Harris v. Quinn

The other major supreme court decision today was of course Harris v. Quinn, which has its own problems. I only need to point out one to show how misguided this notion is and why this is has absolutely nothing to do with economic freedom. The plaintiff was saying that requiring union dues are

First, on the complaint and why it is faulty:
If you are an employer and specifically write out that it is a union shop and that in order to work there the employer expects you to be part of a union than that is part of a legally binding contract. If you are employed by the employer you have signed the contract to be part of the union, so you need to follow your obligation. The Supreme Court fortunately did not overturn these private contracts, so requiring union dues is still legal.

This is good for employees because it has nothing to do with saving employees money since unionized employees are paid more on average in practically every profession (excluding state employees who are being slammed by regressive tax policies in a number of states and getting their wages cut annually, which I will publish soon) which means a $100 fee is totally worth it if you are getting more than $100 in added wages which most union employees certainly do! This is the government interfering with the market and interfering with private business to the benefit of none.

That's right, no one benefits from lower wages because businesses need customers to survive and when people in the lower and middle classes businesses lose revenue. Cutting employees wages shrinks the demand curve which hurts the sales of businesses, makes it harder for new businesses to form and get customers, and hurts our overall GDP. This decision is as anti-business as it is anti-union for this reason alone. Lower wages are bad for the economy. Companies can't sell items to people with no expendable income after cost of living. Companies can't stay in business if no one buys their product. This is a fact.

Now, the actual decision
This decision didn't accept every complaint by the plaintiff turned out to be a prohibition against unions from using member dues for political activities. This is the root of the issue. This is of course the same court that rules in Citizens United v. FEC that limits on campaign spending are unconstitutional, apparently this isn't the case if you are not a private corporation. Justice Kagan is absolutely right that this is overtly political, as it is going to remove union money from elections but keep the corruption influence of private corporations such as Bank of America and Koch Industries that push for deregulation. This is going to make our politics even more rigged against the middle class and has absolutely nothing to do with liberty as the majority opinion are trying to make it out to be.

It could have been better, it could have been worse.

http://www.alternet.org/labor/supreme-courts-conservatives-attack-public-sector-unions-power-cutting-dues-paying-requirement