NILRR Right to Work News August 10, 2018


Down but not out: Look for right-to-work to be resurrected

onenewsnow.com, August 08, 2018

Tuesday night’s vote was a big win for unions, which The Associated Press says spent millions of dollars in recent weeks to convince Missourians that right-to-work is bad for the Show Me State.

“I’ve already talked to a number of legislators who believe this is an important issue and want to continue working on it, and I assure you it will very likely be filed as a bill for next year,” says Cady. “Governor Mike Parson [R-Missouri] supports right-to-work and wants to see Missouri a right-to-work state as well.”

Wages in Right to Work States are not Lower, as Unions Claim

workplacereport.com, August 08, 2018

For starters, in those states (including the District of Columbia) that unions cite as having higher wages due to a lack of Right-to-Work laws, wage averages used almost always include government workers.

As government workers are funded by taxpayers, in many of the “higher wage†states that unions cite, the tax burden and cost of living is also higher.

In fact, 14 out of the top 15 states with the highest-tax burdens on their residents are not Right-to-Work states.

This has led some researchers to conclude that the per-capita income is actually higher for those in Right-to-Work states than in states without Right-to-Work laws.

AG issues Advisory on dues related to public unions

vermontbiz.com, August 09, 2018

Attorney General TJ Donovan issued the following Advisory in response to the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, 585 U.S. ___ (2018). Janus overturns decades of well-established law and practice relating to public employers’ deduction of fair share agency fees from public sector employees who decline union membership. Under Janus, a public employer may not deduct agency fees from a nonmember’s wages without the employee’s affirmative consent. 

Right to Work Alum Tapped for DOL Union-Auditing Office

bna.com, August 07, 2018

Geoffrey MacLeay, a former attorney at the National Right to Work Foundation, will serve as policy adviser for the Office of Labor-Management Standards, a Labor Department spokesman confirmed to Bloomberg Law. MacLeay was most recently a professional staff member for Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, where he participated in oversight requests calling for stricter OLMS scrutiny of worker organizing centers. 

Do not conflate Maine’s public workers with the unions that represent them

bangordailynews.com, August 09, 2018

 The well-paid staff of public sector unions, especially the large ones, seem to believe their job is to celebrate conflict over cooperation, create headlines embarrassing management and disregard outcomes in favor of media attention.

 When the permanent staff of the unions decide to emphasize conflict over collaboration, they perform a disservice to their members. The voluntary nature of union dues creates accountability between the union and its members; if union staff need resources from their members, they must deliver results that members value.

The Right-to-Work Rout

Wall Street Journal Online, August 08, 2018

Tuesday’s vote puts Missouri at a disadvantage in the fierce interstate competition for business investment. Seven of its eight neighboring states already have right-to-work laws. Illinois is the exception, of course. 

After workers in neighboring Kentucky joined the ranks of the free last year, the state announced a record $9.2 billion in corporate investment. That includes a $1.3 million Braidy Industries aluminum mill in Ashland, which was chosen over 24 other locations elsewhere in the U.S. “If Kentucky wasn’t a right-to-work-state,†CEO Craig Bouchard said, “it wouldn’t have been on the list.â€Â 

Bill Bennett: States are resisting the Janus decision

foxnews.com, August 07, 2018

Teachers are the largest category of employees affected by the Janus decision. The biggest impacts of the high court ruling could be to allow school districts to break out of a decades-old collective bargaining mindset, and to encourage a new spirit of professionalism in the teaching profession. 

Now is the time for commonsense state policymakers to lead on the reasonable course. Embrace the rightful balance between individual free speech and labor association that the Supreme Court has articulated. State leaders should do that by creating sensible, balanced rules and procedures to fairly implement this Supreme Court decision. 

9th Circ. Nixes Drivers’ Challenge To Seattle Union Law

Law360.com, August 09, 2018 

The Ninth Circuit ruled Thursday that a group of independent drivers who contract with the ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft cannot pursue a challenge to a Seattle ordinance that lets for-hire drivers form quasi-unions, saying the harms they purportedly would suffer are too speculative for their claims to be heard. 

Weeks after the ordinance took effect, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit challenging it, alleging that it was preempted by the Sherman Antitrust Act and the NLRA. 

In their suit, the drivers had alleged that the Seattle law violated the NLRA by allowing a union and driver coordinators such as Uber and Lyft to formally require that drivers be union members and by generally forcing self-employed workers to join a labor organization. 

Pennsylvania introduces bill that would allow non-union public-sector employees to participate in strike votes

lexology.com, August 10, 2018 

House Bill No. 2586 would amend Pennsylvania’s Public Employee Relations Act, which allows public-sector union employees to authorize a strike as an economic weapon during collective bargaining. As it currently stands, non-union members in the public-sector generally do not have the authority to participate in a strike vote conducted by union members, even if they perform the same work. The proposed bill would change that, and allow public-sector non-union employees to have a voice in the workplace if union members were to ever contemplate authorizing a strike in response to stalled collective bargaining.

Best states for manufacturing

globaltrademag.com, August 10, 2018 

Here are Global Trade’s choices for the states that have the best combinations of all of these.

Alabama. Florida. Texas. Georgia, Mississippi, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee.

CNBC recognized Michigan in 2017 as the most improved state for business. Among the changes cited were an overhaul of the state’s corporate income tax and the passage of a right-to-work law.

A right-to-work state, Tennessee has no personal income tax on wages and salaries and has a long history of bipartisan fiscal responsibility, reflected in its Triple A rate by all major rating services. 

Right-to-work proxy vote on ballot in November

reviewjournal.com, August 09, 2018

That’s because Nevada is the only right-to-work state in which Democrats control the Legislature. If Trumka is looking for another place to fight right-to-work, Nevada makes the most sense. As a percentage of the workforce, Nevada actually has more union members than Missouri, 12.7 percent to 8.7 percent. 

Jepsen Outlines Connecticut’s Compliance With Supreme Court’s Union Fees Ruling

courant.com, August 09, 2018

Deductions have been halted for nearly 5,500 Connecticut public employees paying the union fee as of June, representing a loss to public employee unions of $129,544, according to Comptroller Kevin Lembo’s office. The number was higher in the spring, before colleges and universities emptied for the summer and some workers were off the payroll. 

Opinion: Federal taxpayer bailout likely for big union pension funds

detroitnews.com, August 08, 2018

Due to the size of this fund and the benefits it has promised to pay out, some experts project that its insolvency will single-handedly bankrupt the federal body created to insure private pension funds, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. 

According to Rachel Greszler, a fiscal policy expert at The Heritage Foundation, the bill is essentially a taxpayer bailout of the underfunded plans.

“The Butch Lewis Act is to just stand behind these plans 100 percent and that would, of course, create the incentive for any defined benefit plan that’s out there today to not [make proper funding assumptions] because they know there’s no consequences,†Greszler said.

Corruption witness tells of perks, favors from police, politicians at Seabrook retrial

newsday.com, August 8, 2018 

The government has previously alleged in court filings that Reichberg, who is scheduled to go on trial in the fall for bribing NYPD officials, provided McAllister — a former city cop — with home improvements, jewelry, travel and tickets in return for favors, including a Floral Park chaplaincy and intervention in arrests. 

Rechnitz said he also helped raise money for two different Ponzi schemers, lied to get health insurance and a gun permit, collected $60,000 insurance for a stolen watch that he later found and didn’t report, and initially tried to deflect corruption investigators by claiming that close ties to police were one of the lessons of the Holocaust. 

At one point, he said, he tried to use his ties with de Blasio to get appointed to a commission on police corruption — a way, he said, to tip off police he had corrupted if he learned anything useful.

“I just wanted to be involved with it so I could further my corruption,†he said.

 

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