Justice Anthony Kennedy said the current system compels teachers to support issues they don’t agree with. But he was consistently hostile on Monday. The petitioner also argues that an opt-out policy is burdensome, and that collective bargaining is inherently political.
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Twenty-three states now host public sector unions that require “fair share fees”. He believes this could give public employee unions an incentive to be more responsive to their members.
Ms. Friedrichs, a teacher for 28 years who works in an elementary school near Anaheim, is lead plaintiff in a case set for oral arguments Monday.
They’ve proved more successful than the blue-collar unions, but now find themselves under scrutiny due to their controversial role in trying to negotiate higher pay and other benefits from governments – which means those governments either need to raise taxes or siphon that money from other priorities.
Unions say the teachers’ First Amendment argument is a ruse. Nonmembers are now allowed to seek refunds for any payments spent on political activities such as lobbying or promoting pro-union candidates, according to the California Teachers Association, but few do because the process is arduous.
Four decades ago, Jerry Brown signed legislation granting collective bargaining rights to teachers, police, firefighters and other public employees. But it was the union side that seemed to get the worst of it.
Limiting the power of public unions has always been a goal of conservative groups. Labor officials fear the existence of unions could be threatened if workers are allowed to get all the benefits of representation without at least paying fees to cover the costs of collective bargaining. In Friedrich’s view, those mandatory fees violate her First Amendment rights by forcing her to associate herself with a political agenda that she has no desire to be associated with.
But it seemed after arguments that the most the unions could hope for was a reprieve – perhaps remanding the case back for additional fact-finding on exactly the impact unions would feel if agency fees were not required.
The court’s decision, which should come down by the end of June, could have a transformative effect on the workplace-relations landscape in the United States.
Government workers can now be forced to subsidize unions by paying agency fees or “fair share dues” because of a Supreme Court decision made 39 years ago, Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education.
The high court on Monday heard debate over Friedrichs, whichchallenges a fee CTA charges non-members for “non-political” activities such a collective bargaining. As the Court said in its 2014 Harris v. Quinn decision: “Core issues such as wages, pensions, and benefits are important political issues”.
Half the states already have right-to-work laws banning mandatory fees, but about 80 percent of workers represented by public-employee unions are in states that don’t, including California, New York and IL.
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“In this era of broken municipal budgets and a national crisis in public education, it is hard to imagine more politically charged issues than how much money local governments should devote to public employees, or what policies schools should adopt to best educate their children”, says Michael Carvin, a lawyer for the challengers.
