Court upholds unions' right to picket malls

Gosh, the 9th Circuit has actually made at least 2 rulings lately that I agree with! The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is usually an outpost of Bushism, but this time they actually made a correct ruling.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the court has now ruled that union members have a right to picket malls and shopping centers. This ruling nixes restrictions that a mall management company in California tried to impose.

This follows a decision last year by the California Supreme Court that says unions have a right under state law to distribute leaflets in malls and encourage customers to boycott stores.

The union's lawsuit was actually against the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB (which is stacked with Bush cronies) had ruled that the mall had a right to bar the unions. Seriously. They actually said that - despite the fact that even state law supports the rights of the union to picket.

One would have hoped the 9th Circuit's ruling in favor of the union would be unanimous instead of merely 2 to 1. The vote against the union's free speech was provided by Judge Consuelo Callahan - a Bush appointee. Callahan ridiculously said that favoring the union "attempts to elevate expressive rights under California law" over the mall management company's "property rights."

Um, perhaps that's because California law (in addition to the U.S. Constitution) safeguards expressive rights? If a law says you have expressive rights, then that's the law. No real legal theory allows the alleged property rights of corporations to trump expressive rights in places that are open to the public if the law protects expressive rights.

Luckily, the flawed notion of corporate personhood didn't prevail this time.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/25/BAEE12I1NG.DTL)