Articles

One step closer to protecting workers’ rights

December 01, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

After 40 years of garnishing worker paychecks under the authority of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the coercion must end. It’s about time the unions started thinking about how to offer value to workers. … ...

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Compulsory union subsidies on the chopping block

September 28, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The First Amendment protects the right to speak and associate as well as the right to refrain from speaking and associating. Today the Supreme Court decided to hear the First Amendment case – Janus v. AFSCME – that will determine whether non-union public employees must continue to subsidize the very unions they do not want … ...

Articles

Liberating workers from compulsory unionism

July 13, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The very powerful public employee unions in Illinois have long relied on their favored status to garnish wages of workers and “represent” them in politically-fraught negotiations over collective bargaining agreements with the state. The unions’ power is so great that state laws allow them to steal wages and purport to speak for wo ...

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Teachers’ constitutional rights : out with a whimper

March 29, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

I wrote about today’s Supreme Court affirmance-by-tie-vote in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association for Forbes.com.  The bottom line is that today’s decision is a profound disappointment to non-union public employees who were this close to prevailing over the unions’ ability to garnish their wages for politicking in the g ...

Articles

Agency shop fees on the brink

January 11, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

Alexis De Tocqueville was deeply impressed by America’s use of voluntary associations to pursue undertakings both large and small, in every aspect of life.  Public employee unions may soon be included in that category of voluntary associations, as several justices in today’s oral argument in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Associatio ...

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Government unions : the Praetorian Band of the government

September 11, 2015 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

America’s founding fathers knew their ancient history well. The experiences of Greece and Rome were almost the only guides they had when fashioning a government that wasn’t a monarchy. And one thing they feared was what they called “Caesarism”: the tendency of a popular government to devolve into competing teams, each graspi ...

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Opening salvos in the teacher union dues case

September 11, 2015 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The briefing in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association is underway. You’ll recall that this Supreme Court case presents the issue of whether public employee unions can garnish the wages of non-union members to support the unions’ collective bargaining and other political activities, without those workers’ consent. Rebecca F ...

Articles

Will the Supreme Court value individual rights over public employee unions?

August 24, 2015 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

One of the big cases of this Supreme Court term is Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which will decide if public employee unions can garnish non-union workers’ wages to pay for activities ostensibly related to collective bargaining without the workers’ affirmative consent.  As we’ve noted in previous blog posts, ever ...

Articles

Supreme Court to review public employee unions’ ability to garnish wages

June 30, 2015 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The California Teachers Association—one of the most politically powerful groups in the state—may have to start funding its political campaigns with the money of only those teachers who actually support its goals.  Unlike other groups that seek donations from like-minded people who support the organizations’ goals, the CTA has long benefi ...