{"id":463241,"date":"2021-05-01T05:05:44","date_gmt":"2021-05-01T09:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=463241"},"modified":"2021-05-01T05:05:49","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T09:05:49","slug":"workers-health-care-restored-after-union-bosses-back-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/workers-health-care-restored-after-union-bosses-back-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Workers\u2019 Health Care Restored After Union Bosses Back Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fworkers-health-care-restored-after-union-bosses-back-down%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=463241&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"29.016949152542\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/\">Latest News<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Labor execs threatened to withhold benefits to pressure university employees<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"736\" height=\"478\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fb_image-5.png\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fb_image-4.png 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-3.21.31-PM-300x195.png 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-3.21.31-PM-1024x665.png 1024w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-3.21.31-PM-768x499.png 768w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-3.21.31-PM-1536x998.png 1536w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-3.21.31-PM-2048x1331.png 2048w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-3.21.31-PM-1400x910.png 1400w\" data-sizes=\"auto\"  style=\"display:none\"><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tThe University of Puerto Rico  \/  YouTube Screenshot\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/graham-piro\/\" title=\"Posts by Graham Piro\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Graham Piro<\/a> \u2022 May 1, 2021 4:58 am<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"77.244505494505\">\n<p>Employees at the University of Puerto Rico\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrtw.org\/news\/upr-healthcare-restored-04282021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.nrtw.org\/news\/upr-healthcare-restored-04282021\/&#038;source=gmail&#038;ust=1619899656326000&#038;usg=AFQjCNHZgP1EGdTO7I1XqZQlkMyKAB92nQ\">triumphed<\/a>\u00a0over union officials who allegedly threatened to withhold their health care benefits for opting out of the union.<\/p>\n<p>The workers at the taxpayer-funded university accused the union of refusing to give employees permanent health insurance until they signed union membership cards authorizing the past deduction of membership dues. The union capitulated and allowed the employees to access the health care plans in the face of the legal challenge, which will now continue as the workers try to recover more than a decade&#8217;s worth of dues seized by the union.<\/p>\n<p>The dispute is one of a number of cases that have been filed since the Supreme Court declared mandatory union membership a violation of the First Amendment. The ability of workers to avoid mandatory union membership could be threatened by the PRO Act, which Democratic lawmakers are aggressively pushing Congress to pass.<\/p>\n<p>Two employees, Jose Ramos and Orlando M\u00e9ndez, filed a lawsuit against the university and the union in May 2020 citing the <i>Janus<\/i>\u00a0Supreme Court ruling that established that public employees cannot be forced to pay membership dues to unions in order to be employed. The complaint sought legal intervention to declare the automatic payment of membership dues to the union unlawful.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After being notified of Plaintiffs\u2019 written demands to have dues deductions ceased,\u00a0UPR and the Union nonetheless continued to deduct and collect dues from their wages, in\u00a0furtherance of dues deduction and maintenance of membership requirements found in the CBA,&#8221; the complaint\u00a0stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Union and UPR violate the First Amendment rights of Ramos, M\u00e9ndez, and of the proposed class of public sector employees by deducting and collecting money from their wages\u00a0without their voluntary, intelligent and knowing consent, thereby severely restricting the exercise\u00a0of their First Amendment right under <em>Janus<\/em> not to subsidize a labor union.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The University of Puerto Rico Workers Union did not respond to a request for comment. The University of Puerto Rico declined to comment on the situation.<\/p>\n<div dir=\"ltr\" readability=\"18\">\n<p>Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which filed the motion on behalf of the university workers, said the fight with the union is not over.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Union officials illegally collected dues from these workers\u2019 paychecks and then doubled down on their coercive tactics by attempting to use their control over the employee health care plan to pressure the workers into signing away their rights,&#8221; Semmens said. &#8220;While we are glad that the threat to these workers\u2019 health care has ended, these workers are still owed over a decade worth of dues seized in violation of the First Amendment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Latest News Labor execs threatened to withhold benefits to pressure university employees  The University of Puerto Rico \/ YouTube Screenshot  Graham Piro \u2022 May &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2277127,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fb_image-5.png","fifu_image_alt":"Workers\u2019 Health Care Restored After Union Bosses Back Down","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fb_image-5.png","fifu_image_alt":"Workers\u2019 Health Care Restored After Union Bosses Back Down","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}