Right to Work Is Coming to the Public Sector. The Only Way to Survive: Social Movement Unionism
from In These Times:
Right to Work Is Coming to the Public Sector. The Only Way to Survive: Social Movement Unionism
BY ARI PAUL
Around the country, public-sector unions are either wringing their hands or strategizing about a response to the likely demise of the agency shop and the ushering in of right-to-work for all government workers.
Later this year, the Supreme Court is expected to rule that workers who choose not to join the union that goes to the negotiating table for all employees in their bargaining unit cannot be compelled to pay a fee to cover that representation. Unions say that scrapping this requirement creates a free-rider problem workers receive the benefits of union representation without paying a thing and unlawfully takes union resources.
It would be perhaps the greatest victory for the anti-union right since the passage of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act.
The case,
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, could expand last years Harris v. Quinn decision, which enforced right-to-work only for health care workers employed by private, state-funded entities. In Friedrichs, ten teachers backed by the right-wing litigation group the Center for Individual Rights (which has also fought affirmative action in higher education) are claiming they are required to fund an organization whose political aims they oppose.
According to CIR, the union takes the inherently political view that more of scarce taxpayer resources should be devoted to education rather than other needed government services, such as parks or public safety, and the CTA bargains for stronger tenure protection, a position which many teachers, especially younger teachers, disagree. .................(more)
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18428/right-to-work-public-sector-social-movement-unionism