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News > World

US Supreme Court Deals Financial Blow to Public Labor Unions

  • U.S. Supreme Court.

    U.S. Supreme Court. | Photo: Reuters

Published 27 June 2018
Opinion

The Supreme Court ruling states that non-union public employees cannot be required to pay “agency fees” for collective bargaining.

The United States Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that public employees who are not union members cannot be required to pay “agency fees” directed to sustain the costs of collective bargaining that benefits all workers, whether or not they belong to the union.   

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The case was presented by Illinois public sector employee Mark Janus who challenged the fees with the support of the conservative National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Liberty Justice Center.

Janus and his legal team argued that for government employees collective bargaining is inherently political, and that the First Amendment protected he from having to adhere to political expressions he disagrees with.

In a 5 - 4 opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by conservative justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Neil Gorsuch, the court sided with Janus saying that requiring public employees to pay agency fees violates the First Amendment.

The landmark ruling overrules the court’s 1977 opinion known as Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which said that while workers did not have to pay for unions' political activity they could be required to contribute to other costs of representation for benefit negotiations, physical safety, training and grievance procedures.

The ruling effectively eliminates agency fees paid by police, firefighters, teachers and other government non-union employees in 22 states. Right-to-work laws in 28 states had made it illegal to require union payments of non-union workers.

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"It is hard to estimate how many billions of dollars have been taken from nonmembers and transferred to public-sector unions in violation of the First Amendment. Those unconstitutional exactions cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely," Alito wrote.

Leaders of the nation's four major public employee unions criticized the ruling saying it "was nothing more than a blatant political attack to further rig our economy and democracy against everyday Americans in favor of the wealthy and powerful."

Some worry that public-sector unions will lose members, financial sustainability and political influence if they lose agency fees.

According to Vox right-to-work laws have a positive correlation with lower levels of unionizations. Their report shows that in 2012, in 25 states with these laws only 17.3 percent of public sector employees were union members, compared to 49.1 percent in other states.   

However, in a press release by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the organization contends that despite corporate interests and the court’s ruling the U.S. is heading in a different direction.

“All over the country, workers are organizing and taking collective action as we haven’t seen in years. More than 14,000 workers recently formed or joined unions in just a single week… Working families know the best way to get a raise, better benefits and a voice on the job is through a union contract. The corporate narrative of the labor movement’s downfall is being dismantled by working people every single day.”

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