unions

A group of business trade groups filed a lawsuit this week to block a new rule from the National Labor Relations Board to expedite employee votes on joining unions, the Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trottman reports. The plaintiffs say the new rule, adopted by the board 3-2, "could deprive employers of time they need to tell workers why they think a company should remain union-free and limit their ability to launch timely legal challenges."

The five plaintiffs include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation, and the Society for Human Resource Management.

The Indiana Supreme Court upheld a law that bans conditioning employment on paying union fees, Bloomberg's Sophia Pearson reports. The law made it a misdemeanor to require a worker to pay fees to get or keep a job.

The Washington Post's Robert Barnes writes that "compulsory union fees conflict with the First Amendment’s protection against forced association and speech," but Supreme Court precedent allows for public employees who opt out of union membership to still be forced to "pay 'fair share' fees to support the organization’s collective-bargaining work." The issue is coming up in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on whether Illinois in-home assistants to peoples with disabilities and other people who otherwise could be institutionalized (paid through Medicaid-waiver programs) have to pay union fees. The justices are being asked to overrule their precedent.