Op-Ed: Unions circumventing the Supreme Court, before it’s even ruled
Last week, State Policy Network experts appeared in several outlets to shed light on the latest legislative tactics to keep government employees from having a voice and a choice in union membership. These tactics have surfaced as the Janus v. AFSCME case has put a spotlight on workers’ freedom of speech and association for the US Supreme Court.
“Government unions and politicians are trying to dodge a Supreme Court decision before it’s even been made, and they’re doing so at the expense of workers.
Union-backed politicians have begun pushing bills intended to get around a potential ruling that protects public employees’ First Amendment rights. Some legislators are so brazen that they started finding ways to sidestep the Supreme Court before it even heard arguments in Janus v. AFSCME.
Threatened by the idea that their time of forcing people to pay them is limited, government unions in blue states have begun lobbying politicians to quickly enact laws that would get around a ruling that puts workers’ rights above union privileges.
The most egregious examples come from New Jersey, where a union wish-list bill advanced out of committee on March 19. The bill combines tactics in legislation bubbling up in several union-friendly states.
Each tactic’s intent is to trap government employees into paying unions against their will. They include: making it harder for public employees to leave and stop paying the union; forcing new employees to sit through a union sales pitch; and restricting what public employers can tell their employees, among other things.”
To learn more about Janus v. AFSCME and what the network is doing to support worker freedom, please visit this page on the Janus case.
