Lawyers for Mark Janus, the IL state child-support specialist who is the plaintiff in the case, argued that forcing non-members to pay these fees to unions whose views they may not share violates their rights to free speech and free association under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
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The Supreme Court ruling in favor of Janus would be a “disaster, said Barry Saltzman, a partner at Pitta LLP, a labor and employment firm based in New York City”.
The lower courts ruled against Janus because the Supreme Court held in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that the First Amendment permits such laws. In 2015, with unions reduced to only 11.1 percent of the work force, the richest 10 percent pocketed 47.8 percent – almost half – of the national income.
In court, lawyers for Janus appeared to draw the support of the conservative bloc. Kennedy asked. “That’s the interest the state has?” “That there is nothing that a union can do that doesn’t implicate the First Amendment”, Weingarten said. And Frederick allowed, “Yes, they will have less political influence”. “I don’t care what (the Supreme Court justices) say, you’re going to be represented”. If the court rules against Afscme – the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – then union members across the country could receive all the benefits of being in a union without having to pay for it.
According to the Department of Labor, 20 percent of the workforce in the state are union members. Both laws were backed heavily by public unions at the time and required them to represent both members and nonmembers.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sought to clarify just how far the opponents of mandatory fees were aiming to go. They added that a ruling against the unions would require overruling a 40-year-old precedent and would strike down more than 20 state laws and affect thousands of union contracts and millions of workers. Wouldn’t a ruling for Janus upset expectations in these states? The lawsuit argues that public-sector collective bargaining and political lobbying are the same, and thus all payments should be optional. He pushed back when a lawyer for the union said the state’s budget wasn’t a subject of collective bargaining.
On Monday, the other justices largely stuck to familiar themes, with some blunt assessments of the other side’s arguments.
“I’m very pro-union. I think that the more people involved in the union, the stronger it is”.
“Yes, they will have less political influence”, Frederick said. However, agency fees, which are typically 50 to 70 percent of the fee to join, can not by law be used to pay for political advocacy or union elections.
AFSCME argues it needs the “fair-share” funds to offset the significant costs they incur negotiating working conditions for all employees.
But Alito put a finer point on it: He said that Sir Thomas More refused to take the oath of supremacy and paid for that refusal to speak with his life.
Almost 1.4 million Californians – teachers, firefighters, clerks, janitors, IT staff – belong to public sector unions.
“We must win and remember if you have the will to win, you will win”, Senator Neil Breslin (D-Albany) said.
The states – like the justices – are sharply split on unions.
Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the Knox and Harris decisions, pointed out that the Constitution also doesn’t require that unions represent non-members-that it was state laws that made unions workers’ exclusive representative.
“I’ve been a union member for nearly 50 years and I’ve always been concerned about the decline of organized labor and the implications that has for the middle class”, Pollock said.
Justice Gorsuch, who is often viewed as a successor to Scalia’s ideology, is expected to tilt the case against the AFSCME this term.
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Justice Elena Kagan focused on stare decisis-the judicial policy of adhering to precedent unless there is an extraordinary reason to over a prior decision-noting that much of the nation now relies on Abood.
