Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#121

Post by sykh » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

mmt wrote: post #111

sykh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unreasonable in my opinion to consider Janus a constitutional issue. It's not a free speech issue even though it has been popularly cropped as such. People who benefit from collective bargaining ought to help pay for it. I'm not a lawyer and you'll be able to cite a thousand cases to my one. My sister's neighbor is on the state Supreme Court where I live. He's said to me that a good lawyer can argue any case an…

> It is unreasonable in my opinion to consider Janus a constitutional issue. I'd agree with you if it weren't for the fact that this is about the government and government employees everywhere you look. I never understood how we as a society and how the labor union movement could tolerate the existence of public employee unions in the first place, as they end up intermingling two otherwise very distinct worlds, as I…

Government is an employer. With the exception of the military employees have a right to unionize subject to certain constraints. Why distinguish between public vs. private? Why shouldn’t a union be political? Don’t workers have a right to gather in a group and be political? Government workers should be excluded from this activity?

Janus is not really about free speech. It’s an attempt to destroy unions by letting people benefit from collective bargaining without paying for it. It’s called the free rider problem.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#122

Post by sykh » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #119

s73v3r_ wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The most relevant one to Janus is the fact that you can't choose which union your dues go to" This is false; you can choose your workplace based on the union.

In which case you won't get to draw that government salary that would go towards the union dues, and whoever gets the job instead of you has to pay those same government dollars to the union. Hence they are in effect government funded; there's a pool of government dollars that are earmarked for their pockets, and the employee who's nominally paying the union has no actual control over this transfer of funds from gove…

Once I earn the money it is my money and no longer taxpayer money. I fund the union with my money. The union does not receive money apportioned by the government.

Is the landlord I rent from supported by taxpayer money because I’m a public employee that rents from him?

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#123

Post by makomk » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

fhayde wrote: post #7

From https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-285_q8l1.pdf > It is unlikely that Congress wished to confer a right to class or collective actions in §7, since those procedures were hardly known when the NLRA was adopted in 1935. Kind of funny they use this as justification considering everything else they've upheld that was adopted decades prior to this without knowledge of modern custom or technology. Convenie…

It's not that odd. Section 7 is about the right to form unions and carry out collective bargaining: "Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8(a)(3) [section 158(a)(3) of this title]."

It would require an awful lot of creative reinterpretation to decide that class action lawsuits are a form of collective bargaining and this section granted some kind of right to them, especially since they didn't exist at the time and wouldn't be invented for several decades.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#124

Post by chimeracoder » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

sykh wrote: post #121

mmt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is unreasonable in my opinion to consider Janus a constitutional issue. I'd agree with you if it weren't for the fact that this is about the government and government employees everywhere you look. I never understood how we as a society and how the labor union movement could tolerate the existence of public employee unions in the first place, as they end up intermingling two otherwise very distinct worlds, as I…

Government is an employer. With the exception of the military employees have a right to unionize subject to certain constraints. Why distinguish between public vs. private? Why shouldn’t a union be political? Don’t workers have a right to gather in a group and be political? Government workers should be excluded from this activity? Janus is not really about free speech. It’s an attempt to destroy unions by letting peo…

Janus is about a case in which a person is being forced to pay money out of his paycheck to a group who directly lobbies for policies that he does not support.

> Why shouldn’t a union be political?

By that argument, why shouldn't the government force you to donate money to political advocacy groups that it chooses, whether or not you support the group's agenda?

Heck, what if your employer decided that a portion of your paycheck would be deducted as a mandatory donation to either the Democratic or Republican party, as part of the terms of your employment?

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#125

Post by makomk » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #74

bhups wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a system that operates at the pace of 1776. That served us well for a long time, but since the post-war proliferation of mass media, it's hard to argue that it's adequate anymore. I'd argue the exact opposite. The pace of our system is just a reflection of the current ideological polarization. Enacting Federal law requires a strong consensus (to prevent abuse), and the more polarized we are, the more diffic…

> Liberal states have the political will, the systems, and (if we're being frank) the majority of businesses that would be affected by Federal law anyway. They just need to have the will to compromise and pass their desired law at the state level until such a time that there's Federal consensus for that law. That's a nice theory, but no. Federal law preempts state law in this scenario[1] so states are completely unab…

Which, effectively, means that state goverments cannot pass any kind of meaningful consumer protection law or worker protection law, because of how fundamentally structurally biased towards the bigger side forced arbitration is. It's doubtful that Congress ever intended to preempt state laws in this way or that the FAA would've made it through Congress if it attempted to do so; this was entirely the creation of the Supreme Court, with none of that pesky horsetrading and strong consensus that would be required to pass an actual law.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#126

Post by jeffdavis » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #106

koolba wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP but I sure will be. For the curious see [1] and [2] for more info about this case. Public sector unions are nothing but trouble and every step toward their destruction is a good thing. The very idea of having organizations funded by tax dollars that subsequently influence their own regulation, pay rates, benefits, and pensions with those same tax dollars in exchange for votes from their members is ludicrous. I…

That money is the worker's earned salary. Once they earned it, it was no longer "your tax dollars" "funding unions".

That's the question though: is it the worker's money? If so, shouldn't they be able to do whatever they want with it, instead of giving it to the union?

It is a little disturbing when there is a chain of force exerted by government all the way from the original funds back to some kind of political activism.

The individual workers never have a chance to intervene in that chain. They have a collective right through their union vote, but free speech is an individual right. It would clearly be a free speech problem if you were forced to pay dues to the Republican or Democratic parties even though you have a vote within it.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#127

Post by chimeracoder » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

sykh wrote: post #117

rayiner wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that public unions are highly political animals. Being forced to fund them, just to have a government job, is akin to being forced to donate to a political party. We're not talking about neutral entities just looking out for worker's rights, but partisan entities typically in bed with the Democratic party.

There is no distinction between public employee unions and private employee unions. People are not forced to join unions. They are, for the time being, in some states required to pay for fair share dues to cover the costs of collective bargaining, grievances, and other administrative costs. People who join the union can get a refund of the portion of their dues that go to political activities. Since you are making a…

> People are not forced to join unions.

This is completely false. People absolutely are forced to join unions.

Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of union members - over 90% - never voted in a certification or authorization election. That means that, even if they're members of the union, their membership cannot in se be considered an endorsement of the union by the bargaining unit. Because it's all-but-impossible to successfully decertify a union in practice[0], it's not uncommon to have the majority of employees oppose union membership, but still be compelled into membership.

> They are, for the time being, in some states required to pay for fair share dues to cover the costs of collective bargaining, grievances, and other administrative costs

People within the bargaining unit are usually forced to pay dues whether or not they are members.

[0] The NLRB has the power to overturn the results of decertification, and a very strong incentive to do so. In addition, unions have learned that they can change the definition of the bargaining unit after an election is held in order to invalidate the election retroactively.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#128

Post by chimeracoder » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

sykh wrote: post #122

makomk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case you won't get to draw that government salary that would go towards the union dues, and whoever gets the job instead of you has to pay those same government dollars to the union. Hence they are in effect government funded; there's a pool of government dollars that are earmarked for their pockets, and the employee who's nominally paying the union has no actual control over this transfer of funds from gove…

Once I earn the money it is my money and no longer taxpayer money. I fund the union with my money. The union does not receive money apportioned by the government. Is the landlord I rent from supported by taxpayer money because I’m a public employee that rents from him?

> Once I earn the money it is my money and no longer taxpayer money. I fund the union with my money. The union does not receive money apportioned by the government.

You can't have it both ways. If it's the employee's money, they have the right to do what they want with it, whether that means giving a portion to a union or keeping it for themselves.

If they don't have that legal right, then the money isn't theirs, and it's coming from taxpayers, because it's paid by the government.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#129

Post by chimeracoder » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

sykh wrote: post #85

koolba wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It appears your position is that there is nothing good about public sector unions. Have they done no good? To society as a whole I'd say the net effect is negative. Note that I'm specific talking about public sector unions and not unions in general. And by net effect I'm referring to the overall effect on States and municipalities, not just the handful of members who receive direct benefit from the unions. > That's…

I see you’ve changed your stance from no good to no net good . The former is extreme and that’s the language you used. Now you are using the latter language. That’s not extreme. It is law that everyone gets the benefit from a union’s collective bargaining. It’s unreaonable to expect people who benefit from the bargaining to not pay for it. In economics it’s known as the free rider problem.

> It is law that everyone gets the benefit from a union’s collective bargaining.

No, it's not. It's the law that unions must represent anyone whom they claim as part of their bargaining unit.

However, unions have great freedom to define bargaining units how they like. They already take advantage of that ability, in order to invalidate decertification elections (by retroactively choosing a differently-sized unit from the one that was eligible for the election).

The law you are citing exists because unions are authorized to collect dues from all members of a bargaining unit, including those who don't belong to the union. The law ensures that unions don't extract money from non-members while also refusing them representation. Otherwise, they would literally be allowed to charge as much as they want, and people who don't join would simply be paying for the benefits of the people who do.

There is no free-rider problem, because those members are only included in the bargaining unit because unions want to use them to pad their numbers. If they weren't able to collect dues from them, they would simply redefine their units and walk away with the same net revenue from their members.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#130

Post by rayiner » Mon, May 21, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

sykh wrote: post #117

rayiner wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that public unions are highly political animals. Being forced to fund them, just to have a government job, is akin to being forced to donate to a political party. We're not talking about neutral entities just looking out for worker's rights, but partisan entities typically in bed with the Democratic party.

There is no distinction between public employee unions and private employee unions. People are not forced to join unions. They are, for the time being, in some states required to pay for fair share dues to cover the costs of collective bargaining, grievances, and other administrative costs. People who join the union can get a refund of the portion of their dues that go to political activities. Since you are making a…

> Since you are making a distinction about public vs. private unions it appears that this is not a constitutional issue.

Private entities can limit free speech all they want; public entities cannot.