Tag Archives: Topic: Unions

AP: A gay teacher challenging her firing by an Ohio Catholic school says the local union for Catholic educators has decided not to proceed with her complaint.

Education Week: A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a Michigan law that bars school districts from deducting teachers’ union dues for their employees. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled 2-1 that the state’s Act 53, a 2012 measure that by its own terms was meant as “a check on union power,” likely does not violate the free speech or equal protection rights of teachers’ unions.

The American Federation for Children, the nation’s voice for educational choice, today urged the Louisiana Legislature and Governor to find a legislative solution after the Louisiana Supreme Court struck down the current funding mechanism for state’s voucher program. The Court only ruled against the funding of the voucher program and did not strike down the constitutionality of the program.

Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy: his morning, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in National Association of Manufacturers v. National Labor Relations Board, struck down a new NLRB regulation requiring employers to post a notice of employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act on their properties and websites.

EagNews.org: We’ve seen a growing number of local unions break ties with state and national unions in K-12 school districts in recent years. Now unionized college employees are getting in the act.

NRO (includes video): Amidst a controversy over the widespread education-reform project Governor Bobby Jindal has begun in Louisiana, the head of the state’s largest teachers’ union has essentially claimed that children belong to teachers’ unions as much as they do their parents.

Washington Examiners: The teachers, represented by the Los Angeles-based Center for Individual Rights, claim that California’s so-called “agency shop” law violates their free speech and free assembly rights and forces them to cough up $1,000 to pay for the union’s mostly Democratic political activities.

Houston Chronicle: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has issued an opinion stating that local governments and school districts that offer marriage benefits to same-sex partners are violating the state constitution.

EagNews.org: Leaders of a deeply troubled Pennsylvania school district are considering a plan to convert all of its individual schools into charters beginning next fall – an immediate and sweeping change that’s never been attempted before in American K-12 history.

Appellate Daily: The Benedictine monks of St. Joseph Abbey in southern Louisiana make and sell wooden caskets to support their monastery. State regulators are not happy about it, though, because they say the monks need a license.

NewsObserver: North Carolina’s 115 public school systems would lose the right to take their local board of county commissioners to court for more funding under a bill filed in the state Senate.

NCPA Policy Digest: In states where online education has been implemented, local and state teachers unions have challenged virtual education in court by seeking to limit enrollment in the charter schools that utilize the technology, by pushing for virtual schools to be closed and by seeking to limit enrollment to students who live “in district,” despite that defeating the benefits of the Internet.

NCPA Policy Digest: Taxpayers around the country will soon be grappling with massive amounts of debt they had no idea they were responsible for. The hidden debt is the result of $7.3 billion in promises that were made by state legislators but never approved by taxpayers, says Steven Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Fox News: Maryland lawmakers agreed this week to require public school teachers to pay union fees – a move that bolsters the state’s connection to organized labor as others move toward a right-to-work status.

Washington Post: The effort reflects a new White House effort to tilt in its favor the conservative-dominated U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is one notch below the Supreme Court and considers many challenges to executive actions.

Steven Malanga at WSJ (via Google): State and local governments owe $7.3 trillion in promises they’ve made that were never approved by taxpayers.

The Blaze (includes video): An Oregon public school teacher says he’s on the verge of being fired because of his outspoken views against Planned Parenthood and abortion.

Tallahassee.com: That is why, as president of the NFL Players Association, I’m standing with the majority of Americans who support the freedom to marry. This simple endorsement of equality might surprise some people.

Heritage Foundation: In a new paper, Heritage expert Jason Richwine reveals that “Proper accounting would reveal tens of billions of dollars in extra teacher pension costs, equivalent to somewhere around $1,000 in unreported spending per student.”

Alexander Volokh at Reason Foundation: Contracting with a private corporation to deliver an activity may alter the labor-management relations regime and the ADA regime but not the RLUIPA regime. The constitutional state-action regime may be unchanged with respect to the population served, but may be radically different with respect to hiring and firing decisions. What other regimes are altered may also depend on what conditions the contractor committed to fulfill in its contract. How, then, do we define “public” vs. “private,” “government” vs. “private sector,” “instrumentality of government” vs. “mere contractor”, “state actor” vs. “private actor”? We don’t. Each of these terms is a shorthand designating a broad set of attributes, and contracting out is all about exploring the limits of these concepts. For any given statute or constitutional provision, different rules might be appropriate in different contexts.

American Federation for Children: The American Federation for Children—the nation’s voice for educational choice— today applauded the hundreds of Louisiana parents, grandparents, and education reform advocates who traveled across the state to gather outside of the Louisiana Supreme Court in New Orleans to show their support of the Louisiana Scholarship Program.

The American Federation for Children—the nation’s voice for educational choice—today applauded the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that lifted the temporary restraining order placed on the Alabama Accountability Act in response to a lawsuit filed by the Alabama Education Association last week. The lawsuit was filed in an effort to prevent Governor Robert Bentley from signing the legislation that includes a new tax credit scholarship into law.

Education News: The split is the result of chronic differences over money, support and communications, not only between UHPA and NEA, but between UHPA and HSTA, who often do not see eye-to-eye on union issues. In a February 2012 memo, UHPA executive director J.N. Musto laid out the arguments for disaffiliation that centered on value added for money spent.

Education News: New Jersey’s governor has branded them “political thugs.” A former federal education official has likened them to terrorists. Less vilified in Kansas than some other parts of the country, those teachers unions still find their clout under attack in the Legislature.

WDEL.com: The Delaware State AFL-CIO, the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council and the Delaware Public Employees Council 81-AFSCME. are appealing to lawmakers to support a marriage equality bill this session.

American Federation for Children:For the past four years, supporters of educational choice have wondered why the Obama Administration has so vigorously opposed providing children in low-income families with access to more educational options. Right here in Washington, D.C., the highly successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) has given thousands of children hope for a better future and yet the Obama Administration has consistently opposed it. In fact, despite signing the FY 2011 budget agreement which included a five-year reauthorization of the program, the President’s subsequent budget proposals zeroed out funding for the program.

NCPA Policy Digest: Now that the dust has settled and the true costs of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have been revealed, union leaders are realizing the overhaul may not be such a good deal, says the Wall Street Journal.

BuzzFeed: Originally formed to repeal DOMA in Congress, LGBT rights organizations are building a coalition to fight for “securing the freedom to marry nationwide.”

Bloomberg: President Barack Obama’s recess appointments to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board last year were “constitutionally invalid” because the Senate wasn’t in recess at the time, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled. | Canning v. NLRB, No. 12-1115 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 25, 2013)

AP: The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the unionization rate fell from 11.8 percent to 11.3 percent of all workers, the lowest level since the 1930s.

Randall Hoven at American Thinker: So in round numbers, let’s say a $1 million investment nest egg is equal to an annual income of $40,000. Suddenly, $1 million doesn’t seem so rich. That relationship can be turned around: if you have an annual pension of $40,000, you are effectively a millionaire, especially if that pension is adjusted for cost of living. Now let’s look at public school teachers. In Illinois, where I live, the Illinois State Board of Education puts out a report on teachers’ salaries . . .

Bloomberg: Davis escalated salaries and benefits for 164,000 state workers, including a 34 percent raise for prison guards, the first of a series of steps in which he and successors saddled California with a legacy of dysfunction. Today, the state’s highest-paid employees make far more than comparable workers elsewhere in almost all job and wage categories, from public safety to health care, base pay to overtime.

The Hill: The passage of the right-to-work legislation in a 58-51 vote sends the bill to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), who has said he will sign it.

Ed News: With Michigan teachers unions outraged over the state’s new right-to-work law that allows teachers to work without joining the union, the state’s current teachers are preparing to close down schools in protest.

AP:In an audacious flex of political muscle, Republicans in a single day reached the brink of a goal that for years has seemed an all-but-impossible dream: making the labor bastion of Michigan a right-to-work state.

National Review: Here is what we found: The teacher unions of Hawaii, Oregon, Montana, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and California are exceptionally strong, while those in Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Arizona are among the weakest. States that require school districts to negotiate with their local unions tended to rate “strong” on our metric — but not always.

Statesman.com: Nearly two months after the Pflugerville school district announced it would offer insurance benefits next year to domestic partners, the school board is reviving the controversial issue.

AP: In a major test of presidential power, federal appeals courts are starting to hear legal challenges to President Barack Obama’s decision to bypass the Senate in appointing three members to the National Labor Relations Board.

Wall Street Journal (via Google): Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana signed into law an expanded school choice program for underprivileged kids. Naturally, the teachers unions are suing to block it. Oral arguments begin tomorrow.

Ed News: Prospective teachers in three southern states paid stand-ins to take their licensing exams, according to a federal investigation that uncovered 15 years of mass fraud in the public school licensing system.

Education News: Last week, Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers Union, announced his intention to push for legislation that would force charter school teachers in the nation’s capital to become unionized.

WIBC.com: The five justices heard roughly 1 1/2 hours of oral arguments on whether the state constitution allows taxpayer money to fund vouchers that pay for religious or other private schools. Chief Justice Brent Dickson gave no indication on when they would rule. “We will attempt to resolve the matter, and we’ll let you know when we do.”

AP: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez faced a nationwide strike on Tuesday, led by the union bosses who used to be her most steadfast supporters.

AP: From California to Maine, unions used their political muscle in the recent elections to help install Democratic governors, build labor-friendly majorities in state legislatures and defeat ballot initiatives against them.

Washington Post: Shortly before 123 million voters picked a president, 38 Louisiana monks moved the judiciary toward a decision that could change American governance more than most presidents do. The monks’ cypress caskets could catalyze a rebirth of judicial respect for Americans’ unenumerated rights, a.k.a. privileges or immunities.

Washington Post: Washington Teachers’ Union President Nathan Saunders said Wednesday that he wants to unionize the city’s charter schools and will push for legislative changes to make it easier to organize their teachers, who educate a growing number of D.C. students.

Q13Fox.com: A day after the charter schools initiative was declared a winner by a small margin, Washington’s superintendent of public instruction went on the offensive.

Washington Times: Last month, Scott Lautenbaugh, an Omaha attorney and Nebraska state senator, filed a lawsuit against the Nebraska State Bar Association in federal district court in Omaha. Days later, Mr. Lautenbaugh sought a preliminary injunction and to certify his case as a class action. Mr. Lautenbaugh is an outspoken opponent of the bar’s use of member dues for political and ideological purposes. In fact, he filed a petition with the Nebraska Supreme Court asking that it “de-integrate the bar,” that is, make membership in the bar voluntary.

AP: The philanthropic arm of shipping giant UPS said it will no longer give money to the Boy Scouts of America as long as the group discriminates against gays . . .

NCPA Policy Digest: For several decades, support has coalesced in favor of broad school reforms in an effort to increase student achievement scores. Recently, reformers have focused on the role that teacher unions play in K-12 education, say Amber M. Winkler, Janie Scull and Dara Zeehandelaar of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. . . . Source: Amber M. Winkler, Janie Scull and Dara Zeehandelaar, “How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, October 29, 2012.

A group of concerned attorneys, required by law to be dues-paying members of the Washington State Bar Association, are objecting to the association’s public support for R-74, a measure that seeks to redefine marriage in the state. The lawyers, who do not support R-74, have sent a strongly worded letter to the bar citing the bar’s own rules and a U.S. Supreme Court decision that says mandatory bars can’t take sides on such matters.

Seattle Times: In a letter responding to the members, the board’s president said the organization has consistently found that issues like Ref. 74 do affect the practice of law and the administration of justice. It said Keller does not prohibit the bar from taking positions on any issue, but rather forbids it from using mandatory member fees to support such positions. It offered the attorneys the option of deducting from their dues an amount ranging from 98 cents to $6.40 . . . Bellevue attorney Chris Evans, who wrote the letter on behalf of the others, called the board’s endorsement “mission creep.” | The Washington State Bar Response Letter

The Hill: Union officials are campaigning to lock collective bargaining rights into Michigan’s state constitution on Election Day and are talking about repeating the feat elsewhere if they succeed.

The inter-ethnic, interdenominational coalition of pastors that originally opposed the decision by Pflugerville ISD to extend employee benefits to domestic partners expressed appreciation to State Senator Dan Patrick for his bold leadership in requesting an opinion by Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Wall Street Journal (via Google): The court is a particular union target this year because of Proposal 2, which would apply retroactively. If it passes, unions plan to challenge as illegal as many as 170 current state laws, sending an unprecedented wave of litigation to the state Supreme Court. Big Labor wants its judges making the calls

Idaho State Journal (AP): A lawsuit to force a group touting public schools chief Tom Luna’s education overhaul to reveal its still-secret financiers was returned to state court after Secretary of State Ben Ysursa argued a ploy to move the matter to federal court was a desperate delay tactic.

NCPA Digest: The recent economic crisis has left many state and local governments with underfunded pension benefits for government employees. However, elected officials are unwilling to make the necessary cuts or tax hikes because both options are extremely unpopular, say Robert Novy-Marx, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Rochester’s Simon Graduate School of Business, and Joshua Rauh, a professor of finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Education News: Lawyers representing hundreds of school districts challenging the state’s school funding system argued Monday that it’s “hopelessly broken,” but an attorney for the state said the situation isn’t as dire as the districts portray.

Reuters: The largest 100 public pension funds have around $1.2 trillion of unfunded liabilities, about $300 billion above the nearly $900 billion they reported themselves, according to a new actuarial study to be released on Monday.

Courthouse News: A Republican lawmaker challenged the Nebraska State Bar Association’s practice of using mandatory dues for lobbying. Scott Lautenbaugh, a state senator from Omaha, filed a class action in Federal Court. Lautenbaugh claims the Bar’s use of mandatory membership dues for lobbying violates Bar members’ right to free speech.

GateWayPundit: A bus driver told a 12 year-old student that he should have been aborted because his family had a Romney-Ryan sign in their yard. Freedom Eden reported . . .

Weekly Standard (video embedded): A GOP source sends along this video, shot by a Republican tracker, of a union member supporting Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren outside of a debate Wednesday night in Springfield, Massachusetts. The cameraman asks the union member if he was at an earlier debate between Warren and her Republican opponent, Senator Scott Brown

AP: The AFL-CIO says it has registered more than 450,000 new voters from union households over the past 18 months . . .

Atlanta J. Constitution: Proponents of the November charter school amendment have protested state School Superintendent John Barge’s public stand against the amendment on the DOE web site, which led the state Department of Education to take down a 29-point position paper highlighting the reasons. A link to that paper was on the Georgia Department of Education’s home page.
Today, Attorney General Sam Olens notified Barge to alert local school boards that they “do not have the legal authority to expend funds or other resources to advocate or oppose the ratification of a constitutional amendment by the voters.

Ed. News: From the Chicago teachers’ strike to the debut of a controversial anti-teacher’s union film, education has been getting national attention ahead of an important election. But the biggest news might be that although teachers unions have typically been critical supporters of the Democratic Party, a growing number of Democrats are willing to back conservative education reforms.

Wall Street Journal (via Google): Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s recall victory in June was a stinging defeat for organized labor. But just when Wisconsinites thought they were getting past this fight, the left is staging a last gasp coup in the courts. On Monday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago heard oral arguments in a federal case challenging the law’s limits on collective bargaining for government unions

Washington Post: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Tuesday that he believes teachers’ unions should be banned from making political contributions because union leaders often negotiate contracts with Democratic politicians they’ve helped elect, a situation he called “an extraordinary conflict of interest.”

AP: A federal appeals court in Chicago has heard arguments on the constitutionality of provisions in Wisconsin’s law restricting collective bargaining by public employees.

One News Now: Wisconsin judge has struck down nearly all of the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.

Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation at the Huffington Post: Teachers that retired last year, after 30 years in the system, get an annual payment of $77,400, for life, courtesy of the Illinois taxpayer.

Joel Klein at the Wall Street Journal (via Google): Mayor Emanuel is not known for his soft-spoken manner. Even if he has to make some compromises in the strike settlement, the fact that he engaged in a standoff with the teachers union sounded a loud and encouraging note: School reform is increasingly and unashamedly becoming less of a partisan issue.

The Hill: The Chicago public teachers union on Sunday decided to continue a weeklong strike as efforts to craft a settlement feel short.
Union leaders declined to vote on a proposed contract settlement, reported the Associated Press, with union President Karen Lewis saying teachers wanted more time to discuss the offer.

LifeSiteNews: The largest private sector union in Canada staged a protest outside the constituency office of pro-life MP Stephen Woodworth on Wednesday. The Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) organized the demonstration against the Kitchener Centre MP to protest Motion 312, according to The Waterloo Record.

Cardinal Newman Society: Perhaps most disturbing is the NLRB’s growing challenge to religious freedom. Over the last year, the NLRB applied an invasive test to determine whether three Catholic universities were “religious enough” to be exempt from federal labor law. It is simply unacceptable to allow the NLRB to judge whether a private academic institution has sufficient religious character.

NY Times: But the specter of those plans — an oft-cited goal of Mayor Rahm Emanuel — hangs heavily over the teachers’ strike. “Even if it’s not explicitly something that we’re bargaining over,” said Jackson Potter, staff coordinator for the Chicago Teachers Union, “everyone knows it’s the elephant in the room.”