MEMPHIS – Early this morning, a stretch of Beale Street in front of AFSCME Local 1733 was renamed “1968 Strikers Way” in honor of the sanitation workers who courageously stood up for racial equality, safer jobs and greater respect.

Pres. Lee Saunders, Sec.-Treas. Laura Reyes and Martin Luther King III joined former strikers and union members from across the country at the renaming ceremony.(Read More.)

A lawsuit was filed today to strike down Michigans No Rights At Work law by the Teamsters, other Change to Win unions, the UAW, the Michigan Education Association, the ACLU and others.  The coalition charged the bills were enacted illegally because the public was locked out of the Capitol during debate.

The ACLU tells us the coalition argued the law:

…was in violation of the Open Meetings Act, the First Amendment, and the Michigan Constitution. The case, filed on behalf of a journalist, citizens, legislators, and unions, charges that government officials, in an unprecedented assault on democracy, deprived the public of their right to participate in the legislative process.

The lawsuit doesn’t challenge the substance of the No Rights At Work law, but with the illegal and undemocratic process used to enact it. Further legal actions will probably try to strike down the law on its merits. (Read More.)

Unions have had their problems — what organizations do not? — and it’s convenient for some politicians to belittle the contribution or usefulness of unions. Indeed, much of the public has lost touch with what unions do and who they are. Unions are just folks — people who come together to improve their lives and their workplaces, because there’s strength in numbers. (Read More.)

According to backers of the measure, it would:

• Establish the people’s rights to organize to form, join or assist unions and to bargain collectively with public or private employers regarding wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.
• Prohibit employers from retaliating against their employees for exercising those rights.
• Prohibit State and local governments from interfering with those rights.
• Authorize the State to restrict or prohibit public employee strikes.
• Protect current laws establishing minimum wages, hours and working conditions.
• Prohibit government from interfering with agreements respecting employees’ financial support of their union.
• Grant State Civil Service employees’ collective bargaining rights.

In a labor union case, the conservative justices broke court rules to insert themselves into a political issue.