Another Victory for Worker Freedom
Last week, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that private sector unions can’t force workers to pay for union lobbying activities. Jeanette Geary, a Rhode Island nurse who is not a union member, waged a decade-long battle against the United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP), which collected funds…
Warren’s ‘Big Fat Payoff to the Unions’ Education Plan
Recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren released her education plan titled “A Great Public School Education for Every Student,” but the scheme should have been named “My Big Fat Payoff to the Teacher Unions.” The publicity splash in Warren’s plan is her call to quadruple funding for the federal Title I program, which funnels…
Even post-Janus, worker freedom remains at risk in some states
The response by states to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Janus ruling, which said that it was unconstitutional to require non-union government workers to pay fees to public-employee unions, has ranged from underhanded attempts to save the unions’ bacon, to good-faith efforts to implement the spirit of the ruling. This dichotomy is…
Celebrating Worker Freedom on Labor Day
On this Labor Day, we salute California’s hard-working men and women with a much-deserved three-day weekend while enjoying the unofficial end of the summer season. This Labor Day, we celebrate the fact that California’s public employees who don’t want to pay for their union’s political agenda, who don’t believe they…
Tim Snowball – The Ongoing Legal Fight for Worker Freedom Post Janus
Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Tim Snowball joins us to discuss the policy roadblocks unions and their allies have put up in California and other states following the Janus decision, and their ongoing legal efforts to overcome these hurdles and protect the worker freedom rights of every disaffected member who wishes…
Post-Janus, How Unions Keep Teachers Trapped
By Lance Izumi and Rebecca Friedrichs Reports reveal that 10-15% of teachers have said “No thanks” to funding unions since the U.S. Supreme Court set them free from forced unionism through the Janus decision in June 2018. While these numbers might suggest that the great majority of teachers are happy…
Read Lance Izumi’s op-ed in the Washington Times: When national teacher unions careen left
As the national teacher unions careen farther and farther left, they now brazenly proclaim politics and power as their goals, while openly dismissing quality education as their priority. Education analyst and retired Los Angeles teacher Larry Sand observed that at the recent annual meeting of the National Education Association, the country’s…
The Next Battle in the Fight for Worker Freedom in California
As PRI has documented extensively, last year’s landmark Janus ruling has not stopped California’s public employee unions from continuing to siphon off dues from disaffected members. Our Kerry Jackson has written that, “long before the Janus ruling was announced, California lawmakers, many of whom have been widely criticized as being…
Government unions ignore waste while making mountains out of molehills
By Lance Izumi and Rebecca Friedrichs Ever wonder why government agencies like the DMV make simple chores like registering a vehicle a lot more frustrating, and expensive, than they need to be, or why the lines are so long? Mariam Noujaim, longtime hard-working California DMV employee and Egyptian immigrant was…
Kamala’s Promise to End Right-to-Work Would Make Every State Like California
Democratic presidential candidate and California Sen. Kamala Harris has said that if she’s elected, she would issue an executive order to rescind hard-won worker freedom. Maybe it’s a “California value” to support conscripted unionism. But before Harris’ position becomes too hardened to walk back, she should consider how reforms would…