Under-the-Radar Supreme Court Case Poses Profound Threat to Unions Nationwide

Written on January 12th, 2016 in politics Comments Off

… Supreme Court Case - Published on Common Dreams, by Sarah Lazare, Jan 8, 2016 (the Case could result in the enforcement of ‘Right to Work’ laws on all public sector labor unions in the United States).

Workers across the United States are bracing for a major Supreme Court case, set for argument on Monday, that could strike a devastating blow to public sector unions nationwide.  

Backed by right-wing anti-union groups including the Center for Individual Rights, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association seeks to overturn the legal framework under which public sector unions require workers who benefit from their representation—from higher wages to improved conditions—to pay their fair share.

In other words, the case could result in the enforcement of so-called “Right to Work” (RTW) laws - dubbed by critics as “Right to Work for Less” — on all public labor unions in the United States …;

… (full text).

Websites:

on en.wikipedia:

  • Right to Work laws are statutes in a number of states in the United States that prohibit union security agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers, that govern the extent to which an established union can require employees’ membership, payment of union dues, or fees as a condition of employment, either before or after hiring. Right-to-work laws do not aim to provide general guarantee of employment to people seeking work, but rather are a government regulation of the contractual agreements between employers and labor unions that prevents them from excluding non-union workers,[1] or requiring employees to pay a fee to unions that have negotiated the labor contract all the employees work under.
    Right-to-work provisions (either by law or by constitutional provision) exist in 25 U.S. states, mostly in the southern and western United States, but also including the midwestern states of Michigan,[2] Indiana,[3] and Wisconsin.[4] Business interests represented by the Chamber of Commerce have lobbied extensively to pass right-to-work legislation.[5][6][7][8] Such laws are allowed under the 1947 federal Taft–Hartley Act. A further distinction is often made within the law between those persons employed by state and municipal governments and those employed by the private sector with states that are otherwise union shop (i.e., pay union dues or lose the job) having right to work laws in effect for government employees …;
  • Friedrichs’ petition; – (no result);

Links:

You Just Need to Be White to Win, on naked capitalism, by Lambert Strether, Jan 10, 2016: Skin whitening products are stacked up in drugstores all over Asia; they’re a $2 billion industry). What’s interesting to me — and this is going to be one of those superficial posts where, magpie-like, I collect and display a number of bright, shiny objects — is that the initial framing, which made its way from the Twitter all the way to the English-language media worldwide, is that the Seoul Secrets ad was racist …;

Canada: Alberta’s flat income tax system was no failure – Mark Milke, on Calgary Herald, Jan 9, 2016: Just before Albertans launch into the new, high-tax universe in 2016, take a moment to memorialize one of the smartest things an Alberta government ever did — the introduction of a single-rate tax system, courtesy of Ralph Klein’s government. In 2001, in announcing the new tax system, then Treasury Board President Steve West said that, “There are two ways to establish a progressive tax system. One is to tax high income earners at a very high level; the other is to tax low-income earners at a very low tax level” …;

Europe is Kaput – Long live Europe – Slavoj Žižek, Yanis Varoufakis and Julian Assange FULL, 116.26 min, uploaded by Southbank Centre, Nov 23, 2015;
same in espanol: Europa está Kaput, Viva Europa (subtítulos español) – Žižek, Varoufakis, Assange, 113.00 min, uploaded by jordi pérez o’shea, Nov 28, 2015;

re-listening, re-reading:

Deutschland: Warum wir unser Gold von Amerika nicht zurück bekommen werden, 2.47 min, von blaues Wunder am 15. Januar 2013 hochgeladen. Ron Paul erklärt, wer die Macht über die Goldreserven der USA hat. Und im Umkehrschluss warum Deutschland sein Gold von Amerika nicht zurück bekommen wird

Gold, Banks, Ukraine, the 99%, on Economy and Society, March 18, 2014;

… and this:

  • SURFING ON THE BIG WAVE – RAW FOOTAGE, Teahupoo 2013 HD, 19.13 min, uploaded by The Rad Channel, Sept 4, 2013 … with many more wave-videos in autoplay.

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