A Labor Day Worry: The Court’s Right-Wingers Are Sharpening Their Knives

By Bill Blum

We don’t officially celebrate International Workers’ Day on May 1 in this country, even though the worldwide holiday was originated to memorialize the Chicago Haymarket Square Riot of 1886 and the long and often bloody movement waged by American workers to establish the eight-hour workday. Instead, we hold a watered-down substitute, observing Labor Day on the first Monday of September. Each year, the commemoration grows more tepid and disconnected from the historical and current struggles of working people.

If the U.S. Supreme Court’s dominant Republican majority has its way when the panel’s new term commences in October, we might as well dispense with the holiday altogether, or at least drop the term “labor” from its title. Among the most important cases the court will consider when it reconvenes is Friedrichs v. California Teachers, which poses what some observers have called an “existential threat” to public unions and by extension to the entire labor movement.

At issue in Friedrichs is the right of public sector unions to collect limited “fair-share” fees in lieu of full formal dues from nonunion workers to defray the costs of collective bargaining that benefits all employees. A decision against the teachers association would have the potential to bankrupt government employee unions and turn the nation’s entire public sector into one enormous “right-to-work” jurisdiction.

Even before agreeing to hear Friedrichs, the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts had amassed a staggering résumé of anti-worker decisions. As a study published in January by The Nation explains, the Roberts court has issued rulings that have restricted gender-based discrimination and class-action lawsuits against corporations; curbed age discrimination claims; limited the availability of overtime pay; redefined the term “supervisor” to allow employers to avoid liability for harassment; and made it more difficult for employees to prosecute workplace retaliation grievances.

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_labor_day_worry_the_courts_right-wingers_are_sharpening_20150905