Cynical Union

Recall President Donald Trump’s Executive Order limiting the amount of time public union employees can spend doing union business during their work day.

The American Federation of Government Employees has demurred and gone into court to seek an injunction blocking enforcement of the EO.  AFGE General Counsel David Borer insisted

We will not allow this or any other administration to trample on the Constitutional rights of federal workers[.]

This cynical claim is based on Borer’s insistence that his members’ freedom of association right is violated by the EO.

This, of course, is nonsense.

There is no constitutional violation here. No association right is violated by requiring union member employees of a government institution to do the work of the institution when they’re on institution time and the taxpayer payroll.  Union members remain free to associate with a union or with each other in a union.  They remain free to conduct union business.  There is no constitutional obligation, though, for taxpayers to pay anyone for associating or for doing non-work related tasks.

This is a case that should result in a declaratory judgment that the law—the supreme Law in this case—is on the side of the government.  Alternatively, it should be tossed on its face and Borer and such of his staff as are participating in bringing this case, as well as the AFGE, strongly sanctioned for wasting the court’s time with such a blatantly frivolous case.

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