Archive for November 2017

The Janus case has begun. Yesterday, attorneys for Illinois public servant Mark Janus filed the first merits brief in the Supreme Court case, Janus v. AFSCME. The brief asks the High Court to recognize that the First Amendment protects public workers from being required to make payments to union officials as a condition of working for their own government. Plaintiff…

Teamsters Local 174 has gone on strike, stranding thousands of students and inconveniencing their parents. Check out the story on KOMONews.com. Thousands of parents are figuring out how to get their kids to and from school Wednesday as Seattle bus drivers stage a one-day strike. . . . drivers were on the picket line. Teamsters Local 174…

Florida Education Association teacher union officials are attempting to sue the state over bonuses based on teacher performance. News Service of Florida has the story in the Sun Sentinel online. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued an order last week turning down a motion for dismissal of the lawsuit, which was filed in September by the Florida…

Freedom-loving teachers deplore the phrase.  The Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association is conducting a “work to the rule” protest in Florida. Teacher union officials are not happy with the district’s relationship with county charter schools (most likely not unionized), among other things.  Taking the relationship into consideration, is it really a good time to “protest”?  Marlene Sokol…

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. —Thomas Jefferson “So you tell me how I can possibly separate NEA’s collective bargaining efforts from politics—you just can’t. It’s all politics.” (Bob Chanin, [former] NEA General Counsel, “Unions Pull Out Stops…

Many New Jersey politicians are calling for New Jersey Education Association teacher union officials to step down. And many of their members agree. The politicians agree:  it’s not the TEACHER members.  It’s the TEACHER UNION OFFICIALS who spend members’ dues like it was their own money. Tom Moran has the story in the Star Ledger. If you…

The 74million.org has obtained emails from the El Paso Federation of Teachers, an American Federation of Teachers/AFL-CIO local affiliate, implicating the local in some nefarious plots. Beth Hawkins has the story on the74million.org. In the run-up to the El Paso school board’s November meeting, the teachers union circulated a questionnaire to several people who had been nominated…

Teamsters Local 174 has gone on strike, stranding thousands of students and inconveniencing their parents. Check out the story on KOMONews.com. Thousands of parents are figuring out how to get their kids to and from school Wednesday as Seattle bus drivers stage a one-day strike. . . . drivers were on the picket line. Teamsters Local 174…

Mike Antonucci predicts it will be a difficult conjuring trick for unions if the Supreme Court upholds Janus v. AFSCME, even with Millennials’ generally favorable attitude towards unions . Observers see both crisis and opportunity in the new generation of workers. Some note that millennials tend to support group effort, are more politically liberal, and have a generally positive attitude…