NILRR News Clips May 01 2015

A black and white image of an eagle with its wings spread.

UAW members get information on how to leave union

freep.com, April 29, 2015

About three dozen UAW workers gathered today in Sterling Heights to get advice on how leave the union or stop paying dues after Michigan’s right-to-work law starts applying to the Detroit-based union.

Freedom’s just another word for mandatory dues, union says

watchdog.org, April 30, 2015

AFSCME’s video suggests forced union fees are a myth, but unions often negotiate contracts with “fair share†or “agency†fee provisions making forced fees a condition of employment.

Unions routinely attack right-to-work laws — which do nothing except free workers from forced union dues — as “wrong†and dangerous, as explained in a recent Watchdog video.

Duquesne University, union spar over labor laws

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Online, April 27, 2015

Union attorneys say Duquesne does not meet criteria the NLRB handed down this year that define religious institutions as exempt from agency oversight. Under that test, a school must be found to hold itself out publicly as a religious institution, and adjunct faculty must be actively involved in furthering its religious mission.

Predatory Boards and Workers Without Rights

Dr. Charles Baird

The Freeman Online, April 15, 2015

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has, at least since 2009, become the National Labor Predation Board. What the current board calls the “protections†guaranteed to workers by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) have become the predations against workers imposed by the NLRB’s manipulations of the NLRA.

‘Release time’ not unusual in Illinois school districts

ilnews.org, April 27, 2015

Imagine paying a teacher $141,105 not to teach.

Pam Turriff is an elementary school teacher by training and she collects a six-figure salary plus benefits from the St. Charles School District.

But instead of teaching, her full-time job is to be president of the local teachers union. But it is taxpayers — not union members — who pay her salary.

The reason? Unions are demanding this perk at the bargaining table and it is being incorporated into school district labor agreements.

Obama Board Asks Obama Judges to Keep Workers in Dark

Washington Free Beacon Online, April 30, 2015

The National Labor Relations Board overturned more than two decades of legal precedent in the circuit when it ruled in September 2014 that the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) acted legally when it did not adequately inform a grocer of her rights to opt out of the union.

The Board acknowledged that it was not adhering to traditional precedent that has guided the application of Beck rights, which are named after the Supreme Court decision that allowed workers to refuse to pay for union political activities. On April 17, the agency filed an en banc petition to the D.C. Circuit asking all 11 active judges on the circuit to re-hear the case that set the precedent.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund, which helped represent the grocer, said the tactic is worrisome.

NRTW lawyer Glenn Taubman told the Washington Free Beacon the NLRB is playing the odds.

New Bill Would Ban Mandatory Project Labor Agreements

nlpc.org, April 30, 2015

In the construction industry, nothing exemplifies union monopoly, and its costs, quite like a Project Labor Agreement.  A new proposal before Congress, the Government Neutrality in Contracting Act, would protect contractors from intrusion by organized labor upon contractual liberty.  Sponsored by Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., (H.R. 1671, S. 71) the measure would bar the use of these agreements on federally-sponsored or subsidized public works.  In promoting open competition in bidding, hiring and other aspects of project labor, it effectively would overturn President Obama’s Executive Order 13502.  Issued in February 2009, the order “encouraged†federal agencies to require such pacts on a case-by-case basis on projects of over $25 million.

With dues depleted, Wisconsin’s three AFSCME councils merge

La Crosse Tribune Online, May 01, 2015

Mike Fox, a Pennsylvania-based international vice president for the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, said losses in membership, dues revenue and staff are only part of the reason for the merger.

He called the merger a “historic rebirth†of the union in Wisconsin.

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