City rally as court eyes challenge to union power
HUNDREDS OF union workers gathered in lower Manhattan on Saturday to chant, cheer and wave signs in a show of unity ahead of a Supreme Court hearing that could have a profound affect on organized labor.
On Monday, the Supreme Court will consider Janus vs. AFSCME — a controversial legal challenge to a longstanding precedent that protects the ability of public employee unions to represent their members and even nonmembers, and to speak out on matters of public interest.
Workers from both the public and private sector flooded Foley Square, a wide plaza ringed by many of Manhattan’s busiest courts.
Chants of “Get up, get down, New York is a union town,” and “Stand up, fight back,” rippled through the crowd — heavily colored with the trademark purple of 1199 SEIU and green of District Council 37.
As a long list of politicians spoke from the stage, ralliers sported signs that said, “I’ll give up my union card when you pry it from my cold, dead hands,” and “Hey SCOTUS, while you’re deciding Janus remember Trump is arming teachers.”
One attendee came all the way from Memphis to speak at the rally. Baxter Leach, who marched in Memphis as a striking sanitation worker a half-century ago and met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., energized the audience with a few simple words.
“I done come here to help y’all. We fought hard when we come up for our strike,” he said.
“I want to tell you all, to get what you want you’ve got to stand up. You can’t sit down. Unite. Do it for your family,” the civil rights figure said, his face projected on a massive screen.
Gov. Cuomo called the rallying workers “the heart and soul” of the country.
“You see labor going backwards all across this country. In New York, it’s a different story. In New York, you see labor going forward. We want more fairness, more justice,” he said. “We know what's going on in this country. . . . We have a federal administration that has declared itself an enemy of the working men and women of this nation. They have declared a war on the middle class and on the labor movement.”
A coalition of unions, economic justice groups and civil rights organizations sponsored the rally — one of about 10 held in other major cities around the country.
Organized loosely around the theme of #unrigthesystem, the main focus was Monday’s Janus vs. AFSCME hearing.
The crux of the case rests on the legality of the “agency fee,” which public employee unions in 22 states, including New York, charge workers who are represented by those unions — even if they membership.
Full union members pay union dues — while nonmembers pay just the fee, which covers only contract-related union functions such as negotiations and enforcement, including grievance procedures.
Longstanding legal precedent allows unions to charge fees to nonmember workers who benefit from contracts they negotiate.
Otherwise, the nonpayers — dubbed “free riders” or “freeloaders” — get the benefits of union actions while the financial burden is borne by others.
But if the Supreme Court rules in favor of plaintiff Mark Janus — an Illinois state worker who says paying agency fees to the Ameri- officially decline