The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday morning in a case set to undo a seminal 40-year-old precedent that required all public sector employees to pay their union a “fair share fee” whether or not they’d elected to join.
"If unions are so good and doing such a great job, why do they have to force people to pay them?" That’s the question Mark Janus, an Illinois child services specialist, posed to assembled reporters on Friday. It’s the Supreme Court who will give him an answer. His case will be heard on Monday.
The new year is shaping up to be one of reckoning for public-sector unions. Just a few days before Christmas, Janus v. AFSCME got its slot on the calendar of the Supreme Court—which, with Neil Gorsuch on the bench, is not stacked in labor’s favor.
The Associated Press reports:
Ohio voters go to the polls tomorrow to vote on approving a recently passed public sector labor law, and a new survey from Public Policy Polling finds that 59 percent of those voters are against the law. Senate bill 5, passed by the Ohio legislature and signed by Republican governor John Kasich,…
Those on the left are wont to complain that government employees are under assualt these days because GOP politicians are going after public sector unions and generous deals they've leveraged through collective bargaining. The standard defense of civil service workers is, yes, they might have good…
The Hill reports that the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), an AFL-CIO affiliated union, is out with a new ad campaign urging Congress to pass a provision of the president's jobs bill being brought to the Senate floor this week. The provision allots $35 billion to the states to…
We all suspected this was the case, but you're always surprised when one of the most powerful Democrats in the country just comes out and demonstrates the extent to which his party is beholden to public sector union campaign cash:
A new survey of 1,000 registered voters has found that 60 percent of respondents say state employees should contribute more to their pension fund, and 60 percent also say they are against raising taxes to pay for state budget shortfalls. The poll was conducted by veteran Democratic pollster Douglas…
Gallup finds that a generic Republican is beating President Obama by eight points.
It's really quite remarkable that the problems of public pensions were even allowed to get this bad:
In the past I've been fairly unsparing in my criticism of the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, but before I register my displeasure again, let me say I do think he works harder at reporting than most in the blogosphere. So I hope that the following is taken in constructive manner.
The New York Times had an eye-opening story about abuses in state-run homes for the elderly and disabled in New York this weekend. In particular, the article highlights how unions are aggressively defending those workers accused of very serious crimes:
Over at the Washington Post, Greg Sargent blogs that the Cato Institute is claiming that a new advertisement by Crossroads GPS, a conservative non-profit founded by Karl Rove, “distorts” the libertarian think tank’s data. The ad comes in response to the Wisconsin public-sector union battle and…
Crossroads GPS, the policy arm of the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads PAC that was instrumental in the 2010 election, has just started running a national ad attacking the link between public sector unions and Democrats. You can bet this is just an opening salvo in what will be a significant…
Madison, Wisconsin
Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s new governor, has brought on a showdown with public sector unions and their Democratic allies in his state. He seeks to get most state workers to pay for their pension and health benefits, to narrow collective bargaining to wages, to stop the state from collecting union…
A smart friend writes: "As a federal contractor, I'm prohibited from contributing to candidates or parties in federal elections. Am I breaking the law by funding Democrats via public sector unions when I pay my taxes?"
Wisconsin voters support the Democrats over Republican governor Scott Walker by eight points and the unions over Walker by 15 points, according to a new Rasmussen poll:
A New York Times/CBS News poll never lets you down. Today’s survey features a skewed sample (36 percent Democratic, 26 percent Republican), tricky questions, and an emphasis on results likely to thrill liberals and Democrats.
According to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the top lobbying group in Wisconsin for the 2009-2010 session of the legislature was the Wisconsin Education Assocation, which as of August 20, 2010 had spent 10,462 hours and $2,143,588 lobbying state lawmakers.
Jen Rubin reports on the Center for Union Facts's analysis of the Economic Policy Institute's conclusion that Wisconsin's public workers are underpaid. Rubin writes:
Andrew Sullivan caught a give-and-take between me and Juan Williams on Fox News on Monday night and raises a fair objection.
Most of the focus on public employee unions emphasizes the fact that states are going bankrupt and that states can’t continue to give these unions the almost obscene perks they have gotten in the past. But that misses the more fundamental point.
Madison, Wisc.
Over at Reason, Tim Cavanaugh has a lengthy piece in the current issue on California's struggles to rein in public unions. Even though it must have been written well in advance of the current foofaraw in Wisconsin, the timing couldn't be better. Cavanaugh makes the oft-overlooked point public…
The Heritage Foundation reports from Wisconsin and talks with union members protesting in Madison:
On Sunday, Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Educational Association Council, instructed the teachers in her union to return to the classroom after many of them skipped school for three days last week. The unexpected move energized Republicans in Wisconsin, who took it as a sign that negative…
In my post yesterday on the optics of the Wisconsin union battle, I noted in passing that FDR was quite vocally opposed to the creation of public sector unions. Roosevelt was an ardent supporter of unionism generally, but even he thought the idea of using collective bargaining against taxpayers was…
In evaluating the battle over public sector unions in Wisconsin, it's worth considering for a moment the state of American unionism. It's not a pretty picture, as far as unions are concerned.