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The Supreme Court Strikes A Blow For Employee Rights

Today the US Supreme Court struck one of the largest blows for employee rights in recent history, in their ruling in Janus vs Afcsme.  The plaintiff in this case was a government worker who did not want to have to pay mandatory union dues if he did not want to actually join the union.  On the surface, or to the unpolitically tainted observer, this would appear to be a fundamental right of any person.  Should they decide not to join an organization, particularly one that engages in speech with which they disagree (one of the arguments in Janus), why should they be compelled to pay money to this organization?  Can individuals then be compelled to pay money to, say, the Tea Party, or MoveOn.org, or any of the other thousands of political organizations that exist now?

The Supreme Court, in a purely partisan division, has said “No.”.  A public employee cannot be compelled to pay a union if they choose not to join that union.  The fundamental dissenting argument was summarized  with unbelievable honesty by Justice Ginsburg, perhaps unaware of the irony because of her complete adherence to all liberal dogma:

“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that if Mr. Janus prevails, even employees who support union goals might stop paying dues, preferring to keep the money themselves while shifting collective-bargaining costs to their co-workers. “Then you’ll have a union with diminished resources,” she said.”

The Justice openly states that the goal of the law should be to ensure that unions have enough funds to be able to continue to fund liberal causes, even at the expense of individual employee choice.  There’s no need to even question whether Justice Ginsburg would render the same opinion if the unions donated the bulk of their funds to conservative causes.  Our Supreme court justices are supposed to be above politics, and above perpetuating political structures that encourage favoritism and corruption by the government.  Unfortunately the Democratic Party made their deal with the Union Devil decades ago, agreeing to ignore obvious corruption, failing of public schools, and massive infringements on the rights of individuals in favor of allowing taxpayer money to go through a revolving door to the unions and back to the Democratic party.

You will hear cries from the left about how this ruling has removed the ability of employees to choose and their ability to express themselves.  All Fake News.  Any employee that wants to join a union, retains that ability 100%.  Those that choose not to, now for the first time have the ability to do that.  This is how America should work.

The land of the free has become a bit more free.  You can thank President Trump for his appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch for that, along with the other conservative justices who still believe in the individual rights sought by our founding fathers.

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2 Responses

  • Vegas Lou June 30, 2018 at 5:20 pm

    Too bad there is no mechanism in place to impeach Supreme Court Justices that show political bent, but even conservatives ARE rooting for the “home team” when new appointees appear. I learned 45 years ago that Presidents come and go, but the real power of the land is the particular (unspoken) bias of Supreme Court appointees.

    Reply
    • Eric Basu June 30, 2018 at 6:17 pm

      Hi Vegas Lou,
      I don’t think I could support any impeachment mechanism for Supreme Court justices, except in cases of insanity or some other impairment or clearly ethical breach (e.g. conviction for a violent felony). I believe that would turn the court far more political and create far less certainty. But yes, when polled, many Republicans and independents who would not have otherwise chosen to vote for President Trump did say that the need to have a Supreme Court that put the Constitution first (i.e. the “Conservative” justices) over the need to interpret the Constitution according to whatever the trend of the day happens to be (i.e. the “Liberal” justices) was paramount. Imagine if, for example, in the late 60’s lawmakers took Paul Erlich’s belief that the world would starve itself to death within 10 years as factuality (vs. fake science) and imposed a limit on children per family (as China did) or enforced mandatory abortions for the poor (as India did). A Supreme Court that believed that world starvation was so imminent that fundamental human rights should be ignored might uphold such laws.

      Reply

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    Eric Basu
    I'm a former Navy SEAL officer, current serial entrepreneur, and would-be lay philosopher.

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