The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a rule to cease the diversion of Medicaid payments from providers into union dues. Their press release can be found here.

National Right to Work President Mark Mix issued the following statement in response:

“Today’s announcement by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is a vital first step in ending the illegal dues skim that diverts public funds away from the care of Medicaid recipients and into union officials’ coffers. For years, aided by a compliant Obama Administration, Big Labor has siphoned off hundreds of millions of tax dollars in violation of federal law, which is why this rulemaking is now needed make it clear that states cannot legally divert Medicaid funds into the bank accounts of politically-connected union bosses.”

Background:

The 2014 Foundation-won Harris v. Quinn Supreme Court decision found that it was unconstitutional for the state of Illinois to force home care providers paid through Medicaid programs to be forced to pay union fees. That case now continues as 80,000 providers seek the return of funds seized from them in violation of their First Amendment rights.

However, despite the Supreme Court ruling the dues skim has not stopped, which is why in 2017 the National Right to Work Foundation sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, bringing their attention to this issue. Additionally, Foundation President Mix personally raised the issue with Trump Administration officials earlier this year.

At The Federalist Society blog, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys John N. Raudabaugh and Glenn Taubman broke down a recent D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturning a union-boss power grab by the Obama National Labor Relations Board:

While unions are certainly unhappy with this outcome, all true employee advocates should be thrilled. The decision forcefully reiterates that the central purpose of the NLRA is employee free choice, not entrenching incumbent unions lacking popular support among the employees they purport to represent. The decision is a judicial slap at the Obama Board’s repeated efforts to entrench unions at the expense of employee free choice. The decision will ensure that “the employees pick the union; the union does not pick the employees.”

Read the full post here.

Today a three judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected an appeal filed by IBEW union lawyers of a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling won by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys on behalf of Michigan worker Ryan Greene.

In February 2017, the NLRB ruled union officials had violated the law by requiring workers to present their ID in person at the union hall to exercise their rights to resign from the union and cut off all dues payments, as protected by Michigan’s Right to Work law.

In response to today’s Court of Appeals ruling affirming the NLRB decision, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens issued the following statement:

“Today’s ruling is another victory for independent workers seeking to exercise their rights under Michigan’s popular Right to Work law. This case demonstrates that even when union membership and dues payment is voluntary, whether because of state Right to Work legislation or a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, union officials regularly do whatever they can to block workers from exercising their protected legal rights. Instead of cooking up schemes to trap workers like Ryan Greene into paying union dues, union officials should ask themselves why they are so afraid of giving workers a choice when it comes to union membership and dues payment.”

On Monday, February 26, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney William Messenger argued at the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME, arguing that forcing government workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment violates the First Amendment.

After oral argument, Messenger appeared live from the Court steps on Fox Business Channel:

SCOTUSblog provided a summary of the oral argument:

The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in Janus v. American Federation of State, Municipal, and County Employees, a challenge by an Illinois child-support specialist to the fees that he is required to pay to the union that represents him, even though he does not belong to any union. Although this is the first trip to the Supreme Court for Mark Janus, the employee, it was the third time in four years that the justices have taken the bench to consider the issue presented by Janus’ case. After roughly an hour of sometimes testy debate in the courtroom, the outcome almost certainly hinges on the vote of the court’s newest justice, Neil Gorsuch – who did not tip his hand, opting instead to remain silent.

Newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and The Detroit News editorialized in favor of Janus. As the Tribune explained,

Mandatory fees require dissenting nonmembers to support beliefs they reject. But the right of free speech, as the court long has recognized, includes the freedom not to speak. To force someone to pay for the advancement of political positions without his or her consent is incompatible with the First Amendment.

For background on Janus, click here.

In a new commentary for The Federalist Society, National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond J. LaJeunesse discusses an inconsistent standard for recusals at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

Traditionally under the National Labor Relations Act, a company was considered to be a joint employer of another company’s employees only if the putative joint employer had direct and immediate control over the other company’s employees’ material terms and conditions of employment. However, in 2015, a National Labor Relations Board majority appointed by President Obama overturned thirty years of precedent in Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc., 362 NLRB No. 186 (3-2 decision), holding that a company is a joint employer even if it only exercises indirect control of essential terms and conditions of employment or only reserves the right to do so.

The issue was addressed again by the Board in late 2017 in Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, Ltd., 365 NLRB No. 156 (3-2 decision). In Hy-Brand, a Board majority appointed by President Trump overruled Browning-Ferris and returned “to the principles governing joint-employer status that existed prior to that decision.”

One of the Board Members in the Hy-Brand majority was William Emanuel. Neither Emanuel nor his former law firm was involved in Hy-Brand at any point, nor has anyone claimed that either represented a Hy-Brand party at any time in any other matter. However, the NLRB’s Inspector General was asked by someone to investigate whether Emanuel should have been recused in Hy-Brand because his former law firm, but not Emanuel, represented one of the employers in Browning-Ferris before the Board.

Read the full commentary here.

Over Labor Day weekend in Investor’s Business Daily, National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix made the moral and economic case for ensuring that no worker should be required to join or pay dues or “fees” to a labor organization as a condition of employment:

The case for Right to Work has always centered on the freedom it provides workers, but there is also overwhelming evidence that freeing workers from forced dues gives Right to Work states an economic leg up.

From 2005-2015, private-sector job growth was 15.4% in Right to Work states compared to just 10.4% in forced-unionism states, according to government statistics compiled by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research. The same research shows that once you adjust for the cost of living, workers in Right to Work states had on average $2,500 more to spend in disposable personal income than their forced-unionism counterparts.

Read the full column by clicking here, and stay tuned to our blog for more Labor Day media appearances.

Yesterday in the Washington Times, National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix discussed one of Big Labor’s special legal privileges, the exemption from federal prosecution for acts of violence:

The recent acquittal of four Boston Teamsters charged with attempting to extort the producers of the popular “Top Chef” television show is the latest illustration of a loophole in federal law that permits organized labor to engage in acts of extortion that would be illegal if anyone else tried it.

Since a 1973 Supreme Court decision exempted union extortion and racketeering actions from the Hobbs Act, so long as the object being extorted constituted a legitimate union objective, union thugs have been getting a free pass on violence and threats such as what occurred in June 2014.

Read the rest of the column here.