Governor Dayton’s sop to union cronies costs taxpayers: The State of Minnesota has been ordered to pay $60,000 in legal fees to the plaintiffs who successfully challenged Governor Dayton’s 2011 executive order calling for a childcare union election. In that case, a judge found that Dayton overstepped his constitutional authority. Sign the petition calling on Governor Dayton to pay the cost of defending his union power grab instead of forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. Meanwhile, a new study by Child Care Aware of America finds that Minnesota is currently one of the least affordable states for childcare, a problem that unionizing will only exacerbate.
SCOTUS update: Harris v. Quinn is scheduled to begin oral arguments before the US Supreme Court on January 21. The case involves personal care workers in Illinois who are forced to pay compulsory “fair share” fees to a labor union they do not support. For more on the case, and how it affects the union power grab underway in Minnesota, read the Freedom Foundation’s recent summary.
Teachers demand right to vote on union: Teachers in five Wisconsin school districts filed a lawsuit last week to force the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission to hold union recertification elections. The elections are required under Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 legislation, but have been delayed by the ongoing legal challenges to the law.
Big Labor’s big spending: In New Jersey, outside interest groups have poured a record $35 million into legislative races, more than two-thirds of which came from labor unions and liberal interest groups desperate to stop Governor Chris Christie from further advancing an agenda of government reform and labor accountability. The New Jersey’s teachers’ union alone accounted for a staggering $12 million in campaign spending.
