Unions may go the way of the phone booths

The Supreme Court of the United States is about to hear a challenge to labor unions having to do with a measly $45 monthly fee and the First Amendment.

SCOTUS may well overturn a four decade-old ruling allowing public sector unions to collect fees from non-members to cover costs of negotiating contracts for all employees. If the conservative majority court rules in favor of ending this violation of the First Amendment, as I see it, this will cost unions billions.

The case will be heard on February 26. It could change the relationship between public unions and the regular working stiffs who want to keep the money they earn rather than pay a union whose bosses make the big bucks.

Lee Saunders

The case was brought by Mark Janus, who works at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. He did not appreciate that money was being taken from his paycheck and didn't believe that he should be forced to pay union dues or fees just to be allowed to work for the state.

Janus didn't agree with the AFSCME union's politics and believed that under the First Amendment, he could not be forced to contribute. (Remember, that was the problem Obama thought he'd have with Obamacare, but SCOTUS ruled the payment to be a tax, so it didn't illegally force people to pay into it--it forced them legally to pay into it).

Janus quoted Thomas Jefferson who said to "compel a man to furnish contribution of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical."

The liberal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Janus' argument and the Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.

If SCOTUS finds for Janus, it will put the screws to labor unions because without forced payment of fees, union funding would be in the dumper, mainly because unions don't do much for workers and their leaders are raking in the big bucks for themselves and people are getting wise to them.

States might try workarounds by paying employees less rather than deducting from their paychecks, and handing the money saved to the unions, but that sucks and may prove hard to pull off.

"The merits of the case, and 40 years of Supreme Court precedent and sound law, are on our side," touts Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME.

For Saunders, strong unions mean more money for him, and he believes they offer "the strength in numbers [workers] need to fight for the freedoms they deserve," such as the freedom to be forced to pay for something they don't want to pay for, but too bad for them.

The SCOTUS has gone in both directions on the issue of whether someone who benefits from a union can be forced to pay into that union (see Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 1977; Harris v. Quinn, 2014; and Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, 2016).

In the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case, Justice Scalia died before it was adjudicated, but there was an excellent chance the decision would have gone in Friedrichs' favor but it ended in a split decision. 

The Janus case will be the one that can change four decades of union money-grabbing. Many experts see the decision to even take up the case as a sign the court is ready to side with Janus and overrule their precedent. Now with Neil Gorsuch as a member of SCOTUS, it looks like the experts know what they're talking about.



Tweet