SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Case That Could Upend Unions

FEATURING MICHAEL PAARLBERG – The US Supreme Court in late February heard arguments in a case that could upend the organized labor movement and the power of unions. The case Janus Vs. AFSCME represents the culmination of years of corporate lobbying for what is deceptively labeled as the “right to work.”

An Illinois state government employee named Mark Janus has claimed that he should not be forced to pay union dues to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Behind Janus is the National Right To Work Legal Defense Fund which is backed by some of the most anti-union pro-corporate forces in the nation and which has succeeded in changing laws in dozens of states.

With Donald Trump’s appointee Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, is it more than likely anti-union sentiments will prevail when the ruling is made later this year.

Read Paarlberg’s article in The Guardian, ‘The future of American unions hangs in the balance’, HERE.

Michael Paarlberg, assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He just wrote a piece in The Guardian newspaper called ‘The future of American unions hangs in the balance’.