Are Illinois unions to blame for the laws they wrote in ‘fair share’ debate?
State law mandates that unions represent all workers in their bargaining unit, even if some workers do not want to be represented by a union. Government unions argue that since they are required to represent all workers, they are entitled to receive a cut of every workers’ paycheck.
But is state law really to blame for the requirement that unions represent everyone? Not exactly.
A few of the state’s biggest government unions – including the Illinois Education Association, or IEA; the Illinois Federation of Teachers, or IFT; and the AFL-CIO – wrote these laws more than 30 years ago. These groups, along with the American Federation of State and County Municipal employees, or AFSCME, then registered their support for this legislation in the Statehouse.
Fair-share fees, also known as “agency” fees, are fees paid by those public employees in a bargaining unit who do not want to join the union as members, but still benefit from collective-bargaining agreements. The fees are supposed to pay the union for the work put into collective bargaining in order to prevent so-called “free riders,” workers who receive union benefits without cost.
In defending these fees, unions have complained that “under state law … unions must provide appropriate services, including representation, to all members of a bargaining unit – union members and non-union members.” Their argument is that because a union’s hands are tied by state law that requires them to represent nonmembers, it is only “fair” that unions receive some money for providing those legally imposed services.
See full article here: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-unions-wrote-the-laws-they-blame-in-fair-share-debate/
Yes, it is their own fault!
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No, they were never involved!
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While the initial imposition upon unions that they represent the interests of non-union workers may itself be objectionable, that hardly legitimates their own enactment of subsequent objectionable impositions upon non-union workers. The implication of the causality is not the the unions lack fault for their impositions upon non-union workers, but that the state ostensibly shares in that fault to some extent due to the repercussions of the original law in question. Side: Yes, it is their own fault!
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This entire debate is over the union's big money that is funneled to Democrat elections. NO QUESTION ABOUT IT! When Democrats who talk a big game about campaign finance reform, start living by what they preach, most of these problems will go away. No Republican worker wants part of his paycheck going to Democrats. Side: No, they were never involved!
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