Scalia’s golden chance to kill unions

[DonViejo]

A "sweeping" ruling could force "Right to Work" on every U.S. public sector worker, Harvard's Ben Sachs warns

JOSH EIDELSON

A Supreme Court case to be heard this month could deal another body blow to the embattled U.S. labor movement. The case, Harris v. Quinn, offers the court’s conservative majority a chance to make so-called “Right to Work” the law of the land for millions of public sector workers.

And it targets one of the most effective ways unions have grown their ranks – getting governors to classify the growing ranks of taxpayer-funded home care workers as public employees with unionization rights – and a decades-old precedent that the 2012 Knox v. SEIU case suggests justices may be itching to overturn. If the Court strikes that 1977 (Abood) precedent – that workers in union workplaces can be required to pay fees for “collective bargaining activities,” though not for “ideological activities unrelated to collective bargaining” – unions fear further defunding, diversion, division, and discrimination will follow.

To consider the case, Salon called up Harvard Law School professor Benjamin Sachs, a former union attorney and founder of the On Labor blog. A condensed and edited version of our conversation follows.

What is at stake in this case? How broad a ruling do you think we could see?

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/06/scalias_golden_chance_to_kill_unions/

[Laelth]

1. Yikes! k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[kelliekat44]

2. I'm still lookinig for "Joe Hill." nt

[TxVietVet]

3. K & R