Union dues – breech of rights or a necessity?

But the case heard by the Supreme Court on Monday could impact elections for many years.

Flowers bloom in front of The United States Supreme Court building November 6, 2015 in Washington, DC. Allocations to public education always compete with other budget areas such as “public housing [and] welfare benefits”, he said.

In proposing to eliminate public employee dues on all who benefit from union contracts, labor’s corporate adversaries, perhaps backed by a partisan Supreme Court, seek to destroy or weaken collective bargaining and workers’ power in the political arena.

Arguing for the group of teachers, Michael Carvin said mandatory fees serve to “inflate the union’s war chest by people who really have not made a voluntary decision to do so”. The union contract prevented the district from firing her. Friedrichs was appalled, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She also argues the unions do not adequately protect teachers from unfair punitive measures.

The particular issue is that the union dues regime had been upheld in Abood, a Supreme Court decision from 1977.

Not! It is because of bargaining as a group otherwise known as “union efforts”. In fact, recent studies have shown a direct correlation between the decline of union membership and stagnant wages and benefits for the middle class and low-income workers. The case involves 10 teachers who are challenging the regime in California and 20 other states that says that even if a person is not a member of a union, he or she can be compelled to give the union money.

Friedrichs directly challenges Abood. Since the union is an advocacy organization with a specific viewpoint on controversial public issues, Mr. Carvin argued that this violates the First Amendment because an individual can not be compelled to support an organization with which he or she disagrees or does not wish to subsidize.

Even Justice Antonin Scalia, who in the past has expressed some sympathy for the free-rider argument, said all the items negotiated in a collective bargaining agreement “are necessarily political questions”. In addition, the plaintiffs contend that nearly every subject of collective bargaining is inherently a political issue in the public sector. Because there are fewer liberal billionaires (and those who are politically active, such as George Soros and Tom Steyer, tend to shun super PACs in favor of their own projects) the only real counterweight to Republican super PACs in this new era is union money. One is that less money will flow into the coffers of public sector unions. In a strategic document designed to prepare its locals for life after agency fees, the NEA describes how it has created a Center for Organizing to encourage local affiliates to reinvigorate their worker outreach. In 1990 case, Scalia and Kennedy dissented from an opinion holding that it violated the First Amendment rights of public employees to be required to join the Republican Party as a condition of employment. In addition, public union membership would fall-at least slightly-over time.

Instead, they can use their privileged position to enrich themselves off their members. Like many states, California requires government employees to pay union dues. Is there any history in American labor management relations, at least going back, I don’t know what, 75, 80 years of employers, paying for unions?

Some justices were more sympathetic to the unions. But they would no longer consistently be the top dogs.

Friedrichs represents perhaps the biggest threat government unions have faced in decades-and not merely because some workers object to the unions’ increasingly left-leaning politics. Other states already prohibit that practice.

Democratic politicians in New York are so committed to the costly, pro-union status quo that Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and New York City’s Corporation Counsel, who are supposed to work for all the people of the state, filed briefs in this case defending mandatory public-union payments.