To the editor: SEIU-United Healthcare Staff West is being sued by the healthcare trade for allegedly misusing the California initiative course of to coerce some members of the trade to permit their workers to unionize (“California health clinics accuse influential union and its leader of racketeering in civil lawsuit,” Sept. 18). Brandon Thornock, chief government of plaintiff Shasta Group Well being, mentioned, “It’s a whole waste of sources and it’s amoral.”
Is it “amoral”? The reply to that’s irrelevant. The query ought to be, is it unlawful?
Morality and legality usually don’t coincide. In 2010, the Supreme Court docket, in its Residents United ruling, mentioned companies, labor unions and exempt organizations have the first Modification free-speech rights to independently spend limitless funds to have an effect on elections. SEIU might be seen as creatively stretching that proper through the use of the initiative course of to characterize its constituents.
Was the Residents United determination appropriate? That’s additionally irrelevant, because the Supreme Court docket is the last word arbiter of the Structure, though the ruling might be weakened by congressional laws. However why would Congress battle that ruling when basically half of the senators and representatives obtain political contributions from enterprise and the opposite half from labor? Many from each events take the cash from each enterprise and labor. It’s a sorry state of affairs.
Ron Garber, Duarte
