Catherwood LibraryILR School

In a major victory for organized labor, the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit ruled eleven to zero yesterday that fees paid by non-union employees at unionized workplaces in states without “right to work” laws, can be used to fund organizing. In reaching this decision, the court was swayed by research, conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, which shows that increased unionization due to organizing within an industry leads to improved wages, benefits and conditions for all union represented workers in that industry. With unions spending as much as fifty percent of their funds on organizing, and the AFL-CIO leadership under President John Sweeney putting an ever increasing emphasis on organizing to reverse labor’s decline in past decades, this ruling could have a significant impact on U.S. labor relations.