Posted on Feb 24, 2015 by LaborPains.org Team
Big news from the frozen tundra of Wisconsin: Legislators are calling a special session to advance a right-to-work measure. Following reforms permitting employees to refrain from funding unions in Indiana and Michigan, the state legislature has indicated that it will pass the measure and Governor Scott Walker has said he will sign it. Wisconsin would […]
Posted on Dec 03, 2014 by LaborPains.org Team
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker earned the deep hostility of Big Labor for pushing a package of public-sector employee rights reforms — part of budget repair legislation titled Act 10 — in 2011. A recall election and a re-election later, both Walker and the Republican state legislative majorities that passed Act 10 are still standing. Richard […]
Posted on Nov 14, 2014 by LaborPains.org Team
In 2012, Michigan became the 24th state to pass a right-to-work law. Unions were outraged, but had little to complain about: Michiganders had just rejected a union proposal to rewrite the state’s labor laws to unions’ benefit (and prohibit right-to-work measures) despite over $23 million that was spent to pass it. For good measure, Michigan […]
Posted on Nov 11, 2014 by LaborPains.org Team
In February 2012, advocates for employee rights welcomed Indiana as the 23rd state to pass a right-to-work law under which unions cannot force non-members to fund the union. Big Labor (specifically the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150) sued on the preposterous grounds that the law violated their free speech rights, among other things. […]
Posted on Jul 01, 2014 by LaborPains.org Team
Yesterday, the Supreme Court struck down a major Service Employees International Union (SEIU) scheme to stanch the decline in workforce unionization. The high court ruled that SEIU could not require participants in an Illinois state Medicaid program to pay non-members’ representational fees (agency fees) to SEIU. The deal to unionize so-called “home health care workers”—including […]
Posted on May 05, 2014 by LaborPains.org Team
SEIU Healthcare Michigan has a problem: Its membership tanked from 55,265 members in 2012 to 10,918 in 2013—a decline of 44,347 members. The cause? Pro-employee legislation passed in 2012 that gave employees the option of refraining from paying the SEIU dues without losing their jobs, and a separate measure that abolished Healthcare Michigan’s “dues skim” […]
Posted on Jan 08, 2014 by LaborPains.org Team
Whenever there’s a labor union negotiating a contract with a major manufacturer, we all accept that their negotiation is defined by their competing interests. But with the recent case of Boeing’s contract with the International Association of Machinists, the more significant competing interests were actually within the union itself. National leadership at the IAM simply […]
Posted on Jun 24, 2013 by LaborPains.org Team
This week, the Center for Union Facts joins with over 50 other non-profit organizations to promote National Employee Freedom Week (NEFW), a non-partisan, nationwide effort to ensure that workers know their right to opt out of union membership. According to a nationwide survey of unionized employees, one-third of union household members would leave their union […]
