Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report National Edition Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg *************************** U.S. Supreme Court Heard Challenge to Bread and Butter
Survival of Public Sector Unions with Caroline Fredrickson, President American Constitution
Society for Law and Policy and
Joe Burns, Labor Lawyer and Author, Strike Back: Using
the Militant Tactics of Labor's Past to Reignite Public Sector
Unionism Today
On Jan.11th, the U.S. Supreme Court considered a
conservative legal challenge targeting public sector
unions when the justices took up a case brought by
non-union teachers who object to having to pay for
collective bargaining rights. The dispute pits 10 public
school teachers and the Christian Educators
Association International against the California
Teachers Association, a union with 325,000 members
and a history of backing liberal political causes. Unions
that are certified to represent a group of employees are
legally compelled to represent all employees in that unit,
which means bargaining on behalf of all the workers for
health care and other benefits, higher wages and
representing them in grievances to adjudicate their rights
against their employers. The “dues” pay for unions to be
able to advocate for services to its members and to
administratively function as an organization. This court
challenge seeks a decision that would economically
starve the public workers organizations affecting their
ability to advocate for their members individual
economic benefits and their political rights as workers. ************************** To Download or listen to this 27 minute program,
Building Bridges is regularly broadcast live over WBAI, 99.5 FM in the N.Y.C Metropolitan area and syndicated to over 50 broadcast and internet radio stations in the US, Canada and UK