Union leaders who jumped the gun on the 2016 election thinking the Democrats and Hillary Clinton would win and take charge of the U.S. Supreme Court will now pay for their very bad decision. Also, the leaders of some of the union leaders did not understand the feelings of their members on where their support lay, which was with Bernie Sanders.
Labor went to court with three cases on labor arbitration agreements, which now will lose in the right-leaning Supreme Court and end up being the law of the land. In another case, the Court will decide whether public employee unions can collect fees from non-union members. If we lose this case, we can kiss the relevancy of labor unions goodbye. The law will bankrupt the unions and the loss of union membership will be catastrophic.
These Court cases will be the Justice Department vs the National Labor Relation Board, which is a federal agency, will oppose each other in Court. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, this will be a first in her 25 years on the court and it looks like a five to four victory for the employers, and their non-union businesses.
This will radically tilt the landscape in favor of corporations if workers lose here. This was just such a bad decision on labor’s part and will put labor behind for the next ten years or until we are smart enough to elect labor friendly people.
What we need to remember is that the U.S. Supreme Court can giveth and taketh away. We must never let our guard down again by being overly confident. This has cost us dearly. The anti-union Republicans take a case to court, if they lose in one court they appeal to the next and ask the court to pass on judgment so the case can get to the Supreme Court and become law of the land. This means another lesson we need to learn is to not take a case to the Court until you have a good chance to win. If you lose, it can be forever (Law of the Land).
I hope that I am wrong, but what I see at this time is our unions are going to be in the fight of their existence. This is the most perilous time of our life. The life we had is threatened like never before. Unions are the largest organized group of people who can save our country if things keep going the way they are heading at this time. We need to all stand together for power, but we each must prepare and plan to take care of ourselves and our families. We can fight the big fight and not be distracted by worry about things that can and should already be taken care of. For instance, stashing at least one month’s pay and at least a month or even a year’s worth of food, whether the food is staples (pasta, rice, canned goods) and meat or chicken in the freezer. Keep your vehicles' tanks full and if possible a gas can full. It’s in your best interest to also save money for house or rent payments plus extra. This is not new thinking for us old trade workers who had to prepare when...
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