“My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Recently, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard several cases involving unions forging the signatures of employees.
Surprisingly, “the three-judge panel managed to acknowledge the membership cards in question were forged while simultaneously concluding a union can’t be held responsible for dues illegally taken from a public employee’s paycheck because a union isn’t a government agency; rather, it is merely a private organization,” according to the Washington Examiner.
And conversely, the state is also blameless, the court concluded, because the state is free to delegate to the union all responsibility for deciding who does and doesn’t pay dues. In other words, the 9th Circuit claimed the state has no duty to protect its employees’ First Amendment rights.
In this episode of Labor Relations Radio, host Peter List is joined by Sydney Phillips and Rebekah Millard, the Freedom Foundation attorneys who argued the cases on behalf of the aggrieved employees.
Related:
Labor Relations Radio, Ep. 41—Did a Federal Court Just Legitimize Union Forgery? It Sure Seems Like It.