Should no-limits union organization be etched into CA's constitution?
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CPC's Will Swaim argues that SCA 7 could, in establishing a constitutional right to union organizing, open the door for Labor to call “infringement” on any political decision they dislike. For instance, might shuttering a failing school, project, or program be considered a constitutional trespass under SCA 7? From the National Review.
State senator Tom Umberg’s Senate Constitutional Amendment 7 would create a constitutional right to “economic well-being” for government workers and would prohibit California state and local officials from taking any action “that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.”
Lawyers representing public employees could argue, for example, that a decision to close a school, end a failed program for the homeless, or build a road with nonunion labor would interfere with their union’s constitutional protections.
“Democracy is gone if this passes,” said former state senator John Moorlach, an aggressive advocate of pension reform and a frequent target of multimillion-dollar government-union political campaigns.
By privileging the rights of union members over nonunion workers, “SCA 7 will have a major negative impact on the state’s housing, environmental, and economic goals,” said Jason Pengel, chairman of the board of Associated Builders and Contractors.
From Sacramento to the state’s 482 city halls, SCA 7 “will give public-sector unions the most exhaustive power of any branch of government,” said Michael J. Lotito, an attorney at Littler Mendelson who is an expert on California employment law and the co-chairman of his firm’s Workplace Policy Institute.
This article originally appeared in the National Review. Read the whole thing here.
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