The following article by Thomas Kochan, the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, Work and Organization Studies Co-Director MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research, MIT Sloan School of Management; Duanyl Yang, PhD. Candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Erin L. Kelly, Loan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies Professor; Work and Organization Studies MIT Sloan School of Management and Will Kimball, Ph.D. Student, MIT Sloan School of Management, was posted on the Conversation website August 30, 2018:
Only 10.7 percent of American workers belong to a union today, approximately half as many as in 1983. That’s a level not seen since the 1930s, just before passage of the labor law that was supposed to protect workers’ right to organize.
The results obtained from nearly 4,000 respondents show that 48 percent – nearly half of nonunionized workers – would join a union if given the opportunity to do so.
The following article by Lisa Rein was posted on the Washington Post website August 25, 2018:
Unions representing federal workers on Saturday declared victory in what they have described as an assault by the Trump administration after a federal judge struck down key provisions of a set of executive orders aimed at making it easier to fire employees and weaken their representation.
The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in Washington, was a setback to the White House’s efforts to rein in federal unions, which have retained significant power over working conditions even as private-sector unions are in decline.
“It’s a big win for us,” said David Borer, general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees. With 750,000 members, the AFGE was the largest of about a dozen unions to sue the administration to block the new rules affecting 2.1 million civil servants.
The following article by Todd Ruger was posted on the Roll Call website February 26, 2018:
Case about dues could have a far-reaching impact on labor unions
Hilary O. Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, appears outside the Supreme Court on Monday in support of unions as the Court hears arguments on a lawsuit filed by Illinois state worker Mark Janus. Janus says his rights are being violated by having to pay dues to a union he doesn’t support. Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
Justice Neil Gorsuch likely holds the key vote in a major labor case that drew dueling protests outside the Supreme Court building for Monday’s oral arguments, but he did nothing to tip his hand about his thinking.
Gorsuch did not ask a question during an hour of arguments, while the other eight justices appeared to be equally split along ideological lines. The case asks the justices to overturn a decades-old precedent and deal a financial blow to the unions that represent teachers and other public-sector employees. Continue reading “Supreme Court Appears Split on Union Case”
The following article by Todd Ruger was posted on the Roll Call website February 26, 2018:
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters
The Supreme Court appears set to overturn a decades-old precedent and deal a financial blow to Democratic-aligned unions that represent teachers and other public-sector employees in a major case with blatant political overtones.
Ahead of oral arguments Monday, two Democratic senators sent the justices this message: The Supreme Court’s reputation is at stake, and overturning the 1977 ruling will further erode the public’s confidence that the federal courts are neutral and above politics. Continue reading “Senators Warn Union Case Risks Supreme Court’s Reputation”
The following article by Robert Barnes was posted on the Washington Post website December 6, 2017:
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters
The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to overrule a 40-year-old precedent that allows compelling public employees to pay some fees to unions that represent them, an important tool for the U.S. labor movement.
It was another dramatic reversal in a high-profile case before the high court, and at least the third time since President Trump’s inauguration that the Justice Department has renounced its past positions, some held for decades.
It puts the administration squarely on the side of conservative legal activists, who have complained for years that the requirement violates the free-speech rights of those who don’t want to join the union or pay fees to it.
The Supreme Court precedent the administration wants to overturn says that unions may charge all employees for the cost of collective bargaining, but not for the union’s political activities. About 20 states allow that practice.
The Obama administration supported the unions in previous challenges, and when the issue was last before the court in January 2016. It appeared from oral arguments that challenge would be successful, but Justice Antonin Scalia died a month later, and the court announced that it had split, 4 to 4, on the issue.
With Justice Neil M. Gorsuch taking Scalia’s place, the court announced in September it was taking a new challenge on the issue.
“The government reconsidered the question” after the new grant, says the brief filed by Solicitor General Neal J. Francisco. “The government’s previous briefs gave insufficient weight to the First Amendment interest of public employees in declining to fund speech on contested matters of public policy.”
The court’s decision in 1977’s Abood v. Detroit Board of Education “is inconsistent with prevailing First Amendment precedent and should be overruled.”
It is at least the third time since the election that the Justice Department has switched its position on an issue at the Supreme Court. While different views are expected when control of the White House moves from one party to another, they can sometimes cause problems for the government lawyers who argue at the high court.
The office of the solicitor general, which represents the government at the Supreme Court, is supposed to supply the court with a consistent view of the law without undue partisan considerations.
The Trump administration already has changed its view on one case involving worker’s rights that created a rift with the National Labor Relations Board. In another, it changed the Justice Department’s long-standing position on how states may purge inactive voters from the rolls.
The Abood decision said states could allow public-employee unions to collect fees from nonmembers to cover the costs of workplace negotiations but not the union’s political activities.
The unions say losing those fees would be a heavy blow because there is no incentive for workers to pay for collective-bargaining representation they could receive free.
But conservative activists — and conservative justices in recent cases — have sharply questioned whether it is possible to separate public-employee negotiations from the kind of public-policy questions — teacher salaries and classroom sizes, for instance, and the tax dollars needed to pay for them — that are raised.
The lead plaintiff in the new case is Mark Janus, a child-support specialist at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. The case is Janus v. AFSCME Council 31.
The following article by Alex Rowell and David Madland was posted on the Center for American Progress website September 14, 2017:
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that in 2016, the median U.S. household earned $59,039, a 3.2 percent increase from the previous year. Seven years after the end of the Great Recession, the median household’s income has approximately recovered to its pre-recession level, when adjusted for inflation, but has effectively remained stagnant since the late 1990s.
Middle-class households are not seeing the high levels of income growth that are being enjoyed by America’s highest-income earners. Furthermore, the share of income that is earned by the middle 60 percent of households, by income, has fallen to record lows. A revitalized union movement could help reverse the decades-long trend of growing inequality and a shrinking middle class. But anti-union attacks at the state and national levels threaten to further tilt our nation’s economy against workers. Continue reading “Without Strong Unions, Middle-Class Families Bring Home a Smaller Share”
Walker said he spoke with Vice President Mike Pence during his Friday visit to the White House about his 2011 move to sharply limit collective bargaining for most public workers in Wisconsin, known as Act 10.
The governor said he and Pence talked about “what we’ve done here in Wisconsin, how they may take bits and pieces of what we did with Act 10 and with civil service reform, and how they could apply that at the national level” for federal workers. Continue reading “Trump interested in national restrictions on unions”
The following article was written by Richard Freeman, Eunice Han, David Madland and Brendan Duke for the Center for American Progress and was posted on September 9, 2015:
What Unions do for Mobility
Upward mobility and opportunity are the definition of the American dream. But today, the nation has less mobility and fewer opportunities when compared to other advanced economies. Research by economists Raj Chetty of Stanford University, Nathaniel Hendren of Harvard University and Patrick Kline and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, show that five factors have the strongest geographical relationship—positive or negative—with mobility: single motherhood rates, income inequality, high school dropout rates, social capital, and segregation. This report examines the relationship between mobility and another variable that Chetty and his co-authors did not consider: union membership.
Based on the research for this report, it is clear that there is a strong relationship between union membership and intergenerational mobility. More specifically: Areas with higher union membership demonstrate more mobility for low-income children. Furthermore, the relationship is at least as strong as the relationship between mobility and high school dropout rates—a factor that is generally recognized as one of the most important correlates of economic mobility.
Only 10.7 percent of American workers belong to a union today, approximately half as many as in 1983. That’s a level not seen since the 1930s, just before passage of the labor law that was supposed to protect workers’ right to organize.
The following article was written by Richard Freeman, Eunice Han, David Madland and Brendan Duke for the Center for American Progress and was posted on September 9, 2015: