NILRR Right to Work News

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New RTW law under siege in Show-Me State

OneNewsNow.com, April 13, 2017

With help from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, three Missouri workers have filed a legal challenge against a AFL-CIO proposed petition that could repeal the state’s impending right-to-work law that makes paying dues as fees as a condition of employment voluntary. The plaintiffs, all of whom are opposed to mandatory union payments, have each experienced forced unionism abuses in the past – and could be again without the protection of a Missouri RTW law. Their lawsuit challenges what they call the “deceptive” ballot language proposed to overturn the law.

The Union Household Vote Revisited

ON LABOR.org, April 11, 2017

A spate of labor-related election postmortems converged on one key theme: Donald Trump managed to cleave significant union support away from the Democrats. “Donald Trump Got Reagan-Like Support from Union Households,†ran one typical headline; “It Looks Like Donald Trump Did Really Well With Union Households,†declared another.  But what if these prognoses have it wrong? Could it be that instead of Trump’s unique appeal to union household voters, the election results really suggest sagging enthusiasm among union households for the Democratic candidate?

SEIU Forced To Cut Staff At HQ Following Massive Political Spending In 2016

Daily Caller Online, April 09, 2017

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent $61 million on political activities and lobbying in 2016, as well as an additional $19 million on the Fight for $15 movement. Now that spending is leading to massive layoffs.

This labor giant is preparing for ‘catastrophic’ changes under Trump

Washingtonpost.com, April 13, 2017

Conservative outlets this week reported the Service Employees International Union has started laying off employees at its Washington headquarters — a claim the labor giant has denied — and that its coming cuts, made public last December, could be related to its significant political spending in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Labor Department Mutiny

Wall Street Journal Online, April 12, 2017

Now we know one reason Democrats blocked President Trump’s first nominee to be secretary of Labor: The bureaucracy is in open rebellion against the new President’s directives. The casus belli is the fiduciary rule, the attempt by Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez to rewrite the rules for offering investment advice. The rule was supposed to go into effect Monday.

Honey, I Shrunk the Union

Wall Street Journal Online, April 11, 2017

The SEIU has spent at least $90 million on the Fight for $15 since the campaign’s launch in 2012, according to recently released financial disclosures. In 2016 alone, the union spent more than $19 million on workers organizing committees, public-relations retainers, and legal fees for the initiative. The Fast Food Workers Committee, which helps the SEIU, bagged more than $3.6 million last year. BerlinRosen Public Affairs, a Democratic consulting firm, got $1.7 million. The Mario Cuomo Campaign for Economic Justice secured $250,000 for its work in New York.

New NLRB Ruling Requires Unions to Provide Greater Detail to Beck Objectors

Managementmemo.com, March 30, 2017

This holding essentially means that unions will have to disclose much more detailed financial information when employees exercise their Beck rights—information that unions will likely be far more resistant and hesitant to provide. With affiliates’ expenditures coming under greater scrutiny, it also makes it more likely that Beck dues objectors will seek to have less of their money going to the unions (and their affiliates) activities.  With more Americans than ever choosing to be union-free and/or choosing not to be union members, this decision places much more power with individual employees, and emboldens their protected right to refrain from union activity, a right already afforded under the Act but often glossed over by unions.

Membership in Many Unions Down; Numbers Good for Others

Daily Labor Report Online, April 07, 2017

By Jaclyn Diaz

Plant closings and anti-union legislation caused some of the nation’s largest unions to lose thousands of members in 2016, a labor professor told Bloomberg BNA April 6. Some labor groups have struggled to bounce back and organize new members quickly in response to these changes, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Pallotta Elected NYSUT President; By How Much? Who Knows?

Education Intelligence Agency Online, April 10, 2017

One last thing: Messner announced the union would set aside $70 million by next year “for the battles ahead,†specifically the consequences of potentially losing agency fee.

As England was preparing for invasion during WWII, Winston Churchill said “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.â€

And it is in that vein that we will prepare for the fights to come.

…We will fight this battle and, if we persist, our enemies won’t land on our shores.

Rather, like England, it will be us who storms across the channel to fight on their turf.

Yep, the Battle to Retain Agency Fees is just like the Battle of Britain. I think we have a front-runner for Teacher Union Quote of the Decade.

Democrats Side With Union Bosses Over Veterans In VA Accountability Fight

Investors Business Daily Online, April 12, 2017

Firing Offense: Democrats are constantly bleating about the need to better serve the nation’s veterans. Yet when it comes down to it, they would rather bow to their union masters than allow the VA to fire workers who aren’t doing their jobs.

Editorial: Labor unions, again, want public’s business done in secret

East Bay Times Online, April 13, 2017

California public labor unions’ secrecy lobby is at it again. This time their pawn is Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-San Fernando, who introduced legislation sealing off public access to records about local government negotiations with public employees.

Union workers’ dues will be fully tax-deductible thanks to Cuomo

New York Post Online, April 10, 2017

New York’s highest-paid union workers will be the chief beneficiaries of a tax break slipped into the state budget that makes their dues fully tax-deductible, an analysis has found.

US says aides pushed Walsh’s labor agenda

Boston Globe Online, April 14, 2017

The prosecutor’s assertion was made as lawyers for City Hall aides Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan urged a federal judge to dismiss the case, arguing that prosecutors cannot prove that the aides personally benefited from the alleged extortion scheme.

 

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