D-Day For Unions?

There is a case that is currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court that has not been getting anywhere nearly the attention it should be getting.  The case is called Harris vs Quinn and it stems from a case in Illinois.

To put the case in a nutshell, in 2003, the State of Illinois passed a law stating that people receiving government funding to take caring of loved ones should be considered to be public employees.  This automatically made them union members.

An anti-union front group that supports the misnamed Right to Work laws and which is sponsored by Big Business has fought this all the way to the Supreme Court, which is expected to release their decision as soon as Monday.

Depending on which way the Supreme Court rules, and how general or specific their decision is, it could mean very bad news for unions all across the nations.  If the decision goes against the unions, as is expected, it would set up a national scenario much like we've seen here in Wisconsin after Scott Walker dropped his Act 10 bomb on the state.  It would greatly weaken the unions and open the door to more exploitation of workers, lower wages, higher levels of poverty and the same stagnant economy we have here in Wisconsin.

Ironically, the bright ray of hope for the unions is the usually anti-union Justice Antonin Scalia:

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia could prove to be the swing vote, experts say.

In a 1991 Supreme Court case, Scalia argued it is reasonable for unions to collect fees from non-union members to cover their negotiating costs. Then, during oral arguments for Harris vs. Quinn in January, Scalia's questions led some believe he is leaning in this direction once again.

Eisenbrey called Scalia “the hope.”

“In this case, Scalia may actually end up being a swing vote who actually sides with the more liberal members of the court and, of course, workers,” said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP).

Even if the Supreme Court does rule against the unions, don't for a minute consider it a kill shot, as some are hyping it to be.

Sure, it will make things more difficult for the unions, but just ask Scott Walker or Chris Abele about how crippled the unions are. Just brace yourself for the outburst of profanities that comes out of their weaselly mouths when you do.

Antonin Scalia: Union Hero?!

I would never have expected this in a million years:

Illinois grants public-sector unions the right to exclusive representation—meaning that if they receive a majority vote, they automatically represent all employees—and lets them charge a “fair share” fee to employees who don’t join the union but are covered by the collective bargaining agreement. The broader question raised in the case is whether or not any public-sector union should enjoy these rights. This issue would affect every local, state and federal union in the country.

The challenge was brought by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW), an anti-union group whose mission “is to eliminate coercive union power and compulsory unionism abuses through strategic litigation, public information and education programs.” In a typical NRTW case this November, attorney William Messenger argued unsuccessfully before the Supreme Court that unions should not have the right to negotiate card check and neutrality agreements. Yesterday, Messenger tried to convince the Court that exclusive representation and fair share fees by public sector unions violate workers’ First Amendment rights. He claimed that, because public employee unions bargain over matters of public concern, the fees force workers to contribute to speech with which they may not agree.

But Justice Scalia was having none of it. Though Scalia is often cast as an ideological enemy of all labor—Salon stories by Josh Eidelson on this case and the neutrality agreement case, respectively, were titled, “Scalia’s Golden Chance to Kill Unions” and “Scalia’s Chance to Smash Unions”—here Scalia did not join with Justices Alito, Roberts and Kennedy in advancing the NRTW argument. Rather, Scalia was quick to question the very premise of the NRTW’s case, in a manner that set the tone for the remainder of the proceedings.

Scalia turned the NRTW argument on its head by raising the hypothetical of a policeman who, after asking a dozen times for a raise, was denied access to the police commissioner. Did he have his First Amendment rights violated? The answer was no. With this device, Justice Scalia highlighted how the Supreme Court has recognized that the government has wider latitude in dealing with its employees than in dealing with its citizenry. The police commissioner telling his secretary that he didn’t want to speak with his subordinate no more violated the policeman’s First Amendment rights than charging healthcare workers a fair share fee for union representation does theirs.

At one point in the arguments, when Justice Kagan suggested that Scalia believed that the NRTW position was valid, Scalia interrupted to clarify, stating, “I want to hear the answer, too, because, contrary to what Justice Kagan suggests, I didn’t say your First Amendment argument was valid ... I said at least it was a comprehensible argument.”

When the NRTW attorney suggested that the way homecare workers negotiate for higher wages was not internal workplace speech, but rather more highly protected political speech, Scalia objected, saying, “Why isn’t it? I mean, it is for private employers.” Scalia went on to suggest that employers may stand to gain by having their workforce represented by a single union. “There are some private employers who think they’re better off with a closed shop and they just want to deal with one union. ... They do this as private employers because they think it is in their interest as an employer. Why can’t the government have the same interest?” Coming from Scalia, these arguments have far more force than they would from one of the more liberal justices.

The article also says that Scalia is against allowing people to have a free ride, meaning that freeloaders should have to pay for the representation they enjoy.

This kind of confirms the adage that truth is stranger than fiction. It also shows that this isn't such a bad thing.

It should be interesting to see how this might affect Act 10.