A federal judge has determined a state employee — notable for his public anti-union stances — can’t intervene on behalf of the state in a lawsuit it faces from a union leader asking courts to declare unions aren’t obligated to represent employees who refuse to pay membership dues.
Saying Illinois’ attorney general’s defense is “inadequate” and is “bordering on malpractice,” an Illinois state employee who factored in the court action that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down rules requiring non-union workers to pay fees to unions has again jumped into a federal court action, this time asking a judge to allow his legal team to defend the state against a union’s attempt to secure a court order striking down labor laws requiring them to represent all workers in a collective bargaining unit.
Saying governments are different from labor unions and other private organizations, a north suburban village and an organization that lobbies on behalf of Illinois city and village governments has asked a federal judge to dismiss a union-backed lawsuit asserting the rights of union members are violated by local governments which use tax money to fund lobbyists to seek reforms opposed by unions.
In the wake of the U.S Supreme Court’s landmark decision to declare unconstitutional forced union fees, the legal and political landscape will undoubtedly change. But precisely what will change, and how and when those changes will roll out, remains anybody’s guess.
In advance of what they expect to be a stinging defeat for labor unions at the U.S. Supreme Court, a prominent Illinois union has countered with a suit of its own, claiming, if the court finds unions can be barred from forcing non-union workers to pay fees to the union for collective bargaining, so, too, the unions can’t be forced to include those workers in the deals they cut with government officials.
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepared to hear arguments on the question of whether state rules requiring non-union workers pay fees to unions violate the Constitution, a union member in suburban Lincolnshire has sued his village government, demanding the court declare the rights of union members have been similarly violated by local governments which use taxpayer money to fund lobbyists to seek reforms opposed by unions.
Cities, villages and counties don’t have the authority under federal law to impose local right-to-work rules on employers, workers and unions, a Chicago federal judge has said, tossing out a right-to-work ordinance enacted by the village of Lincolnshire in 2015.
A Chicago federal judge has tossed a union lawyer’s defamation lawsuit against a leading anti-union advocacy organization, saying the facts of the case – which centers on the veracity of the lawyer’s statements to the Indiana Supreme Court during a court fight over the constitutionality of Indiana’s Right to Work law - indicate the defamation suit should not have been filed in Illinois.
A union lawyer who helped lead the litigation against Indiana’s Right to Work law has sued a leading anti-union advocacy organization, claiming the National Institute for Labor Relations Research should be made to pay for saying the lawyer “flat-out lied” while representing the labor unions opposed to the law before the Indiana Supreme Court in 2014.
