be allowed to opt out of their dues going to partisan political causes. The latter is the biggest single reason that labor unions are dying. If I belonged to one, I would have been quite pissed that even one penny in dues from my paycheck would have been directed to Hillary Klinton campaign events.
 
independentusa said:
First let me say, I was part of a management team that worked and bargained with Unions and never in a union. One thing people who write as you do never mention is that by law unions have to cover all of those people in positions in the bargaining unit whether they belong to the union and whether they pay dues or not. So why pay dues when you can get all the benefits for free. So like most Americans why pay dues when you want something for nothing. In reality without dues, unions can not exist and that is what private businesses have learned and why they have pushed right-to-work laws. And what has happened in the past thirty years since states began passing such laws and unions have died, real wages have either remained stagnant or dropped for working people. So keep telling people they should not pay dues and you help the growing disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us. Just so you know the wealthy 10% in the late 1980's owned 80 percent of the countries wealth and today almost 90%.
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I was a union steward in a packinghouse in the past. As tough a union membership and workplace as it gets. The solution is to change the law so that unions are not required to represent non-members nor does the company have to give non-union members contract benefits. The solution is NOT to force everyone to pay union dues - meaning forcing everyone to politically contribute to whichever Democrat union bosses pick.

Democrats and other open borders promoters and protectors is what destroyed trade unions by millions and millions of illegal and legal immigrants - otherwise called "scabs" if a union did cause a strike - and made it impossible for unionized companies to compete with companies hiring immigrants at less than minimum wage and no benefits or job protection of any kind, combined with liberals destroying American heavy industry.

NO ONE should be FORCED to join a union; The very concept of "forced to join" is the antithesis of "union." NO UNION should ever be FORCED to represent, protect, or otherwise give a damn about non-union/non-dues paying employees.

I do not believe either company money or union money should ever be allowed as political contributions - but the Supreme Court disagreed.
 
Meh police unions are pretty bad too. Still thumbing their noses while they are being trained to have a warrior mindset.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Now that the law of the land has changed as it concerns withholding money from public employees, shouldn't public employees have to clearly opt in to having their money withheld and sent to unions? Shouldn't new consents have to be signed to express this free choice they didn't used to have?
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Public Employees should not have unions. "Government" should not be an interest group.
 
bomberfox said:
Meh police unions are pretty bad too. Still thumbing their noses while they are being trained to have a warrior mindset.
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I know, right? Gosh, it's almost as if having public sector unions allows state employees to abuse their power and act in horrific ways while avoiding responsibility for their actions.
 
cpwill said:
Public Employees should not have unions. "Government" should not be an interest group.
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This is a tall order and I don't see it happening directly via legislation, but it's not impossible.

It starts with eliminating exclusive representation. Two ways this happens. One is the Supreme Court decides to actually hear an exclusive representation case (e.g., Hill v. SEIU or Uradnik v. Inter Faculty Organization). They slammed the door on both those cases for some reason.

The other way this happens is there is a union death spiral of public employees opting out of membership and dues, which is now their right, at which point unions become frustrated with their funds drying up and decide to abandon exclusive representation privileges altogether. The reason they don't want to do this (they would if it were necessary but it's not yet necessary) is that exclusive representation is the essence of unions' monopoly power, helping to keep employers forced to sit down and bargain with that same particular group of employees over and over again forever. Without exclusive (monopoly) representation, bargaining units would eventually end up a little more like competitive privatized firms competing for government contracts to provide work for a period of time to that government/public employer.

This would keep them union bargaining units a little more honest and competitive and increase their incentive to maintain as members those who provide expert level work in the area that the government wants, rather than complacent 25-year W2 employees who just want to stamp their timecard and collect a paycheck until their pension eligibility date.
 
Public sector unions are the last bastion of wedging the cost of labor against the recipient of those services, in this case wedging workers for the government against the tax payer.

The issue of opt-in or opt-out for public sector unions 'indirectly' supporting a political ideology has become an epic mess.

The intentions of collective bargaining in this case have obviously crossed swim lanes into political support for that bargaining, where control over extraction from the tax payer has more latitude for 'promise now and perhaps pay later' planning than the immediate impact to goods and services from private sector unions trying something similar.

In today's context it is now nothing more than extortion of the tax payer as the position from public sector unions is a set of benefits and standards that have no equal application from the private sector now.

This graphic, while a little aged, explains the story and what all the activity from unions to politicians then to now has really done...

ED-AK923_1union_NS_20100202181620.gif

There is no good answer here and Democrats especially will not politically allow for public sector unions to have their members be able to opt-out of that indirect support they tend to enjoy.
 
cpwill said:
Public Employees should not have unions. "Government" should not be an interest group.
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Long-term, as actual labor becomes decreasingly necessary and valuable to get important things done, my biggest concern about enabling public sector unions is that they will just try to parasitize the basic transfer of money between the federal government and the people. There are already clues they're trying to do this when you look at how they've been trying to "unionize" home health aides who merely collect a little bit of CMS money to take care of an ailing relative, which is a cost-saving measure to prevent CMS from feeling obligated to pay for more expensive nursing and long-term care. Unions want people's receipt of money from government to make them de facto government employees which therefore entitles the union to a cut.

So if Democrats and Big Labor got their way, eventually you could end up being a de facto "member" of the Social Security Recipients Union, where they take 3-5% of your SS checks. Or in 30 years we will have a Guaranteed Basic Income Recipients Union that will get its cut of every dollar transferred from the government to the people. As a Basic Income recipient, you'll be an "employee" of government's "job guarantee program" and unions would lobby government to keep the money flowing to them and call that lobbying "collective bargaining negotiation with government," and declare that as the justification for their cut. And with all of that money they will continue to become more and more political, as the main goal will be to continue the cycle of funds between their political party and themselves.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Long-term, as actual labor becomes decreasingly necessary and valuable to get important things done, my biggest concern about enabling public sector unions is that they will just try to parasitize the basic transfer of money between the federal government and the people. There are already clues they're trying to do this when you look at how they've been trying to "unionize" home health aides who merely collect a little bit of CMS money to take care of an ailing relative, which is a cost-saving measure to prevent CMS from feeling obligated to pay for more expensive nursing and long-term care. Unions want people's receipt of money from government to make them de facto government employees which therefore entitles the union to a cut.

So if Democrats and Big Labor got their way, eventually you could end up being a de facto "member" of the Social Security Recipients Union, where they take 3-5% of your SS checks. Or in 30 years we will have a Guaranteed Basic Income Recipients Union that will get its cut of every dollar transferred from the government to the people. As a Basic Income recipient, you'll be an "employee" of government's "job guarantee program" and unions would lobby government to keep the money flowing to them and call that lobbying "collective bargaining negotiation with government," and declare that as the justification for their cut. And with all of that money they will continue to become more and more political, as the main goal will be to continue the cycle of funds between their political party and themselves.
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Oh damn. I did not even think of that. You are absolutely right - if they are willing to steal money from impoverished and disabled Medicaid recipients, they will absolutely go after the entire U.S. populace.
 
OrphanSlug said:
Public sector unions are the last bastion of wedging the cost of labor against the recipient of those services, in this case wedging workers for the government against the tax payer.

The issue of opt-in or opt-out for public sector unions 'indirectly' supporting a political ideology has become an epic mess.
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Point of clarification, the issue is opting in out of paying agency fees. You could always in theory opt out of full union membership, but previously could be forced to pay agency fees regardless (in lieu of dues). The distinction between “dues” (that members pay) and “agency fees” (that non-members used to have to pay) was name only.

Now you (public sector employee) can’t be forced to pay anything, but unions are suing employers if they ask employees to sign new paycheck withholding consents (given their rights have changed).

There is no good answer here and Democrats especially will not politically allow for public sector unions to have their members be able to opt-out of that indirect support they tend to enjoy.
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I think every leading (D) presidential candidate has said they would push for legislation that abolishes states’ right to work laws. This would only apply to the 27 states that have right to work laws, and it would only apply to the private sector, because right to work in the public sector is considered a constitutional freedom of speech issue. Pretty sure Congress couldn’t overrule the Supreme Court when it comes to that.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Recent story on which this topic is based, from my former home state: Gov. Dunleavy thrusts Alaska into a leading national role as he takes on union procedures

Up until last year, public sector unions in non-Right-To-Work states pretty much forced new employees in union-represented jobs to sign withholding authorizations. These "dues authorizations" basically said "Whatever I am required to pay the union in order to be able to keep my job, I agree to have it withheld and sent to the union." If they didn't agree to this, they would have to independently send money separately to the union, or else the union would order the employer to fire the employee. That's what "union security agreements" are (or were).

Then in June of 2017, the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional for public sector employers and unions to do this. Specifically, it said:



What Dunleavy and many other employers are starting to realize, is that the authorizations unions have strong-armed public employees into signing by threatening their firing if they don't (which prior to 2018 was legal), these consents really aren't valid anymore, because employees need to clearly, affirmatively and freely give consent to have money withheld from them to be sent to the union.

Since the agency fee era (pre-2018) allowed employees to be strong-armed into signing these authorizations, Dunleavy and others say they need to get another chance to decide if they want their money withheld. So Dunleavy is requiring new consents that give employees a free and clear choice, and the unions are ready to fight to the death over it, because they don't want union-represented employees to have another shot at making a clear and free choice.

Now that the law of the land has changed as it concerns withholding money from public employees, shouldn't public employees have to clearly opt in to having their money withheld and sent to unions? Shouldn't new consents have to be signed to express this free choice they didn't used to have?
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I taught in a public school for almost 30 years and never joined the union. I live in a right to work state. everyone should have that right.
 
cpwill said:
I know, right? Gosh, it's almost as if having public sector unions allows state employees to abuse their power and act in horrific ways while avoiding responsibility for their actions.
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There is probably a higher chance of that happening though in a general sense i am not confident in agreeing with such sentiment.
 
tacomancer said:
They have HR departments and the ability to negotiate salaries and policies as well. Perhaps unions can or cannot, at their prerogative, that is irrelevant. If an employee does not want to get part of the union, then they should get none of the benefits and should have to negotiate with their employer as an individual at whatever pay rate or other benefits can be gotten and their inherent individual negotiating power.
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Unions want no part of that. There is a reason unions want exclusive representation. Think about this, a company "negotiates" with the individual an incentive package with significantly less benefits (health care, retirement, etc) but with a considerably higher wage but still far less in total compensation than what the benefits would have cost the company. I would say the majority of those workers would jump at that and effectively break the union. Good luck getting a union to sign on to that.
 
independentusa said:
First let me say, I was part of a management team that worked and bargained with Unions and never in a union. One thing people who write as you do never mention is that by law unions have to cover all of those people in positions in the bargaining unit whether they belong to the union and whether they pay dues or not. So why pay dues when you can get all the benefits for free. So like most Americans why pay dues when you want something for nothing. In reality without dues, unions can not exist and that is what private businesses have learned and why they have pushed right-to-work laws. And what has happened in the past thirty years since states began passing such laws and unions have died, real wages have either remained stagnant or dropped for working people. So keep telling people they should not pay dues and you help the growing disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us. Just so you know the wealthy 10% in the late 1980's owned 80 percent of the countries wealth and today almost 90%.
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That is the Unions Choice to cover all employees, they create that issue themselves.
 
cpwill said:
Oh damn. I did not even think of that. You are absolutely right - if they are willing to steal money from impoverished and disabled Medicaid recipients, they will absolutely go after the entire U.S. populace.
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FDR was vehemently against Public Sector Unions
 
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