Supreme Court and the Freedom of Business Speech
According to the Wall Street Journal:
Some of the most sensible decisions of the Supreme Court's centrist majority have concerned business law, and yesterday the Justices handed down another good one. The decision will protect the free-speech rights of all parties – companies and unions – during labor negotiations.
At issue in Chamber of Commerce v. Brown was a 2000 California law that prohibited businesses from using state grants or program funds to "assist, promote or deter union organizing." That sounds neutral enough, even fair. However, at the behest of the labor lobby, the law was designed as an elaborate sleight-of-hand to use taxpayer money to prevent businesses from communicating with their employees about labor policies or problems.
In practice, the recordkeeping requirements made it nearly impossible for businesses to certify that they hadn't used state funds for union-related activities. Then it imposed huge compliance and litigation costs. The law also contained broad exemptions to the general spending ban, including allowing state funds to promote certain types of unionization, such as voluntarily recognizing unions without secret ballots, i.e., "card check." How convenient.... click to continue.
