Posts tagged Service Employees International Union

The State of Disunion

11
11 months ago
by dcpetterson in

The Big Deci­sion isn’t until tomor­row, but the Supreme Court has had a busy and pro­duc­tive ses­sion, with a plethora of cases that will have sig­nif­i­cant impact in the com­ing years.

One of the cases I pre­viewed, Knox v. Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tional Union, will affect the abil­ity of unions to involve them­selves in the demo­c­ra­tic process in Amer­ica. If cor­po­ra­tions are peo­ple, because peo­ple own cor­po­ra­tions and get div­i­dends from them, then surely unions are peo­ple, since the point of unions is to rep­re­sent the inter­ests of their mem­bers. That being the case, if cor­po­ra­tions can pro­vide unlim­ited fund­ing for cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions, under the assump­tion that they rep­re­sent the inter­ests of their share­hold­ers, it seems rea­son­able for unions to do so as well. Or does it? (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: Knox v. SEIU

7
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

Does a pub­lic employee union have the right to use union dues to advance polit­i­cal causes, with­out get­ting approval from non-​​union mem­bers who have to pay dues to the union? Today’s case before the Supreme Court, Knox v. Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tional Union, seeks to address that question.

That’s not a sim­ple issue. In the much-​​debated Cit­i­zens United rul­ing, the Roberts court held that cor­po­ra­tions and unions may spend unlim­ited (and almost com­pletely unreg­u­lated) amounts of money on polit­i­cal adver­tiz­ing and advo­cacy. Cor­po­ra­tions are par­tic­u­larly unre­stricted, since the decision-​​makers are unan­swer­able to any­one, unless the stock­hold­ers specif­i­cally rein them in. Unions, on the other hand, have a vari­ety of restric­tions on their actions, par­tic­u­larly since the point of any union is to be answer­able to union members.

But what about employ­ees who don’t belong to a union, but are required by law to pay union dues any­way? Should they be allowed to help deter­mine how much money a union may spend on polit­i­cal activ­i­ties? That ques­tion is at the heart of Knox v. SEIU. (more…)

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