NILRR Right to Work Clips

A judge 's gavel sitting on top of a wooden table.


The Janus Stakes

empirecenter.org, January 09, 2018

As shown in this report, if the Supreme Court sides with the plaintiff in Janus, New York state government and New York City municipal employees who have already indicated they would rather not belong to unions would save $53 million a year in dues-like fees. Extrapolating to other levels of local government, school districts and public authorities, the immediate savings for all New York public-sector workers opting out of union membership could come to more than $110 million—and could grow from there.

State AFL President Claimed Compulsory Unionism Necessary to Preserve Racial Discrimination

nilrr.org, January 09, 2018

Among the many false arguments for continued compulsory unionism offered up by Big Labor bosses and their allies over the years, perhaps the most outrageous contention is that laws forcing employees to pay for an unwanted union somehow protect racial minorities from workplace discrimination. Some lies should not go unanswered; I believe this is one.

New Evidence on the Effects of Teacher Unions

cei.org, January 10, 2018

Researchers from Cornell University recently reported significant harm to the educational attainment and skill levels of men, especially minority men, as a result of collective bargaining by teacher unions:

We find robust evidence that exposure to teacher collective bargaining laws worsens the future labor market outcomes of men: living in a state that has a duty-to-bargain law for all 12 grade-school years reduces male earnings by $1,493 (or 2.75%) per year and decreases hours worked by 0.52 hours per week.

Why Do Auto Workers Union Drives Keep Failing? A Rank-and-File View

LaborNotes Online, January, 10, 2018

When a union activist pushed for meetings on issues that mattered to rank and filers, he says, the UAW responded by circulating rumors that he was an anti-union mole. After losing a high-profile election at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant in 2014, the Auto Workers won a smaller unit: the smaller unit: the skilled-trades workers at the plant. In response to this news, auto worker Wayne Cliett reflected on what went wrong in the original union drive.

Wisconsin Right-to-Work Law Prompts Manufacturer’s Relocation

Heartland.org, January 09, 2018

Badger Meter, a manufacturing company producing turbines and other industrial parts, is moving jobs from its Arizona plant to Wisconsin, citing the latter state’s right-to-work law as a factor.

Embezzlement plagues union offices around U.S., records show

freep.com, January 07, 2018

U.S. Department of Labor documents obtained by the Free Press show embezzlement from hundreds of union offices nationwide over the past decade. In just the past two years, more than 300 union locations have discovered theft, often resulting in more than one person charged in each instance, the records show.

Individual cases compiled by the Office of Labor-Management Standards last year cite theft and fraud ranging from $1,051 to nearly $6.5 million.

New Toyota & Mazda Plant Will Bring 4,000 Jobs To Alabama

torquenews.com, January 10, 2018

The new plant will add 4,000 jobs in the area. The total investment is about $ 1.6 billion. This is just one slice of the estimated $10 billion Toyota is planning to invest in U.S. manufacturing over the coming decade.

The UAW is not strong in Alabama and unlikely to unionize the plant.

‘Chin’ Gigante’s son among five mobsters cuffed in union extortion racket

NY Daily News Online, Janury 10, 2018

Vincent Esposito, 50, the child of late Genovese family boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante, was one of five mob associates busted for a long-running shakedown of local unions, according to a new federal indictment.

Unions Increasingly Shifting To “Shadow Unions†To Avoid Scrutiny

hotair.com, January 08, 2018

One of these tactics has been prominently in use in New York City and it’s spreading outward from there. Some, like the SEIU, have been setting up what are euphemistically called “Worker Centers.†As Forbes reported last week, this has allowed them to skirt the rules and collect what amount to dues from workers without having to follow normal rules for establishing a formal union.

FAST-FOOD LABOR WIN

politico.com, January 10, 2018

“To the dismay of many business groups, New York City enacted an innovative law last year that many labor advocates hope will become a model to finance such organizations across the nation,†Steven Greenhouse reports in the New York Times. “Under the law, fast-food employees who want to contribute to a nonprofit, nonunion workers’ group can insist on having the restaurant they work for deduct money from their pay and forward that money to the group. But before a group can receive these contributions, it must get 500 workers to pledge to contribute.â€

The ‘One Percent’ Leaders of America’s Top Teachers Unions, All Making More Than $300,000 a Year

the74million.org, January 10, 2018

The financial analysts at DQYDJ.com specialize in examining personal income and net worth. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, they determined that for an individual to reside in the top 1% of pre-tax income, he or she needed to have earned $300,800 in 2016.

NEA President Lily Eskelsen García ($317,826) and Executive Director John Stocks ($355,721) easily cleared the threshold, as did AFT President Randi Weingarten ($472,197), Secretary-Treasurer Lorretta Johnson ($359,584), and Executive Vice President Mary Cathryn Ricker ($325,314).

Public-sector union sheds jobs after contract drops mandatory dues

PressHerald.com, January 09, 2018

Four months after state workers represented by the Maine State Employees Association ratified contracts that gained 3 percent raises in two consecutive years starting in 2018, the effects of eliminating the so-called “agency fees†requirement with the start of a new year already are showing. Ramona Welton, president of the MSEA, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, as well as a unit member, did not have the exact amount of the drop in income but estimated it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

POLITICS Republican lawmakers push to make Ohio “right to work”

Toledoblade.com, January 07, 2018

Six measures, all requiring voter approval, would undercut the clout of private and public-sector labor unions by prohibiting collection of so-called “fair share†fees in lieu of dues from workers who refuse to join a union and forbidding union spending of dues or fees on political activity without workers’ consent.

They would repeal requirements for a prevailing wage, often a higher union-scale wage, on public projects, prohibit governments from specifying union or nonunion labor on public projects, and require votes to recertify workplace bargaining units every year.

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