Of those 228 elections last year, unions won only 87—by far the lowest total on record—earning a 38.2 percent win rate that itself marks a five-year low. In terms of living, breathing members, the 2012 figures were similarly bleak for unions. Of the 14,051 workers in bargaining units threatened with decertification, only about half—7,326—remained unionized after the votes were counted, marking the lowest retention total on record.

Admittedly, 2012 saw an unusually low number of decertification attempts. That said, total representation elections stand at half the level of 20 years ago, according to BNA.

But unions’ poor record of winning these elections shows that unionized workers are becoming convinced that unions no longer represent their interests. Given their declining membership rolls, unions need reform like those in the Employee Rights Act, not window-dressing stunts to stanch the slide.

Organizers in Detroit said several hundred food workers participated in the walkouts, which succeeded in disrupting operations at six chain restaurants in the city, including two McDonald’s, a Subway, a Burger King, a Long John Silver’s and a Popeyes. […] The Detroit strike was organized by a coalition of labor, faith and activist groups calling itself the Michigan Workers Organizing Committee.

Of course, these “Workers Organizing Committees” aren’t exactly forthcoming about who sponsors them. Unsurprisingly, the Service Employees International Union, which has been plotting a campaign to organize fast food restaurants for years, appears ultimately and financially responsible. Unions’ federal financial disclosures show that the SEIU has put over $2.5 million into the organizations fronting the NYC campaign.

With that level of investment, don’t expect unions to give up chasing a potentially deep source of dues—and perhaps just as important, mandatory initiation fees. Unions hope that by rebranding themselves, by dodging reporting requirements and picketing rules by using “workers centers” to lead the line, and by standing in the way of highly popular governance reforms (like the Employee Rights Act) they can reverse their decline. Workers deserve better than that.

The posters contained no statement of employees’ rights to de-certify unions or refrain from paying the full dues amount to a union (under a case called Beck v. CWA), so business groups argued that the posters were one-sidedly pro-union. The Court found that it was unfair for NLRB to punish employers for failing to post posters with which they did not agree. (Lawgeeks can read the ruling here.)

The Wall Street Journal editors cheered this check on the NLRB’s activist streak, noting:

Alas for the NLRB’s overreachers, the Supreme Court has held on many occasions that freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say. Such “compelled speech” is exactly what the NLRB was demanding. And while Judge Randolph found the First Amendment violation sufficient to kill the rule, his fellow judges wrote a concurring judgment that the NLRB lacked the authority to issue it in the first place.

This ruling may well join the other D.C. Circuit bombshell, Noel Canning (which found the “recess appointments” the Administration used to pack the NLRB when the Senate wasn’t in recess were invalid) in next year’s Supreme Court docket. But for now, federal courts aren’t taking NLRB’s pro-union activism lying down.

Scandal has rocked the Auburn Teachers Association, an affiliate of the New York State United Teachers and American Federation of Teachers. The Auburn Citizen reports that an audit showed that the former (and now deceased) President of the Association allegedly misappropriated up to $800,000 in dues money for various personal uses. Local police are investigating to determine if she had accomplices. The union boss had been widely praised at her death, but now former cheerleaders are questioning how she might have been able to fleece teachers for so long.

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