Tag Archives: Union

News

Amazing: California teachers challenge forced payment of union dues

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Dad sent me this article from the Washington Free Beacon. It’s good news!

Excerpt:

A group of California teachers is preparing for a Supreme Court battle to overturn forced union dues in a groundbreaking lawsuits filed in June.

For nearly three decades, the Supreme Court has allowed closed-shop unionism, in which public employees must pay dues to labor groups handling collective bargaining negotiations.

The Supreme Court established Beck Rights in 1988 allowing workers to opt out of union dues for political activities, while continuing to pay for union negotiating expenses. The teachers are hoping to take that battle one step further by putting an end to all coercive union dues.

Ten California schoolteachers are challenging California’s policy of forcing all public employees to pay union dues for collective bargaining. The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) is aiding their suit. The CIR views the issue through the lens of the Constitution, rather than as a contest of labor policy.

“Our efforts are not anti-union; we are trying to solidify the First Amendment rights of public employees to freely assemble,” CIR president Terry Pell said.

The plaintiffs filed a preliminary injunction on Tuesday asking the court to waive the teachers’ union dues during the ongoing trial. Pell is certain the motion will fail, which is all the better for the plaintiffs because it will “fast-track” the litigation to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually the Supreme Court.

“This is a piece of strategic litigation—we’re trying to get the issue of compulsory union dues to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible,” he said. “We know that lower courts can’t overrule Supreme Court precedent, but this will expedite us through the system.”

The Roberts court opened the door to ending coercive unionism last year when it ruled 5-4 that Service Employees International Union improperly charged non-union members for political activities. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority in Knox v. Service Employees International Union, said the forced dues on non-union members were “indefensible”

One of the biggest problems with California is the stranglehold that public sector unions have on the state. This would be a good first step to getting the state to turn around. Even liberals stop paying dues when it’s not mandatory, because they want to keep their own money just like anyone does.

News

New poll: 26% of Obama supporters think Tea Party is top terrorist threat

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Nile Gardiner writes about it in the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Rasmussen has just published an extraordinary poll which highlights the deep-seated prejudice against the Tea Party among both US government workers and supporters of President Obama. According to the poll:

Half of all voters consider radical Muslims the bigger terrorist threat facing the nation, but supporters of President Obama consider the Tea Party to be as big a danger.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters consider radical Muslims to be the bigger threat to the United States today. Thirteen percent (13%) view the Tea Party that way, and another 13% consider other political and religious extremists to be the larger danger. Six percent (6%) point to local militia groups. Two percent (2%) see the Occupy Wall Street movement as the bigger terrorist threat.

However, among those who approve of the president’s job performance, just 29% see radical Muslims as the bigger threat. Twenty-six percent (26%) say it’s the Tea Party that concerns them most. Among those who Strongly Approve of the president, more fear the Tea Party than radical Muslims.

As for those who disapprove of Obama’s performance, 75% consider radical Muslims to be the bigger terrorist threat. Just one percent (1%) name the Tea Party.

… Conservatives overwhelmingly see radical Muslims as the greater terror threat. Liberals are fairly evenly divided between radical Muslims and the Tea Party.

Twenty percent (20%) of government workers see the Tea Party as the nation’s bigger terror threat. Twelve percent (12%) of private sector workers hold that view.

[…]The extraordinary success of the Tea Party has led to it being demonised by the Left, culminating in an unprecedented campaign by the IRS against it, which has prompted a resurgence in public support for the movement – up 14 points since January, to 44 percent among likely US voters. Today’s Rasmussen poll illustrates the sheer depth of animosity towards the Tea Party within sections of the federal government and among President Obama’s strongest supporters (the two are usually interchangeable).

Some liberals have become so blinded by their hatred that they ludicrously see grassroots conservative groups defending the American Constitution as more dangerous than Islamist militants seeking to destroy the United States. Anyone opposed to their cause is a threat. This is irrational and deeply disturbing in a free society that has always cherished the cause of political freedom and open debate. It amply demonstrates just how extreme the American Left has become, and how out of touch it is with reality.

For a liberal in government, the problem is not adding a trillion plus to the national debt every year. That’s fine, and nothing to be concerned about. The trouble is that some people oppose running up these trillion dollar deficits – that’s terrorism. The Democrats believe that they are doing a good thing by using government to target Tea Party conservatives, because you would have to be a terrorist in order to oppose adding $8 trillion to the national debt. It’s not just the IRS that targeted the Tea Party, either. It’s the Department of Homeland Security, as well. Democrats aren’t serious about national security.

News

IRS chief visited White House a reported 118 times from 2010 to 2011

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The Weekly Standard reports.

Excerpt:

The Washington Examiner reports that the IRS chief visited the White House more than once a week under President Obama, after having visited less than once a year under President Bush. The IRS chief came to the White House a reported 118 times from 2010 to 2011 under Obama, compared to only once from 2003 to 2007 under Bush — a 236-fold increase per day.  Under Bush, a White House appearance from the taxman came as frequently as the opening of the Olympic Games; under Obama it came more frequently than Sports Illustrated.

Aside from perhaps being there to discuss targeting efforts, the only plausible reason for the IRS chief to have visited the Obama White House so regularly was to discuss the IRS’s significant expansion in power and scope under Obamacare.

But Obama only learned about how the IRS was implementing his own anti-conservative rhetoric by watching the news, just like you or I.