US Supreme Court, Washington DC,Overruling Abood Will Correct a Travesty
My first two posts in this series discussed, respectively, the origins of the concept of “exclusive representation” in the NLRA and the Supreme Court case law leading up to Abood in 1977. In this post, I will analyze the decision in Abood (which, it will be recalled, was roundly criticized in Harris v. Quinn (2014) and may be overruled in Friedrichs).
Is It Curtains for Mandatory Public Sector Union Dues?
MADISON, WI - MARCH 12: Thousands of demonstrators protest outside the Wisconsin State Capitol March 12, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin. Organizers were expecting 200 thousand participants to attend the rally to voice their opposition to Governor Scott Walker public sector union reforms. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)In America’s experiment with unionized government, 2005 was a watershed year. California was then in the second year of the Age of Arnold. Elected on a pledge to put the Golden State’s dysfunctional fiscal house in order, Governor Schwarzenegger terminated the car tax on his first day in office. In his first year, the Republican and self-proclaimed Milton Friedman devotee successfully championed a balanced budget initiative and legislation putting a lid on spiraling worker-compensation costs. His prime time address at the 2004 GOP convention portrayed the Republican Party as dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and to “getting government off your…
Responses
Many say the Roberts Court has been exceptionally supportive of First Amendment principles. As Michael Toth ably details in his Liberty Forum essay, these principles have been at issue in two recent cases, Knox v. SEIU Local 1000 (2012) and Harris v. Quinn (2014). Both dealt with public employee unions and both were decided in…
Let me start with a disclaimer. I was once a member of a union—albeit involuntarily. During college, I responded to Southwestern Bell’s ad for a part-time, 20-hour-a-week graveyard shift job designing Yellow Pages advertisements. I was offered the position, but was required to join the union as a condition of my employment. Had I been…
The Government is Us. Let’s Unionize!
Happy New Year, and all cheer the arrival of the one and only John McGinnis on this excellent site! His contributions will make it excellenter still. Rummaging around on the Supremes’ docket and among briefs and petitions, I’ve come across Harris v. Quinn. The question is whether it’s okay for a state (Illinois) to authorize unionization, complete with mandatory union fees, for home health care workers who provide in-home care to individual patients under Medicaid-financed programs. Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed. (1977) held that public employers have a “compelling interest” in labor peace and in preventing free-riding by employees. (However,…
