LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The Clark County Education Association filed a lawsuit against the State of Nevada and the Clark County School District in an attempt to invalidate a Nevada statute that makes it illegal for public sector employees to strike.
The lawsuit claimed that the Nevada statute that prohibits strikes by workers against the state or any local government employer is unconstitutional.
CCEA files lawsuit against Nevada law that bans government employees from striking by 8 News Now on Scribd
The statute “impinges upon the fundamental rights of speech and association of CCEA and its members, is overbroad, void for vagueness, and is not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest,” the lawsuit said.
It said the statute violates the free speech and assembly guarantees that are afforded to union members by Article I, Section 8 of the Nevada Constitution and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
“Work actions, including strikes, are core rights of political speech of, and assembly by, workers, protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution; the Nevada Constitution; and the protections for concerted activity found in federal labor law,” the lawsuit claimed.
The lawsuit also claimed that the penalties for engaging in what the statute defined as a “strike” were “very harsh, and include injunction, steep fines, termination of employment and withholding of wages, and, for a labor union, the possibility of withdrawal of bargaining unit status.”
The CCEA announced it would be filing the lawsuit during a march and rally held on Saturday morning near the steps of the federal courthouse located near Las Vegas Boulevard and Bridger Avenue.
The lawsuit is asking for Nevada statutes listed in the suit to be declared invalid.
“We are aware of and evaluating the complaint filed by CCEA against the State of Nevada and CCSD,” the school district said in a statement Monday afternoon.
