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SMART members know that union dues are an investment in themselves — one that pays off consistently in the form of strong contracts, pro-union laws and increased work.

The advocacy of union officers demonstrated that fact in summer 2024, when Local 105 (Southern California) won back thousands of work hours that rightfully belonged to SMART members.

In California’s Inland Empire, the Riverside Unified School District recently signed a project labor agreement/community workforce agreement (CWA) for the first time; a major win for union building trades workers that guaranteed them work on RUSD projects. However, on the mechanical side, a non-signatory contractor won several bids on RUSD work, including a large new build: Casa Blanca Elementary School.

Knowing the rules of the CWA and the strong labor provisions therein, Local 105 Business Manager Steve Hinson and officers decided to investigate. Sure enough, the contractor, Simco Mechanical, “sent unregistered core workers to the jobsite,” explained Local 105 Organizer Albert Orosco. “I caught them through certified payroll report records.”

Under Hinson’s direction, Orosco swiftly filed a grievance against Simco, noting that the violation of the CWA lowered area working conditions, kept local workers off the jobsite and violated the strong labor standards collectively bargained by SoCal unions.

Armed with the CWA language, Hinson and Local 105 negotiated a settlement with the contractor — one that will benefit members for years to come. For the remainder of the $600 million RUSD CWA, the settlement reads, Simco Mechanical can only “staff one of their field employees to fulfill the duties of a field foreman for the worksite, with all other duties onsite being performed by Local 105 members.”

In other words, the activity of Local 105 officers — made possible by union dues — secured an enormous amount of work for union sheet metal workers.

“This is a major win for our members: creating work hours in the Inland Empire, where many of them live and will be put to work as the agreement intended,” concluded Local 105 Business Representative Tim Hinson.

Strength, unity and education will be the way to fight the United States Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision last week on Janus v. AFSCME 31 that overturned more than four decades of legal precedent.
That was the message given at the opening session of the SMART Transportation Division Regional Meeting on July 1 in Seattle.
The 49-page decision written by Justice Samuel Alito and supported by the four other conservative justices eliminates the ability of public sector unions to collect agency fees from those employees who refuse to be union members, yet still receive the benefits negotiated by unions.
“Janus is something that is indicative of an anti-labor movement in certain parts of the government that they’re working very hard to take away the rights and privileges that we have worked for for a number of years,” SMART Transportation Division President John Previsich said.
SMART TD General Counsel Kevin Brodar explained to attendees the magnitude of the decision and how the conservative tilt of the court, achieved with the installation of President Donald Trump’s nominee Neil Gorsuch, poses an ongoing menace to labor.
“It is everything we thought it would be,” Brodar describe the Janus decision, written by Alito. “From every page drips his contempt for labor and unions. This is less a legal opinion as it is a right-wing manifesto against labor. That’s the sad story.
“Justice Alito and his Federalist Society conspirators are once again trying to sell the public on a two-century-old idea that organized labor is nothing more than legalized extortion. Having lost the battle of ideas over the years because unions are still here, they have taken the idea that they can strangle unions out of existence by ending their funding.”
Janus overturns the 9-0 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education made in the 1970s in which, Brodar said, “some of the heaviest hitters in the legal field” all agreed that unions had the power to collect agency fees from “free-riders,” non-paying members who still received benefits negotiated by the unions.
“This is essentially a green light to anyone who wants to stop paying unions dues in the public sector,” Brodar said. “The idea is to drain union coffers of their money, drain them of their political clout, drain them of the ability to represent their members. With that, disappears a decent wage, pension plans, health care — all gone. That’s the plan of this case.”
The Janus decision is another attack on the United States labor movement, Brodar said — the newest moment in a long line of resistance against people uniting for a common cause to improve their lives.
“This case is an attack on working people. It’s an attack not just on public sector unions, but all of us in this room. This is an attack on every member of this union,” Brodar said. “No matter how many bayonets and bullets they used, they couldn’t kill the idea. They couldn’t kill the cause. It exists today. Why is that? Because this is a righteous and just cause. And you, all of you here, are the heirs to that cause.”
The fight will continue, Brodar said, and he urged members to come together, educate themselves and be prepared to battle future efforts to weaken the power of labor and tip the scales in the favor of the carriers.
“This is not the last shot. There will be many more shots coming. It’s up to us to respond,” Brodar said.
“If this union disappears, there are dark days ahead. There are dark days right now — there will be another Supreme Court appointment who won’t be a labor-friendly guy.
“What we need is solidarity. It’s solidarity that brought us here,” Brodar said. “There’s work to be done, and it’s time.”
 

SMART TD General Counsel Kevin Brodar speaks out about what’s ahead for unions in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Janus v. Afcsme, overturning decades of union-favored precedent, at the opening session of the Seattle Regional Meeting, Monday, July 2.

scales_gavelWASHINGTON — The Supreme Court dealt a blow to public sector unions Monday, ruling that thousands of home health care workers in Illinois cannot be required to pay fees that help cover the union’s costs of collective bargaining.

In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take.

Read the complete story at the Associated Press.

JEFFERSON CITY — After steadfast opposition from Democratic senators, the Missouri Senate gave first-round approval early Tuesday morning to a bill that would require public employee unions to seek annual consent in order to automatically deduct fees from members’ paychecks.

The final measure was the product of a compromise forged after a nearly eight hours of opposition from Senate Democrats. The original measure would have banned paycheck deductions outright for some unionized public employees.

Read the complete story at The Kansas City Star.