CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 28, 2017, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“UNIONS WON’T LIE DOWN AS CLOUT IS THREATENED”
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 28, 2017, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“UNIONS WON’T LIE DOWN AS CLOUT IS THREATENED”
There’s a good chance that using union
dues for politics will become harder within a year or two and, one thing for
sure: big labor will not easily accept that kind of new reality.
Three times in the past 15 years, ballot initiative campaigns led
by conservative Republicans tried unsuccessfully to truncate the power and influence
of California’s labor unions, both public employee organizations and others.
“Paycheck protection” was the label
applied to those efforts, which sought to prevent unions from using dues money
raised via automatic payroll deductions for political purposes. The most recent
such effort, in 2012, looked to force
unions to get authorization each year from each member before their dues money
could be used for candidate contributions, canvassing for votes or circulating
initiative petitions.
Labor unions pushed back each time,
claiming that if paycheck protection ever becomes law, the political playing
field will be tilted strongly to the right, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s
Citizens United decision allowing almost unlimited contributions from billionaires
and businesses, while unions would have one hand tied behind their backs.
The union arguments prevailed
politically, but conservatives did not give up. Rather than appeal to voters,
since 2012, they’ve tried to convince judges.
They came very close to winning this
long-running battle last year, when the case of Friedrichs vs. the California
Teachers Assn. (CTA), taking the name of Orange County schoolteacher Rebecca
Friedrichs, a dues-for-politics opponent, was turned down on a 4-4 U.S. Supreme
Court vote soon after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
Now, the high court may be about to
take up a similar case from Illinois, and with new Justice Neil Gorsuch
expected to join the panel’s four previous conservative judges in backing paycheck
protection, the idea might win.
At least in California, unions are not
taking this lying down. One huge public employee union is about to hike the
fees it charges members who don’t want to fund its political advocacy. Local 1000 of the Service Employees
International Union, state government’s largest union, is raising the minimum
amount of dues it charges those employees by 6 percent, or about $5 per month
each. The increase comes under a state law allowing unions to charge employees
who are not full members for legal and bargaining expenses run up for the sake
of workers.
At the same time, the CTA – by far the
state’s largest teachers union and a major political factor for decades – got
its friends in the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown to back two state budget
trailer bills requiring school districts, cities, counties and other government
agencies to give unions representing their workers regular chances to meet and
sign up new members.
The unions realize that unless they do
something, their membership and influence will decline sharply as many
conservative-leaning union members – long forced to pay for labor’s political
advocacy whether they like it or not – start opting out if paycheck protection
becomes federal law. Some estimates put possible union losses between 20
percent and 40 percent of their current political revenues – unless they
recruit heavily.
But school districts and other
agencies will have the right to negotiate terms of those union recruiting
meetings. This may delay their start indefinitely or cause them to be very
brief.
Union fears were well expressed the
other day by Joshua Pechthalt, president of the state’s second-largest teacher
union, the California Federation of Teachers, who told a reporter that
“Anything to mitigate a loss of membership would be helpful.” He added that if
paycheck protection becomes law, “Our world will change dramatically. (So)
having time to talk about what we do, who we are…will become doubly important.”
One group that could opt out en masse
of all so-called “agency fees,” the dues charged now to employees who don’t
actually belong to unions that bargain for them, is part-time teachers at
community colleges and California State University campuses.
For sure, California has a lot riding
on the likely new Supreme Court case. But whatever happens, don’t expect unions
to accept it meekly. The new meet-and-greet law is likely only their first move
toward retaining and possibly expanding their current powerful role.
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Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
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