Unions in fight for survival

Good day all. Union membership is plummeting in the United States. The private sector unions are losing members by the boatload, and can’t even get workers at non-union shops to join them.

The reasons for this state of affairs are many and varied, but it all comes down to the simple fact that unions have, by and large, outlived their usefulness. Up until recently, the only real growth in union membership were the ones handling government workers. That took a pipe to the teeth when Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin pushed through a law stripping the unions of their paycheck robbery system, aka mandatory dues deducted from workers paychecks. Then came laws around the country that ended the closed shop system and gave workers the right to join, or not join a union.

Unions grow by one of two methods. The workers they are trying to organize decide they do see some benefits in joining a union. The other is through force and coercion. Unions, for decades, used their bought and paid for politicians and by extension judges, to strip the right to choose away from workers, “For their own good” of course. Now, people have had enough of this and are fighting back. They are doing this by taking the unions to court. Here are the details from Fox News:

The future of public and private unions in two big labor-friendly states may be at stake as foes mount aggressive legal challenges over the long-controversial practice of mandatory dues.

The first mistake in this story is referring to “Labor-friendly” states. It should read “Union-Friendly” states. To continue…

The court cases in Illinois and California revolve around so-called “fair share” payments, or the dues unions extract from workers whose jobs stand to benefit from collective bargaining — whether or not the workers are technically union members. Unions argue workers should have to pay their “fair share” of the costs of negotiating and administering a union contract, so they’re not getting a free ride from the union’s efforts.

The “Fair Share” laws are patently unfair of course. When someone refuses to join a union, they don’t get any of “Their” benefits. That individual would normally negotiate their own compensation and benefits packages. They also can’t be forced to walk a picket line when the union throws one of their greed induced hissy fits. Imagine their surprise when they look at their paychecks and see a deduction they didn’t authorize.

But workers are often surprised to see money taken from their paychecks, without their consent. “I really found out about it when I got my first paycheck and there was the fair share that was pulled out,” said Mark Janus, who works as a child support specialist with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.

Welcome to the Union controlled government. We will happily deduct our political donations to the Democrats from your paycheck to ensure our the existence of the “All powerful Union.” Oh, you don’t want your money going to politicians and causes you don’t support? Tough.

The fees taken out of Janus’ check amounted to about $46 a month, every month, for the eight years he’s been on the job. “I figured I’d paid over $4,000 so far,” he said. The money Janus unintentionally paid went to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, also known as AFSCME, which represents employees in his office.

Whether they want to be represented or not.

Janus is now one of three plaintiffs who have joined with Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner in a lawsuit to overturn the state’s so-called fair share law. “I don’t feel that the union represents me 100 percent in what I believe and what I like to do,” Janus explained. “And nobody asked me if I wanted to join the union, they just said ‘here’s a job, you’re in the union.'”

That’s the way Unions have always worked. You don’t pay them, you don’t get a job and you can go starve. It’s a great racket they’ve had running for over a century. And all that money they took from people who didn’t want to be in the union? That went to the massive salaries and benefits for the all high muckimucks running the unions as well as to their bought and paid for politicians.

Now one nice thing is the new Republican governor. Unlike his predecessors, he isn’t beholding to the Unions. If I recall correctly, the previous governor issued an executive order that made anyone who was a stay at home caregiver part of the SEIU, and they promptly began looting their benefits checks. That went to court and the unions lost as I recall. This governor is ready and able to fight the unions. He only has one problem. The unions own the state legislature.

The intention of the lawsuit is to get a federal judge in Chicago, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court, to declare the fee for non-member dues unconstitutional. In addition, Rauner issued an executive order with the same purpose. “This is a fundamental issue protecting employees’ rights, their freedom of speech, and their rights as employees,” Rauner said.

Now there’s a switch. When the last governor issued his order enslaving people to the unions, they were all for it. They never anticipated that a governor in opposition to them might actually win. The term for this is HA HA!

The other battle is taking place in California. That state, like Illinois, has been ransacked and looted to the point of economic collapse. (Like Detriot, that other wonderful Union Town)

In Friedrich v. California Teachers’ Association, 10 teachers filed suit over a state law requiring dues to the union they don’t support. The teachers said the law violates their constitutional rights.

Rights? What rights? This is the People’s Democratic Republic of California peon, fork over that money to your master union rep now!

The fair-share labor law was formed as a result of a 1977 court case called Abood v. The Detroit Board of Education. In that case, public school teachers in Detroit sought to overturn a requirement that they pay dues to the teachers’ union on the grounds they didn’t support the union activities or collective bargaining.

And what was the result? Recall that this was the Burger Court, a more wretched hive of scum and villainy was not easily found back then.

The court sided with the unions and determined that non-members can be charged fees, though the money from fees could not be used for political purposes.

Since that decision came down, about half the states in the U.S. — the ones that are not right-to-work states — require workers in union-backed jobs who don’t want to join a union to pay their “fair share.”

The Burger court, along with a number of others going back to at least FDR, were quite statist and collectivist in their thinking. They were also the ones who dreamed up that nonsense of a “Living Constitution.” Still, the tide has turned against the unions.

In the Midwest, where auto workers, Teamsters and other unions have had a stronghold for years, the right-to-work plan has been met with massive protests and multiple court battles — yet right-to-work laws have passed in Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana.

The reason being, the unions had destroyed the economy and driven businesses out of the state and into the warm embrace of right to work states.

Now that battle lines are being draw in Illinois, the Land of Lincoln state may become the last stand in America’s heartland for the unions. Without a policy of mandatory dues, unions anywhere stand to lose revenue and members.

As we have seen in Wisconsin, if people aren’t forced to join a union, or be in one in order to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, they will run for the nearest exits.

“In half the other states in the U.S., government workers have a right to choose whether they will give money to a union.

Which most don’t.

In Illinois, government workers don’t have the right to make that choice,” said Jacob Huebert, an attorney for the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing plaintiffs in the Illinois lawsuit.

And most of those states tend to be blue states, (although that is changing), and in the more extreme blue states, they are bankrupt.

Labor leaders, who plan to “mount a vigorous defense” to the lawsuits, claim opponents are just trying to weaken and choke off unions in general, especially in Illinois where negotiations for a new contract are taking place.

And there’s a problem with this? If so, I don’t see it.

Tim Drea, the Illinois AFL-CIO secretary treasurer, said he feels confident the court will rule in favor of the fair-share decision, but he worries the continuous battle resulting in right-to-work states “is just a further continuation of the race to the bottom” for Americans.

Spoken like a true union fatcat. Did he bother to ask the members of the union what their opinion might be? Are you kidding? And as for that “Race to the bottom” crap, people working in nonunion shops are actually doing a little better then those in union shops. They get pretty much the same, or better benefits and the pay is similar or better as well. Plus they don’t have to fork over a percentage of their paycheck to some greedy union thug.

Drea also warned that a blow to the unions would be a blow to middle-class America. “We believe the unions built the middle class and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure the middle class survives,” he said.

Unions have destroyed the middle class by driving the businesses that their membership used to be employed at either out of business or out of the country. Just take a look at that union stronghold of Detroit. The city is all but dead and buried with most of the population having long since vacated the premises.

Now these cases are just now starting to wind their way through the court system. When or if it makes it the to Supreme Court, you can count on the progressive members to vote pro-union. They have long since proven that they only care about the power of the state and individual rights are a dangerous thing.

Besides, according to the Progressives, the average person is to stupid to make any decisions on their own, so it is far better to collect them into large groups where those who are so much smarter then they are can manage things for them. I hope the court destroys the unions once and for all. Oh not be ruling them illegal, but my saying that people can’t be forced to give part of their pay to a union in order to have a job.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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