Supreme Court Set to Hear Challenge to Public Sector Unions

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider on Monday a conservative legal challenge targeting public sector unions when the justices take up a case brought by non-union teachers in California who object to being compelled to pay for collective bargaining.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who could cast the critical vote in the case – known as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association – expressed doubt about a law in California that requires public sector workers to opt out of paying union fees for collective bargaining.

Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to agree with Carvin, who argued that the court should at least require unions to have employees affirmatively consent to union fees instead of requiring them affirmatively opt out of them.

In the Friedrichs case before the U.S. Supreme Court, the core of union-supporters’ argument is that government employees should be forced to pay fees to a union because they benefit from union activities. The union claimed it was merely collecting a “fee” for representing the nonmembers.

“It’s actually essential to have agency fees, because they are using those fees to benefit all of the workers”, Frederick said.

“His visit was coordinated through the American Federation of Teachers, as he’s a well-respected teacher who has done a lot of social justice work with his students over the years”, said Aviva Bowen, communications director for the Illinois Federation of Teachers. The lead plaintiff is Rebecca Friedrichs, an elementary school teacher in Anaheim who quit the union in 2012.

“If you can get something for free then why would you pay for it?” he said. Public employee unions have strongly supported Democrats and have been targeted by several Republican governors.

The Friedrichs case is not an assault on public unions, though if Friedrichs wins, public unions like Education Minnesota will have to stop taking their members for granted if they want to keep collecting fees and dues. Half of the states in the US are so-called “right-to-work” states, where employees are free to decide whether a union provides value to them.

The unusually long, 80-minute oral argument focused on a case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.

“Forcing an employee to associate with a union and surrender part of her income to support its political activities is a clear violation of that constitutional protection”. In those states, unions still represent workers but membership rates are lower.

“All of the unions in the city of Philadelphia, certainly the school district, and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania have negotiated fair share agreements so if the court were to overrule that decision, it would have very serious consequences for all local unions, including the uniformed services”, said Williams. The teachers are backed by the conservative Center for Individual Rights.

“It’s odd to say that if X is required to pay $500 for someone to espouse a belief that he doesn’t share, that he is now free to go out and argue against it”, Kennedy said.

The unions say their survival may depend on being able to continue charging the fees, arguing that their lobbying for better conditions and higher pay helps all union members, even those who don’t share the same views.

Since the Abood decision, the court has fiddled with agency fees in an attempt to weed out political spending from pure collective bargaining – and found it a hard if not impossible task.

Public employee unions have a legal precedent on their side with the Court’s 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.

Drawing a contrast with private-sector unionism, Justice Antonin Scalia said sitting at the bargaining table with the government “is, in all cases, a matter of public concern”.

But Carvin said Abood’s rationale is inconsistent with other free-speech cases, noting that the court twice in recent years has issued 5-4 opinions questioning the rationale of that earlier case, though it has stopped short of overruling it. “There is nothing in the agency fee process that prevents teachers from speaking out”. Roughly three-quarters of the estimated 7.2 million public sector union members are in states without “right-to-work” laws.