Madison, WI (June 29, 2011)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a Kenosha teacher affected by Wisconsin\u2019s recent public-sector unionism reforms has filed an amicus curiae<\/i> brief in federal court.<\/p>\n
Kristi Lacroix, who has been a teacher for 13 years and is an English teacher at the LakeView Technology Academy in Pleasant Prairie, filed the brief Monday in favor of the reforms which sharply limited government union officials\u2019 monopoly bargaining power over public workers and taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Governor Scott Walker\u2019s government-sector monopoly bargaining reform bill, which protects the Right to Work for most government employees and bans automatic forced-union-dues seizures from public employees\u2019 paychecks.<\/p>\n
In response, union lawyers filed a new lawsuit in federal court seeking to overturn the bill, claiming that Freedom of Association \u2013 the right of American citizens to voluntarily come together to express their opinions and petition the government \u2013 gives union bosses forced-dues and monopoly bargaining powers.<\/p>\n
Foundation staff attorneys have won at the United States Supreme Court numerous times on this very issue, winning precedents that support the constitutionality of Wisconsin\u2019s government-sector monopoly bargaining reform bill. For example, in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education<\/i> (1976), Foundation attorneys successfully argued that compulsory union dues for union boss politics violate dissenting employees\u2019 First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
More recently, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Davenport v. Washington Education Association<\/i> (2007) that, because union bosses have no constitutional right to collect fees from nonmembers, a state may require union officials to obtain consent before spending nonmember government employees\u2019 forced fees on political activities. The court upheld that precedent in Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Association<\/i> (2009) when it ruled 6-3 that an Idaho law banning payroll deduction for union political dues from state and local government employees was indeed constitutional.<\/p>\n
In their legal brief, union officials admitted that under the reforms public-sector union bosses would lose at least a quarter of their forced-union-dues revenues. For example, Wisconsin teacher union bosses would not be able to force independent-minded teachers to pay $5.4 million in forced dues and $375,000 toward teacher union boss political activism, thus highlighting the need for a Right to Work law for Wisconsin\u2019s workers \u2013 in both the public and private sectors.<\/p>\n
\u00abDespite mounting budget deficits and a public that demands accountability, Big Labor operatives have made their position clear: No concessions, no compromise, and no surrender,\u00bb said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. \u00abBut union boss intransigence shouldn\u2019t be allowed to derail the necessary reforms that free Wisconsin public-sector employees from being forced to pay union dues just to get or keep a job and strip union operatives of their ability to drive up the cost of government.\u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00abWe intend to vigorously defend the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedents that guarantee government employees cannot be fired for refusing to subsidize union boss politics and to withstand Big Labor\u2019s all-out assault to restore its forced-dues privileges over Wisconsin\u2019s public workers.\u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madison, WI (June 29, 2011)<\/b> \u2013 With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a Kenosha teacher affected by Wisconsin\u2019s recent public-sector unionism reforms has filed an amicus curiae<\/i> brief in federal court.<\/p>\n
Kristi Lacroix, who has been a teacher for 13 years and is an English teacher at the LakeView Technology Academy in Pleasant Prairie, filed the brief Monday in favor of the reforms which sharply limited government union officials\u2019 monopoly bargaining power over public workers and taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Governor Scott Walker\u2019s government-sector monopoly bargaining reform bill, which protects the Right to Work for most government employees and bans automatic forced-union-dues seizures from public employees\u2019 paychecks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[888],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n