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Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

nytimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#141

Post by sykh »

rayiner wrote: post #130
sykh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AFSCME is not a public entity. NEA is not a public entity. These unions do not in any way limit speech.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#142

Post by sykh »

chimeracoder wrote: post #137
s73v3r_ wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that conservatives, when discussing any other aspect of a job (pay, working conditions, abuse, etc) will say that "you have a choice; you don't have to take the job," but when it comes to unions, suddenly everyone is forced?

> Why is it that conservatives, when discussing any other aspect of a job (pay, working conditions, abuse, etc) will say that "you have a choice; you don't have to take the job," but when it comes to unions, suddenly everyone is forced? Why are you asking me? Go find some conservatives and ask them.

OK, so you are not a conservative. The essence of the question remains. Perhaps answering it would be helpful instead of the response you gave.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#143

Post by sykh »

chimeracoder wrote: post #128
sykh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’m not having anything two ways. Here are two statements which are not contradictory.

1. Unions are not government funded. 2. Those who benefit from collective bargaining ought to help pay for it.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#144

Post by sykh »

chimeracoder wrote: post #129
sykh wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 collectively bargained agreement with an employer affects everyone under the scope of that agreement. This includes people who are not members of the union. The contract is for everyone within a bargaining unit. For instance, at my college every instructor's working conditions are set forth in the master contract. This includes those not in the union. The union can’t make a contract only for those instructors who are part of the union.

The free rider problem occurs once so called right to work gets enacted. There is no free rider no because everyone pays fair share (in states that don’t have right to work laws).

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#145

Post by rayiner »

dctoedt wrote: post #107
rayiner wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Supreme Court overrules Abood in Janus, that'll be the Court doing its job to invalidate statutes that infringing Constitutional protections. Here, where there was no Constitutional concern, the Supreme Court did its job to give effect to a more specific Act of Congress (the FAA) over the more general policy in a different statute (the NLRA).

> the Supreme Court did its job to give effect to a more specific Act of Congress (the FAA) over the more general policy in a different statute (the NLRA). Disagree with your ipse dixit labeling. The FAA is broad and general, at least according to SCOTUS precedent, covering all contracts between all parties, covering all types of conduct in all industries, as long as "commerce" is involved. In contrast, NLRA § 7 was…

I agree that the characterization of which is more specific is the hairiest part. To me, the main issue is that the NLRA Section 7 does not address contracts specifically. One can imagine lots of things that have an incidental effect on exercising the right to bargain collectively; I don't think the NRLA can be read as preempting all of those things.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#146

Post by bhups »

cookiecaper wrote: post #113
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…

There is definitely something to be said for requiring broad consensus. I think many would argue that the systems were intentionally designed to be slow and convoluted because it meant that only the most important things would survive and get implemented, at least at the federal level. I don't necessarily disagree with that in principle, but "slow and convoluted" by 19th century standards is "worthless and disastrous…

I don't think that this is a technology problem - it's a polarization problem. No amount of technology traveling at the speed of light will solve the simple problem that you belong to an ideological sub-group that ferociously disagrees with another sub-group about how things should be run. Indeed, we're a nation of 330 million people, this is to be expected. I'm amazed we've been able to get away with this level of centralization for this long.

This isn't all that different from the EU, a similar union of states with a similar population (500 million), where the vast majority of laws and regulations are passed at the member-state level and not at the EU level. Any American that argues "each state will handle things on its own" is just making the same argument that a European might make when saying "we should enact this healthcare system X, or that pension system Y, or that policy Z in Germany".

This was always the Framers' intent, Hamilton himself was well aware of the perils of the Tyranny of the Majority[1]. The prescription for this was to apply the subsidiarity principle and use concurrent majorities (i.e. "let the states decide"). Federalism was never about the logistics of walking to state lines.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#147

Post by s73v3r_ »

chimeracoder wrote: post #134
s73v3r_ wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." And also negotiates on his behalf for better working conditions and pay. At the end of the day, that person wants all the benefits of being in the union (enhanced negotiating power, benefits, etc), without any of the cost.

> And also negotiates on his behalf for better working conditions and pay. Sounds like he doesn't believe that they do, and would prefer to be left out of the bargaining unit. > At the end of the day, that person wants all the benefits of being in the union (enhanced negotiating power, benefits, etc), without any of the cost There's literally no evidence that he wants the union to provide any of that.

"Sounds like he doesn't believe that they do, and would prefer to be left out of the bargaining unit."

If that were true, then he would be suing to be left out of the bargaining unit.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#148

Post by s73v3r_ »

chimeracoder wrote: post #138
s73v3r_ wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty spurious reasoning. Do I not have the right to do what I want with my money because I have to give part of it to my landlord?

> That's pretty spurious reasoning. Do I not have the right to do what I want with my money because I have to give part of it to my landlord? If your rent is automatically withheld from your paycheck as terms of your employment and given directly to your landlord, then yes, that logic might hold. However, I'm betting that's not the case.

Yet, it was still my choice to live there. And, and this is the most important part, I still earned that money through my work. Having it auto deducted from the paycheck isn't any different than having auto pay set up on my bank account.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#149

Post by rayiner »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #132
chimeracoder wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why is it that conservatives, when discussing any other aspect of a job (pay, working conditions, abuse, etc) will say that "you have a choice; you don't have to take the job," but when it comes to unions, suddenly everyone is forced?

When it comes to public unions the "unconstitutional conditions" doctrine comes into play. The Supreme Court has long held that the government cannot indirectly infringe free speech rights by imposing conditions on government employment, such as requiring employees to contribute to or join a particular political party. As Rehnquist pointed out, those cases are "indistinguishable" from situations where public employees are required to join particular unions. The public unions in Janus, for example, which are given special status and powers by state law, are nothing more than adjuncts of the Democratic party.

Re: Supreme Court Upholds Workplace Arbitration Contracts

#150

Post by mmt »

sykh wrote: post #140
mmt wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why distinguish between public vs. private? Because one is the government and the other isn't. That's my whole point about it being reasonable that this is a Constitutional issue. There's also the, arguably separate, issues of incentives and who ultimately pays. In the case of private employers, it is, presumably a powerful few trying to exploit the labor of the many. In the case of government, it's the taxpayer/vo…

A public employee union is not the government. With limited exceptions being a public employee does not mean you forfeit your rights. There should not be distinction between public employee union and private employee unions. If workers come together to bargain as a unit then they should be allowed to do so wether they are public employees or not. Unions do not circumvent the normal political process. They are not sei…

This response strikes me as mainly "truth through repeated assertion", without any refutation.

> A public employee union is not the government.

I'm not suggesting it is, as such. It is, however, made up of the people who operate the "machinery" of government, and it's the government witholding the dues from the paycheck that funds this union, so, again, of Constitutional significance.

> There should not be distinction between public employee union and private employee unions.

And I say there should. There's my assertion :)

> Unions do not circumvent the normal political process. They are not seizing power from voters. Your view appears a bit extreme.

They may be extreme, but that doesn't make them invalid on their face. I don't have a vested interest here, either.

Here's my vision of public employee unions not circumventing the normal political process:

Instead of "negotiating" with the power to strike, they can just go to the voters (and elected representatives) and campaign for their share of the tax dollars (or working conditions or whatever other legislation), just like every other special interest.

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