A North Carolina law barring automatic withdrawal of members’ dues from their paychecks is constitutional, a federal appeals court ruled.
Wednesday’s decision from the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is a loss for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, which had challenged the 2017 law on the grounds that it violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection, free speech, and free association.
The appeals court also upheld as constitutional a separate provision of the farm law that prevents unions from seeking voluntary recognition as part of class-wide settlements with employers to resolve disputes over hours, wages, and other workplace issues.
The lower court’s ruling, which struck down that provision and blocked its enforcement, was overly broad, the Fourth Circuit said. Instead, the law only prohibits legal agreements conditioned on a producer’s affiliation with a specific union and so doesn’t violate the First Amendment, the court said.
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the only union that represents farmworkers in North Carolina, challenged the law on the ground that it makes it harder for unions to organize workers.
Upholding the dues checkoff provisions would obstruct the union’s revenue streams because of the significant obstacles that agricultural workers face paying dues any way other than automatic deductions, the FLOC argued.
About 95% of...
Police have launched an investigation into alleged false accusation by Park Cheol-min, a former member of the Seongnam International Mafia. Park, ahead of the 2022 presidential election, raised al...