Yes, Elections and Voting Matters!

There have been some recent activities regarding workers and unions that should concern all workers and retirees.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that employers can require non-union employees to sign mandatory arbitration agreements that, in effect, take away the rights of these workers to file and pursue class actions in court.  Simply put, this means that claims of discrimination and other claimed violations of law, would require the workers to go through private arbitration rather than collective legal action. The President’s recent  appointment of Neil Gorsuch provided the swing vote against workers (Epic Systems v Lewis).

I had mentioned in previous writings that, we must be concerned about the appointment of Federal Court Judges that could erode the rights of workers. Think about it... How many future appointments of the Supreme Court and the lower courts will be open in the coming years?  It is estimated that there may be over 80 lower court openings and possible Supreme Court openings in the near future. The conservatives and big money interests have been and are reviewing the ideology of pending potential candidates for possible Federal Court openings. 

There is another major case pending before the Supreme Court that is expected to be ruled on soon (Janus v AFSCME). This case involves giving public employees, represented by a union, the right to refuse to pay their fair share for the benefit of union representation, in other words, “free riders.” Think about it... The supporters of this action actually support the right to refuse to pay for benefits and rights they are receiving. Let’s hope the court does the right thing and rejects this idea. It is meant to weaken and decrease the financial ability of public employee unions to represent their members and reduce wages and benefits.

Bill Gibbons, PACE Representative