The Supreme Court Case That Could Clobber Public-Sector Unions

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http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-supreme-court-case-that-could-clobber-public-sector-unions/283232/



William Messenger of the National Right to Work Committee asked the Supreme Court today to hold that public employee unions are unconstitutional.

“This is—I'm just going to use the word here, it is a radical argument. It would radically restructure the way workplaces across this country are—are run,” Justice Elena Kagan said from the bench. Since 1948, she pointed out, states have had the power to enact “right-to-work” laws that limit union power. Was Messenger arguing that “a right-to-work law is constitutionally compelled?”

Messenger didn’t back off. “In the public sector, yes,” he replied.

His clients, home-care providers paid by the state of Illinois with federal-state Medicaid funds, had started out arguing only that they were not “employees” for purposes of coverage by the Court’s previous labor precedents. (Though they get state paychecks, they are selected and supervised by the families they serve.) But after cert was granted, their lawyers, the NRTWC’s legal-defense fund, decided instead to go for the kill shot. They want the court to hold that permitting the unions to collect fees for representing non-members—the so-called “agency fee”—violates the First Amendment.

At least four members of the Court seemed ready to reach that “radical” result. The fate of public employee unionism in the nation seemed, by the end of the argument, to lie in the hands of Justice Antonin Scalia.

[fasttense]

1. Unions and working people have to realize that corrupted institutions make corrupted laws.

The Dancing Supremes have broken out of their straight jackets and have moved away, maybe forever, from reviewing laws to single handedly making laws themselves. They have moved out the realm of impartial thoughtful judges to frenzied political hacks, and they make laws based on their fevered political views of the moment.

The only answer to these kind of unelected kings is to ignore them. Ignore their laws, walk-out, sit-in, fight-back in any manner possible. Do not ever expect to get answers through the legal system because a working man will never win with a corrupted judiciary system.