President Brian Clardy and Secretary/Treasurer Mike Powers spent some time with our Charleston Movie Industry members on the set of the Netflix show, "Outer Banks." They are currently working hard on episodes for Season 4! Local 509 members are also hard at work for the 4th Season of the HBO show, "Righteous Gemstones.
Pro-union protesters rally in front of the US Supreme Court building January 11, 2016 Mark Wilson/Getty Images
The Supreme Court has ruled that public sector unions cannot charge fees to employees who decline to join a union but are covered by its collective bargaining agreement. In a 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, the court ruled the fees are unconstitutional, a blow to labor unions in the United States.
Twenty-eight states already ban agency fees, but the 22 states that do not are bastions of union membership, including Ohio, California, and Pennsylvania.
Pro-union advocates have argued that under “right-to-work” laws, nonunion members are reaping the benefits of progress that unions achieve without paying anything in return, resulting in lower membership rates and less influence, Vox’s Dylan Matthews wrote. Meanwhile, anti-union advocates argued that required agency fees violate First Amendment rights by forcing workers to support a political organization regardless of whether they support the cause. Agency fees are fees nonunion members have to pay to unions to cover the cost of collective bargaining.