It's Game Time For Unions Thanks To Politicized SCOTUS
RealityForAll said:
LOST said:Shunning is considered, in most precincts of the 21st century, to be an antiquated penalty. Further, It is a sanction often used by very strict religious groups.
RealityForAll said:You do not understand the Reality of a Labor Strike.
Formerlyjerseyjack said:Sounds like those doing the shunning were a very open minded group.
in Jersey City school in which Itaught, there were two teachers who were shunned. Not so much as a “good morning hello.”
The didn’t participate in the 2000 strike.
Why would a teacher's union need to use a penalty commonly found in old line religious orders (such as the Amish)?
Perhaps, such teacher's unions are filled with true believers look to enforce purity and loyalty. Just food for thought.
it's enforcing common purpose, not purity of thought.
Do you have an issue with members of football teams enforcing unity of purpose and methods?
ml1 said:
ElizMcCord said:What would now stop a Senate majority from refusing to vote on the nomination of any nominee from a president of the opposing party?
GL2 said:Is there a member of Congress more odious than Mitch McConnell? I can’t wait for him to get his comeuppance.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took a victory lap during a Politco Playbook interview on Wednesday, calling his decision to block President Barack Obama from filling the vacant Supreme Court seat during his tenure as the “single most consequential decision I ever made.”
Absolutely nothing.
The rules have changed.
Even if Mitch McConnell had been willing to give Merrick Garland a hearing, it doesn't mean he would have been confirmed. Garland might have been rejected by the judicial committee, in which case it would take a special motion for his nomination to proceed to the floor. Even if his nomination had proceeded, he would have faced a filibuster, which McConnell would have had to go way outside the rules to eliminate (he eventually did for Gorsuch). Even if there were no filibuster, he might just have been voted down 54-46.
The Supreme Court is the most powerful body in the US government. Since Justices serve for life, every nomination is a titanic struggle. Donald Trump would not be president if so many of his voters did not fear Clinton's nominees.
I would love to see several institutional reforms of the Supreme Court itself, but sadly, even establishing defined terms (like 18 years) isn't a mainstream cause yet.
GL2 said:
Morganna said:You may be joking but it's not out of the question. He just hired Bill Shine of Fox as comms director.
I can't believe this is happening although we all knew it was possible. I can't imagine who Trump will come up with to replace Kennedy. Just heard a discussion about the desire to overturn Roe V Wade.
Judge Janine Pirro?
Yes, heard he was looking at Shine. How about Judge Napolitano? So many women told me I was being an alarmist when I suggested the courts could overturn Roe V Wade if Trump got in. And here we are. And we have a couple of years to go.
Wonder how women will vote in the midterms. If this doesn't worry them, "abandon all hope ye who enter here."
I think this is a well-articulated view on how this particular SCOTUS decision was a good one.
https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/06/im_an_njea_member_but_supreme_courts_unions_ruling.html
Janus, is now saying the unions have to sell their product to prove they are worthwhile.
Having rejected the union we will he reject the product they negotiated? Will he reject the latest contract negotiated for his benefit?
Of course not. He'll happily will take while not paying for it. A grifter who for $50 a month let himself be used.
His statement:
“A lot of these unions have asked for, and received, the ability to inclusively, collectively bargain for everybody,” Mark Janus said during an interview with Albany radio. “Now that this decision has come down, they’re going to have to come out and sell a product, if you will, and they will have to prove to the individuals that there is a definite benefit for being part of the union.”
Janus — who said the decision will save him about $50 a month — said it was more about the issue than the money. He called it “mainly a matter of choice.”
Smedley said:
I think this is a well-articulated view on how this particular SCOTUS decision was a good one.
https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/06/im_an_njea_member_but_supreme_courts_unions_ruling.html
I disagree. All he is saying is that his Union has become corrupt. The unions are supposed to be run democratically. I know that that is not always the reality but Union members can attempt to organize an insurgency against leadership.
As for being corrupt my Dad used to say that of course his Union was crooked but he was much better off with it than he would be without it.
The other of the article will find out in a few years how the diminished strength of Unions will have effected wages, benefits and living standards in general.
LOST said:
Smedley said:I disagree. All he is saying is that his Union has become corrupt. The unions are supposed to be run democratically. I know that that is not always the reality but Union members can attempt to organize an insurgency against leadership.
I think this is a well-articulated view on how this particular SCOTUS decision was a good one.
https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/06/im_an_njea_member_but_supreme_courts_unions_ruling.html
As for being corrupt my Dad used to say that of course his Union was crooked but he was much better off with it than he would be without it.
The other of the article will find out in a few years how the diminished strength of Unions will have effected wages, benefits and living standards in general.
A dad reference is fitting for a discussion about unions because they are largely a thing of the past IMO.
A labor organization that adds value for its members in an honest and transparent way should be able to collect dues. I don’t see why unions should get automatic money from everyone, even those who don’t see the value in it. Such a system breeds complacency, corruption and rot.
Many (not all) unions are bloated and corrupt caricatures of themselves. Look at the NJEA which is an abomination IMO. The NJEA brass rakes in ginormous salaries and they spend members’ hard-earned dues money to try to influence political campaigns to further their own self-interest. Quintessential corrupt Jersey BS. But hey, they do it for the children.
I’m just hoping this ruling is retroactive so I can claw back the several hundred dollars or so I paid in union dues as a 16- and 17-yo cashier at Acme Supermarket in the mid 1980s lol.
Contemplate two scenarios:
You work for a municipal agency and you're told that the union is going to take x% out of your pay; and it doesn't matter whether you like it.
You work for a private business and you're told that Nick da Nose is going to take x% out of your pay; and it doesn't matter whether you like it.
In the second case, you can go to the police.
In the first, the State has said that's just the way it is, live with it.
Now, having considered the scenarios; please tell me what interest a State has in legislating employer/employee/union relations.
TomR
P.s., Not anti-union, just anti- you have no choice in the matter.
Tom_R said:
You work for a private business and you're told that Nick da Nose is going to take x% out of your pay; and it doesn't matter whether you like it.
Nick sez to me, “OK, Dave, you don’t wanna play ball? Then from now on you get to negotiate your own pay, your own health coverage, your own retirement benefits, your own workplace grievances and your own layoff protections.” Do I have to like that, too?
DaveSchmidt said:
Tom_R said:Nick sez to me, “OK, Dave, you don’t wanna play ball? Then from now on you get to negotiate your own pay, your own health coverage, your own retirement benefits, your own workplace grievances and your own layoff protections.” Do I have to like that, too?
You work for a private business and you're told that Nick da Nose is going to take x% out of your pay; and it doesn't matter whether you like it.
Your Nick gave you a choice. Nick Da Nose doesn't. He's just taking x%.
You ignore the premise, as well as my query; and try to be flip.
Please tell me what interest a State has in legislating employer/employee/union relations.
TomR
Tom_R said:Your Nick gave you a choice. Nick Da Nose doesn't. He's just taking x%.
You ignore the premise, as well as my query; and try to be flip.
Please tell me what interest a State has in legislating employer/employee/union relations.
TomR
I wasn’t trying to be any more flip than a hypothetical that named a union leader Nick da Nose. And to be precise, what I did was play off the premise, not ignore it. (What I ignored was your invitation, polite as it was.)
In any case, my point was that the worker whom Mr. Da Nose was nicking might have second thoughts if a choice meant being deprived of the union’s work on his or her behalf. I know I would.
DaveSchmidt said:
Tom_R said:I wasn’t trying to be any more flip than a hypothetical that named a union leader Nick da Nose. And to be precise, what I did was play off the premise, not ignore it. (What I ignored was your invitation, polite as it was.)
Your Nick gave you a choice. Nick Da Nose doesn't. He's just taking x%.
You ignore the premise, as well as my query; and try to be flip.
Please tell me what interest a State has in legislating employer/employee/union relations.
TomR
In any case, my point was that the worker whom Mr. Da Nose was nicking might have second thoughts if a choice meant being deprived of the union’s work on his or her behalf. I know I would.
My apologies for my lack of clarity. Nick Da Nose is not a union leader. He's the guy that stands in the alley and tells you to give him "his cut".
I had thought I had made that clear when I wrote that in Nick's case, you could go to the police.
Again, my apologies.
But, please tell me what interest a State has in legislating employer/employee/union relations.
TomR
My apologies for misconstruing the second scenario. As a union member at a private employer, I took it to be an intended metaphor.
Since I have no light to shed on your request — grammatically speaking, an imperative — please forgive my continued demurral.
Over here, it's currently believed by the free/ethical media (not the mainstream media) that your Mr da Nose, the employer, the federal govt and the Fair Work commissioner are all mostly in cahoots and working against the interests of most working families. We need our unions and trade/professional associations to keep our Enterprise Bargaining Agreements and safe conditions etc updated and applicable to all.
(If you'd like some light amusement, have a quick look at what's been revealed in our Banking and Finance Inquiry, then see how some of that relates to last year's hearings on pay and penalty rates. Business Council of Australia's plotting was really shown clearly in the early parts of this year's sessions.) I'm back to being a fly on the wall!
There is a critical distinction being missed here, and that’s the difference between the publics and the privates. This ruling impacts the publics, and if you read Alito’s majority opinion you’ll see the reasoning for the difference & distinction.
Essentially, the privates, the trades, the teamsters, etc have a symbiotic relationship with the businesses they work with. Ideally, management and labor get together to figure out the distribution of productivity. If management takes too much, workers strike. If labor takes too much, production becomes too expensive, and less expensive options get the business and everyone is cooked- union members included.
In the publics, management and labor can become aligned against the providers of capital- the taxpayers. Management in this case is government, and most specifically elected officials. If elected officials get financial support from the publics, they have to support the public’s quest for more allocation of capital or that money goes to a candidate that will support it.
The view is that since Abood was decided it’s gone to the point where not only is the provider of capital, the taxpayer, getting pushed away from the negotiating table, but in many cases SO ARE THE RANK AND FILE. The relationship between union leadership with politicians that they have tilted the benefits the union provided to one another, and they don’t NEED to do anything for members or taxpayers because they have GUARANTEED REVENUE.
This closed loop, with no review, no way to step off the train, is what Janus targets.
The argument in Janus specifically speaks to my earlier point about the balancing act that privates have that leads to symbiosis- the view that the publics have gone so very far in some areas that they WILL put polities (state, local) out of business. This is not symbiosis but parasitism killing the host.
A step further, which helped with standing and how this became a speech issue- Janus the man is both a public employee AND A TAXPAYER. The argument, which prevailed, is you can’t force him to spend money to support speech which pits one characteristic (his employment) with another (his taxpayer status). He gets to choose.
So tl;dr, don’t conflate publics with privates. The levers, players and issues are totally different.
Jackson_Fusion said:
There is a critical distinction being missed here, and that’s the difference between the publics and the privates. This ruling impacts the publics, and if you read Alito’s majority opinion you’ll see the reasoning for the difference & distinction.
Essentially, the privates, the trades, the teamsters, etc have a symbiotic relationship with the businesses they work with. Ideally, management and labor get together to figure out the distribution of productivity. If management takes too much, workers strike. If labor takes too much, production becomes too expensive, and less expensive options get the business and everyone is cooked- union members included.
In the publics, management and labor can become aligned against the providers of capital- the taxpayers. Management in this case is government, and most specifically elected officials. If elected officials get financial support from the publics, they have to support the public’s quest for more allocation of capital or that money goes to a candidate that will support it.
The view is that since Abood was decided it’s gone to the point where not only is the provider of capital, the taxpayer, getting pushed away from the negotiating table, but in many cases SO ARE THE RANK AND FILE. The relationship between union leadership with politicians that they have tilted the benefits the union provided to one another, and they don’t NEED to do anything for members or taxpayers because they have GUARANTEED REVENUE.
This closed loop, with no review, no way to step off the train, is what Janus targets.
The argument in Janus specifically speaks to my earlier point about the balancing act that privates have that leads to symbiosis- the view that the publics have gone so very far in some areas that they WILL put polities (state, local) out of business. This is not symbiosis but parasitism killing the host.
A step further, which helped with standing and how this became a speech issue- Janus the man is both a public employee AND A TAXPAYER. The argument, which prevailed, is you can’t force him to spend money to support speech which pits one characteristic (his employment) with another (his taxpayer status). He gets to choose.
So tl;dr, don’t conflate publics with privates. The levers, players and issues are totally different.
Nice analysis.
Jackson_Fusion said:
A step further, which helped with standing and how this became a speech issue- Janus the man is both a public employee AND A TAXPAYER. The argument, which prevailed, is you can’t force him to spend money to support speech which pits one characteristic (his employment) with another (his taxpayer status). He gets to choose.
What happens if the union wants to choose not to be the sole bargaining agent for workers who don’t pay dues, because it can’t be forced to spend money to support speech that pits it against itself?
DaveSchmidt said:
Jackson_Fusion said:What happens if the union wants to choose not to be the sole bargaining agent for workers who don’t pay dues, because it can’t be forced to spend money to support speech that pits it against itself?
A step further, which helped with standing and how this became a speech issue- Janus the man is both a public employee AND A TAXPAYER. The argument, which prevailed, is you can’t force him to spend money to support speech which pits one characteristic (his employment) with another (his taxpayer status). He gets to choose.
That’s a super interesting question but a warning- we’re moving from analysis to speculation.
To level set a bit- publics get their “spot” because they’ve been accepted as the sole bargaining entity for all employees of a class. It’s a privileged position that they are able to occupy because the argument is that they provide a compelling benefit to the state- namely, labor peace and certainty by avoiding intra-labor battles- essentially competing unions warring to see who could get the biggest membership all coming at the state with different demands.
This compelling benefit was at the root of Abood but was rubbished by Janus- the details of why are many but essentially Janus doesn’t give the same weight to the idea of “labor peace” as a compelling state interest or even something that is likely to be an issue. If that “compelling” state benefit exists, it is weighed against the free speech rights of the employee. If the weight is big enough, the reasoning goes, you tolerate injury to free speech for a bigger societal good. Remember that the bill of rights is a bill of individual rights however- so if you are going to injure an individual right for a social good, it must be a small injury and a massive good.
That’s the difference between Abood and Janus on one angle. The further difference, as mentioned in the last post- is that apart from the individual rights issue, on its own the negative realized impacts (bankrupt polities, distorted politics) to the state are greater than any imagined benefit- ie, labor peace.
So... I think (would have to go back and look) Janus pre-emptively tells states that they are not allowed to discriminate between union and non union employees. Having it otherwise would be disasterous to the unions. They would lose their monopoly on bargaining, and what if the non-union folks on average negotiated a better deal? It could happen.
So I think the unions will be VERY interested in preserving their role as sole negotiating partner. Because of that, I seriously doubt they’ll look to exclude non-union members.
If we forecast a bit however- I could see a suit where their sole negotiating privilege is challenged by a non union employee who wants the right to speak in their own behalf. It looks to me like the seeds are sown for just such a challenge. To be continued.
Smedley said:
I’m just hoping this ruling is retroactive so I can claw back the several hundred dollars or so I paid in union dues as a 16- and 17-yo cashier at Acme Supermarket in the mid 1980s lol.
As long as you are willing to give back the portion of your salary attributable to the Union's efforts it's fine.
As I recall I made $4 an hour and then got a raise to a whopping $4.25/hr -- with time and a half on Sundays and a 15-minute break per six-hour shift.
Compensation was no better than non-union summer jobs I had before and after. If anything it was a bit lower.
Jackson_Fusion said:
If we forecast a bit however- I could see a suit where their sole negotiating privilege is challenged by a non union employee who wants the right to speak in their own behalf. It looks to me like the seeds are sown for just such a challenge. To be continued.
Does that employee have a First Amendment Right to speak to management about his wages, hours, etc? Can the government entity refuse to speak with him and insist that he, in effect, speak through the Union?
What right do the Union and Employer have to sign a Contract setting the salary of an employee who does not wish to have his salary negotiated by the Union?
Smedley said:
As I recall I made $4 an hour and then got a raise to a whopping $4.25/hr -- with time and a half on Sundays and a 15-minute break per six-hour shift.
Compensation was no better than non-union summer jobs I had before and after. If anything it was a bit lower.
The non-union summer jobs have to compete with the Unionized summer jobs. Why do you think the employees Unionized in the first place. If they were totally satisfied with their wages, benefits and conditions they wold not have formed a Union.
Do you not know that there was a time when there was no such thing as "time and a half" on Sundays or any other time and no such thing as 15 minute breaks let alone six hour shifts?
I once had a Unionized summer job. I was rather surprised to learn that my salary was the same as that of permanent employees who had worked there for years. That was because of the Union Contract. I had to pay Union dues, which the other Union member employees thought the Union should have waived, but I actually got the job because my mom had a friend whose Husband was a Union official.
As my Dad and Mom knew the Union may suck but the boss sucks a lot worse.
LOST said:
Smedley said:The non-union summer jobs have to compete with the Unionized summer jobs. Why do you think the employees Unionized in the first place. If they were totally satisfied with their wages, benefits and conditions they wold not have formed a Union.
As I recall I made $4 an hour and then got a raise to a whopping $4.25/hr -- with time and a half on Sundays and a 15-minute break per six-hour shift.
Compensation was no better than non-union summer jobs I had before and after. If anything it was a bit lower.
Do you not know that there was a time when there was no such thing as "time and a half" on Sundays or any other time and no such thing as 15 minute breaks let alone six hour shifts?
I once had a Unionized summer job. I was rather surprised to learn that my salary was the same as that of permanent employees who had worked there for years. That was because of the Union Contract. I had to pay Union dues, which the other Union member employees thought the Union should have waived, but I actually got the job because my mom had a friend whose Husband was a Union official.
As my Dad and Mom knew the Union may suck but the boss sucks a lot worse.
Was it fair that a neophyte (like you, Lost) was being paid the same as those with more experience (and therefore likely more productive)?
Jackson_Fusion said:
So... I think (would have to go back and look) Janus pre-emptively tells states that they are not allowed to discriminate between union and non union employees. Having it otherwise would be disasterous to the unions. They would lose their monopoly on bargaining, and what if the non-union folks on average negotiated a better deal? It could happen.
First, yes, anything could happen, but if nonunion folks on average negotiated better deals, unions wouldn’t exist in the first place.
Second, having it otherwise — negotiating and managing terms of employment individually — wouldn’t be so great for the government, either.
I agree my hypothetical question is just that, and not likely to happen anywhere, but imagining one side calling the other’s “bluff” — in this case, that the free-speech stakes are greater than the labor stakes — can sometimes help illuminate an issue. I think about taxes, which keep this country going even while my money funds some things I’d rather it didn’t, and my attention is drawn to this paragraph in Kagan’s dissent:
The key point about Abood is that it fit naturally with this Court’s consistent teaching about the permissibility of regulating public employees’ speech. The Court allows a government entity to regulate that expression in aid of managing its workforce to effectively provide public services. That is just what a government aims to do when it enforces a fair-share agreement. And so, the key point about today’s decision is that it creates an unjustified hole in the law, applicable to union fees alone. This case is sui generis among those addressing public employee speech — and will almost surely remain so.
I know a bit about the history of unions and I respect what they have accomplished. But I just think for the most part, in 2018, they are a vestige of the past.
Make 'em work for their funding rather than just hand it to them. Unions that are worth their salt will live on.
And RealityForAll makes a good point. If I were a permanent employee who had been there for years , I would be pretty annoyed that some summer hire that came in through the union office was making the same money as I was.
RealityForAll said:
Was it fair that a neophyte (like you, Lost) was being paid the same as those with more experience (and therefore likely more productive)?
What does "fair" have to do with Capitalism and the Free Market?
Smedley said:
I know a bit about the history of unions and I respect what they have ccomplished. But I just think for the most part, in 2018, they are a vestige of the past.
Make 'em work for their funding rather than just hand it to them. Unions that are worth their salt will live on.
And RealityForAll makes a good point. If I were a permanent employee who had been there for years , I would be pretty annoyed that some summer hire that came in through the union office was making the same money as I was.
I can understand your point of view but OTOH why shouldn't everyone doing the same work get the same pay? This was a job that did not require a high level of skill, although truthfully I was pretty bad at the little skill it required.
Of course I believe in "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs".
But that is a whole other discussion.
DaveSchmidt said:
Jackson_Fusion said:First, yes, anything could happen, but if nonunion folks on average negotiated better deals, unions wouldn’t exist in the first place.
So... I think (would have to go back and look) Janus pre-emptively tells states that they are not allowed to discriminate between union and non union employees. Having it otherwise would be disasterous to the unions. They would lose their monopoly on bargaining, and what if the non-union folks on average negotiated a better deal? It could happen.
Second, having it otherwise — negotiating and managing terms of employment individually — wouldn’t be so great for the government, either.
I agree my hypothetical question is just that, and not likely to happen anywhere, but imagining one side calling the other’s “bluff” — in this case, that the free-speech stakes are greater than the labor stakes — can sometimes help illuminate an issue. I think about taxes, which keep this country going even while my money funds some things I’d rather it didn’t, and my attention is drawn to this paragraph in Kagan’s dissent:
The key point about Abood is that it fit naturally with this Court’s consistent teaching about the permissibility of regulating public employees’ speech. The Court allows a government entity to regulate that expression in aid of managing its workforce to effectively provide public services. That is just what a government aims to do when it enforces a fair-share agreement. And so, the key point about today’s decision is that it creates an unjustified hole in the law, applicable to union fees alone. This case is sui generis among those addressing public employee speech — and will almost surely remain so.
Dave, to your later post, thanks as well to you. You have me looking at this a bit differently- here’s why:
What if the state/local discriminated between the union and non union employees in the other direction? What if I ran Maplewood and decided to break the union by giving better deals to all independent workers? The union would crumble.
Reading the part of Kagen’s dissent in those terms I think she’s sending a warning. The warning is that once the governmental interest that acted as a counter to free speech insults- as she puts it, helping the process of “managing workforce”, as Alito puts it consistent with Abood “labor peace” is deprecated or jettisoned, any insult to free speech becomes intolerable. And so what you’re looking at is the likely removal of an impediment to the free speech of the individual employee- namely the monopoly on negotiating enjoyed by the unions.
If we are thinking a step ahead, which she clearly is, she’s essentially laying out the particulars of the outcome I suggested earlier- namely that the next step is that someone sues to get the right to speak directly.
If the state interest in managing the workforce, labor peace, however you term it, is gone, so is the justification to restrain speech. I think she’s saying “yeah they are one step away from toasting the publics entirely because you just dismissed a central reason for them to be allowed to exist”.
So I have to think this is all more dire for the publics than I initially thought on the face of Janus alone.
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You may be joking but it's not out of the question. He just hired Bill Shine of Fox as comms director.