Portside

From Florida to Alaska, workers are facing legal efforts to weaken their power by targeting union certification and dues.

The bill would have prohibited both public and private sector employees from being required to either join a union or pay union dues as a condition of their employment.

GOP courts blue collar voters but most favor anti-union ‘right to work’ laws and reject laws that would protect right to organize.

Pro-worker provisions introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer added to the bill include penalizing employers for interfering in union elections.

The rule is "a blatant political attack on a group of workers that are 90% women and majority people of color,” said April Verrett, president of SEIU Local 2015, which represents some 380,000 California home care and nursing home workers.

In Connecticut, the good news is that anti-labor Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision won’t break the unions, which uphold the middle class at a time when the share of income going to the top 1 percent has doubled in barely more than a generation.

A rule proposed recently by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, under the Trump administration, would prohibit home health aides who are paid directly by Medicaid from having their union dues automatically deducted.

Medicaid authorities have launched a new attack on unions serving home healthcare workers. Make no mistake: This is nothing but another step in a 40-year attack on public employee unions.

The Oregon lawsuit was supported by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is handling some 200 other cases across the country, including a class-action lawsuit in California by 30,000 state employees.

The votes by members of the Maine State Employees Association and the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees are a victory for Republican Gov. Paul LePage.