This essay examines the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Janus v AFSCME, Council 31, which concluded that agency shop provisions violate the First Amendment rights of public sector workers who are not union members but receive the fruits of the representation. This decision reversed over 40 years of precedent and imposed “right to work” as a new federal constitutional mandate, fulfilling the dream of anti-union forces since the first Gilded Age.
The essay begins with a brief history of the open shop movement and the development of the agency shop as a constitutionally permissible form of union security in the private and public sectors. It then describes how an activist Supreme Court majority undermined the constitutionality of the agency shop, which set the stage for the Janus decision. The essay summarizes the majority and dissenting opinions in Janus, and describes how unions, employers, and some state legislatures are responding to the decision’s immediate impact.
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The popularity of email, blogging and social networking raises important issues for employers, employees and labor unions. This article will explore contemporary workplace issues resulting from the related social phenomena of electronic exhibitionism and voyeurism. It will begin with a discussion of the international social phenomenon of individuals electronically distributing their personal thoughts, opinions, and activities to a potential worldwide audience while at the same time retaining a subjective sense of privacy. The temptation toward such exhibitionism has been substantially enhanced by the advent of Web 2.0. The article then turns to the legal implications of electronic voyeurism including employer surveillance of employee workplace computer use and employee off-duty blogs and social networking pages. It will also examine the issues associated with employers and recruiters conducting internet searches for information about job applicants. In the conclusion, the article will discuss various means for responding to the workplace issues resulting from electronic exhibitionism and voyeurism on and off the job. 1 300 978-1-4244-7776-0/$26.00 c 2010 IEEE
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