Suit against teachers unions isn't about free speech but silencing members

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150510-column.html?fb_action_ids=10200582865409910&fb_action_types=og.shares#page=1

Attacks on public employee unions, especially teachers unions, have become a permanent feature of the political landscape. But you'd be hard pressed to find one as incoherent and dishonest as a lawsuit filed last month in federal court in Los Angeles against six California and national teachers unions.

The lawsuit purports to defend the "free speech" rights of its plaintiffs, four California schoolteachers. But its real goal is to silence the collective voice of union members on political and educational issues. Its lesson is simple: If you don't like the decisions your organization or community reaches through the democratic process, just refuse to pay for them.

The plaintiffs in Bain vs. California Teachers Assn., et al, say the conditions of union membership coerce them into supporting "political or ideological" viewpoints they don't share. StudentsFirst, an education reform group supported by wealthy hedge fund managers and the Walton family, is bankrolling the lawsuit. StudentsFirst was founded by onetime Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who, before leaving the organization in 2014 under a cloud, established its philosophy that the problem with education is that teachers have too much power and job protection.

Bain vs. CTA should be viewed in the context of a long war against public employee unions. Among its landmarks were Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2005 ballot initiatives to reduce teacher tenure rights and hamstring public employee unions' authority to spend member dues on political activity. Both failed.

The lawsuit's prime target is the "agency" or "fair share" fee. Under the law and according to a 1977 Supreme Court decision known as the Abood case, workers can be assessed non-member fees to cover solely the cost of negotiations and contract enforcement, without being compelled to join the union and support its political activities with their dues. That's the arrangement in California. For decades, union opponents have been trying to get Abood overruled. The Supreme Court is pondering whether to hear one challenge from California, Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Assn. Bain "helps create a favorable political climate for the Supreme Court" to accept the Friedrichs case and overturn Abood, says Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, a defendant in Bain. Its purpose is "pretty clear," he says: "The erosion of unions' ability to be involved with politics."

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[pipoman]

1. Maybe if someone wants to own a gun they should have to pay

The NRA something?...something about forcing people to associate is a little off imho. .

[Starry Messenger]

2. This is the Socialist Progressives group.

Please read the SOP pinned at the top of the forum.

People aren't forced to associate. Plenty of other non-union jobs in the world.

[pipoman]

5. So then you would be ok with the guns/NRA requirement?

This SOP?

"Link Socialist ideas and suggestions for political change to a Progressive framework."

How is disagreeing with forcing someone to associate with something they happen to disagree with or not work in their chosen field contrary to this purpose?

[Starry Messenger]

6. Guns are a hobby.

Totally irrelevant to this convo. If you are anti-union, this isn't the group for you. This is our SOP, and this is a protected group. Right-wing anti-union posts in this group will get you blocked.

"Please be aware, however, that this is a protected group. Our purpose is to view issues through a working class lens."

There are several right to work states. A person who wants to live in one can move there. No one is forced to be in a union in their chosen field.

[pipoman]

7. No, guns are a civil liberty as is pursuit of a career...

Who said I'm anti union? I have never been anti union. It sort of sounds like people are being "forced to be in a union in their chosen field". This is what I object to...and telling people they have to relocate to not be "forced to be in a union in their chosen field", isn't acceptable to me....

[Starry Messenger]

8. Bye.

[demmiblue]

9. Good decision.

He called you a socialist bedwetter in GD, but didn't have the ovaries to let his post stand.

[Starry Messenger]

10. Screen-caps are forever though.

[Rolando]

3. All you have to do

is tell me which side Michelle Rhee is on, and I will know that I am on the opposite side.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Same here.

Seeing her gives me the same insta-rage as seeing George Bush.