Petty Unions

As I wrote a couple weeks ago:

My local union wants the authority and power that comes with being the sole representative, but doesn't want to provide the representation.  They've taken a sharp turn for the worse.

As the Supreme Court ruled in Janus:

These benefits greatly outweigh any extra burden im­posed by the duty of providing fair representation for nonmembers. What this duty entails, in simple terms, is an obligation not to “act solely in the interests of [the union’s] own members.”

I hope these instructors win their case:

The National Right to Work (NRTW) Legal Defense Foundation has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of four Massachusetts teachers who are asking the high Court to review a state law that allows a union to block non-members from having a voice in workplace conditions.

More information about the case brought by four Massachusetts educators can be found here:https://t.co/86mFOHUTko

The #SCOTUS docket is here: https://t.co/KCozzqsD1a

— Right To Work (@RightToWork) December 5, 2019

Branch v. Commonwealth Employment Relations Board involves lead plaintiff Dr. Ben Branch, a finance professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and three other educators. According to NRTW, the teachers are “challenging the application of the state’s monopoly bargaining law for its educational system as a violation of their Constitutional rights.”

The foundation states:

The educators argue that the state law, which is manipulated by union bosses to block teachers who are not union members from voting or otherwise voicing their opinions in the determination of their own working conditions, results in depriving nonmember teachers of their First Amendment rights.

The four plaintiffs have all turned down membership in the National Education Association (NEA) – the nation’s largest teachers’ union – and its local affiliates.

Power corrupts, etc.