U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top lawyer, has just inflicted more damage on America's working men and women laboring under compulsory unionism. Does President Bush even know what his administration's lawyer is doing?
This week, the too-clever-by-half lawyer filed a brief in the National Right to Work Foundation's latest pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Locke v. Karass, and has taken a position that surely must please the union bosses. The High Court in Locke will examine the criteria for determining how much non-union members must pay to a union where they do not enjoy the fundamental protection of a Right to Work law.
Foundation attorneys argue that the U.S. Constitution does not permit the forced extraction of dues or fees for any expenses not directly tied to representational activity in the employees' actual bargaining unit.
But Mr. Clement apparently has no issue with forcing Maine state workers to pay for union activism anywhere in the world, so long as the union satisfies a vague and weak two-part test. In practical terms, Clement's standard would further empower union bosses to charge workers for almost anything under the sun, unless a worker gets a lawyer and forces them to prove that the forced fees are being used for narrowly prescribed purposes.
This is not the first time that U.S. Solicitor General Clement has taken positions supportive of compulsory unionism. He adopted the AFL-CIO's position and seriously undermined employee freedom during oral argument in the Foundation's Davenport v. WEA case at the U.S. Supreme Court.
With "friends" like Bush's Solicitor General, who needs enemies?
Comments
Sir, could you please
Sir, could you please explain to me why, when the Repulicans had control of Congress, that a national right to work law was not put into legislation?
The Republicans most certainly should have known that it is forced unionism, and the dollars that go with it, that has been the foundation of any Democrat success--and Republican defeat.
Certainly, it could have been couched in terms of "Worker Choice" and/or "Anti-Institutional Control of Workers".
One would think that the Republicans would have done this while the getting was good--if not on purely political grounds.
In my opinion, since I am not a politico, it is my position that forced unionism is Un-American, if not, certainly down right Un-Constitutional.
Ruby
That Rascal John Boehner
In my opinion, the most potent obstacle to getting a vote on the National Right to Work Act was Congressman John Boehner. He blocked it for all of the years that he chaired of the Education and Labor Committee. Within the committee itself, there were enough votes to get it to the floor, but Boehner would not allow a vote in the committee. So, for the six years that there was a Republican majority in both houses of congress and we had a president who would have signed a Right to Work bill, John Boehner stood in the way. You would have to ask him for his reasons.
Bismarck