Political Quotes

“conservative, rightwing forces in our country are engaged in an all-out assault on working people. Their target? Private and public sector workers and the unions who are fighting on their behalf. While private sector unions at least have some protections under the National Labor Relations Act, public employees have been historically forced to rely on Supreme Court precedent to protect their basic rights. That is why the Court's decision last year in Janus was so damaging. In one fell swoop, the Court overturned more than 40 years of precedent from the Abood decision and barred public sector unions from collecting fair share fees from employees who had opted out of the union but whom the union is still legally required to represent. The Supreme Court's decision in Janus was not unexpected. Its decision was the culmination of decades-long efforts by groups like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation to undermine settled precedent in Abood in order to weaken public sector unions. These groups worked methodically to achieve their goals. First, Justice Alito all but invited a challenge to Abood when he wrote his decision in Knox v. SEIU Local 100 and Harris v. Quinn. He called the justification for allowing a union to collect fair share fees ``an anomaly.'' He said ``the Abood Court's analysis is questionable on several grounds'' and laid out the grounds as he saw them for someone to bring a case to overturn Abood.…”